A Hero of Entebbe - Meeting Sassy Reuven

Last night I went to a presentation at Chabad House given by Sassy Reuven.

Who is Sassy Reuven you ask? One of the leaders that took part in the hostage rescue at Entebbe Uganda on July 4, 1976.

One of the most successful, and certainly one of the farthest ranged, hostage rescues in history, The Entebbe Raid was a major historical event and one of the turning points in fighting terrorism and aircraft hijackings.

An Air France Plane, set to fly from Tel Aviv to Paris with a stop in Athens Greece was hijacked by 2 Arab and 2 German Red Army Faction terrorists who were able to get weapons including handguns, grenades, and explosive by bribing Greek airport security.

The plane was first diverted to Libya and then flown to Uganda where the terrorists were joined by 3 more Arab terrorists and protected by the Ugandan army as the president of Uganda Idi Amin, had become very close to the terrorists after he broke off relations with Israel, after Israel had refused to give him fighter jets to attack Tanzania.

The non-Jewish passengers were released, but the Captain, Michel Bacos and crew of the Air France jet insisted on remaining with the Jewish hostages and not leaving any of their passengers behind. 94 Jewish passengers and 12 crew remained.

The terrorists were demanding $5 Million dollars and the release of terrorists held by Israel, France, and other countries.

The Israelis were able to formulate a plan to rescue the hostages and put it into action. Flying 2,400 miles from Israel, through hostile airspace they would land at the airport and rescue the hostages. To increase the deception, the first Hercules would be loaded with a Black Mercedes and two land rovers to look like Idi Amin's entourage as he had frequently visited the airport during the hostage situation.

4 C-130 Hercules with two carrying troops, a third with refueling equipment and the fourth setup as a hospital, and two Boeing 707s, one setup as a Command Center and the other as another hospital aircraft accompanies the formation. Flying at 30 feet above the Red Sea, they remained under Saudi and Egyptian radars, and once passing the Red Sea and the radars then climbed to 20,000 feet for the flight to Uganda.

Landing at 7 minute increments, the C-130s landed at the airport.

Sassy was in the first C-130 Hercules to land at Entebbe and the second man to touch the ground in Uganda, following Nehemiah Tamari, the commander of the paratrooper ground force towards the New Terminal. The job of his section of the paratroops' was to secure the New Terminal building as Sayaret Matkal freed the hostages in the Old Terminal. Other sections were to secure the runway, setup runway lights, and another Sayaret Matkal detachment would destroy the MiG-17 and MiG-1 fighters based at the airport to ensure the Ugandan Air Force could not engage the Israelis once they had left the airport.

The paratroopers secured the new terminal, having one man seriously wounded.

At the Old Terminal, the leader of the ground force, Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was killed, shot by Ugandan army soldiers shooting from the control tower.

The mission was a success however with all but 4 of the hostages rescued. 3 Of the hostages were killed during the rescue operation, and the fourth, 74 year-old Dora Bloch, who had been taken to a hospital in Kampala and was not at the airport during the raid, was killed days later on Idi Amins orders. All 7 terrorists were killed along with 45-50 Ugandan soldiers.

The entire operation on the ground lasted 53 minutes and the assault on the terminals lasted only 30 minutes.

Later immortalized in the Israeli movie Operation Thunderbolt and then in the the quite good Raid on Entebbe and then completely messed up by Hollywood in the recent 2018 film 7 Days In Entebbe that did its best to take the terrorist's point of view in the affair and turned an amazing historic hostage rescue it into a rather dull politically-correct bit of nonsense.

Meeting one of the heroes from the Entebbe hostage rescue mission was pretty impressive. Sassy Reuven was a very engaging speaker and gave a great talk combining facts humor and history into a riveting presentation. He spoke on both his and Israel's and Uganda's background before the hijacking, the hijacking itself, and then the planning and execution of the raid.

He's touring around the US speaking about the Entebbe hostage rescue, so if you get a chance to listen to him in person, it's well worth it.

A Day That Will Live In Driving Test Infamy

Abby had her driving test today.

Wish I had some happy news to reportas she is a quite capable driver, but she didn't make it out of the parking lot.

As reported to me by her and Tash who was there, the testing arrangement stank to high heaven and was not a reflection of reality at all.

First, the examiner had lost her voice and was hard to hear.

So examiner is outside the car, has Abby first start the car and then drive forward, stop where she indicates and then has to back into a spot with small cones bordering it, followed immediately by pulling out and parallel parking at a very weird angle.

Not something you would ever do in real life, and Tash notes the angles were strange, you would not try to back into the spot indicated from that starting position in real life, the cone spots don't match up to the angles for the actual striped parking spots, and the cones very low and hard to see. You also wouldn't immediately try and parallel park from that angle either.

Oh, and you have to do both maneuvers with a total, of 6 wheel movements.

Not reflective of actual driving at all, kinda designed for failure.

I daresay even Murphy's Law or Keads would've had a bit of trouble pulling that off within those parameters, especially when not driving the samll driving test car for the test.

So the examiner fails her on that, but cheerfully notes that she should come back and take a lesson with them for the parking section so she can see how its done at those angles and then take the test right after and oh, she may want to rent their car for the test which is smaller and has a backup camera.

See where this is going?

In other words, administering the driving test is $60, failing her and then "suggesting" a lesson and then another test would net them another $120 so its kinda in their interest to fail them out with this BS setup and collect $180 plus more with the test car rental rather than pass her and only make $60.

Yep, this stinks on ice. She's not happy as she didn't get to demonstrate how well she actually drives nor how she can actually park but instead got hosed inn a made up cone land in a parking lot at an off angle.

We'll have to see if other testing centers are similarly setup or if we have to play the game and pay up in order for her to pass, though I daresay simply requesting a bribe form us of $180 to pass the parking portion of the test would have been both more economically efficient and far more above board than this baloney.

Treat All Firearms As If Loaded, Part The Umpteenth, Now With Lying To Your Prospective Attorney

Get a call from a prospective client, whop as it turns out is facing a Reckless, wanton use or negligent discharge of a firearm charge.

This is a misdemeanor and depending on what he did exactly is either up to 90 days or up to a year in jail and a decent fine of between $100-$500 attached.

His story starts with:

"My gun was defective, I dropped it and it went off in my garage."

He then went on to embellish it that he thought it was unloaded - yep yet again, thought being the operative word.

Then he went on to state the slide was stuck shut and he was going to take it to a gunsmith to work on it when he dropped it on the garage floor and it went off.

He then called the police on himself and then made a very full detailed statement to the police and then was charged. Apparently the round went through his garage and put a hole in his neighbor's garage so depending on the damage done the fine and potential jail time can differ.

Asking some questions about the event, he first can't remember even the model of the handgun in question, and he finally states it was a Ruger.

Anyone at this point want to guess where this is going?

Asking even more questions regarding the event and discussing the importance of accurate information in order to defend him from the charge, he starts hemming and hawing on the circumstances.

Then he finally states:

"Ok, it didn't actually fall and go off, I had pulled the trigger but I was sure it was empty and the slide was stuck so I couldn't check".

Yes, you may do a facepalm at this moment, I sure did on hearing it.

Look folks, lying to an attorney who will try to defend you from criminal charges is just not a good idea. It makes your defense that much harder and we're on your side. We'd rather have the truth and deal with it than try to defend you on a false premise you fed us that then blows up in your face in court.

Please do not lie to your attorney. The freedom you save may be your own.

After talking I explain what will likely happen process-wise and my need for a retainer (actually a ridiculously low one for this type of case but anyways), and he states he's going to try and handle it himself.

Good luck with that. I can guarantee the prosecutor will lose all sympathy with the guy once he starts lying, and if he rejects a deal and tries to defend himself in court the prosecutor will have him for lunch, and the jury will see right through it as he doesn't lie well, at all.

Once again, please don't lie to the attorney you want to retain to protect your rights. It doesn't help.

No Surprise Here - Killer Of Detroit Cop Is A Felon Out On Parole

The scum that shot two Detroit Police officers, killing one and wounding the other was no stranger to law enforcement.

The Detroit Free Press: 28-year-old man charged with murder in fatal shooting of Detroit police officer

As one might suspect, the felon is no stranger to the penal system.

In 2009 he was convicted of breaking and entering and did less than a year of a three year sentence.

Then in 2011 he was hit with felon in possession of a firearm and a count of felony firearms.

He was also hit with Assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, likely with the firearm he was illegally in possession of, but was paroled in March of this year, a couple years short of his maximum sentence.

Not learning from any of these experiences, and strangely completely ignoring that he was on parole and not allowed as a felon to posses firearms, he was apparently on quite a crime spree before police met up with him in a home he had broken into on November 20 and he shot the officers from ambush.

Yet another multiple-count felon allowed to go free until he kills someone.

He killed Officer Rasheen McClain, a 46-year-old, 16-year veteran officer, leaving a wife and two children.

Treat All Firearms As If Loaded, Part The Umpteenth

You may think its unloaded, but thinking does not make it reality. Then going on and pointing said "unloaded" gun at another person and pulling the trigger leads to tragedy.

The Detroit Free Press: Deputies: Off-duty Detroit police officer shoots girlfriend in Lyon Township

Basically the officer, while demonstrating firearm safety and how to safely handle a firearm to his girlfriend managed to shoot her with an "unloaded" gun. The girlfriend does verify his story and also believed it was unloaded.

This safety demo ended with her taking a thankfully survivable round to the chest.

From the article, it sounds like either he forgot the one up the pipe or racked to clear it with the magazine still inserted and then dropped the magazine, inadvertently loading it before carrying on with his demonstration.

Again, making sure a firearm is unloaded before demonstrating with it is vital.

Since people clearly are fallible when it comes to making sure the firearm is unloaded, it is even better use a blue or SIRT gun in demonstrations or at least to insert a trainer or training barrel into the gun if you have to show how to manipulate it and prevent it from being shot.

In short there's a whole lot of inexpensive, and useful tools out there to completely avoid these kinds of negligent accidents.

"The problem with internet quotes is that you can't always depend on their accuracy" ~Abraham Lincoln, 1864.

Basically if there's an appeal to authority with a quote that sounds too good to be true about a current day event, chances are, it is in fact fake.

A lefty I know published with approval this image on the Book of Face this morning:

Looks like the wise Jefferson is wisely foretelling the rise of the uncouth and media criticism of that Orange Man Bad Trump, and Orange Man is bad for acting contrary to the wise statement of Jefferson, now doesn't it?

The problem, of course, is that Jefferson never said nor wrote it, and the quote first seems to have popped up in February 2017, 191 years after Jefferson died. Would be a neat trick if he could have pulled that off.

In fact, Jefferson was rather Trumpian in his criticism of the press of his day:

"I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them... These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief... This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit." --Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:46

"Our printers raven on the agonies of their victims, as wolves do on the blood of the lamb." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1811. ME 13:59

"From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1816. ME 14:430

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day." --Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:224

"As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 1806. ME 11:118

"Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1819. ME 15:179

"The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807.

In other words, one might just say Jefferson called the mainstream media of his day fake news.

There's many valid reasons to criticize Trump without resorting to fake quotes, but it does make it sound better to use a fake quote by a founder of our country rather than going "Reee, Orange Man Bad".

Now, its not just the left that make up historic quotes to bolster their arguments. We have plenty of fake quotes used by those on the right side of the spectrum by Adolf Hitler, George Washington and one particular quote claimed to be from Voltaire but isn't, constantly bandied about by the right side to bolster their arguments as well.

In short, if you come upon a quote by someone considered to be a historical authority or known to be a wise person and it looks like it suits the current drama of the day to a T, it's most likely fake and worth doing a quick check to see if the person quoted actually ever said it before you repost the fakery.

Mexico Cartel Attacks Continue To Get Closer To The US Border

The Detroit News: Death toll put at 20 after Mexico cartel attack near U.S. border

A Mexican drug cartel, the Cartel of the Northeast, attacked and shot up the city hall of Villa Union, killing some government workers, in an hour-long assault including a battle with state and federal responding forces.

In reading the article, you can see the cartels aren't exactly keeping a low profile - the convoy of trucks the attackers rode in on for their assault had C.D.N. markings very nicely applied to the sides of their trucks. Not exactly a covert action by any means.

The attack took place all of 35 miles south-southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.

Any bets on how long it takes before these large-scale attacks spill over to the American side of the border and we need to send forth responding punitive expeditions led by a new Black Jack Pershing?

Happy Thanksgiving And A Great Ammo Deal

Classic Arms has Federal 115gr 9mm FMJ for $124/1000 after rebate and free shipping, which is one heckuva great deal If you shoot 9mm.

I hope all of you had a peaceful and enjoyable Thanksgiving with your families. We had a nice one with family and friends over to enjoy the festive meal.