Blackfive and Wolf(s) at Blogworld Expo!

Posted By Mr Wolf

UPDATE 10/16:  Successful first day of the BWE, and Laughing Wolf put on a great symposium/Milblog track here.  Blackfive, as usual, did a fantastic job moderating the panel for 'what is next for milblogs'.  While no breakthroughs were developed, it was a consensus that the milblogs will continue to be a factor for the forseeable future- especially with the Afghanistan front. 

BE SURE to listen to Hugh Hewitt's show tonight during the first hour- Blackfive is scheduled to be on LIVE from the Blogworld Expo convention center floor.  Its always fun when he gets a chance at Hugh's show...

Blackfive, Mr Wolf, and Laughing Wolf are attending Blogworld Expo this week here in Vegas.  Yeah, someone has to take it for the team.

We are opening the Milblog track just now, with the Spousebloggers as the first session- Tammy Munson is moderating this panel.

Up later today: Best Milblogs you've never read- moderated by Greyhawk from Mudville Gazette; they are up at 2pm Eastern Time.

Mr Wolf will be moderating Milblogs- not your standard news source, at 4:30 Eastern.

BlackFive will moderate the final session of the day- What's next for milblogs, at 7pm Eastern.

And this is just the first day!

Stay tuned- we'll have more later...

Forgot to add:  you can follow events here:

http://kithbridge.com/blogworld/bw08onsite.htm

http://www.blogworldexpo.com/general-information/yubby

Wolf

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Damning Evidence on 'Troop Support' Groups

Posted By Mr Wolf

We've seen a few new blogs and sites come up recently that put out some pipe-hittin', hard-chargin' expose's and information on many groups (just go see BigGovernment.com re: ACORN) and the new Legion blog is working their way there.

The BurnPit, over at burnpit.legion.org, lays it out on those VERY leftist organizations that purport to support us vets, but really do nothing of the sort.  In fact, they RARELY even have true 'vets' involved.  Sickening.  Seventh Son writes writes a blistering piece about a few of our 'fave' groups.  Only a group that has told the President face-to-face ''No'' can pull this kind of piece off and be totally honest in it.

Go read for yourself....

Wolf

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Today- Live at the Legion Convention

Posted By Mr Wolf

1400 -- Most of the 'major' activities are over for the afternoon.  Tonight, the commander's dinner and meeting with some of the guest speakers from today.  Also, I'll have some news about B5 and my new 'home' post within the Legion.  Its quite an honor.

In my Tweeting, I've covered that the Legion Riders have brought over $609,000 dollars in donations for the Legacy Ride campaign to help the children of those killed in action in the GWOT.  Its a HUGE amount..and more than last year.  That, my friends, shows the work that in a down year, in a bad economy, they still come thru.  Just.Awesome.

1127 -- LtCol Strobl just finished, and now Sec'y Shinseki is up; it was odd- he rolls up, walks in, meets Cdr Rehbein, and straight to the stage.  ZERO prep time.  Afterwards, will head STRAIGHT out to another meeting in SD.  Unreal how little time they typically spend in places.

LtCol Strobl received a very distinguished award from the Legion- they showed snippets of the 'Taking Chance' video before he spoke- huge, warm, standing ovation for him when he arrived at the podium.  I am surprised, however, at how few people I've spoken to have seen it.  I'll have more of my conversation with him later tonight.  He is, genuinely, a great person and was super, super nice.

1000--  sorry for the delay- backstage again at the convention- meeting and talking with the key speakers and reps here.  Have some really good stuff to come up later once I can digest it all... MOST FUN: SSG from USAF, receiving an award from Legion- ''WE WILL WIN in this GWOT!"  Got a great ovation from the crowd.. short, sweet, strong statements.  He looked like a PJ...

0915-- National Commander Dave Rehbein is discussing the Covenant, signed by a host of key leaders- Mullen, Petraeus, USAR, ARNG, Miss America, politicians, all to pledge continued support, and improving support, for veterans in each community.

ADM Mullen and GEN Petraeus just finished- now the Adjutant General of KY is speaking.  All of these are addressing a Covenant sponsored by the Legion- I"ll get more on this later and post up.  ALL are signing copies of it- I'll try to snag one and photograph...

0857-- Miss America is up on stage!  Truly a beautiful person.  Maybe take her on a tour of Louisville???  Ha!

0845- Micheal Peterson is up on stage crooning it out- a cross between Travis Tritt and Garth Brooks.  Must be the hat :)  But, he truly cares about those who've served.  Just yesterday I 'corrected' him about 'medal winners'.  Said sir, they are RECIPIENTS.  No one 'wins' medals.  He was totally gracious about it.  Sorry, but its a real hot spot for me- and any vet who's received an honor like that. 

The slideshow is really good.  Try to catch it online.  Oh, and I know its 4 bucks to watch; going to address that with those folks.  WTH charges for web broadcasts?  Not even HULU.  But, they're new at this.  How about just putting up a donate button????

0830- Just had a chat with ADM Mullen- have made it known that we are following him, and his PAO certainly follows us here on B5.  Going to make sure that they know we are watching :)

0815- ADM Mullen and GEN Petraus have arrived!  Just shook hands with the General- hope to get some more time after all the craziness has ended.  Quite a few people here- its amazing what this type of work does.  Brings back memories of my days as chief of Protocol.... uh, no thanks to that anymore....

Keep following, and on Twitter @warriororg...

0750- Today's updates will try to be LIVE, as I can, from the floor of the convention.  This is BlackFives first attempt at this, and we'll see how this goes.

As always, you can follow us via the WLF tweet- @warriororg.  Co-sponsoring my visit here to the convention.  If you have any questions, please be sure to add comments!  - Wolf

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Military Ban on Social Networks Gets another Look

Posted By Blackfive

The Department of Defense is taking another look at social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook in an effort to prevent a ban:

Officials Look to Solve Social Network Risks Without Ban
Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs
Story by John Kruzel
Date: 08.06.2009

WASHINGTON - As Pentagon officials weigh the benefits and risks of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, they hope to craft a policy that shores up security vulnerabilities without requiring a ban.

Meanwhile, the Marine Corps has clarified its guidelines on social networking, and officials said they would consider the findings gleaned in the Pentagon policy review due out in late September.

Defense officials have said the policy review will attempt to balance the pros of social networking – such as its value for recruiting, public affairs and communication between troops and their families -- against the potential security risks they create, which include violations of operations security, network vulnerability and bandwidth drain.

Asked if the Pentagon is leaning toward a policy that doesn't require a departmentwide ban, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman replied, "I think certainly it is."

"We need to do this comprehensive review, determine what the vulnerabilities are, match that against the benefits we receive from being able to use these new tools and capabilities, and then try to establish a policy that will accommodate all of that," Whitman said in an interview yesterday...

Continue reading "Military Ban on Social Networks Gets another Look"

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My Top Ten Military Blogs

Posted By Blackfive

I was asked by Blogs.com to list my favorite milblogs.  I hate to do these kinds of things because good people are always left out, and, quite frankly, my list changes by the week.  In the end, I saw it as a chance to highlight some of my favorites. 

Go check my Top Ten List of Military and Veteran Blogs you should read.

Unfortunately, my Honorable Mentions were not able to get on the post so I will list them here.  Go visit them:

BlackFive's Honorable Mentions:

Sorority Soldier is a female soldier in Iraq.  Her job as broadcast journalist allows to observe quite a bit of interesting situations in country.
http://sororitysoldier.com/journal/

Doc H's International Adventure is written by a Navy doctor in Afghanistan who blogs about the trials and tribulations of training Afghans medical personnel.
http://dochsia.blogspot.com/

Army of Dude was nominated two years in a row for Best Military Blog.  Alex Horton, it's founder, did a tour in Iraq and is now back home writing about his memories of Iraq and commenting on current military actions.  I am a fan of his Military Movie Review Haiku.
http://www.armyofdude.blogspot.com/

Afghanistan My Last Tour is written by a senior Air Force sergeant embedded in an Afghan unit.  He writes of his life in Afghanistan teaching, training and mentoring.
http://afghanistanmylasttour.com/

Please feel free to put links to military blogs that are your favorites in the Comments.

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Blood Pressure Check of the Day

Posted By Mr Wolf

While doing my usual perusal of the internets while working (loosely defined) I headed over to JALOPNIK to see what the latest auto news was.

And came upon this entry, which at first I thought was awesome.  Seems the USAF has built some wondercars to showcase for recruiting efforts.  Some super-hi-tech stuff, which I doubt someone could pilot out of their garage, let alone drive down the freeway.

A peek:

Now, these are awesome.  But then I started looking at the comments-

Triborough
1:05 PM on Wed Jun 3 2009

If anyone is dumb enough to join the military, they'll love this car!

Then, some troll named 'Elwood' chimed in:

elwood
1:46 PM on Wed Jun 3 2009

@pauljones: Cheesy awesome is only awesome for about 5 minutes. Then you realize that it's just stupid. Like these cars.

@Alfisted: Or they coulda skipped the military, put the maximum contribution to their 401k, and been better off overall. If you really are highly intelligent and college educated, you're probably too smart for the armed forces.

And it goes on.  One of the longer chain of comments I've seen on the blog.  Its hideous.

Mr Wolf

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Damian Brooks in Afghanistan

Posted By Blackfive

Damian Brooks recently went to Kandahar, Afghanistan with the Canadian Forces, and has been writing about his experiences at The Torch.  There's a list of his posts from over there in the right sidebar (Damian's Afghanistan Posts), and I think these three are some of the best so far:

   

* The winning percentage
* Patrol, pt. 1 - headed to Double K
* Patrol, pt. 2 - Dand District Centre

You need to keep this guy on your radar.

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Some >Excellent< New Video

Posted By Mr Wolf

I'd like to introduce you to a new character that we'll be hearing more from in the future- Pierre Rehov.

Mr. Rehov is a recent immigre' to the US, coming by way of France (Paris, to be exact).  Mr Rehov contacted the Blackfive crew a few days ago, asking us to take a look at his videos.

To say we were impressed is an understatement...

He has a very good sense of videography, and has edited some of his material that he'd like to share with us.  I hope he shares a hell of a lot more, because it's good. 

But heck, we've all seen good video before, right?  We've met people from France.  But, a good videographer AND someone who's less than socialist, from France?

Hardly ever.  Take a look at this, his latest release:

When I first received his invitation, I thought ''here we go.  French videographer.  In Iraq.  Probably nothing more than body counts and White Phosphorus videos from Fallujah.''  I could not have been more wrong.  Mr. Rehov left France, as he tells me, because he ''could not take the politics anymore''.  So into NYC he goes, looking to make his mark.  He's certainly going to make one here.  He's barely scratched the surface of what he has shot.

He has been in Iraq as recently as last winter (one of VERY few French journalists embedded with the Coalition), and has even traveled throughout the Gaza strip shooting video for various outlets.  He tells of being abducted by militants, thrown to the ground with an AK to his head, and accused of being with the Mossad.  The only grace he had was showing them his French passport, which the militants immediately recognize and respect, then let him be.

I hope to post up/link up to some more of his stuff here soon.  Hopefully, we'll be able to help him on some trips into the region to report on perspectives we might not otherwise get.

Welcome, sir, to the US.  May you prosper well...

Wolf

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The 2008 Weblog Awards

Posted By Blackfive

Update:  There are two more days of voting left!  Please vote!

For the fifth year, BlackFive has been nominated for the 2008 MilBlog of the Year. The competition is tough this year. 

 

The authors here are not paid but are thankful and humbled by the ability you, our readers, give us to make an impact every day.  That's pay back enough.

So, while I'd like you to vote for Blackfive, please just vote for a MilBlog.  Big numbers helps us keep the category in the awards and there are some great blogs to choose from.

After the Jump, we will make some friendly suggestions of who we're voting for.  There are a lot of great bloggers out there so please don't think that the list is exclusive (and we did not agree on every pick, either, as indicated by asterisk).  We just had to make a decision on who to support and much of what we decided had to do with impact (and impact on the military). 

Thanks for your vote!

~ BlackFive

Continue reading "The 2008 Weblog Awards "

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The US Air Force Flowchart on Blogging

Posted By Blackfive

Noah Shachtman, Wired's Danger Room editor, has a story about the USAF and their rules for blogging counter-blogging.  There is even a flow chart to help Airmen counter blogs...go check it out.

Am I worried?

Nope.

The USAF blocks Blackfive.

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