COMBAT RAIDER: A USAF B-1B takes off from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, during joint exercise Combat Raider 18-2.

FUGITIVE FLAMINGO THAT ESCAPED ZOO IN 2005 ON THE LAM IN TEXAS: His tag number is 492. But he’s not a number, he’s a free flamingo.

WELCOME TO THE INDO-PACIFIC: An F/A-18E/F Super Hornet lands on the USS Ronald Reagan.

COTTON ON THE WINGS: An F/A-18 Super Hornet makes a high-speed turn over the carrier USS Harry S. Truman.

ARMOR AT HOHENFELS: U.S. Army M1 Abrams tanks assigned to 1st Infantry Division in a convoy. Oh the memories.

THE AYATOLLAH’S GLOBAL REVOLUTION IS NOT WORKING OUT AS HE THOUGHT IT WOULD: As protests continue, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demands order! Looks like the Supreme Leader business isn’t so splendid, either…Barack Obama was not available for comment.

RELATED: Iran’s violent meddling in Yemen isn’t going so well, either.

A STACK OF BLUE ANGELS: A fabulous aerial stunt.

BATTLE BREWING FOR A YEMENI SEAPORT: It appears the Saudi-led coalition has already dealt Iran a defeat.

ALASKA RED FLAG BAD GUYS: An F-16 from the USAF’s 18th Aggressor Squadron.

TRAIL OF FLARES: A Navy MH-60S Seahawk helicopter fires flares near the USS Carl Vinson. The carrier is operating “somewhere” in the Pacific Ocean.

STRUNK AT 100: Academics debate the usefulness of Elements of Style.

THE CROOKED DEMOCRATS’ DEEP STROKE: Who Peter Strzok is and what he did.

Sharyl Attkisson reports:

As former top FBI official Peter Strzok faces congressional requests to testify, it’s worth examining who he is.

Strzok is the subject of what I see as one of the most damaging conclusions in the Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general report: As the nation’s top FBI counterespionage official, he indicated “a willingness to take official action to impact [Donald Trump’s] electoral prospects.”

Specifically, while working on the Hillary Clinton classified email investigation in August 2016, Strzok wrote that he and unnamed others would “stop” Trump from getting elected. He shared his intentions with at least one other FBI official, attorney Lisa Page.

Strzok isn’t just any rank-and-file guy spouting off in one ill-advised email. His fingerprints were on every FBI investigation that stood to impact Clinton’s presidential candidacy or to hurt Trump before and after the 2016 election.

He was chief of the FBI’s Counterespionage Section and number two in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. He led the team of investigators in the Clinton classified email probe and led the FBI investigation into alleged Russian interference in the election. He was involved in the controversial anti-Trump “Steele dossier” used, in part, to obtain multiple secret wiretaps. He was the one who interviewed Trump adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who pled guilty to lying to the FBI only to later learn that agents reportedly didn’t think he’d lied. And Strzok was the “top” FBI agent appointed to work on the team of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate alleged Trump-Russia collusion.

Watergate had Deep Throat. Obama’s greatest scandal –which continues past his administration– had Strzok’s deep stroke.

SOME WAR IS LOCAL: Puntland forces raid Somaliland police stations.

DEEP BACKGROUND FROM 2002: Hey, it’s way ahead of the news.

BUFF ON A TREK: A B-52 –that BUFF– departs Guam enroute to Australia.

RELATED: A milspeak guide book for translating BUFF and other similar terms.

A SHIFT IN NORTH KOREAN DOMESTIC PROPAGANDA:

…the new posters are just as much propaganda as the old ones, but they highlight different themes: reunification of the Koreas, economic progress and scientific achievement.

The change follows an internal logic: if talks with the South and the US are being reported as the beginning of possible future co-operation then the two former adversaries have to be displayed in a more neutral and less threatening way.

Why else would Kim Jong-un otherwise sit down for talks with those countries’ leaders?

I link, you decide.

GHASTLY TRAGEDY– 9,000 LOST: Overcome by the magnitude, I staggered to the cabinet to pour a reviving shot of Woodford Reserve.

SABER STRIKE POLAND: A U.S. Army Chinook helicopter takes off after unloading equipment during Exercise Saber Strike 18 at Ziemsko Airfield, Poland.

SHOUT IT LOUD AND PROUD: Embrace the Suck audio version is out — at Amazon. Drill sergeant quality without the decibels.

THE UNABRIDGED AUDIO: Embrace the Suck aloud — at Amazon.

VIOLENT STAGNATION: Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine has stalemated, but the blood continues to flow.

So who is losing this stalemated European war? Ukraine has lost territory it may never recover. Though Russian “separatist” forces have failed to take key Ukrainian cities like Mariupol, Kremlin support for separatists has sapped Ukraine politically, stymied economic growth and increased domestic debt. Kiev struggles with internal corruption.

On the other hand, the revived Russian superpower Putin vowed to create is faltering in a Donbas quagmire his Kremlin created.

My latest Creators Syndicate column.

EAGLE TRIO OVER OHIO: Three F-15s in formation behind a USAF KC-135 Stratotanker.

RED FLAG ALASKA EXERCISE PREPARATION: An A-10 on the runway at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.

THE RUSSO-UKRAINE WAR’S VIOLENT STAGNATION: Some consequences Putin didn’t expect.

VENOM ON A NIGHT EXERCISE: A Marine UH-1Y Venom refuels at a forward arming and refueling point in Yuma, Ariz. Stunning color photo taken by a USMC corporal.

ARE YOU AN ALTER?

From Scientific American:

In 2015, doctors in Germany reported the extraordinary case of a woman who suffered from what has traditionally been called “multiple personality disorder” and today is known as “dissociative identity disorder” (DID). The woman exhibited a variety of dissociated personalities (“alters”), some of which claimed to be blind. Using EEGs, the doctors were able to ascertain that the brain activity normally associated with sight wasn’t present while a blind alter was in control of the woman’s body, even though her eyes were open. Remarkably, when a sighted alter assumed control, the usual brain activity returned.

More:

Now, a newly published paper…posits that dissociation can offer a solution to a critical problem in our current understanding of the nature of reality. This requires some background…

Perhaps we are all alters. So read the whole thing for background and explanation.