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July 30, 2009

Dad -- UPDATE

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My father during our cross-country train trip in 2004, when we belatedly celebrated his 70th and my 40th birthdays by cruising the Caribbean together, returning via the Panama Canal.


After spending the night at the hospital for observation, Dad received his walking papers today, along with a variety of bandages, puncture wounds, bruises, lacerations and assorted contusions. Still, for all that, he looked pretty good tonight and seemed to be in decent spirits.

It seems we've reached a point in both our lives where our roles are reversed: Dad spent many years worrying about the health and safety of his children; today, I find myself constantly concerned for his well being. Today I felt like we both dodged a bullet, thank God.

Speaking of which, it's a good thing Dad changed his mind about that idiotic Smart Car.

Many thanks for all the kind words and prayers for Dad's speedy recovery.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 29, 2009

Dad

My stepmother called to tell us that Dad was in the hospital. She hadn't been able to reach him on his cell phone -- always a warning sign, given that Dad and Jane call each other all the time.

It turns out that Dad had a single-car accident and ended up unconscious on someone's lawn. He's a little banged up -- like his car -- but seems to have escaped without any major injuries.

I high-tailed it South to L.A. and I'm sitting with him in the E.R., while Jane gets something to eat.

Speaking of food and family, we're nothing if not the prototypical Jewish clan. My brother called while I was driving down to take my order; we had a huge dinner of Chinese takeout in the waiting room. Every calamity is a little less upsetting on a full stomach, and Chinese is practically Kosher, except for the whole pork and shellfish mishegas.

If you're ever in the Providence Tarzana Medical Center, I highly recommend Wok Fast on Reseda Boulevard; the Asparagus Shrimp is delicious.

Even better, avoid the hospital entirely.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Nanny State devouring liberty

Dale Amon reports on the latest manifestation of Nanny State lunacy:

After working over fourteen hours today, with perhaps three hours of sleep the night before, my boss on the DC consulting job took me out for dinner at a diner, nearly the only restaurant still open in Bethesda at that hour.

After dinner he asked for a Banana Cream Pie, his usual self-treat after this sort of marathon work day. The night chef told us it is no longer available. Montgomery County outlawed Trans-Fats and such pies are now contraband.

For a moment I considered asking if there was a back room where one could gorge on smuggled pies, but thought better of it. Such secret places would be only for locals and those known to the Mafia, not for transient gypsy engineers such as myself.

Amon calls for a Cream Pie Revolution, but I'm unable to set aside my rising anger in favor of bemused detachment at the ever-increasing infantilization of the American people at the hands of our erstwhile public servants.

This is how freedom disappears, in small, seemingly insignificant steps -- one slice at a time, if you will -- all done for the benefit of the greater good.

Besides, I love banana cream pie.

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July 28, 2009

What's wrong with Obama?

What's the deal with Pres. Obama? Here's an analysis from the blogger known as Instapunk:


If Rich Lowry is right, Obama doesn't care about the huge political hit he is about to take if he actually succeeds in his quest for a healthcare bill. His "restructuring" of the nation is more important than the plunge in the polls he will experience when another bill read in full by no member of congress locks every American into a government monopoly of the largest sector of the economy. Why wouldn't he care? Because he's the equivalent of a mole-suicide-bomber who would rather complete his destruction of the American economy and constitution than be reelected? Because he fully intends such an utter breakdown of the American and dependent global capitalist system that he will be able to declare martial law a la Hitler and become the Hugo Chavez of the world's most powerful nation? Or because he has such infinite faith in the structural changes he's making in the electorate via billions of dollars of ACORN funding that he can rig any future election, no matter how badly the polls go against him? If any of these scenarios are accurate, we need to know.

If Byron York is right, the President of the United States is actually out of his right mind. He is so obsessed with his own sense of himself that he is unable to see how rapidly his support is evaporating, how feckless he has been in pursuing a foreign policy that is "anything but Bush" and a domestic policy that is "anything but Clinton." In the first case, he kowtows to everyone in the vain belief that he will gain influence by not being the hated American cowboy, and in the second by abdicating every particular to congress in the vain belief that they will sustain his reckless and contemptuous schedule because the legislative nightmare they pass will be their own.

So. Is he Chavez? Or is he merely a smoother Jimmy Carter?

Decide, folks.

For what it's worth, here's my own opinion. I come down pretty firmly on the side of ineptitude. Yes, he has marxist dreams which linger unchallenged from his youth and extremely flawed education. (Any Fortune 500 hiring boss gets to look at a college transcript of courses taken; we don't get to see this for the president of the f___ing United States. My bet is, he's never taken a course in micro- or macro-economics and probably nothing in the way of history. His many gaffes on basic historical topics confirm this to me beyond doubt.) He may have utopian dreams about redistribution of wealth. But he has no sense of actual consequences. His whole life has been a proof that there are no consequences. They can always be mitigated or overcome by sallying up to that microphone and knocking'em dead with sonorous platitudes.

And, yes, he's a skillful enough politician to know that if he doesn't pass the biggest ticket items on his agenda soon, the polls will sag and the Democrats in congress will start fighting for their own lives. But he's also enough of a narcissist to find it impossible to believe that even a devastated economy and a frightened public won't rally to him when he starts to campaign against the dimwit Republicans who will run against him in 2012. Which is to say that he's delusional. That's why he's so incredibly fearless about lying on so many public stages, blithely assuring us that what he said a year ago isn't at all different from the exact opposite statements he's making today.

Most critically, most importantly, most indispensably for everyone to realize, his real Achilles heel is that he's lazy. Lazy in the way that people who have never really worked for a living invariably are. All his life, he has shown up and things have happened around him, for him, under him, invisibly to him, making up in innumerable subtle ways for all the onerous tasks he was always too self-important and self-absorbed and, yes, too unutterably lazy to do for himself. Other people have always taken care of the details, while he shows up to take the credit in a well modulated voice. That's why he can't be bothered to write (autobiographer and Harvard Law Review editor he) the bill that will fundamentally alter the American economy forever and why he can't even be bothered to read it. Someone else is supposed to handle it all while he coos from his telepromptered podium and jets off to another glamorous photo op with his newly haute couture wife. Getting his hands dirty isn't his job.

HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THAT THIS ISN'T HOW LIFE IS.

He's not a Grand Architect. He's an ideologue to be sure, but not one who has ever had to push past the platitudes to the heavy lifting.

We have elected as the President of the United States a speechwriter. One imbued with grand ideas and a grand sense of the unassailable morality of his grievances, his biases, his own sense of entitlement, his own imperviousness to the criticism of lesser mortals. But he doesn't know a damned thing about hard work. Which means he doesn't understand the immediacy of the personal responsibility when your own so-called leadership causes the shit to not only hit the fan but obliterate it entirely.

He may have in mind something like what Lowry is frightened of. But he is no Napoleon and no Hitler. (Both of them were soldiers, survivors, veterans of the kind of real physical danger that makes consequences vividly immediate.) He is a precocious pampered boy with the accidentally imposing voice of a grownup man (think of a slicker Ted Baxter). He's not a thinker, not a scholar, not a doer, and not a leader. He's afiirmative action on an ultimate, tragic scale. He may be an incredibly dangerous and careless vandal. But Machiavelli he ain't. We CAN defeat him by opposing him tooth and claw. One thing he's never encountered in his whole coddled life.

My opinion. Now you decide. What you decide is important. And you can't have it both ways.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Building Disneyland: New footage found

Via Holycoast.

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July 27, 2009

Hypocrisy, thy name is Thomas Friedman

Why don't I respect the opinions of the most prominent celebrity shills and alarmists when it comes to the Boogie Man of eco-weenies' nightmares, i.e., global warming? Well, there's always the stench of hypocrisy that surrounds the self-proclaimed experts, eager to opine on the Earth-hating transgressions of the plebs like you and me.

Mark Steyn, not one of the sky-is-falling tree huggers, openly confesses he doesn't have the ... qualifications of more well-known bloviators in the press.

It's true that I have no education or expertise in . . . well, anything, really. So let's go to a man who does — New York Times honcho Thomas Friedman:

This bill’s goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 is nowhere near what science tells us we need to mitigate climate change. But it also contains significant provisions to prevent new buildings from becoming energy hogs, to make our appliances the most energy efficient in the world and to help preserve forests in places like the Amazon.

Here is a picture of Thomas Friedman's house.


Well, obviously, being a renowned expert, Thomas Friedman, like Al Gore and the Prince of Wales, needs a supersized carbon footprint. But you don't — you can get by beating your laundry on the rocks down by the river with the native women all day long.

"Environmentalism" is a government restraint on economic advance and, therefore, social mobility. In other words, it's a way to ensure you'll never live like Tom Friedman.

Vanderleun sums it up nicely:

When not abroad fellating Arab potentates or hectoring you to reach for your wallet, this is how Thomas Friedman lives.

The gall of these non-elected, self-selected nattering flatulators is without limit.

H.L. Mencken said "Puritanism was the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

Meet the new Puritans.

Hypocrites.

You can read Friedman's pious caterwaulings here.

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July 22, 2009

Pssst! Wanna know what happens?

Sick of sitting though bad movies? Save yourself hours of pain and head over to the Spoilers website, where you can read what happens in hundreds of flicks, without having to actually watch them.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Big Bang Theory


I've been enjoying the CBS sitcom Big Bang Theory, which chronicles the exploits of four intelligent geeks, one of whom has a preternatural knowledge of all things trivial and obscure.

Why does he remind me of someone I know?

Anyhow, it's from the same fellow (Chuck Lorre) who created Two And A Half Men, which is consistently funny, in a smuttier, fart-joke way, than Bang.

The theme song of Big Bang is by the Bare Naked Ladies, and, being terminally unhip, is the first song by them I know by name. It races by too quickly for me to get all the lyrics, so I tracked down this illustrated version, featuring the entire song -- which basically covers the history of everything in a couple of minutes.

Enjoy.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 21, 2009

Vanity, thy name is Man

What are men thinking when they try to ignore reality, in the hope that the watching world is either blind or stupid.

I'm watching a lawyer making an argument in court, and though it's possible that what he's saying has merit, it's impossible to get past the mothbitten, mange-riddled roadkill perched atop his head, well on its way to achieving immortality as the worst toupee in the history of not just this world, but all possible worlds.

There are some who say that a combover is the saddest sight, wispy strands of hair grown far-too-long, carefully arranged up and over the shiny, freckled pate in an act that is equal parts self-deception and a cry for help.

But I disagree.

There is nothing -- NOTHING! -- more ludicrous than the middle-aged man wearing his vanity atop his head like the possum I saw cooking on a hot country lane after being tenderized by the wheels of several tractor trailers.

Gents, it doesn't work; nobody thinks you've got a full head of your own curly locks.

Some of the most virile, manly men have gone full monty for years. Sean Connery has been slaying the ladies dead since the '60s, and he ditched the rug more than 25 years ago.

Patrick Stewart thrilled Trekkies throughout the Federation from the moment his naked dome took the conn on the bridge of the Enterprise.

And Dick Cheney makes conservative women swoon, chrome dome and all.

Be proudly bald, gents. You may not have hair, but at least you'll have your self-respect.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 20, 2009

EMP

William Forstchen One Second After


link

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THIS "PULSE" HITS THE SURFACE?

Those who might remember ham radio operators, or even the old CB radios of the 1970s can recall that if you ran out a wire as an antenna you could send and receive a better signal. The wire not only transmitted the very faint power of a few watts of electricity from your radio, it could receive even fainted signals in return. As the Pulse strikes the earths surface, with a power that could range up to hundreds of amps per square yard, it will not affect you directly, at most you'll feel a slight tingling, the s ame as when lightning is about to strike close by, and nearly all the energy will just be absorbed into the ground and dissipate. The bad news, however, is wherever it strikes wires, metal surfaces, antennas, power lines it will now travel along those metal surfaces (in the same way a lightning bolt will always follow the metal of a lightning rod, or the power line into your house.) The longer the wire, the more energy is absorbed, a high tension wire miles long will absorb tens of thousands of amps, and here is where the destruction begins as it slams into any delicate electronic circuits, meaning computer chips, relays, etc. In that instant, they are overloaded by the massive energy surge, short circuit, and fry. Your house via electric, phone and cable wires is connected, like all the rest of us into the power and communications grids. This energy surge will destroy all delicate electronics in your home, even as it destroys all the major components all the way back to the power company's generators and the phone company's main relays. In far less than a milli second the entire power grid of the United States, and all that it supports will be destroyed.

WOULDN"T CIRCUIT BREAKERS AND SURGE PROTECTORS STOP IT?

This is where the effect of EMP starts to get complex. All electricity travels, of course, at the speed of light. The circuit breakers that are built into our electrical system or the ones you buy to plug your own computer in to, are designed to "read' the flow of current. If it suddenly exceeds a certain level, the breaker snaps and takes you off line, thus protecting everything beyond it. More than a few of us have found out that when you buy a cheap surge protector for ten or twenty bucks sure it will snap off, but the surge has already passed through and fried your expensive plasma television or new computer. Unlike a lightning strike, or other power surge, an EMP surge is "front loaded." Meaning it doesn't do a build up for a couple of mirco - seconds, allowing enough time for the circuit breaker to "read" that trouble is on the way and shut down. It comes instead like a wall of energy, without any advance wave building up as a warning. It therefore slams through nearly all commercial and even military surge protectors already in place, and is past the "safety barrier" and into the delicate electronics before the system has time to react.

WHAT ABOUT CARS?

Here is more bad news regarding EMP. - If you own a 1965 Volkswagen bug or Mustange you're ok...there are no solid state electronics under the hood, it still has an old fashion carburetor, the radio still might even have tubes rather than transistors. However, even that is in question. In 1962 both we and the Soviets detonated nuclear weapons in space (saber rattling during the Cuban Missile Crisis) and it is reported that a number of cars...their ignition systems a thousand miles away from the detonation were fried because of EMP. (Check out a few of the more "tech head" links on this site for detailed explanations). From about 1980 on, cars increasingly went solid state and by the 1990s were getting ever more complex computers installed. Consider a visit to the mechanic today. He runs a wire in under the hood, plugs it into his computer and within seconds has a full diagnostic, types in what his computer is suppose to do, the problem is solved and you are handed a rather large bill. Great modern conveniences from airbag sensors, to fuel injectors and all of it more and more dependent on computers. At the instant the "Pulse" strikes, the body of your car and the radio antenna will feed the overload into your vehicle's computer and short it out.

Some police departments are even now experimenting with using a specially designed bumper on their car for high speed chases. If they can brush up against the car they are pursuing the officer just hits a button, and through his bumper a high energy surge will be released, flooding into the car being pursued and shorting out its computer system. Result...whether you are being chased by the police with this new device, or an EMP burst has been fired off...your car will essentially be a useless hunk of metal that will slowly roll to a stop. In that instant, most of America will be on foot again.

AND PLANES?

This is a terrifying aspect of an attack that no government report has publicly discussed along with the potential casualty rate in the first seconds after an attack. Commercial airliners today are all computer driven. In fact, from lift off to landing, a pilot no longer even needs to be in the cockpit, a computer can do all of it if need be. When the pilot pulls back on the "stick" it is no longer connect by wires stretching all the way back to the tail and the elevator assembly. Instead, his motion is read by a computer which sends a signal to an electrical servo - motor in the tail, which then moves the tail. In short, the entire plane is computer driven. It is estimated that at any given moment during regular business hours, somewhere between three to four thousand commercial airliners are crisscrossing the skies. (There is a fascinating site you can find via Goggle that shows typical air traffic around the world during a twenty four hour period. From dawn til way after dusk, the entire USA is one glowing blob of commercial flights crisscrossing our sky). All of them would be doomed, the pilots sitting impotent, staring at blank computer screens, pulling on controls that no longer respond as the plane finally noses over and heads in.

Somewhere between 250,000 to 500,000 people will die in the first few minutes...more than all our battle casualties across four years of World War II

AREN"T WE PREPARING? ISN'T THERE REPLACEMENT EQUIPMENT IN PLACE AND TRAINED PERSONNEL READY TO REACT?

The frightening answer is no. This author has spent over four years researching this topic, interviewing scores of personnel from Congressmen and Generals, to your local police chief and sheriff. At your local level, since 9/11, first responders have received hundreds of hours of training and briefings on all sorts of terrorist scenarios. Only a few have told me that they even discussed the topic for more than a few minutes at an official level. As to emergency stockpiles of supplies and crucial replacement parts, there is nothing in place.

WHY NOT?

EMP, has managed to "stealth" its way on to the highly dangerous list and few, except for a small number of personnel in the Pentagon, various research labs, and men like Congressman Bartlett (R., MD) who heads the Congressional Investigative Committee on EMP, are aware of it. For one it has a certain "sci - fi" sound to it, which makes many dismiss the potential before the discussion has even started. Second, the only way to truly evaluate the threat and demonstrate it is to detonate a nuclear weapon, something we have not done since the full test ban went into effect decades ago. It is therefore not "visible" to us, the way another airliner smashing into a skyscraper is now forever imprinted on our national psyche, feared, and prepared for. Next, with all the competing issues and threats in the world, EMP simply does not have a "constituency" of influence. Only a few members of Congress, our military and scientific community are issuing the warnings. There are no Hollywood stars placing themselves in front of cameras with this as their cause, the few times it has been used in popular movies, it has been portrayed inaccurately, often absurdly.

And finally, the impact is so overwhelming - that it triggers a psychological sense of helplessness, and therefore why bother, since if it happens we are finished. It is the same response that happened between the 1950s - 60s. When first confronted with the threat of a nuclear attack, tens of billions was spent to prepare, in fact our Interstate Highway system was initiated in the mid 1950s as a national defense effort to provide avenues of escape from cities in the event of nuclear war, a means to bring in emergency supplies and to move our military. Plans were issued to citizens on how to build bomb shelters and all children were drilled in what is seen now as the absurd "duck and cover."

Something happened though by the mid - 1960s. The threat was no longer fifty to a hundred small atomic bombs dropped from bombers, it was now a rain of thousands of hydrogen bombs, delivered within minutes by ballistic missiles. In this atmosphere of overkill, attempting to prepare seemed ridiculous, futile. The standard phrase became "the living will envy the dead," so why bother? Civil defense finally became an object of derision, the realm of a few survivalist nut cases.

That threat is still there, and to this day our nuclear forces stand ready to respond, which has indeed been the only defense left..."if you nuke us, we'll nuke you," a policy known as "mutual assured destruction," a zero win game.

EMP is different, it is not a rain of thousands of bombs, needing a vast and powerful military to deliver it, which means Russia and China are the only real threats in that realm...but unless seized by madness, their leaders know such an attack, within minutes would be met with thousands of bombs annihilating their country as well. It is a balance of terror that has now endured for nearly sixty years.

An EMP attack is different since it only requires but one nuclear weapon, detonated 300 miles above the middle of the United States. One bomb. The launch could even be done from a container ship somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico and in that instant, the war is already over and won.

An analogy. Aircraft carriers existed in 1941 but few saw them as a true strategic threat. Most in the military and their civilian leaders saw the role of carriers as platforms for launching scout planes, spotting targets, and acting always in support of the trusted and proven battleship. No one seriously considered the potential of putting half a dozen such carriers into one group and launching a full out attack in the opening minutes of a war. We all know what changed that belief forever, but by then, it was too late for the nearly 3,000 Americans who were killed on that Day of Infamy. The next Day of Infamy will be infinitely worst.

WHO WOULD DO THIS AND WHY?

Given the hatred and fanaticism of some of our enemies today, if they can obtain but one nuclear bomb, the temptation will be there. It does not even have to be a nation such as Iran or North Korea...it could be a terrorist cell who with enough money buy the components and then destroy their definition of "the great Satan."

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AFTER THE ATTACK?

Unless you are in a jet liner, plummeting to earth, or caught in a massive traffic jam of stalled vehicles on the interstate, you might not even know anything has changed. Sure the power is off, but we've all been through that dozens of times. You call the power company. But the phone doesn't work and that might be slightly more unnerving. You might go to your car to drive around and see what happened and then it becomes more unnerving when the car does not even turn over, nor any other car in your neighborhood.
Twelve hours later the food in your freezer starts to thaw, if it is winter and you don't have a wood stove the frost will start to penetrate in to your house, if summer and you live in Florida your house will be an oven. And that will just be the start.

Law enforcement will be powerless without radios, cell phones, and squad cars, unable to know where there is a crisis and how to react. The real horror show within hours will be in hospitals and nursing homes. They're required by law to have back up generators, but those generators are "hot wired" into the building so power can instantly kick in if the main system shuts down. That "hot wiring" means the Electro Magnetic Pulse will take out the generators and their circuitry as well.

If you are familiar with what happened in New Orleans after Katrina, multiply that ten thousand times over to every hospital and nursing home in America. Nearly everyone dependent on life support equipment in ICUs will be dead within hours. Nearly everyone in nursing homes dependent on oxygen generators, respirators, etc., will be dead or dying while depending on the time of year temperatures within plummet or soar.

As to medical supplies, not just in hospitals but across the nation to every local pharmacy, they are all dependent on something called Fed Ex. As we have perfected a remarkable system of instant delivery, guided by computers, local inventories have dropped to be more cost efficient and even for reasons of security with controlled substances, which to ordinary citizens means pain killers. Supplies will run out in a matter of days. Those of us dependent on medications to control asthma, heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other aliments which a hundred years ago would have killed us shortly after the onset...will now face death within days or weeks, unless the national power grid comes back on line quickly and order is restored.

HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE?

Here is the bottom line of the entire issue and why the threat of a single EMP weapon is so dangerous. There is the serious potential that we might never be able to restore the system. One might ask why? It just means replacing some circuit breakers, pulling out fried chips in our cars and replacing them with new ones etc.

It is not that simple. The infrastructure America has developed since the beginnings of the Industrial Age, is now so vast, intricate and fragile, that it is like a delicate spider web, which if touched by a flame can instantly vanish.

A few examples to illustrate what might seem an extreme statement

The incredibly complex system that creates electricity, starting from a hydro - electric dam, a glowing nuclear reactor, or coal fired plant, leaps through hundreds of circuit breakers, perhaps thousands of miles of wiring, across high tension lines to sub stations, and finally to the outlet your computer is plug into. This single line will now have hundreds of breaks in it, each one having to be replaced.

Any of us who have lived through a major disaster such as a hurricane, ice storm, or tornado, and then gone several days without power know the sequence, h ow much longer the wait seems to be, and then finally the welcome sight of a power company repair truck turning on to your block...and that truck might be from a power company five hundred miles away. All our disasters have ultimately been local in nature, Andrew in Florida, Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi or one this author went through with Ivan in North Carolina. The disaster is local, even if fifty thousand square miles are affected, help streaming in from neighboring states, caravans of power trucks, each carrying not just experienced crews, but ladened down with all the replacement parts necessary to put electricity and phone service back into your house. When Ivan hit my town, dumping 30 inches of rain, wiping out the power grid and water supply, in less than twelve hours thousands of gallons of bottled water had arrived from Charlotte, power companies from Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia were arriving, the special parts needed to replace my town's shattered water main from the reservoir were air lifted in by a national guard unit.

Consider though if the entire nation is "down." Quite simply there are not enough replacement parts in the entire nation to even remotely begin the retro - fitting and replacement of all components. Every community will be on its own, struggling to rebuild...on their own.

Example two

A member of your family has type one diabetes and if you do have that in your family you know that failure to properly monitor and treat can result in death within a matter of weeks at most. Start with the testing kit. If it is one of the new electronic digital models, changes are a small hand held unit, not plugged into the grid will in fact survive. If it is an older kit that still uses testing stripes and you are running short of those stripes of paper, you already have a problem.

Where does insulin come from? In an earlier age it was literally made from the ground up pancreas of sheep and horses. Today it is manufactured via genetically altered bacteria and cells. There are several such factories across the nation which do this, producing millions of vials a day.

We are not even going to get into the complexity of where do the vials, the rubber seals and such come from. But with the shut down of power the factory goes dark and the complex environmental controls to insure the proper safety of the bacteria "batches" is now off line. Within days it will cease to function for that reason alone.

But it will most likely already be off line. What of the workers? Will t he next shift show up when cars no longer run? Unlikely. And those on the job? No matter how dedicated most must leave within a day to see to their own families and chances are not return.

Of the hundreds of thousands of vials waiting in refrigerated containers for shipping, what happens to the coolant? And where are the trucks to move it? If the insulin is, in fact, already in the "pipeline" so to speak, if aboard a Fed Ex plane we already know that tragic fate. If on a highway it will be stalled...and so on to your local pharmacy where the few vials in the current inventory will be snatched up by panicked customers within hours and then hoarded away, regardless of the need of others. And even then, how will you keep the insulin temperature stabilized and when that fails, how swiftly does the potency drop?
But one other factor, the syringes to inject the medicine. Any of us over 45 or so can recall the dull terrible needles in our doctor's offices. (As a child I recall my grandmother boiling my diabetic grandfather's needles.) After use they were stuck back into an autoclave (powered by electricity) and carefully sterilized...and then came the disposable syringe. Where does that needle come from. Again a long back track to an oil field, to a cracking plant, to a factory that, in sterile conditions turns the plastic into the barrel of syringe, to a mine where ore is turned into steel which is milled at remarkable tolerances into a needle point...and again shipped and shipped again and finally to your house.

The point of these few examples is that in an age not so long ago, nearly all that we needed for our lives was produced locally, and then came railroads, which could link a farmer's wif e in Nebraska, via a catalog and telegraph to the Sears office in Chicago for that new set of dishes or a replacement part for a threshing machine...to our complex web of today. Few of us ever realized that with each advance in convenience and the latest new gadget or necessity we took another step towards dependence which in a global market today means that the chip needed to repair an important computer might be made in Japan, and ordered via a sales rep at a desk in India, and yet we expect it to arrive within two days and see nothing remarkable about that. Globalization with all its benefits and woes for some workers here, has made us infinitely more dependent on a global network of communications and transportation...that fragile spider's web.

There is the true nightmare of EMP. Once the entire system collapses, how and where does anyone build it back when that one crucial part you need is in a warehouse in Shanghai or Seoul and you don't even have means to even ask for that part.

YOU MENTION IN YOUR BOOK THAT 90% of AMERICANS MIGHT DIE WITHIN A YEAR. ISN'T THAT FEAR MONGORING?

When such numbers were discussed during the height of the Cold War, the numbers were indeed real, as they are now with the use of but one weapon to create an EMP burst.

The tragic thing is how we can discuss such numbers now in a society where the entire nation went into stunned mourning after nearly 4,000 died on 9/11.

The death of an individual is a tragedy. The death of a million a statistic.

The first few million deaths are tragically obvious. Those aboard commercial flights, and even most private flights, those in nursing homes, hospices, and hospitals.

The next few million are obvious as well. Those with severe aliments requiring careful daily medication or treatment, such as those awaiting transplants, people undergoing dialysis, those with severe heart ailments both known and not yet realized. We are use to emergency response within minutes when we snap open a cell phone and call 911. The stress, fear, even the unaccustomed physical exertion of someone having to walk ten miles to get home will trigger heart attacks, strokes, etc. We are a "hot house bred" generation, in fact several generations now. Our water supply is carefully controlled and delivered instantly and on demand, hundreds of gallons of it a day. Our food, wrapped in sanitary packages has expiration dates stamped on it. Where will you get drinkable water in a city after but several days? Frankly when was the last time any of us had to live without a flush toilet and anti - bacterial hand wash by the sink? Food that starts to thaw, which we were always cautioned to throw out, food in a refrigerator that is now at room temperature... do you throw it out or risk eating it? If your house is fully electric how do you cook it properly?

These few questions alone lead to a clear path straight to an entire nation heading into gastro - intestinal aliments within a week to ten days at most. Any of us who have traveled overseas, especially to third world countries have weathered them an d survived...thanks in part to modern medications once back safe home in the USA. But we are now the third world country. Very young children and the elderly can die in less than a day from severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Without plenty of clean water and modern waste removal, the problem gets far worst, especially in temporary refugee centers.

Compound this with the fact that by the end of the week millions of Americans will be on the road...walking. The tragic lawlessness we often see in the wake of a large disaster will most certainly explode given that police are near powerless to react in an organized manner and national guard units will not even be mobilized since how do they mobilize if no vehicles run and all communications is still down.

Millions, many of them the most vulnerable will make the choice of abandoning the cities rather than try and fight to find a gallon jug of water or a few cans of soup. Beyond this fear, summer or winter many urban dwellings will be unlivable. The multi million dollar condo on the 40th floor is now a nightmare 400 foot hike straight up, lugging whatever water or food you might get. They will be unheated, or roasting ovens, designed of course with perfection climate control...that no longer works. Many will be driven, as well by the false hope that relatives out in the suburbs or better yet "out in the country" will of course have plenty of food and be willing to share.

Our interstate highways will become nightmare paths of exile as our largely urban population tries to fan out to find food that once was shipped in.

Millions could and will die on that road. Where do they get safe water? The nearby stream or river is now a dump for raw sewage since purification plants are off line. Once stricken on the road by the results after drinking this water, where does one get help, basic medication, more water to keep you hydrated.

Within a month the next level of die off will be in full development. Those who survive the initial onset of illnesses from polluted water and food, and survive, will nevertheless be weakened, knock down a level. Even if they do get lucky and have food stockpiled, or find a source, chances are it will not be balanced at all and the first onset of nutritional imbalance will lower the immulogical system even further.

Now is the time that more serious diseases will appear. Pneumonia, especia lly in the winter due to exposure. More exotic and dangerous types of food poisoning such as salmonella due to a complete collapse of sanitation. Various forms of hepatitis, even diseases not heard of in a generation or more...measles, scarlet fever, and tuberculosis.

In addition, the number of injuries will have soared. Few of us today are truly use to the back breaking kind of manual labor of the 19th century. Even most laborers today use modern equipment to do 99% of the actual work. Unfamiliar with axes, shovels and saws, people will break bones, cut themselves, or just suddenly die from strain. And waiting now are the infectious diseases where an ordinary cut, once treated with a few stitches instead becomes an avenue for gangrene, a rusty nail is again a threat of tetanus.
And finally, violence against ourselves. At what point do we begin to kill each other for food, water, shelter? At what point does a small town mobilize, barricade itself in and make clear that any who enter will be shot because there is not enough food to share, and any new stranger might be a carrier of yet another disease.

By sixty days true starvation will be killing off millions and by 120 days mass starvation will be the norm. Those lucky enough to be in rich farm producing areas, with the knowledge of how to gather food by hand, and then preserve it, will have a temporary surplus, but even then, if they do not ration it out wisely, as did our colonial forefathers, they too will starve before the next crop is in the ground come spring.

Months later, yes help from old allies might be flooding in, but how to move it, distribute it and at the same time provide medical aid and also rebuild the electrical grid, step by step will still be overwhelming tasks.

As said before, "the death of a million is a statistic." Our statistic could very well be that in a year's time, nine out of ten Americans will be dead. Dead from but one weapon, our global position shattered forever as we revert back into a third rate power, if we even still survive as a united system of states.

IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE BEFORE IT HAPPENS?

Not a wide eyed sci fi novel or something sensationalistic, or even something set long after the event, like the book "The Road." But instead it was my goal to write a novel like the classic "Alas Babylon," or the more well known "On the Beach." To do something that might trigger a response, any kind of response. It was my good fortune, while researching for the book that I met Captain Bill Sanders of the Navy, one of our country's leading experts on EMP and Congressman Bartlett who heads the Congressional committee that issued a little known report on the threat of EMP. Both of them provided me with valuable information, which I must always emphasize was not classified, and encouraged me to get the story "out there."
I therefore wrote the novel from the perspective of a single dad with two daughters, li ving in small town in North Carolina. .and what he will do, and finally must do to try and keep his daughters alive. And yes, it is very autobiographical. I am a single parent of a teenage girl, and I live and teach in a small North Carolina mountain town that is the actual setting for my story.

My greatest frustration and something I hope my novel will stir is the realization that only a minimal effort, to start, could radically cut the number of casualties after such an attack, perhaps by a full magnitude from over 250 million dead to less then 25 million dead...which is still a horrific number.

An off the shelf purchase of hand held two way radi os by every local police, fire, sheriff, and emergency response department in the country would mean, that if then properly stored along with a large stock pile of batteries that within minutes after an attack, a nation wide network of communications would be back up and running. This can not be emphasized enough, that proper communications and what the military calls "command and control," will go a long step towards maintaining public order.

Another inexpensive step is just simple training. We are a nation that sadly has become entirely dependent on someone "up the ladder" passing orders as to what to do. Very few of us today are conditioned to think and act independently. This has to be reversed in the event of an EMP strike. Every first responder should be trained to be able to recognize an EMP hit, and in coordination with their local departments, have a plan in place as to what to do first, and then next, and then after that. This author would recommend a first step being the seizing of supplies at every veterinarian's office in the country.

That might sound strange, but vets are most likely the only ones in your community that have a full array of surgical equipment, anesthesia and pain killers. Armed with this equipment, medications seized from pharmacies, dentist offices and doctor's offices, and then set up at a local school, staffed by local doctors and nurses, would mean that each community has made a major step towards tending its injured, ill and elderly.

Other training would be oriented towards how to organize a community, locating vehicles that still run, and retro fitting those vehicles, that had minimal electronics in them, so that law enforcement, medical, and fire control have transportation.

A next step would be public education for all citizens, similar to the programs in place during the 1950s. How to recognize an EMP strike and then what do you do? After Katrina we have learned to now start educating our citizens that they must rely upon themselves and their own good judgment, and not expect government to come instantly to the rescue. Contrast the chaos in the days before Katrina to the orderly evacuations when Gustav hit New Orleans this year.

But a week's worth of emergency food stockpile and water, just recycling used milk and soda bottles, filling them with sterile water and storing them away could buy a precious week's worth of time, nation wide. A few simple medical supplies such a sterile bandages and just a basic family first aid manual. Simple things even our grandparents, still living on farms knew, about how to insure water is safe, where to put a privy pit, and properly store any food that might last long term. If a family member has a serious il lness or condition keep a full level of medicine on hand and not wait until the bottle is empty before refilling. This alone could be a life saver for millions, buying extra weeks or a month or two.

Above all else educate to a post EMP survival. To turn to community organization, to help and rely on neighbors and not some distant agency, to have a plan in place to help local nursing homes with the elderly, to have an entire community, be it a neighborhood in a city, or a small town in the Midwest, ready to take care of itself and insure public safety and law while the nation gradually stitches itself back together.

Ironically these were plans already put into place across America of the 1940s and 1950s, this author can recall receiving civil defense booklets at school to take home to my parents and my father was the local civil defense coordinator for our neighborhood just outside of New York City. We took the threat seriously and we acted as Americans, to prepare, with the memories of WWII still fresh in our minds. This preparedness fell away... it should be restored.

The next step, which will cost more, will be crucial as well. The analogy is simple. We all know that America's industrial might literally saved the world from Nazism and Japanese Imperialism once we got into the war. But that industrial might did not appear overnight. It took over two and a half years of build up after Pearl Harbor before we went fully on to the offensive with D - Day in Europe and the push towards the Ja panese main islands in the Pacific. What truly saved us though was not the effort after Pearl Harbor but the effort BEFORE Pearl Harbor. We did not want to fight, we were about the most reluctant nation on earth in 1940 when it came to getting into the war...but we did have the wisdom to start the build up then...building factories, training millions to work in them and millions more to learn how to fight. If we had not done that in the two years prior to Pearl Harbor nearly any historian will tell you...we would have lost World War II.

In this post industrial age power is no longer steel plants, mills, factories and yet more factories. It is now precision electronics, communications, computers... and the heart blood of all that is electrical power.
Congress has estimated that a full retro fit to our power grid to withstand a large scale EMP strike could cost up to half a trillion dollars...and the chances of that bill ever passing is remote to say the least.
And yet, there is another path at a fraction of the cost. Stockpiling of key components overseas. Any major component being manufactured today for our electrical grid, that could be destroyed by an EMP strike, we should make but one more of each and then store those components at military bases overseas. Within hours of a hit on the continental United States, military aircraft outside the strike zone can be lifting that precious cargo back to the mainland and the rebuilding can begin.

Of late, our nation's railroads have launched an advertising campaign which is actually true, that in terms of tons per mile, our railroads are still the most effective means of moving goods. For an investment not much more than the cost of a couple of B - 2 bombers, or a squadron of F - 22s, several hundred diesel electric locomotives could be pulled off line, their components harden to withstand an EMP strike, then parked inside silos and bunkers at military bases across the country. Within hours after an EMP strike these powerful machines could already be at work. It will be laborious at first, for every other train in the country will have stalled on the lines. They have to be shunted off the main lines, switches reset by hand...but once cleared, a single train could move ten thousand tons of food to a stricken city and on the return run, evacuate thousands to where the food is out in the countryside, or back to military bases. Within weeks a nationwide transportation grid could be up and running again...yet another factor that will reduce fatalities even more.

A further step would indeed be a logical stockpiling of crucial medical equipment and supplies, especially medications with long shelf lives or can be frozen while in storage overseas or in underground facilities.

The final step in training and preparation...our own military. The power generation capacity aboard a modern aircraft carrier can supply a medium size city, a destroyer or frigate a large town. Attention should be focused on training our military, especially our Navy whose overseas forces and ships would be unaffected by a strike on the continental United States to return to save America. Within a few weeks both coasts, studded with several hundred ships could become focal points for rebuilding, as replacement components, food and medicine are moved in via ships, loaded aboard trains and distributed into the heart land.

It is a war. It is a war in which we will take casualties undreamed of in our worst nightmares...but it can be survivable if we act and prepare now.

IS THIS MERELY A SCI FI STORY OR IS IT REAL?

An editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology, after reading this author's novel declared. "It is not a question of if it will happen...it is merely a question of when."


Across six thousand years of recorded history mankind has known war. Across six thousand years humanity has tended to focus its best minds on the technology of war, to speak bluntly how to better kill our neighbors. Never has a weapon been invented that it has not ultimately been used. And ironically so many "new" weapons, when first revealed are declared to be so horrible as to render war unthinkable. And all have ultimately been used.

Given the fanaticisms of some of our enemies today, some of whom believe that the creation of the Apocalypse will be their own fulfillment of a religious destiny, it would be madness not to think that such an attack within the next two decades is not just possible but in fact likely.

It is time to think about what to do, and how to prepare before it happens. Reacting the day after the next "Day of Infamy," or "One Second After," it will be too late.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lileks: Biden's Tourettes reveals what his boss is really up to

Lileks has noticed something about Joe Biden's "Terrible Truths": He often ends up spilling the beans about what his boss really means.

The "gaffes," as we call unscripted thoughts, come delightfully often with Biden. The latest: Speaking before the AARP, Biden aarped up a peculiar formulation to explain the need to borrow 3.2 bejillion dollars in order to transform the American health care system, preferably by next week. He said people ask him "What are you talking about, you're telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt? The answer is yes, 'I'm telling you.'"

In Vietnam-era terms: we have to burn the hospital in order to save it. Even if that means losing the burn unit.

[...]

Iran. Earlier this month George Stephanopoulos asked Biden if the US would stand in the way of Israel decided it was time to take out Iran's nuke program. Said the Veep: "We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do ... if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country."

True. But wrong! The sensible thing is to say: "We are seriously concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions, and strongly support serious efforts to be concerned, in coordination with allies whose serious efforts are concerned with -- hey, is that a mushroom cloud on CNN? Turn the sound up."

Everyone knows Iran will give up the bomb, but in their own way: by putting it on a rocket and waving safe journey, Allah-speed.
As the saying goes: If you love something, set it free. If the US isn't going to stop them, shouldn't Israel have the right to?

But that's not the official line, so YANK went the collar.

Administration officials explained that the Vice President was using secret reverse-talking, and the allies remain committed to a sustained effort to frown and grip the podium while hoping there's no follow-up questions.

For more examples of the vice president's inadvertent truth telling, read the whole thing.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 19, 2009

Mexico's take on the immigration problem



It's probably not what you think. I had no idea it was this bad.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Walter Cronkite: And that's the way it is

Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time this weekend, after 92 seasons on the air -- and more than a quarter century since vacating the anchor's chair over at CBS News, meaning most Americans under the age of 35 have little-to-no memory of why he's considered famous, or his passing noteworthy.

Marketed by the publicists at CBS as "The most trusted man in America," I preferred Huntley and Brinkley over at NBC; Cronkite's prematurely avuncular demeanor (he seemed on the far side of 60 even when still in his 40s) never connected with my prematurely cynical synapses.

Cronkite made his bones reporting from the front lines during World War II, a stint that included the too-patriotic-for-today's-journos moment when he grabbed the machine gun in the nose of an American B-17 and opened fire on attacking German fighters.

Remembered for his momentary show of emotion when announcing the death of President Kennedy, as well as covering the moon landings, Cronkite will forever be most famous -- or notorious -- for his on-air editorializing after the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive. Considered a terrible defeat for Ho Chi Minh's forces by both the Americans and the North Vietnamese (the attacks decimated the ranks of the Viet Cong), Cronkite nonetheless took to the airwaves and declared it an American defeat, helping advance the notion that Vietnam was an unwinnable quagmire, the facts be damned.

In later years, Cronkite became something of a crank, engaging in more open partisan sniping against Republicans and dread conservatives.

He lived a long and successful life, earning much fame and fortune along the way. It takes nothing away from him to note that Hollywood screenwriter Burt Prelutsky was right when he said this (quoted in a piece by Ed Driscoll) about the odd degree of respect accorded to the men who sat and read the news, "newsreaders" as the Brits say:

You can go back to Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, John Chancellor and Walter Cronkite. We treated them all with a deference that was totally out of proportion to the work they did. Essentially, the job description requires that they read the captions to the news footage we’re watching and to introduce the on-site reporters. Do you really think that constitutes the mental equivalent of heavy lifting?

For doing what your uncle Sid could do — and with a lot more pazazz — they’re paid enormous amounts of money. On top of all the dough, they are constantly the honorees at testimonial dinners, but that’s fine, so long as I don’t have to attend.

But the trouble is, they’re regarded as important people by way too many of us, and that’s not good. Why? Because it makes us all look like a bunch of saps — what H.L. Mencken called the boobus americanus and what P.T. Barnum simply labeled suckers.

Because these anchors get to spend their entire careers talking about important events and important people, they naturally come to regard themselves as important. Self-delusion is a form of insanity and we should not encourage it by fawning over them.

When they finally sign off for the last time, you notice that the testimonials inevitably mention how many political conventions they covered, how many space missions, how many inaugurations, assassinations, uprisings and wars, as if they had had a hand in any of these earth-shaking events. It wasn’t their hands that were involved, it was their behinds, as they sat year after year at those desks, declaiming in those store-bought voices what we were seeing with our own eyes — all thanks to the journalistic peons who actually went places and did things and took risks so that we could sit home and watch it

Now, I’m not saying we should kill the messengers. I’m just suggesting it’s time we stopped canonizing them.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Posted by Mike Lief at 04:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 17, 2009

Public schools

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3c.htm

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:14 AM

July 16, 2009

The Sotomayor follies

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
White Men Can't Judge
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Liberal court jester Jon Stewart pokes fun at the bloviating Senatorial crapweasels who either showered Sonia Sotomayor with undeserved praise or damned her with extremely weak criticism -- or just asked her idiotic questions, like Al Franken, who quizzed the nominee on her knowledge of Perry Mason episodes.

Just to be clear, the junior senator from Minnesota used a portion of his time to question a supreme court nominee about a fictional lawyer on a fifty-year-old TV show.

Minnesotans must be so proud.

As to the nominee herself, the Associated Press featured a surprisingly critical look at the nominee's deft use of language.


It's a good thing Sonia Sotomayor speaks Sotomayoran.

After week upon week in which plenty of other people on the planet interpreted Sotomayor's past comments, the Supreme Court nominee at last got a chance to deconstruct her own words Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Fingers splayed, palms flat, hands bouncing up and then deliberately pressing down to the table, Sotomayor elaborated, clarified, expanded, retracted.

She drew loopy circles on her paper; she ran rhetorical circles around her past words.

"I didn't intend to suggest ..." she explained.

"What I was speaking about ..." she offered.

"As I have tried to explain ..." she parsed.

"I wasn't talking about ..." she demurred.

She was a tough critic at times.

"I was using a rhetorical flourish that fell flat," she averred.

"It was bad," she said. Of her own words.

... Sotomayor had her first chance to recalibrate herself after sitting through a full day of opening statements.

"Thank you for giving me an opportunity to explain my remarks," she said, and it was no throwaway line.

Sotomayor's much-remarked-upon past statements that a "wise Latina" judge could be expected to reach a better conclusion than a white man without the same life experience? Simply meant to inspire young people that they could become whatever they want, she said.

Her suggestion that appeals court judges don't just interpret the law, they help make it? Taken out of context.

I think Patterico had the best response to the AP's snarky critique:

What a bunch of nitpicking. It’s not like she’s applying for a job where the exact wording of the English language is import — [man leans onscreen, whispers in Patterico's ear] . . . oh.

Never mind.

If that's not substantive enough for you, consider what a liberal law school professor had to say, in this case, Georgetown Law Professor Mike Seidman

Speaking only for myself (I guess that's obvious), I was completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor's testimony today. If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified. How could someone who has been on the bench for seventeen years possibly believe that judging in hard cases involves no more than applying the law to the facts? First year law students understand within a month that many areas of the law are open textured and indeterminate—that the legal material frequently (actually, I would say always) must be supplemented by contestable presuppositions, empirical assumptions, and moral judgments. To claim otherwise—to claim that fidelity to uncontested legal principles dictates results—is to claim that whenever Justices disagree among themselves, someone is either a fool or acting in bad faith. What does it say about our legal system that in order to get confirmed Judge Sotomayor must tell the lies that she told today? That judges and justices must live these lies throughout their professional carers?

Perhaps Justice Sotomayor should be excused because our official ideology about judging is so degraded that she would sacrifice a position on the Supreme Court if she told the truth. Legal academics who defend what she did today have no such excuse. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Notwithstanding the criticism of the candid prof, the Republicans landed a few punches, but failed to deliver a knockout blow. That Sotomayor -- the Democratic Party's Harriet Miers -- is guaranteed a seat on the Supreme Court is nothing for the Dems to crow about. Don't forget, the Republican base rebelled over the Miers nomination, and she withdrew from consideration. The enthusiastic support for such an undistinguished nominee will not be a source of pride for Democrats in coming years.

Sure, Sotomayor will end up on the court, notwithstanding her abysmal performance over the last few days, spent furiously backpedaling away from everything she's said and done since becoming a lawyer.

However, I don't need to console myself; my confidence that Sotomayor will be an abysmal justice warms the cockles of my cynical heart. She'll fail to sway justices to follow her lead on any given issue -- a result of the low esteem in which she'll be held by her colleagues -- so she'll simply be another "me too" vote for the liberal side of the Court, a zero-sum move, given Souter's retirement.

The real danger will come with the next nominee. Who knows, maybe the zombie GOP might even manage to win enough seats in the mid-term elections to break the Democratic death grip on the judiciary committee.

Nah, that's ridiculous.

Still, just a few seats denies the Dems the 60 votes they need to ram their nominees through.

A guy can dream, can't he?

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Taking Babs Boxer to the woodshed

This is perhaps the most satisfying video to come out of Washington in years. Watch as Babs Boxer grows increasingly confused as her bullying and condescending race-baiting tactics fail to have the desired effect on a businessman testifying before her committee. Delicious.

The Hill reports on the confrontation:

The President and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) tore into Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) Thursday for what he said were "condescending" and "God awful" racial statements at a hearing.

NBCC head Harry C. Alford took strong exception to Boxer having referenced an NAACP report favoring climate change legislation during a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, of
which Boxer is the chairwoman.

"Madam chair, that is condescending to me," Alford said. "I'm the National Black Chamber of Commerce, and you're trying to put up some other black group to pit against me."

Boxer defended including the report, however, saying the report reflects a "diversity" of support behind climate change legislation facing the Senate.

"If this gentleman were here, he would be proud he's being quoted," Boxer said in defense of the NAACP support.

Alford, however, struck back against Boxer, accusing her of "getting racial" in the climate change debate.

"All that's condescending, and I don't like it. It's racial. I take offense to it. As an African-American and a veteran of this country, I take offense to that," he said. "You're quoting some other black man —
why don't you quote some other Asian or some other… You're getting racial here."

"You're speaking on behalf of the black community?" Alford asked. "Why are you doing the colored people association's study with the black Chamber of Commerce?"

He finally concluded:

"We've been looking at energy policy since 1996. And we are referring to the experts, regardless of their color. And for someone to tell me, an African-American, college-education veteran of the United States Army, that I must contend with some other "black group" and put aside everything else in here — This has NOTHING to do with the NAACP, and really has nothing to do with the National Black Chamber of Commerce. We're talking about energy. And that — that road the chair went down, I think is God awful."

The amazing thing is that Alford did a better job showing what a despicable, condescending, smarmy elitist she is than any of the Republican members of the Senate -- none of whom has deigned to take on Boxer, even though she is manifestly unsuited to a battle of wits and incapable of mounting a cogent defense of her scatterbrained beliefs.

Somebody ought to try and convince Alford to return to California and run against Boxer.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 15, 2009

Read the whole damn thing!

Jeff Jacoby has a radical proposal for our elected representatives: Read before voting.

It defies belief that anyone would argue against legislators knowing and understanding the laws they inflict on us -- but then you haven't met the Democratic House leadership.

SAY, DID you hear the one about the congressman who was asked to do his job? Talk about funny - this will crack you up!

Well, maybe it won’t. But Steny Hoyer thought it was hilarious.

Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, is the majority leader in the House of Representatives. At a news conference last week, he was talking about the healthcare overhaul being drafted on Capitol Hill, and a reporter asked whether he would support a pledge committing members of Congress to read the bill before voting on it, and to make the full text of the legislation available to the public online for 72 hours before the vote takes place.

That, reported CNSNews, gave Hoyer the giggles: The majority leader “found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. ‘I’m laughing because . . . I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,’ he said.’’

Then came one of those classic Washington gaffes that Michael Kinsley famously defined as “when a politician tells the truth.’’ Hoyer conceded that if lawmakers had to carefully study the bill ahead of time, they would never vote for it.
“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,’’ he said. The majority leader was declaring, in other words, that it is more important for Congress to pass the bill than to understand it.

“Transparency’’ is a popular buzzword in good-government circles, and politicians are forever promising to transact the people’s business in the sunshine. But as Hoyer’s mirth suggests, when it comes to lawmaking, transparency is a joke. Congress frequently votes on huge and complex bills that few if any members of the House or Senate has read through. They couldn’t read them even if they wanted to, since it is not unusual for legislation to be put to a vote just hours after the text is made available to lawmakers. Congress passed the gigantic, $787 billion “stimulus’’ bill in February - the largest spending bill in history - after having had only 13 hours to master its 1,100 pages. A 300-page amendment was added to Waxman-Markey, the mammoth cap-and-trade energy bill, at 3 a.m. on the day the bill was to be voted on by the House. And that wasn’t the worst of it, as law professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University noted in National Review Online:

“When Waxman-Markey finally hit the floor, there was no actual bill. Not one single copy of the full legislation that would, hours later, be subject to a final vote was available to members of the House. The text made available to some members of Congress still had ‘placeholders’ - blank provisions to be filled in by subsequent language.’’

Ramming legislation through Congress so quickly that neither lawmakers nor voters have time to read and digest it is a bipartisan crime; Republicans have been as guilty of it as Democrats. The 341-page Patriot Act, to mention just one notorious example, was introduced in the Republican-controlled House on Oct. 23, 2001, brought to a vote on Oct. 24, adopted by the Democratic-controlled Senate on Oct. 25, and signed into law by President George W. Bush on Oct. 26.

Such efficiency is no virtue when it comes to lawmaking, which is why every member of Congress should be pressed to sign the pledge Hoyer was asked about. It is sponsored by a grass-roots conservative group, Let Freedom Ring, and is readily accessible online. Equally worthy of support is ReadTheBill.org, which is backed by a coalition of liberal organizations. Still another push comes from the libertarian group Downsize DC, which urges Congress to pass its proposed Read The Bills Act.

Senators and representatives who vote on bills they haven’t read and don’t understand betray their constituents’ trust. It is no excuse to say that Congress would get much less done if every member took the time to read every bill. Fewer and shorter laws more carefully thought through would be a vast improvement over today’s massive bills, which are assembled in the dark and enacted in haste. Steny Hoyer chortles at the thought of asking members of Congress to do their job properly. It’s up to voters to wipe the grin off his face.

Unlike Hoyer, I find nothing amusing about this; the casting of a vote without reading the proposed legislation beforehand is nothing less than a betrayal of a Congressman's and Senator's oath to faithfully execute the duties of the office. This pledge shouldn't be necessary, but Congress' conduct -- misconduct -- demonstrates the need.

My preference is to throw the bums out, beginning with the feckless crapweasels who won't take the pledge.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:50 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 14, 2009

Everyone's an auteur

Canon EOS 5D Movie 1.jpg


I mentioned yesterday that even the smallest pocket digicams now have the ability to shoot video, giving us all the ability to become directors. Now I'd like to show you what can be done with a digital SLR, in this case the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. This video was shot with the Canon camera, which retails for about $2,500, along with an assortment of Canon lenses.

The results are stunning. According to Canon, the digital video files were not manipulated post production; other than being compressed for posting on the web, you're seeing what was shot.

Two caveats: The film was made by a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, and the camera was a pre-production model. Still, the days when you needed to rent a professional motion picture camera in order to achieve cinema-worthy results appear to have had their final curtain call.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:10 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 13, 2009

More gun blogs

Found a new gun blog this weekend, called (what else?) The Firearm Blog, billed as a place that's "Firearms Not Politics."

This post had some photos showing what can happen when you use reloads with poor quality control. Ouch.

There are a number of interesting articles, along with links to other gun-related sites. This one takes a detailed look at fieldstripping the new American-made Steyr AUG, and this has some good tips on how to photograph the bore and chamber of a weapon.

Good stuff.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

The Red Baron

The Red Baron hit theaters with a resounding thud last year, reviewers lambasting it for a terrible script -- c'mon, guys, it's got the Red freakin' Baron! Does it really need a love story? -- and amateurish acting. Audiences ran for cover, leaving the field wide open for another filmmaker to set his sights on a great flick about the war in the skies above Flanders Field.

However, the special effects were quite good; I've never seen World War I aerial combat done so well. This highlight reel provides all the thrills and none of the disappointment of the theatrical experience.

Check it out.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lights! Camera! Action!

Thanks to the video capabilities of seemingly the smallest, cheapest, pocket-sized digicams, everyone's a wanna-be film auteur, me included. One of the problems with these tiny cameras, though, is learning how to follow the action with anything approximating smoothness; most attempts end up inducing seasickness in the viewers.

Professionals have been using something called a Steadicam for decades, a device that uses weights, gyroscopes and a harness to make the camera seemingly float like a cloud, following the action smoothly and close up.

This is one of my favorite shots, from Das Boot, the finest submarine flick ever made. The camerawork that begins at 3:51, as the camera follows the crewmen running forward to the torpedo room, is an astonishing example of the Steadicam in action. The camera and its operator climb through the hatches, just like the crew, with the greatest of ease.

The usual tracks and dollies couldn't be used, due to the director's desire to create a set that accurately depicted the sub's cramped confines; there are no removable walls here, just a full-size submarine interior, mounted on gimbals to move like the real thing. As a result, the Steadicam was the only option for filming in the tight confines of the set.

Now, as you might surmise, the Steadicam is expensive, way too much for plain folk like you and me, but this fellow designed a brilliantly simple alternative, one you can make using parts from the local hardware store. He calls it "The $14 Steadycam." From the videos on his site, along with the comments from users, it looks like I'm going to have to give this a try.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 12, 2009

Amelia (Earhart)

It's about time someone made a film about the most famous aviatrix in American history -- but I'm far more interested in ogling the gorgeous aircraft.

It'd be nice if the filmmakers try to avoid embellishing what is already a pretty compelling story.

But still, look at those planes. And the cars. And the snazzy three-piece suits.

Not to mention fedoras. How can you not want to see a movie with fedoras?

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Maintaining journalistic integrity & standards. Not

I used to think that there was nothing more ludicrous than "legal ethics," but recent events involving the White House press corps prove that "journalistic integrity" is an even bigger howler. Gawker reports:

Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy.

We reported yesterday that Politico's Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House's "backyard bash" by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being ushered out. When Allen quoted from the pool report in his Playbook column the next day, he deleted a reference to his own name and didn't bother to tell his readers that he was actually at the party.

Well, he wasn't alone. Gawker has learned that the White House gave tickets to virtually every major news organization that covers the president—the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, CBS News, and so on, about 30 in all. The reporters were invited to attend on the following condition:

"You are being invited to attend this event as a guest. Blogging, Twittering or otherwise reporting on this event is not permitted. If you feel that you cannot agree to abide by these ground rules, please don't claim a ticket."

That's right: Much of the White House press corps spent the Fourth schmoozing with White House staffers, catching performances by the Foo Fighters and Jimmy Fallon, and watching the fireworks from the most exclusive vantage point in the D.C. metro area, all off the record—not to mention off-the-Facebook and off-the-Twitter. These are the same people who just a week ago were whining in the press briefing about Obama's malicious and dastardly attempts to "control the press." (Well, not the self-same people—we're not sure if Chip Reid and Helen Thomas, the primary antagonists in that exchange, were in attendance.)

There is a cosmic irony at work here: The party was "closed press." (Ha!) It was covered, under onerous restrictions, by a pool reporter—the Baltimore Sun's Paul West. West was ushered in by White House staffers for a mere 40 minutes, so he could record the president's remarks. He was kept in a pen so that he wouldn't run amok and interview someone. He shouted questions at Obama as he worked the rope line, which the president ignored. Then he was taken away. West wrote up his blindered account of the party and then e-mailed it to the White House press corps, many of whom were actually at the party, outside of the pen, hanging out with all the other guests. And then, because they had temporarily signed away the right to do their jobs in exchange for facetime with staffers, a few cold Stoudt's American Pale Ales, and some corn on the cob, their news organizations picked up that pool report and used it to tell their readers what happened at the party. This is how the press covers the White House.

There is simply no chance -- none, zip, zilch, nada -- that you'll get solid, hard-hitting coverage from the sycophants and toadies in the White House press corps, most of whom can't stop humping Pres. Obama's leg like a gaggle of unfixed chihuahuas long enough to practice something -- anything! -- approximating tough-but-fair reporting.

This is, I think, a symptom of the so-called professionalization of the journalistic trade; old-school reporters didn't have graduate degrees. Hell, the reporters of the '20s, '30s and '40s were perfectly capable of covering a story with the writing skills they acquired in high school english. College and places like the Columbia School of Journalism merely indoctrinated young, impressionistic minds with the fallacious folderol that being a reporter was a higher calling, wherein "making a difference" replaced the far more mundane task of telling the public who, what, where, when, why and how -- leaving it to the reader to make up his own mind about an issue.

Who's keeping an eye on the knaves and scoundrels in the White House? Not the press corps; it's hard for a journalist to see what politicians are doing when he's got his nose buried firmly in their backsides.

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

These are not your father's magnets


Rare earth magnets are extremely powerful, as demonstrated in this video by Mr. George, the Super Magnet Man (he sells the things). As you can see, these are not toys -- and if you really want to see what they can do, check out this post by Frank Swain, aptly titled, "How To Remove a Finger WIth Two Super Magnets."

Posted by Mike Lief at 04:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 10, 2009

SciFi

Popular Mechanics

One of the hardships of owning an old car is rebuilding rare parts when there are simply no replacements available. My 1907 White Steamer has a feedwater heater, a part that bolts onto the cylinders. It’s made of aluminum, and over the 100-plus years it’s been in use, the metal has become so porous you can see steam and oil seeping through. I thought we could just weld it up. But it’s badly impregnated with oil and can’t be repaired. If we tried, the metal would just come apart.

So, rather than have a machinist try to copy the heater and then build it, we decided to redesign the original using our NextEngine 3D scanner and Dimension 3D printer. These incredible devices allow you to make the form you need to create almost any part. The scanner can measure about 50,000 points per second at a density of 160,000 dots per inch (dpi) to create a highly detailed digital model. The 3D printer makes an exact copy of a part in plastic, which we then send out to create a mold. Some machines can even make a replacement part in cobalt-chrome with the direct laser sintering process. Just feed a plastic wire—for a steel part you use metal wire—into the appropriate laser cutter.

Inside the printer, the print head goes back and forth, back and forth, putting on layer after layer of plastic to form a 3D part. If there are any irregularities in the originals, you can remove them using software. Once the model is finished, any excess support material between moving parts is dissolved in a water-based solution. Complexity doesn’t matter, but the size of the object does determine the length of the process. Making a little part might take 5 hours. The White’s feedwater heater required 33 hours.

Any antique car part can be reproduced with these machines—pieces of trim, elaborately etched and even scrolled door handles. If you have an original, you can copy it. Or you can design a replacement on the computer, and the 3D printer makes it for you.

People say, “Why not just give the part to your machinist to make?” Well, if the machinist makes it wrong, you still have to pay for it. The scanner allows you to make an exact copy in plastic, fit it and see that it’s correct. Even when you take plans to a machinist, it can be tricky. Say the part must be 3 mm thick here and 5 mm there. You get it back and then, “Oh no, it doesn’t fit; it’s too thick,” or “It’s too thin.” My setup lets you create the perfect part. And you could press the button again and again—and keep making the part—twice the size, half-size, whatever you need. If you have a part that’s worn away, or has lost a big chunk of metal, you can fill in that missing link on the computer. Then you make the part in plastic and have a machinist make a copy based on that example. Or you can do what we do—input that program into a Fadal CNC machine; it reads the dimensions and replicates an exact metal copy.

Some guys are so used to working in the traditional ways. They’re old-school. So they’ve never seen this new technology in use—in fact, they’re not even aware it exists. When you work on old cars, you tend to work with old machinery like lathes, milling machines or English wheels. When someone tells you that you can take a crescent wrench, for example, scan it, then press a button, copy it, and make a new wrench, these guys say, “Well, that’s not possible. You can’t make the little wheel that moves the claw in and out. You’d have to make it in two sections.”

But they’re wrong. You can duplicate the whole tool.

They stand in front of the machine and watch a wrench being made, and they still don’t believe it. It’s like The Jetsons. George Jetson would say, “I want a steak dinner.” He’d press a button and the meal would come out of the machine, with the roasted potatoes and everything, all on one plate. We may not have the instant steak dinner yet—but my NextEngine system is like the car-guy equivalent.

f you had a one-off Ferrari engine, you could scan each part and then re-create the entire motor. Right now, we’re scanning a Duesenberg body. It’s a classic example of high tech melding with old tech. There are cars sitting in garages around the country, and they haven’t moved in years for lack of some unobtainable part. Now they can hit the road once more, thanks to this technology.

My 1907 White engine would never have run again because its slide valve (or D-valve) was shot. We built that part, and now the car is back on the street.

Let’s say you have an older Cadillac or a Packard, and you can’t get one of those beautifully ornate door handles. You could go to the big swap meet in Hershey, Pa., every day for the rest of your life and never find it. Or you could take the one on the left side of your car, copy it, use the computer to reverse it, and put that new part on the other side.

It’s an amazingly versatile technology. My EcoJet supercar needed air-conditioning ducts. We used plastic parts we designed, right out of the 3D copier. We didn’t have to make these scoops out of aluminum—plastic is what they use in a real car. And the finished ones look like factory production pieces.

When I was in high school, a friend’s father bought the new Pulsar LED watch. He paid $2200 for it. It had a red face; you pressed a button, it lit up and gave you the time. The next year I bought a similar watch from Texas Instruments for $19.99. I went over and showed it to my friend’s dad, and he was sooo angry.

The NextEngine scanner costs $2995. The Dimension uPrint Personal 3D printer is now under $15,000. That’s not cheap. But this technology used to cost 10 times that amount. And I think the price will come down even more.

These machines are not suited for mass production, but they work well for rapid prototyping. Just as eBay has made many swap meets go away, this machine could eliminate the need to go to eBay for parts. Think about it: What old part do you want to make?

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

GM: Government Motors spells the end for Cadillac?

Robert Farago continues his deathwatch for GM, this time conducting a pre-mortem on the never-ending decline and fall of Cadillac.

Cadillac is supposed to be the ne plus ultra of automotive brands: the “standard of the world.” Since its pre-War heyday, Cadillac’s brand management has rivaled Neville Chamberlain’s foreign policy for craven expediency. Cadillac has been a deeply damaged division for decades. In 2007, TTAC’s Paul Niedermeyer charted Cadillac’s decline and fall in gory detail. Since then, the brand’s rep has retreated even further into its last redoubt: the consumer’s imagination.

“We all use the expression ‘the Cadillac of toasters’ or ‘the Cadillac of something else,’” deposed Car and Driver Editor Csaba Csere reassures the Detroit News. “It still means ‘the best of’ to a lot of people.” News flash: my thirty-something appliance guy calls KitchenAid the “Lexus of dishwashers,” without apparent irony. Cadillac’s brand expectations have been unrealized for so long that even the idea of Cadillac as the ultimate object of desire is rapidly disappearing.

This transition reflects reality. At best, Cadillac’s current cars are competitive (CTS, Escalade). At worst, they’re pathetic (STS, DTS, BLS). Somewhere in between, they’re inappropriate (SRX, EXT, forthcoming CTS SportsWagon and Converj plug-in hybrid). None of these Cadillac models are class-leading—never mind world-beating.

Cadillac’s mid-year sales stats tell the tale. At 33,043 units, they’re neck and neck with Acura (32,637), trailing Lexus (44,942) and getting crushed by Mercedes and BMW (65,160 and 75,443 respectively). Meanwhile, Audi’s in hot pursuit (28,347).

Equally disheartening for fans of the Cadillac brand, the automaker’s margins are nowhere near those of its competitors. Cadillac is discounting heavily to move the metal—sending exactly the wrong message about the brand’s inherent “value,” eroding Caddy’s cachet to ever-lower levels. Not to put too fine a point on it, they’re in a death spiral.

There’s only way for Cadillac to recapture faded glory. Cut the crap and build the best. The best no-holds-barred luxury cars. Stylish, no excuses vehicles, meticulously engineered, rock solid. And then they have to create a dealer network that kisses customers’ asses like none before.

Never. Gonna. Happen.

The German automakers sold more than five times as many cars as Cadillac! To Americans! The Japanese are also -- unsurprisingly -- crushing the marque. How far the mighty have fallen.

Farago's explanation for the impossibility of a successful government-run luxury brand can be summed up in one word: Bailout. In his opinion, the public, already unhappy about the billions "invested" in this rescue, simply won't tolerate their money being used to build a world-class, high-end set of wheels they could never afford to own.

And yet, Farago opines, there's no way in hell the Auto Czar will allow Government Motors to give Cadillac the chop, highlighting the myriad problems with the feds applying Big Gummint logic to Big Bidness.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 08, 2009

Robert McNamara: A Life Ill Spent

Robert McNamara died Monday, drawing the usual plaudits in obituaries on the pages of the sundry Times -- New York, Chicago, Los Angeles -- as well as the deep-inside-the-beltway Washington Post, mainly lauding him for his work since leaving the Johnson Administration, and especially for his '90s-era mea culpa for Vietnam.

Columnist Mickey Kaus wasn't impressed by McNamara's change of heart back in '95, tagging the beancounter with responsibility for a variety of ills.

Has any single American of this century done more harm than Robert McNamara? No one comes readily to mind.

Yes, Lyndon Johnson bears greater responsibility for the damage done the nation by the Vietnam War.

But McNamara is a Renaissance man. Before he helped ruin the American polity, he helped ruin the American economy, pioneering at Ford the bloodless, numbers-oriented management methods that helped bring so many corporations to their knees.

After Vietnam, as head of the World Bank, he helped ruin the entire world's economy, shoveling out billions of dollars to fund failed "development" projects. It's a tough record to match.

Some critics credit McNamara with fixing Ford, becoming the first man to lead the company without bearing the family name, but he was also the first man to lead the company who didn't seem to like -- much less love -- cars.

McNamara famously designed a car while sitting in church, sketching it out on a piece of paper. When he turned it over to the engineers, it didn't have anything approaching a picture of the vehicle; rather, it was a list of specifications: length, weight, cost. McNamara couldn't care less with how it looked, sounded, smelled or drove like.

Is it any wonder so-called whiz kids like McNamara and his ilk started nickel and diming the American auto industry into utter crapitude?

David Halberstam, in his book "The Reckoning," detailed the rise and fall of Ford. One story recounted Ford trying to fix a problem with their cars rusting. According to the engineers, the paintbooths were too small for the oversize cars coming off the assembly line, preventing the paint from being applied properly, as well as not being able to cure completely. The solution was to build bigger paint booths.

McNamara, the quintessential accountant, nixed the idea as too expensive. His solution? Cut the cars in half, paint the smaller pieces separately, then weld them back together.

The engineers were, to put it mildly, aghast.

Speaking of Halberstam, he figures in Joe Galloway's essay on McNamara's passing, which opens with this Clarence Darrow quote: "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."

Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.

McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.

Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McNamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: "I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process." Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies.

Upon hanging up I would call Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam and run McNamara's comments past them for deconstruction and the addition of the truth.

The only disagreement I ever had with Dave Halberstam was over the question of which of us hated him the most. In retrospect, it was Halberstam.

When McNamara published his first book — filled with those distortions of history — Halberstam, at his own expense, set out on a journey following McNamara on his book tour around America as a one-man truth squad.

McNamara abandoned the tour.

Whatever good McNamara may have accomplished during his long life -- and some might argue you'd have to go all the way back to his work with the Army Air Corps during WWII to find anything praiseworthy -- it pales beside his negligible accomplishments at Ford, the Pentagon, and beyond.

While Galloway, Kaus and Halberstam were very, very harsh in their judgements, I don't think they were wrong. History will also judge McNamara harshly, rightly so, in my humble opinion.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Can we promise to never speak about this again?

Judging by the number of heartfelt posts on Facebook and various news and celebrity sites, I'm apparently in the minority when I say the Michael Jackson Staples Center/Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Memorial Tribute is the single least significant event in the history not only of this universe, but all parallel universes, too, of note only for what the wall-to-wall coverage says about our so-called culture and the dead-man-walking mainstream media.

However, if there was room for improvement, I think the folks at IDLYITW have their finger on the pulse of what MJ was all about.

When they transport his body to the Staples Center, I think a good idea would be for them to put him on a float made of Demerol and cotton candy and let it be pulled down the street by a hundred 5-year old boys in bedazzled Peter Pan costumes riding Big Wheels. And then a group of 7-year old boys dressed like 1940's sailors would bust out of the top of the float and perform a synchronized baton twirling routine to Man in the Mirror while candy and bubblegum rained from the sky. I mean, he's only dead. That doesn't mean he wouldn't want to enjoy the party, too.

Now that'd be something to see.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:09 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 07, 2009

Real heroes

No Man Should Die Alone!

Eight thousand badly outnumbered Marines shivered in the sub-zero temperatures of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea on December 4, 1950, as eight F4U-4 Corsairs left the deck of the carrier USS Leyte. Each of the eight heavily armed but outdated fighters was piloted by a Naval aviator rushing to defend their comrades on the ground. Most of the pilots were young, in their early twenties, but all were dedicated "brothers in arms" who would risk their lives for the soldiers on the ground, men they didn't even know, but defended because they were Americans at great risk.

[...]

Off in the distance flying "wing" for Ensign Jesse Brown was Lieutenant (j.g.) Thomas Hudner. Hudner was senior to Brown, but the Ensign had more experience. In the perilous skies over North Korea, rank didn't matter. It was experience that counted.

[...]

Jesse LeRoy Brown was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The son of a hard-working but poor sharecropper, he grew up in a home that offered little comfort other than love and dreams for the future. The Brown home didn't have electricity, running water, or even an indoor toilet. Racial prejudice stood as a wall to any young, black boy's dreams in a community that preached and practiced segregation of white citizens from its black residents.

[...]

In 1946, the same year Tom Hudner was graduating from the Naval Academy, Jesse Brown enlisted in the Naval Reserve. The following year he was appointed a Midshipman. Undaunted by the kind of prejudice voiced by an ROTC instructor at Ohio State who told Jesse, "No nigger would ever sit his ass in a Navy cockpit," the courageous young pioneer was the only black American among the 600 cadets when at last he entered flight school in Pensacola, Florida. Despite continued prejudice, even outright harassment by some officers, on October 21, 1948 Jesse LeRoy Brown received his wings, [becoming] the Navy's first black pilot.

After stops in San Diego, Hawaii, and Japan, the USS Leyte arrived off the coast of Korea in October, 1950. The pilots of Fighter Squadron 32 were quickly thrown into the cauldron, flying missions over enemy controlled territory almost immediately. By the morning of December 4th as Lieutenant Commander Cevoli's Corsairs skimmed the mountains along the Chosin Reservoir, Jesse Brown was already flying his 20th combat mission. His wingman, Thomas Hudner, flew just a short distance away. Everything seemed to be going smoothly and the calmness of Ensign Brown's voice on the radio announcing he was loosing power didn't register an immediate alarm. Then his voice came across the radio again and the other pilots in the formation knew something was seriously amiss when he said:"I think I may have been hit. I've lost my oil pressure and I'm going to have to go in."

Lieutenant Hudner watched in fear and hope as Jesse Brown fought the controls of his Corsair. The engine was out, there was no power, and no place to run. The terrain was simply one mountain after another. As Ensign Brown's plane neared the side of the nearest mountain, the other pilots began a circling pattern. The mountains were swarming with camouflaged Chinese Communist soldiers, and if Jesse was able to land his crippled craft successfully they would need to move in swiftly to provide cover fire to protect him.


Flying into the wind, it was going to be a "wheels up, dead stick landing" on a near vertical, snow-covered mountain slope. The other pilots held their breath, then watched in horror as Jesse Brown's aircraft slammed hard against the mountain side. The impact created an immediate cloud of flying snow that momentarily masked the other pilots' view of the crash scene. Then, as the snow cleared, they could see Jesse Brown's shattered plane lying in ruins. The engine had been ripped away and the fuselage was ruptured at the cockpit, twisted at an almost 45 degree angle. Sunlight glinted off the glass of the closed cockpit and Jesse Brown's wingmates released a sigh of despair, fully aware that the Navy's first black pilot had died in the crash on a North Korean mountainside. Before turning away, they circled a second time. Suddenly Tom Hudner noticed something. The canopy was now OPEN! He descended for a closer look and there, sitting
in the open cockpit, Jesse Brown waved back at his wingman. Somehow he had survived the impact.

Lieutenant Commander Cevoli quickly broke away from the other fliers to gain altitude and radio for a rescue helicopter. The other pilots continued a low altitude circle of the downed airman to insure that the enemy didn't reach their comrade before the rescue crew. As they anxiously watched the surrounding terrain, they also kept an eye on Jesse Brown. Something was wrong. He was sitting up, waving from time to time, but he wasn't making any effort to get out of the ruptured cockpit. Then Thomas Hudner noticed smoke rising from the nose of the Corsair. The plane appeared to be on the verge of erupting into flames which, because of the direction of the wind, would quickly engulf the cockpit ... and Jesse Brown. The fact that his friend hadn't got out of the plane meant one of two things. Either Jesse was too badly hurt to extricate himself, or he was somehow pinned in the wreckage. Without a second thought Lieutenant Hudner prepared to do the wrong thing, because it was the right thing to do.

"I'm going in," Tom radioed his commander, knowing that there was only one way to do that. Any landing would be disastrous, but Lieutenant Hudner had just decided to crash a perfectly good American fighter plane on a steep mountainside heavily controlled by the enemy. He didn't wait for an approval from anyone, he just did it.

The other pilots watched from their tight circles as Lieutenant Hudner headed his Corsair toward the steep mountain slope, searching for anything resembling a level area to land. Flying into the wind and up the slope in a carrier-like approach, he settled towards the ground. It would be a planned, wheels-up crash landing. Then he was down, about 100 yards slightly upslope from his friend. As he hit the rock-hard ground and bumped to a stop his thought was, "What in the hell am I doing here!" And then he was out of the cockpit and running to the side of his "brother."

Jesse Brown was in horrible pain. Tom could see it in his eyes and on his face. But Jesse remained calm, speaking to his wingman from time to time. Lieutenant Hudner could see that the brave Ensign was indeed trapped. The buckling cockpit had pinned him beneath the hard metal of the instrument panel. And Jesse was cold. He had been on the ground for almost half an hour, exposed to sub-freezing temperatures at more than a mile above sea level. In working to free himself from the wreckage he had removed his flight helmet exposing his head to the wintry blasts that hung over the mountain. He had also removed his gloves to release himself from his parachute harness. They dropped from his numb fingers. He had struggled to retrieve them but, pinned as he was, they were out of his reach. "By the time I got there," Hudner says, "his hands were like claws ... totally frozen."

Lieutenant Hudner worked to release his friend from the metal tomb, but to no avail. The wreckage held him too tightly. The helicopter that would be coming to rescue the two men would be useless unless they could free the trapped man. He knew his radio was still operational, knew also that by turning on the battery to power it he risked igniting the fuel that leaked about the plane ... Returning to his own Corsair he powered the radio and told the rescue helicopter to bring an ax to chop the wreckage away and free Jesse, as well as a fire extinguisher.

After sending the message, Tom Hudner returned to his friend's side. He had retrieved a wool scarf and cap that he had carried in his flight suit for emergencies, and now he gently lowered the cap over Jesse's head. "Wrapping the scarf around his frozen hands was more of a gesture than a remedy," Hudner says. "Everyone knows when limbs are already frozen that a wrap won't warm them back up. But it was all I could do."

Jesse was still conscious and spoke from time to time, but he spoke very slowly. It was apparent that his body was broken up inside, but Jesse never cried out or complained. Meanwhile Tom Hudner began to scoop up the cold snow and tossed it at the spot where the smoke was coming from under the cowling, but the smoke didn't diminish. After about half an hour both mean could hear the throb of the rescue helicopter arriving, then landing on the steep slope. Marine Lieutenant Charles Ward brought the fire extinguisher and ax to Tom Hudner. The extinguisher was small and quickly expended. Then the two men began frantically beating against the metal cockpit with the ax without any effect. It was getting dark, time was running out. Jesse spoke less and less frequently, more and more slowly, and began to fade in and out of consciousness as the two rescuers vainly attempted to free him. The ax simply bounced off the metal. They made no headway.

As the sun set over the cold mountain, Lieutenant Ward informed Tom that his helicopter was not equipped to fly at night. They would have to give up soon, or at the very least fly out for additional help. Everything they had done was fruitless. Perhaps if they could fly back and get torches to cut the metal.

Lieutenant Hudner sensed Jesse was trying to say something and leaned closer to his friend. "If I don't make it," he whispered, "Please tell Daisy I love her."

Tom Hudner promised his friend that he would. Lieutenant Ward informed Tom it was time to go, that nothing more could be done. In the fading twilight Lieutenant Thomas Hudner peered once more into the shattered cockpit of the Corsair. Jesse no longer spoke. He was unconscious and fading fast ... As the helicopter lifted off Thomas Hudner looked back one last time at the crash site, and Jesse Brown sitting motionless in the open cockpit.

"One of the worst things when something has happened to you is the feeling that you're alone," Thomas Hudner later said. "Just being with him to give him as much comfort as we could was worth the effort." Tom Hudner is also quick to point out that he would have done the same for any of the other men in the squadron, and they for him. "I just happened to be the one that went in that day," he says. "If it hadn't been me, it would have been one of the others (pilots)."

In the days that followed it became impossible to recover either Jesse Brown's body or the two downed Corsairs. When Tom returned to his ship, he reported the circumstances to the ship's captain. Then, to prevent the Chinese from gaining access to the crash site, the captain dispatched a flight of aircraft to the mountainside where they dropped napalm on the two aircraft and Jesse's body. It was the most dignified burial the men of Fighter Squadron 32 could have afforded their brother. As the napalm blanketed the hillside, Jesse and his Corsair vanished into history, a hero that we can not afford as a Nation to ever forget. Jesse LeRoy Brown, 13 Oct 1926 - 4 Dec 1950.

[...]

Captain Sisson recommended Navy Ensign Jesse Brown for one of our Nation's highest awards, the Distinguished Flying Cross. He submitted Jesse's wingman and friend, Lieutenant (j.g.) Thomas Hudner for the Medal of Honor. Four months later on April 13, 1951, President Harry S Truman invited the Hudner family to the White House where he presented the Medal of Honor to Navy Lieutenant Thomas Hudner.

Attending the ceremony and standing quietly to the side holding a large bouquet of roses was a young black lady. She smiled through her tears and shook hands with Lieutenant Hudner. He had delivered the message, "Tell Daisy I love her."

When Lieutenant Hudner returned home, Fall River proclaimed "Thomas Hudner Day" and hosted a wonderful celebration. The appreciative citizens presented the young pilot with a check for $1,000, a considerable sum in 1951. Lieutenant Hudner didn't cash it. Instead he endorsed the back and sent it to Daisy Brown who had returned to school.

On March 18, 1972, the Navy christened a new member of its fleet: USS Jesse L. Brown (DE-1089). It was the first time in our nation's history that a naval vessel was named for a Black American. Daisy Brown and Thomas Hudner were there to remind us all of the brave young pilot for whom it was named.

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

Shortly after posting this story I received the following e-mail:

"As Jesse Leroy Brown's widow I'm so glad that you've called attention to his story and the valiant effort of Tom Hudner to save him. There's no better example of brotherhood, white and black, than what happened that terrible afternoon at Somong-ni. Thank you for telling this story of bravery."

Daisy Brown Thorne

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Remembering an artist who left us too soon

I remember when Jim Croce died, back in the Summer of '73. I was in New York, staying at my Aunt Mame's house in Laurelton, when the DJ interrupted whatever song was on the turntable to break the news.

Croce, barely 30 years old, was best known for "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," but darn near every song he recorded in his all-too-brief career were keepers. In an interesting contrast to today's overproduced and sampled stars, Jim Croce often performed alone -- or with one other guitarist -- as naked as a performer can be, short of a capella.

Croce and Jim Muehleisen, the 24 year-old classically-trained guitarist who performed with him (and is in these videos), were flying back to Texas after a concert when the plane they were in hit a tree during takeoff, killing all aboard. A little more than a week earlier, Croce had finished work on the album that would catapult him to fame, "I Got A Name."

Perhaps his best song, one that is almost unbearably sad in light of his fate -- and the wife and young son he left behind -- is "Time In A Bottle."

Almost 36 years after his death, I still love to listen to his music.

Here are a few more of his songs.

Enjoy.



Jim Croce - Workin' At The Car Wash Blues
by asjacks75

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 06, 2009

The GOP's California hope?

George Will sang the praises this weekend of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, thought by many to be the GOP's best chance for winning the upcoming gubernatorial race -- and salvaging the state's flatlining economy.

Whitman, a Roman candle of facts and ideas, insists, "We do not have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem of epic proportions." Twenty-five percent of California's revenue comes from income taxes paid by the 144,000 richest taxpayers, so "if one of them leaves, it's a really bad thing." Lots have left. Some never really arrive. Pierre Omidyar, after founding eBay in San Jose, resided in Nevada, which has no income tax.

[...]

She emphatically opposes a change that many proponents of a new Constitution favor -- eliminating the requirement of a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature to pass a budget or raise taxes. Without those provisions, "taxes would be so high we might not have a state left." Today's most pressing problem -- government in the grip of public employees unions -- is, she thinks, ripe for improvement: 85 percent of the state's unionized employees are working without contracts.

[...]

Because legislators feel validated by volume, the Legislature is, she says, a "bill machine." She vows to wield the veto power as vigorously as did Republican Govs. Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian, who cast 1,890 and 2,298 vetoes, respectively. The current calamitous governor wanted, as movie stars do, to be loved, but Whitman says tersely: "Getting elected is a popularity contest. Governing is the opposite."

What's not to like? Well, Will glosses over Whitman's plans for fixing the legislature, addressing a structural flaw in the composition of the Assembly.

She endorses a convention to revise California's Constitution, which was written in 1879 and has been amended 518 times. She would reduce the number of state Assembly districts (there are 80), because the Legislature is cumbersome, and would modify the initiative and referendum process.

Whitman's right: the Assembly is the problem, but reducing the number of districts is exactly the wrong thing to do. The California legislature suffers from the same problem as the House of Representatives: it's paradoxically too busy and too small.

With only 80 districts, the per capita representation in this enormous state means that legislators can't possibly be in touch with what their constituents actually want; Congress, with 435 Representatives, suffers from the same problem on a much larger scale.

More districts -- not less -- would mean that each Assemblyman would necessarily be elected by fewer voters, increasing the power of the constituents and consequently ensuring greater responsiveness on the part of the elected representatives.

Another benefit of more -- and smaller -- Assembly districts is less expensive campaigns. With the number of votes needing to be bought, er, won, more people who would otherwise be priced out could afford to run for office.

The same naturally applies to Congress. The seats should simply be apportioned after every census, additional seats being created to ensure that the Congressman-to-citizen ratio is no greater than what it was at the time the Constitution was ratified.

Still, given that the likely Democratic nominee will be either San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom or Jerry Brown, the once and future Gov. Moonbeam, the GOP is going to be hard-pressed to nominate someone worse -- although being the Stupid Party, I have no doubt that the GOP will try.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Something Wicked This Way Comes

The violence in Mexico born of the insatiable demand for drugs -- and the unbelievable money to be made satisfying that demand -- is leading to the professionalization of the narco-traffickers, and their recruiting efforts are targeting ever younger recruits.

Rusty Fleming writes of his encounter with a natural born killer.

On a hot summer evening, in a bar in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, just across the bridge from Laredo, Texas; a thirty year-old man, on his knees, surrounded by a dozen armed guards, can be heard begging for his life, he cries for one more chance to make it right with the boss, one more chance to see his family—one more chance at life.

His boss happens to be the man who dictates the life and death of every soul in the Laredo corridor, listens to the pleas but has already made up his mind. He stands as judge and jury in this court and it’s clear, he’s heard enough. So he pulls a diamond studded, pearl handled pistol from his belt and slowly hands it over to one of his newest recruits. He tells the recruit to put a bullet in the condemned mans head as he sobs uncontrollably—and so, without hesitation the young man pulls the trigger four times over.

This was the new recruit’s first kill and his first real test for initiation to become an assassin of the Gulf Cartel’s enforcement arm known as the Zetas. He had never killed anyone before that night and when his cartel boss handed him the pistol and he pulled that trigger— he knew he loved it. He told me later that it gave him a rush that he had never felt before, “to kill a man and know I was going to get a way with it gave me a feeling of power” — He spoke of that night as if he had found his true calling — “I knew right then I was born to be a sicario” (Spanish for “hit-man”)

He was thirteen years old.

I’ve met and talked with numerous players in the drug war being waged on our border and beyond, that have often left me feeling more than a little disturbed. The utter disregard for human life that’s evidenced in the daily tortures and executions taking place down here, certainly wears on the most seasoned of us reporting on it. But when I looked into the eyes of this young man and saw how he lit up inside while speaking so nonchalantly yet eloquently about how he “lived to kill” ever since he pulled that trigger for the first time, it sent cold chills down my spine—and still does.

“I’ve killed men while they were tied and bound but that there is no thrill, no excitement in that for me. I prefer to stalk my target, hunt them down and then, after I know his moves front to back, I sneak up on them, look’em in the eyes and pull the trigger—now that’s a rush.”

... Rosalio Reta was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and recruited by the Zetas when he was barely in the 7th grade.

Fleming goes on to warn that the drug lords are willing to spend whatever it takes to create their own special forces units, the violence that has heretofore been south of our border sure to leak across to the north, thanks to the feral killers recruited while barely into their teens.

The ruthlessness and savagery of the narco-trafficantes and their teen hitmen bodes ill for us. I am reminded of the title of a novel by the great Ray Bradbury: Something Wicked This Way Comes.

I am, like Fleming, chilled at the prospect.

So should you.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 05, 2009

Reflecting on Independence Day


This clip, from HBO's miniseries, "John Adams," recreates the moment when George Washington took the oath of office, becoming the nation's first president. An almost unrecognizable David Morse portrays the former general, capturing the man's humility, but it's Paul Giamatti as Adams who's unforgettable; his eyes burn with emotion and revolutionary zeal as he watches the former colonies gain their first chief executive.

It's hard for us today to realize the passions that moved our nation's founding fathers to rebellion -- treachery and treason in the eyes of those loyal to the English monarch -- risking their lives and the lives of their families for independence.


This clip, from the 1972 film version of the hit Broadway musical, "1776," has John Adams (played by the wonderful William Daniels), expressing his frustration with and contempt for Congress -- a feeling well deserved and little changed amongst Congress watchers past and present.

It opens with one of the best lines ever, as Adams storms into Congress:

ADAMS: I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm; and that three or more become a Congress! And, by God, I have had this Congress! For ten years, King George and his Parliament have gulled, cullied and diddled these Colonies with their illegal taxes! Stamp Acts, Townshend Acts, Sugar Acts, Tea Acts! And when we dared stand up like men, they have stopped our trade, seized our ships, blockaded our ports, burned our towns and spilled our blood! And still this Congress refuses to grant any of my proposals on independence, even so much as the courtesy of open debate. Good God, what in Hell are you waiting for?

If you're in the mood to be both entertained and informed, start with "John Adams" and finish with "1776."

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More honors for Jacko?

The local ABC news affiliate is reporting that Fat Al Sharpton is pushing for the U.S. Postal Service to honor Michael Jackson by putting his face (Question: Which face?) on a stamp.

Churchgoers were asked what they thought; the two who spoke on camera thought it was a great idea.

I'm outraged. We should honor every last soldier killed in combat, every combat vet who goes to his reward, every cop and firefighter who fell in the line of duty, before we put a pedophilic, drug addicted, plastic-surgery fetishist, song-and-dance man on a stamp.

Feh.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:33 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 04, 2009

There are two kinds of people: Those who find this cool, and those who do not

Video Game - E3 2009 - Attack of the Show

Video Game - E3 2009 - Attack of the Show

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:04 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 02, 2009

Flying with the Blue Angels


Here's nearly ten minutes of in-cockpit video of the Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy's aerobatic team, without the irritating, pounding rock score that usually accompanies such footage. It's almost as good as riding in the blue-and-yellow F-18's back seat.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:33 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Global warming consensus? What consensus?

I have had countless discussions over the last few years with friends and family who express disbelief that I'm not a believer in anthropogenic global warming. "What about the consensus of scientists who say it's real and we're to blame?"

When I respond that there is no "consensus," except amongst those who have already drunk deeply of the emotion-based Green crowd Kool-Aid, they roll their eyes at me and pronounce me hopeless.

So, it gives me some satisfaction to point them to Kimberly Strassel's piece in the Wall Street Journal.

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

  • In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming.
  • In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role.
  • In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted.
  • New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
  • The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers.

  • Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief
  • .

  • Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history."
  • Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion."
  • A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

    The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

    [...]

    Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.

    We'll see if cooler heads prevail in the Senate and drive a stake through the heart of the economy-killing cap-and-trade madness, a bill designed to fix a non-existent problem for which we're not responsible.

    Posted by Mike Lief at 06:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    July 01, 2009

    Honduras: What's really happening?

    The Obama administration continues to peddle the line -- aided and abetted by a seemingly willfully ignorant press -- that the events in Honduras constitute an illegal coup d'etat.

    Donald Sensing, a retired Army colonel, pastor and blogger, did a little bit of research, the results seemingly fatal to the spin favored by Fidel Castro (dictator), Hugo Chavez (tyrant), the Honduran ex-president (would-be tyrant), and the U.S. State Department, that the forcible removal from office of the president was illegal.

    Ad fontes: CONSTITUCIÓN DE LA REPÚBLICA DE HONDURAS

    Translation by Google (yeah, I know). Since I was once reasonably fluent in Spanish, I have massaged it a little herein; my glosses are in brackets [ ].

    Let's consider the following facts seriatim (italics are mine throughout):

  • Chapter VI, Article 237: "The presidential term is four years... ." There is no provision for self succession.
  • Article 42 forbids inciting, encouraging or supporting the re-election of a president, which Zelaya was unambiguously doing.
  • The Honduran constitution makes no provision for impeachment as we understand the process. However, Article 239 provides that,

    No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President.

    This re-emphasizes that a president may not succeed himself in office - having "already served as head of the Executive Branch," Zelaya was constitutionally inelegible to remain in office after his term expired.

  • Article 239 continues,
  • Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [Sp.: reforma, or amendment], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.

    Since the constitution strictly prescribes a single term for the president, and since Zelaya was openly campaigning for a second term, the country's supreme court properly ruled, on purely constitutional grounds, that Zelaya must "immediately cease" in his function as president.

  • Chapter 10, Article 272:
  • The Armed Forces of Honduras are ... established to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic, keep the peace, public order and the rule of the Constitution, the principles of free suffrage and alternation in the presidency of the Republic.

    Consitutionally, it is the military that is charged, in concert with civilian organs of government, to ensure that the one-term limit of the presidency is enforced. It is the military that is constitutionally charged with ensuring the intregrity of national elections.

    Therefore, the removal of Zelaya from office by the army was not merely appropriate, it was constitutionally required that the army do so. Why does the army have such responsibilities? See my post, "The role of the Honduran military," in the country's history.

    Furthermore, when the army's chief of staff refused to send Zelaya's ballots to polling places, Zelaya personally led a mob to the warehouse, stole the ballots and had his minions start to distribute them. This act also violated the constitution because only the army has the constitutional authority to do so.

    Yet somehow, the American MSM, the White House and State Department don't do the simple research to see what Honduran law and constitutionality have to say about recent events. Instead, they knee jerked from the beginning and kept on doing it. Their ineptitude is, sadly, no longer surprising. At least I hope it's mere ineptitude, which can be overcome. The alternative is explained by Roger Simon, and it ain't good.

    Something to keep in mind as you read countless stories parroting the "illegal coup" meme.

    Posted by Mike Lief at 08:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    The uncomfortable contradictions of Obamacare

    Jonah Goldberg makes reference to Lebensunwertes Leben in the title to a post on Pres. Obama's infomercial for socialized medicine.

    From the LA Times:

    Reporting from Washington — President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.

    In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."

    He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

    There's an interesting contradiction here. According to the pro-choice perspective, it's outrageous for the state to interfere in a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy. But it's pragmatic and reasonable for the state to consider terminating a person, if some money can be saved.

    This logic is nothing new.

    That last line is a reference to the eugenics policies of the Nazi regime that ruled Germany from 1933-1945; Lebensunwertes Leben is Life Unworthy of Life, which is how so-called mental defectives and other less-than-perfect members of society were designated.

    Lest Goldberg -- and I -- be accused of violating Godwin's Law, the issue is the State deciding who should receive medical treatment, i.e., who should live or die, and not the individual, rather than some sweeping allegation that Nazi-era eugenics policies are resurgent.

    I agree with Goldberg that the abortion debate has led the left to take an absolutist position: No one may interfere with a woman's healthcare decisions, but single-payer, government-controlled healthcare will, by definition and necessity ration access to benefits.

    The contradictions are plain to see, and the ethical dilemmas strike me as patently obvious.

    Posted by Mike Lief at 07:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack