Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Thoughts on Katrina

I lived in New Orleans for five years. Three of my kids were born there. I loved the town, the area and the people. The devestation to New Orleans and the Gulf coast is terrible and depressing. It is too bad that it takes a hurricane to get me off my duff and attempt to contact people I've known for years and just haven't taken the effort to communicate and keep up. Luckily, they left for safer ground before the storm.

We've been glued to the TV watching very repititious footage and reporting, in hopes that we would see if some of the places we knew and lived survived. If you didn't have a map, and all you knew was based on the media, you wouldn't know that Jefferson Parrish abuts New Orleans (that's how they get the 1.3 million people). You would hardly know that that the airport is in Kenner and you would have to guess just how much of the east bank of Jefferson Parrish is damaged. You wouldn't know that Orleans and Jefferson Parrishes extend across the Mississippi River to the West Bank and that a few hundred thousand people live over there. You wouldn't know if there is any significant flooding in Algiers, Gretna, Harvey, Marrero or Westwego. You would have no idea if any of the refineries are damaged, or just waiting for the infrastructure to be restored to the point that they can return to work. The media is doin a fine job of showing helicopter rescues and a lousy job of giving the big picture of the entire city, just as they are doing a lousy job of showing what's going on in Mississippi and Alabama. One more shot of the Hard Rock Casino and I'll scream.

I got quite angry with the sharpshooting going on the Cafferty and Aaron Brown on CNN last night. I thought the response was excellent for the first 24 hours. However, by tonight I'm becoming convinced that the governor, lieutenant governor, mayor of New Orleans and other elected leaders have been measured and found wanting. The task before them is overwhelming. Which priority would you choose with limited resources? However, they aren't doing simple things:
People are dropped off on I-10 by boats. No one is assigned to coordinate these drop-off points and record names, set up some types of rescue triage and the like. Doesn't take a massive manpower effort, but it certainly would make the process more manageable. Instead, they are dropped off and begin wandering down the road looking for something.

The looting has gotten out of hand. I couldn't blame the police last night. If they arrested a looter, what were they going to do with him?

Part of the problem is communications failures. Certainly, somewhere there is replacement communications equipment. If not, why weren't military FM radios and anttennae set up to allow some sort of communications? There has to be some signal companies in the Guard, hell, even an artillery battalion (try Washing artillery, NOLA) with generators, FM communcations gear, command vans and all that stuff. Why hasn't anyone thought of that. Where is the STARC in all this? If you have to, deploy some active duty assets. A battalion of the 82d could move in and support itself for a couple of days. Is all of the 101st off in Iraq?

How can they "forget" that Charity Hospital is trying to operate and people are now trapped in the hospital when they evacuated Tulane Hospital right across the street?

The human tragedy in New Orleans is being magnified because the City and State leaders have failed to take charge and do what they were elected to do, lead. Ms. (Send) Landrieu may be very proud of her brother the Lieutenant Governor because he has been in NOLA collecting bodies and doing rescues, but that is exactly what he shouldn't be doing. He should be actively getting the rescue efforts mobilized. Enough screaming from the governor or lieutenant governor and even FEMA would take notice.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

TimesDispatch.com | Hispanics find they can't drive with this license

TimesDispatch.com | Hispanics find they can't drive with this license: Hispanics in this area are getting conned by an international driver's license scam. Reading the article, I wondered why they thought they needed it. Legal residences can get driver's licenses. You have the read the entire article to get to the last three paragrpahs:

"Juan Santacoloma, a Hispanic liaison in Chesterfield, said the problem has no easy solution.
'About 90 percent of Hispanics are illegal and cannot obtain a legal driver's license. But they have to work, go to the grocery store and the supermarket,' he said. 'They have to obtain a license. So when they talk to someone who says, 'This is a legal license, you can get it for $300,' they say OK.
'They pay it because they need it.'"

According to the article the Hispanics make up about 5.3% of Virginia's population. If about 90% are illegal, then 4.5% of Virginia's population are illegal aliens and our legal system condones it. I wonder what laws a citizen may break for a $67 fee in Chesterfield and if it would be ignored as they do this one?

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Long, But Worth Reading

FrontPage magazine.com :: A Classroom Indoctrination by Lee Kaplan. This would be unbelievable if it weren't for reading about indoctrination at other schools, some much more academically prestigious.

Maybe it's too radical, but why not stick to the facts in class and do the political bit outside the class?

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Now they are targeting wounded soldiers

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2005� Being against the war is perfectly OK in my book. It is your right. However, the use of names of heros without family permission and then going after the wounded is completely wrong. These folks lose any claim to legitimacy.

ATF, Virginia Police Accused of 'Persecuting' Gun Shows -- 08/23/2005

ATF, Virginia Police Accused of 'Persecuting' Gun Shows -- 08/23/2005 Read this! It sounds like ATF and the Henrico boys are doing some "out of the box" checks and harrassment. Been to the Richmond gun show and haven't seen anything that looks like shady characters and crooks wandering around.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

War News

Powerline had an interestng piece on casualties in the mid-east war, mentioning that the death rate is about half the 18-year peace-time average. Dying in harm's way is different that dying in peace time. However, it does point out that these men and women do dangerous work, even at home.

We also don't hear much about strategy, tactics and fights unless it is a big push somewhere newsworthy. Big pushes in Iraq are really smaller than in previous wars. Soldiers doing things in battle or just good things are not the stuff news broadcasts, even on cable seem to be made of. It is much duller, I suppose, than the umpteenth shot of smoke rising on the Baghdad horizon.

Perhaps we wouldn't be so negative about the war if the news actually gave us the whole picture. I know military doctors doing heart surgery in Afghanistan or the fact that a new sewer project is being completed in Baghdad is not news, but then neither are the canned shots of "insurgents" running around in ski masks holding RPG's.

We seem to be gettng a very selected news feed from Iraq.

Iraqi, AF C-130 crew flies boy to receive heart surgery

CENTCOM has one of the stories that is not newsworthy.

Another not newsworthy story about heart surgery for a young Afghani girl
CENTCOM

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Political Correctness Watch

Political Correctness Watch Found this link on Tongue Tied . It is a great addition to anyone wanting to follow the absolutely crazy world of the politically correct.

Air America - The New York Sun - NY Newspaper

Air America - The New York Sun - NY Newspaper Just in case anyone wants to keep up the the left's running joke.

'Peace Mom's' marriage a metaphor for Dems

Mark Steyn's artical found on Power Line is a great piece about Sheehan. See also the email on Power Line. I really like Sheehan saying that she wished she had driven her son to Canada as if we had a draft. Her son volunteered. We should honor him, but his mother now seems to be using her son for other purposes.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

A sucker born every minute and they all are on University faculties

Interview from Town Hall

One of the most laughable cases of "a sucker born every minute" I've read about in years. Let's see, a professor at an esteemed institution wants to make a porn film. To sell the film, his schtick is Asian males are somehow being emasculated by the American porn industry which discriminates against Asian males. He packages this as something with great social significance and then takes it on a tour of our schools of higher education. He knows that with the buzz of multiculturalism and, by throwing in a little "censorship" the intellectual elite will support this to the last ounce of the taxpayer's blood. And, golly-gee, it works.

How many porn films have been works of art with great social significance? I admit to being out of the porn film viewing since "The Devil and Ms. Jones" The hype was the film's great social significance. The reality was a poorly made, poorly acted, film with terrible sound, picture quality and editing. It didn't have much of a story line. No great moralism, here. I just decided that I can find more enjoyable ways to waste my time.

Porn films have a market. They are made to the reflect the desires of the market, not as some instrument of social justice. I'm willing to bet that if an Asian male was in a porn film that was popular and made money, then the producers would have them lined up four abreast to make the films.

It is, I think, very telling that the intellectual elite seem to miss the fact that they have been taken in by quite a huckster. I also loved the comment bragging about a liberal arts education allowing exposure to richness of culture unmitigated by moralists. Gosh, that sounds good. Since when is the Porn industry the "richness of culture?" My daughter wants a liberal arts education. Currently she thinks that art, good music and good literature have something to do with the "richness of culture." I live in dread the day when our institutions of higher education beat that (and the last milligram of intelligence) out of her.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

My Tax Money at Work

TimesDispatch.com | iBook sale erupts in chaos, stampede
All high school, and now middle school, students in Henrico County have a school-issued laptop. Up until this fall, the laptops were Mac iBooks. For the upcoming year they switched to dell laptops for high schools. After making sure that the middle schools had enough iBooks and offering graduating seniors (class of 2005) iBooks (for $50), the remaining 1,000 were put on sale. First the sale was to anyone and then it backed down to county residents had first crack. 12,000 people showed up for the 1,000 computers (one to a customer). The link to the Richmond Times Disgrace gives a flavor of the morning.
We got some real bright bulbs spending our money in the county:
The county management, including the Police Chief were surprised by the rush and weren't prepared for it. Never mind that this has been an internet buzz for a couple of months and there has been some contentious county supervisors meetings about it. A few clues:

No one was to be in line before 6:00 AM. No one noticed that the line started forming at 1:00 AM
3 off-duty cops were hired for crowd control. After the near riot, 41 of the ~100 Henrico Police were called to the Raceway Complex for crowd control, but not until after the 7:00 AM rush.
17 people were removed by ambulance.
People brought kids to this mash. One stroller was destroyed in the first rush.
Patricia has used one for three years and has had problems with the ones she has been issued. She didn't want one of these. They have high security and you cannot load things like printer drivers on them. I would think that the county culled the worst ones out for sale, however, seeing how they handled this, they probably gave the best ones away. So, for a $20 mil program, the county recouped $50,000 (less the cost of the RIR complex, half the police force, ambulance service and other minor expenses).

I'm not sure how many of our county "leaders" you would have to pack together to get a 5-watt bulb. But News at 6 was a real laugher.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Help BP out of the Oil Business

BP, which I thought stood for British Petroleum and, according to the adds is "Beyond Petroleum," is recycling some of the silliest adds ever. BP is trying to impress us with just how environmentally friendly it is with a group of adds that seem to indicate that the company is embarrassed about being in the oil business. Look at all the mousy, enviro-looking actors acting like oil products are just terrible. All the ads end with just all the wonderful things they are doing for the environment.

If BP is embarrassed with the business they are in, I decided to help them out as much as possible. I do not go to BP stations and buy gas. Since BP won't help themselves out of their embarrassment by selling their petroleum business to someone who wants to be in that business, I think we should go along with them and not support them financially. Maybe they could make it just as well with wind turbines.

Yeah, I know that BP is really "Big Oil." I know that the products of their refineries go into a pipeline or other bulk transport for sale to whoever buys it. Yeah, I know that if BP closed all their gas stations, they would continue to refine and market petroleum products. That's what makes the ads so silly. If there was an award for stupid ads, BP's would get special recognition.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Fugitive Couple Refuses Return to Tenn. - Yahoo! News

Fugitive Couple Refuses Return to Tenn. - Yahoo! News. Amazing that anyone would consider allowing a convicted felon, just sprung by his wife who murdered a deputy would get any news play or court sympathy for not wanting to go back in order to be with his wife. The courts never cease to amaze me.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Able Danger

The 9/11 commission finally admits that they refused information on the Atta cell. This puts another nail in the 9/11 commission coffin. It seemed like they were just playing the political hack, bureaucratic game of fixing the blame. Admitting to ignoring the information from Able Danger fixes it.

I wonder why no one is asking the question about why the Able Danger group, although disbanded, didn't make an attempt to highlight this after the Bush inaugural. If they did, then who didn't listen or who stopped them? If they didn't, then why?

I'm Glad the cold war is over

Military commands drop Indian terms from exercise titles�-�Nation/Politics�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper. Read the article, it is obvous that the Air Force leadership are total and and complete idiots.

Since when does the word "warrior" denote only American Indians? Since when does the word "Chief" denote only American Indians. "Warriors" are people capable of combat and, just a few years ago, military types were proud to be warriors. "Chief" usually denotes a leader or a senior person. The Air Farce has a rank of "Chief Master Sergeant." Have they changed that to "Dart Master Sergeant?". Wait a minute, does "master" have some connection with slavery? So is the title now "Top Dart Sergeant?" What do I call my Master of Science degree?

If NORAD has people with enough time to come up with stuff like this and leaders who would buy into it, then I can suggest some significat cuts in the Pentagon budget.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Monday, August 08, 2005

Another Round on the "Stolen" Elections. It just won't die

Crosswalk.com - Bush, GOP Labeled 'Thieves' Who 'Need to be Locked Up'. Once again, from the left we hear about two "stolen" elections. This time it is from the black "leadership" and actor Harry Belafonte. The way to fire up the crowd is to claim the election was stolen. Let's see, the first was stolen by the evil Bush cabal going into three heavily democratic counties in Florida and somehow convincing the democratic leaders to make the ballots hard to read. The second, which Bush won handily, was stolen by the fact that those who showed up in Ohio had to stand in line. On the first election, the crowing was about the popular vote. Seems the left realized that we don't elect based on national popular vote in the in the US and haven't for a couple of hundred years. Or, maybe it was just that Bush won by a mere 3 million "national popular" votes.

The other piece in this diatribe is the strangest part. Let a black move to high office in a Republican administration and they get the full attack. Something about the black liberals just really not liking it when any of their own leave the liberal plantation.

ACLU's 30 year war

The ACLU's 30 Years War by Scott Johnson (Powerline has an excellent piece on the on-going war on Scouting waged by the ACLU. Johnson is much too nice about the ACLU. I was in Scouting off and on for a very long time. I was a Life Scout and, much later, an adult leader.

Some of the finest boys and adults were part of Scouting. The long-time Scoutmaster of the troop was also President of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. He was one of the finest people I've known. One of the adult leaders got into Scouting because, while in the military, he ran across a kid, who had nothing, but tried to start a Scout Troop without adults. Ted got involved and was, for the rest of his life, an avid supporter of Scouting because of that young man.

My Troop was not the best in town. But, with hard work by the kids and some very dedicated adults, we managed to have more than our share of Eagle Scouts. Those are young men who, not only show up and have fun earning a few merit badges, but show leadership, committment to service, and have the drive and gumption to set goals and complete them. If you pooh-pooh the leadership thing, try leading a bunch in a volunteer organization. Try it as a kid leading a bunch of other kids.

I was always more impressed with the kids who showed up scared and helpless on the first campout and had confidence grow from the first fire they built and the first edible meal they cooked. I enjoyed the fun they had learning the mysteries of knots, map reading, first aid and other Scout things. Our troop did a number of "Wilderness Survival Merit Badge" campouts. We always did them in the late fall. We could count on cold, snowy wet weather. The kids loved the challenge and wanted more of it.

Yes, we did the "Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind..." "Do a good turn daily" "on my honor ...." things. Yes, we meant every word of it. However, if you live the Scout oath, law and motto, you don't have to get very strident about the words. The troop expected its members to live up to those things. The Troop expected its members to show leadership. The kids usually lived up to the Troop's expectations. I learned a long time ago that people will live up (or down) to your expectations. There are a couple of young men who probably would have been in jail before the end of high school had it not been for Scouting. Instead they turned into excellent leaders, good students and exemplary young men.

One of my favorite Scouts was a young man with speech and learning disabilites. Scouting helped is other schooling by giving him something concrete to work for. When I first started, we spent hours learning how to build a fire for First Class. When I left he had earned the Rank of Eagle and was working on his third palm. Joe made it with no "gimmes." Just a dedicated effort from the young man and dedicated work from several adults. Joe could get there, it just took him a bit longer than most folks. He gave more to the rest of us, than we ever gave him.

I get steamed every time I hear about the latest assault by the ACLU on Scouting. For more than 100 years, Scouting has been a positive force in many young lives. I fail to understand why the ACLU wants to destroy, or remold it in their on image. How many government social programs have tried to do half as much as Scouting has done with volunteers? How many of the social programs have succeeded, much less lasted?

Scouting gets all this done and keeps the one element none of these social programs seem to come up with. Good Scouting makes it fun. If they don't the kids find something else to. How many in the ACLU would take a group of kids 12-18 years old for a week on the Appalachian trail with all they eat, wear, use on their backs. How many would do it with 2-3 adults? Hell, how many of the attackers of Scouting would go camping monthly with a group of kids, and the kids are responsible for food and activities? Happens regularly in Scouting and no one thinks its exceptional.

Yep, we surely don't need programs like that.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

The Tyranny of the Left

NCAA - NCAA Executive Committee Issues Guidelines for Use of Native American Mascots at Championship Events

Eightteen schools cannot use the team mascots or names in post-season play, according to the Committee for Thought Control at the NCAA. Among those teams are the Florida State "Seminoles" whose use of the name has been approved by the Florida Seminoles. The College of William and Mary (The Tribe) has a year extension for self reflection. I will be in that area in a week and eagerly anticipate seeing the campus contemplating their navels. And, by the way, the Indians in the area approve of the use of "The Tribe" by William and Mary.

This does not deter the NCAA. Members of the board for the Control of Social Thought know best. The name and mascot of the school should be up to the school, not some board meeting in Indianapolis whose members are not associated with the school. This is a fine example of academic freedom on today's college campi: "we will tell you how to think, what to think and when to think it"

Well, no matter how hard they try, I still don't love Big Brother.

Friday, August 05, 2005

More should walk off the set

Print Story: Novak Apologizes for Swearing on CNN Air on Yahoo! News. It is hard to see why Novak apologized. It is easy to see why CNN suspended him. Although Novak has been on Crossfire longer than I can remember and Crossfire has been around much too long, it is time that a stop is put on the liberals' effort to start talking and nver shut up. How many "yell" shows or "fair and balanced" interviews from opposing sides have you watched and seen the lib start talking fast and then just not shutting up to allow the other side to express an opinion. Crossfire did this and Novak just got fed up.

For us in the great unwashed, we just stop watching programs like that. If the guests have really anything to contribute, then courtesy demands that they be given a chance to express that viewpoint. This is not part of the liberal agenda. It is to keep spouting the talking points and never let the opposition get a word in.

Great Time to buy a Tahoe

FT.com / Markets / Commodities - Cocktail of concerns push crude to new highs

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

I thought it was a joke

The Democratic slam on Bush the exercise fanatic was put out by "Josh Earnest" I thought he was just Joshing. Turns out to be real enough to make the news. Well, I suppose we can't exercise unless Big Brother controls it. Does anyone really take these yoyo's seriously? Is the DNC vying for the "Idiot of the year" title?

Wonder if we will see Chappaquiddick Ted out exercising under the auspices of a Federal nanny?

The Big Bolton hoo-ha

The family check on the importance of the Bolton appointment was 67% "who cares" and one abstention. The abstention was at music lessons and couldn't be questioned. I don't think Bolton is the be-all or the end of all whether he is confirmed or simply done by recess appointment. The only ones who seem to care are the Dems, who are totally against Bush and want to embarrass him at every turn and the Republicans who are getting a bit tired of the games.