Monday, October 30, 2006
Incredible Video
I just ran across this while looking through some trackbacks, idly flipping around the web, but it is simply amazing.
My favorite line: “When the Air Force flies over, it’s important - it’s a show of force. When the Navy steams up, it’s important - it’s a deterrent. When the Army plants its boots on the ground, it’s control.”
It’s 12 minutes long, and the back story can be found here.
Go forth and watch for yourself.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Great math puzzle
I was just skimming through some old stuff and was reminded of an old puzzle first published by Martin Gardner, Super Genius (TM). I know there are some of you who enjoyed the last time I put up a few math puzzles, so here is another one.
I’m told it’s actually very easy.
I’ll give a prize to the first of you to get the correct answer and explain it. (No fair cheating by using a search engine. It should take a single sentence to explain it.)
Ready?
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Brady Laws
What a waste!
Sherman, let’s step into the Way-Back Machine (TM) to a quarter-century ago. Specifically, to March 30, 1981, outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, just after a AFL-CIO luncheon. Outside the hotel waits a crowd of reporters - and a weird young man with a fixation on Jodie Foster.
The new President and his entourage step out into open air and that weird young man steps forward, and fires off six hurried rounds from a .22 caliber revolver - hitting President Reagan, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, DC police officer Tom Delehanty, and White House Press Secretary James Brady.
The other three fully recovered, but Brady was shot in the head and was the most seriously wounded of the four, becoming permanently disabled. He has since campaigned for all kinds of gun control laws, and no one can possibly doubt his dedication or his motivation to that cause.
And who can blame him, eh?
However.....
Thursday, October 26, 2006
It’s raining ash
It’s called the “Esperanza fire”.
There is a fire not far from here (located near Cabazon, about 17 miles WNW of Palm Springs) that started late last night. The sky is almost completely covered with smoke, the sun appears red, and there are ashes falling from the sky.
It’s a chilly 54 degrees, too.
In other news, GDIL underwent a successful grafting operation (skin from her thigh to where her fingers used to be) in preparation for her new prosthetic fingers. According to Grandson, they have looked at several options, and they will be going with the more lifelike skin tone and texture (the fingers even have teeny-tiny little hairs on the backs). She will have more limited functionality than with the more mechanical versions, but since she is involved in fine detail work (being a Gemologist and Jewelry Designer) instead of heavy manual labor, she will be just fine.
She will still be wearing the Halo until about a week before Thanksgiving, with a few weeks of therapy to strengthen the unused neck muscles after that, but she will be back to normal before Christmas. (I use “normal” advisedly, of course, since she was crazy enough to marry into my family in the first place.)
UPDATE: this fire is getting worse. I don’t expect there to be any problem where we are, but it looks to have one of its three “fingers” headed this way, although still several miles away. If we are forced to evacuate, we’ll let you know.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
There Goes The Neighborhood
Wow. One of the coolest shots you’ll see this year.
Some of his commenters seem to report that the POV seems a little low for even LEO (Low Earth Orbit), and they make good points, but it is still an incredibly cool photo nonetheless.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Is there a statute of limitations on Treason?
Let’s see liberals defend this…
Thursday, October 19, 2006
In case you were wondering
Someone has figured out what the consequences of a Democratic Congress will be.
You think I’m kidding? Even though you won’t find much widespread reporting of the occasions on which those leading Democrats have revealed these plans (I know, what liberal media?), the facts are clear.
They will defund the war (that has prevented any attacks on American soil since 9/11), repeal the tax cuts (the ones that have brought us to a 12,000 DJIA), and impeach President Bush for “lying” and for “scientific censorship” regarding global warming, among other things.
Some might be tempted to dismiss the impeachment machinations of John Conyers and the radical Left as little more than fruitless protest by a frustrated, impotent minority against an individual and Administration it hates. After all, legislators often file impractical, non-viable legislation in order to dramatize an issue. But in light of five years’ worth of endless calls by influential Democratic Party politicians and a few left-leaning Republicans to investigate the Bush Administration’s approach to the War on Islamist Terror, H.R. 635-637 must be considered as legislation with a future.
Then there is a detailed impeachment blueprint designed by the Legal Left, and prepared at the direction of John Conyers Jr. called “The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Coverups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance.”
The Constitution in Crisis (CIC) is a 354-page text detailing charge after charge against the Bush Administration. Those charges are divided into two general categories: crimes committed during the planning of the Iraq War and during its prosecution, and crimes involving the Bush administration’s use of anti-terror surveillance programs since it began. In summary, the CIC claims that the entire Iraq War undertaking has been a criminal enterprise based on Bush’s desire to avenge Saddam Hussein’s assassination attempt on his father and to fulfill the desires of “neocons.” In other words, Bush and a predominately Jewish cabal committed crimes by misleading Congress and the American people into war. And during that war they illegally spied on and tortured people.
The Constitution in Crisis states that Bush broke numerous U.S. laws. John Conyers and the Center for Constitutional Rights have drawn up a list of laws allegedly violated by the Bush administration that are contained within the Constitution in Crisis’s pages. They include:
* Committing a Fraud Against the United States (18 U.S.C. 371)
* Making False Statements to Congress (18 U.S.C. 1001)
* War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148)
* Misuse of Government Funds (31 U.S.C. 1301)
* Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.)
* National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. chapter 15)
* Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 222)
* Stored Communications Act of 1986 (18 U.S.C. 2702)
* Pen Registers or Trap and Trace Devices (18 U.S.C. 3121)
* Obstructing Congress (18 U.S.C. 1505)
* Whistleblower Protection (5 U.S.C. 2302)
* The Lloyd-LaFollette Act (5 U.S.C. 7211)
* Retaliating against Witnesses (18 U.S.C. 1513)
* Anti-Torture Statute (18 U.S.C. 2340-40A)
* The War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441)
* Material Witness (18 U.S.C. 3144)All of these are serious charges. Unfounded they may be, but John Conyers would become head of the House Judiciary Committee if the Democrats win in November. And then, not only would he be in position to order investigations of the charges, he would be obligated by his Congressional oath to do just that.
I cannot take a position on any candidate or party, but everyone has the right to be fully aware of exactly what you will be voting for (or sitting at home and NOT voting against).
Just remember one thing: Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.—George Jean Nathan
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Posting’s been light….
...but I have good reason. New job duties, new web-block at work against 95% of the blogs that I like to read, and I bought another investment property, so my days and nights have been accounted for, sir.
However, and note this, I will be live-blogging the election this coming November, even though my Ohio compatriots will, by all evidence, turning out the Republicans by the bushel.
I’m not a Republican, by any means, but the Dems are kinda whacko. Should be fun.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Ever wondered what the main weakness of diplomacy is?
It’s something that every two-year-old on the planet has perfected.
JunkYardBlog has a great classroom exercise to show exactly why diplomacy with the DPRK has always failed miserably.
I can’t even summarize without giving away the ending.
(h/t: Ace O’ Spades HQ)
Saturday, October 14, 2006
On the Subject of Torture
Crack the whip.
The topic of torture seems to be on the hot list of blog topics. I promised that I would write a post about torture as soon as I was done with my training, but I thought it would be a good idea to write a quickie post about the topic as I’m still in training and the light at the end of the training tunnel is still not shining brightly in my face. Interviewing, interrogating, investigating, and coming to conclusions is what I do for a living – I’m pleased to say that I receive a paycheck to get to the bottom of crimes and hopefully prevent people from getting hurt. A big portion of my job involves coming to conclusions. Conclusions are the most important part of any investigations. You can’t move forward without concluding what direction to go.
Finding the direction that your investigation is going to take you in is what every investigator looks for and attempts to decipher on the journey we undertake. I don’t think there are many people in the world who understand what it’s like to participate in a terrorist investigation, myself included. I know what it’s like to work on some hardcore criminal investigations, but it’s hard to imagine what it would be like to be in the shoes of the investigators who are responsible for saving a nation, versus those of us who are doing our best to get gang members off the streets of Southern California. It’s a totally different monster with different time restraints.
Which brings us to torture – does it work? In a nutshell, it doesn’t. But I would be hard pressed to say that anything the United States is doing is, or would be considered under most homeland or international laws, to be considered torture.
Here are a few scenarios. You tell me which one(s) would be considered torture:
1. An investigator needs to find a kidnapped girl. During an interrogation of the most probable suspect, the investigator has the air conditioning in the room turned off, shines bright lights in the face of the suspect, and wanders in and out of the room, giving the suspect the impression that some form of impeding doom is imminent.
2. An interrogator tells the suspect that there’s a cold prison cell with his name on it, complete with fellow inmates waiting to anally rape him, if he’s found guilty of a named crime.
3. A government interrogator plays loud music, serves cold food, and allows short amounts of sleep time to a suspect who has information about a terrorist act.
4. An investigator holds a chain saw inches away from a roped suspect’s leg, dipping and cutting into the suspect’s leg between question and answer sessions in order to force a response from the suspect.
5. An investigator and his partners hold a suspect down at an angle, head facing toward the ground, and pour water down the suspects body to give the suspect the impression that he might be drowning. The suspect is in no physical harm, but the mental aspects of the action result in a confession from the suspect.
Read through all of those scenarios, and think long and hard about them. I wrote those on the fly and with very little time, so they’re not the best in the world. But all in all, they serve a purpose and cover all of the avenues.
Ready?
While a few of those scenarios definitely would not be allowed by any domestic law enforcement agency, they’re available for use by covert groups and definitely work. The fact of the matter is they are not considered to be torture, either. The only one of the above scenarios that would be considered torture would be scenario number four, because the investigator caused physical harm and pain to the detainee.
It’s a good rule of thumb that if the method of interrogation would be considered mayhem (by legal definition), then it would be considered torture. Water boarding, a common form of interrogation (while not something that I would do because it gives the suspect the impression that he or she is dying, which is guaranteed to pull a reliable confession) isn’t torture.
There’s a fine line that separates interview, interrogation, and torture, and I honestly do not believe that any of the published incidents that claim to be torture are actually torture. The reason I do not believe torture works is because humans, by design, will say anything and claim to be a purple giraffe if it means the pain they are enduring will stop. Terrorist, by design, can put up with a boatload of the mental games that interrogators put them through. They’re not the housewife on the corner who will snap, cry, and end up in psychotherapy if you accuse them of a crime and tell them that their entire family will sit-by and watch as they rot in prison and end up as the ass-wife of another inmate, they can stand-by and take more mental stress than most people who read this blog.
The military and most law enforcement academies put their recruits through a severe amount of mental strain. This prepares them for the action they’re going to face on the battlefield and on the mean streets of the United States, and more importantly, allows them to become accustomed to the insane amounts of mental stress that a face-to-face incident with the enemy (i.e. a terrorist, a gang member, or the like) will put them through. Terrorists go through a similar type of training, and on top of that, are brainwashed from birth to believe that keeping their mouth shut and not responding to evil infidels will guarantee them a La-Z-Boy with 72 virgins when they reach heaven.
In closing, do I believe what the United States is doing would be considered torture? No, it’s simply interrogation. Do I believe torture works? Not at all, not one bit, and I think it’s completely useless. It elicits false confessions and leads to dead ends that could be used to solve crimes and/or terrorist actions.
UPDATE by Drum: More ‘torture’ examples
The So-Called Conservative Media
I gotta admit, Liberal Larry makes a good point. When all you have on your side are these guys, it’s no wonder they feel like they’re getting the short end of the stick.
Go read.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Do you notice a difference?
I’ve cut a lot of the function calls to other sites in the left column. If JimK would be willing to lend me a bit more of his superlative technical expertise, we might go for a redesign so that content comes up before the “less worthwhile” stuff in the left column. I’ve got DSL and the page loads within just a few seconds for me, so I never really thought about it.
If you notice a difference, please leave a comment telling what kind of connection you have to the intertubes, how long it now takes to load and how long it used to take.
Counting up to 300,000,000
According to the Census Bureau, the United States will have its 300 millionth resident (whether a new birth or immigrant) sometime Tuesday morning (here is a real-time population clock).
For those of you who are impressed by that number, please remember that it only took China a mere 23 years to add that many people (China had just passed the one billion mark in 1982, and now stands at approximately 1.325 billion), and there are three hundred million more people added to the population of the planet every four years.
Still, it’s an intriguing milestone.
In other news: Bwahahahahahaha!
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
You think that we should Cut and Run?
Or how did they put it? Ah, yes… “terminate military operations and immediately redeploy over the horizon”
I know there are a few of you out there. I’d love to hear what possible justifications you could come up with for the inevitable consequences, because someone has actually thought about what those consequences would be.
A continued U.S. military presence cannot ensure success in Iraq unless Iraqis cooperate in building an effective government, but a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. support would unquestionably guarantee failure, with disastrous results for Iraq, its neighbors, and U.S. national interests. The only winners would be an expansionist Iran and an increasingly lethal al-Qaeda.
But I won’t have it be said that I don’t offer opposing viewpoints a chance. Feel free to tell me - and all of us - exactly why withdrawing from Iraq would be more beneficial to the United States, Iraq, the Middle East, our allies in the region and around the world.
If you can.
Breaking---Plane Crash
There is a report that a small plane has hit the upper floors of a New York apartment building. WABC broke it a few minutes ago. I’m on a PDA, so I can’t link right now, but I will continue to monitor the situation.
3:06 PM--Drudge is saying that it was a helicopter...Fox News Radio is also saying that it was an ‘undetermined’ type of aircraft. However, it looks accidental.
3:15--Again, sorry about the link, but Little Green Footballs has a screen capture of the damage. Had to be a very small aircraft. No report of injuries as of yet.
3:20--Maybe this is proof of my mindset, but did you notice the date is 10-11? 9-11, 3-11....I hope I am wrong....
3:28--per Pajamas Media, there are two confirmed dead and an unknown number trapped above the fire, which is on the 20th floor.
3:33--Hotair.com is all over it as well, telling us that the FBI is sending counter-terrorism teams to the site. Witnesses say the plane lost altitude. Allah (at Hotair) says it might have been a stall, and that would fit the description given, but the fog of war hasn’t cleared yet.
3:40--WNBC is saying that a law enforcement officer told them that the plane made a sharp turn towards the building. Also, the USAF has scrambled fighters over several cities.
3:47--WNBC is reporting that the NYFD has fully contained the fire, and that there is no damage to the structural integrity of the building.
3:54: Pieces of fixed-wing aircraft found at the base of the building. plus a body still strapped in a seat. I’ll update later.
7:40--Dear Lord, what you miss when the power goes out. We had a little tornado in the area, so I was away from thye computer for the duration of the storms, and I read this (I still can’t link...go here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061011/D8KMM7OG1.html ) . Go ahead and comment and discuss.