Democrat leaders including Nancy Pelosi knew all about waterboarding over five years ago when it was actually being used, and only began making an issue of it in 2005 after the CIA had already abandoned its use.
In other words, the whole waterboarding protest by Democrats had nothing to do with principles, only with cynical political grandstanding.
Once again Democrats fake having principles, and Democrat leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), have no problem going before the American people to lie and demagogue issues of national security.
As long as Americans are such willing dupes, Democrats might as well continue their lies.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Karamürsel Air Station, Turkey, 1964
I arrived at Karamürsel Air Station, Turkey, early in the summer of 1964, (Here is a YouTube video of Karamursel in 1964 that brings back many memories) I was finally going to work for the Air Force with almost half of my four-year enlistment already behind me. After Basic Training, I had gone to Indiana University for nine months of intensive Russian language school. That finished my first year. Then I went to Radio Intercept School at Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas. Halfway through the class at Goodfellow, Bruce was born in Vallejo, California. My first born was almost three months old when we finally met.
By the time I finished at Goodfellow AFB, another half year was gone. After Goodfellow, most Russian radio intercept specialists were sent overseas to a duty station. Happily for me, after relaxing through my first two years of college, I had joined the Air Force, married Marilynn, and immediately and miraculously was transformed from a lazy fun-lover into a hard-working student. At Indiana University I finished third in a class of eighty of the brightest guys I ever met, then first in my class at Goodfellow.
Unbeknownst to me, that earned me a selection to attend a specialized radio intercept school at the National Security Agency (NSA), Fort Meade, Maryland, called J-School. There they taught us about copying Russian missile test activity. Upon completion of J-School, we had only four possible base assignments: Karamürsel, Trabzon, and Samsun Air Stations in Turkey, and Peshawar Air Station, Pakistan. I finished top of my class again, and I knew that earned me the prized first choice of assignment. I chose Karamürsel, at that time the only one of the four where I possibly could have Marilynn and Bruce join me.
Traveling in civilian clothes (called Category Z), required at that time when going to a base in Turkey, I waved goodbye to Marilynn and Bruce and boarded a Boeing 707 (I think it was Trans World Airlines – TWA) at San Francisco International Airport. It was a passage to unknowns, my first experiences of living in a foreign land. I was leaving Marilynn and Bruce behind, after our three months together in Maryland, probably not to see them again for six months or more. Still I wasn’t sad, and I wasn’t worried. I had this sense of happy adventuring, of impatience to see what came next.
The flights I took to get from San Francisco to Istanbul were adventures in themselves. First stop was New York, to change to legendary Pan American flight 002 that went from New York eastward around the world to San Francisco, while Pan American flight 001 flew the reverse route.
That Pan American flight was my most memorable. None since have been better. The meals were especially good, served by young, pretty stewardesses, who at that time thought they had glamorous, exciting jobs. Stewardesses then were the envy of young ladies because they traveled to interesting, exotic places, they were very poised and professional doing their jobs, and, oh yeah, they attracted the attention of men of all ages. For their poise, their bearing, their beauty, they deserved it. Although a pale imitation, Singapore Air is the closest of the modern carriers to the good old days.
Enroute we had a short stop at Heathrow Airport, London, and then at Belgrade, Yugoslavia. In those days passengers went to their aircraft by bus or walking, and then went up portable stairs into the plane. At Belgrade my plane parked on the apron about 200 yards from the terminal, and a cabin door was opened and the portable stairs were placed to allow some passengers to disembark, and others to come aboard.
We had been warned that the Yugoslav government was very sensitive about their airport security, because the Yugoslav Air Force shared the Belgrade airport with commercial aviation, and for that reason no photo taking was allowed. After passengers left, and new ones boarded, I went out onto the top of the stairs to stretch – and surreptitiously take some photos with my 35mm camera.
I snapped a couple, and then noticed near the terminal doors that a plump woman in a frumpy brown uniform saw me taking pictures. She raised her arms to signal me to stop, and then started trotting across the apron from the terminal towards my plane, all the while waving her arms in an “X” pattern as she ran.
I ducked back into the plane, went to my seat and ditched my camera in the overhead bin, pulled a blanket around me, and pretended to sleep. I have no idea what the uniformed woman did, whether she climbed the stairs, whether she entered the plane, whether she talked to anyone. I kept my eyes shut, and didn’t hear anything unusual.
Soon we started on the last leg of my journey, to Yesilkoy Airport, on the north shore of the Sea of Marmara about ten miles west of Istanbul. After picking up my suitcase and duffel bag from the baggage claim, I went to a transportation desk operated by the US Navy, and a Navy van took me to the ferry landing at the Galata Bridge, in the heart of Istanbul. The Galata Bridge I saw was built on pontoons in 1912, and connected downtown Istanbul to the area where the Great Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia Mosque, and Topkapi are located (and the area where Alice and I stayed for a week in 2008, including a day trip to Yalova. I didn't recognize anything in Yalova; the house we had lived in was torn down and replaced by a multi-story apartments building.)
In researching this story, I learned the old pontoon bridge was replaced with a modern bridge in 1992.
When I got out of the Navy van, a Turk came to me and indicated he would carry my bags for two Turkish lira (a few pennies less than a quarter). I agreed, and followed him to the ferry ticket booth. There I quickly purchased a ticket, and turned to get my bags and board the ferry. The Turk and my bags were no where to be seen!
I started to panic, and looked around me, and noticed arms waving from the ferry. It was the Turk, with my bags, already on the ferry, and having the bags checked into the storage compartment of the ferry. When I got on board, my Turkish porter greeted me with a big smile and handed me my claim check.
I paid him two Turkish lira, then two more as a tip – and out of relief. I had just begun learning something that was of great value for me during my year in Turkey: that Turks were very friendly and honest, even though at first impression they seemed dour and rough. Invariably, after a few moments of exchanging broken Turkish and some simple English words and phrases with a Turk, we would both be smiling and laughing, and the Turk would invite me to sit and have a cup of chai with him.
The trip by ferry to Yalova, on the shore of the Sea of Marmara directly south of Istanbul, took about three hours with a stop at Büyükada (Big Island) on the way, where cars are banned and transportation is by foot, bicycle, or horse-drawn carriage.
I found a seat in the ferry’s passenger cabin, where there were long wooden benches with backs like the pews of a church. Across from and facing me were two pretty young ladies sitting on an identical pew bench. They both sported form fitting knee length skirts, and high heels. I was surprised to see such modern, and even daring attire, on young ladies in Turkey, and I smiled at them politely when we made eye contact. They had quite an effect on the Turkish men sitting next to me, and next to them. The men couldn’t keep their eyes off the young ladies’ crossed legs, and they kept nudging each other with their elbows and chatting amongst themselves as they stared.
That’s when I learned another side of Turkish males. If a woman didn’t look like a demure mother, wife, or sister, she would be the subject of constant stares and rude remarks and gestures. American women in Turkey soon discovered this for themselves, if not from another American wife at the base, and for the most part gave up wearing jeans and shorts.
The ferry docked at a pier adjacent to Atatürk Plaza (Atatürk is revered as the modern Turkey “Father of his Country”). After a short wait, a Turkish bus under contract to the US Air Force picked me up and transported me to about fifteen miles east of Yalova to Karamürsel Air Station.
“Welcome to TUSLOG Detachment 3” the sign at the main gate informed me. I took in the newness and the strangeness of entering a base guarded by Turkish soldiers and passing flagpoles flying the American and Turkish flags. I reported for duty at Building 101, Base Headquarters, presented my orders, and found I was assigned to Baker Flight, and my room was on the second floor of Dormitory 502.
(Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I found a copy of the brochure I received upon my arrival and linked to it here, here, and here.)
Radio intercept duty at Karamürsel Air Station was conducted on a 24 hours a day, seven days a week schedule of rotating shifts covered by Able, Baker, Charlie, and Dog Flights. Each flight would begin the cycle by working three swing shifts (5-12 pm), 24-hour break, three mid shifts (12-9 am), 24-hour break, three day shifts (9am – 5 pm), a 72-hour break, then start the cycle all over again.
I checked into my room and found I it contained four beds (two double bunk beds), four metal lockers, and two roommates. One roommate was an average height, thin, very friendly Stump Jumper from West Virginia, Don Bennett. The other roommate was a bit shorter and heavier than Don, wore glasses, also very friendly, but quieter than Don. I think his name was Joe Cook. In a few weeks we were joined by The Kid from Altoona (Pennsylvania), who was short, muscular, also friendly, and very brash. They were all “Ditty Bops” (Morse code intercept specialists, Air Force Specialty Code [AFSC] 202’s), and I was the only “Squirrel” (Russian language intercept specialist [AFSC 203X1]. I couldn’t have had nicer, more agreeable roommates.
I didn’t get to start in Operations (radio intercept) immediately. The first several weeks for each new arrival was spent doing odd jobs while waiting for our security clearance paperwork to arrive and get processed through Personnel. My first job while waiting was “Turk guard.” The Operations building was being expanded, and two Turks were laying bricks – slowly – to build the new addition. My job was to sit and watch them to make sure they didn’t go where they weren’t supposed to, and to make sure the loudspeaker carrying the programs of the base radio station was playing loudly in the work area to drown out any noise from inside Operations.
After an uneventful week as Turk guard, I was assigned to Site 6, the radio direction finding installation located about five miles west of the base near the runway where a C-130 aircraft would land almost daily to deliver and pick up mail and handle other time-sensitive things. My job there was not as exciting as guarding Turks. My sole function was to listen to any frequency carrying voice for which radio direction finding was requested, and all I had to do was determine whether or not the speakers were Russian.
In the two weeks (about 80 hours) I “worked” there, only one request for an identification came in, and my part only took about a minute. However, I read about one Mike Hammer novel a night from the pile of paperback books at Site 6, and I wrote Marilynn a six to ten page letter every day.
I also had a lot of time to read her letters, which she also wrote daily and which were invariably longer than mine. There were many reasons hers were longer. She just naturally wrote long letters, and had written me daily when I was off at college the two years before we got married. She also had more to write about, like how baby Bruce was growing, what he was doing, what a sweet baby he was. Then there was news about her family, and my family in Point Arena. Also, Marilynn had taken a Heald’s Business School class to be a key-punch operator, and immediately after completion she got a job working for the telephone company. Since she was living with her parents, she was able to save almost all her earnings to buy the airline tickets for her and Bruce to join me before Christmas, 1964.
For my part, I was saving a large portion of my small Air Force pay to rent and furnish a house for us in Yalova, and to have it ready for Marilynn and Bruce when they joined me.
After almost a month of mind-numbing time wasting “jobs,” my security clearance completed processing and I reported to work in Base Operations. I started on a mid shift, midnight to 0800. The first stop was the security check point at Base Ops. A Turkish guard handed me my security badge, a 2x3 inch metal plate with my picture, name and rank etched in it, which was hung around the neck and displayed at all times while in Base Ops. My next stop was the radio intercept room, which was dominated by three rows of radio receivers (an R-390 for HF, and an SP-600 for VHF/UHF) and reel-to-reel tape recorders. At the top of the three rows was the command section, where the officer-in-charge and his senior non-commissioned officer had their desks. At the other end was the transcriber area, where the Russian voice tapes were placed on reel-to-reel recorders and typed in Russian “transliteration” by two of the senior voice intercept operators.
In the middle of the back row were the desks of the trick chief (TSgt Ed Mathias) and his A1C assistant, Dick Weeks.
Due to the poor quality of reception, and the low state of the recording art at that time, the transcribers were alternately squeezing their headsets against their ears, reaching up and manually spinning the reel back a turn or two, then typing what was heard (or at least what they thought they heard) with crashing strokes on the manual typewriters to make legible copies on the five-ply, inserted-carbon rolls of paper.The chattering sound the tape made when it was manually reversed back through the recorder heads gave rise to the nickname of Air Force linguists worldwide, “Squirrels.” The guys who nicknamed us Squirrels were the “Ditty-bops,” the Morse Code intercept specialists. Because of the workload and peculiarities of Air Force manning requirements, the Ditty-bops always outnumbered and outranked the Squirrels they were stationed with.
That part of being outranked seemed odd. We Squirrels were trained a full year more than the Ditty-bops, at a far greater expense because of the nine-month period in Indiana, Syracuse, or Yale. However, because of that longer period in training, Squirrels usually weren’t eligible for a program the Air Force called “Two-T,” which stood for two consecutive remote-duty overseas tours, because they were either married or didn’t have enough time left on a four-year enlistment to complete a second remote tour.
A remote tour was one to a smallish base that lacked many family support facilities, so remote tours were generally only twelve to eighteen months long. Because of the expense and difficulty of manning short or remote tours, the Air Force had devised the Two-T program. If an individual was accepted to the Two-T program during their first remote tour, they would get an immediate promotion to Airman First Class (E-4), finish that remote tour, go Stateside on thirty days leave, and then go to their second remote assignment. When they reached three years time-in-service, they were then spot promoted to Staff Sergeant (E-5). Because of the hardships to families due to consecutive remote overseas assignments, only single airmen were eligible for Two-T.
For those not eligible for early spot promotions, the normal promotion cycles in the early 1960s were farcical. One E-4 stripe would come down every six months for a field of 200 eligible E-3s. The lucky recipient of the promotion would not necessarily be the best performer, but would be the best performer who had opted for re-enlistment.
Pre-Vietnam, the Air Force and the other services were still laboring under the Korean War personnel “hump.” Military manpower had been increased rapidly during the Korean War, promotions were equally rapid, then came the draw-down period following signing of the Armistice Agreement in 1953. Many first-term, low-ranking military returned to civilian life, leaving the military top-heavy with sergeants and officers. Unlike the officer corps, where excess officers could be given the choice of resigning their commissions and entering enlisted service, the excess sergeants could continue in service until retirement.
Many did, and it was not unusual for a top performing enlisted man to have almost twenty years of service completed while still an E-4 (Airman First Class).
My first day on the job actually was a night, the beginning of the cycle of three consecutive mid- or graveyard shifts lasting from midnight until nine in the morning. I passed through gate security into base operations, and reported to my Non-Commissioned Officer-in-Charge, Technical Sergeant Mathias. He gave me a friendly welcome, and introduced me to the other Squirrels on Baker Flight and briefly described their duties.
Then he introduced me to our Second Lieutenant Officer-in-Charge, who also greeted me warmly. I wish I remembered his name (I had confused his name with Captain Pribyl, our Detachment 3 commander at the Indiana University language school). He and his wife were very nice, very friendly, and he had absolutely nothing to do with the technical operation of Baker Flight. He wasn’t a linguist, had no experience doing any of our radio intercept tasks – in short, he was charged with administering us, not supervising our work.
Naturally the guys nicknamed him, quite unfairly as “Lieutenant Zero,” after the hapless Private Zero of Beetle Bailey cartoon fame.
Not long after introductions, our Assistant NCOIC, the chubby A1C mentioned earlier, came to me with my first assignment, to coordinate the LEHOR by having everyone on Baker Flight review it and sign off on it. Unfortunately, I was not cleared for LEHOR, not even to know what its initials meant, so I couldn’t read it, just take it around for signatures.
The point was emphasized, and reemphasized, that this report was highly classified, and that it was very important for me to have everyone sign off on it before the end of the shift. I took my job seriously, and began immediately to get it reviewed and signed off.
However, each guy I took the report to seemed more interested in chatting with me about his experiences, my experiences, sports and other items in the latest Stars & Stripes newspaper, and only reluctantly would review the report and sign it.
Usually with a comment like, “Not yet, but I’m sure it will soon,” or “It’s been so long, I can’t remember the last time,” or “Right now, it’s happening right now.”
I didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about, and I was getting concerned about finishing before the shift ended. I felt greatly relieved when I got the last signature and comment, “Damn, I lost it an hour ago,” with about fifteen minutes to spare.
I hustled over to report completion to TSgt Mathias and his assistant, and he said, “This is really unusual, we better show it to the lieutenant.”
“Sir, Airman Combs has something you should know about,” and he handed the lieutenant the LEHOR.
“This is very interesting,” said the lieutenant, and handed the LEHOR to me.“You’re new, but I think you can add to the report too.”
I was bewildered, but with them all looking at me expectantly, I opened the LEHOR, and found I had spent the evening getting acquainted with all the guys on Baker Flight by coordinating the Late Evening Hard-On Report.
Now I understood their comments. And smiled weakly while everyone laughed, and shook my hand, and told me how glad they were that I was now one of them.
And as my embarrassment faded, I felt myself relaxing and I soon went to one of the guys I had hurried to get to sign off, Airman Second Class (like me) Patrick Murphy, who seemed to be the guy I would eventually be replacing.
Patrick told me that was right, that he would finish his four-year enlistment and be leaving for discharge in about four months. I also found out that Patrick lived in Yalova with his wife Midge and their young son.
I mentioned that I planned to find a house and bring Marilynn and Bruce over as soon as we could afford the airline tickets. At that point Patrick invited me to visit his house, talk to his landlord about renting it, and suggested that I might also want to buy his household goods when he moved out. It sounded like I was getting off to a good start to bring Marilynn and Bruce to Turkey.
(I'll be adding more. Please be patient. Although this all happened only half a century ago, it still takes a bit to bring it back.)
By the time I finished at Goodfellow AFB, another half year was gone. After Goodfellow, most Russian radio intercept specialists were sent overseas to a duty station. Happily for me, after relaxing through my first two years of college, I had joined the Air Force, married Marilynn, and immediately and miraculously was transformed from a lazy fun-lover into a hard-working student. At Indiana University I finished third in a class of eighty of the brightest guys I ever met, then first in my class at Goodfellow.
Unbeknownst to me, that earned me a selection to attend a specialized radio intercept school at the National Security Agency (NSA), Fort Meade, Maryland, called J-School. There they taught us about copying Russian missile test activity. Upon completion of J-School, we had only four possible base assignments: Karamürsel, Trabzon, and Samsun Air Stations in Turkey, and Peshawar Air Station, Pakistan. I finished top of my class again, and I knew that earned me the prized first choice of assignment. I chose Karamürsel, at that time the only one of the four where I possibly could have Marilynn and Bruce join me.
Traveling in civilian clothes (called Category Z), required at that time when going to a base in Turkey, I waved goodbye to Marilynn and Bruce and boarded a Boeing 707 (I think it was Trans World Airlines – TWA) at San Francisco International Airport. It was a passage to unknowns, my first experiences of living in a foreign land. I was leaving Marilynn and Bruce behind, after our three months together in Maryland, probably not to see them again for six months or more. Still I wasn’t sad, and I wasn’t worried. I had this sense of happy adventuring, of impatience to see what came next.
The flights I took to get from San Francisco to Istanbul were adventures in themselves. First stop was New York, to change to legendary Pan American flight 002 that went from New York eastward around the world to San Francisco, while Pan American flight 001 flew the reverse route.
That Pan American flight was my most memorable. None since have been better. The meals were especially good, served by young, pretty stewardesses, who at that time thought they had glamorous, exciting jobs. Stewardesses then were the envy of young ladies because they traveled to interesting, exotic places, they were very poised and professional doing their jobs, and, oh yeah, they attracted the attention of men of all ages. For their poise, their bearing, their beauty, they deserved it. Although a pale imitation, Singapore Air is the closest of the modern carriers to the good old days.
Enroute we had a short stop at Heathrow Airport, London, and then at Belgrade, Yugoslavia. In those days passengers went to their aircraft by bus or walking, and then went up portable stairs into the plane. At Belgrade my plane parked on the apron about 200 yards from the terminal, and a cabin door was opened and the portable stairs were placed to allow some passengers to disembark, and others to come aboard.
We had been warned that the Yugoslav government was very sensitive about their airport security, because the Yugoslav Air Force shared the Belgrade airport with commercial aviation, and for that reason no photo taking was allowed. After passengers left, and new ones boarded, I went out onto the top of the stairs to stretch – and surreptitiously take some photos with my 35mm camera.
I snapped a couple, and then noticed near the terminal doors that a plump woman in a frumpy brown uniform saw me taking pictures. She raised her arms to signal me to stop, and then started trotting across the apron from the terminal towards my plane, all the while waving her arms in an “X” pattern as she ran.
I ducked back into the plane, went to my seat and ditched my camera in the overhead bin, pulled a blanket around me, and pretended to sleep. I have no idea what the uniformed woman did, whether she climbed the stairs, whether she entered the plane, whether she talked to anyone. I kept my eyes shut, and didn’t hear anything unusual.
Soon we started on the last leg of my journey, to Yesilkoy Airport, on the north shore of the Sea of Marmara about ten miles west of Istanbul. After picking up my suitcase and duffel bag from the baggage claim, I went to a transportation desk operated by the US Navy, and a Navy van took me to the ferry landing at the Galata Bridge, in the heart of Istanbul. The Galata Bridge I saw was built on pontoons in 1912, and connected downtown Istanbul to the area where the Great Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia Mosque, and Topkapi are located (and the area where Alice and I stayed for a week in 2008, including a day trip to Yalova. I didn't recognize anything in Yalova; the house we had lived in was torn down and replaced by a multi-story apartments building.)
In researching this story, I learned the old pontoon bridge was replaced with a modern bridge in 1992.
When I got out of the Navy van, a Turk came to me and indicated he would carry my bags for two Turkish lira (a few pennies less than a quarter). I agreed, and followed him to the ferry ticket booth. There I quickly purchased a ticket, and turned to get my bags and board the ferry. The Turk and my bags were no where to be seen!
I started to panic, and looked around me, and noticed arms waving from the ferry. It was the Turk, with my bags, already on the ferry, and having the bags checked into the storage compartment of the ferry. When I got on board, my Turkish porter greeted me with a big smile and handed me my claim check.
I paid him two Turkish lira, then two more as a tip – and out of relief. I had just begun learning something that was of great value for me during my year in Turkey: that Turks were very friendly and honest, even though at first impression they seemed dour and rough. Invariably, after a few moments of exchanging broken Turkish and some simple English words and phrases with a Turk, we would both be smiling and laughing, and the Turk would invite me to sit and have a cup of chai with him.
The trip by ferry to Yalova, on the shore of the Sea of Marmara directly south of Istanbul, took about three hours with a stop at Büyükada (Big Island) on the way, where cars are banned and transportation is by foot, bicycle, or horse-drawn carriage.
I found a seat in the ferry’s passenger cabin, where there were long wooden benches with backs like the pews of a church. Across from and facing me were two pretty young ladies sitting on an identical pew bench. They both sported form fitting knee length skirts, and high heels. I was surprised to see such modern, and even daring attire, on young ladies in Turkey, and I smiled at them politely when we made eye contact. They had quite an effect on the Turkish men sitting next to me, and next to them. The men couldn’t keep their eyes off the young ladies’ crossed legs, and they kept nudging each other with their elbows and chatting amongst themselves as they stared.
That’s when I learned another side of Turkish males. If a woman didn’t look like a demure mother, wife, or sister, she would be the subject of constant stares and rude remarks and gestures. American women in Turkey soon discovered this for themselves, if not from another American wife at the base, and for the most part gave up wearing jeans and shorts.
The ferry docked at a pier adjacent to Atatürk Plaza (Atatürk is revered as the modern Turkey “Father of his Country”). After a short wait, a Turkish bus under contract to the US Air Force picked me up and transported me to about fifteen miles east of Yalova to Karamürsel Air Station.
“Welcome to TUSLOG Detachment 3” the sign at the main gate informed me. I took in the newness and the strangeness of entering a base guarded by Turkish soldiers and passing flagpoles flying the American and Turkish flags. I reported for duty at Building 101, Base Headquarters, presented my orders, and found I was assigned to Baker Flight, and my room was on the second floor of Dormitory 502.
(Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I found a copy of the brochure I received upon my arrival and linked to it here, here, and here.)
Radio intercept duty at Karamürsel Air Station was conducted on a 24 hours a day, seven days a week schedule of rotating shifts covered by Able, Baker, Charlie, and Dog Flights. Each flight would begin the cycle by working three swing shifts (5-12 pm), 24-hour break, three mid shifts (12-9 am), 24-hour break, three day shifts (9am – 5 pm), a 72-hour break, then start the cycle all over again.
I checked into my room and found I it contained four beds (two double bunk beds), four metal lockers, and two roommates. One roommate was an average height, thin, very friendly Stump Jumper from West Virginia, Don Bennett. The other roommate was a bit shorter and heavier than Don, wore glasses, also very friendly, but quieter than Don. I think his name was Joe Cook. In a few weeks we were joined by The Kid from Altoona (Pennsylvania), who was short, muscular, also friendly, and very brash. They were all “Ditty Bops” (Morse code intercept specialists, Air Force Specialty Code [AFSC] 202’s), and I was the only “Squirrel” (Russian language intercept specialist [AFSC 203X1]. I couldn’t have had nicer, more agreeable roommates.
I didn’t get to start in Operations (radio intercept) immediately. The first several weeks for each new arrival was spent doing odd jobs while waiting for our security clearance paperwork to arrive and get processed through Personnel. My first job while waiting was “Turk guard.” The Operations building was being expanded, and two Turks were laying bricks – slowly – to build the new addition. My job was to sit and watch them to make sure they didn’t go where they weren’t supposed to, and to make sure the loudspeaker carrying the programs of the base radio station was playing loudly in the work area to drown out any noise from inside Operations.
After an uneventful week as Turk guard, I was assigned to Site 6, the radio direction finding installation located about five miles west of the base near the runway where a C-130 aircraft would land almost daily to deliver and pick up mail and handle other time-sensitive things. My job there was not as exciting as guarding Turks. My sole function was to listen to any frequency carrying voice for which radio direction finding was requested, and all I had to do was determine whether or not the speakers were Russian.
In the two weeks (about 80 hours) I “worked” there, only one request for an identification came in, and my part only took about a minute. However, I read about one Mike Hammer novel a night from the pile of paperback books at Site 6, and I wrote Marilynn a six to ten page letter every day.
I also had a lot of time to read her letters, which she also wrote daily and which were invariably longer than mine. There were many reasons hers were longer. She just naturally wrote long letters, and had written me daily when I was off at college the two years before we got married. She also had more to write about, like how baby Bruce was growing, what he was doing, what a sweet baby he was. Then there was news about her family, and my family in Point Arena. Also, Marilynn had taken a Heald’s Business School class to be a key-punch operator, and immediately after completion she got a job working for the telephone company. Since she was living with her parents, she was able to save almost all her earnings to buy the airline tickets for her and Bruce to join me before Christmas, 1964.
For my part, I was saving a large portion of my small Air Force pay to rent and furnish a house for us in Yalova, and to have it ready for Marilynn and Bruce when they joined me.
After almost a month of mind-numbing time wasting “jobs,” my security clearance completed processing and I reported to work in Base Operations. I started on a mid shift, midnight to 0800. The first stop was the security check point at Base Ops. A Turkish guard handed me my security badge, a 2x3 inch metal plate with my picture, name and rank etched in it, which was hung around the neck and displayed at all times while in Base Ops. My next stop was the radio intercept room, which was dominated by three rows of radio receivers (an R-390 for HF, and an SP-600 for VHF/UHF) and reel-to-reel tape recorders. At the top of the three rows was the command section, where the officer-in-charge and his senior non-commissioned officer had their desks. At the other end was the transcriber area, where the Russian voice tapes were placed on reel-to-reel recorders and typed in Russian “transliteration” by two of the senior voice intercept operators.
In the middle of the back row were the desks of the trick chief (TSgt Ed Mathias) and his A1C assistant, Dick Weeks.
Due to the poor quality of reception, and the low state of the recording art at that time, the transcribers were alternately squeezing their headsets against their ears, reaching up and manually spinning the reel back a turn or two, then typing what was heard (or at least what they thought they heard) with crashing strokes on the manual typewriters to make legible copies on the five-ply, inserted-carbon rolls of paper.The chattering sound the tape made when it was manually reversed back through the recorder heads gave rise to the nickname of Air Force linguists worldwide, “Squirrels.” The guys who nicknamed us Squirrels were the “Ditty-bops,” the Morse Code intercept specialists. Because of the workload and peculiarities of Air Force manning requirements, the Ditty-bops always outnumbered and outranked the Squirrels they were stationed with.
That part of being outranked seemed odd. We Squirrels were trained a full year more than the Ditty-bops, at a far greater expense because of the nine-month period in Indiana, Syracuse, or Yale. However, because of that longer period in training, Squirrels usually weren’t eligible for a program the Air Force called “Two-T,” which stood for two consecutive remote-duty overseas tours, because they were either married or didn’t have enough time left on a four-year enlistment to complete a second remote tour.
A remote tour was one to a smallish base that lacked many family support facilities, so remote tours were generally only twelve to eighteen months long. Because of the expense and difficulty of manning short or remote tours, the Air Force had devised the Two-T program. If an individual was accepted to the Two-T program during their first remote tour, they would get an immediate promotion to Airman First Class (E-4), finish that remote tour, go Stateside on thirty days leave, and then go to their second remote assignment. When they reached three years time-in-service, they were then spot promoted to Staff Sergeant (E-5). Because of the hardships to families due to consecutive remote overseas assignments, only single airmen were eligible for Two-T.
For those not eligible for early spot promotions, the normal promotion cycles in the early 1960s were farcical. One E-4 stripe would come down every six months for a field of 200 eligible E-3s. The lucky recipient of the promotion would not necessarily be the best performer, but would be the best performer who had opted for re-enlistment.
Pre-Vietnam, the Air Force and the other services were still laboring under the Korean War personnel “hump.” Military manpower had been increased rapidly during the Korean War, promotions were equally rapid, then came the draw-down period following signing of the Armistice Agreement in 1953. Many first-term, low-ranking military returned to civilian life, leaving the military top-heavy with sergeants and officers. Unlike the officer corps, where excess officers could be given the choice of resigning their commissions and entering enlisted service, the excess sergeants could continue in service until retirement.
Many did, and it was not unusual for a top performing enlisted man to have almost twenty years of service completed while still an E-4 (Airman First Class).
My first day on the job actually was a night, the beginning of the cycle of three consecutive mid- or graveyard shifts lasting from midnight until nine in the morning. I passed through gate security into base operations, and reported to my Non-Commissioned Officer-in-Charge, Technical Sergeant Mathias. He gave me a friendly welcome, and introduced me to the other Squirrels on Baker Flight and briefly described their duties.
Then he introduced me to our Second Lieutenant Officer-in-Charge, who also greeted me warmly. I wish I remembered his name (I had confused his name with Captain Pribyl, our Detachment 3 commander at the Indiana University language school). He and his wife were very nice, very friendly, and he had absolutely nothing to do with the technical operation of Baker Flight. He wasn’t a linguist, had no experience doing any of our radio intercept tasks – in short, he was charged with administering us, not supervising our work.
Naturally the guys nicknamed him, quite unfairly as “Lieutenant Zero,” after the hapless Private Zero of Beetle Bailey cartoon fame.
Not long after introductions, our Assistant NCOIC, the chubby A1C mentioned earlier, came to me with my first assignment, to coordinate the LEHOR by having everyone on Baker Flight review it and sign off on it. Unfortunately, I was not cleared for LEHOR, not even to know what its initials meant, so I couldn’t read it, just take it around for signatures.
The point was emphasized, and reemphasized, that this report was highly classified, and that it was very important for me to have everyone sign off on it before the end of the shift. I took my job seriously, and began immediately to get it reviewed and signed off.
However, each guy I took the report to seemed more interested in chatting with me about his experiences, my experiences, sports and other items in the latest Stars & Stripes newspaper, and only reluctantly would review the report and sign it.
Usually with a comment like, “Not yet, but I’m sure it will soon,” or “It’s been so long, I can’t remember the last time,” or “Right now, it’s happening right now.”
I didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about, and I was getting concerned about finishing before the shift ended. I felt greatly relieved when I got the last signature and comment, “Damn, I lost it an hour ago,” with about fifteen minutes to spare.
I hustled over to report completion to TSgt Mathias and his assistant, and he said, “This is really unusual, we better show it to the lieutenant.”
“Sir, Airman Combs has something you should know about,” and he handed the lieutenant the LEHOR.
“This is very interesting,” said the lieutenant, and handed the LEHOR to me.“You’re new, but I think you can add to the report too.”
I was bewildered, but with them all looking at me expectantly, I opened the LEHOR, and found I had spent the evening getting acquainted with all the guys on Baker Flight by coordinating the Late Evening Hard-On Report.
Now I understood their comments. And smiled weakly while everyone laughed, and shook my hand, and told me how glad they were that I was now one of them.
And as my embarrassment faded, I felt myself relaxing and I soon went to one of the guys I had hurried to get to sign off, Airman Second Class (like me) Patrick Murphy, who seemed to be the guy I would eventually be replacing.
Patrick told me that was right, that he would finish his four-year enlistment and be leaving for discharge in about four months. I also found out that Patrick lived in Yalova with his wife Midge and their young son.
I mentioned that I planned to find a house and bring Marilynn and Bruce over as soon as we could afford the airline tickets. At that point Patrick invited me to visit his house, talk to his landlord about renting it, and suggested that I might also want to buy his household goods when he moved out. It sounded like I was getting off to a good start to bring Marilynn and Bruce to Turkey.
(I'll be adding more. Please be patient. Although this all happened only half a century ago, it still takes a bit to bring it back.)
Bill Clinton's Probably Gone With More Black Women than Barack
The Associated Press ran a "news" story that former Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young said that "(Bill Clinton's) probably gone with more black women than Barack."
That's not news, except maybe to Hillary.
That's not news, except maybe to Hillary.
What Do You Call It?
What do you call it when temperatures were warmer one thousand, two thousand, and five thousand years ago than they are today?
(Hints: One thousand years ago, the Medieval Warm Period; two thousand years ago, the Roman Warm Period; and five thousand years ago, the Holocene Optimum)
When temperatures in a thirty-five year period of the early Twentieth Century rose more than in the last half century?
When temperatures fell for twenty-five years while carbon dioxide rose rapidly during the same period?
When hurricanes and tornadoes were as or more numerous, and as strong or stronger, over fifty years ago than now?
When wildfires were more numerous and burned over five times the acreage over half a century ago as they do now?
When polar bears are thriving (and more numerous than fifty years ago)?
When “bleached” coral is populated by new bacteria and thrives, just as it has hundreds of times over millions of years?
When floods and famines killed millions more over a century ago than they do today?
When sea levels began rising a century before CO2 increased, and for the past century rose less than one-quarter of the average rise during the preceding 180 centuries? And that the rate of rise is not accelerating (this is a long article, but at least read the last paragraph).
When four of the warmest ten years of the past century (United States) occurred in the 1930s, and six of the warmest occurred over fifty years ago? (And only one – 2006 – since 2000)
When warming and cooling periods match the pattern of solar activity, and not of carbon dioxide fluctuations?
When metrological stations improperly sited (near air conditioner exhaust, heat producing electronics, next to parking spots, attached to buildings, etc.) show steady temperature increases, and those properly sited don’t?
When glaciers were thousands of feet shorter over three thousand years ago than today?
When it was wetter during warm periods, and dryer during cold periods?
When temperatures, sea levels, and glacier lengths fluctuate independently of CO2 increases?
What do you call it? Man-driven (Anthropogenic) global warming, and the horrors it will bring down on humanity, of course.
(Hints: One thousand years ago, the Medieval Warm Period; two thousand years ago, the Roman Warm Period; and five thousand years ago, the Holocene Optimum)
When temperatures in a thirty-five year period of the early Twentieth Century rose more than in the last half century?
When temperatures fell for twenty-five years while carbon dioxide rose rapidly during the same period?
When hurricanes and tornadoes were as or more numerous, and as strong or stronger, over fifty years ago than now?
When wildfires were more numerous and burned over five times the acreage over half a century ago as they do now?
When polar bears are thriving (and more numerous than fifty years ago)?
When “bleached” coral is populated by new bacteria and thrives, just as it has hundreds of times over millions of years?
When floods and famines killed millions more over a century ago than they do today?
When sea levels began rising a century before CO2 increased, and for the past century rose less than one-quarter of the average rise during the preceding 180 centuries? And that the rate of rise is not accelerating (this is a long article, but at least read the last paragraph).
When four of the warmest ten years of the past century (United States) occurred in the 1930s, and six of the warmest occurred over fifty years ago? (And only one – 2006 – since 2000)
When warming and cooling periods match the pattern of solar activity, and not of carbon dioxide fluctuations?
When metrological stations improperly sited (near air conditioner exhaust, heat producing electronics, next to parking spots, attached to buildings, etc.) show steady temperature increases, and those properly sited don’t?
When glaciers were thousands of feet shorter over three thousand years ago than today?
When it was wetter during warm periods, and dryer during cold periods?
When temperatures, sea levels, and glacier lengths fluctuate independently of CO2 increases?
What do you call it? Man-driven (Anthropogenic) global warming, and the horrors it will bring down on humanity, of course.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Dreams of Football Glory
When I arrived as a freshman at Humboldt State College, Arcata, California, in the late summer of 1960, I had visions of playing college football. My dream didn’t last past the first time I saw the Humboldt State team practice. I already knew that there were bigger guys than me playing football, and that there were faster guys too, but I didn’t realize there were so many bigger, faster guys.
Unbeknownst to me, the Humboldt State Lumberjacks were a small college powerhouse at the time, coached by a visionary named Phil Sarbo.
The Lumberjacks ended 1960 with a loss by one point (14-15) to Lenoir-Rhyne, North Carolina, in the Holiday Bowl, St. Petersburg, Florida, when Lenoir-Rhyne got three points for a missed field goal to end the game, break Humboldt State’s 22 game winning streak, and win the national small college championship.
Humboldt State was responsible for putting the only blacks on the field that day, either playing or officiating. Apparently that was enough to get Lenoir-Rhyne the winning three points.
Coach Sarbo didn’t have much to go on to build a football program. He didn’t have even one athletic scholarship to tempt potential recruits. Humboldt State was small – enrollment passed 2,000 for the first time when I enrolled in 1960. Humboldt State was in the boondocks, in Arcata north of Eureka, far from big city excitement and big city high school football teams. The primary major at Humboldt State was Forestry, and no girls went to Humboldt State.
Not willingly, anyway.
A lot of the students were “townies,” and went to their homes in Eureka and Arcata when the day’s learning was done.
However, Coach Sarbo came up with a brilliant concept to compensate for his lack of scholarships. He primarily recruited military service veterans!
Coach Sarbo went after older guys, guys who had been drafted or enlisted, served their time, and were now married, starting families, and who were eligible for the GI Bill. He also called on the resources of the saw mills and other businesses in the area, helped his recruits find houses, and helped them and their wives get jobs.
One of the Lumberjacks’ star players was Manuel (Manny) Simas, married with seven children. Manny was the primary reason I went to Humboldt State, and it had nothing to do with football.
It was a good thing I hadn’t pinned my college dreams on football. Not only were there a lot of bigger, faster guys at Humboldt State, I was also very ignorant of two little words: “Weight Room.”
One of the players told me that anyone who wanted to play football should spend more time in the weight room than anywhere else, including practice. Since up to that point in my eighteen-year lifetime I had put in as many hours in the weight room as the average Lumberjack did in a week, I had a lot of catching up to do.
I signed up for Body Building, and soon took the 165 pounds loosely distributed on my 6’ 2” frame down to 156 pounds. Perhaps the pleurisy aggravated by my pack-a-day cigarette habit contributed to my achievement as the only person in Body Building that year who lost weight. The lower weight did help my running, when I wasn’t coughing painfully and spasmodically.
At any rate, my interest in football drew me to watch practices when I had the time, and I knew several guys on the Humboldt State Junior Varsity team which made it particularly fun to watch them practice.
One of my buddies was an offensive guard. For a while in high school he had been a quarterback, but as he developed the mind and skills of a quarterback, his heredity caused him to develop the body of an offensive lineman.
Frequently he would get some of the players to run a few plays before or after practice with him playing quarterback. I was very impressed with his ball-handling skills. He was particularly adept at taking the center snap, and pitching the ball five yards or more to a halfback on a sweep left or right.
Several things about his ability to pitch the ball to a speeding halfback were notable. He pitched the ball fast underhand with a perfect spiral, and he invariably hit the runner’s hands just in front of his body, so the runner never had to reach for it or break stride. He could pitch the ball as well with either hand to the left or the right.
He looked like a fireplug setting up behind center, but Brett Favre would have admired his ball handling. And Reggie Bush can only dream of handling the ball so well.
I expected my friend had an extraordinary talent to handle the ball so skillfully, but he assured me I was wrong. His secret, and the only significant difference between us, was that he practiced, and practiced, and then practiced some more. When he couldn’t get guys to handle his pitches and throws, he drafted his sisters. After awhile, he said, his sisters probably had better hands than most of his team mates, because they got a lot more practice.
Once again, the answer to my day dreams of athletic glory was obvious. I needed to practice more. As usual, the truth revealed didn’t make me dream less, or practice more either.
Unbeknownst to me, the Humboldt State Lumberjacks were a small college powerhouse at the time, coached by a visionary named Phil Sarbo.
The Lumberjacks ended 1960 with a loss by one point (14-15) to Lenoir-Rhyne, North Carolina, in the Holiday Bowl, St. Petersburg, Florida, when Lenoir-Rhyne got three points for a missed field goal to end the game, break Humboldt State’s 22 game winning streak, and win the national small college championship.
Humboldt State was responsible for putting the only blacks on the field that day, either playing or officiating. Apparently that was enough to get Lenoir-Rhyne the winning three points.
Coach Sarbo didn’t have much to go on to build a football program. He didn’t have even one athletic scholarship to tempt potential recruits. Humboldt State was small – enrollment passed 2,000 for the first time when I enrolled in 1960. Humboldt State was in the boondocks, in Arcata north of Eureka, far from big city excitement and big city high school football teams. The primary major at Humboldt State was Forestry, and no girls went to Humboldt State.
Not willingly, anyway.
A lot of the students were “townies,” and went to their homes in Eureka and Arcata when the day’s learning was done.
However, Coach Sarbo came up with a brilliant concept to compensate for his lack of scholarships. He primarily recruited military service veterans!
Coach Sarbo went after older guys, guys who had been drafted or enlisted, served their time, and were now married, starting families, and who were eligible for the GI Bill. He also called on the resources of the saw mills and other businesses in the area, helped his recruits find houses, and helped them and their wives get jobs.
One of the Lumberjacks’ star players was Manuel (Manny) Simas, married with seven children. Manny was the primary reason I went to Humboldt State, and it had nothing to do with football.
It was a good thing I hadn’t pinned my college dreams on football. Not only were there a lot of bigger, faster guys at Humboldt State, I was also very ignorant of two little words: “Weight Room.”
One of the players told me that anyone who wanted to play football should spend more time in the weight room than anywhere else, including practice. Since up to that point in my eighteen-year lifetime I had put in as many hours in the weight room as the average Lumberjack did in a week, I had a lot of catching up to do.
I signed up for Body Building, and soon took the 165 pounds loosely distributed on my 6’ 2” frame down to 156 pounds. Perhaps the pleurisy aggravated by my pack-a-day cigarette habit contributed to my achievement as the only person in Body Building that year who lost weight. The lower weight did help my running, when I wasn’t coughing painfully and spasmodically.
At any rate, my interest in football drew me to watch practices when I had the time, and I knew several guys on the Humboldt State Junior Varsity team which made it particularly fun to watch them practice.
One of my buddies was an offensive guard. For a while in high school he had been a quarterback, but as he developed the mind and skills of a quarterback, his heredity caused him to develop the body of an offensive lineman.
Frequently he would get some of the players to run a few plays before or after practice with him playing quarterback. I was very impressed with his ball-handling skills. He was particularly adept at taking the center snap, and pitching the ball five yards or more to a halfback on a sweep left or right.
Several things about his ability to pitch the ball to a speeding halfback were notable. He pitched the ball fast underhand with a perfect spiral, and he invariably hit the runner’s hands just in front of his body, so the runner never had to reach for it or break stride. He could pitch the ball as well with either hand to the left or the right.
He looked like a fireplug setting up behind center, but Brett Favre would have admired his ball handling. And Reggie Bush can only dream of handling the ball so well.
I expected my friend had an extraordinary talent to handle the ball so skillfully, but he assured me I was wrong. His secret, and the only significant difference between us, was that he practiced, and practiced, and then practiced some more. When he couldn’t get guys to handle his pitches and throws, he drafted his sisters. After awhile, he said, his sisters probably had better hands than most of his team mates, because they got a lot more practice.
Once again, the answer to my day dreams of athletic glory was obvious. I needed to practice more. As usual, the truth revealed didn’t make me dream less, or practice more either.
Football Players - The Dumb Goes On
The subject of dumb football players just won’t go away, because even after I point out their stupidity, they still do dumb things. Obviously, reading comprehension is also one of their deficiencies. Of course, it isn’t only the players who are intellect challenged. Anyone who watched the New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers game knows that coaches can take a lot of credit for the idiotic happenings on the field.
Leading 23 to 20 late in the game, less than 30 seconds to play, all New Orleans had to do was run the ball, don’t run out of bounds and stop the clock, and if necessary, punt the ball away. Instead, Drew Brees handed the ball to Reggie Bush on a sweep, a questionable call since it would open the possibility of losing yards or going out of bounds. Still, with time running out, all Bush had to do was hold onto the ball and stay in bounds, because Tampa Bay was also out of time outs.
Not to worry. The play was actually a reverse from Reggie Bush to Devery Henderson, featuring a toss by Bush instead of a handoff.
A toss?
Of course, a toss by a running back, not by a quarterback. Quarterbacks, you see, make tosses, running backs receive tosses. A real role reversal in the making.
A toss by a running back going left, to a wide receiver going very quickly the other way.
As the ball left Bush’s hands, there was less than twenty five seconds remaining for a Saints victory. Only a miracle could save Tampa Bay.
Bush’s toss never looked like it had a chance of reaching Henderson.
It didn’t.
It took Tampa Bay fourteen seconds to score the winning touchdown.
Tampa Bay also took their chances to shine in the dumb. Their back-up quarterback, Luke McCown, playing for the very bright but injured Jeff Garcia, didn’t seem to know that he could leave the pocket and throw the ball away to avoid being sacked. In fact, McCown was tackled for a safety late in the game when he could have easily thrown the ball away. At the time it looked like his boneheaded play took away the last chance for Tampa Bay to come back and win.
The two-point safety gave New Orleans a three-point lead, making a Tampa Bay field goal only a tying score, not a winner. Then after the safety, Tampa Bay had to punt the ball away to New Orleans, thereby sealing the loss.
Actually, it was the best thing Tampa Bay could have made, because it gave the Saints a golden opportunity to mess up and turn the ball over to the Buccaneers in the shadow of the Saint’s goal posts.
There was no way that Tampa Bay could have driven the length of the field to score with no time outs until New Orleans showed them the way.
Bad coaching, plus a) stupidity, b) inattention, c) lack of concentration, or d) all the above on the part of Cincinnati wide receiver “Ocho Cinqo”, aka Chad Johnson, was demonstrated on a fourth down and long yardage to go play, when Johnson slowed several yards short of the first down marker to wait for the pass, then after he caught it casually backed out of bounds several yards short of the enormous, bright red, first down marker.
Yesterday’s stupidity pales besides the New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens game tonight. The Patriots should have lost. They lost the game twice, only to be saved by Baltimore’s stupidity as provided by their coaches and players.
It wasn’t like the Ravens were the only dumbies on the field. Patriot running back Kevin Faulk had the choice of getting a first down or getting out of bounds. He ran out of bounds, and if it hadn’t been for the Raven’s boneheaded plays, the Patriots would have lost trying to make the foot or two Faulk left them short for the first down.
Baltimore stopped the Patriots on fourth and short to win! Except the genius coach of the Ravens, Brian Billick, called time out a split second before the ball was snapped, giving New England another chance.
Then the Patriots took it down to the fourth down again, and Brady threw an incomplete pass – Ravens win! Except Baltimore was called for defensive holding and the Patriots got four more downs, and eventually the winning touchdown.
It’s customary for teams to award game balls after victories, and in these games it seems that some of the losing players and coaches deserve game balls, because they contributed more to victory than many of the players on the winning side.
Leading 23 to 20 late in the game, less than 30 seconds to play, all New Orleans had to do was run the ball, don’t run out of bounds and stop the clock, and if necessary, punt the ball away. Instead, Drew Brees handed the ball to Reggie Bush on a sweep, a questionable call since it would open the possibility of losing yards or going out of bounds. Still, with time running out, all Bush had to do was hold onto the ball and stay in bounds, because Tampa Bay was also out of time outs.
Not to worry. The play was actually a reverse from Reggie Bush to Devery Henderson, featuring a toss by Bush instead of a handoff.
A toss?
Of course, a toss by a running back, not by a quarterback. Quarterbacks, you see, make tosses, running backs receive tosses. A real role reversal in the making.
A toss by a running back going left, to a wide receiver going very quickly the other way.
As the ball left Bush’s hands, there was less than twenty five seconds remaining for a Saints victory. Only a miracle could save Tampa Bay.
Bush’s toss never looked like it had a chance of reaching Henderson.
It didn’t.
It took Tampa Bay fourteen seconds to score the winning touchdown.
Tampa Bay also took their chances to shine in the dumb. Their back-up quarterback, Luke McCown, playing for the very bright but injured Jeff Garcia, didn’t seem to know that he could leave the pocket and throw the ball away to avoid being sacked. In fact, McCown was tackled for a safety late in the game when he could have easily thrown the ball away. At the time it looked like his boneheaded play took away the last chance for Tampa Bay to come back and win.
The two-point safety gave New Orleans a three-point lead, making a Tampa Bay field goal only a tying score, not a winner. Then after the safety, Tampa Bay had to punt the ball away to New Orleans, thereby sealing the loss.
Actually, it was the best thing Tampa Bay could have made, because it gave the Saints a golden opportunity to mess up and turn the ball over to the Buccaneers in the shadow of the Saint’s goal posts.
There was no way that Tampa Bay could have driven the length of the field to score with no time outs until New Orleans showed them the way.
Bad coaching, plus a) stupidity, b) inattention, c) lack of concentration, or d) all the above on the part of Cincinnati wide receiver “Ocho Cinqo”, aka Chad Johnson, was demonstrated on a fourth down and long yardage to go play, when Johnson slowed several yards short of the first down marker to wait for the pass, then after he caught it casually backed out of bounds several yards short of the enormous, bright red, first down marker.
Yesterday’s stupidity pales besides the New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens game tonight. The Patriots should have lost. They lost the game twice, only to be saved by Baltimore’s stupidity as provided by their coaches and players.
It wasn’t like the Ravens were the only dumbies on the field. Patriot running back Kevin Faulk had the choice of getting a first down or getting out of bounds. He ran out of bounds, and if it hadn’t been for the Raven’s boneheaded plays, the Patriots would have lost trying to make the foot or two Faulk left them short for the first down.
Baltimore stopped the Patriots on fourth and short to win! Except the genius coach of the Ravens, Brian Billick, called time out a split second before the ball was snapped, giving New England another chance.
Then the Patriots took it down to the fourth down again, and Brady threw an incomplete pass – Ravens win! Except Baltimore was called for defensive holding and the Patriots got four more downs, and eventually the winning touchdown.
It’s customary for teams to award game balls after victories, and in these games it seems that some of the losing players and coaches deserve game balls, because they contributed more to victory than many of the players on the winning side.
Monday, December 03, 2007
CNN - From Clinton News Network to Corrupt News Network
As much as it pains me, I must admit that the Los Angeles Times ran a very good article by one of their columnists, Timothy Rutten, titled: CNN: Corrupt News Network
A self-serving agenda was set for the Republican presidential debates.
Not long ago I had castigated the Los Angeles Times and Timothy Rutten for particularly inept reportage concerning a New Republic article.
As bad as Tim Rutten's commentary on The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist" was, in this report he is really good.
Is "Timothy Rutten" a team? Good Tim, Bad Tim?
At any rate, Rutten provided a much-needed perspective on what CNN's about. By the way they selected the debate "citizen's" questions, CNN was pushing their product, not providing a valuable service to their audience. CNN in effect shaped the debate through their choices of questions, selecting ones which were irrelevant or inane given the interests of the debate audience and the significant issues of these days and times.
Corruption and lack of integrity seem to be just the first of a long line of adjectives suitable for describing CNN's performance.
For years conservatives have referred to CNN as the Clinton News Network. Now as we enter the thankfully last phase of the Clinton era, we see CNN continuing down the slippery slope of journalistic irrelevance, sinking to the low of shilling for their own programming.
Those of us who think it is self-serving and tiresome for sports commentators, such as John Madden and Al Michaels, and all the Monday Night Football announcing teams of bygone years, to have a parade of celebrity guests adding inane comments as the game progresses as they pedal their latest TV series/movie/book/album – how bad is it that a so-called news network uses a presidential debate in the same way?
I could ask, “How low can they go?”, but I think the answer is they’re already in the slime covering rock bottom.
The only way they could go lower now is to merge with CBS.
A self-serving agenda was set for the Republican presidential debates.
Not long ago I had castigated the Los Angeles Times and Timothy Rutten for particularly inept reportage concerning a New Republic article.
As bad as Tim Rutten's commentary on The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist" was, in this report he is really good.
Is "Timothy Rutten" a team? Good Tim, Bad Tim?
At any rate, Rutten provided a much-needed perspective on what CNN's about. By the way they selected the debate "citizen's" questions, CNN was pushing their product, not providing a valuable service to their audience. CNN in effect shaped the debate through their choices of questions, selecting ones which were irrelevant or inane given the interests of the debate audience and the significant issues of these days and times.
Corruption and lack of integrity seem to be just the first of a long line of adjectives suitable for describing CNN's performance.
For years conservatives have referred to CNN as the Clinton News Network. Now as we enter the thankfully last phase of the Clinton era, we see CNN continuing down the slippery slope of journalistic irrelevance, sinking to the low of shilling for their own programming.
Those of us who think it is self-serving and tiresome for sports commentators, such as John Madden and Al Michaels, and all the Monday Night Football announcing teams of bygone years, to have a parade of celebrity guests adding inane comments as the game progresses as they pedal their latest TV series/movie/book/album – how bad is it that a so-called news network uses a presidential debate in the same way?
I could ask, “How low can they go?”, but I think the answer is they’re already in the slime covering rock bottom.
The only way they could go lower now is to merge with CBS.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
NBC Reporter Apologizes
“Reporter Apologizes” is not a very descriptive headline. A person can apologize to another for giving a gratuitous insult, such as Erin Burnett of NBC News calling President Bush a monkey. However, what can a Reporter apologize for?
The apology Erin Burnett should make is not to President Bush, but to the profession of journalism. Once more bias in reporting has been demonstrated in a profession whose only claims to relevance are its fairness and objectivity. Why watch/read/listen to NBC News if what you get is NBC Opinion?
Similarly, CNN included numerous questions from fervent Democrat supporters in the “You Tube” Republican presidential candidate debate without disclosing their political affiliation. There is nothing wrong with bringing questions from a broad spectrum of voters, but there is something wrong with facilitating questioners in hiding their affiliations and agenda. Remember, these questioners were screened and selected, yet Democrat activists made up roughly a quarter of the questioners.
Not “Reagan” Democrats, not moderate Democrats, but activists.
We go down this road all the time on CBS news, particularly with any show affiliated with “60 Minutes.” Even after all the time that has passed, and all the evidence that has been compiled, Dan Rather still believes in the “Texas Air National Guard” forged documents. Why? Because his biases make him believe he is right, even though an objective journalist would know he is wrong.
Liberals castigate Fox News for conservative bias, yet can’t see or admit that their yardsticks – CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, etc. – are all heavily biased to the left. Fox News stands out because it is middle-of-the-road, but since all the rest of the media are on the left, they portray middle-of-the-road as right wing.
However, just as Erin Burnett didn’t apologize for dragging her profession into the gutter, don’t expect the main stream media to apologize for doing the same. They’re all in that gutter together, blissfully unaware of how they stink up their profession.
Apparently they don’t even notice that their bottom line is in free fall. Only their investors seem to care.
Will the last person to leave CBS News tell Katie Couric that it wasn’t her fault? Katie, and now Erin Burnett, are being reminded by the market for news that it takes more than a pretty face to sell in that market.
What does it take to make it in the news market? Objectivity and ethical practices.
Without objectivity and ethics, reporters have less virtue than prostitutes, who are far more forthright about what they are selling, and the terms of sale.
Years ago one of my bosses, an old Air Force Colonel, told me regarding my responsibilities as a staff officer when I was explaining a late report by blaming another unit for not getting the information to me on time: “Don’t shit in your mess kit.”
I know what Erin Burnett is having for dinner tonight, even if she doesn’t.
The apology Erin Burnett should make is not to President Bush, but to the profession of journalism. Once more bias in reporting has been demonstrated in a profession whose only claims to relevance are its fairness and objectivity. Why watch/read/listen to NBC News if what you get is NBC Opinion?
Similarly, CNN included numerous questions from fervent Democrat supporters in the “You Tube” Republican presidential candidate debate without disclosing their political affiliation. There is nothing wrong with bringing questions from a broad spectrum of voters, but there is something wrong with facilitating questioners in hiding their affiliations and agenda. Remember, these questioners were screened and selected, yet Democrat activists made up roughly a quarter of the questioners.
Not “Reagan” Democrats, not moderate Democrats, but activists.
We go down this road all the time on CBS news, particularly with any show affiliated with “60 Minutes.” Even after all the time that has passed, and all the evidence that has been compiled, Dan Rather still believes in the “Texas Air National Guard” forged documents. Why? Because his biases make him believe he is right, even though an objective journalist would know he is wrong.
Liberals castigate Fox News for conservative bias, yet can’t see or admit that their yardsticks – CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, etc. – are all heavily biased to the left. Fox News stands out because it is middle-of-the-road, but since all the rest of the media are on the left, they portray middle-of-the-road as right wing.
However, just as Erin Burnett didn’t apologize for dragging her profession into the gutter, don’t expect the main stream media to apologize for doing the same. They’re all in that gutter together, blissfully unaware of how they stink up their profession.
Apparently they don’t even notice that their bottom line is in free fall. Only their investors seem to care.
Will the last person to leave CBS News tell Katie Couric that it wasn’t her fault? Katie, and now Erin Burnett, are being reminded by the market for news that it takes more than a pretty face to sell in that market.
What does it take to make it in the news market? Objectivity and ethical practices.
Without objectivity and ethics, reporters have less virtue than prostitutes, who are far more forthright about what they are selling, and the terms of sale.
Years ago one of my bosses, an old Air Force Colonel, told me regarding my responsibilities as a staff officer when I was explaining a late report by blaming another unit for not getting the information to me on time: “Don’t shit in your mess kit.”
I know what Erin Burnett is having for dinner tonight, even if she doesn’t.
Monday, November 19, 2007
MoveOn.org’s Jewish Problem
First MoveOn.org tried to defeat Joe Lieberman for reelection. Now they are trying to censure Dianne Feinstein. Who’s next? I bet on Chuck Schumer.
Do you see the pattern? The über-liberal wing of the Democrats doesn’t seem to like moderate Jewish Democrat senators. Obviously MoveOn.org is not anti-Semitic. Their ranks are full of liberal Jews. So what is the connection?
Support of Israel, of course!
Some of the most vicious attacks on Israel come from liberal American Jews, who are also often virulent supporters of the Palestinians. It’s a whole new dimension in self-loathing.
Democrats, of course, have always made strange bedfellows. For an example, one of many, Liberal Jews and Blacks have never been moved to censure one-time Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, Robert Byrd, even when information came out that he had a very long association with the Klan.
In 1945, concerning integrating the military, Byrd wrote to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo, of Mississippi, vowing never to serve in an integrated military:
Earlier he had written Bilbo "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side". Robert Byrd was true to his word, and never served in the military no matter who was at his side, finding it much more congenial to spend the war as a welder.
Although Byrd said he left the Klan in 1943, in 1946 or 1947, when he was 29 years old, he wrote a Klan Grand Wizard that: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia" and "in every state in the nation.”
Along the way, now Senator, Byrd participated in the 83-day filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As an encore, he also voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
Robert Byrd has the distinction of being the only senator to vote against the Supreme Court confirmations of both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas.
A man true to his principles.
Unlike Senator Trent Lott, who lost his position as Majority Leader of Senate Republicans because of an innocuous remark at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party, former Klansman Byrd served twice for a total of seven years as Democrat Senate Majority Leader, and six years as Minority Leader.
Of course, even as recently as 2001, in an interview with Tony Snow, Byrd talked about how people who hate won’t go to Heaven, that there are “white niggers.”
I am fascinated how MoveOn.org and liberal Democrats can be so virulently opposed to moderate Jewish senators who support Israel, and so accommodating of a “reformed” racist like Byrd. It reminds me of the old Communist appellation, a “fellow traveler,” or another, a “useful idiot.”
Now to try to figure out which one is the idiot.
And wait to see what they do to Chuck Schumer.
Do you see the pattern? The über-liberal wing of the Democrats doesn’t seem to like moderate Jewish Democrat senators. Obviously MoveOn.org is not anti-Semitic. Their ranks are full of liberal Jews. So what is the connection?
Support of Israel, of course!
Some of the most vicious attacks on Israel come from liberal American Jews, who are also often virulent supporters of the Palestinians. It’s a whole new dimension in self-loathing.
Democrats, of course, have always made strange bedfellows. For an example, one of many, Liberal Jews and Blacks have never been moved to censure one-time Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, Robert Byrd, even when information came out that he had a very long association with the Klan.
In 1945, concerning integrating the military, Byrd wrote to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo, of Mississippi, vowing never to serve in an integrated military:
Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.
Earlier he had written Bilbo "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side". Robert Byrd was true to his word, and never served in the military no matter who was at his side, finding it much more congenial to spend the war as a welder.
Although Byrd said he left the Klan in 1943, in 1946 or 1947, when he was 29 years old, he wrote a Klan Grand Wizard that: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia" and "in every state in the nation.”
Along the way, now Senator, Byrd participated in the 83-day filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As an encore, he also voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
Robert Byrd has the distinction of being the only senator to vote against the Supreme Court confirmations of both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas.
A man true to his principles.
Unlike Senator Trent Lott, who lost his position as Majority Leader of Senate Republicans because of an innocuous remark at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party, former Klansman Byrd served twice for a total of seven years as Democrat Senate Majority Leader, and six years as Minority Leader.
Of course, even as recently as 2001, in an interview with Tony Snow, Byrd talked about how people who hate won’t go to Heaven, that there are “white niggers.”
I am fascinated how MoveOn.org and liberal Democrats can be so virulently opposed to moderate Jewish senators who support Israel, and so accommodating of a “reformed” racist like Byrd. It reminds me of the old Communist appellation, a “fellow traveler,” or another, a “useful idiot.”
Now to try to figure out which one is the idiot.
And wait to see what they do to Chuck Schumer.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
More United Nations Global Warming Propaganda
Panic! Chaos! Armageddon! Apocalypse! Gloom! Doom!
What happened?
The United Nations, in its continuing quest to be relevant and thereby gain control over the world’s resources and its peoples, has launched another attempt to panic mankind into submission.
The UN, already demonstrably morally and ethically bankrupt (remember their Oil For Food swindle, and how they sat out or are sitting out genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, and the Sudan?), is playing the only card it holds for all it is worth – the “Man-Caused Global Warming” Joker. This time even their top guy, UN General Secretary Nan Ki-Poo (Sorry, I started to type Ban Ki-moon, but then thought his global warming pronouncements were so operatically overly dramatic that I couldn’t help poking a little low humor at him. For that I apologize, since in my heart of hearts I wish I could come up with something appropriately more humorous and worthy of this UN drama queen).
In the UN’s most recent attempt at relevance:
The United Nations says sea levels will rise 4.6 feet in the next 1,000 years. That’s 5.5 inches per century, slightly less than sea levels rose the past century, and the century before, and … well, you get the picture.
Maybe we should try to put the sea level increases in historical perspective. Have sea levels risen prior to the era of “man-caused” global warming?
Glad you asked.
Since the end of the last glacial period 18,000 years ago, sea levels have risen over 400 feet, or an average of over two feet per century. So now we’re in a panic because we think sea levels will rise less than half a foot per century? When the historical average is over two feet per century? For the past 180 centuries?
Memo to United Nations scientists – the Earth is in an interglacial period. There’s an easy way to tell if Earth is in a glacial or interglacial period. Is Chicago under a mile thick ice cap? If “no,” then we’re in an interglacial period.
If “yes,” then Earth is deep in a glacial period.
Check again in about 10,000 to 20,000 years. The odds are very good you’ll have to dig through a mile of ice to find Chicago again.
The United Nations says that “global warming is unequivocal.” It certainly took the UN a long time to arrive at the obvious. The fact is, global warming has been unequivocal since the early 1900’s, when it was clear that the Little Ice Age had ended in the mid-1800’s, and that a sustained warming period had begun.
Interestingly, this warming period became a cooling period from about 1945 to 1975, during the period of greatly increased production of carbon dioxide from human activities. According to the anthropogenic global warming crowd, it’s not supposed to happen like that. I have been waiting for them to provide a coherent explanation for this anomaly for a long time.
I have also been waiting for them to explain why there was a sustained warming period from 1910 to 1945 that saw an increase of 0.4° C, and that it took almost twice as long, from 1945 to 2005, to get another increase of 0.4° C.
The UN pronouncement is a model for cherry-picking information. It’s interesting when they announce that eleven of the twelve hottest days on record occurred since 1990. Left unsaid is that the record they are looking at only began in 1978, at the end of a prolonged cooling period. More appropriately, according to recently revised NASA weather statistics, five of the ten warmest years occurred before World War II, with 1934 the warmest, 1921 second, and 1998 third.
The UN also cites recent hurricane activity as proof of intensifying storm activity as a result of global warming. Oddly enough, hurricanes have been more numerous and more powerful, even during cooler periods.
During the warming period of 1970 to 1994, hurricane activity was extremely low, resulting in unprecedented coastal population growth and development. Prior to this period of low activity, hurricanes were numerous and strong from 1926 to 1970. Unlike the UN scientists, true experts in hurricanes have long recognized that there is a cycle for hurricane activity that is called the “tropical multi-decadal signal,” and that each cycle can last for 20 or 30 years, or longer.
Much has been made of Katrina and the hurricanes of 2005 by global warming alarmists. These same alarmists have nothing to say about the very benign hurricane seasons of 2006 and 2007. I suppose they will now shift their attention to the cyclone that just killed 15,000 Bangladeshi. However, they will probably not mention that in 1970 an estimated almost half a million Bangladeshi were killed by a cyclone.
Also sure to be overlooked, the over half a million Chinese and Indians killed by three powerful storms in the late 1800’s.
The UN of course notes that global warming will have its greatest impact on the poor. I suppose the UN experts won’t notice that during the past two centuries, more that 131 million perished from famine, or that in recent years famine has become more a result of bad government – China, Ethiopia, North Korea – than of climate change. In fact, only five million of the 131 million deaths from famine occurred after 1970, and almost all were in that paragon of world communism, North Korea.
Predictably, the UN even mentions that wildfires are a sign of out-of-control global warming. However, wildfire frequency has decreased during the past 200 years, while wildfire severity increased due to fire suppression causing fuel buildup in many areas, while population growth and development in fire-prone areas has increased dramatically.
To summarize, the United Nations continues their near-panicked quest to be relevant. They say mankind has caused the world to become abnormally warm, while ignoring much warmer periods like the Holocene Optimum, Roman warm period, and the Medieval Warm Period.
The UN says warming will cause the seas to rise half a foot per century, overlooking that past centuries on average had rates of sea level increase quadruple the current rate.
The UN says the current warming is the highest recorded, overlooking the warming that occurred during the first half of the 1900’s, or the ever greater warming one thousand, two thousand, and five thousand years ago.
The UN says warming will cause more powerful storms, maybe almost as bad as the ones before 1970, or even the horrific ones of the late 1800’s.
According to the UN, warming will also cause more famine, although the trend has been a dramatic reduction in famines during this warmer period, as long as you’re not living in a communist country.
Finally, as fresh as yesterday’s headlines, there are the wildfires, which have been decreasing for 200 years.
The UN's experts may be dumb, but they and Al Gore are dumb like a fox (although not as smart as an ox). The United Nations experts and Al are betting on ignorance of history and science on the part of the world’s peoples to get their message across.
From all indications, they’re betting on a sure thing.
What happened?
The United Nations, in its continuing quest to be relevant and thereby gain control over the world’s resources and its peoples, has launched another attempt to panic mankind into submission.
The UN, already demonstrably morally and ethically bankrupt (remember their Oil For Food swindle, and how they sat out or are sitting out genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, and the Sudan?), is playing the only card it holds for all it is worth – the “Man-Caused Global Warming” Joker. This time even their top guy, UN General Secretary Nan Ki-Poo (Sorry, I started to type Ban Ki-moon, but then thought his global warming pronouncements were so operatically overly dramatic that I couldn’t help poking a little low humor at him. For that I apologize, since in my heart of hearts I wish I could come up with something appropriately more humorous and worthy of this UN drama queen).
In the UN’s most recent attempt at relevance:
The United Nations says sea levels will rise 4.6 feet in the next 1,000 years. That’s 5.5 inches per century, slightly less than sea levels rose the past century, and the century before, and … well, you get the picture.
Maybe we should try to put the sea level increases in historical perspective. Have sea levels risen prior to the era of “man-caused” global warming?
Glad you asked.
Since the end of the last glacial period 18,000 years ago, sea levels have risen over 400 feet, or an average of over two feet per century. So now we’re in a panic because we think sea levels will rise less than half a foot per century? When the historical average is over two feet per century? For the past 180 centuries?
Memo to United Nations scientists – the Earth is in an interglacial period. There’s an easy way to tell if Earth is in a glacial or interglacial period. Is Chicago under a mile thick ice cap? If “no,” then we’re in an interglacial period.
If “yes,” then Earth is deep in a glacial period.
Check again in about 10,000 to 20,000 years. The odds are very good you’ll have to dig through a mile of ice to find Chicago again.
The United Nations says that “global warming is unequivocal.” It certainly took the UN a long time to arrive at the obvious. The fact is, global warming has been unequivocal since the early 1900’s, when it was clear that the Little Ice Age had ended in the mid-1800’s, and that a sustained warming period had begun.
Interestingly, this warming period became a cooling period from about 1945 to 1975, during the period of greatly increased production of carbon dioxide from human activities. According to the anthropogenic global warming crowd, it’s not supposed to happen like that. I have been waiting for them to provide a coherent explanation for this anomaly for a long time.
I have also been waiting for them to explain why there was a sustained warming period from 1910 to 1945 that saw an increase of 0.4° C, and that it took almost twice as long, from 1945 to 2005, to get another increase of 0.4° C.
The UN pronouncement is a model for cherry-picking information. It’s interesting when they announce that eleven of the twelve hottest days on record occurred since 1990. Left unsaid is that the record they are looking at only began in 1978, at the end of a prolonged cooling period. More appropriately, according to recently revised NASA weather statistics, five of the ten warmest years occurred before World War II, with 1934 the warmest, 1921 second, and 1998 third.
The UN also cites recent hurricane activity as proof of intensifying storm activity as a result of global warming. Oddly enough, hurricanes have been more numerous and more powerful, even during cooler periods.
During the warming period of 1970 to 1994, hurricane activity was extremely low, resulting in unprecedented coastal population growth and development. Prior to this period of low activity, hurricanes were numerous and strong from 1926 to 1970. Unlike the UN scientists, true experts in hurricanes have long recognized that there is a cycle for hurricane activity that is called the “tropical multi-decadal signal,” and that each cycle can last for 20 or 30 years, or longer.
Much has been made of Katrina and the hurricanes of 2005 by global warming alarmists. These same alarmists have nothing to say about the very benign hurricane seasons of 2006 and 2007. I suppose they will now shift their attention to the cyclone that just killed 15,000 Bangladeshi. However, they will probably not mention that in 1970 an estimated almost half a million Bangladeshi were killed by a cyclone.
Also sure to be overlooked, the over half a million Chinese and Indians killed by three powerful storms in the late 1800’s.
The UN of course notes that global warming will have its greatest impact on the poor. I suppose the UN experts won’t notice that during the past two centuries, more that 131 million perished from famine, or that in recent years famine has become more a result of bad government – China, Ethiopia, North Korea – than of climate change. In fact, only five million of the 131 million deaths from famine occurred after 1970, and almost all were in that paragon of world communism, North Korea.
Predictably, the UN even mentions that wildfires are a sign of out-of-control global warming. However, wildfire frequency has decreased during the past 200 years, while wildfire severity increased due to fire suppression causing fuel buildup in many areas, while population growth and development in fire-prone areas has increased dramatically.
To summarize, the United Nations continues their near-panicked quest to be relevant. They say mankind has caused the world to become abnormally warm, while ignoring much warmer periods like the Holocene Optimum, Roman warm period, and the Medieval Warm Period.
The UN says warming will cause the seas to rise half a foot per century, overlooking that past centuries on average had rates of sea level increase quadruple the current rate.
The UN says the current warming is the highest recorded, overlooking the warming that occurred during the first half of the 1900’s, or the ever greater warming one thousand, two thousand, and five thousand years ago.
The UN says warming will cause more powerful storms, maybe almost as bad as the ones before 1970, or even the horrific ones of the late 1800’s.
According to the UN, warming will also cause more famine, although the trend has been a dramatic reduction in famines during this warmer period, as long as you’re not living in a communist country.
Finally, as fresh as yesterday’s headlines, there are the wildfires, which have been decreasing for 200 years.
The UN's experts may be dumb, but they and Al Gore are dumb like a fox (although not as smart as an ox). The United Nations experts and Al are betting on ignorance of history and science on the part of the world’s peoples to get their message across.
From all indications, they’re betting on a sure thing.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Writers' Strike Could Save the World
The writers' strike could do far more towards saving civilization than vain and incredibly expensive attempts to stop natural climate change. (It's reported CBS News writers may strike. How will you know the difference?)
In fact, the writers’ strike is a wonderful thing that I wish would never end. For over fifty years I have watched television destroy social life, family life, and education of the poorest and most vulnerable, while cheapening our culture and values.
I was one of the hooked, often sitting in front of a television set passively watching while life, often the lives of my family and loved ones, became an almost ignored background to the flickering figures on the screen. I watched a transition in what was prized and respected in our culture. Parents on television shows went from being strong and thoughtful, even wise, to being slow-witted out-of-touch boobs, the butt of jokes played and voiced by their quicker witted, much more socially aware children.
Business owners and managers soon became the bane of civilization, and then the police profession and its activities which touch the lives of such a small percentage of our population grew to become the pervasive dramas on television. Along the way court room dramas created a fiction about judicial procedures most people soon though represented reality.
Ubiquitous celebrities with loud mouths and little education command headlines with their pronouncements on every issue, unfailingly dealing with things they scarcely understand.
Television news has reduced commentary and analyses of issues into sound bites, and in-depth analyses by true experts is ignored because it doesn’t fit TVs time constraints and isn't presented by attention grabbing celebrities. In turn, the time constraints of television are reflected in the brief attention spans of its devoted watchers.
Television producers learned years ago that the mind numbing entertainment they dished up had become more important to their audience than the events of the day. Nothing was guaranteed to cause more distress and anxiety amongst television watchers than an interruption of a favorite show to bring an urgent news report.
So count me in as a one hundred percent supporter of the writers’ strike. I only regret that some shows, like the game shows and “reality” programs may be able to go on without writers. For that I say, for shame any television performer or worker who crosses the writers’ picket lines.
In fact, television workers of the world, show your solidarity with each and every downtrodden and exploited worker of the world, and honor all their picket lines no matter what or where or why they’re striking.
It’s the greatest gift you could give your world.
In fact, the writers’ strike is a wonderful thing that I wish would never end. For over fifty years I have watched television destroy social life, family life, and education of the poorest and most vulnerable, while cheapening our culture and values.
I was one of the hooked, often sitting in front of a television set passively watching while life, often the lives of my family and loved ones, became an almost ignored background to the flickering figures on the screen. I watched a transition in what was prized and respected in our culture. Parents on television shows went from being strong and thoughtful, even wise, to being slow-witted out-of-touch boobs, the butt of jokes played and voiced by their quicker witted, much more socially aware children.
Business owners and managers soon became the bane of civilization, and then the police profession and its activities which touch the lives of such a small percentage of our population grew to become the pervasive dramas on television. Along the way court room dramas created a fiction about judicial procedures most people soon though represented reality.
Ubiquitous celebrities with loud mouths and little education command headlines with their pronouncements on every issue, unfailingly dealing with things they scarcely understand.
Television news has reduced commentary and analyses of issues into sound bites, and in-depth analyses by true experts is ignored because it doesn’t fit TVs time constraints and isn't presented by attention grabbing celebrities. In turn, the time constraints of television are reflected in the brief attention spans of its devoted watchers.
Television producers learned years ago that the mind numbing entertainment they dished up had become more important to their audience than the events of the day. Nothing was guaranteed to cause more distress and anxiety amongst television watchers than an interruption of a favorite show to bring an urgent news report.
So count me in as a one hundred percent supporter of the writers’ strike. I only regret that some shows, like the game shows and “reality” programs may be able to go on without writers. For that I say, for shame any television performer or worker who crosses the writers’ picket lines.
In fact, television workers of the world, show your solidarity with each and every downtrodden and exploited worker of the world, and honor all their picket lines no matter what or where or why they’re striking.
It’s the greatest gift you could give your world.
San Francisco Screws Small Businesses
San Francisco not only screws small businesses, but their workers too.
“How could that be?” you Liberals ask. “Don’t you know that San Francisco is the nearest thing to Heaven that has ever graced this planet, and undoubtedly the Universe?”
“Muslims have Mecca. Liberals have San Francisco.”
The news of San Francisco’s callous regard for the small businessman and his key employees was uncovered by the unlikeliest of sources, the socialist welfare state’s most ardent supporter, the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chronicle, which has the same relationship with news as Hillary has with candor (for example, in Iowa), John Kerry has with Christmas in Cambodia, or Al Gore has with world peace, in some way put ideology aside long enough to note that small San Francisco restaurants were put on a fast track to failure by the minimum wage and health insurance mandates the San Francisco Board of Stupidvisors laid on.
Of course, the San Francisco Supervisors are not the only economic illiterates in San Francisco, where most of the electorate firmly believe that there is such a thing as a free lunch, and take every chance offered them to destroy San Francisco’s job base while saving San Francisco workers. At the rate they’re going, the San Francisco worker will soon join the San Francisco businessperson on the Extinct Species List.
Liberal San Franciscans (please excuse the advertent redundancy) have never absorbed the simple truths that brought down Communism – that for every centrally planned and mandated assault on free market forces, there are unintended consequence that result in economic damages far outweighing conceived benefits.
A case in point. San Francisco is renowned for small, high quality restaurants, and these restaurants are high on the list of reasons that San Francisco is a Mecca for tourists. Good restaurants need good cooks. It would also help if they have good waitpersons too, but if the cooks are good, good wait staff will be abundantly available.
So what does San Francisco, one of the most tourist dependant cities in the world, do? It mandates minimum wage and health care benefits that drive up the cost of waitpersons while pulling money from the pot available to pay cooks. Unlike other more rational cities, which include all the other cities of the world except those run by Communist or Islamic ideologues, San Francisco does not allow a “tip credit” to the wait staff to offset a portion of the minimum wage.
Even New York, almost as beknighted by liberalism as San Francisco, allows a tip credit which reduces their minimum wage to $4.60 per hour, versus $9.14 per hour in San Francisco. That minimum wage differential, plus the San Francisco mandate to give paid time off and health care to employees working ten hours or more a week, means that a dining room staff of twelve costs $285,696 in San Francisco, and only $128,064 (45%) in New York.
Of course, San Francisco restaurants are not competing directly with New York restaurants. However, small San Francisco restaurants are competing directly with large San Francisco restaurants, many of which are owned and operated by large corporations. Because of economies of scale, buying clout, and such things as already existing corporation employee benefit plans, the corporate restaurants are not in the least inconvenienced by the minimum wage and health care mandates.
In fact, the corporate restaurants will be directly benefited by the mandates, because many of their competitors will be driven out of business, or will have to raise their prices precipitously
Wealthy San Franciscans and well-heeled tourists won’t mind, and won’t even notice.
The Middle Class, and the Poor, the ones Liberals are always caring about, will notice, and they’ll dine out less often, and have fewer medium priced and sized restaurants to choose among.
Many high priced restaurants, many fast food restaurants, but very few of the kinds of restaurants that have given San Francisco its reputation for quality and variety.
More Liberal unintended consequences.
“How could that be?” you Liberals ask. “Don’t you know that San Francisco is the nearest thing to Heaven that has ever graced this planet, and undoubtedly the Universe?”
“Muslims have Mecca. Liberals have San Francisco.”
The news of San Francisco’s callous regard for the small businessman and his key employees was uncovered by the unlikeliest of sources, the socialist welfare state’s most ardent supporter, the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chronicle, which has the same relationship with news as Hillary has with candor (for example, in Iowa), John Kerry has with Christmas in Cambodia, or Al Gore has with world peace, in some way put ideology aside long enough to note that small San Francisco restaurants were put on a fast track to failure by the minimum wage and health insurance mandates the San Francisco Board of Stupidvisors laid on.
Of course, the San Francisco Supervisors are not the only economic illiterates in San Francisco, where most of the electorate firmly believe that there is such a thing as a free lunch, and take every chance offered them to destroy San Francisco’s job base while saving San Francisco workers. At the rate they’re going, the San Francisco worker will soon join the San Francisco businessperson on the Extinct Species List.
Liberal San Franciscans (please excuse the advertent redundancy) have never absorbed the simple truths that brought down Communism – that for every centrally planned and mandated assault on free market forces, there are unintended consequence that result in economic damages far outweighing conceived benefits.
A case in point. San Francisco is renowned for small, high quality restaurants, and these restaurants are high on the list of reasons that San Francisco is a Mecca for tourists. Good restaurants need good cooks. It would also help if they have good waitpersons too, but if the cooks are good, good wait staff will be abundantly available.
So what does San Francisco, one of the most tourist dependant cities in the world, do? It mandates minimum wage and health care benefits that drive up the cost of waitpersons while pulling money from the pot available to pay cooks. Unlike other more rational cities, which include all the other cities of the world except those run by Communist or Islamic ideologues, San Francisco does not allow a “tip credit” to the wait staff to offset a portion of the minimum wage.
Even New York, almost as beknighted by liberalism as San Francisco, allows a tip credit which reduces their minimum wage to $4.60 per hour, versus $9.14 per hour in San Francisco. That minimum wage differential, plus the San Francisco mandate to give paid time off and health care to employees working ten hours or more a week, means that a dining room staff of twelve costs $285,696 in San Francisco, and only $128,064 (45%) in New York.
Of course, San Francisco restaurants are not competing directly with New York restaurants. However, small San Francisco restaurants are competing directly with large San Francisco restaurants, many of which are owned and operated by large corporations. Because of economies of scale, buying clout, and such things as already existing corporation employee benefit plans, the corporate restaurants are not in the least inconvenienced by the minimum wage and health care mandates.
In fact, the corporate restaurants will be directly benefited by the mandates, because many of their competitors will be driven out of business, or will have to raise their prices precipitously
Wealthy San Franciscans and well-heeled tourists won’t mind, and won’t even notice.
The Middle Class, and the Poor, the ones Liberals are always caring about, will notice, and they’ll dine out less often, and have fewer medium priced and sized restaurants to choose among.
Many high priced restaurants, many fast food restaurants, but very few of the kinds of restaurants that have given San Francisco its reputation for quality and variety.
More Liberal unintended consequences.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The Spirit of Nick
Alice and I toured China for three weeks, and Nick was one of our several Chinese guides. After we toured a Buddhist pagoda, we got on the bus and Nick answered questions, some of which touched on Buddhism. Nick volunteered: “I celebrate all religious observances – Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim – I celebrate them all”
Muslims and Christians restoring the cross to the top of St. John's Church in Baghdad.
Nick went on to explain that he not only celebrates each of their holy days, he gets a special feeling of happiness and joy from each.
Then today this ecumenical moment photographed by Michael Yon popped up on several of my favorite blogs, e.g. Captain's Quarters.
Nick went on to explain that he not only celebrates each of their holy days, he gets a special feeling of happiness and joy from each.
Then today this ecumenical moment photographed by Michael Yon popped up on several of my favorite blogs, e.g. Captain's Quarters.
To me it's "the spirit of Nick."
After all the years of Communism, Nick came up with a concept that is much richer and joyful than the one you get from any one religion.
In Baghdad, the feeling is the same.
Thanks, Nick.
In the spirit of ecumenicalism, the following is my photographic contribution, "China Dolls." Alice and her grandkids just look joyful.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Democrats break my Heart
Dennis “Aliens on the Brain” Kucinich (Rep-Dim, Ohio), darling of the dingbat wing of the Democrat party, thereby the Democrat intellectually and idealistically best suited to lead his party, tried to fulfill one of my fondest dreams, but other not-quite-as-nutty Democrats were spoil sports.
Actually, my dream was that Democrats try to impeach Bush/Cheney (see my Please Try to Impeach President Bush blog post back in January), but Democrats being natural and chronic underachievers, all Kucinich could do was to try to impeach Vice President Cheney.
Republicans, sensing a grand opportunity to let the Democrats showcase their huge lunatic element, voted along with Kucinich to bring his impeachment charges to the House floor. Democrat leaders, who long have promised their most ardent supporters just such an assault on Bush/Cheney, did a remarkable Keystone Cops imitation, stumbling all over each other in a mad rush to prevent an impeachment debate from reaching the House floor.
Thereby breaking their nutty supporters’ hearts, and mine too.
“Be careful what you wish for, because sometimes wishes come true.”
Actually, my dream was that Democrats try to impeach Bush/Cheney (see my Please Try to Impeach President Bush blog post back in January), but Democrats being natural and chronic underachievers, all Kucinich could do was to try to impeach Vice President Cheney.
Republicans, sensing a grand opportunity to let the Democrats showcase their huge lunatic element, voted along with Kucinich to bring his impeachment charges to the House floor. Democrat leaders, who long have promised their most ardent supporters just such an assault on Bush/Cheney, did a remarkable Keystone Cops imitation, stumbling all over each other in a mad rush to prevent an impeachment debate from reaching the House floor.
Thereby breaking their nutty supporters’ hearts, and mine too.
“Be careful what you wish for, because sometimes wishes come true.”
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
John Kerry's Christmas Gift to Republicans
John Kerry says he will be ready for the Swift Boaters next time.
I can't wait. I’m like a kid at Christmas waiting to open his present as soon as Kerry runs for president to find inside which version he trots out of where he was on Christmas, 1968.
Remember?
John Kerry certainly does:
Years later he elaborated:
Who was president on Christmas, 1968? Lyndon Baines Johnson, not Richard Nixon.
When was the Khmer Rouge in control of Cambodia? Not until 1973, and it didn’t even begin being significant until 1970.
To continue, in a 1992 article by the Associated Press:
I can't wait. I’m like a kid at Christmas waiting to open his present as soon as Kerry runs for president to find inside which version he trots out of where he was on Christmas, 1968.
Remember?
John Kerry certainly does:
I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon [sic] claimed there were no American troops was very real.
Years later he elaborated:
I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me.
Who was president on Christmas, 1968? Lyndon Baines Johnson, not Richard Nixon.
When was the Khmer Rouge in control of Cambodia? Not until 1973, and it didn’t even begin being significant until 1970.
To continue, in a 1992 article by the Associated Press:
But for Kerry, who spent six violent months [sic] commanding a patrol boat on the Mekong River, there's always been a ring of truth to allegations of abandoned Americans. By Christmas 1968, part of Kerry's patrol extended across the border of South Vietnam into Cambodia.
"We were told, `Just go up there and do your patrol. Everybody was over there (in Cambodia). Nobody thought twice about it," Kerry said. One of the missions, which Kerry, at the time, was ordered not to discuss, involved taking CIA operatives into Cambodia to search for enemy enclaves.
"I can remember wondering, `If you're going to go, what happens to you,"' Kerry said..
Well, Mr. Kerry, if you’re going to go, the first thing that happens is you get arrested by the United States Navy, which had the Mekong River blockaded at the Cambodia-Vietnam border.
The second thing that happens is you have your head examined for telling stories about clandestine missions on the Mekong using one of the noisiest ships in the US Navy, the notoriously loud Swift boats.
Another thing that happens is you get ratted out by your own crew members. Those who have spoken all agree that the Cambodian missions didn’t happen.
John Kerry’s own journal, in particular an entry he made on his final mission, also agrees that he never was in Cambodia. That’s bad when your own words confirm you are a liar.
That last day John Kerry wrote: "The banks of the [Rach Giang Thanh River] whistled by as we churned out mile after mile at full speed. On my left were occasional open fields that allowed us a clear view into Cambodia. At some points, the border was only fifty yards away and it then would meander out to several hundred or even as much as a thousand yards away, always making one wonder what lay on the other side."
At least now we know part of the answer. John Kerry lied about being on the other side, and nothing about his later false testimony of personal knowledge of atrocities committed by American soldiers in Vietnam would suggest he is a truth teller.
John Kerry, a Christmas gift to Republicans since he boxed and wrapped his memories in 1968.
I can’t wait to open his present again.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Man Bites Dog - Media Reports Media Bias
A shocking breakthrough has been reported in media coverage of media bias. Of course, it has long been known that the main stream media is heavily biased towards Democrats and against Republicans.
That is an example of a "dog bites man" story.
What is rare is that the media acknowledges their bias. Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased, in the Investors Business Daily, November 1, 2007, provides us one of those "man bites dog" moments.
Researchers at Harvard, not noted as a bastion of conservative ideals, found that the media, in particular newspapers, reported very favorably on Democrats, and in their much lighter coverage of Republicans, very unfavorably. It does not come as a revelation that the newspapers, television, and National Public Radio, are heavily biased for Democrats and against Republicans.
However, it is nothing short of shocking to have objective researchers not only find that is the case, but then to actually report it.
And then the greatest shock of all, that the media would report the study results.
Of course, the media reporting the study results reflects the political biases of the media. I've googled the Harvard report, and the main stream media newspapers and TV are deathly silent about it.
The main stream media motto is still: "We report all the news that we see fit."
That is an example of a "dog bites man" story.
What is rare is that the media acknowledges their bias. Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased, in the Investors Business Daily, November 1, 2007, provides us one of those "man bites dog" moments.
Researchers at Harvard, not noted as a bastion of conservative ideals, found that the media, in particular newspapers, reported very favorably on Democrats, and in their much lighter coverage of Republicans, very unfavorably. It does not come as a revelation that the newspapers, television, and National Public Radio, are heavily biased for Democrats and against Republicans.
However, it is nothing short of shocking to have objective researchers not only find that is the case, but then to actually report it.
And then the greatest shock of all, that the media would report the study results.
Of course, the media reporting the study results reflects the political biases of the media. I've googled the Harvard report, and the main stream media newspapers and TV are deathly silent about it.
The main stream media motto is still: "We report all the news that we see fit."
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
LA Times is Trying, but not Succeeding
I have just read a very strange comment from the Readers’ Representative of the Los Angeles Times. It was in answer to a criticism of an LA Times writer, Timothy Rutten. Among many erroneous and unprofessional comments Rutten reported about criticisms of The New Republic’s “Baghdad Diarist” series, one stood out to me as characterizing the worst form of biased editorializing masquerading as “fact-based assessments of news events.”
The phrase, “fact-based assessments of news events,” is what the LA Times Readers’ Representative, Jamie Gold, says Tim Rutten does.
OK, then what were the facts Rutten based his assessments on?
Private Beauchamp, who wrote the “Baghdad Diarist” stories published by The New Republic, wrote about another Army private, a driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle:
Then Private Beauchamp followed his first tale of dog killing with:
Ms. Rutten, of the Los Angeles Times, wrote that (Army Pvt. Scott Thomas) Beauchamp described "… attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles…”
Challenged on the accuracy of what Rutten wrote, Jamie Gold, the LA Times Readers’ Representative explained:
Ms. Gold, you are probably right that your readers don’t think “that a Bradley trying to run over dogs is different from a Bradley trying to kill dogs.” I don’t either.
But I do think “that a Bradley trying to run over dogs” or “a Bradley trying to kill dogs” are both different from a Bradley actually killing dogs.
Ms. Gold, don’t you understand that when you say you are “trying” to do something, as you did in both your examples, in either case does it logically follow that the reader would understand that dogs had been killed as a result?
Let me try to make it clear for you. I’ll type very slowly. Suppose I say “I’m trying to take that pretty lady to bed.” Would my readers conclude I slept with her because I said I was trying? No, they would be waiting for additional information, like: “I was trying to get her to sleep with me, but I struck out.”
So it is with trying to kill dogs with a Bradley, or trying to bed a pretty lady. Just because you’re trying, doesn’t mean you’re succeeding.
The phrase, “fact-based assessments of news events,” is what the LA Times Readers’ Representative, Jamie Gold, says Tim Rutten does.
OK, then what were the facts Rutten based his assessments on?
Private Beauchamp, who wrote the “Baghdad Diarist” stories published by The New Republic, wrote about another Army private, a driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle:
He (the driver) slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road.
Then Private Beauchamp followed his first tale of dog killing with:
A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn't have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.
Ms. Rutten, of the Los Angeles Times, wrote that (Army Pvt. Scott Thomas) Beauchamp described "… attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles…”
Challenged on the accuracy of what Rutten wrote, Jamie Gold, the LA Times Readers’ Representative explained:
Rutten referred to the Bradleys as trying to run over stray dogs, vs. kill the dogs, but I'm not seeing that point as factually wrong (I don't believe that a reader thinks that a Bradley trying to run over dogs is different from a Bradley trying to kill dogs).
Ms. Gold, you are probably right that your readers don’t think “that a Bradley trying to run over dogs is different from a Bradley trying to kill dogs.” I don’t either.
But I do think “that a Bradley trying to run over dogs” or “a Bradley trying to kill dogs” are both different from a Bradley actually killing dogs.
Ms. Gold, don’t you understand that when you say you are “trying” to do something, as you did in both your examples, in either case does it logically follow that the reader would understand that dogs had been killed as a result?
Let me try to make it clear for you. I’ll type very slowly. Suppose I say “I’m trying to take that pretty lady to bed.” Would my readers conclude I slept with her because I said I was trying? No, they would be waiting for additional information, like: “I was trying to get her to sleep with me, but I struck out.”
So it is with trying to kill dogs with a Bradley, or trying to bed a pretty lady. Just because you’re trying, doesn’t mean you’re succeeding.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
You Are What You Eat
(Several years ago when Alice and I were serving on the school board, there was a contentious issue about whether the schools could use irradiated foods in the cafeteria that the government was providing from surplus stocks at substantial savings. The local Hippie community showed up at our meeting in vast numbers – about forty people, vast for our community – well half-vast, anyway – to register their uninformed and misguided opposition to irradiated foods, and to praise organic foods. One woman in particular, with a doughy face and frumpy body, who looked two decades older than her age, took the floor to tell us how modern foods were full of horrible things, and organic weren’t. She concluded by saying that we had to be good to our bodies because “we are what we eat.”
After the meeting Alice and I compared our notes, and found that we both thought the same thing at the same time; we wanted to find out what she eats, and make sure we avoid it.)
The featured article in the San Francisco Chronicle recently was a strange missive from a reader in Berkeley (see the copy of it below). Apparently California now requires even “raw” food sold in markets to undergo some level of processing, undoubtedly to kill bacteria in it before it kills its consumers. I’m not shocked by this. Every time there is a problem involving the sale of contaminated food, and death and/or illness accompanies it, there is an outpouring of outrage that our governmental agencies are not doing enough to protect the public health.
I’m also not shocked, since over fifty years ago I remember small dairies in California going out of business because they couldn’t afford to buy all the stainless steel milk processing and storage equipment to meet California’s upgraded standards for Grade A dairies.
So what is Ms. Nowve’s point? One, that when food processors kill bacteria in food, they make the food worthless. Based on my own personal experience, and on what I believe are the experiences of billions more, I think that classifying processed food as worthless is a matter of opinion on the part of Ms. Nowve, not fact.
In fact, I personally have observed that the consumers of processed food outlive consumers of unprocessed food by wide margins. And as the science of food processing and storage has progressed, the average life expectancies have increased remarkably in the developed world. I already note similar advances as we pass our progress on to the developing world.
However, I have also observed that, up to this point in time, all humans seem to be destined one day to die, regardless of diet.
Ms. Nowve’s second point is that what she eats should be her choice.
Bless me, Ms. Nowve, but what you eat is your choice!
No one in Berkeley is force feeding you (I presume). You are free to travel about, and find and purchase the foods you desire, in whatever condition of non-processing you desire, and thence to consume them.
Raw milk? No problem!
Our family lived in Point Arena, on the northern California coast, in the 1950s. We had a cow, a Jersey we named Cinnamon, with big beautiful brown eyes. My brother Ron and I milked her twice a day when she was “fresh,” and her milk was very rich in butterfat. After milking we would pour the milk through a cheesecloth strainer to remove the particles of dirt & etc. (you really don't want to know) that fell into the bucket as we milked Cinnamon. We poured the milk into gallon glass jars, and stored it in the refrigerator to inhibit the growth of the bacteria (which certainly resided therein).
With the passage of a few hours, the cream would rise to the top of the jar, and we would pour most of it off to hand churn butter. The rest we would consume prodigiously, since as readers of this blog know, my brother Ron and I were not only “strong as an ox, and nearly as smart,” we were about as big as an ox too.
Our buddy Bob Seymour wrote he was amazed to watch us eat our morning cereal from mixing bowls.
We also grew a variety of vegetables and fruit in a large garden near our house.
I imagine that, at this point, Ms. Nowve is going to think that the reason brother Ron and I were so big, so strong, and so smart was because of all the raw food we consumed.
Sorry, Ms. Nowve, I hate to burst your bubble, but except for the milk and strawberries from our garden, everything else we ate was cooked. We also ate loaves of white bread, labeled Wonderbread, and Mom bought us Wheaties by the case. A special treat was adding Hershey’s chocolate syrup to make our raw milk into chocolate milk.
Alice reminds me that, as far as she is concerned, I have gotten way off the point in replying to Ms. Nowve. Alice feels, and I’m sure she’s right, that we taxpayers and consumers bear the costs of illnesses and lawsuits brought by individuals who buy contaminated foods from commercial suppliers licensed and regulated by overlapping layers of government.
This being America, the land of the free and the home of the litigious, every citizen has the right to do something stupid, and then expect the courts to handsomely compensate them for the consequences of their stupidity.
Drive with a hot cup of coffee and spill it in your lap? Sue McDonald’s for selling hot coffee to an idiot.
Smoke cigarettes for over forty years, all the while ignoring: “Warning: The Surgeon General says smoking will kill your dumb ass,” and then sue the tobacco companies for selling them to you.
Insist health care is a right, but paying for it is the responsibility of someone else.
But getting back to your point, Ms. Nowve, you may eat what you like. You may have a hard time finding a store that carries what you want to eat, but that’s a force of the marketplace, because there aren’t many nuts out there that want to pay good money for rich servings of e-coli.
Here is Ms. Nowve's letter:
After the meeting Alice and I compared our notes, and found that we both thought the same thing at the same time; we wanted to find out what she eats, and make sure we avoid it.)
The featured article in the San Francisco Chronicle recently was a strange missive from a reader in Berkeley (see the copy of it below). Apparently California now requires even “raw” food sold in markets to undergo some level of processing, undoubtedly to kill bacteria in it before it kills its consumers. I’m not shocked by this. Every time there is a problem involving the sale of contaminated food, and death and/or illness accompanies it, there is an outpouring of outrage that our governmental agencies are not doing enough to protect the public health.
I’m also not shocked, since over fifty years ago I remember small dairies in California going out of business because they couldn’t afford to buy all the stainless steel milk processing and storage equipment to meet California’s upgraded standards for Grade A dairies.
So what is Ms. Nowve’s point? One, that when food processors kill bacteria in food, they make the food worthless. Based on my own personal experience, and on what I believe are the experiences of billions more, I think that classifying processed food as worthless is a matter of opinion on the part of Ms. Nowve, not fact.
In fact, I personally have observed that the consumers of processed food outlive consumers of unprocessed food by wide margins. And as the science of food processing and storage has progressed, the average life expectancies have increased remarkably in the developed world. I already note similar advances as we pass our progress on to the developing world.
However, I have also observed that, up to this point in time, all humans seem to be destined one day to die, regardless of diet.
Ms. Nowve’s second point is that what she eats should be her choice.
Bless me, Ms. Nowve, but what you eat is your choice!
No one in Berkeley is force feeding you (I presume). You are free to travel about, and find and purchase the foods you desire, in whatever condition of non-processing you desire, and thence to consume them.
Raw milk? No problem!
Our family lived in Point Arena, on the northern California coast, in the 1950s. We had a cow, a Jersey we named Cinnamon, with big beautiful brown eyes. My brother Ron and I milked her twice a day when she was “fresh,” and her milk was very rich in butterfat. After milking we would pour the milk through a cheesecloth strainer to remove the particles of dirt & etc. (you really don't want to know) that fell into the bucket as we milked Cinnamon. We poured the milk into gallon glass jars, and stored it in the refrigerator to inhibit the growth of the bacteria (which certainly resided therein).
With the passage of a few hours, the cream would rise to the top of the jar, and we would pour most of it off to hand churn butter. The rest we would consume prodigiously, since as readers of this blog know, my brother Ron and I were not only “strong as an ox, and nearly as smart,” we were about as big as an ox too.
Our buddy Bob Seymour wrote he was amazed to watch us eat our morning cereal from mixing bowls.
We also grew a variety of vegetables and fruit in a large garden near our house.
I imagine that, at this point, Ms. Nowve is going to think that the reason brother Ron and I were so big, so strong, and so smart was because of all the raw food we consumed.
Sorry, Ms. Nowve, I hate to burst your bubble, but except for the milk and strawberries from our garden, everything else we ate was cooked. We also ate loaves of white bread, labeled Wonderbread, and Mom bought us Wheaties by the case. A special treat was adding Hershey’s chocolate syrup to make our raw milk into chocolate milk.
Alice reminds me that, as far as she is concerned, I have gotten way off the point in replying to Ms. Nowve. Alice feels, and I’m sure she’s right, that we taxpayers and consumers bear the costs of illnesses and lawsuits brought by individuals who buy contaminated foods from commercial suppliers licensed and regulated by overlapping layers of government.
This being America, the land of the free and the home of the litigious, every citizen has the right to do something stupid, and then expect the courts to handsomely compensate them for the consequences of their stupidity.
Drive with a hot cup of coffee and spill it in your lap? Sue McDonald’s for selling hot coffee to an idiot.
Smoke cigarettes for over forty years, all the while ignoring: “Warning: The Surgeon General says smoking will kill your dumb ass,” and then sue the tobacco companies for selling them to you.
Insist health care is a right, but paying for it is the responsibility of someone else.
But getting back to your point, Ms. Nowve, you may eat what you like. You may have a hard time finding a store that carries what you want to eat, but that’s a force of the marketplace, because there aren’t many nuts out there that want to pay good money for rich servings of e-coli.
Here is Ms. Nowve's letter:
What I eat should be my choice
Editor - Re "Tough new standards for state's raw milk," (Oct. 26): It is quite apparent that California is waging a war on raw health food. First, it outlaws raw juices. Then raw almonds. (Pasteurized almonds are not raw, although they are now being labeled "raw.")
Now this surprise stealth measure banning raw milk. These food fascists love to pretend they are just watching out for our health. But they are actually killing everything live that people might eat, in order to kill bacteria. But in killing the bacteria, they are also killing for (sic) food, and making it worthless.
I eat a raw diet and I believe cooked food is bad for people. I don't force my views on anyone else. People can eat what they like as long as they accord me the same courtesy. But they don't. This all boils down to the question of whether adults can be trusted to make personal decisions for themselves, or if we are all a bunch of backward children who need the government to make our decisions for us. Big Brother: Get your laws off my body!
FRANCES NOWVE
Berkeley
Sunday, October 28, 2007
LA Times Joins The New Republic in Humiliation
Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times penned an article Drudge, New Republic battle over 'Baghdad Diarist', that provides a textbook illustration of the time-honored approach to discussion, the “red herring.”
Mr. Rutten does nothing to advance an argument or to make a point, but merely uses the device of listing question after question. The questions have nothing to do with allegations that the 'Baghdad Diarist' articles are untruthful, but are only raised to divert attention from the articles.
It is as if Mr. Rutten thinks that raising questions about the role or motives of Drudge in reporting the allegations that ‘Baghdad Diarist’ stories are false somehow substantiates the stories.
Mr. Rutten, the only thing that would or could substantiate the 'Baghdad Diarist’ stories are the facts contained in the stories, not the pedigree of an aggregator of news stories who selected them for inclusion in his blog.
But as long as we’re asking questions, why not some of you?
Mr. Rutten, why in your Los Angeles Times article did you write that (Army Pvt. Scott Thomas) Beauchamp described "… attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles…”?
I assume you actually read the article and noticed that Private Beauchamp described observing another Army private, the driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, killing two dogs with the Bradley, and that Private Beauchamp described both killings in great detail.
Remember?
You do remember that, right Mr. Rutten?
How about?
Yet you described that Private Beauchamp wrote of attempts to run over stray dogs, not the killing of the stray dogs that Private Beauchamp described.
Why didn’t you write that Beauchamp described the “killing” of stray dogs rather than “attempts” to run over them?
May I speculate why you chose to mischaracterize what Private Beauchamp wrote?
I believe that you realize, as do I, that only a fool or a someone complicit in Beauchamp’s fanciful reporting would publish his account as fact.
I’m sure you, as did I, looked at a photo of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle while reading Beauchamp’s account of catching the first dog in the Bradley’s tracks. Of course, we both noticed that the Bradley driver sits low in the left front of the Bradley, with a steel hatch cover and a turret completely blocking the view of the right rear area.
We immediately noticed that the only way the driver could "snag its (the dog's leg) under the tracks" would be to have the front of the right track roll precisely over the dog's leg. Why is that? Because a 30-ton Bradley traveling at dog-walk speed cannot make a track bounce into the air to land on a dog's leg.
To further complicate matters, to lurch a slow moving Bradley to its right, you have to almost stop the right track, and let the unbraked left track push you into the right turn.
So now the driver has done something bordering on the impossible. He has caught the leg of a dog he couldn't see in a precise spot of the track where its leg would be wedged and thus caught, and Private Beauchamp adds to the incredulity by observing it all from ...?
From where?
Wasn't Beauchamp inside the Bradley?
What could he see from there?
Further, didn’t we both notice that it is impossible to drag something caught in a Bradley track? Apparently Private Beauchamp is not as observant as you and I, and didn’t perceive that anything caught in a Bradley track could not possibly be dragged, because the portion of the track where the animal was caught would remain on the same spot of ground until it became the rearmost piece of track, and then would suddenly be propelled upwards, then violently forward. Something caught in it might be flung upwards, or if caught firmly be carried upwards and forward, but it could never be dragged.
I’ll bet you also caught that the second dog could not have died in the manner described by Private Beauchamp. Again looking at the photo of the Bradley, we would have noticed its wide track.
“How wide is that track, I wonder?”
A quick Google of “Bradley Fighting Vehicle” got us the answer, didn’t it?
Twenty-one inches wide.
How long is the torso of a dog?
I don’t know about your dog, Mr. Rutten, but my dog Buddy has a very long torso, 28 inches. Even if a dog as large as Buddy were lying squarely across the path of a Bradley, and was struck in its exact center, there would be a 3.5 inch rear portion, a smashed middle, and a front portion with neck and head, with all portions still attached. It is beyond any and all rational belief to think that an animal run over by a 21 inch-wide track on a 30-ton vehicle would have a rear part left that was capable of “twitching wildly,” or a “head (that) was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.”
You see, Mr. Rutten, you and I can easily visualize the effect a Bradley track would have on a dog, can’t we? In fact, with our superior logic and experience we know that such a track, hitting the average dog, would in fact smash all of it flat, leaving nothing to twitch wildly or smile at the sun.
Mr. Rutten, I appreciate that your regard for your fellow professionals at The New Republic brought forth your effort to obfuscate this matter and spare them public humiliation and embarrassment at the hands of Bloggers, but the matter is shockingly simple.
If The New Republic editors cannot demonstrate why they did not reject Private Beauchamp’s easily disproven tales, then they were either incompetent or complicit in spreading lies about United States soldiers serving in Iraq.
Isn't it one of the lowest things a journalist could do, engaging in specious reporting and casting aspersions upon the actions of men who are serving their country honorably? Stealing their valor by spreading and sensationalizing false stories?
Clearly there is no room for a third interpretation, and nothing that has happened subsequent to The New Republic publishing the stories can change that.
Trying to drag Drudge in, and posing a series of irrelevant questions about Drudge’s participation, leaves a stink rising from your article like that of a dead red herring lying in the sun.
You see, Mr. Rutten, when the essential elements of a story are false, the story is false. Even when it is reported by someone the Los Angeles Times doesn’t like.
So congratulations, Mr. Rutten.
Now you have brought the Los Angeles Times into solidarity with The New Republic in their public humiliation and embarrassment.
Mr. Rutten does nothing to advance an argument or to make a point, but merely uses the device of listing question after question. The questions have nothing to do with allegations that the 'Baghdad Diarist' articles are untruthful, but are only raised to divert attention from the articles.
It is as if Mr. Rutten thinks that raising questions about the role or motives of Drudge in reporting the allegations that ‘Baghdad Diarist’ stories are false somehow substantiates the stories.
Mr. Rutten, the only thing that would or could substantiate the 'Baghdad Diarist’ stories are the facts contained in the stories, not the pedigree of an aggregator of news stories who selected them for inclusion in his blog.
But as long as we’re asking questions, why not some of you?
Mr. Rutten, why in your Los Angeles Times article did you write that (Army Pvt. Scott Thomas) Beauchamp described "… attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles…”?
I assume you actually read the article and noticed that Private Beauchamp described observing another Army private, the driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, killing two dogs with the Bradley, and that Private Beauchamp described both killings in great detail.
Remember?
He (the driver) slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road.
You do remember that, right Mr. Rutten?
How about?
A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn't have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.
Yet you described that Private Beauchamp wrote of attempts to run over stray dogs, not the killing of the stray dogs that Private Beauchamp described.
Why didn’t you write that Beauchamp described the “killing” of stray dogs rather than “attempts” to run over them?
May I speculate why you chose to mischaracterize what Private Beauchamp wrote?
I believe that you realize, as do I, that only a fool or a someone complicit in Beauchamp’s fanciful reporting would publish his account as fact.
I’m sure you, as did I, looked at a photo of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle while reading Beauchamp’s account of catching the first dog in the Bradley’s tracks. Of course, we both noticed that the Bradley driver sits low in the left front of the Bradley, with a steel hatch cover and a turret completely blocking the view of the right rear area.
We immediately noticed that the only way the driver could "snag its (the dog's leg) under the tracks" would be to have the front of the right track roll precisely over the dog's leg. Why is that? Because a 30-ton Bradley traveling at dog-walk speed cannot make a track bounce into the air to land on a dog's leg.
To further complicate matters, to lurch a slow moving Bradley to its right, you have to almost stop the right track, and let the unbraked left track push you into the right turn.
So now the driver has done something bordering on the impossible. He has caught the leg of a dog he couldn't see in a precise spot of the track where its leg would be wedged and thus caught, and Private Beauchamp adds to the incredulity by observing it all from ...?
From where?
Wasn't Beauchamp inside the Bradley?
What could he see from there?
Further, didn’t we both notice that it is impossible to drag something caught in a Bradley track? Apparently Private Beauchamp is not as observant as you and I, and didn’t perceive that anything caught in a Bradley track could not possibly be dragged, because the portion of the track where the animal was caught would remain on the same spot of ground until it became the rearmost piece of track, and then would suddenly be propelled upwards, then violently forward. Something caught in it might be flung upwards, or if caught firmly be carried upwards and forward, but it could never be dragged.
I’ll bet you also caught that the second dog could not have died in the manner described by Private Beauchamp. Again looking at the photo of the Bradley, we would have noticed its wide track.
“How wide is that track, I wonder?”
A quick Google of “Bradley Fighting Vehicle” got us the answer, didn’t it?
Twenty-one inches wide.
How long is the torso of a dog?
I don’t know about your dog, Mr. Rutten, but my dog Buddy has a very long torso, 28 inches. Even if a dog as large as Buddy were lying squarely across the path of a Bradley, and was struck in its exact center, there would be a 3.5 inch rear portion, a smashed middle, and a front portion with neck and head, with all portions still attached. It is beyond any and all rational belief to think that an animal run over by a 21 inch-wide track on a 30-ton vehicle would have a rear part left that was capable of “twitching wildly,” or a “head (that) was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.”
You see, Mr. Rutten, you and I can easily visualize the effect a Bradley track would have on a dog, can’t we? In fact, with our superior logic and experience we know that such a track, hitting the average dog, would in fact smash all of it flat, leaving nothing to twitch wildly or smile at the sun.
Mr. Rutten, I appreciate that your regard for your fellow professionals at The New Republic brought forth your effort to obfuscate this matter and spare them public humiliation and embarrassment at the hands of Bloggers, but the matter is shockingly simple.
If The New Republic editors cannot demonstrate why they did not reject Private Beauchamp’s easily disproven tales, then they were either incompetent or complicit in spreading lies about United States soldiers serving in Iraq.
Isn't it one of the lowest things a journalist could do, engaging in specious reporting and casting aspersions upon the actions of men who are serving their country honorably? Stealing their valor by spreading and sensationalizing false stories?
Clearly there is no room for a third interpretation, and nothing that has happened subsequent to The New Republic publishing the stories can change that.
Trying to drag Drudge in, and posing a series of irrelevant questions about Drudge’s participation, leaves a stink rising from your article like that of a dead red herring lying in the sun.
You see, Mr. Rutten, when the essential elements of a story are false, the story is false. Even when it is reported by someone the Los Angeles Times doesn’t like.
So congratulations, Mr. Rutten.
Now you have brought the Los Angeles Times into solidarity with The New Republic in their public humiliation and embarrassment.
Friday, October 26, 2007
"The New Republic" is Blogger Road Kill
Before I unload, several major bloggers have already nailed down a strong case against the editorial staff of The New Republic.
Here is a very well researched and organized dénouement of The New Republic article by blogger extraordinaire Bob “Confederate Yankee” Owens. (A big hat tip to Captain’s Quarters)
Here is more great stuff Mr. Owens posted on Pajamas Media.
Just as the blogosphere dismembered CBS News and Dan Blather over the Texas Air National Guard forgeries, now The New Republic is paying the price for liberal bias, ignorance of the military, slipshod fact checking, and stone-walling.
Of particular interest to me was the way that expertise on one issue was contributed by readers of the Confederate Yankee blog. The New Republic published an article, Shock Troops, by Army Private Scott Beauchamp, writing from and stationed in Iraq. One of Private Beauchamp’s stories was highly detailed, and in reflection, totally unbelievable.
The story, as told by Private Beauchamp:
The first point that commenters made was that it would be impossible for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle to be used in the way described to kill dogs. Mr. Owens contacted an expert at the manufacturing company and confirmed this. The expert was the same guy The New Republic had interviewed previously to support Private Beauchamp's story. Unfortunately for The New Republic, their fact checker was clueless about military vehicles and didn't ask pertinent questions.
First, the crew of a Bradley includes its commander, a gunner, the driver, and two to six mission soldiers. Beauchamp’s description of the driver, an Army Private, having the capacity to operate the Bradley as his own personal joy ride vehicle to act out his video game fantasies is incredible. Number 1, his commander (riding in the turret) wouldn’t allow it. Number 2, it would make an already very uncomfortable ride totally unbearable for the mission soldiers cramped inside the Bradley, and they wouldn’t let him do it.
Bradley Fighting Vehicle - note driver at left forward, with hatch behind, and turret to right and behind. The driver has a great position to spot something at the right rear, don't you think?
Second, look at the picture of the Bradley, and note that the Bradley driver has a very limited range of view. He would not even be able to see a dog near his tracks, and would not be able to see to the rear at all to appreciate what he supposedly did. Of course, Beauchamp, who wrote that he observed two kills one day, was not the driver, commander, or gunner, and would have absolutely no way to see anything happening outside the Bradley.
Look at the picture of the Bradley. The Bradley driver is on the left front, the soon-to-be-dead dog would be approaching on the right rear.
We have already established that the driver can’t see behind – look at the picture of the Bradley again, and the raised steel hatch lid behind the driver – and the picture also shows that the Bradley turret blocks the driver’s view of the entire right side, all the way to the horizon - and yet Private Beauchamp wrote that the driver would be able to see a dog approaching the Bradley from the right rear, and then be able to swerve the Bradley to the right in such a way as to catch the dog in its tracks.
That’s right. Tracks.
As the Army veterans who commented to Bob Owens noted, in order to swerve a Bradley to the right traveling at low speed – at a speed slower than that of the dog walking up to the Bradley - you have to stop the right track while the left track continues ahead. At low speed the Bradley does not skid suddenly, and it can’t catch anything in its track.
Have you ever watched a track on a rolling tank? You can’t drag anything caught in a moving tank tread. The tread is moving in an endless loop. Look at the picture again and try to visualize where a dog’s leg could be caught in order for it to be dragged. Remember, while the portion of track where the “leg caught” was in contact with the ground, it can't move. Only when that portion becomes the rearmost part of the track does it move, and then it goes up, followed by violently forward.
Not for one moment would anything caught in the track be dragged.
A dog to be caught would have to be very slow, and also deaf.
The Bradley weighs thirty tons, and makes a horrendous noise.
Just the sort of thing to attract every feral dog in the neighborhood to want to run after it and get a piece of it, right?
That brings us to dog kill number 2.
I just measured my dog, Buddy. He has an exceptionally long torso, roughly 28” long, probably placing him in the top five percentile for body length, and much longer than any Iraqi dogs I’ve seen pictured.
The Bradley track is 21” wide.
If a Bradley ran over a normal sized dog, there would no “front half completely severed from its rear.” There would be one dog completely crushed on the road.
Suffice it to say, just looking at one photo of a Bradley gives the lie to Private Beauchamp’s fanciful descriptions of "dogicide."
That still leaves a lot of other details in doubt.
In terms of Private Beauchamp’s description of radio traffic, since radios only allow one set to be transmitting on a frequency at a time, it’s hard for me to visualize how “A roar of laughter broke out over the radio.”
Not only how, but from whence and from whom?
Still, the editors of The New Republic are sticking to their story, but they’re stuck like a deer in the headlamps, and a convoy of bloggers are coming at them at high speed.
The New Republic road kill is on the Blog City Diner menu tonight.
For the many of you fortunate not to have The San Francisco Chronicle as your daily newspaper, the “road kill” and “Blog City Diner menu” are a tribute to the late Chronicle cartoonist Phil Frank, who had a group of black bears running the Fog City Diner, where the critter customers selected from a menu featuring the choicest of the day’s road kill.
"Hey, Bloggers, tonight's special is "The New Republic," grilled and stuffed with crow."
Here is a very well researched and organized dénouement of The New Republic article by blogger extraordinaire Bob “Confederate Yankee” Owens. (A big hat tip to Captain’s Quarters)
Here is more great stuff Mr. Owens posted on Pajamas Media.
Just as the blogosphere dismembered CBS News and Dan Blather over the Texas Air National Guard forgeries, now The New Republic is paying the price for liberal bias, ignorance of the military, slipshod fact checking, and stone-walling.
Of particular interest to me was the way that expertise on one issue was contributed by readers of the Confederate Yankee blog. The New Republic published an article, Shock Troops, by Army Private Scott Beauchamp, writing from and stationed in Iraq. One of Private Beauchamp’s stories was highly detailed, and in reflection, totally unbelievable.
The story, as told by Private Beauchamp:
I know another private who really only enjoyed driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles because it gave him the opportunity to run things over. He took out curbs, concrete barriers, corners of buildings, stands in the market, and his favorite target: dogs. Occasionally, the brave ones would chase the Bradleys, barking at them like they bark at trash trucks in America--providing him with the perfect opportunity to suddenly swerve and catch a leg or a tail in the vehicle's tracks. He kept a tally of his kills in a little green notebook that sat on the dashboard of the driver's hatch. One particular day, he killed three dogs. He slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road. A roar of laughter broke out over the radio. Another notch for the book.
The second kill was a straight shot: A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn't have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.
I didn't see the third kill, but I heard about it over the radio. Everyone was laughing, nearly rolling with laughter. I approached the private after the mission and asked him about it.
"So, you killed a few dogs today,” I said skeptically.
"Hell yeah, I did. It's like hunting in Iraq!" he said, shaking with laughter.
"Did you run over dogs before the war, back in Indiana?" I asked him."No,"he replied, and looked at me curiously. Almost as if the question itself was in poor taste.
The first point that commenters made was that it would be impossible for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle to be used in the way described to kill dogs. Mr. Owens contacted an expert at the manufacturing company and confirmed this. The expert was the same guy The New Republic had interviewed previously to support Private Beauchamp's story. Unfortunately for The New Republic, their fact checker was clueless about military vehicles and didn't ask pertinent questions.
First, the crew of a Bradley includes its commander, a gunner, the driver, and two to six mission soldiers. Beauchamp’s description of the driver, an Army Private, having the capacity to operate the Bradley as his own personal joy ride vehicle to act out his video game fantasies is incredible. Number 1, his commander (riding in the turret) wouldn’t allow it. Number 2, it would make an already very uncomfortable ride totally unbearable for the mission soldiers cramped inside the Bradley, and they wouldn’t let him do it.
Bradley Fighting Vehicle - note driver at left forward, with hatch behind, and turret to right and behind. The driver has a great position to spot something at the right rear, don't you think?
Second, look at the picture of the Bradley, and note that the Bradley driver has a very limited range of view. He would not even be able to see a dog near his tracks, and would not be able to see to the rear at all to appreciate what he supposedly did. Of course, Beauchamp, who wrote that he observed two kills one day, was not the driver, commander, or gunner, and would have absolutely no way to see anything happening outside the Bradley.
Occasionally, the brave ones would chase the Bradleys, barking at them like they bark at trash trucks in America--providing him with the perfect opportunity to suddenly swerve and catch a leg or a tail in the vehicle's tracks.
Look at the picture of the Bradley. The Bradley driver is on the left front, the soon-to-be-dead dog would be approaching on the right rear.
We have already established that the driver can’t see behind – look at the picture of the Bradley again, and the raised steel hatch lid behind the driver – and the picture also shows that the Bradley turret blocks the driver’s view of the entire right side, all the way to the horizon - and yet Private Beauchamp wrote that the driver would be able to see a dog approaching the Bradley from the right rear, and then be able to swerve the Bradley to the right in such a way as to catch the dog in its tracks.
That’s right. Tracks.
As the Army veterans who commented to Bob Owens noted, in order to swerve a Bradley to the right traveling at low speed – at a speed slower than that of the dog walking up to the Bradley - you have to stop the right track while the left track continues ahead. At low speed the Bradley does not skid suddenly, and it can’t catch anything in its track.
The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road.
Have you ever watched a track on a rolling tank? You can’t drag anything caught in a moving tank tread. The tread is moving in an endless loop. Look at the picture again and try to visualize where a dog’s leg could be caught in order for it to be dragged. Remember, while the portion of track where the “leg caught” was in contact with the ground, it can't move. Only when that portion becomes the rearmost part of the track does it move, and then it goes up, followed by violently forward.
Not for one moment would anything caught in the track be dragged.
A dog to be caught would have to be very slow, and also deaf.
The Bradley weighs thirty tons, and makes a horrendous noise.
Just the sort of thing to attract every feral dog in the neighborhood to want to run after it and get a piece of it, right?
That brings us to dog kill number 2.
The second kill was a straight shot: A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn't have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.
I just measured my dog, Buddy. He has an exceptionally long torso, roughly 28” long, probably placing him in the top five percentile for body length, and much longer than any Iraqi dogs I’ve seen pictured.
The Bradley track is 21” wide.
If a Bradley ran over a normal sized dog, there would no “front half completely severed from its rear.” There would be one dog completely crushed on the road.
Suffice it to say, just looking at one photo of a Bradley gives the lie to Private Beauchamp’s fanciful descriptions of "dogicide."
That still leaves a lot of other details in doubt.
In terms of Private Beauchamp’s description of radio traffic, since radios only allow one set to be transmitting on a frequency at a time, it’s hard for me to visualize how “A roar of laughter broke out over the radio.”
Not only how, but from whence and from whom?
Still, the editors of The New Republic are sticking to their story, but they’re stuck like a deer in the headlamps, and a convoy of bloggers are coming at them at high speed.
The New Republic road kill is on the Blog City Diner menu tonight.
For the many of you fortunate not to have The San Francisco Chronicle as your daily newspaper, the “road kill” and “Blog City Diner menu” are a tribute to the late Chronicle cartoonist Phil Frank, who had a group of black bears running the Fog City Diner, where the critter customers selected from a menu featuring the choicest of the day’s road kill.
"Hey, Bloggers, tonight's special is "The New Republic," grilled and stuffed with crow."
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