Born in Deutschland 1965, hometown was Bütthart, parents were not U.S. government employees. However, when father was tricked into joining the U.S. Air Force Civil Service, in 1969, with the promise that we could remain in Germany, we were promptly shipped off to Iran. Due to one of my Iranian educators being disappeared, along with her husband, by the U.S. ally Shah of Iran's Israeli & U.S. created Savak (for the then official terrorist act of promoting the idea that women can vote), and due to my U.S. citizen mother being placed on Savak's Terrorist Arrest List (for supporting the idea that women should vote, at that time the U.S. ally Shah of Iran did not allow women to vote, now they can) we left Iran for the United States in 1973, literally in the middle of the night. At the U.S. Embassy airbase the CIA operated Gooney Bird (C-47) was so packed with other U.S. citizens fleeing our ally Iran (because the Shah gave the OK to arrest any U.S. citizen for such terrorist acts as promoting the concept of voting) that we were turned away by the Loadmaster and had to take a chance on a civilian flight out of Tehran's airport.
My father told me he and my mother had three culture shocks; first when they arrived in Germany as civilians, then after being shipped off to Iran as U.S. government employees, then again returning to the United States as unemployed civilians (because so much had changed in the U.S. while they were gone, their only news source was the U.S. Armed Forces Radio & Television Service which heavily censored information about the home front).
Since I graduated high school in 1982 I've worked for U.S. government contractors and state & local government agencies (in California), convenience store manager in California, retail/property management in Georgia, California and Idaho. Spent the 1990s in the TV news business producing number one rated local news programs in California, Arizona and Idaho. 14+ years with California and Idaho Army National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Obtained a BA degree in International Studies from Idaho State University at the age of 42.
Unemployed since 2015, so don't tell me the economy has recovered.
Just before sunset on 05JAN2026 (Iran time) the giant Kalleh Dairy operation blew up! Some sources report several explosions were heard. As I write this most of the factory is still on fire and evacuations for everybody within a one kilometer radius are taking place.
This Kalleh Dairy is located in Amol City, Amol County, Mazandaran province. Video via Fars News:
Speculators (which include some Iranian government officials) have suggested a construction/welding accident caused a fire which caused an explosion, or it was sabotage by protestors or even a military strike (it is part of the U.S./Israeli military policy to target such places as they are considered ‘dual use’ facilities).
When the Spanish explorers set foot in a place now called Venezuela they noticed that the natives were using a tarry substance, it seemed to be everywhere. Today, it’s known as heavy crude oil.
By 1928, U.S. oil companies had surpassed the operations of European oil companies in Venezuela. Despite a lot of naysayers claiming that nobody wants to control Venezuela’s expensive to refine heavy crude oil, the oil refineries in the United States were developed specifically to handle that type of oil. The Second World War, followed by the sales boom of personal automobiles in the U.S., drove the U.S. even deeper into developing the world’s largest heavy crude oil reserves, in Venezuela.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) oil map of Venezuela, dated May 1947 (note that this is several months before the official creation of the CIA).
C-SPAN has a promotional film about Creole Petroleum Corporation, showing the history of its development in Venezuela and what it argues are the many benefits to the oil-rich country, such as health care, education, and infrastructure: Click here to view People and Petroleum, the Story of Creole in Venezuela.
Oil & gas operations in Venezuela, as of 1954.
In 1950, Venezuela was the fourth most prosperous country in the world, with an average income of about $7-thousand-5-hundred with only Switzerland, New Zealand, and the U.S. doing better. Owned by Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) at the time, Creole dissolved when Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s.
The United Kingdom’s Sky News explainer, posted on 11DEC2025, showing that the U.S. is after Venezuela’s heavy crude oil, then at the very end of report hints that Russia is next:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) instituted a national ‘Public Order’ training standard for National Guard and law enforcers across the United States. The news media hasn’t published one word about this, yet you can find information directly from FEMA: Public Order and Public Safety basic course.
On 03AUG2025, Rhode Island Army National Guard’s 115th Military Police Company participated in Public Order training, officially known as Public Order Platoon (POP) training, taught by the Rhode Island State Police. Video report via Terry Rajsombath:
The 6th of December 2025 turned out to be the biggest and busiest turnout yet for the Pocatello, Idaho, railroad club’s Open House; more than 3-hundred people were counted (according to two of the club members I talked with) between the 10th and 13th hours, and there was still an hour to go!
Was it because word was spread on social media that Santa & Mrs. Claus would be there?
The old Union Pacific building the club calls home is in desperate need of structural repairs. They’ve been trying to raise money for the repairs for a couple of years now.
Ooops! And right in front of the children! Hope they’re not traumatized. Nobody was physically hurt in the incident.
See a whole lot more in my YouTube video:
The actual Union Pacific smoke stack still stands in Pocatello, but for how long?
A member of the Iowa National Guard signs a GBU-31, target Syria, 18DEC2025, non-disclosed location in Southwest Asia.
U.S. and Jordanian forces launched large-scale strikes (using more than 1-hundred munitions) on more than 70 targets belonging to the so-called ‘Islamic State In Syria’. This in response to recent ISIS attacks upon so-called ‘War on Terror’ coalition forces.
Idaho based (Mountain Home AFB) ‘Bold Tigers’ F-15E Strike Eagle gets bombed-up for Syria, 18DEC2025, non-disclosed location.
AH-64 Apache bombed-up with Hellfire missiles, 19DEC2025, non-disclosed location.
A-10C Thunderbolt-2 ‘Toad’, 19DEC2025, non-disclosed location in Southwest Asia.
I edited together videos released by U.S. Central Command on 19DEC2025:
HiMARS = High Mobility Artillery Rocket System
HiMARS belonging to Florida Army National Guard’s 164th Air Defense Artillery Brigade-3rd Battalion-116th Field Artillery Regiment, in a non-disclosed location in Southwest Asia.
Kansas Army National Guard’s 130th Field Artillery Brigade watches from a command center in a non-disclosed location in Southwest Asia.
HiMARS video released on 22DEC2025:
U.S. Department of State video from 23SEP2025, New York City, Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio meets with Syrian President, and former ISIS commander, Ahmed al-Sharaa:
Notice the anti-drone cage, and the remote controlled machine gun on the rear of the command post.
“The improved KOT1 V2 command post armored vehicle receives orders from the observation post, processes them and, in a split second, forwards them to the self-propelled howitzer, which, in a short time, computes firing data and is ready for all fire missions.”-Sergeant Major Mladen Miletić, Command Sergeant Major of the 23rd Self-Propelled Howitzer Artillery Battalion
Externally the ‘M21’ Gvozdika looks like any other Gvozdika.
Serbia spent the past few years upgrading their 2S1 self-propelled 122 millimeter (122mm) artillery system with the latest digital targeting and communications electronics.
U.S. Army vehicle I-D training image from the Cold War.
During the Cold War, NATO referred to the 2S1 as the ‘M-1974 SAU-122’. The ‘M-1974’ refers to when NATO observers first noticed the SPG (Self-Propelled Gun), during a July 1974 parade in Warsaw, Poland. The SAU-122 refers to the diameter of the gun bore.
Side note; both NATO and former East Bloc countries call the 122mm gun a ‘howitzer’. Technically this is incorrect as howitzer refers to short tubed, easily transportable by infantry, artillery guns. Guns that had barrels which were much shorter than that of the old Soviet 122mm.
NATO-Germany just passed a law that says if their military fails to recruit 80-thousand men per year then ‘needs-based conscription’ (the draft) will be implemented. It is known as a ‘dual track system’, meaning if you don’t voluntarily join you will be forced into the military. Apparently this new law is because NATO-Germany is having problems achieving the number of personnel required by its NATO membership. Interesting that in this western-woke country they did not include women in their new law.
In Southeastern Idaho, Pocatello’s Center Street Tunnel (underpass) has been around since The Great Depression (1934 to be exact). The Tunnel was built underneath a very busy Union Pacific railyard. The City of Pocatello is supposedly, constantly, repairing the Tunnel. The repair work never lasts long and recently the Tunnel is looking so bad that perhaps it should be permanently shutdown and completely rebuilt.
If you ever hang-out for sometime in and under the Tunnel you’ll hear how impactful the Union Pacific operations are overhead. It seems to me that the Tunnel was not successfully built to handle such railroad induced seismic activities, resulting in never ending taxpayer funded repair projects.
In June 2025, the City announced that the final phase of reconstruction will begin in January 2026. The City also contradicts the date when the Tunnel was originally built, now saying it was 1943 during World War Two! Did the person who wrote the City’s press release transpose the numbers? It was in the 2012 press release that the City established the date as 1934.
In this video I made on 28NOV2025, during the Night Lights Parade, the crumbling concrete is very bad, one of the pedestrian tunnels is blocked off and apparently nobody is maintaining the ped-tunnel that is open:
U.S. World War Two era M101 105-millimeter (105mm) ‘howitzer’ (short gun tube [barrel] artillery) still in use by Philippines.
I edited together several videos via U.S. Marine Corps, recorded during the October 2019 KAMANDAG wargame. KAMANDAG is an acronym for the Filipino phrase Kaagapay Ng Mga Mandirigma Ng Dagat, which translates to Cooperation of Warriors of the Sea:
The United States’ military still uses the M101 for ceremonies.
New Jersey Army National Guard’s M101 howitzer during Memorial Day celebrations.
U.S. Marine Corps M101 during change of command ceremony on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Both the U.S. M101 and Soviet ZiS-3 were used by various countries during the Cold War (approximately 1947 to 1991).
The ZiS-3 (76-мм дивизионная пушка обр. 1942 г. [ЗиС-3]) is considered to be a ‘divisional/regimental’ or ‘field’ gun for use by front line troops, due to its relatively small projectile and short range (compared to larger artillery).
Some ‘official’ sources say the ZiS-3 was in combat use by militaries around the world until 1990 (end of the Cold War). However, the above photo shows a Serb ZiS-3, supposedly used during the war in the former Yugoslavia, being inspected by U.S. Soldiers in Zvornik, Serbia, in 1996.
The ZiS-3 (aka M1942) was so good that the invading Germans captured them for their own use against the Soviets!
The WW2 (Great Patriotic War) era Soviet 76.2mm artillery gun is still being used by Serbia for ceremonial purposes. I edited this from several Serbian Armed Forces videos, recorded from the 14FEB2025 Serbian Statehood Day, and the 11NOV2024 Armistice Day (Veterans Day in the United States), ceremonies:
