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Back From Beyond
Donner Party Memorial, May 29th 2006.
On October 28th, 1846 A party of emigrants who had spent the summer crossing the Great Basin( a very dry high alpine desert), failed to cross the Sierra Mountain range before the onset of the annual snows.
This memorial sits off the side of Interstate highway 80 and marks the campsites where a large part of the emigrants camped for the winter. The base of the memorial marks the height of the snow that winter, the tourists below give a sense of scale of the overall size of the memorial. The Encampment at Donner Lake lasted from October 1946 until April 1847.
Forty-two members of the Donner Party perished over the winter, 47 survived. The Donners came to California before it became fashionable and the trail was far from well established. The 49'ers of the Gold Rush were still two years off. An ill-advised shortcut given by a man who had never actually seen the trail, resulted in the loss of nearly 30 days in the crossing. The experience of the Donner Party serves as a warning to all who might take such shortcuts in life.
One member of the party, Louis Keseberg was discovered with the half eaten corpses of his fellow travellers at his tent when the relief party arrived in April. During the trip, he is also thought to have taken part in the abandonment of one of the other travellers in the desert. He was the last survivor of the encampment to arrive at Sutters Fort. When you start to complain about the habits of your seatmates on Southwest Airlines, just be glad your not sharing an exit row with Louis Keseberg.
This site also marked the completion point of my epic motorcycle trip this weekend over the Sierras. Unlike the weather found by the Donner Party, the weather was great but it was a little colder in places than I had anticipated including a bit of early summer snow. At one point I was caught at the pass in a small localized snowstorm with about 100 other motorcyclists and it was quite a scene. We looked like the set of a "Mad Max" movie as we took over the small diner in Foresthill California and waited for the storm to pass.
To my knowledge, no cannibalism is known to have occured during my short stay.
I have always called the Donner Memorial the "No Whining" Memorial because no matter how bad you think your situation is, no matter how bleak your day or your current life circumstances, you can be certain that its better than the situation the Donner Party faced in the winter of 1846. Today, the area of the Donner encampment is surrounded by multi-million dollar vacation homes, fully stocked grocery stores and a six lane freeway.
Life is good.
( More info on the Donner Party can be found here.)
Posted @ May 30, 2006 03:28 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (3)
3 Day Weekend Checklist
1. Motorcycle checked and ready. Check.
2. Tank Full. Check.
2. Weather good over the sierras. Check.
3. "Honey do" List complete. Check.
4. Cellphone charged. Check.
This is my way of saying that blogging will be light this weekend. If youre on Foresthill road on the way to Donner Lake and you see a Copper Suzuki SV650 going way too fast around the curves, thats me.
While Im out, Get on over to neo-Neocon and read her posts on "Hate this war". Its a fabulous bit of thinking, but I think theres more here than shes uncovered. I'll have more to say about it after I've cleared my mind with a bit of adrenaline and gasoline.
Oh, and for your viewing pleasure - Its the "art of Octopi and women". Heh...
Posted @ May 26, 2006 12:56 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)
GDP growth fastest in 2-1/2 years
I'd like to blog on this, but Im too busy trying to figure out why someone would build a statue with four toes.
Posted @ May 25, 2006 09:09 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Where were you on August 20, 1977?
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
- Hitchikers Guide To The Universe.
Since August 20, 1977, the fastest craft ever launched from earth, The Voyager II Spacecraft has been flying outward away from earth and into the great unknown. Every single day since then, that little piece of metal and machinery has been rocketing towards the edge of the Solar System.
Voyager II will finally reach the edge of our solar system this year.
Carter, Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Berlin Wall, Fall of Communism, Jonestown, 9/11, Yuppies, Home computers, Satellite TV, Cellphones, The Internet, Mir up - Mir down, Space Shuttle up - Space Shuttle down. The first Star Wars movie had only been out for 3 months. Now there are 6, and they are all on little DVD disks which werent even invented when this spacecraft was launched.
I now officially feel small and insignificant. For all but the first 16 years of my life, the fastest thing ever made by man has been speeding towards the edge of the solar system every single day, and it only just reached it.
Space is big. Really, really big...
I once had an email exchange with the head of SETI, Seth Shostak. He's a hell of a guy, he actually returned my emails. I asked him a few questions about the SETI project, which is a project designed to listen to radio waves in hope of detecting extraterrestrial intelligence.
Now, I had always thought that they were scanning the airwaves of interstellar space listening for radio stations the way I scan the car radio on long trips across Nevada late at night, hoping to use the atmospheric skip to catch a far away radio station from places like Seattle or even New York. It's one of the truly mystical experiences in life to be travelling across the highways of the west on moonlit nights, scanning round and around through the radio dial to find some sign of life on earth by trying to get a reflection of a radio signal thats bouncing off the atmosphere while you speed down a highway where you are the only car, the only light on the horizon for miles. Suddenly out of the dash, crackles a repeat of "The BBC home service" from some far off underfunded public radio station and you find yourself wondering about the randomness that makes up so much of your life.
So in my email exchange, I asked Mr. Shostak "If we were to place the SETI radio telescope dishe on, oh, let's say Pluto for example and scan towards Earth,from the signals that the Dish picks up,would we detect life on Earth"?
His answer knocked me for a loop, because his answer was "no". He explained that SETI doesnt listen for all the possible signals that could possibly be generated on all the possible frequencies. They had in fact limited their search to a specific set of frequencies. Up till then I had always imagined that the first signs of life would be someone accidentally catching a rerun of Tau Ceti's "I Love Lucy". This was not to be the case for SETI was looking for a specific signal and frequency and not the Tau Ceti squid version of "Lucy and Ethels big adventures".
I was really flattened by what Mr. Shostak told me. Neither the frequency or the signal they were looking for would be detected from the hypothetical SETI "Pluto Listening Post".
It seemed to me like a really big long shot to hope that we would ever find evidence of other civilizations in space and once he explained to me how the search actually worked and how SETI came to the conclusions that they did, it seemed like an even longer shot than it was before.
After all, Mr. Shostak and SETI couldn't detect Earth with his methods and yet here we are, blasting our radios, watching TV, circling the planet with GPS satellites. If detecting humans at a distance was hard, you should remember that he has almost no chance of detecting the existance of the intelligent species like dolphins, whales, chimpanzees and the great squid.
It's not that I believe that we are alone in the universe, its that I believe that "Space is big. Really really big..." When I saw the article today on Voyager II, I was reminded of just how big it really is.
I'm sure that we will find other life in the universe. I'm pretty certain we will find other life in this Solar System. I'm dead certain that most of what we find will not be watching television or listening to the radio when we finally do find them.
I wonder if the "Giant Squid of Tau Ceti" spend their spare time writing blogs...
Posted @ May 23, 2006 10:22 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (7)
Murtha: Marines killed Iraqis ‘in cold blood’
A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.
Full story can be found here.
My thoughts:
1. Investigate the accusations. Oh sorry, looks like thats already underway, so its looks like the Marines are already doing their job. Well there you go.
2. When it is finally revealed that there is nothing to this, I want Murtha up on House ethics charges. He has endangered American lives for political gain, nothing more, nothing less.
3. When a member of the legislature takes any action that might impact an ongoing investigation, thats is crossing the line. Justice is not served by giving up talking points on the Chris Matthews show.
4. Thousands of innocent Iraqis have been routinely killed by Al queda since the end of the war. Absolutely none of them will ever be charged with any crime. But thats not the surprise here, its that no one thinks that those deaths have been a crime, including Murtha.
5. Get ready for copycat stories. Now that Iraq has a government and we have clearly beaten Al queda ( which they say in their own words ) we have can now see the next move in their strategy is to discredit the US in any way they can, including getting the world to believe that the only deaths in Iraq are due to the US military and not the actions of Osamas murdering thugs.
Posted @ May 17, 2006 06:16 PM | Comments (1)
Bradbury Reminds
"...In midnight beds with blueprint, plan and scheme
You are the dream that other people dream"
It's time to call the stonecutters...
Posted @ May 17, 2006 11:18 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
The mind staggers
Mexico Threatens Suits Over Guard Patrols
I'll have more about this later. This is as they say, a "target rich environment".
Posted @ May 16, 2006 03:58 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Names of Guantanamo Detainees
They can be found here.
Any big surprises? Well for one thing, theres a whole lotta people from China on this list. Funny, you don't hear anyone refer to China as a hotbed of Islamic terror. hardly anyone recognizes the fact that China has any Islamic population at all.
And this guy just cracks me up:
96. AL SHIHRI, ABD AL SALAM GHAYTAN MURAYYIF AL ZAYDA (full name cut off) — Saudi Arabia
Full name cut off? You mean theres more? This is why they dont wear uniforms. If they did, the name tags would way a ton and a half.
The fact that nearly every name on the list has "Mohammed" in it reminds me of the movie "Buckaroo Bonzai" where all the aliens had the first name of "John".( John Yaya, John Smallberries, John Bigboote...)
Posted @ May 16, 2006 09:05 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)
Loudmouths and the madness of crowds
Yeah, I listened to the president’s speech this evening. I liked it, I had no real issue with it, I would have preferred he keep it to the single issue of border enforcement as I consider all other discussion on immigration to be moot until that problem is solved, but that’s a minor quibble with the speech as a whole.
After it was over, I went on my normal evening run and while I was out I listened to a few of the normal AM talk radio shows just to hear what the general consensus was.
To my total surprise, it seemed that most of the audience was incensed that the President didn’t call for a wide reaching pogrom on the illegal immigrants and that anything short of that was a clear sign that he was just a “limpwristed flop who was just caving in to political pressure” and in the end “not much better than a damn democrat”.
The loudmouths were crying out for blood and utterly furious that the president didn’t give it to them. They didn’t just want a border fence anymore because that just wasn’t good enough; now they wanted a border fence with immigrant heads impaled on it.
I have to tell you that its hell to run when you are spinning around like a character in a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Here’s the problem that the President now faces. The Republican party has always had a “knuclehead nativist” stripe a mile wide down its back, and for 60 years the kind of knuckleheaded thinking of “I’d rather lose on principle than win by compromise” kept us away from any sort of political power and deservedly so, because it’s the kind of thing that adolescent children say not adults in the process of running a government of a great country.
Here’s a clue for you knuckleheads – Politics is Compromise. You will not get everything you want – ever. No matter how big your political party gets you will always have to compromise your vision of the “perfect” you want in order to settle for the “good” you can get. No amount of “bloody shirt” speechifying is going to change that fact, no matter how much you want it to be different.
A Democracy is an ugly thing that runs with the coordination of a three legged dog. If you want purity of movement then go get yourself a dictatorship. And when you do get the kind of simplistic purity of movement that your emotions seek, you can stop calling yourself Americans because you will be slaves again. Democracy is supposed to work like crap; its not supposed to be smooth and simple. Its supposed to be hard to get anything done, its part of the design! You talk, argue, complain, debate, and finally you put it to a vote. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and you start all over again the next day.
You knuckleheads are just not going to deport 11 million people from the continental United States, and it isn’t just a lack of political will that’s keeping that from happening, it’s hard cold political reality so stop thinking that anything else short of that is a loss, because it isn’t really a starter in the first place.
This immigration problem of today was a reality that was well underway long before President Bush ever thought of even being Governor of Texas, much less President of the United States. Yet, President Bush is the first President since James K. Polk to make border security a serious issue, and you are all ready to crucify him for the effort.
There are now so many of you knuckleheads that you started to listen to the madness of crowds and will settle for nothing short of an open declaration of war on Mexico as a small sign that “he’s finally serious about border security”.
Well I say grow up you prancing loudmouths, this is not the WWF and Bush doesn’t need to hit Vicente Fox in the head with a metal chair just to get your vote. It’s easy to call anonymously for blood from the safety of the mob, but its hell to be the man to actually make the call. George Bush is not the leader of the mob; He’s not an alderman of Chicago who lives by doing your bidding and kissing your ring.
He is the leader – nay – the President of this country.
He is the President of all of it, the left and the right, the legal and the illegal, the throaty mob that hates him and small quiet group of us who do not. He is not just the President of the sniggling, smartass, whining, blowhard “kill them all let god sort them out” false bravado, knucklehead constituency who are oh so willing to toss away a government, all because they didn’t get their way.
You don’t like his plan on immigration? So your idea to make it all better is to put Nancy Pelosi in charge? Yeah, that’s showing them!
You think he should deport 11 million people immediately, so you think that process can be furthered by “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid”? Oh he’ll get right on your priority list first thing, why he’s the people servant that man is…
And of course the cause of freedom and national security will be greatly amplified by the administration of President Hillary Clinton. Ahhh, just think of the cabinet she will have! Think of the two Supreme Court choices she will get to make. Just think of the fun you will get to have when our military officers are routinely pulled off civilian aircraft overseas after she agrees to allow the International Criminal Court to have jurisdiction over our military. Why, just think of how fun it will be to see War Crimes trials across Europe, not for Dictators, but for American Servicemen.
Oh, and just think of how because of you and your little "pity party" that there won’t be a Republican of any stripe in any position of power to stop them. That’s right man, you “showed them”.
Yes, that will show us all just how righteously angry and pissed off you are.
And for all your anger, what we get is a return to a command economy, the superiority of the UN, less sovereignty, more taxes, the further erosion of the family and the shaming of the US Military.
The Second Coming of the Clintons will make the Carter years look like “Golden Mycenae” in comparison.
And just think, its you loudmouths that will have made it all happen. It will be something to be proud of, something to tell your grandkids about.
If we manage to live through it.
Posted @ May 15, 2006 09:54 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (9)
Get the stonecutters on the line
From National Review.
and excerpt from the Presidents upcoming speech:
“We must always remember that real lives will be affected by our debates and decisions, and that every human being has dignity and value no matter what their citizenship papers say.”
Huzzah!
Posted @ May 15, 2006 03:30 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)
Tuscarora Sunrise
There is no cold like that which fills the high desert at night. It is a cold that not even the sunrise itself can manage to defeat. For the first few hours of sunlight in the high desert can be as cold as the arctic only to finish the end of the day in the irrepressible heat that hammers normal men mercilessly into madness. It is said by some that the desert is the anvil of men’s souls and if that is so, then the cold morning of the desert is like a blacksmiths hearth before the start of the workday.
He fought hard to relieve the “charley horse” in his leg in the cold desert air, screaming silently only to himself for quiet relief from the pain that comes from not moving for hours at a time. His rifle lay relaxed and cradled across his lap on the dirty cotton poncho that was his uniform and his camouflage. He is a sniper. He was an assassin, a bringer of horror to those who would be so foolish as to walk in front of his rifle and scope within his ambush. With a single shot, he could bring fear to those who would trespass into his home, his hidden fortress of rock.
In the same way that all hunters develop a sense of the grounds in which they hunt, his prey were too far to see, to far to smell, to far to hear, but their presence was felt by the sniper all the same. The small field binoculars he carried to aid him in his task only confirmed what he already knew by “sixth sense” alone. In the distance, a telltale column of dust hung in the air over the ridgeline to mark the passage of men who were being betrayed by the very desert in which they moved.
They were coming, and it would soon be time to do what it was he had been trained to do.
He closed the bolt on his rifle and sighed quietly as he thought of his father. It had been 10 years since his father had gone. He kept a picture of his father and family with him at all times for good luck. A picture of his whole family as it once was; his father, his mother his younger sister and himself standing smiling in the summer sun in the front yard of a house that was now long since gone. They were like ghosts staring back him now, even though he was one of the faces in the picture. It was as if he hardly knew who those people were. Each night as he went to sleep he silently asked God to return him to the world in the picture, the world that once was, only to awaken every day to the disappointment of living in the world that is.
The years before the end came now seemed only like a dream, for the life he was living now was nothing like the cozy suburban comfort he and the rest of the world once lived in. Cars, Television, Satellite TV, Refrigerators, Ice, Plasma screens, video games, they were all gone now. All of the clean beauty of the world that was, had replaced with the plague, horror, fear and deprivation of the world that is.
It had all come to an end one summer day. He had been playing outside when a creeping silence fell over the neighborhood, punctuated only by the sound of news reports and parents shushing their children all at once. Something terrible had happened, something far beyond the day the buildings once collapsed in New York so long ago. His parents stood by and listened to the news from the radio because for some reason he didn’t understand at the time, the television did not work. Slowly the word had been received of what had happened. All at once, whole cities in the east had been destroyed. His parents were dumbstruck with horror, wondering if they too might soon fall victim to the hell that had engulfed the east.
There was no official word and little organization in the aftermath. City governments were organized to see that the lawns were mowed in the parks and the streets were well paved, they were not organized to tell people how to survive in a way that none of the inhabitants where really prepared to live in. The phones no longer worked, the radio was sporadic and information was slow to be received and even slower to be believed.
That first night of the new world, they all slept together downstairs while his father sat by the door with a rifle cradled in his arms, slowly rocking back and forth in the chair waiting for the terror to arrive at their doorstep. There was panic in hearts of the people in neighborhood and for the first few days there was a deep desire to leave, but there was nowhere to go and no way to get there.
Over the coming days the true picture of what was happening began to arrive and the news went from bad to worse. The government was largely missing in the initial attack, and what was left was hardly unified. A political battle for the remainder of the country was being waged, where many people wanted to declare large sections of the country as non combatant and neutral, where other parts wanted to go to war. In the midst of the horror that came after, the refugees, the deprivations, the horror of broken cities, those in political power chose to move into a civil war, which fractured into pieces what was left of the already broken country. The people who came to be called “progressives” refused to take part in any military action believing in the safety of good intentions, while the conservative factions cried out for retribution. It went beyond just those who were in positions of civilian political power. The military and the civilian branches of the defense organizations took sides in the civil war as well. Mutinies began to break out at sea, as ships crews began to argue amongst themselves what the course of action should be. Word was eventually received of military leaders who were defecting to parts of Europe to show solidarity with the rising world of the “ progressive” movement that was now rising from the ashes of the old world.
Where once you could find political debate on any street corner of the world, you could now find men hanging by their neck from trees with signs around their necks that said “warmonger” or “traitor” depending on what part of the country was controlled by what faction. When the hunger came, the blame for the horror only intensified and further split what was left of the world. In a little over a month, the world that once was had simply ceased to be as if it had never been. When the plague came, there was no more time for politics. You were either alive or dead; that was the extent of the remainder of the world and its politics.
His father was a member of the conservative faction. He believed in the world that once was and lived in hope that it would be once again. Over the course of several days after the initial attack, his father had gone into town to meet with the authorities to help establish some sense of order to their small town.
It was out of these meetings that a plan began to take shape.
The provisional government was raising an army. His father, along with all the other men were to go to help form this army in hopes of defending what little was left of the world that once was. His father and mother met at the kitchen table one evening and discussed what was to be. He had no part in the decisions that would forever affect the rest of his life.
The next day, his father spent a few minutes just sitting with his young daughter holding her in his lap and stroking her hair. After some time of quietly talking to her, she began to fall asleep. He stopped and set her aside and motioned to his young son. “Come along son, and help me pack” his father said. He began to pack a bag, much like his father had done a hundred times before in the world of business trips and the jets that no longer filled the skies.
As they began to fill the bag with the belongings his father needed in his journey, his father slowly began to work up the courage to talk to his son in what was to be the last time they would ever speak together. His father’s last words never left his mind over the 10 years they had been apart.
He looked his son in the eye and said:
“ A couple of years ago you asked me why it is that we fight, and I told you then that we fight to hold off the bigger war that will surely be if were to stand by and “do nothing”. Back then; we believed that had we done more to stop Hitler in the 1930’s that the world might not have seen 52 million dead, the Jewish holocaust and the use of atomic bombs. We believed that the lesson to be learned from that time was that if we fought tyranny early, at a time and place of our choosing, we could have avoided a bigger more destructive war that came later. In our time, like it or not, the war we tried to avoid was coming - not because we wanted it, but because like Hitler before them, the islamists needed the war in order to survive. Well my son, I’m sorry to say that we were too late. We waited too long to fight back, and now the war we hoped to avoid is here and I’m afraid that before it is over it wont be millions who die, but billions. The world that was is no longer, and we no longer fight to avoid one political situation or another, we fight only to survive. I’m sorry that we failed. I’m sorry that I failed you”.
His father sat and cried for a moment, then hugged his son and told him of “the plan”.
He and his mother and sister were to go in a convoy to eastern Idaho, where his grandmother lived. Idaho was also a place that was relatively secure from the war that was already underway. Idaho was one of the few places that had already decided to join the provisional government. It was not peaceful, but it was at least unified and free of the civil war that had gripped the states of the east and west coasts. Cities continued to be destroyed by atomic bombs and it was only a matter of time before their city was hit as well. What the enemy did not destroy, the progressives had made difficult by collusion and collaboration with those in the process of killing so many of their former countrymen and neighbors.
After holding his wife in his arms and saying his goodbyes, his father closed the door behind him and left his family for the last time. When he looked back at the house that was his home, it was with a slight wave of the hand, and no matter how much his son cried out for him to come back, his father never looked back again as he walked down the street to join the group of fathers who were also joining the army. His son never left the door until sunrise the following day. He has screamed all night and made himself mute in an effort to compel his father to come back. His voice would never again be the same as it was before. The sweet honey voice of childhood had been replaced with the sharp rasp of harsh reality.
It was the first night of his life where he went to sleep and asked God to return the world to what it once was, only to start the next day fresh in the disappointment of a prayer that was to be forever left unfulfilled.
10 years had passed since that night and “the long war” was still going on. He had gone from suburban child straight through adolescence and right into manhood all within the first 30 days of the war. 10 years later and he was an old man, just barely in his 20’s. The war had gone on, and through all of it no word had ever been received of the fate of his father or the men who had left with him on the night of last goodbyes. His mother and sister had settled into life in Idaho by staying busy in the daily effort that was required to stay alive in the new reality. His mother lived every day hoping for the word that would never come of the fate of the man she had loved in a world that was no longer.
The world’s progressives had long since passed into full collaboration with the enemy, having rediscovered the hard truth as adults of what all school children truly know of the bully. Where once there existed high minded governments and political movements who wished to avoid war at all costs, now only stood concentration camps and enslaved populations under the law of the caliphate and their allies. America, once called a “shining city on the hill” was reduced in 10 years to scorched earth, the unburied dead, open prairie scrub, the rubble of its great coastal cities and a few remaining outposts in the high mountains along its former center.
These few outposts defended along the frontier by snipers who lived in the hills. The Great Basin of the former state of Nevada had proven to be the meat grinder of armies much in the way that Afghanistan had once been to the empires of Europe. Its arid deserts and its mountain ranges had proven a tough barrier to the men who would come to take away the last remaining part of the world that once was.
“10 men before you fall” was the phrase they taught him at sniper school. The number always seems low to him, but it was enough that he understood the fact that while he may be successful in his tasks for a while; once he started shooting, the enemy would eventually find him and he should make every shot count before the end came. It was his duty to stop as many of the enemy as he could before they moved through his pass and into the next and a step closer to his mother and sister who were all that remained of his world that once was.
As a lone sniper in the hills of the Tuscarora canyon, he was truly “an army of one”.
The twilight was replaced with an unbroken sunrise that rose from behind over the mountain range that he was embedded within. The column of horsemen moved slowly down the canyon, unknowingly moving directly towards the snipers ambush. From the floor of the canyon the enemy rode on horseback in two columns, followed closely by foot soldiers. From their vantage point there was little that could be seen in the sunrise. The commander of the column raised his binoculars to his eyes and slowly scanned the horizon in front of him for any potential sign of the enemy. Seeing nothing but the rocks and high sierra scrub, he raised his arm and ordered the column to continue. His command rippled through the column of horses and men as they continued forward under the watchful eyes of the sniper.
The sniper noted the one man in the column with binoculars and the way the troops responded to his command. He then scanned the columns and picked his next four targets and made note of their position relative to the man who had just helped him pick his first target.
The sniper moved into his firing position prone to the ground and opened the front lens cap on the sniper scope. He noted the position of the columns as they moved towards the splotches of paint he had placed on rocks on the valley floor when he first established the ambush. The paint marked the range from his position as the enemy moved along, allowing him to measure the speed of their crossing and assist in his aim. With the sun directly behind him, the enemy was incapable of seeing anything in the shadow due to the contrast of light, yet the enemy itself was in full sunlight, making the snipers aim all that easier. It was an old magicians trick that served him well in the process of designing the ambush.
He took aim through the scope and steadied his rifle against his shoulder. In the scope appeared the khaki uniform of the enemy. The target halted his horse at the side of the column and stopped to take a drink from a small canteen, and for just a second, he looked up directly at the part of the mountain that hid the sniper from his view.
The sniper placed to crosshairs of his scope on the target directly on the small red star that the enemy wore on their caps. He smiled and thought of the justice of shooting directly through the symbol of the false religion that had so destroyed the world. His enemy, the Communist Chinese, who were now in full alliance with the islamists who had done so much of their dirty work as revenge for their 1000 years of exile from the favors of God.
The sniper was once a little boy who played on the front lawn of a suburban home in a land that no longer existed. Now he was a man in the ugly business of killing another. The wider and larger war that his father’s generation had hoped to avoid had now reached the life of his son. He was once just a boy, but now he was a professional killer and knowing his profession, he lowered his aim to the torso of the target to be sure that the first shot was hit; leaving the poetic justice of the shooting the red star for another time. He wasn’t fighting for ideals or philosophy or trade; he was just fighting for survival.
“10 men before you fall” he whispered to himself as he slowly squeezed the trigger. Between each shot that followed, he prayed to God that after it was all over he might be allowed to wake up in the world that once was.
Posted @ May 14, 2006 02:15 AM | fiction | Comments (11)
Congress shocked to discover the existence of "intelligence gathering organizations" at work in the US.
The wisest of my High School teachers once told me:
"Show me who you hang out with and I'll tell you who you are"
Mr. Woodhouse got it, The NSA gets it, the President gets it, but Congress seems to live in an alternate reality.
Posted @ May 12, 2006 09:46 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)
Rules of engagement in the War on Terror
Don’t fight before Ramadan as it interrupts the UN sponsored peace process.
Don’t fight during Ramadan because it shows disrespect to an honored people and a great religion.
Don’t fight after Ramadan since so many civilians will simply be caught in the potential crossfire.
Don’t fight in the winter, because it may cause discomfort to the enemy. It is also a well-known fact that American troops are unable to survive the difficult conditions and deprivations that result from “snow”.
Don’t fight in the summer as excessive movement in the hot weather imposed on the enemy by our Armed forces may cause their premature deaths due to a lack of water.
Don’t fight in the fall, as fighting at that time is clearly designed only to impact elections in America.
Don’t fight in spring, because that’s when Network Television does its “Sweeps” campaign, and any news from the war zone will be ignored in favor of the far more important news of how many women are currently pregnant in Hollywood.
Don’t fight with ground troops unless each of them is fully incased in body armor and is incapable of any potential harm on the battlefield.
Do not try to drop bombs from aircraft, as the aircraft that normally do that are busy dropping food and water in enemy territory to ensure the well being of the people you are fighting against.
Don’t fight with airpower as it causes too much indiscriminate destruction on the ground.
Don’t fight with the Navy, because it’s simply not fair to fight people who don’t have one.
Do not fly the American Flag at home or abroad. Please keep all patriotic displays somber and subdued at all times. American Olympic Athletes should hang their head low when entering a stadium at events. Remember, It’s dissent that is patriotic, not this unfortunate habit of “flag flying” or “song singing” or any celebration of all the supposedly great things about your country.
Do not assume that people in the battlefield that are armed and shooting at you are the enemy. In many parts of the world, this is a sign of welcome and firing back at these innocent people in response can do untold damage to Americas public image around the world.
Do not display dead bodies of the enemy, as this is disrespectful to their culture and values. However, be sure to go to the Supreme Court to secure the right to display dead Americans and to protest at their funerals.
Under no circumstances discuss any actions on the battlefield of our military in terms of "bravery" or "victory". Only discuss our military in terms of failure, loss and futility. All American soldiers are to be portrayed as unfortunate dupes of the "Corporate Machine". All Enemy soldiers are to be portrayed as brave and principled rebels "fighting for their beliefs".
Do not keep detainees in prison camps in US territory, because they are to be afforded all access to the American Constitution and legal support and as a result should be set free until their appointed court dates.
Do not allow detainees to be sent to other countries, as those other countries do not respect the American Constitution and system of law and the detainee may come to harm in these other countries as a result.
Do not return detainees to their countries of origin, as we are often unable to determine if they are welcome by that countries government and the detainee may suffer by our actions.
By all means, see that the former detainees are given a seat in a major university where they may add to the great diversity of opinion that is available on our nations campuses.
Under no circumstances profile or exclude by association anyone from using any facility in the United States no matter how bad their documentation, no matter their country of origin, no matter alleged association with criminal elements considered by some to be dangerous to this country. Be sure at all times to extend the welcoming hand of freedom to anyone who wishes to come to this country for whatever purposes they desire.
Do not inconvenience anyone with any unnecessary and unproven methods of detecting bombs or weapons at our major airports, as this is an affront to our nations approach to civil rights. Treating people as criminals before they have been given a chance to defend themselves is simply discriminatory.
Under no circumstances are you to look for terrorists in the United States. Treat every single person who sets foot in the United States as a person who by their touching the holy soil of the country have had their hearts turned to the purity of good thoughts. Everyone in the US, citizen or not, is to be afforded the rights of full citizenship.
Be sure that any method used by the government to lower the risk of danger from terrorism is met with public derision. If time allows, be sure to expose to public knowledge any secret methods that are being used to intercept potential terrorists as a way to undermine the government and as a result ensure the safety of so many people.
(Please note: These rules only apply to Americans...)
Posted @ May 11, 2006 10:30 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (4)
And who thinks being a congressman is qualification for anything?
Since "the buzz" this morning is "Hayden has ties to the military", I'd just like someone, anyone to ask what is the success rate of politicians who have lead the CIA has been in the past?
Here's the total list of CIA directors.
Rear Adm. Sidney Souers, USNR January 23, 1946 - June 10, 1946
Lt. Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, USA June 10, 1946 - May 1, 1947
Rear Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, USN May 1, 1947 - October 7, 1950
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, USA October 7, 1950 - February 9, 1953
Allen W. Dulles February 26, 1953 - November 29, 1961
John McCone November 29, 1961 - April 28, 1965
Vice Adm. William Raborn, USN (Ret.) April 28, 1965 - June 30, 1966
Richard M. Helms June 30, 1966 - February 2, 1973
James R. Schlesinger February 2, 1973 - July 2, 1973
William E. Colby September 4, 1973 - January 30, 1976
George H. W. Bush January 30, 1976 - January 20, 1977
Adm. Stansfield Turner, USN (Ret.) March 9, 1977 - January 20, 1981
William J. Casey January 28, 1981 - January 29, 1987
William H. Webster May 26, 1987 - August 31, 1991
Robert M. Gates November 6, 1991 - January 20, 1993
R. James Woolsey February 5, 1993 - January 10, 1995
John M. Deutch May 10, 1995 - December 15, 1996
George J. Tenet July 11, 1997 - July 11, 2004
Porter J. Goss September 24, 2004 - May 5, 2006
Admiral, Admiral, Admiral, General. Jeez, its almost like I see a pattern here....
George Tenet? Allen Dulles? Robert Gates and Webster? Woolsey? What do they share besides being civilians?
Gates and Webster: Failed to detect or exploit the fall of the Berlin wall,the "Fall of Communism" or China's "Tienanmen square".
Dulles: Cuba and Iran. Yeah, that worked out swell.
Tenet: 9/11. India and Pakistan join "nuclear club".
Need I say more?
Besides the fact that #2 man at the CIA today IS an Admiral. Jackasses.
Somedays I think I'm living in a "scrappleface" post.
( Oh, and its my guess that President Bush actually welcomes hearings on the NSA program that will result now that Hayden is the candidate, if only to shut up the chattering nabobs in Congress...)
Posted @ May 08, 2006 09:50 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (3)
The Verdict
Rudolph Hess. The German Moussaoui.
Well, its the "death penalty" debate again. Another pointless exercise in unmoveable politics in a head-on collision with unbendable minds.
I support the death penalty. I always have. I support it, not because of "eye for an eye" or any sense of vengence but because I think its humane. I dont think it should be handed out lightly or gratuitiously or for vengence but I do think that there are cases where it is not only called for, it is actually the required and the decent thing to do.
"Death penalty - Decent? Humane?
Allow me to explain.
We are not discussing what crimes should be considered as "capital crimes", but only what penalties should be applied for those crimes. The issue about what "is" and "is not" a capital crime has nothing to do with my argument. Civilizations makes moral and value based judgements as to the descending order of crime severity. In a Democracy such as ours, in some fashion its the people who speak to what "is" and "is not" the most severe of crimes and their penalties.
That being said there are only two choices for the very worst capital crimes, Death or life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Let's consider the second option first so as to put it in context with the controversial "Death Penalty".
Think about what the phrase " he got life..." really means. Life imprisonment, locked into a cement hell with no hope of ever returning to the outside world. Day after day after day of tedious oppression. Imagine what it is to grow old behind bars. Decades pass and those connections you had on the outside world begin to fade away, your health and sanity fade, but your living conditions do not improve. There is no rehabilition, there is no salvation, you are alive but in every way that can be measured, to your family, your friends, your culture, you have died. You will never contribute to life. Once you have died there will be no one who will remember your name except for those whom will remember you only as a criminal.
You start out young and tough and you end up a beaten animal no matter who you are, the path to end is the same. The penal system and teh criminal system will beat you at every turn. No matter how bad it is, no matter how long it takes for you to die, you have no hope of it ending with a sudden call from the parole board.
You will live and die behind bars. You will die a little bit every day.
Imagine starting every single day of your life without hope and without redemption. This is real life where there is no Hollywood ending. Imagine that the process of waiting for death takes decades. Decades of being victimized, processed and used at every possible opportunity as the prison population continues to change around you but you stay behind. Others may leave, but you stay and you will never leave.
Think about life in prison, not in terms of days, months and years, but as decades. Think about what a life sentence that started in 1970 would mean to the person serving that sentence today. 36 years behind bars. If they entered prison at age 20, that would mean that you probably are only half way through your sentence before you eventually die. You've been in prison since 1970, yet you are only half way to the inevitable end.
How much has the world changed since 1970? Ponder that idea for a moment and all the things that have happened since that you take for granted. How much will it change in the next 30 years?
It doesnt matter, you will have seen none of it.
What you saw in that time was cement, steel, vomit, blood and the compressed spring-like hatred of the insane. What you heard every day for 60 years was 24 hour industrial noise. There is no such thing as a quiet prison. There is no quiet corner to escape into a world of your own. You are always aware that you are in prison. You will very likely go slowly insane over the six decades of your incarceration. You will never leave alive. You are aware of that fact ever single day of your existence.
This is what life imprisonment means. It means that in a capital crime that the State is excused from the responsibility of carrying out your sentence. Its not "the State" that killed you, it was just an unfortunate part of your incarceration. The state will not rehabilitate you, nor will it ever parole you, but it will ensure that you are kept in conditions that decent people would not keep dogs at the neighborhood SPCA.
Life imprisonment is a great many things, but life without hope is not humane. It is slow cruelty visted on the criminal by the State under the guise of humane treatment. It is cruelty refined.
When we treat animals in what we call "a humane way", we recognize the sad fact that an animal that is in pain should not be allowed to live in those condtions. When that occurs, we speak in terms of "putting them down". When there is nothing that can be done to address the affliction, we regretfully and respectfully take up the ugly business of putting the animal down. We do it, because it is our duty to see it done right.
Here is my test case for my position on the "Death Penalty"
Once upon a time, Jeffery Dahmer someones little boy, all full of the promise that parents always have for all of their children. But something went horribly wrong with Jeffery. He became a cannibal of the first order. This man had some very serious issues. He killed and ate people. He kept their bodies in a refrigerator in his house. The issues that lead to his desire to become a cannibal had no hope of any sort of treatment, there was no magic pill to take, no therepist to talk to. There was never going to be any "slap to the forehead - what was I thinking!" moment for Jeffery. He killed, he ate and he killed again. As long as he was alive, thats all it would ever be.
Jeffery Dahmer was caught and convicted. He was sentenced to life. Actually he was sentenced to 15 life sentences, just to make clear to everyone that he would never ever be eligible for parole. There was no redemption or correction to Jeffery Dahmer as part of his sentence.
Up to this point many people would just say " that seems fair" but they dont know the end of the story, for Jeffery Dahmer didnt finish his sentence naturally.
A few years after he started serving his sentence, Jeffery Dahmer was beaten to death in a toilet. The State could feel that it was just in not giving Jeffery Dahmer a "Death Sentence" but its safe to say that the State was at the very least, a co-conspirator in his death.
Life in prison? Is that really what we should call it or is it slow death roasting in hell? Is it really humane to be beaten to death in a toilet?
Is it humane to put prisoners with 15 life sentences in close contact with guards when the prisoners know that there is no penality beyond what they have already been given? Do guards deserve to die because the State needs to feel that its humane in its sentencing of criminals? Is a guards life worthless while a criminal is to be valued? Should other prisoners who have not been sentenced to life be allowed to be killed by those who were? Should the State be held without blame for these conditions?
Some people say that the State has no right to take someones life, but they fail to explain how a State can exist at all without the taking of life. States have police and military forces that are often regularly called upon to die in the service to the State. The State thinks nothing of the righteousness in these examples of 'taking of life'. The State may allow even the construction of homes in areas prone to flooding and will not be held to account at the loss of life that will surely result from their actions. States kill people for that is what they do. The idea that they dont have the right to kill people flies in the face of the recorded history of 7,000 years of civilization.
I do not like the "Death Penalty" but I see it as more humane than the alternative. A death sentence where you can die with dignity or a life sentence where you are beaten to death in a toilet, you can be the judge which is more humane. I do not want it applied "willy-nilly" but I do believe that if you are not going to rehabilitate or "correct" convicts while placing them in a cement hell without any hope of parole for an entire lifetime, then I think the State will find it too easy to not carry out its final duty. The Death Penalty is severe and it should be but that should not be a reason to sidestep its duty. The State carries out a Death Sentence, whether or not the Convict is hung by the neck, beaten in a toilet or dies in his sleep 60 years after starting his sentence.
I reject the idea that a "life sentence" is more humane than the "Death Penalty". The only difference between the two, is speed.
Today Zacarias Moussaoui was denied the prize of martyrdom for his crimes. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Moussaoui will be treated to life as slow death. He will die, 60 odd years from now, not as a "brave martyr to his cause", but as a toothless, babbling shell of a man.
During the next 60 years the decrepit religious order to which he belongs will be brought down and "radical islam" will be swept into the dustbin of history alongside the Nazis and the Communists. Civilization will go on but Moussaoui and his perverted order will play no role in it. He will die alone, unknown and quite insane not as a great "sacrifice to his cause" but as a footnote to history as the Islamic Rudolph Hess.
"You are not with the guards now, madame! You are a prisoner! I may leave here today empty handed. But you... are not going anywhere!"
Laurence Olivier in "The Boys from Brazil".
Posted @ May 03, 2006 03:40 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (7)
Spin to victory: Part II
....Where once again we demonstrate that most of news is not fact but spin dressed up as fact.
In sharp contrast to the sparsely attended, impotent and pointlessly ironic "end the war" protests that occured over the weekend in a few eastern cities; today's fervently pro-american protests held by exiled Mexican immigrants throughout the country showed the American public the large number of deeply patriotic immigrants that are part of the American community. "What you see here is people who have seen what the left has to offer and having suffered at the hands of "compassionate leftism" have fled from those ideas in large numbers at the first opportunity" said Senator Martinez.
Meanwhile, several leading anti-war activists have opined that the immigration protests were "just another failed attempt by the Bush administration to try to take attention away from the failed policies in Iraq".
Posted @ May 01, 2006 10:57 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Speaking of 'National Anthems'
Regarding The Mexican National Anthem (From wikipedia):
snip...
"Article 39 (of the Constitution) prohibits the anthem from being altered in any fashion, prohibits it from being sung for commercial or promotional purposes, and also disallows the singing or playing of national anthems from other nations, unless you have permission from the Secretary of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación) and the diplomatic official from the nation in question."
...
"In the rare occasions when someone performs the anthem incorrectly, the federal government has been known to impose penalties to maintain the "dignity" of the national symbols. One example is when a performer forgot some of the lyrics at a soccer match in Guadalajara, she was fined 40 USD by the Interior Ministry and released an apology letter to the country through the Interior Ministry.[14] In addition, the anthem is sometimes used as a tool against people who might not be "true Mexicans". In one case, minority groups, such as the Black Mexicans, have been stopped by police and forced to sing the anthem to prove their nationality"
Posted @ May 01, 2006 03:52 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Spin to victory
subtitle: Why Varifrank will never be hired by a newspaper...
(parody alert...)
In cities across America, expatriate citizens of the corrupt socialist regime of Mexico protested for the inclusion of Mexico into the United States. Exiled from their country due to centuries of repression at the hands of tyrants, Mexicans revel in the freedom and prosperity they have found within the worlds oldest and most successful Democracy. "In American, we can protest even though we are not citizens. In Mexico, we would be shot for this even though we are citizens there. We are more free as illegals in the US than citizens of Mexico! This is truly a great country!" said one protester.
Protestors chanted "We are not going back" and proudly flew the flag of their adopted country in a sign of solidarity with the nation that has welcomed them with open arms. While Mexico continues to presecute undocumented citizens in their country, the United States is unique in the world as being very open in its policies of immigration. Sources say that unlike Mexico where legal penalties are severe for violation of immigration rules; Americans regularly overlook labor laws and citizenship requirements as a way to assist their neighbors to the south in their heartfelt wish to become part of this country. "Americans are immigrants, they know what its like to be on the run from failed governments like ours in Mexico" said one marcher today in Los Angeles.
Due to increasing examples of corruption and the continued use of failed socialist economics to prop up the PRI regime, Mexican citizens are abandoning their failed government in a greatly increasing annual rate. Observers of the state of government between the two countries have begum to hear rumors that high level members of the Mexican government quietly support what has become an increasing call by their exiled citizens to have the individual states of Mexico become "protectorate territories" of the United States; which is the first legal step to inclusion in the Union,eventually leading to full statehood.
The US Ambassador to Mexico could not be reached for comment on the rumors that he has recently met with President Vincente Fox to begin talks on secession.
An unnamed official of the Mexican government is quoted as saying "Look at Arizona and California, when we had they were a total wasteland and today they are a paradise! Imagine if Sonora or Baja California were to become part of the United States. The wealth they could generate would be staggering".
Posted @ May 01, 2006 12:48 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)
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