I Got Manipulated

Well, my photos did, anyway.  Check out this guy’s site.  He’s amazing…and he did wonders with my pic.  If I looked this good all the time I wouldn’t need to blog. ;)

To the Islamics In Saudi and Jordan Who Love Goats

UPDATE: Apparently, the wussy liberals over at Digg didn’t like my original title and refused to allow readers to submit it. Never mind that the entire post is in response to a bunch of these animals hacking my site for the glory of their fake god and child-molesting prophet. But I digress. I’ve removed the sodomy reference for y’all because I’m really a nice girl at heart, but the rest stays. By the way, welcome to my NYT readers.

Language alert…click at your own risk (Mom, that means you!)…

Sorry about the title, folks, but I wanted to make sure the little weenies over at PC-XRAY (link is through an anonymous browser) see this and feel all chapped in their well-used asses. See, the little jihadi wanna-be who was hacking my site last week was spotted on his little secret squirrel forum bragging about his exploits to his little donkey-doing friends. I’ve posted the Google-translated screenshot because I want them to see I found them, first of all, and secondly so we can all laugh at their stupidity.

They got into my site using a security vulnerability in Wordpress 2.5, which has since been remedied with version 2.5.1. I’m hoping they see that too. They are rather annoyed, however, that I blocked the guys in Jordan that got in the first time. I’ve taken to blocking every single Middle Eastern country. I guess you pieces of Islamic trash will have to find another way to visit.

By the way, your prophet was a babyraper, a fool, and a barbarian animal dog. Just like you. You’re a bunch of pigs. And one last thing–your site looks like a 12-year-old built it in Geocities.

Media Matter’s Alter Ego?

One Media Matters-like organization is already too many. It appears as though there’s another liberal apologist blog out there. Their name is News Hounds. The post that caught my attention dealt with last weekend’s interview of Justin and Darryl Sharraltt on Hannity’s America. To say that their post didn’t attempt to refute Justin’s story is understatement. In fact, they jump right into criticizing Mr. Hannity:

Last night’s (October 27th) Hannity’s America was a strange magazine format which combined stories about mediums and haunted houses with a lead off interview that was billed as “The Truth About Haditha.” Hannity is a college drop out with no professional journalism credentials and this lack of professional journalistic acumen was well reflected in Hannity’s “leading questions” which served a political agenda. (Comment: Although Fox’s Chris Wallace can be partisan, he looks like Cronkite compared to Sean Hannity!)

Hannity billed his interview with Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt, his lawyer, and his father as “exclusive.” He began by noting that this interview would be a response to Congressman John Murtha and military officials who are “trying to paint the story with a different brush.” Before the interview began, Hannity set up the Fox/right wing premise by asking the not so rhetorical question “have politics gotten in the way of patriotism?” Without doing an overview of the Haditha story, he asked Sharratt to explain what happened on that fateful day. Hannity asked Sharratt if he saw any of his fellow Marines doing anything that they weren’t supposed to do. Not surprisingly, Sharratt said that he didn’t. Hannity mentioned the article in Time Magazine which reported that the Haditha civilians claimed they were attacked by the Marines. Hannity asked Sharratt why Time would report that and Sharratt said he didn’t know.

You’ll notice that Newshounds doesn’t mention Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore’s sworn testimony. I posted about Capt. Dinsmore’s testimony in a post titled A Timline Emerges back in July. Here’s what I posted then:

As previously reported by NewsMax, the battalion S2 officer made a full and complete report based on his monitoring of the day’s events and the intelligence he and others had amassed then and previous days. As we wrote at the time, the PowerPoint after-action report he sent up the command ladder proved to all the higher officers that the incident warranted no further investigation.

I also mentioned these important details that should’ve been included in NewsHounds’s post: [Read more]

A Series of Unfortunate Incidents

It’s been a long few months, and an even longer couple days.

It’s a long and drawn-out story, but the bottom line is that ER has been to hell and back in the last week. Moving servers/hosts, I got the bright idea to try and finally combine the archive site with the current site. Only problem is, there is nothing on the internet explaining how to merge the two Wordpress databases.

After changing nameservers back and forth so often that it finally rebelled and refused to change for 12 hours, I gave up. This means, a year’s worth of ER articles–including all the work we did on the Pendleton 8 and much of our Haditha work, as well as our coverage of the Israeli-Lebanon War–is sitting in XML form on my computer.

If anyone knows a way to import the posts/comments into an existing database, let me know. Otherwise, I guess we start over, right here, without any of the posts from half of 2006 and most of 2007.

All of that being said, I’ve done a lot of work to take ER back to its roots: Something functional and quick to load, easy to navigate, and as uncluttered as can be. I hope you like it, and either continue being a reader, or come back to check it out after today.

What Movie Are You?

I found this personality test on Fire and Ice and it seemed like a nice break from the fury the news brings me these days. :) It tells you what classic movie you are, based upon questions about your personality.

A couple of weeks ago, I took the 27 question version, which came up with a result I didn’t quite get, so I retook the 45 question version and it came up with the same result. I guess there’s no denying it:

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Ya know what’s weird? I’ve never even seen the movie! Maybe I should.

What Movie Are You?

I found this personality test on Fire and Ice and it seemed like a nice break from the fury the news brings me these days. :) It tells you what classic movie you are, based upon questions about your personality.

A couple of weeks ago, I took the 27 question version, which came up with a result I didn’t quite get, so I retook the 45 question version and it came up with the same result. I guess there’s no denying it:

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Ya know what’s weird? I’ve never even seen the movie! Maybe I should.

Who Knew?!

Remember our favorite little Chinese Backstreet Boys that cracked us up so much?? Kit and I spent more time than we care to admit watching these guys and laughing our asses off! We posted their first big online splash and their hilarious encore. (Follow those links if you need a good chuckle for Friday.) They’ve made a few more videos for good measure - and guess what? It’s paid off. They just landed a contract with Motorola!

Not bad…not bad at all…

We Honor The Emperor’s Feat

You all are acquainted with our favorite Moonbat Slayer, His Rottieness Emperor Misha. We love him because he has a deliciously vicious style of blogging that we are absolutely addicted to. And apparently, we aren’t the only ones. Misha has attained the blogospheric loftiness of 5,000,000 unique hits!!

In honor of his blogoversary, Misha has crafted the following darkly humorous T-shirt, which apparently has given rise to “all manner of fear and loathing on the Loony Left.” Mwahahahahah Sounds good to me! If he’s got chick T-shirt sizes, I’m buyin’…

CONGRATS!! All our best to His Highness!

Site Comments And Registration - OPEN

Well, the pest treatment appears to be about complete. After an ugly infestation of anti-American trolls (one nasty character from the UK) and illegals and their advocates, we had to undergo an extermination. This happens, people. It’s not that they have any effect, it’s just that when there’s so many of them at once that we have a heard time geting more important stuff done. Kit and I try hard to stay on top of what’s current and relevant, and when we find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to educate the severly retarded, it just sucks up all our time. Our unwelcome visitors don’t take the time to review what we’ve written, or follow the sourced links we provide - they’re just here to cause trouble. We pay the bills here and don’t feel particularly inclined to hosting a free forum for jackasses from around the world.

As you could see, I had just about hit my limit with the anti-military ass from Great Britain, and considering we have a large contingent of UK readers, I was trying hard not to say something offensive to all. But you can’t come here, to the home of two veterans, and gloat that our soldiers have been hurt like some sycophantic Michael Crook wanna-be. WE WILL NOT. TOLERATE. THAT.

Neither Kit or I like to enter our own home and find that visitors have shit all over the place. So we had to exterminate the bad and ugly which meant the good were temporarily left out of the house for awhile too. Thanks for your patience.

Comments are now back open. With a caveat: YOU MUST LOG-IN.

While we are gone to D.C., we can’t have trolls taking advantage of our trip to overrun the blog and make it impossible to focus on the Milblog Conference. Thus, everyone must still log-in to comment.

1. If you are an oldie and goodie that has already registered with our site, you are free to comment as you always have. (Email us at euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com if you’ve forgotten your log-in or password.)

2. If you have not commented yet, go ahead and register to get a log-in. However, your first comment will be held for moderation so we can determine if you are an idiot or not. Once it is approved, then you can then freely post comments anywhere.

This will cut down on trolls who have a penchant for drive-by insults. We hope that this is a temporary measure, because we enjoy the open commentary that results from people’s reflexive reaction to our posts. But, onthe bright side, requiring a log-in takes only 2 seconds and we hope that it will increase the level of dialogue - for everyone to enjoy.

Site Comments And Registration - OPEN

Well, the pest treatment appears to be about complete. After an ugly infestation of anti-American trolls (one nasty character from the UK) and illegals and their advocates, we had to undergo an extermination. This happens, people. It’s not that they have any effect, it’s just that when there’s so many of them at once that we have a heard time geting more important stuff done. Kit and I try hard to stay on top of what’s current and relevant, and when we find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to educate the severly retarded, it just sucks up all our time. Our unwelcome visitors don’t take the time to review what we’ve written, or follow the sourced links we provide - they’re just here to cause trouble. We pay the bills here and don’t feel particularly inclined to hosting a free forum for jackasses from around the world.

As you could see, I had just about hit my limit with the anti-military ass from Great Britain, and considering we have a large contingent of UK readers, I was trying hard not to say something offensive to all. But you can’t come here, to the home of two veterans, and gloat that our soldiers have been hurt like some sycophantic Michael Crook wanna-be. WE WILL NOT. TOLERATE. THAT.

Neither Kit or I like to enter our own home and find that visitors have shit all over the place. So we had to exterminate the bad and ugly which meant the good were temporarily left out of the house for awhile too. Thanks for your patience.

Comments are now back open. With a caveat: YOU MUST LOG-IN.

While we are gone to D.C., we can’t have trolls taking advantage of our trip to overrun the blog and make it impossible to focus on the Milblog Conference. Thus, everyone must still log-in to comment.

1. If you are an oldie and goodie that has already registered with our site, you are free to comment as you always have. (Email us at euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com if you’ve forgotten your log-in or password.)

2. If you have not commented yet, go ahead and register to get a log-in. However, your first comment will be held for moderation so we can determine if you are an idiot or not. Once it is approved, then you can then freely post comments anywhere.

This will cut down on trolls who have a penchant for drive-by insults. We hope that this is a temporary measure, because we enjoy the open commentary that results from people’s reflexive reaction to our posts. But, onthe bright side, requiring a log-in takes only 2 seconds and we hope that it will increase the level of dialogue - for everyone to enjoy.

Tragedy At Iraq The Model

Iraq The Model is a very pro-active and prolific blog run by Mohammed and Omar from inside Iraq. They are members of Pajamas Media and a Weblog Awards Finalist in 2005. They extensively covered the elections in real time, and their pictures and on-site reports have been cited and sourced throughout the blogosphere. Today, the same day that saw Sunni terrorists behead two Iraqi teachers in front of their classrooms full of children, Mohammed at Iraq the Model posted this terrible news:

Last week we stopped writing for a while and we apologized to our readers saying that we lost a close friend but we didn’t want to give more details as we were overwhelmed by an exceptional situation and a huge shock. We also were afraid from writing more about this subject for security concerns but now I think I must share this with you as it’s part of the pain and suffering my nation is going through.

Last week our little and peaceful family was struck by the tragic loss of one of its members in a savage criminal act of assassination. The member we lost was my sister’s husband who lived with their two little children in our house. He was a brilliant young doctor with a whole future awaiting him, the couple were the top graduates in their branch of specialty. They had to travel abroad to get their degrees and the war started while they were there but months after Saddam fallen they decided to come back to help rebuild the country and serve their people.

We welcomed them with all love and care, we would sit and talk everyday about our hopes and dreams for a better future for the new generation and for their two little children. We realized that time is needed before they could have a secure and prosperous life and we were satisfied with the little we could make because we believed in the future.

He was not affiliated with any political party or movement and spent all his time working at the hospital or studying at home and he was dreaming of building a medical center for his specialty to serve the poor who cannot afford going to expensive private clinics. We didn’t know or anticipate that cruel times were waiting for a chance to assassinate the dream and kill the future.

It was the day he was celebrating the opening of a foundation that was going to offer essential services to the poor but the criminals were waiting for him to end his life with their evil bullets and to stab our family deep in the heart.

Grief and pain is killing me everyday as I hold my dear nephews, my sister is shocked beyond words while my parents are dead worried about the rest of us. We are trying hard to close the wound, summon our patience and protect those still alive while we look forward to the future that we hope can bring peace for us.

The terrorists and criminals are targeting all elements of life and they target anyone who wants to do something good for this country…They think by assassinating one of us they could deter us from going forward but will never succeed, they can delay us for years but we will never go back and abandon our dream. We have vowed to follow the steps of our true martyrs and we will raise the new generation to continue the march, these children of today are the hope and the future.

What a difference between those who work to preserve life and those who work to end it…it’s terrorism and crime and there are no other words to describe these acts. They will keep trying to steal life from us and we will keep fighting back and we will keep exposing them but not with bullets and swords, we never carried arms and we will never do because we are not afraid and because we are not weak unlike those cowards who know no language but that of treason.

April will always be there to remind us of the sacrifice and remind us of the dream we fight for.

My God keep safe the Iraqis and their friends who stand with them in their noble cause, peace and prosperity may seem far away but we will get there and I hope our sacrifices be a bridge to a better world.

My heart truly goes out to them and their family.

I cannot imagine the evil that causes men to rip away the kindest and most compassionate people among them. There is no doubt in my mind that the families of the terrorists that perpetrated this evil murder would have been treated with care and compassion by those doctors. A clinic that would’ve benefited all - and the terrorists had to destroy it. The same animals slaughtered those teachers - people that care for and instruct children in a war zone. The terrorists are out to annihilate all that is good and pure among their own people. They choose instead to wallow in blood, gore, fear, and hatred - this is Islam at its hellish worst.

No Rest For The Wicked!

The Milblog Conference is looming. It’s this week! Aaaaaaaaccckkkk!! Kit and I are beside ourselves we’re so damn excited! I can’t thank you enough for helping us get there, y’all. We made a little over half of our goal, but we were determined to get there no matter WHAT - so thanks so much for helping us shoulder the financial burden.

We’ve set up our new ER chat room for the first-ever Interactive Liveblogging event! We’re pretty stinkin’ proud of it, because we’re the only ones set up that way. You guys can come and go as you please. We’ll be furiously typing away - a LIVE stream of consciousness from the Milblog Conference! Pop in and see what’s going on, add your two cents, or ask questions. We’ll keep you informed on who’s there, what they’re saying, and whatnot.

It’s an extremely long and packed day on Saturday, so be sure to check in regularly. If you think about it, forward our Liveblogging link to your military friends and anyone else interested in the subject. They can tune in whever it’s convenient.

I’ve heard that MSNBC is going to be there. Possibly Fox. If they’re there, we’ll find ‘em. Heh

I don’t plan on getting much sleep. There’s too much to see and do and not enough time to do it. On Friday night, I’m going to go check out the Code Pinko morons at Walter Reed. I promise not to start anything… unless they do something really stupid.

In the meantime, I’m having a minor female-type crisis because I have absolutely nothing to wear. On the bright side, that means I don’t have much to pack - which is a good thing, because my laptop and assorted equipment are a bitch to carry.

Anyone have any thoughts on the Conference? Questions? Ideas?

Cutting Them Off at the Knee

In the last week or so, we’ve had an influx of idiots. Regular readers (Bless you guys!) have stepped in and held the fort for us, but the bottom line is that the bounds of decency and spirited (yet semi-polite) debate have been crossed by some who feel that this blog exists just so they can insult not only Heidi and I, but also our readers. Today we had a troll from Europe who thought he could come here and disrespect our troops and our country.

We don’t stand for that, period.

As a result, you now need to be a registered user to comment on this site, and username registration is turned off for the time being so the idiots can’t just sign themselves up for an account. I know that quite a few loyal readers don’t have usernames but that’s not a problem. Just send me an email at euphoricrealitynet@gmail.com and one of us will get you fixed up with a username asap. If you’re new and you’d like to join the ever-growing group of active ER readers, you’re welcome to email us as well.

I apologize for the small inconvenience this will cause, but there is no way I’m going to allow comments like we’ve had lately. I don’t care if you’re not in agreement with us - I don’t mind allowing disagreeing parties to comment. But if you can’t keep it halfway civil, show your sources, and debate intelligently, then you have no business here.

Thanks to those of you who hang in the trenches with us day after day. The issues are why what bloggers do is important, but you guys are the reason it’s fun.

Hey - Anyone Here In The Houston Area?

Are any of you readers in the Houston area?

And available for half a day tomorrow afternoon to go check out some of these “National Day of Action Rally for Immigrant Rights” in and around Houston? I’m going and wouldn’t mind someone on my six, ya know?

The various rallies are in mid to late afternoon. I’m looking at one that’s about 3:00-ish so I don’t have to take the entire day off.

I’m not lookin’ for trouble, just an up close and personal view of what’s going on around here. I’ve got a laptop and camera and will travel. :D If I can pick up some wifi, we can blog live.

Military Tattoos

I was telling my son about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and how I hope to visit it after the Milblog Conference this month. I told him that I used to know one of the soldiers in the Honor Guard, whose task it was to guard the Tomb - I went to Airborne School with him.

In Airborne School I was an Alpha (officer) and a stick leader. Every day, we’d have to run in our BDUs for miles. After the run, we were allowed to change our soaking wet t-shirts while standing in formation.

The stick leader in front of me was a perfect male specimen - 22 years old, 6′3″, muscular, and gorgeous in a ruthless kind of way. He was in prime physical condition; he totally looked the part of the perfect American soldier. The first time he changed his shirt in the rank ahead of me, my jaw dropped when I saw his body - every available inch on his torso was covered in tattoos! Surprisingly, they weren’t grotesque, but very artistic. A dragon’s head rested on his shoulder and the scaled body wrapped around his torso, across his hips, and down one leg (or so I was told). His chest and upper arms and legs were covered. Even the inside of his lower lip was tattooed with the words, “F*** You”. (Why?! I don’t know - let’s just say he had attitude to spare!) Both nipples were pierced and so was his *ahem* package (or so he told us - which back then was still unheard of and which quite shocked my 21 year old sensibilities!).

I admit, at first, I was a little repulsed. But every day, as he changed his uniform in front of me, I became fascinated with the story of his tattoos. Every single thing meant something to him - apparently enough to mark his body with it forever. I wondered why he’d covered himself so completely at the ripe old age of 22! He hadn’t left any room for further meaningful tattoos, that I could see, though he managed to squeeze in his Airborne wings.

One day, during Jump Week, I winced when I saw another guy’s brand new raw tattoo. It was raw and irritated from the chafing of all the jump gear we’d been in. This poor guy was NOT a perfect physical specimen of manhood; he was a skinny white boy with a glow-in-the-dark bony chest. He had obviously gotten too drunk the weekend before Jump Week to have any sense. He sported a creepy tattoo that looked like a skeleton hand ripping through his skin from the inside out and holding a dripping red heart with dangling valves and veins. What looked like red drops of blood dripped down his chest. He ruefully mentioned that his fiancée was going to hate it and she would kill him when she saw it. No doubt! It was grotesque - and it was huge - no wonder he was in pain under all his gear! It looked to me to be too big too fix - how would you cover something like that up?

Anyways, back to the guy with all the tattoos. That soldier was quite the rebel, but took every care to ensure he never stepped out of bounds when it came to the stringent physical requirements of the Honor Guard. He was physically perfect in every way - the quintessential American G.I. - until he took off his clothes. Though his body certainly told an interesting story, it was too much.

But since then, I’ve found that military tattoos fascinate me - and why guys (and gals) permanently mark their body with something that means so much to them. Recently, I found some photos of cool military tattoos at Military.com’s Shock and Awe website. Of course, there were the ever-present branch specific tattoos - the Marine Corps ones were probably the most graphic, the Navy the most artistically detailed, generally speaking. There were some really, really ugly ones - and some that were heart-breaking. There was an abundance of memorial tattoos depicting the boots, weapon, helmet and dog tags of a fallen comrade (see example below). Also, there seemed to be a lot that looked like torn skin with the red, white, and blue flag of America underneath. Considering what those boys seem to be made of, I think that about says it all.

Out of 400 tattoos (I obviously lost track of time while browsing!), I picked out a few that were eye-catchingly unique, interesting, or totally kick ass:

[Read more]

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