A day like no other....

 

"But today if a day to remember. We remember the heroes of 9/11, both living and dead. We honor them. Many of us still remember our solemn promise - WE WILL NEVER FORGET! Unfortunately, some have forgotten. Some no longer honor our heroes. May the number of those people be forever small, and as time goes on, even smaller. Our 9/11 heroes deserve so much better."

As we go through life, there are certain milestone events which shape us. Sometimes change us. But whatever they are, many if not most of us, remember exactly what we were doing at the time of the event, where we were, and the aftermath. For example, I remember when John Kennedy was shot. Even though I was in Jr, High School, I remember it clearly. My folks for their entire lives, remember Pearl Harbor. Where they were, what they were doing. And most if not all, of the folks reading this blog article, remember 9/11 like it was yesterday. But it was not yesterday. It was twenty-five years ago today. 

My story from twenty-five years ago is not that special. No different from many of us. I got up, got dressed and headed off to work in downtown Minneapolis. I was working at IBM, and IBM had American Express as a client. As I pulled in the parking lot across from the American Express building, I turned the car off and just looked out at the morning sky with wonder. This was going to be one of those "10 out of 10" days for weather. The sky was azure blue and nary a cloud was in sight. I was just turning the radio in the car off to head into work, when the first news flash came across. Some plane had hit the World Trade Center.

My first thought as I was walking into the building was if New York was having weather like we were having, how could some small plane not be paying attention and then fly into a building that size? When I got into my office, I turned on my radio. That is when the gravity of the situation hit me. It was not a small plane hitting a large building - it was a commercial air liner. Then my phone rang. It was my daughter calling from college. "Dad, what is going on? I am watching the news, and it showed an airliner hitting the WTC." 

Then the second plane hit, and all of a sudden. I had a dozen people in my office glued to my radio. One of my co-workers who knew I was retired Navy asked me what I thought was going on. I was stunned and really had no idea what was happening. It did say this - "We might be at war, and this is an attack." Shortly thereafter, we were all sent home, as were most other businesses downtown. 

Many people became heroes that day. Some of those heroes never made it home. Many of us when we arrived home that day, immediately turned on the TV. But a sense of foreboding was in the air. Was the attack over, or was something else, maybe even more sinister in the offing? Most of us were just numb - this was like a bad dream. A nightmare. 

What did we learn from 9/11? The same thing we learned from Pearl Harbor. We need to be prepared. Expect the unexpected. Did anything good come out of 9/11? We learned that our homeland was a sitting duck. So, we promulgated the Department of Homeland Security. An organization which can keep us safer and more prepared. 

But today is a day to remember. We remember the heroes of 9/11, both living and dead. We honor them. Many of us still remember our solemn promise - WE WILL NEVER FORGET! Unfortunately, some have forgotten. Some no longer honor our heroes. May the number of those people be forever small, and as time goes on, even smaller. Our 9/11 heroes deserve so much better.

If war came to the Falkland's, could we side with Argentina?

"What do I think the message would be from Trump to both the UK and Argentina? Make a deal. Have the military stand down. More war cannot and will not be tolerated. That is it. That is as far as I think our involvement in the Falkland Islands dispute will go. Trump sees bigger fish in the sea." 

Are we on the verge of another war? No, not the "rubbing the wrong way" that Turkey and Israel are doing to each other over Syria. I am talking about the Falkland Islands. That Argentina might end up invading these islands and planting the Argentine flag on them. Kicking the Brits out, as they say. Wait a minute! Have we not already seen this movie? Argentina tried this before, and the Brits kicked back - hard!

Things change over time. Javier Melei and Donald Trump have somewhat of a bromance going on. It is no secret that during the recent tenure of Kier Starmer, our relationship with the Brits has soured quite a bit. Seems like the recent revelation the US has had about unchecked immigration, and DEI, was not on the same path as the Brits were on. As such, the relationship between the US and our closest Euro ally became very strained. And the once great and powerful United Kingdom, is now only a shadow of the stature it once enjoyed.

Now before some might give a collective "so what", here is the "so what". It is what is happening in the other hand (as the magicians would say). Donald Trump has been forging much stronger bonds with many of the countries in South America. The strongest alliance right now seems to be with Argentina. The case that Argentine is making for getting the Falkland Islands back seems to be sound to our current administration. Then the question begs to be asked - if push comes to shove, and war breaks on in the Falkland Islands, what is our posture? Turn the other cheek and show a blind eye and a deaf ear? Get involved (under the covers) by giving Argentina some aid? Or, respecting the long-term relationship we have had with the UK, and asking Milei to stand down.

It is interesting to see how the power shift has changed in the Euro Zone over the past few years. Who is ascending and who has become a "free rider" (or duffer) to NATO. Poland and Finland are rock solid and very strong right now. They have their eyes set on Russia and never blink. Sweden and Norway are also strong, but Finland is the cornerstone up by the arctic for NATO. 

France is still ballsy in how they treat Russia. Are they strong enough to make a difference? Maybe. Italy is the country to watch out for. Giorgia Meloni wants to make Italy stronger - much stronger in the near future. The UK is weak and not getting much stronger. Sure, the UK (like France) has some nukes - but besides that, as the saying goes, the UK is all hat and no cowboy. A war with the Falkland Islands might leave the UK fighting this war all by themselves.  Article 5 of the NATO charter might go unnoticed and ignored if fighting does break out. Why? For NATO, the Falkland Islands are nothing more than a distraction. The real threat remains to be Russia. And the war in Ukraine once again reminded Europe what a threat Russia can be.

What do I think the message would be from Trump to both the UK and Argentina? Make a deal. Have the military stand down. More war cannot and will not be tolerated. That is it. That is as far as I think our involvement in the Falkland Islands dispute will go. Trump sees bigger fish in the sea. Like the "Donroe Doctrine" which is starting to show signs of really working out well. Do we like Argentina? Right now, we love them. And what is there not to love?

   

On this issue - the government gets a solid "F"

 

"I am not trying to be a conspiracy nut on this issue but come on! We were promised better than this. This is not transparency. Not to quote an old and tired movie line, but we really can handle the truth. Our skies are sacrosanct - if we have somebody or something flying unimpeded through our skies, we need to know. Come on President Trump - show your hand."   

Recently, the History Channel had an hour-long program called "Are they watching us"? For one solid hour, the show highlighted UFOs - not just something that somebody said they saw - it was all photographic evidence. And why is this important? Once again, our government has lied to us. Even with tons of photographic evidence now available (much of it clear as a bell - not grainy like in the old days) our federal government still has not told us what they are. Really? Even though the eyewitness tally has grown into the millions worldwide.

Of particular interest has been the sighting in Pentyrch, which is located in Wales. In 2016, a giant pyramid appeared in the sky. It was seen by the entire town of Pentyrch. When I say this thing was a giant, it really was. Some police estimated it to be over 1,000 feet long on each side. The mass was enormous - and yet, it floated around without making a sound. Some say a smaller pyramid detached from it and was shot down by the military. Wreckage, and maybe some bodies of someone (or something) were recovered. The giant pyramid then vanished into nothingness, and things in Pentyrch went back to semi-normal. 

The Pheonix lights in 1997, the intrusion over Washington in 1952, the "Tic Tac" crafts seen by the US Navy on many occasions - and we don't know what they are? I am going to call BS on that one! Yes, my former son-in-law and I saw a floating triangle coming up out of a river about two decades ago. We were interviewed by MUFON. During the interview, the man from MUFON said he gets dozens upon dozens of credible reports of sightings in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. What are these things which people keep seeing? Why won't the government tell us the truth? 

Some think one of the crafts which has been spotted frequently is a TR-3B or also known as the Black Manta. The rumor has it the reason it is so fast and so quiet, is we have discovered how to use anti-gravity as a power source. 

 

If this is true or not is above my pay grade. However, (again) it is about time for our government to come clean on this issue. What is it? We have seen photographs of this craft. If it is not ours, whose is it? What is it? If it is ours, and truly uses some kind of anti-gravity system, we need to know.

I am not trying to be a conspiracy nut on this issue but come on! We were promised better than this. This is not transparency. Not to quote an old and tired movie line, but we really can handle the truth. Our skies are sacrosanct - if we have somebody or something flying unimpeded through our skies, we need to know. Come on President Trump - show your hand.   

Our (very expensive) trains to nowhere...

 

"As a veteran of somebody who has worked downtown when I was with IBM, I could not be happier to see that concrete jungle suffer a slow death. Everything was a hassle - nothing was cheap, nor nothing was easy. The cobweb of LRT tracks in downtown just added to the dystopian atmosphere. I am happy to be done with that chapter in my life. Now I just want to be done with paying for the trains headed into that dying city."     

At one point in time, the city planners and the Met Council in the Twin Cities had inhaled some Pixie Dust, and their vision became obscured with fantasies of riding a sleek new railroad car to work every morning. Between the Pixie Dust and the Kool Aid, the idea of riding in a train to work rather than rush hour traffic, got derailed. How so? The double-edged sword of Covid mixed in with the lawlessness of the Floyd aftermath and the ongoing "War on ICE", has left the Twin Cities with lots and lots of empty office buildings. So then - why have all these new and unfinished LRT sinkholes terminating in downtown? What gives? Who is behind this nonsense?

Don't look now, but the long (and I mean long) awaited Southwest LRT (Green Line). is finally almost done. WAY over budget and very late to the party, it should be up and running in 2027. At an unbelievable cost of just shy of $3B dollars. And who will ride it? Somali youth trying to get down to the Mall of America. Who else? Good question. Since few people work downtown anymore, is the Green Line going to go the same route as the Northstar Line? If the truth be known, the Northstar Line is still in operation - only not in Minnesota. It now runs down in Texas. What a waste of MN taxpayer dollars!

And now that the Blue Line is still a long way away from being done, some of the big spenders in MN state government are actually getting cold feet on this project. Why? With the huge overruns on the Green Line, that was only small potatoes compared to what the projected bill will be for the Blue Line. Like maybe $3.6B dollars to build another train to nowhere. And now there is a very rare kerfuffle by the different big spenders in state government. Like - who pays for this choo-choo train which nobody will ride. 

What is the future of trains in the Twin Cities? Will they be replaced by Waymo auto cars? Tesla self-driving cars? More at home employment? Many of us who do not live nor work in the downtown area, have zero desire to ride these trains to anyplace. All that money the taxpayers have spent on all these trains, are now just a sunk cost. All this infrastructure will be a monument to pea poor planning by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats.

As a veteran of somebody who has worked downtown when I was with IBM, I could not be happier to see that concrete jungle called Minneapolis suffer a slow death. Everything was a hassle - nothing was cheap, nor nothing was easy. The cobweb of LRT tracks just added to the dystopian atmosphere. I am happy to be done with that chapter in my life. Now I just want to be done with paying for the trains headed into that dying city.     

The benefits of war?

"What is our next move to counter drone swarms while we rapidly replenish our missile stockpile? The Navy's HELIOS laser system. It is just finishing field testing and could be deployed fleet wide in the very near future. And how exactly will they work in a true combat scenario? Good question - we might need to wait until the next war to find out. Until then, we will continue to learn as fast as we can." 

A different slant this morning. The 1969 song by Edwin Starr, War - What is it good for, have most of us nodding our head in agreement. War is a scourge. War is expensive. War is deadly. But in the case of the Iranian War, there is also an upside to that conflict. Experience. How do deal with the new global tool of warfare called drone swarms and AI. What our carriers are learning coupled with Aegis destroyers by their sides - is invaluable.

But have we learned enough? Not even close. But what we have learned has been hot lined back to the smart planners in the Pentagon to be assisted by DARPA. But that is what war is. A giant game of chess. Every move needs to be countered. We learn, they learn. Success in battle is being able to stay one step ahead of the other guys. And do date, we have done that very well. 

I worked on the Aegis program starting back in the late 1970's. To me, the more I learned about how this marvel of technology protected the fleet, seemed more like magic. And then in the 1990's I worked with on the Vertical Lauch Systems - (back then) a state-of-the-art weapon system which was hard wired into the Aegis battle system. I was amazed back then, and I am still amazed today. 

But the Aegis weapon system was not made to counter drone swarms. Now we are talking about an entirely new type of warfare. We have known about saturation attacks for years - mostly from missile volleys fired by Soviet Backfire bombers. But back then, that was all high tech and predictable. Drone swarms are not. They can come out of anywhere, from any direction, and overload even the most sophisticated detection system. And to keep taking out a $25k drone with a million-dollar missile is a fool's errand. But we are learning and learning fast.

What is our next move to counter drone swarms while we rapidly replenish our missile stockpile? The Navy's HELIOS laser system. It is just finishing field testing and could be deployed fleet wide in the very near future. And how exactly will they work in a true combat scenario? Good question - we might need to wait until the next war to find out. Until then, we will continue to learn as fast as we can. 

  

Why is Iran telling us to "bunker up" before winter?

"According to some of the weather guessers, we might have an early winter this year. Like maybe starting late next month. September is a great time to prep for the dark days ahead. Even without this dire or faux warning from Iran, September is a great month to prep for the dark and cold days ahead."

Does Iran know something we don't know? Recently, they have sent out pressers telling Americans to stockpile food, water and some kind of heat before the dark and cold days of winter. Now truthfully, in a very unsettled world, having enough survival items to last for at least a month in the wintertime is sage advice. But coming from an enemy? Are they trying to send a message that they have cyber technology which could turn our lights (and heat) off for a prolonged period this winter. It is odd to hear that coming from an enemy who wants us dead.

But before we lose too much sleep over what Iran could do to our power grid, I am reminded of General Jack Keane's words from many months ago. "Should another nation ever attack our energy grid, we will retaliate with our own cyber-attack - and our cyber warfare will bring eye watering results to any enemy". Hopefully Iran knows that. As bad as things are over there right now, we could make them a whole lot worse if they screw with our grid. 

That being said, it is good common sense to have at least one gallon of water per person, per day in your bunker. I know, I know - water takes up a lot of room. But remember this - we can go without oxygen for only a few minutes. We can go without potable water for less than a week. Food? We can last for many days without food - but not forever. Most survivalists suggest enough food and water to last at least a month, and firewood (or something) to last even longer.

The thing that keeps some of our federal cops up at night is worry about "sleeper cells" from Iran who are currently in our country. What kind of harm they could do to us. If there are indeed cells who are lying dormant in our country, we need to find them, dig them out, and get rid of them. It is best not to interfere with any federal LEOs as they are doing their jobs. Yes, even ICE is trying to keep us safe from hidden bad guys.

According to some of the weather guessers, we might have an early winter this year. Like maybe starting late next month. September is a great time to prep for the dark days ahead. Even without this dire or faux warning from Iran, September is a great month to prep for the dark and cold days ahead.

   

The 1982 Falkland Islands war - redux?

"As if we did not have enough going on in the world right now. Ukraine is still not at peace; Russia is threatening NATO left and right; Iran is still a problem for us and Israel. All in all, the world is a mess, and throwing the Falklands back into the mix will not help anyone. But before we give up and just let another war happen, look for Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to earn a bunch more frequent flier miles going to and from the world's newest trouble spot."     

Yes, I am old enough to remember this somewhat obscure war in the very south of South America. A group of islands called the Falkland Islands, all of a sudden became a hot spot in the world. They belonged to the UK (for some old treaty reason), but they sat right off the coast of Argentina. What is the best way to settle a dispute about contested land? Go to war, of course. For the next 74 days, a war which was never declared, was fought between the UK and Argentina.

As the saying goes, today, there is a new sheriff in town. That is, there is a new person in charge of Argentina. His name is Javier Milei, and he thinks the Falklands should be a part of his country, not England. The fact that England has dominion over the Falklands goes back into ancient history - like in the 1800's. But that was then and this is now.

What besides the location of the Falklands would be of interest to Argentina right now? For starters, a giant deep sea oil reserve called the Sea Lion Field. This is big enough to make a difference to both countries. Thus, the Sabre rattling has started once again. During the first war, the famed Exocet Anti-Ship Missile was used for the first time in anger. By Argentina against a British ship. The results were catastrophic for that ship. But the advent of that Exocet missile marked the change of sea warfare as we know it. 

If push comes to shove again between England and Argentina, it puts us in a very precarious position. Why? England is a NATO friend. But Argentina is part of our hemisphere, and our current administration has been working very hard on peace, tranquility and prosperity for all who live in this hemisphere. If war, declared or undeclared, breaks out - what do we do? Who do we support? In 1982, we had no problem with supporting our friends from the UK. Our relationship with Argentina was only so-so. Now however, it is different. It would be a friend fighting a friend. 

As if we did not have enough going on in the world right now. Ukraine is still not at peace; Russia is threatening NATO left and right; Iran is still a problem for us and Israel. All in all, the world is a mess, and throwing the Falklands back into the mix will not help anyone. But before we give up and just let another war happen, look for Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to earn a bunch more frequent flier miles going to and from, the world's newest trouble spot.