They burned the Jordanian Pilot alive.

Thanks to William for the horrible news.  via Peiter Nanniga Twitter Feed.

Go here to see his feed.

There are no words to express my hatred for these people.

Council on Foreign Relations Blog questions arming Ukraine.

via CFR Blog...

But will the death of a few more separatists and destruction of Russian equipment achieve the political objective—changing the calculus of Putin’s thinking in order to compel him to endorse a genuine settlement. This is improbable, and there are two more troubling and foreseeable pathways that could unfold: it demonstrates that Ukraine is actually not that important to the transatlantic alliance, and this limited capability is the maximum of what the United States and NATO will do (this seems most likely); or, it triggers Putin to double-down on his support for separatist forces and non-uniformed Russian security forces in Ukraine to firmly establish facts on the ground before those capabilities are fully integrated into Ukrainian security forces, which could take nine to twelve months (this escalation concern seems less likely).

Read it all here.

On this one...I JUST DON'T KNOW.  This is one of those issues where the general public just doesn't have enough information to make an informed decision.

KC390 flies! via aereo.jor.br

Thanks to Bruno for the link!

Read it here.

Retired Navy Capt. James E. Fanell, the modern day Capt. Ellis M. Zacharias of WW2 fame.

Capt. Ellis M. Zacharias (Papers of Ellis M. Zacharias)

via achives.gov

Ellis Zacharias sipped on his dry martini as he matched poker skills with a group that included a young naval attaché with the Japanese embassy.
Zacharias, a naval intelligence officer posted in Washington in the 1920s, was not only playing poker but also trying to get the espionage-minded Japanese officer to let slip some information about his country's plans in the Pacific. He restricted himself to just the one martini in order to maintain his edge. This probing for information was a mutual exercise, usually involving shrewd questioning by both men as they played each hand.
Revealing only enough information to keep the conversation going, Zacharias could absorb what he heard over time while maintaining his friendship with the young Japanese officer, who had a reputation as a gambler.
Some years later, Zacharias would use information gathered this way to warn his superiors that Japan, by then on the march across the Pacific Rim, would launch a surprise attack on the United States in the Pacific—on a Sunday morning.
The Navy ignored his warnings. But early on December 7, 1941—a Sunday morning—Japan suddenly attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was an operation planned by Zacharias's old poker-playing partner, Isoroku Yamamoto, by then commander in chief of the Japanese fleet.
Zacharias's prediction of the Pearl Harbor attack was a product of his interest in intelligence, primarily in Japanese affairs, an area that was not held in the highest regard at the time. His 25 years in intelligence (out of 38 in the Navy) made him a colorful and controversial figure and were punctuated by clashes with superiors, unwelcome assignments, and failure to gain recognition that his record merited.

Read the whole thing here (short but worth a deeper dig by anyone interested in military history). 

Fast forward to 2015 and what do we have?

Another Naval Officer that is warning of a rising, aggressive power, and he's being pushed to the side...not given the recognition that his work deserves...he suffered the pain of stating the unvarnished truth and being removed from his position....and I suspect forced into retirement when men such as he need to rise in rank.

Check this out from The Free Beacon...

“The challenge, as I have seen it, is for intelligence professionals to make the case, to tell the truth, and to convince national decision and policy makers to realize that China’s rise, if left unchecked or undeterred, will necessarily disrupt the peace and stability of our friends, partners, and allies,” he said.
“We should not have to wait for an actual shooting war to start before we acknowledge there is a problem and before we start taking serious action,” Fanell said.
The Communist Party of China has plans that “stand in direct contrast to espoused U.S. national security objectives of freedom of navigation and free access to markets for all of Asia,” he added.
In particular, the Chinese navy, Fanell said, is taking steps to achieve strategic objectives that include the restoration of what Beijing says is “sovereign maritime territory,” specifically thousands of square miles of water inside the so-called first island chain—a string of western Pacific islands near China’s coasts stretching from Northeast Asia through the South China Sea.

Yeah.

Decades later.  A different nation.  The same ambition.

And the US Govt in general, and the Naval Services in particular are again not paying attention.  Lets hope it doesn't take a shooting war for people to wake up to the threat.

173rd Airborne conduct drop in Pordenone, Italy

What is the verdict on the T-11 so far?  I know they moved to it because paratrooper loads were increasing to the point where the T-10B was no longer effective but in its short career I've already heard of at least two paratroopers being killed because of malfunctioning equipment and you saw the pic of the guy with a tangled(?) chute in an earlier post.

E-10 Hertzer via The Tank Maker.Blogspot

If the Germans in WW2 had a better leader or even the same leader and just a couple more years then things would be totally different today.  They were on the verge of standardizing war production across all manufacturers and the results would have been impressive...even with round the clock bombing.

Kurdish Special Forces punishes ISIS...watch for the acrobatics!