Goddamn you, Stephen Colbert. Goddamn you to hell....

For finding this clip and featuring it on your show this week:

This picture was taken from a Su-24...

Allegedly.

USS Kitty Hawk, 17 October 2000, Sea of Japan

What I'd like to know is why Russian film stock for their recon photos sucks so bad.

This is a little curious and slightly disturbing

While surfing through some photos of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov at the pier, I ran across these photographs:

What is that in the upper right corner, behind the kingpost on that red ship moored nearby?

Why it appears to be the former Golf class diesel powered ballistic missile submarine K-118, later converted to a communications submarine and now in its final resting place, next to the Kuznetsov.

You'd figure that a country which has an ambition to build six aircraft carriers in the next forty years would find the time and money to dispose of their junked ships properly, instead of just leaving them derelict at the carrier pier.

Excellent photo essay on the Caspian Sea Monster

Livejournalist igor113 has an excellent series of photos of the weird and wonderful Caspian Sea Monster.

There are photos of the flight deck (bridge? flight deck? I have no idea what to call it!), the crew quarters (the ekranoplan could stay at sea for five days), the galley, the anchor room, the forward most radome in the nose, the flight engineer control panel, some sort of damage control panel, the "engine room" and the weapons control station under the first pair of SS-N-22 tubes. The beast is truly the weird offspring of a 747 and a missile corvette; parts of it are genuinely airplane like and parts of it are genuinely ship like.  Igor climbs the tower to the tail gunner's station up on the vertical stabilizer and I am stunned by the good material condition that the area is in. In fact, the entire interior looks pretty good, good enough that it looks like with a little rehab and paint, it could be restored to operational condition pretty quickly.

Astounding.

Photos from the outside. 
Photos from the inside.
Photos of the Orlan's specially built support dock.

Russia is very different from America

The head of Murmansk Oblast Dmitriy Dmitrienko gifted his apartment to the commander of BPK Severomorsk...

According to the official press release, the governor gave the apartment to the CO "during the fleet wide formation held in honor of Armed Forces Day. Captain First Rank Andrey Klimenko, captain of the Severomorsk, received the special gift. The governor gave him the deed to the apartment that he received during his service in the Northern Fleet".

Dimitrenko had the apartment since it was assigned to him. With the agreement of the Northern Fleet and the administration of the city of Severomorsk, he gave it to a new owner who needed a better place for his family...

 Via KGRR.

Somebody check Frank Gaffney's garage for a crescent wrench

Because anyone who owns a CRESCENT wrench, an obvious symbol of Islamic Jihad if I've ever seen one, clearly wants Sharia law in the United States:

The Obama administration’s determined effort to reduce America’s missile defense capabilities initially seemed to be just standard Leftist fare — of a piece with the Democratic base’s visceral hostility to the idea of protecting us against ballistic missile threats. A just-unveiled symbolic action suggests, however, that something even more nefarious is afoot.
 ...
What could be code-breaking evidence of the latter explanation is to be found in the newly-disclosed redesign of the Missile Defense Agency logo (above).  As Logan helpfully shows, the new MDA shield appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo. (For a comparison, the previous logo is below.)

 You know what else is evidence of the Islamic conspiracy to remake the United States?

  Does the crescent moon and palm tree signify that South Carolina is under imminent threat of Islamo-fascist take over? I'll bet Frank Gaffney thinks YES!

Is this lovable American icon also a sinister harbringer of Islamo-fascist takeover?

 

 He makes CRESCENT SHAPED PASTRIES! FRENCH CRESCENT PASTRIES!

Since Frank Gaffney has obviously moved on to write for the Onion, I'd say its fair to say that no one should give a shit what he thinks about anything.

Addendum: Bonus "Frank Gaffney is crazier than a shithouse rat with tertiary syphilis" blogging -

When do we get to hear the phrase “sap and impurify our Precious Bodily Fluids” used in all seriousness? And by whom? I’ll take Sarah Palin, by the end of the year.
-dms

Word, yo.

Su-33 almost buys it on Kuznetsov

Don't know when this was filmed, but it doesn't look good to my black shoe clad eye. Make sure you check out the tailhook.

Russia vs. the Pirates: Round Four for the Pacific Fleet

 Via Vladimir Pelevin's blog:



Gist:

 A task force left Vladivostok for the Indian Ocean today consisting of the large anti-submarine warfare ship (BPK) Marshall Shaposhnikov, the ocean going tug and the tanker Pechenga. The sailors will ensure the security of vessels in the Horn of Africa area. This will be the fourth deployment by Pacific Fleet vessels to Somalia. During previous deployments our ships escorted more than a hundred vessels from 26 nations and thwarted more than 20 attacks.

 Other reports indicate that the ships will carry detachments of marines and the Shaposhnikov will embark two helos.

Previously, the  BPK Admiral Tributs, the tanker Boris Butoma and the ocean going salvage tug MB-99 returned to Vladivostok on 16 Nov 2009 after a 140 day deployment to the Indian Ocean on piracy patrol.

Photo of the Day

An undated photo of an SS-N-18 being loaded into/removed from an unidentified Delta III with the Marshal Krylov missile range ship in the background.

A retaliatory strike for sending us T.a.T.u.

American Porno Model Adopts a Child From Russia.

Model and Lesbian Tila Tequila Adopts Child From Russia.

What ever you do Russia, you don't EVEN want to know what we would retaliate with if you send up Ksenia Sobchak...Mutually Assured Cultural Destruction, Bitchez!

Apparently, I can now engage in armed bank robbery at will

All I have to do is consult a lawyer first. If that lawyer gives me bad legal advice which causes me to commit all manner of sordid and horrible crimes, I'm covered, since "lawyers can make really really crazy arguments and still avoid professional sanction" and they can have honest disagreements on difficult matters of legal judgment without violating ethical standards.

Margolis' last point is especially important, since the former Vice-President of the United States is now going around the country telling people that he supports waterboarding and actively sought to use it when he was in office. Put differently, there is at least one member of the previous Administration walking around that is an admitted war criminal, although, to be sure, confessing to the elements of a war crime on television apparently does not, at least in this country, lead to any serious danger that one will actually be prosecuted for such crimes.

Whether or not the DOJ refers Yoo and Bybee for professional discipline, no one should think that either man behaved according to the high standards we should expect of government attorneys. They, and the government officials who worked with them, shamed this nation. They dragged America's reputation in the dirt. They severely damaged our good name in the eyes of the world. They undermined the values this country stands for and that the legal profession should stand for. Nothing the DOJ does now--or fails to do--will change that.

Now, who wants a bag of money? But Clinton got a blowjob and that's all that matters.

Rum, Sodomy and the Lash.

Its pretty disgraceful and historically ignorant to say that homosexuals can't be warriors (ever hear of the ancient Greeks?). And Tony Perkins, who never served a day in the military, lecturing people about "conditions in the barracks" is amusing.

But comparing honorably serving homosexuals to drug dealers and thieves is pretty despicable and an apology to gay servicemen and women is in order. But then, why should we give a shit about what some dude who retired from the Navy 25 years (or 125 years, I can't really tell) ago thinks about DADT? Consorting with bitter, primitive, hate-gnomes like Elaine Donnelly and Tony Perkins who want to bring a vision of a religious dictatorship to America doesn't do much for your cred.

Abraham Simpson on acid. Heh.

For those who don't want to click through to the video, here is a rough transcript:

Like the time I took the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. Give me five bees for a quarter you'd say. Now where were we, oh ya. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because if the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.

Email these bigots and tell them that you wont put up with insulting servicemembers like that. Tell them the Russian Navy Blog sent you.

Even the Russians know they suck: Epilogue

Chill Descends Over Russia as Olympic Medals Prove Elusive

After Australian aboriginal groups accused a Russian ice dancing pair of mocking aborigines, Valentin Piseev, president of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, suggested that they were the target of an international plot to force them to alter their performance.

“I think that this is a well-executed strategy directed against our athletes,” Mr. Piseev told Russian television from Vancouver.

Yes, Russia is victim of a conspiracy. Russia has often been the victim of international plots. Usually that plot is some sort of Jewish plot and not an Australian aboriginal plot, so for this routine they get a 10 for originality.

Rarely do Bulava launches achieve this...

When did moustaches go out of style in rock?

Fire! Fire! Fire!

 Photo: K-480 being rolled out of the building hall at SevMash, 16 April 1988. Source: military.tomsk.ru and TV program Udarnaya Sila

Arkhangel'sk - The efforts to extinguish a fire on a submarine awaiting disposal at the Zvezdochka Shipyard in Severodvinsk has been continuing for seven hours according to a source.

The fire on Akula class K-480 Ak Bars (Project 971) began at approximately 1445 Moscow time. "Cable raceways caught fire. Initial efforts to extinguish the fire were ineffective. The compartment is relatively big, but it almost immediately filled with smoke and visibility was practically zero. An attempt was made to flood the compartment in an attempt to extinguish the flames without effect".

K-480 is pretty young for being being a candidate for disposal (not that that is a BAD thing from my perspective!). For a taste of what disposal involves, see A Unique Operation in Gremikha.

Johnny, you are too bad.

One of these days, when the evil boys they come, where you gonna run to?

Queen always sounds better in the original Tartar

Shameless rumor mongering about the Black Sea Fleet

 

Moskva in drydock recently, though she's out as of 05 Feb and apparently preparing to deploy to the Far East and never return. Or return by Navy Day in late July, one of the two.

I mean the future Azov-Black Sea Flotilla.

The "Moskva" wont return to the Black Sea Fleet after she finishes exercises with the Pacific Fleet. Anyone who isn't lazy already knows this. The 30th Division will be broken up and the 41st Brigade will be transferred to he Caucasus....The Black Sea Fleet will be reconstituted as the Azov-Black Sea Flotilla. Together with the Caspian Flotilla, they will be directly subordinated to an infantry General - the commander of the new Southern district. Numbers of servicemen will decline from 18,000 to 12,500 in the spring.

At this rate, all that will remain of the former Black Sea Fleet by 2017 will be a pair of roadstead tugs. Friends of mine on ocean going tugs say that crews are going to one watch and they are being converted to roadstead tugs.

What's the greasy silver pole that's a propulsion machine to all the ships? Shaft!

Damn right!

What was the part that put Moskva into maintenance dock? I'm talkin' 'bout shaft, and I can dig it!

 ==================================================================

In related shameless, baseless potential slander, the chief of the Black Sea Fleet may be fired soon for...what else is there (besides creepy sex murders that is):

A source in fleet headquarters told Goryachiy Novosti ("Hot News") that the Federal Security Service (FSB) has thwarted an attempt by the Black Sea Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Aleksandr Kletskov to sell a decommissioned auxiliary ship (information needs to be verified).
...
One thing is known for sure. An eighty man audit team is coming into Sevastopol on 20 February to inventory fleet assets and see if Kletskov is mixed up in any other dirt.

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An' go to your Gawd...no, wait a minute, that can't be right...back to your socialist paradise in a zinc box marked груз 200 like a fighter in support of international socialist solidarity.

In commemoration of the Reds getting their asses kicked back across the Panj and returning to a country that would cease to exist in less than three years, lets take a look at the Do's and Don'ts in support of international socialism, unity and brotherhood:

Collection of counter-propaganda materials

January 1987

 

To the internationalist warrior:

Value the honor and integrity of Soviet citizenship highly. Without fail follow Soviet law, uphold the military oath and military regulations, carry out the orders of commanders and leaders and conscientiously fulfill your patriotic and international duty. 

Prohibited!

Do not enter into unauthorized communications or acquaintances. 

Prohibited!

Do not patronize Afghan stores, shops or markets whether government or private. Do not obtain from there or from private people any sort of item, food, liquor or drugs. 

Do not undress to sunbathe or swim in the sight of local population or near houses since such behavior is not in keeping with national and religious customs of the Afghans and are considered offensive. 

Prohibited!

Do not enter the courtyards or houses of the local population, look through their windows and doors, at the faces of women or enter into conversation with them. 

Prohibited!

Do not accept any gifts, awards or presents from local authorities or other civilians having any value as a good or service.  

  

Always display a high level of political alertness, always and everywhere maintain OPSEC, do no talk about official business or other topics of conversation concerning operational activities of units in the presence of outsiders.  

Source.

I don't think "Battlestar Galactica" means what you think it means.

"Space is a battlefield. 'Mass culture' has been preparing the American public for this long before Reagan's plan to militarize space. The cast of the film 'Battlestar Galactica'. The hateful gaze, the laser pistols..."

Yep. We're gonna smoke your ass from MARS BITCHES! In mini-skirts! With turd looking robot dogs! To a groovy disco beat!