A couple days ago, I pointed out some farcical attempts by the USAF to conceal the location of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, who are deployed at “an undisclosed air base in Southwest Asia” - actually Al Udied, in Qatar. I believed - and still largely believe - that this secrecy is a really badly misguided attempt at operational security, or OPSEC. A reader, however, contacted me and suggested an interesting aspect to the whole thing: The Air Force, he or she says, are concealing their presence in Qatar so as to not draw unwanted pressure from other Arab nations onto their host country, who are, perhaps, not as enthusiastic about having a permanent American air base on their soil as they could be.
Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, I was browsing the Air Force Central news website, when I came across an interesting set of human-interest photos of a Senior Airman painting the logo of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing on “one of two new barriers located in front of the distinguished visitors lounge” at “an undisclosed air base in Southwest Asia”. Wait - “undisclosed air base”? Right away, I smacked my forehead - hello, how many air bases in Southwest Asia could the 379th AEW be operating from? Well, according to Wikipedia - and Global Security - one: al Udieb Air Base, in Qatar. But, the internet has been wrong before, right? So, can we prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this confidential, hush-hush location is actually in Qatar?
Read the rest of this entry »

A week ago, the Minnesota chapter of the ACLU said they were unaware of any temporary detention facilities being prepared for the RNC. Well, there is one - and it helps explain why Ramsey County’s Sheriff Bob (Fletcher) is getting tens of thousands for his jail. But before we get to that…
Read the rest of this entry »

A post just up on the generally more reasonable Minnesota Independent website covers the “lies” and distortions the so-called “corporate media” are supposedly spreading about the anarchists here in the Twin Cities to try and disrupt the RNC. The only problem is, author Andy Birkey made the mistake of taking the anarchists at their word when they accused the media of lying, and didn’t do any fact-checking of his own.

Sorry, Andy; you was used.
Read the rest of this entry »

So, if you’ve been following the preparations for the Republican National Convention here in Saint Paul, you probably know that there are questions about the number of officers needed to maintain law and order during the event. The Saint Paul Police are coming in for some criticism over staffing levels, and while some of it is from Ramsey County’s “Sheriff Bob” Fletcher - and thus ignorable - the men and women in blue are taking criticism from closer to home: one of their own.

Dave Titus is the president of the Saint Paul Police Federation, which - presumably - means he was elected to that position by a majority of his peers. Assuming that’s true - and that there are no Chicago-style politics at play - Titus’ endless parade of cynical comments criticizing and second-guessing his department’s leadership could hint at morale problems in the department. If you search on the web, or in newspaper archives, you have to hunt very, very hard to find anything nice that Titus has said about his department, ever. Since the RNC announced Saint Paul as the site of the 2008 convention, he’s had little but scorn and contempt for his department’s preparations.
Read the rest of this entry »