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Cause and effect?

So "the fence" that everyone said "could not be built", is going to be built after all! Well imagine that! It must make my Grandfather proud to know that the same country that created the Panama Canal, Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams and the Tennesse Valley Project still has enough construction and civil engineering cojones left to create a simple fence.

I guess there's still hope for us yet...

Will it keep people out? If it was me on the southside of the fence wanting to go North, hell no, but thats not the point. The point of any fence isnt just to say "stay out" but also to say:

"Mine"

I think that's the more important message that is being sent with the the fence. This is our side, that is your side. If you want to keep an old Chevy on blocks in your backyard, thats fine with me but this is "our side" and we want a Jacuzzi and a brick barbeque unit in our backyard and the wife is real particular to what she looks at in the backyard and as much as I personally admire the fine design styling of late 50's-early 60's model Chevy's I'm afraid your 1959 "cats eye" Chevy Impala with the bondo fenders that you have on your porch doesnt quite cut it with the wife, she's all hung up with this "flower" obsession of hers and she just wont let go of it. So I have to throw up a few thousand dollars of formerly majestic tree materials as a boundary between our two places of residence.

Sure, you can jump right over it if you really wanted to and yes, you can buy a ladder thats taller than the fence, but the point is that once you cross a fence in that way there's no mistaking what it is you are you are doing. Theres no way to politely look the other way at a neighbor "accidentally" jumping your fence with a ladder, and the genuine sweetness of your purpose at the time really doesnt matter.

By doing that, you have stepped into that thing called "Mine". Its universally seen as a "bad thing" and is frowned upon, well, generally everywhere.

Oh, you can come over for a visit us anytime. Just use the front door. The way the new fence works is this; you knock at the front door, we answer, and if we are feeling up to company, you come on in and we have a grand old time.

People respect clear boundaries. If you don't make an effort to mark your territory, then its not your territory for long. Even Dogs and Cat's know this, so it must be true...

So I'm disappointed that we need a fence, but I'm happy that our governmental leadership finally recognizes the basic facts of "National Sovereignty". You either protect and defend your borders or you are just a "big Belgium" in no time at all.

That being said, I do have to wonder if our recent outbreaks of "E Coli" are due to a change in the standards of those picking vegetables for the rest of us. A change that has occured due to the unintended effect of our doing a more complete job of "protecting our borders".

"The law of unintended consequences" does pop up in the funniest places sometimes, doesnt it?

First -
You slow the migration of illegals immigrants.

Then -
The supply of readily available low skilled farm workers falls.

Which -
Causes farms to reach lower into the available labor pool...

...Resulting in the use of people who really shouldnt be involved in any way with the production of food. The final result is that more people die of a very simple, yet all too common, third world hygene problem right here in the "first world".

Cause and effect? maybe.

But I still like the fence. I guess it just makes me feel good and sometimes that's enough.

UPDATE: A thought occurs. When I need to build a fence between a neighbor and my house, I usually get my neighbor to kick in half the expense. You think theres any chance of getting Mexico to kick in for half?

Posted @ September 29, 2006 10:26 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Then there were the strawberries

"Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers..."
Humphrey Bogart - 1954's The Caine Mutiny.

The only thing missing from Chris Wallaces' Fox News Sunday interview of President Clinton was the sound of clattering steel bearings in the Presidents hands. President Clinton could survive the onslaught from conservative talk radio in the 1990's, but if President Clinton was to face the Blogosphere of today in his adminstration, he would be cut to ribbons in no time. Back then, President Clinton just had to deal with "The Drudge Report". Now there are 100,000 Drudge Reports and network television has half the ratings they did in his time. "Controlling the message" today is much much harder than it was in his time.

You can say what you want about President Bush; but the truth is that he can take a punch. The man has taken a swift kick in the crotch for breakfast every day for 6 years and he keeps getting up with a smile in his heart and a sense of swift determination to see the job through to the best of his abilties. You dont have to like him but you have to respect the simple physical resiliancy of this man.

My favorite parts of the interview?

- "I have never criticized President Bush - BUT..."
...and then spends the next 5 minutes doing just that. And you know for just a minute I was worried that he might actually be forced against his will to do the decent thing and respect his successor with the same grace, style and respect that his predecessor showed him.

- Where he uses the current number of troops in Afghanistan vs. Iraq to try to say that "Bush doesnt take Osama Bin Laden seriously" because of an apparent over emphasis on Iraq rather than Afghanistan.

This strikes me as odd because I seem to remember a fixation by the Clinton administration on Iraq during the 1990's. A fixation rightly based on the FACT that Iraq and the Saddam regime was a threat long before George W. Bush became "Gov. O'Texas",much less the President. Yes, there was the attack by Clinton on the 'asprin factory' and the cruise missile attacks on bases in Afghanistan, but there was also attacks and threats of attacks on Iraq all through the 1990's. Wasn't it President Clinton who ordered the US government to work on "regime change in Iraq"? For my money, President Bush is simply carrying out the recommendations of the previous administration on Iraq.

- "They had 8 months to work against terror and did nothing"

See, I dont remember that. What I remember was Washington D.C. personnel and infrastructure at total loggerheads because the previous adminstration did everything short of lighting fire to the office buildings to keep the incoming Bush administration from being able to set up its government. It was an unprecendented display of childish,unprofessional, sophomoric crap. I remember lots of little cutesy games being played with keyboards and superglue and the near universal removal of the "W" from all computer keyboards. I remember President Clinton doing just about everything in his legal power to make it hard on the incoming Bush administration to be able to get started. I remember walkouts by union staff in D.C. office buildings and other forms of soft sabotage in the first few months of the Bush Administration. Did that stop President Bush? Well it sure as hell didnt help, and if it effected just "George W. Bush - the person" well thats fine, but the truth is that crap like that cost the government many, many manhours and those manhours had to come from someplace, didnt they? I also remember a dangerous little incident with China over a P-3 Orion and a Chinese fighter that had to be handled with deftness in the first few months, this was a might distracting to the government at the time Here you are, new to the job and the very real prospect of "war with the Chinese" and you havent even gotten your name on the White House stationary yet.

I remember "Jumpin Jim Jeffords" switching sides and throwing the Senate into the opposition partys hands just in time for the nomination process to slow to a crawl in the summer of 2001. I remember Robert Hanssen of the FBI being arrested for spying for Russia and I remember that it took until nearly August for most of the major offices, such as the head of the FBI to be filled, thanks to the antics of people like Jumpin' Jim Jeffords.

President Clinton wants to paint the 'Summer of 2001' as a period of peaceful calm, where the birds were singing and the squirrels were carefully gathering nuts on the Capitol Mall, but President Bush had his hands full trying to keep the collapsing Clinton economy from becoming a full on disaster. That summer, the world was certain that Bush would not get his tax cuts because of his weak political situation, but he got them, not because he was a great politician but because everyone knew, on both sides of the aisle that unless swift action was taken, we were looking at the very real possibility of an economic depression. The world losing faith in our banking institutions and our stock market was a very, very real threat in the Summer of 2001. It was dealt with successfully, and like all of President Bushs' successful stories, quickly forgotten and jammed into the 'memory hole'. In September of 2001, whatever cool designs we were drawing on the etch-a-sketch of that years history were obliterated forever.

If the Republicans can be blamed for distracting President Clinton during his administration then President Clinton and administrations antics during the transition can certainly be used as a 'reason' for President Bushs' slow start at the beginning of his administration.

For every day of the last six years, President Bush has been called everything under the sun by everyone opposed to him, he's had his administration undermined in unprecedented ways by President Clinton and the Democrats. President Clinton has even felt it necessary to tell people overseas that "the Bush administration was wrong to attack Iraq". Can you picture Harry Truman ever saying that sort of thing against the Eisenhower administration? Don't even get me started on what President Jimmy Carter has done to the Presidency and to this country to defend his ideas of right and wrong against the "evil Bush regime".

But through all of it, I don't remember President Bush losing his temper with a reporter with quite the same verve and style that President Clinton has done with this reporter.

So, are we picking on President Clinton and his record on fighting terrrorism in the 1990's?

Sure. thats our job in the blogosphere. After all - "Dissent is Patriotic", isnt it? all we are doing is dissenting from the official line put forth by the Clinton Administration.

Poor guy. I actually feel sorry for him. He is condemmed to spend the rest of his life trying to figure out why everyone is laughing at him behind his back. The rest of us are just looking at the historical record with a somewhat objective fashion but that poor bastard actually believes what he thinks he remembers about his record.

He is now doomed to live the rest of his life in a battle with the incurable disease of nostalgic disappointment, the sort of battle waged by aging ex-quarterbacks of the losing team in the big game or by Sea Captains passed over for the big promotion for the last time.

Posted @ September 25, 2006 11:28 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (9)

Flyboys: A Review

I’ve been working an exceptional amount of hours lately and I haven’t had much time off, but this Saturday night I managed to get enough time to go out with my wife and see a movie.

So we had to choose between “The Black Dahlia” and “Flyboys”. I’m a big James Ellroy fan, and I loved the book, so that was probably going to be the one but then I caught Michael Medveds show on Friday and he had the Director of “Flyboys” Tony Bill on for an interview.

Michael Medved, whose movie reviews I usually agree with and is someone of whom I personally admire; spoke admirably about the movie which was a big point in its favor over “The Black Dahlia”. What’s more important is that this is a film where the central subject matter involves flying and the director Tony Bill is a pilot himself, so I was intrigued. Michael Medved was very enthusiastic about the film, and since he is a historian, his view on the film meant more than a simple nod towards “that’s entertainment”.

Tony Bill made a big point about playing up not just the films historical accuracy but that pilots and aviation enthusiasts would appreciate the attention to detail that was put into the film.

Now this means a lot to me, because as a pilot I can honestly say that in my opinion, only two movies in the whole of film history have ever managed to capture the thrill of flight. Most movies that have aircraft as a plot device or involve flying in any way are usually so laughably bad I can’t stand to watch them. Don’t even get me started talking about the last abomination in this category called “Pearl Harbor”. oh good god... Even Kate Beckinsale and a real live Zero Fighter couldn’t save that horrid movie from celluloid embarrassment. And the new ‘Flight of the Phoenix’? All I have to say is; “Motorcycle riding mongolian desert dwelling drug runners” and you know everything you need to know about how to make a really great movie suck like a lamprey eel.

So off we went my wife and I, on our first in six months “Saturday Night Date”. Off to see a World War One flying epic made by pilots and Michael Medved said he just loooooved it.

“What could go wrong?” I said to my wife.

Oh how I wish I had gone to see “The Black Dahlia” instead. Boy, did I hate this movie. I mean, not since “Aces: Iron Eagle III” have I hated a movie that involved flying so much. This is one completely and genuinely bad movie in almost every respect.

Accurate? Did I hear Tony Bill say that pilots will appreciate the accuracy?

Bah!

According to the makers of this film, the Imperial German Air Forces were made up entirely of Fokker Triplanes, all of which were painted bright red.

Not just one Red Triplane, but every single one.

Every.Single.Fighter.

Except one of course and that one belongs to “The Black Falcon”

bwhahahahahhaha. The mysterious “Black Falcon”, who strafes men mercilessly on the ground for no chivalrous reason at all. I know what you’re thinking; “Hey! Didn’t I see that on an episode of Johnny Quest”?

Oh yeah. And it gets worse from there.

Much,much worse...

The movie starts with the words “inspired by a true story”. If you ever see these words at the start of a movie, get up and leave. These are Hollywood’s “weasel words” to say to the audience “nothing like this even remotely happened in the history of mankind, but if we told you this was the case, you wouldn’t watch any of it because this is just total made up crap”.

Look, it’s either a true story, or its not. This movie doesn’t even say its “based on a true story” which is their way of saying that some of the characters have been changed but the basic facts and figures are pretty much the way it happened. “Inspired” means that the movie is so far from what actually happened that the people who really lived through it wouldn’t even recognize it as something they were involved in, even if the film used their real names.

There is nothing about this film that is inspired by anything. I’ve seen better graphics on a Sega Genesis and more realistic portrayals of life in “The Sims”.

Here’s the core of my complaints about movies like “Pearl Harbor” and now “Flyboys”. Back in the past, you had to forgive a great deal of material mistakes because they didn’t have CGI and matte paintings and airplane models can only go so far. If you wanted to have a squadron of Me-109's in your movie, you either had to get very bad models hanging on all too visible strings or you had to get a group of war surplus P-51 Mustangs painted up to look like ME-109’s. You as an audience member knew this and you forgave the filmmaker for his sins. You knew there were no MIG’s for Hollywood to use in the 1950’s, so when they used F-84’s in “The Hunters”, you were ok with it, you just let it go. You knew that the “Zero” was really just a modified T-6, and you knew the Corsairs in “Baa Baa Black Sheep” were doing one hell of a job just to keep from stalling out of the sky as they try tried to go as slow as the T-6/Zeros to make it look like combat, but you let it go anyway. What choice did you have?

But this is the “Age of CGI”. If you can make me believe that “dinosaurs are real” and the “Titanic is still afloat”, then you can sure as hell make a realistic looking aircraft in the sky. You can even make a historically accurate one, that is, if you choose to. Showing the World War I German Air force as made up of nothing but Red Fokker Triplanes; then all you have done is make the decision to treat a good portion of your audience with total contempt.

“Oh they’ll never know” they must’ve said this to each other when they reviewed the CGI for the final cut of the film.

Sorry boys, we do know and we don’t like what we see.

Listen, there are people I know who get upset if you use the wrong canteen on troops in Civil War movies. I know people who freak out at tedious details in Star Trek movies, but that’s nothing compared to what pilots do when they see movie scenes like this:

Oh look, that’s a Nieuport and he’s trying to turn inside a Fokker Triplane.

Sheeesh!

Allow me to explain to the non-flying public "a pilots revulsion" to this scene. A Fokker Triplane is the single most maneuverable aircraft in the history of warfare; it could virtually turn in the length of its own fuselage. And frankly, it couldn’t do much else BUT maneuver. The Nieuport? well it regularly sheared its own wings off in high Gee tight turn maneuvers; which is why the French gave them to us to fly. You didn’t dogfight the Fokker Triplane, you dived on it and you ran away as fast as you could. The Fokker Triplane in the hands of a skilled pilot wasn’t a fair fight. I don’t even want to point out that the Lafayette mostly flew SPAD’s anyway; for that would be the least of the films sins.

To my knowledge, there was only one “Red Triplane” and it belonged to a certain Baron with a colorful moniker. They were never deployed in squadron strength, and they were usually the ‘prized mount’ of only a few pilots. Werner Voss and Baron Von Ritchofen are two names of Fokker DRI pilots that pop into my head.

Since the CGI scenes are all ‘made up’ anyway, why not make the CGI into Fokker DVII’s or Albatross’ which were plentiful and were a much more even match for the Nieuport? Why not at least change the color of the aircraft now and then? It’s just not like the old days where you worked with whatever you had. This is CGI, you can make anything appear on screen. They could have made a squadron of pterodactyls if they wanted to. They should have, it would have been more entertaining. You could have asked people who said they went to see the movie "hey did you see the pterodactyls?" as a test to see if they managed to stay awake, and frankly, most people would have failed the test.

The errors in this film are not limited to simply the amateurish mistakes in the use of CGI aircraft. There are some real whoppers of “bad plot concepts” on display here as well. There is a scene where a pilot flies his biplane behind enemy lines and rescues his girlfriend and her three nieces and nephews - At night!

That’s right, an unlit biplane, a unlit grassy landing field, in a war zone, at night.

Really!

Landing at night on grass is tough, even with lights and instruments. Without either, its not really called a "landing" anymore; it’s a called a “crash”.

And he performs this feat not once, but twice! For just a second I honestly thought he was going to try to fly his french girlfriend and her three nieces and nephews out on one flight, but in a nod to the realities of “weight and balance” and the desperate need to pad the story out for 10 more minutes, the pilot has to come back for a second trip to get his girlfriend, whom is then promptly shot as payment for her sins. And where is she shot? The same place everyone is shot in the movies, in the upper shoulder of course. I guess that’s the body’s “catchers mitt” because everyone who is shot in Hollywood always gets hit up there.

And the fun doesn’t end there. Later in the film the pilot tries to rescue another downed pilot from his squadron who has crashed into “no mans land” and pinned under his aircraft. So what does he do? Sure enough, he decides to land his plane in "no mans land" and then run across “no mans land” in broad daylight to rescue the downed pilot. Its not like the lines are separated by miles and miles of empty land, in this film the French and the Germans are probably within about 50 yards of each other, yet this is where our downed pilot is crashed and the “daring young friend” decides its best to help by landing his aircraft right in the middle and then running over to rescue his downed comrade.

Let the French hang the expense of the loss of the aircraft. Hey, just put it on my tab, eh Frenchy! Forget the fact that landing in an aircraft with no brakes in the middle of a place called “no mans land” that is both full of land mines and is covered by machine guns is going to be both damned hard and dammed silly, what’s really important to the filmmakers is that the asinine plot gets extended for another 10 ridiculous minutes.

There are more clichés than you can shake your finger at(crap!, theres one now...). There are the makings of a good college drinking game in this film (Take one drink for every hackneyed war movie cliché you catch). The only thing missing from this film is one character that says; “ You can’t send a kid up in a crate like that!”

Well, maybe it will make it on the “directors cut” DVD. That is something to look forward to. I cant wait to see what didn't make the cut of this film.

The reason you see these bad choices on film is because the filmmaker decided to get sloppy. You have to understand this fact. This film, the final output of which you paid 10 bucks a shot to see, was a conscious decision; everything you see on film is a result of an actual decision being made. Keep this scene, cut that one, keep that take and lose that one. There are no accidents in movies, and there weren’t any in this film. What you see on the screen is exactly what they wanted you to see, or what they had to settle for inorder to tell you the story.

In the case of this film, the filmmakers just held you and I in contempt as an audience, no more, no less.

The makers of the film might as well have saved their CGI money and filmed the entire movie with DC-3‘s for all the “accuracy” this movie managed to provide for us, the "flying" audience. This was like making a movie about Gettysburg and with both sides using M-16’s and throwing hand grenades. The makers of the film simply didn’t care to make a good film that was slightly inaccurate, or to make a very accurate film that was good or a great film that was both.

They chose instead to make a bad film that was inaccurate. They chose to do this.

Yet, this films greatest crime isn’t the childish plot or the ham-handed historical inaccuracies or the technical incompetence; it’s that it is simply not entertaining to the audience. I’m in the key demographic for historical flying movies, Im a Pilot, Im a history freak and I could barely contain my boredom with this treacle. I should have been on this movie like a Chihuahua in Zsa-Zsa Gabors lap but I really hated this movie. Frankly, it bored me. My wife drifted off in the first 20 minutes. You can forget what type of plane the Germans are flying and whether or not thats what they did in the war, to her it was just dull.

For the record, aviation is rarely captured very well on film. Most screenwriters, directors, actors and most of the money people involved with a film only know about what the cockpit is like from what they see through the door while they sit in their seats in “first class”. But the makers of this film are pilots, real live pilots with thousands of hours in their log books and pilot ratings that go on forever; so there is simply no excuse for the kind of technical incompetence that ultimately serves as the core of the film. It’s not like the old days where you had to work with whatever ‘war surplus’ there was around the airport. Now you can make whatever aircraft you like appear on film in whatever angle you choose. To make these kinds of fundamental mistakes in film today is nothing but a total shame and there is simply no excuse for it.

Flying and the emotions that a pilot feels while flying have rarely been seen in film and you wont find any emotions in this film at all, except tedium and boredom. After watching this film you know no more about what it feels like to be a World War One pilot than you know about what its like to be a dog.

If you want to see a great movie that shows what a pilot actually feels like inside while flying, then watch “The Great Waldo Pepper”. If you want to see a great yet historically inaccurate “B” movie about World War I flying, watch “ The Blue Max” instead of this crap. Oh, it’s a crock as well, but its at least entertaining. You just can’t go wrong with James Mason and Ursula Andress. Watch 1948’s ‘Fighter Squadron’ if you want to see a really god awful bad flying war movie, worse even than “Flyboys”. Sure I watched it more than once, but hey, its got P-47’s in it (in living color!) so I looked the other way when all the “acting” was going on. It’s the same thing I did when watching ‘Strategic Air Command’. People tell me that June Allyson is in it, but I never noticed her. All I saw were the B-36’s and you don’t see those every day. An actress is an actress but after all a B-36 is a B-36!(A mans got to have priorities!)

A great flying movie makes you want to go get your pilots license the next day. All this movie makes you want to do is to ‘tar and feather’ the projectionist.

For the record, most movies about war are really awful movies. I’m not sure why this is, but its true. I think its fair to say that I’ve watched just about every war movie ever made silent and talking, from ‘black and white’ to color, and out of all of them I can’t name more than five that were any good and even less than that I consider to be ‘great’. Most of them are just awful, some are even worse than this one. My own theory about why nearly every “war movie” is bad, despite the fact that as a rich source of human emotions and stories, is that the people who have lived through wars rarely want to relive the experience by contributing screenplays or acting in them and those that haven’t lived through it, cant begin to capture the horrors accurately enough to make it true and honest. This is why most ‘war movies’ are 80% about love stories and 20% about shooting people as the writers and directors all understand what it is to love a woman and haven’t a clue what its like to be shot at or live through an artillery barrage, so they “go with what they know”.

What annoys me most about this film is the way it fails to deliver the most important thing besides entertainment. It utterly fails to educate the audience about the Lafayette Escadrille. In this film, the members of the squadron are made up of the usual group of American scoundrels and mountebanks right out of central casting. Sure, there were some that were scoundrels and mountebanks, but there were also far more who were the kind of ‘east coast snots’ I tend to make fun of. These are men who volunteered to come over to France long before we came into the war, to the French Foreign Legion as infantrymen, as ambulance drivers and then as pilots for the Lafayette Escadrille. They were men; real men and they deserve to be remembered for what they did and not just as the caricatures that Hollywood has made them out to be. They deserve more for their sacrifices than to have their memory denigrated by a poorly executed cartoon of a movie.

Eugene Bullard certainly deserves better.

People today more than ever need to be inspired by the people of the past who gave their all for the cause of freedom, not bored out of their mind by a poorly made, cliché laden movie that is destined only to lose money for its investors and to sit next to “Ernest Goes to Jail” at the bottom of the discount DVD bin at Wal-Mart.

Posted @ September 23, 2006 11:59 PM | Movie Reviews | Comments (10)

Osama bites it?

It's Saturday morning, so it must be time for the "Osama is dead" rumor of the week.

This week its "Died of Typhoid" in Pakistan. We in the first world dont see much Typhoid, so heres a quick run down on what Typhoid is.

"Typhoid fever (or enteric fever) is an illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi. Common worldwide, it is transmitted by ingestion of food or water contaminated with feces from an infected person. The bacteria then multiply in the blood stream of the infected person and are absorbed into the digestive tract and eliminated with the waste".

Food contaminated with feces? that can't be considered "halal", can it?

After infection, symptoms include:
- a high fever from (103 °F to 104 °F) that rises slowly
- chills
- bradycardia (slow heart rate)
- weakness
- diarrhea
- headaches
- myalgia (muscle pain)
- lack of appetite
- constipation
- stomach pains
- in some cases, loss of hair resulting from the prolonged high fever
extreme symptoms such as intestinal perforation or hemorrhage, delusions and confusion are also possible.

When untreated, typhoid fever persists for three weeks to a month. Death occurs in between 10% and 30% of untreated cases.

I find it interesting the Osama bin Laden might have fallen victim to the same sort of death that the Martians fell victim to in the "War of the Worlds". Not bombs or bullets, but a simple bacterium. And it may have even been carrired to his cave by one of his compatriots, Ala "Typhoid Mary", or in this case, maybe "Typhoid Ali".

My take? Osama isnt making tapes, he's not standing on balconies of cities surrounded by throngs of admirers, hes either dead or in deep hiding. If hes alive, hes in Iran or Waziristan and I think if I were stuck in either of those places, I would prefer death but thats just me... Waking up on Saturday to rumors of his death is not a bad thing, even if its not necessarily true.

Posted @ September 23, 2006 09:49 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

A day that will live in history

I'm staggered by the speech at the UN today by the Iranians.

I will never forget this day.

4000 years later, and Western Civilization is still vexed by an explict expressed threat from the Persians.

When are we going to end this nightmare?

I'll be back later. I need to think a little bit more.

Men of Ionia, that what you are doing is not proper, campaigning against your fathers and wishing to enslave Greece.

It would be best if you came on our side. But if this is not possible, at least during the battle stand aside and also beg the Carians to do the same with you.

But if you can not do either the one or the other, if you are chained by higher force and you can not defect during the operations, when we come at hand, act purposedly as cowards remembering that we are of the same blood and that the first cause of animosity with the barbarians came from you.
(Herodotus, book VIII,22).

Written in 430 B.C.

Its as if we are the new Greeks and the Persian menace is still here.

Posted @ September 19, 2006 05:32 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (3)

Crazed Mobs of rampaging thugs left mystified as to why the world refuses to take them seriously.

Militant Islamic Mobs, have now once again demonstrated that there is nothing the people of the west can do or say that wont somehow be interpreted as an insult to some part of the membership of their all powerful religion.

You try to be nice, you try to engage in dialog with militant imams and their followers and where does it get you? Simple, you end up burning in effigy at the end of a rope in a crowd of thousands of angry out of work youths.

So you decide to make a movie to show the glories of the life of the prophet to the people of the west and where does that get you? Hostages taken in Washington DC, and later you and your daughter get killed in a suicide bombing as someone tries to “get even” for your horrid crime against their religion.

Swell.

So why does anyone bother to mention them at all? No one mentions the Amish, do they? Mobs of Mennonites hardly ever come up on the cover of Newsweek as they burn posters of the heathen temptress Britney Spears or Madonna, whose name alone would be enough to the Militant Mob to elicit some form of retribution. Like the Militants, the Amish want to live in the past; it’s just that the Amish aren’t at all bothered if you don’t.

You don’t see headlines that scream “Lancaster County PA, the hotbed of the Amish Insurgency” and its not because the Amish are better people than those who ascribe to the beliefs of the Militant Mob, its just that the Amish put their priorities on raising barns, milking cows and feeding their families instead of “getting even” for centuries of indignities handed down to them by the heathen “Auslander”.

The Amish also don’t hack your head off with a sword if you gaze too long at someone’s daughter in public. The Amish just smile at the tourists and go on their way even if they insult and shove them around. They live their way and we live our way. To the Amish, the winner of the “were closer to God than you are” contest is to be decided by God and not the local barn raising committee, which is just as it should be (if you ask me). Its not that your average Amish youth doesn’t occasionally want to firebomb a tourists car, its that they are usually too busy bringing in the harvest to spend time on such frivolity.

You see, the Amish have their priorities and the Militant Mobs have their priorities. To the Amish, feeding your family and taking care of your community is first and revenge comes later.

Much, much later.

To the Militant Mob, it’s the other way around. There’s never time to feed your family, but there’s always enough time to protect your family’s honor by burning down a church, destroying holy relics or killing a nun.

Yet its Militant Mob that wants the Pope to apologize for talking about rationality in religious thought and quoting someone from long ago. But is this really something that requires an apology? I mean if we all start apologizing for poorly thought out speeches to inappropriate audiences, the rioters are going to run out of things to burn before the end of the first week of this new policy.

If we were to establish a sort of “Maslows Hierarchy of Needs” for “Apologies”, can we establish that poor speechifying is at a much lower level of the pyramid than say, oh I don’t know, blowing up sacred relics – like this one:

Buddhas of Bamiyam - Destroyed by Taliban.

No one seems to be asking the Taliban to apologize for this, yet to me, and probably even the atheistic Chinese Communists, this would seem far more offensive to the “brotherhood of Man” than what Pope Benedict said.

Funny how Buddhists didn’t take to the street and start burning mosques after this affront. Well, I guess this is where that whole karma thing kicks in, but imagine if it had been the other way around and Buddhists had so much as looked sideways at anything in regards to Islam. Oh wait, we don’t have to imagine, because that’s pretty much what happened. 3000 years ago some crazy Buddhists had the bad sense of timing to build a shrine on land that would much later be under the control of Afghani tribesman who would follow an entirely different religious dictate.

Fools. Infidels. They deserve to die, its all clear to me now…

Or how about someone in the Militant Mob stands up to apologize for the fact that for most of the worlds Muslims, their best hope for survival and a future isn’t by living in the holy cities of the Caliphate in harmony with all of the sacred goodness of Sharia Law, but by living in the bosom of the “Great Satan” itself.

What the Pope said or didn’t say is of no consequence, because, well he’s the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church. It’s only of consequence if you are Catholic. By comparison, I don’t give a rip if the Grand Mufti of Mecca puts a Fatwa out about not watching football on Saturday. I would if I was a Muslim, but I’m not, so I don’t care. But Muslims seem to care a great deal what the other religious leaders have to say, why? I have no idea. The Dali Lama for example, he's out playing golf with Greenskeeper Carl Spackler and can't be bothered with insults because hes pretty secure in his beliefs.

To the Militant Mob, it’s not what the Pope says that is the affront; its the mere existence of the Pope and the religion of which he leads that is the true insult to their religion. It seems that the Militant Mob can't handle the concept of the competitive marketplace of ideas and even worse, the mere idea that other people might actually choose a different way from theirs, is simply unspeakable.

I find it somewhat ironic that the Pope was making a speech about the place of reason in religious thought and that this extremely non-radical idea to us in the west and has now been met by a demonstration of the worst kind of irrationality by the Militant Mob.

“Pope Must Die says Muslim”.

Yeah. thats rational.

On second thought, I don’t think that the word “apology” means the same thing in English that it does in Arabic. Apparently in Arabic the word “apology” means, “Die in the worst way possible as quickly as possible”.

This reaction demonstrates to my non-denominational eyes just how right Pope Benedict was in his thoughts in his speech. It seems to me that the response of the crazed mobs and their knee jerk reaction have proved his point and as a result, the only apologizing that should occur is from the leaders of the mobs themselves, who are only too willing to call for large scale deaths and total war in response to a simple straight forward idea, as if that were somehow – rational!

Posted @ September 19, 2006 12:31 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (3)

Reno Air Races - 2006

Stead Field Tower. The main entrance gate. Todays entry process took 30 minutes to complete. Its a sure sign that this years Air Races will be one with a good turn out.


The lineup for the Jet Races. The Jet class is much like the T-6 Class, in that only one type of jet is in the race class. I have to say that the Jet Class has really proven itself to be a "crowd pleaser".

Here's what keeps Osama up at night. A General Atomics Predator Drone with two "Hellfire" missiles mounted for display only. Beale AFB is right across the Sierras from Stead Field and serves as the home of the Global Hawk and many other aircraft like the Predator.

The wing of the Predator is about 6 feet long from tip to root and all of a foot wide. What I found most striking was its simplicity. The navigation light is an off the shelf part that you can buy from any avionics catalog. As someone who spent several thousand hours sanding fiberglass and resin into wing shapes, I have to tell you this wing is a thing a beauty.

Psst. hey buddy, wanna buy a MIG? Reno is the home of several outfitters who have purchased MIGs from the "former Soviet Union" and other parts of the third world. This is a two seat variant of the MIG-21. This one goes for 240k. Considering a new Cessna goes for 172K, its not a bad deal...

This is Strega. This is one of the most successful aircraft in the Unlimited Class of racers. Once upon a time, this was a P-51 Mustang. I doubt theres much left on this aircraft that is actually from a P-51 except its general shape.


Not just a Corsair, but a "Super Corsair". Notice the Bubble Canopy. This is one of the very rare Super Corsairs that were produced right at the end of WWII. This is an outstanding aircraft.


One of the reasons why I rarely show shots of the races themselves is that standard home use cameras really stink at taking pictures of fast moving objects. Shutters need to respond quickly and you need multiple shots of the pass to find one that holds up as a still later on. This is a rather unique flyby of an F-15, F-4 and two P-51's.

The same four as before, only directly overhead. It was nice to see an F-4 in the air again.

This looks like a Chevy Trucks advertisement. "Chevy Trucks - Like A Rock..."

This P-40k just came back from Oshkosh with a major award. Even for people who arent big time aircraft freaks like me,everyone seems to like the P-40. I always stop to point out the fabric covered control surfaces and the "ring and bead" sights. This may be a WWII aircraft, but its just an inch away from Ricthofen. Compare this 1941 aircraft to the 1945 Super Corsair and you get a real education in just how fast things changed during the war.

So, what was that you were saying about sensible gun control laws?

You half expected the box to say "ACME" didnt you?

The business end of the Harrier Jump Jet.

Three F-15 Eagles during engine startup ( notice everyone with their hands over their ears?). Me? I dig this sound. Let my ears bleed. I survived a decade of "Deep Purple", I can handle the sweet sound of jet engines.


This is the area known as the "Rat Ramp" those of us too cheap to pay for reserved seating often sit down under the visiting aircraft instead of getting crammed into the general admission seats. I love this part of the field during the races. In this area, I've stood under the wing of a B-29, a B-24, and many, many other aircraft since I first starting coming to the Air races back in 1980. I saw my first B-2 from this location. It took my breath away.

In 1964, I was just a kid and I lived on the other side of that ridge on the horizon. In those days I could not have been more remote from the world if I had lived on the dark side of the moon. I had no idea back then what the future would hold in store for me. I have to say that much to my surprise that things turned out pretty well.

Coming back to the Reno Air Races every year is a much about taking part in the "cult of aviation" as it is a way for me to see just how far I've come since the days when I lived in a single wide trailer in Panther Valley Nevada, just over there on the other side of that ridge.

Posted @ September 16, 2006 09:57 PM | Aviation | Comments (4)

Hey, did you know mickey spillane was a pilot before he was a writer?

Yes, Mickey " I the Jury" Spillane was a real live fighter pilot before he was a writer. But heres a great rantburg post that shows that the tradition continues.

If youre a pilot, you will laugh at all of this. If youre not, you'll just have to trust us. And yes, this is EXACTLY what pilots talk like to other pilots. Try not to think about it the next time you fly commercial.

My favorite Mickey Spillane quote: "I dont have fans, I have CUSTOMERS DAMMIT!"

Posted @ September 12, 2006 01:47 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

I'm getting comfortable being wrong

First, I had to get used to being completely dead wrong about Israeli strategy in Southern Lebanon.

Now I have to get used to being wrong about the 'toxic soup' in New Orleans after Katrina. It seems there isnt any...

Somehow being wrong about these things doesnt bother me at all...

Posted @ September 12, 2006 08:34 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

The 9/11 posts

9/11 and the need to get more information than what I could find on traditional sources was what got me started reading blogs. Jane Galt, who was working at the 9/11 site after the disaster was one of the first and finest that I ever read. I have always found her writing to be staggering.

I started blogging two years ago. 9/11 is the annual moment to reflect on the actions and reactions of that day.

Here are my reflections from the past two years about that horrible day.

August 28th 2004 - The way you look tonight.

A rememberance of the towers, the night of the attack and a loss that has occured in my life since they went away.

September 11th 2004 - Never Forget.

A simple somber note to mark the day.

March 15th 2005 - Contrails.

What I saw missing in the sky over the US after 9/11 and how it relates to our fight for freedom.

September 11th 2005 - Night Visits.

My reoccuring nightmare from 9/11. It still lives with me today.

Never forget...

Posted @ September 11, 2006 03:11 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Were still here

Children of London after an attack by German Bombers in 1940.

1978. That was the year I experienced the possibility of my death for the first time.

I was 17.

The week it happened started innocently enough. The big task for the week was to help my father, who was an upholsterer, move a very heavy cast iron framed hideabed down a three-story apartment building stairwell. I told him just how much I didn’t want to do it in my whiny pimple faced adolescent way and he responded in exactly the way that fathers of teenage smartasses often respond.

He smacked me open handed in the back of my head and reminded me with his other hand – his pointy finger lined up an inch from my nose - that what I wanted to do and not do at any given time wasn’t all that important to him. I would be there on Saturday to help with the damn hideabed, “come hell or high water”.

And that was that.

I whined about it all week long. He just smiled and said “ bitch about it all you want kiddo, the works still gonna be there when you are done”.

Friday night came and I was out of the house like a shot to be with my friends. Shakeys Pizza on Auburn Blvd was the place to be and we were there. They don’t make places like Shakeys anymore. Large wooden picnic tables for “family” seating. Dark cavern like lighting. Shakeys didn’t offer fancy “vegetarian pizzas”, but lots of meat, lots of cheese pizzas cooked on slabs of stone.

I got home about 11:30 and went promptly to bed. About an hour later I woke up with what I thought was a stomach ache. It got worse. I started vomiting and unlike most times when I threw up I didn’t feel better afterwards. Then the pain started. I felt like I had a red hot railroad spike being hammered into my side.

I, being a 17 year old dork assumed that this was just “food poisoning”. Not wanting to incur the wrath of my parents, I stayed in my room and tried to sleep it off.

It didn’t work. I didn’t get any sleep and the pain got steadily worse. Then I began to sweat. In fact, I started to sweat like a lawn sprinkler.

Then at 7:00 am on the nose, my father knocked on the door and shouted “ TIME TO GO KIDDO”.

With all the activity overnight I had forgotten about the hideabed, but he hadn’t. I stood up from the bed and discovered something else; I couldn’t stand up straight. The pain had me hunched over and even that angle hurt like hell. I walked across the room, reached for the doorknob and opened the door to see the old man standing cross armed in the hallway. I started to tell him how I was feelling and he stopped me before the first word came out of my mouth.

“Don’t even think for one second you are going to play some horseshit “I’m sick” crap on me!, now you get you ass together and get out in the truck NOW!” The old man wasn’t having any of it.

I was completely flustered. I had no idea what to do, here I was in genuine pain, crumpled over and sweating like I was in a sauna and I couldn’t get a word out of my mouth in self defense. And yet with all of this, I just figured that it would go away, that it was gas, indigestion, food poisoning or something like that. Something simple, everybody goes through this sort of thing, right?

I got into the truck and closed the door and the old man started in on a lecture about the “value of work” only I didn’t hear it, not because I had tuned him out but because my ears had started to ring, only the ringing was so loud I couldn’t hear anything. I was also dizzy and started to wonder if I was going to pass out. I now developed a new symptom. I started shaking, like I was freezing, only I was anything but freezing.

As we were driving down the street, as my dad was banging on the steering wheel to make a point in his lecture from the pulpit of the truck cab, I looked over at him and he looked back at me and in mid sentence, mid word he just stopped talking. He just looked at me and then sort of squinted his eyes, half believing what he saw on the other side of the cab.

“Didn’t you just put that shirt on?”

I just shook my head “Yeah”. It was all I could do.

“Why are you sweating like that?”

I responded “Yahshmdhhahhnnyaaa”

I was trying to say “ I don’t know”, but the shaking had started to effect my ability to talk. I just shook my head in a circle instead.

We pulled into the shop, and he opened the doors and I got out of the truck walked in my crumpled over state. He asked me to lay down on the cutting table. I did, but I could not uncurl my legs as they had gone and drawn up into my chest, fetal like. He lifted my shirt and looked the area that I indicated was causing the problem. He touched my side and the closer he got to the beltline the more I screamed, then he noticed something I couldn’t see but changed his whole demeanor.

He picked me up and loaded me in the truck. I was no longer capable of walking or talking.

“Hold on kid, we’ll get you taken care of”

I don’t remember the drive to the hospital. I do remember getting laid out on a gurney and getting pushed into the emergency room and getting an immediate reaction from the attending nurse that told me that whatever this was, it wasn’t food poisoning.

I remember the doors getting banged open by the gurney as they pushed me through the hospital and thinking I was going to get in trouble for the damage I was doing to the paint on the doors. You think weird things like that when you’re in a lot of pain.

Then I left the world for a little while.

It wasn’t food poisoning. It wasn’t gas or indigestion.

My appendix had burst during the night, and I was now bleeding internally.
It was a very bad break that was causing all sorts of other problems.

So I was gone for a little while. Two days later, I awoke in a hospital room to find half a dozen tubes in my arms, up my nose and inserted into my urethra. I didn’t care because I no longer felt like I had a hot railroad spike being hammered into my abdomen like I did before I passed out.

My nurse stopped by when she noted that my eyes were open and said something I never forgot. “Hey, look at that, you’re still here!” and she just smiled. I wondered where it was that I went. I still had no idea what had happened to me.

My parents came in and explained the whole thing. The appendix, a little tiny thing really had at first become inflamed, had expanded and had burst like a little toy balloon, and when it went finally blew, it caused all sorts of other problems. I had lost some blood, I had to stay in the hospital while they watched me, but I would probably be fine.

I told my dad that I was sorry I couldn’t move the hideabed and he just started to cry.

After a couple more lost days, I started to sit up and feel better, then I wanted to get out of the hospital. I had to start walking, but that wasn’t as easy as it sounds. The surgery had taken its toll on my abdomen muscles and to my surprise they have a big impact on your ability to walk.

At first, it was a big deal just to stand up. Then it was a big deal to walk across the room. After another week of observing me for fever or changes that would indicate some sort of infection, they decided to let me go home. I was glad they did; hospitals are noisy confusing places that are not really suited for just laying around convalescing which I think was actually their original purpose.

So, I went home and sat around instead. My folks went to work so I had the house to myself. I spent most of my time just learning to walk again. Step by step I gained more endurance until at last, I could walk down the street to school. I hated school but I loved my friends. I hated school, but hated being home even more.

My doctor called me about a month later just to see how things were going and I answered off the cuff with a phrase I would start to use more often in my life, something the nurse had taught me:

“Well, I’m still here!”

I nearly died. It wasn’t the first time or the last time. I managed to survive and to go on to tell the tale and that was all that mattered. I survived to see my high school graduation. I survived to see college, my first jobs in a line of many in a career lifetime. I survived to go on to get married and have kids, climb mountains, fly aircraft. Not everyone did make it, before I graduated high school; five kids from my class had died while we were in high school. Drowning, car accidents, disease; they had all taken their toll on the class of 1979. Every yearbook had at least one kid who didn’t make it.

Five years later, my younger sister would become one of those kids, a victim of a car accident, an event that still haunts the soul of my mother and bothered my father with undeserved guilt until the day he died.

But I was and still am “here” and I am grateful for every moment of my life since.

Five years ago, I awoke and saw something I thought I would never see. My country and the world itself were brought face to face with real evil. The stench of the Islamic revolution which started while I was in High School had now reached out and killed people in Manhattan. The first year of the war was the worst. None of us had any idea what was going to happen next. We had no idea if the envelopes that came in the mail were trying to kill us or to what lengths the monsters would go to try to kill us the next day. Would they get the bomb, did they have the bomb, were they already here with the bomb?

On the first anniversary of 9/11, I awoke and said

“Well, were still here!”

In the days right after 9/11/2001, I wasn’t sure we would be. The real fighting war we spent the entire cold war successfully avoiding was now here, brought right to us. We didn’t have to go out and find it; it found us.

We are still here. In the past five years, we’ve endured real threats and real attacks and we’ve survived. We held an election in New York City that very year. We held congressional elections the next year, and two years after that, we held a presidential election. In the days after 9/11/2001, we all assumed that we might not be able to do that anymore.

We are still here, and our President is still criticized by citizens around the world. Last I checked, most of the Presidents critics don’t spend their nights worried that the FBI will carry them away in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. Such is life in “fascist Amerikkka” I guess. In the days right after 9./11 people weren’t entirely sure that they would have that right anymore.

We are still here, yet there are no concentration camps, no lynching of Arabs living in America, no American “Krystalnacht” of Islamic Mosques. Of course, every newspaper brings out the template every week that says “Arab community fears backlash” but as of this year, there is no backlash, probably never will be.

We are still here, having football, baseball, basketball and Hockey games and whole Olympic events with thousands of fans sitting in the stands. Week after week in stadiums across America, terror targets of large civilian populations are presented to the enemy with no effect. No Islamic blubberhead is going to keep us from the OSU-Texas game.

We are still here. We are still building skyscrapers. We are still living in cities. The Sears Tower and the Empire State building still have people going to work every day. Airlines still fly people from place to place. We are still building hospitals, schools, factories, libraries, cafeterias all around the world, including lands that were formerly under the control of the Taliban.

We are still here. Our currency is still worth something. Our economy is at its best. Our unemployment is at such a low level, that almost no one today remembers what unemployment rates look like in real recession. Yet, we are at war. There is no Draft and the ranks are still filled with volunteers.

We are still here. We are still going into space, building space stations and carrying international crews and furthering the world of science by our works. Our citizens are so industrious that they are now making their own spacecraft. Five years ago that was still considered fantasy, but five years later it is reality.

We are still here, but the dream of a new caliphate is surely dying. Five years later, Osama and is gang of murdering thugs have lost every attempt to stop the cause of freedom. Elections have been held throughout the middle east and at each election, Al queda has failed, let me repeat that – FAILED to do anything to stop the expression of citizenship by free people. Even those people who that hate us, like elections.

We are still here, and while Osama still is as well, he has done nothing in five years to help his fellow Muslim in a time of need. While Osama sat on his haunches in a cave, our Navy fed, clothed and housed thousands of Muslims who were victims of the Tsunami. To his eternal shame, the Muslims of Banda Aceh were grateful for our help.

We are still here, but now Saddam awaits his fate in jail being forced to watch American movies of his character engaging in sodomy with the devil himself, who is portrayed somewhat sympathetically to his own. His sons are now rotting in the hell they most certainly deserve thanks to the 101st Airborne. Five years ago, Saddam was padding the payroll of the UN and his sons were driving the streets of Baghdad pointing out to their driver which of the women on the street were to be their plaything for the evening, to be discarded in the gutter later the next day (if they were lucky). Prisons around Iraq filled with innocents, while its neighboring countries wondered what the crazy clan of maniacs would do next. Five years ago, the graves of the Kurds gassed by his cousin “Chemical Ali” cried out for justice. Five years later, justice is doing its work in a Baghdad court.

When my appendix burst, I was taught the lesson that there are no guarantees in life. You might be here one day and gone the next. Be grateful for the time you have and don’t waste it or whine about what you may or may not have. You are still here, and that’s enough.

You’re still here! Recognize that for what it is, nothing less than a miracle.

And never forget that there are 3,000 people who aren’t because of what happened that day.

Posted @ September 11, 2006 02:19 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death

First Castro, but now is Kim Jong-il also "Not Feeling Well"?
From Australia Herald:

Kim Jong-il, 64, is reported to have diabetes and other medical problems involving his kidney and liver.

More from the Korea Herald:

snip.
"...Opposition lawmaker Chung Hyung-keun, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee, also claimed last week that the North Korean leader is having difficulties walking due to worsening diabetes, liver and heart problems.

Pyongyang has never confirmed such reports, but Kim is believed to have received medical treatment at various hospitals overseas, including in China and some European countries.

The intelligence agency also believes he received a diagnosis at a Chinese space center while visiting the country in January, according to the ruling party legislator.

End Snip.

Apparently it plays hell on your health to be the supreme dictator of a Nation.

Posted @ September 10, 2006 12:12 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Update

With all thats been going on in the world, and there has not a peep from me about it.

Seems odd, doesnt it? Well theres a reason for it.

Well, this years "Project from Hell" finished at 10:00 am this morning. Despite its very best efforts to kill me, I'm still alive at the end of it to talk about it. Yea!, I Win!

I've had 2 hours sleep in three days and to cap it all off as a parting gift, a 6:00 am departure out of Austin this morning.

People always ask me "So, what do you think of Austin?" Frankly I didnt see any of it; except for the airport, the rental car agency, the hotel and the place where I worked, which is in a windowless wearhouse-like basement in a leafy suburb outside of Austin. So, for all I saw of Austin, I could have been in Sioux Falls. I wouldnt have known the difference.

The glamorous life of a software tech places you in close proximity to really great cities and cultures that you often find are just out of your reach because the nature of your work is more akin to a sort of corporate death march than any sort of luxurious congressional fact finding junket.

In the end, what you see of all cities is the same.

Airport. Car. Hotel. Restaurant. Hell Hole.

Nowadays, You could be anywhere in the US and its all the same. Regional cuisine died when Krispy Kreme crossed the Mason Dixon Line. It doesnt matter where you go anymore, theres a Taco bell a McDonalds and a Starbucks within three miles of your current location. Target is next to Best Buy, Chilis is next to Bennigans which is next to Macaroni Grill which is next to Johnny Carinos and if there isnt, there soon will be and Dennys is always open.

I'm not whining. This business is not exactly like coal mining, no one shoots at you, you dont go home smelling like greasy food, but there are moments when you begin to question your career choices; like when you realize that the vending machines in the copy room are your primary source of daily nutrition.

Anyway...

It was a great project and we accomplished more than we hoped. Someday I might talk about it, but not today and not here. This blog is not about what I do for a living, except at the very periphery.

I am going to take some time in the next few weeks and rest up. The Reno Air Races are next week and I've stopped accruing vacation, so I need to get that cleared up in the best possible way, so there might be some major road trips in the near future.

So dont assume that just because I havent said anything that I dont have anything to say, its just that there are times when if you touch another keyboard you think you might go into anaphylactic shock.

Blogging will continue at "normal speed" next week.

Posted @ September 09, 2006 05:05 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)

This is Your Brain - This is your Brain on LA

James Ellroy 1958 - El Monte California, on the day, almost to the moment that he is notified of the murder of his mother.

James Ellroy 2006.

After all this time, after all these years, he still carries the same 'thousand yard' stare.

This summer I read "My Dark Places" by James Ellroy. I found it to be one of the most stunning books I've ever read. Its not like anything else I've ever read before. James Ellroy suffered from one of the single most traumatic events in anyones life, not just a death of a parent, but a murder. "My Dark Places" is the story of how that horrible event came to be and the history of what occured to the crimes only remaining victim.

The first chapter of the book is the story of his mothers murder told much like a scene in one of his books, told from the perspective of the police and how they investigate the crime. The second chapter is the story told from his perspective, or what a murder of your parent looks like from the eyes of a 10 year old boy. But it doesnt stop there, he goes into many different directions on this same catastrophic event, an event that has never been solved. He eventually takes up the task of reviewing the case and hires a detective to "investigate the investigation" to see if its possible to find out anymore about the murder of his mother. From police files now almost 50 years old, Ellroy and his hired detective find people who were interviewed in the case in 1958 and talk to them about that day from so long ago.

Just the idea of seeking out to find these people, whos only item in common was a single night at work in El Monte California was an idea that I found utterly spellbinding. For example, he tracks down and finds a woman, who at the time in 1958 was a car hop at a restaurant that his mother visted on the night she was murdered. He then finds this former 'car hop' in modern day Reno Nevada. She remembers the case and the night that she was interviewed by the El Monte Police.

Think about that, one night in 1958, you're at work doing your 'car hop' thing. The next thing you know the police are asking you questions, you give them your statement, you go lineups but nothing really happens. Zoom - a lifetime goes by and the El Monte police and the questioning grows smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror as you go down lifes highway. But 40+ years later, the child of the lady that was killed 'way back then' tracks you down and asks you to talk about what you might remember from that time.

It reminded me of what scientists do when they throw atomic components at each other in a labratory to create a collision. The collision creates tracks on the plates, which reveals to the scientists a great deal about the physics of the components. Here was this collision, this disaster in the life of Little James Ellroy and all here are the parts that flew out in a dozen directions from that collision.

In the life and writing of James Ellroy, no matter where he is or what hes doing; everything leads back to a night in 1958, in El Monte California.

"My Dark Places" is a book that tracks the most personal of disasters and tracks the damage across his life and the life of many other people who just happened to have been interviewed or somewhat or somehow trangentally linked to this one night in 1958 in a suburb in LA.

Having been born in and lived in LA for most of my early life, I've always been atracted to anyone who can write about life in Los Angeles.

Most writers don't get LA. But Ellroy does.

Here's in an article that he wrote for the LA Times in July of this year that explains how and why he has come back to LA.

What I like about Ellroy as a writer is he taught me that a fragmented sentence is just fine as long as the sentence has something to say and that a sentence with three words can often express an idea clearer than a sentence with one hundred words.

Posted @ September 04, 2006 10:28 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

"I was struck by how stunningly banal and formulaic it all was."

"I was struck by how stunningly banal and formulaic it all was."
Actor Michael Caine in Venice 2006

I like Michael Caine. I don't know him, but he presents himself as a well balanced person. Compared to some of the self deluded emotional basketcases that make up the world of drama, Michael Caine seems downright "normal".

And I do have to agree with that he's saying about the state of todays movies.

But....

I do have to point out that Mr. Caine is a major player in not just one but two movies from my list of "worst movies ever made".

1981 - The Hand. So bad is was spoofed on Second City TV as " My Bloody Hand" with Comedian Dave Thomas doing Caine. This one is about a cartoonist who loses his hand in an accident, only the hand doesnt get the memo and decides on its own to start killing people who anger the cartoonist. Oh yeah one other thing I forgot to mention; its directed by Oliver Stone, written by Oliver Stone and in one scene, Oliver Stone even works as an actor in this film.

Not since Ed Wood has any one man taken up so much space on the credit roll.

1987 - Jaws. The Revenge. The tagline " this time -its personal". You remember this one, the "Jaws Sequel" where Chief Brody's family, long tramautized by marine life decides to on vacation - in Bermuda. See if you can guess what happens?

I like a good number of his movies. I'm not busting his chops, but when I heard this quote today my first thought was from an interview that he made in regards to "Jaws - The revenge". When he was asked about this movie, he said, "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

Yes Mr. Caine, what comes out of Hollywood is often very awful, but it buys a lot of houses for alot of people anyway, including yourself. So go buy a DVD player and a good sound system, get a BIG plasma screen and a nice comfy barcalounger. Then visit Scarecrow Video in Seattle and don't sweat it so much, because theres lots and lots of good movies out there to watch. Its not like Hollywood just started making bad movies, they've ALWAYS made bad movies. Its just that with digital technology the new bad ones stay around longer ( anyone else remember the deep rotation of 1982's "Beastmaster" where it played on HBO for what seemed like every hour on the hour for about a year?)

Don't get me started on the subject of "Bad Movies". I love bad movies almost more than I love good movies. You can learn a lot about good movies by watching bad ones. You learn to appeaciate the fact that film really is an art. What constitutes a really, really, bad movie is not just something from schlock-meisters like Ed Wood Jr., but what happens on screen when really good directors, actors, writers and artists conspire to turn out a complete disaster. The best part is -it happens all the time!

Witness:
1974 - Sean Connery/John Boorman Classic - ZARDOZ
1979 - Paul Newmann/Fernando Rey/Robert Altman - Quintet
1986 - Lucasfilm Disaster - Howard the Duck.

I could go on and probably should, but its been a long weekend...

Posted @ September 04, 2006 08:32 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (9)

The Guardian moves to the next argument against self-defense

UK Guardian:

"The Pentagon claimed a victory for America's missile defence system last night when a mock warhead was successfully destroyed in space in a test which cost $85m"

Ok. So, weve quickly moved from " It wont work, it cant work" on to " Sure it works, but it costs too much"

Hmmm. I can think of one thing that is more expensive:

Yes. Defending yourself can be expensive. Dying is much cheaper.

I would like someone to explain to me why anti-aircraft systems are "ok" but anti-missile systems are "not ok".

Is anyone advocating that we shouldnt have anti-aircraft systems? They dont always work, they fail from time to time, they cost a lot too, but no one, not even John Kerry says "It's a Waste of time and money, lets not shoot down other peoples military aircraft as it would be provocative"

Ok, I agree that its hard to shoot down missiles but thats why everyone is not doing it.

Its hard.
But we do it anyway.

It's also hard to make aircraft invisible to radar and make them out of plastics instead of metals. We managed to pull those impossible things off, despite everyone saying that they couldnt be done too. We are so good at doing impossible things that we have civilians making their own spacecraft. Thats something that other countries dont even try to do, but put a bunch of "sideburn wearing" free people in Mojave with enough time and money and you never know what is going to roll out of the Hangar.

Going into space is hard.
Going into space is expensive.
But we do it anyway.

Imagine for a second that we didnt decide to make Ballistic Missile defense a priority. Look at the world for a second. North Korea and Iran, working every day of the week to build missiles and atomic weapons. North Korea has already launched their missiles - weapons systems, not camera laden publicity shots - over their neighboring countries.

Do you seriously want to live in a world where we didnt even try to defend ourselves from those to psycopathic regimes?

Making Nuclear Aircraft carriers is hard.
Making Nuclear Aircraft carriers is expensive.

But we do it anyway. And we have 12 of them.

Everyone, on our side or our enemies side cares where our carriers are. If your country is hit by a natural disaster and you need help you care a great deal about where our Navy is. If you oppose the United States and a US Navy Carrier Task Force shows up on your doorstep, you care.

France has two nuclear carriers, and no one cares.
Ever.
Not even the French.

The one thing the world can count on is that the French Navy is always somewhere else when their is hard or expensive tasks to be done.Don't think so? just ask the Lebanese.

So, who is wasting money on "questionable weapons systems", The US or the French? Could the French Navy be a force for freedom in the world instead of floating brothel customers? Sure they could, but they choose not to. Yet they spend the money anyway on systems they have no intention of ever using.

The UK could use a Nuclear Carrier, atleast they use their Navy like a Navy. If the French arent going to use theirs, perhaps they should lease it out to someone who will?

The way I see it, if the Russians and Chinese are going to continue to proliferate missile technology to criminal client states, then we dont have much of a choice. We can either do the easy thing and start shooting at their cities, or we can do the much harder thing of trying to defend ourself against the threat.

Just like every generation has done since the beginning of time.

Rock.
Which leads to -
Shield.
Which leads to -
Stick.
Which leads to -
a bigger stick with a sharpend end.
Which leads to you -
lining up your best friends with big sticks with sharpend ends.
Which leads to you -
lining up your best friends with big sticks with sharpend ends and carrying shields.
Which leads to -
Bow and Arrows.
Which leads to -
Lots of Bows and Arrows.
Which leads to -
a big steel stick sharpened on both sides.
Which leads to -
a suit made of metal.
Which leads to -
arrows with metal tips.
Which leads to -
Gunpowder.
Which leads to you -
throwing a box filled with gunpowder.
Which leads to you -
using metal tube filled with gunpowder to shoot a big rock.
Which leads to you -
using a metal tube filled with gunpowder to shoot big metal rock
Which leads to you -
using a metal tube filled with gunpowder to shoot big metal rock filled with gunpowder.
Which leads to you -
using airplanes to drop big metal rock filled with gunpowder.
Which leads to you -
Using metal tube filled with gunpowder to shoot down airplane.
Which leads to you -
using another airplane to shoot down that airplane.
Which leads to you -
Launching a big metal tube filled with gunpowder.

Which natually and quite understandably leads to -

you shooting down the big metal tube.

Well, atleast "trying" to shoot it down.

Of course you could just "do nothing", which was an option at any one of the steps along the way. The result would be like this:

Rock.
Which leads to -
you doing nothing
Which leads to -
you sitting on your fat ass around the campfire one night singing
"give peace a chance" while your enemy sneaks up from behind and beats your brains in.

Well that worked out swell now didnt it? Only now it isnt one soon to be dead dork sitting around a campfile, its the very real possibility that picture above will come into reality for millions of people all over the world.

Am I being a real reactionary by mentioning the word "enemy"? The idea that some people might just be "out to get me" or do me harm in some way, isnt that a little paranoid?

Well, yeah it is, but I've got 10,000 years of human history backing me up on my assertion, what have you got that says we should ignore what is written so clearly on the record of humanity? Pick any continent, any culture, any people at any time since the end of the last ice age and show me any group of humans, anywhere - anytime, that didnt at some point take up arms against the folks on the other side of the hill at some point in their history.

My grandfather used to say; "Humans just aint nice people".

Well I'm not that cynical, but I know what he meant. Some people are nice. In fact, out of 8 billion humans I'd go so far as to say that most people are nice. But there are still lots of people who are decidedly "not nice". There are still lots of people in the world who believe that killing and enslavement are just the natural actions of the state.

The problem I have with many people on the left is that they fundamentally dont understand that pacifism in the face of genocide is not a virtue. In fact, by promising to not fight they ensure that more people are killed, not less. Sometimes being a pacifist can be a brave act, but there are times when being a pacifist is just another name for being a coward.

In a free society, a democracy, a place where men are not the property of the state, but the state is the servant of the people, if you call yourself a citizen of that society, you don't have a right to defend your country against its enemies -

you have a duty.

Posted @ September 01, 2006 09:52 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (4)