Month: June 2010

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Reflections on D-Day – 66 Years Later

June 6, 2010 by

June 6, 1944

So many years now, and so many with the memories of that day now gone. We look back on D-Day and the other horrific set-piece battles of World War 2 with an air of unreality, through goggles of the omnipresent media…perhaps the epic celluloid battles against the Sith or the dinosaurs of Jurrasic Park are more “real” to us than our fathers’, or our grandfathers, great sacrifices. As Americans, I believe we cannot look back at D-Day, at the Second World War, without a sense of utmost reverence, a profound sense of the power of good to triumph over evil even in the face of unimaginable pain, suffering and death.

Excellent post from Michael Bane on the 66th anniversary of D-Day. Read the whole thing.

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Sometimes Old-Fashioned Methods are More Reliable

June 6, 2010 by

Glitch shows how much US military relies on GPS

DENVER (AP) – A problem that rendered as many as 10,000 U.S. military GPS receivers useless for days is a warning to safeguard a system that enemies would love to disrupt, a defense expert says.

The Air Force has not said how many weapons, planes or other systems were affected or whether any were in use in Iraq or Afghanistan. But the problem, blamed on incompatible software, highlights the military’s reliance on the Global Positioning System and the need to protect technology that has become essential for protecting troops, tracking vehicles and targeting weapons.

“Everything that moves uses it,” said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, which tracks military and homeland security news. “It is so central to the American style of war that you just couldn’t leave home without it.”

GPS, whether hand-held or in the car, is a wonderful tool. However, as the quote from the article above illustrates, GPS is technology dependent and can fail when you need it the most. The ability to read a map and use a compass are skills that everyone needs to learn.

I am blessed with a good sense of direction as well as geographic memory (I remember places where I’ve been). That said, the skills I learned in the Boy Scouts on how to read a map and how to integrate a compass with that map have been invaluable.

Books such as Bjorn Kellstrom’s Be Expert with Map and Compass: The Complete Orienteering Handbook and David Seidman’s The Essential Wilderness Navigator: How to Find Your Way in the Great Outdoors, Second Edition are good starting points on how to learn to use a map and compass.

Among the compasses that I own include a Suunto M-2 and a Brunton 15-DCL. However, virtually any compass from Suunto, Brunton, or Silva is good. I don’t have experience with the military lensatic compasses so I can’t speak to them.

So for under $10 for a compass and a trip to your public library, you can get started learning how to reduce your dependence on technology that can fail when you need it the most.

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Apollo 13, the Gulf Oil Spill, and BP

June 6, 2010 by

Harrison Schmitt, former astronaut, Senator, and geologist, has written a very perceptive article contrasting how NASA reacted to the Apollo 13 disaster and how BP and Obama are reacting to the Gulf oil spill.

Mr. Tony Hayward, CEO of British Petroleum, has again used the 1970 Apollo 13 experience as analogous to the effort to contain and cap the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama’s administration’s and the supportive media have done the same, repeatedly. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The response after an oxygen tank explosion in the Apollo 13 spacecraft on its way to the Moon illustrates how complex technical accidents should be handled. It stands in sharp contrast to the Gulf fiasco. Solve the problem first; then investigate objectively; apply the lessons; and then, if absolutely necessary, worry about responsibility.

Nothing in the government’s response to the blowout explosion on the Deepwater Horizon and its aftermath bears any resemblance to the response to the Apollo 13 situation by NASA and its mission control team at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

Read the rest.

You can solve the problem quickly or you can assign blame quickly. Unfortunately, for the residents of the Gulf states – and indeed for all Americans – the Obama Administration (and other politicians) are more interested in the latter than the former.

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Padding the Jobs Report Numbers

June 5, 2010 by

Inspector General’s Memo: Census Says It Hired More Workers Than It Needed As a ‘Cost-Saving Measure’

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Census purposefully hired more workers than it needed, telling the Office of the Inspector General of the Commerce Department that it did so as a “cost-saving measure,” according to a memorandum that Todd J. Zinser of the inspector general’s office sent to Census Bureau Director Robert Groves last week.

If the Obama Administration thought the financial markets would react well to the padding of the jobs numbers, they were sadly mistaken. On Friday, all the major stock indices were down by over 3% with the Dow Industrials losing 323 points. Even bonds were down on the news. The only thing that went up was gold. Go figure.

Anyone who thought that stock traders would just look at the aggregate numbers of the jobs report and not delve a little deeper into composition is a fool. When 411,000 out of 431,00 “new jobs” are due to the U.S. Census, it does not mean the US economy is expanding. Stunts like this may have worked in Chicago but it doesn’t work for the rest of the world.

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Homes Owners in Chicago -Two; Crooks – Zero.

June 4, 2010 by

Yet Another Chicago Resident Defies Gun Ban, Shooting a Home Invader!

Fortunately for the home owner, there is this (though the home owner will have to deal with Mayor Daley’s moaning and groaning):

The Illinois Legislature addressed city gun bans after Hale DeMar shot a home invader in the Gun Free Zone of Wilmette, IL. This makes it nearly impossible for police to charge people violating the gun ban if the gun/s are discovered after a self-defense incident.

ILLINOIS LAW:

(720 ILCS 5/24-10)

Sec. 24-10. Municipal ordinance regulating firearms; affirmative defense to a violation. It is an affirmative defense to a violation of a municipal ordinance that prohibits, regulates, or restricts the private ownership of firearms if the individual who is charged with the violation used the firearm in an act of self-defense or defense of another as defined in Sections 7-1 and 7-2 of this Code when on his or her land or in his or her abode or fixed place of business.

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Hunting Grounds for Psychopaths

June 3, 2010 by

Kurt Hofmann in the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner asks the right question concerning Great Britain: how much more restrictive can its gun laws get?

In a land with the most draconian gun control laws, where the populace is virtually disarmed and at the mercy of thugs and loonies, where the people are actively discouraged by force of law from defending themselves, to propose any new “gun control measures” is absolutely ludicrous. I think the UK’s new PM David Cameron might actually understand that.

A few years ago Massad Ayoob said “So-called gun-free zones are nothing but hunting preserves for psychopaths that hunt humans.” The tragedy in Cumbria, England proves him right yet again.

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Let Them Eat Cake – Haitian Style

June 3, 2010 by

From NRO’s The Corner:

Four months after a devastating earthquake ripped apart their country, the people of Haiti are still suffering, so you’d think a multi-million-dollar donation of vegetable seeds would be welcome news. But two Haitian groups, backed by the activist group Grassroots International, are urging farmers to do the unthinkable: burn the donated seeds.

Go here to read the full story.

I am a big supporter of heirloom seeds but this is ridiculous. Hybrid seeds have a place and this certainly is one of them.