Monthly Archives: August 2015

No more Dambuster pilots

05Munro1-web-articleInlineThe last one passed a couple of days ago.  Their mission was to knock out dams with a specially-developed bomb that had to be dropped from only about 60 feet up…kinda close to the deck to be flying, especially when you’re flying a heavy bomber with no terrain-following capability because it’s World War II and such things hadn’t yet been invented.

Part of a generation that’s disappearing at an ever-faster rate:

CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday

On the night of May 16, 1943, a squadron of bombers set out from Britain to conduct strikes against heavily fortified dams in the Ruhr Valley of Germany, using bombs that bounced on the water before exploding. Of the 133 crew members who started the mission, only 77 returned.

The last surviving pilot of those who came back was John Leslie Munro, who died Tuesday at 96 in Auckland, New Zealand.

His death, announced by the New Zealand Bomber Command Association on its Facebook page, elicited tributes from around the world, including in Britain and in his native New Zealand, for his role in the daring “Dambusters” mission that struck at the industrial heartland of the Nazi war effort and lifted Allied morale.

Mr. Munro, who was known as Les, was part of the Royal Air Force’s 617 squadron, which was assigned to destroy three dams with specially designed bombs shaped like cylinders that had to be dropped from about 60 feet.

Newspeak in Action

big-brother-1984-ingsocGov. Moonbeam just signed a bill to strike the word “alien” from California’s labor laws:

California Bans ‘Alien’ from Labor Code

How Orwellian of him:

This is not an effort to be more “sensitive.” It goes deeper. As Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, told SF Gate:

There are two words we are opposed to: illegal and alien. There is no such thing as an illegal person, and there is no such thing as an illegal alien. All workers in this country, whether documented or undocumented, pay their taxes and do their fair share. We are a nation of immigrants, and anything that connotes a negative implication of being an immigrant is antithetical to the idea of the American dream.

This is a contemptible program. By refusing to draw any distinction between legal and illegal immigration, Paulson makes obvious that he is not trying merely trying to eliminate a disagreeable word, but to eliminate a concept — the concept of illegal immigration. And the quickest way to eliminate the offensive concept is to eliminate any language in which to express the idea.

Be on the lookout

Keep your head on a swivel for hajjis looking to do you harm:

“Middle Eastern males” approach troops’ family members

According to CBS News the FBI is warning law enforcement that “middle eastern men” have approached family of servicemembers in Colorado and Wyoming seeking to obtain personal information through intimidation:

In one case last May the wife of a military member was approached in front of her home by two Middle Eastern males. The men stated that she was the wife of a U.S. interrogator. When she denied their claims the men laughed. The two men left the area in a dark-colored, four-door sedan with two other Middle Eastern males in the vehicle.