YatPundit's blog

Happy Birthday to the United States Marine Corps! This is a mine (or "torpedo" in 19th Century usage), that's mounted at NAS Newport, RI. A few feet away is a matching mine, painted blue with the Navy logo on it. NAS Newport is the home of Officer Candidate School for the USN. My firstborn, Ensign Justin Branley, was in Class 15-11 this summer. On graduation day, he was commissioned, then they all walked over to these two mines. His class RDC (Recruit Division Commander), a Navy Chief Petty Officer, and his DI (Drill Instructor), a USMC Gunnery Sergeant, stood between the mines and gave the newly-commissioned Ensigns their "first salutes."

Best wishes to the Marines!

It's good to see the new-capsule project continuing to move forward:

Boeing’s CST-100 is one of several proposed commercial crew spacecraft, or “space taxis,” that NASA is partially financing to replace the Space Shuttle, which flew its final mission in July. The CST-100 is being designed to carry a crew of seven into low-earth orbit, to the International Space Station and a proposed private space station from Bigelow Aerospace. Boeing also anticipates being able to take civilian tourists up into low-earth orbit on the craft no earlier than 2015.

With the shuttle program now officially over, and issues surrounding the integrity of the Soyuz spacecraft, this whole concept is way behind. It's also interesting to see NASA using a military-style competitive model, where various companies are bidding to get the job. In its earlier incarnations, there could be only one.

Since this article is from TPM, there's a dig at douchebag governor Scott Brown, and how he wouldn't take federal $ for high-speed rail but gladly welcomes Boeing, but that's no surprise from a left-leaning blog.

Butterflies on display at the Audubon Insectarium. Will do a full post on the Insectarium in a few days, but I love the blues in this display.

If I was a black man, I would never set foot in Jefferson Parish. Consider the case of Henry W. James, Jr, released today from prison after serving 30 years for a rape he didn't commit:

The woman told investigators she did not know her attacker and identified James from a book of photos two days later.

However, James lived nearby, was an aquaintance of the woman's husband and had several encounters with the victim the day before she was raped -- all of which Maw said casts doubt on the woman's identification of James after first saying she did not recognize her attacker.

Hey, white woman picked out a black guy...he must be guilty, right? Oh wait a minute...

After DNA test results cleared James last month, prosecutors dismissed his indictment, and 24th Judicial District Judge Henry Sullivan signed an order Thursday vacating James' conviction and ordering his release from prison.

Oops...

...by talking about killing Mexicans:

If Herman Cain becomes president, he’ll build an electrified border fence that could kill Mexicans who try to illegally cross into the U.S., the Republican candidate said Saturday.

“It’s going to be 20 feet high. It’s going to have barbed wire on the top. It’s going to be electrified. And there’s going to be a sign on the other side saying, ‘It will kill you — Warning,’” Cain said, according to the New York Times. He also said the sign would be “in English and in Spanish.”

This guy is such a piece of work. Cain tried to walk it back on Meet The Hack (Press), telling David Gregory it was a "joke."

So, while statistics, polls, and interviews say the overwhelming number of military personnel don't care about having the Godless Homos serving with them, there's one significant holdout group:

2,000 members of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty(CARL), a military affiliated group, have pledged not to perform wedding services for same sex couples, defying the Pentagon directive that gives chaplains the authority to officiate such events.

The level of irony in military chaplains looking for a "conscience clause" in DoD regs reaches overload:

The group is asking Congress to enact a right of conscience clause in the revised DOD code “to ensure that no American service members are forced to deny what the Bible says about homosexuality.”

The Bible also says "thou shalt not kill," but you can imagine the reaction a soldier would get going to one of these chaplains with that problem.

The position of these chaplains isn't based on conscience; it's based on making a scene, stomping and stamping their feet. I hope it doesn't come to the very-undignified point where we see an Army colonel holding his breath and pouting.

Look, gentlemen, weddings are a celebration of LOVE. If a gay military couple wants to get married on-base, they're most likely not going to demand some hate-filled nutball do the ceremony. I can see two gals going out in a rowboat with a Navy captain to hold the ceremony first. Seriously, a couple is more likely to choose someone who will counsel and guide them towards the union, then bless it and invoke whatever gods and/or goddesses the couple hold dear.

This is a great short history and promo for the 610 Stompers:

Canal and St. Charles in the 1880s, when Italian influence was on the rise

An interesting remark in the comments of a NOLA.com story was highlighted on Twitter this morning. The original story is the entry for the year 1906 in Da Paper's 175th Anniversary series (a series everyone should be following, by the way), which features the creation of the Muffuletta sandwich. From the 1880s until WWI, Italian influence in the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny, and the Ninth Ward.

So, at face value, you'd think this comment makes sense:

Italian-Americans have contributed much to the city but are under appreciated. The Piazza d'italia on Poydras Street is crumbling. Nothing in the city is named after Louis Prima for example. St. Joseph alters and parades add so much to the fabric of the city. Italian immigrants provided a large sector of the working class that built New Orleans and contributed to it's culture.

But here's the problem: history is usually written by the victors. Or in New Orleans' case, the survivors. Given this, it's no surprise that there are no monuments to Italians, and the few things recognizing them have fallen by the wayside. The answer to why this has happened is simple: there just aren't all that many Italians left to do anything about it.

What happened to the Italians? They bailed on the city. The lure of new subdivisions in Chalmette, Metairie, and Kenner, new home construction paid for by low-interest VA home loans, the desire to get out of "the old neighborhood," and "white flight" all contributed to dramatically reduce the Italian-American population. Nowadays, you can go to Metairie and find Carnival organizations dominated by Italians. Kenner has an annual St. Rosalie festival. While the Italian-American influence in the metro New Orleans area is still quite strong, that influence is almost negligible within Orleans Parish.

You want a monument to Louis Prima? Start a private foundation to put one up. Fix up Piazza d'Italia? Get some of those families out in St. Ann parish in #themetrys to help out. White folks in New Orleans need to realize that they need to "come back" to the city. If they don't want to move back into Orleans Parish, fine, but the survivors make the rules. Right now, that's a lot of non-Italians.