UT-Arlington, Purdue, & SMU grad; volunteer CFO of nonPareil Institute - Building Better Futures for Adults with Autism; volunteer for Paws Place Rescue
Texas, USA
Joined February 2014
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Vicki Hill retweeted
The M&S Christmas advert. So much better than the dreadful John Lewis Christmas advert.
Vicki Hill retweeted
Every GOP strategist, consultant, and candidate should be forced to participate in a role-playing exercise this morning.
Your name is Bob. You’re a 49-year-old blue-collar worker in Ohio. You’ve always struggled to make ends meet. The good jobs were all shipped to China and the few remaining pay a pittance wage, undercut by endless illegal labor.
You’re a 3x Trump voter because you believed he would finally make America great again.
You put your son through Ohio State. He graduated cum laude in computer science. You couldn’t have been prouder. After months searching, he landed an entry-level job at Microsoft. Beneath his qualifications, but a good start for a smart kid.
Then he got laid off. That same month, Microsoft applied for 150,000 more H-1B visas because it can’t find qualified Americans.
Your son has spent six months back in his childhood bedroom, sending hundreds of applications without landing an interview.
On TV, Trump boasts about the greatest economy in history and how many women and minorities are finding jobs.
You decide a father-son steak night might cheer him up.
Gas is $4.50 a gallon. Filling your truck costs over $100. At Kroger, ribeyes are $30/lb. You settle for hamburger, even though 70/30 ground beef still costs $10+.
At checkout, a fat black woman is screaming at the cashier because her EBT will only cover most of the filet mignon and lobster in her cart.
You think to yourself how the Iran war has made everything expensive, but at least we’re stopping their nuclear bomb. You weren’t even sure where Iran was before you googled it after we first bombed them in March.
After dinner, you take your son to the county fair. Half the people aren’t speaking English. Virtually none of the crowd looks like you. You’re forced to leave early after a “teen takeover” turns violent. A foreign born judge pledges none of them will go to jail.
Back home, you turn on the TV. Vivek Ramaswamy is lecturing the crowd about American mediocrity and why Ohio needs more foreign talent.
Your son grows upset. You change the channel.
Now a Republican surrogate, the daughter of a governor or wife of an elderly billionaire, explains that young White men are the REAL welfare queens. They’d rather play videogames in their parents’ basements than work.
Your son says nothing. He just goes back to his childhood bedroom. You turn off the TV.
Then your neighbor starts blasting reggaeton and cracking open Modelos. He brought his cousin’s family from Mexico to help with all the minority-business contracts his construction firm keeps winning. Tonight they’re celebrating his nephew’s birth, the family’s first birthright American citizen.
You sit alone in your living room.
You worked hard, paid taxes, obeyed the law, and raised your son to do everything right. You voted Republican again and again because you believed somebody in Washington would finally fight for you.
Instead, your wages are stagnant. Groceries are unaffordable. Your community is unrecognizable. Your country is fighting another foreign war.
And upstairs, the son you sacrificed everything for is lying awake in the bedroom he slept in at twelve, wondering what the heck he’s even supposed to do with his life now.
Every time you turn on the TV, the Republicans you elected are either congratulating themselves or explaining why you and your son are the problem.
For ten years, they told you America’s future depended on your vote. Now you aren’t even sure America has a future worth defending.
The Republican Party needs to answer one simple question this morning:
You’ve spent a decade demanding Bob’s loyalty. You’ve given him stagnant wages, unaffordable groceries, another foreign war, and a son who did everything right but can’t find work.
And when they complain, you call them lazy, entitled, and racist.
What possible reason have you given Bob and his son to vote Republican? Do you honestly think you deserve their vote?
One hope with Dem rout in TX: fix TX Medicaid. People with disabilities now wait 20+ YEARS for basic services because TX routinely underfunds Medicaid. Worst in the US. (My disabled son got help after 11 years; waiting list is now much longer.) Money is there in Rainy Day Fund.
Vicki Hill retweeted
Forget all the huge supermarkets and their mawkish Christmas adverts, this was the best Christmas advert - Enniskillen pub Charlie's put out this advert back in 2023. It’s brilliant.
Vicki Hill retweeted
My older brother came to see Mom and me tonight, and I found myself looking at him with a mixture of love, admiration, and a little sadness.
My brother is on the autism spectrum. He has an extraordinary mind, a remarkable memory, and a wealth of knowledge that amazes me. He is brilliant in ways many people will never fully appreciate. Yet some of the everyday things that come naturally to others have required tremendous effort from him throughout his life.
He has always depended on routine to bring order and comfort to his world. Tonight, he arrived late after having to return home for his forgotten wallet. He was nervous and unsettled when he arrived. He had brought his change of clothes and belongings in a cardboard box rather than an overnight bag.
To someone else, these might seem like unusual little details. But to me, they are simply part of the brother I have known and loved all my life. He does things in his own way, and there is dignity in that.
When he walked in, he called me “Sis,” just as he always has. That one familiar word touched my heart.
At one point, he quietly said, “I am out of my routine.” I appreciated his ability to recognize and express what he was feeling. And as the evening went on, I watched him relax and enjoy being with us.
Looking at him tonight, I could see how much he has aged. That was difficult for me. Not because I see him as less capable or less of a man, but because I know his life has demanded so much of him. I know how hard he has worked to navigate a world that doesn’t always understand him.
My brother has lived his life with challenges many people never see, but he has also lived it with intelligence, love for God, determination, independence, and a quiet strength that deserves respect.
He lives on his own. He has built a life around what works for him. And tonight, despite the disruption to his routine, he made the effort to come spend time with his mother and sister.
I don’t want the world to look at my brother and see only his struggles. I want people to recognize the whole man. His brilliant mind. His individuality. His perseverance. His knowledge. His humanity. And the dignity with which he has lived his life.
I wish some things had been easier for him. I wish the world had always met him with the understanding and respect he deserves.
But more than anything, tonight reminded me how proud I am to be his sister.
He is not defined by what is difficult for him. He is my big brother, a remarkable man in his own right, and someone I deeply admire.
And no matter how many years pass, I will always treasure hearing him call me “Sis.”
I love my brother so much. ❤️
Vicki Hill retweeted
Wow! What an incredible Show, Johnny asks if anyone can play the Piano in the Audience and a Guy comes down in Flip flops and a Nike shirt. Then he gets to play!
Vicki Hill retweeted
Nevada became a state on Halloween in 1864 because Abraham Lincoln wanted their votes.
The Civil War was dragging on without victory for the North, and Lincoln’s reelection was in serious doubt. That summer, he privately wrote that he expected to lose.
The territory of Nevada was loyal to the Union and solidly Republican, so Lincoln began rushing the process to make it a state before the election to increase his chances.
But it wasn't moving fast enough. The required copies of Nevada’s new constitution were on their way to Washington by overland mail, but they wouldn't make it in time.
So the territorial governor sent the entire constitution by telegraph.
More than 16,000 words were tapped out in Morse code and relayed through Salt Lake City and Chicago to Washington.
It cost over $4,000, ($90,000 today) the longest and most expensive telegram ever sent at the time.
On October 31, 1864, Lincoln proclaimed Nevada the 36th state. Just days before the election.
By then, the war had turned in the Union's favor and Lincoln would have won anyway. But Nevada did vote for him.
Achieving statehood during the Civil War. Nevada is still called the Battle Born State.
Vicki Hill retweeted
In 1835, a Young French Aristocrat Predicted the Exact Bureaucratic Trap Threatening the West Today
Before the philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville ever set foot in America, radical tyranny had already scarred his family. During the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, left-wing Jacobin zealots guillotined his great-grandfather and threw his newlywed parents into a Paris dungeon. Waiting daily for the executioner's blade, his father’s hair turned snow-white at the age of twenty-one. Only the sudden fall of Robespierre spared his parents' lives by a matter of hours, allowing Alexis to be born a decade later.
Raised in the shadow of state terror, Tocqueville became obsessed with a single question: why did the French pursuit of utopian equality end in a bloodbath, while the American Revolution produced the freest, most prosperous republic on earth? In 1831, at just twenty-five years old, he convinced the French government to send him to the United States under the mundane bureaucratic cover of inspecting American prisons. Once he arrived, he spent nine months traveling seven thousand miles by stagecoach, steamboat, and horseback to study the soul of the American citizen.
His observations became Democracy in America, one of the most brilliant political analyses ever written. Tocqueville realized that American greatness rested on three pillars: fierce individual self-reliance, decentralized local communities, and a strong foundation of religious morality. Whenever Americans saw a problem, they formed a local group and fixed it themselves rather than begging a distant politician for help.
Yet as he studied the young republic, Tocqueville foresaw a chilling vulnerability. He realized that a proud, armed citizenry would always fight back against an obvious military dictator. Therefore, future tyrants would abandon whips and chains in favor of welfare, cradle-to-grave safety, and endless administrative rules. They would conquer free citizens by offering to manage their lives in the name of compassion.
Describing this future nanny state in 1840, Tocqueville wrote a passage that reads like a headline from today:
"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate... It seeks to keep them in perpetual childhood. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd... till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
Tocqueville called this system "soft despotism." Nearly two centuries ago, he understood that when citizens trade personal responsibility for government security, the state gladly reduces them to dependent children. Every bloated regulatory agency, speech code, and entitlement program today operates on the exact blueprint he exposed. Liberty rarely perishes overnight in a violent coup; it erodes quietly when a free people allow bureaucrats to become their shepherds.
Vicki Hill retweeted
I want to update my original post which was based on another post that laid out the scenario & location of the incident.
I accepted the scenario & questioned the location. In fact I’ve now received a great deal of new information from soldiers who were there & want to correct the record.
So here’s what I know: the location is correct, the scenario (an artillery round caused the explosion) was totally wrong.
Soldiers on the ground are saying 2 training scenarios were happening in that location simultaneously.
First there is lots of static ranges that face the second lake from rifle ranges to a 60 mm mortar range to a grenade range to an antitank range limited to the M72 & 84 mm Carl Gustov. These hand held shoulder fired anti armour weapons have been used by CDN infantry platoons for 4 decades now. They are generally very effective & reliable.
I’m told a Carl G was being fired at a target some 300 metres away from a static cement bay using the standing position. The safety officer stands about 18” away in a cement bay observing every action taken by the loader & gunner. This is very basic infantry training & carried out at least annually.
In this case a high explosive (HE) round was being fired.
Apparently shortly after the HE round was fired it malfunctioned & dove at full speed into the ground striking either a buried natural gas wellhead or pipeline which exploded. There were casualties at this range caused by the blast wave.
Simultaneously there were some 150 soldiers training in fighting in built up areas (FIBUA or Urban Warfare) using blank ammo or just running through the basic drills using dry fire. No live ammunition, no explosives of any type, certainly no live indirect fire. There were 3 wooden structures being used & all three were completely destroyed by the blast. A significant number of casualties occurred here.
The explosion led to a grass fire which was whipped up by strong gusts of wind which blew directly through the units bivouac site (tented area where troops sleep, rest, park vehicles etc) casing additional casualties. The fire then continued on & went beyond the training area into the municipality of Wainwright.
At this point, it appears that this series of incidents began with a round malfunctioning & doing damage that never could have been imagined let alone predicted or prevented.
As was the case last night, the fog of war/crisis still exists so information may still change.
This is not because of a cover up or some imaginary conspiracy.
If the casualty count is only half as high as some are claiming you will have to go back to the darkest days of WWII to find similar numbers & never has a training exercise seen anything like this so a great deal must be done in the immediate aftermath before making definitive public statements so please have patience, please believe everyone is trying to get this right & those who really care are more than willing to correct their earlier errors as the newest information comes in.
Think long & hard about what you post…thousand of soldiers & their families are watching! Please keep them all including the military & civilian first responders in your prayers.
I hope this helps & I’ll potentially post more as it becomes available.
I have no direct knowledge about what happened but based on this post, I think I can add some clarity to things I read in the comments.
There are many types of ranges within the CFB Wainwright training area & there is an attached permanent base area that has training & administrative buildings, dining halls, barracks & even a whole community of houses for married permanent staff members. All ranges are in the training area several kms from the base area.
Some ranges are permanent & fixed in place, some amount to an area on the map & range orders that tell the user what types of weapons can be fired within that designated area. This type of live fire range is likely where this incident took place.
Once you decide that a live fire range is going to happen a Range Safety Officer must be designated. The RSO works with Assistant RSO’s who are qualified to template (safely determine where a weapon can be fired from based on its maximum range, if it’s an indirect fire weapon like an artillery or mortar shell, there’s lots of added factors to be considered) the different weapons that will be used from rifles to medium & heavy MG’s to anti tank weapons to 2 calibres of mortars to artillery. All these folks work with a permanent base organization called Range Control who ensure all the templates are properly done, all the safety rules are understood, all the temporary safety staff are qualified for their jobs & that flags, road barriers & guards on the outer perimeter have been assigned & are in place so no one just wonders into a shit storm.
They assign a safety frequency separate from the tactical frequency. Whenever any obstacles or sensitive things are located within a designated live fire training area or range, they are made known to the range safety staff by Range Control so that buffer or restricted zones can be placed around them.
The area indicated (see the map) near the 2 lakes was never authorized for indirect fire & if my memory is correct, it was never authorized for any form of live fire training.
It should also be noted that prior to any live fire range involving multiple weapons systems (especially indirect fire) & movement by troops, the safety staff would not just rely on maps & templates & written rules, they would be walking the ground repeatedly so they were 100% familiar with what is referred to as the trace, which is just another way of saying, the direction the training troops would generally follow.
A good range gives as much latitude to the tactical officer or NCO in charge to fire & maneuver using the ground to their advantage but still ensuring that their weapons are staying within the safety arcs. This takes a lot of effort by a very large safety team & must also stand up to the inspection by a full time Range Control Officer.
Typically indirect fire is tightly controlled both by the safety staff assigned to monitor the tactical fire controllers requesting the indirect fire & by the safety team at the gun or mortar line positions to ensure the rounds will land safely & avoid any potentially dangerous targets such as a gas well. This is double checked by those doing the firing & their safety monitors several kms away.
So two things jump off the page with this report. One based on my years of working in Wainwright both as a trainee, as permanent staff & as a safety officer for indirect mortar fire countless times including on static & maneuver ranges, I can’t imagine this part of the training area ever being used for any form of live fire let alone indirect fire.
And two, the idea that at least 6 people would have had to miss the fact that a restricted target had been selected or the folks at the gun line had entered the coordinates incorrectly into the targeting computer or set up the gun line incorrectly is beyond imagination.
There are so many safety redundancies built into using indirect artillery fire with troops on the ground it’s nearly impossible to believe.
Hope this helps!
