May you live as long as you love ‘n’ laugh and love ‘n’ laugh as long as you live.
Be excellent to one another.
Monthly Archives: December 2005
So…..
We’re back. Exhaustive posting to follow, after recovery from 2-day drive along IH-10 and 8 across substantial portions of four western states between San Antonio and San Diego… with a dog. Did we miss anything interesting? Don’t everyone chime in at once….
Georgia Guardsmen instrumental in saving baby
I don’t know if y’all have heard about this - it’s making the local news because it’s a GA National Guard company.
I ran across it on a couple blogs earlier this week, but forgot to say anything. Basically, a company of Guardsmen, whilst patrolling a city looking for insurgents, came into a house with a sick child, who had what appeared to be a huge tumor on her back. Turns out she was born with Spina Bifida, and the doctors there said she wouldn’t last 45 days. Well, she’s about 3 months old now, and thanks to our servicemembers and some generous doctors, corporations, and aid groups, she’s coming to Atlanta to have corrective surgery, FOR FREE.
A friend of mine said they were showing her on the news (last night?) and the grandmother (grandma and papa are traveling with the little one) was rocking her, in her lap at the airport, and calling her “Georgia.”
Without the surgery, her days are numbered. With it, she has a chance at a functional life, although most likely in a wheelchair.
Oh – I remembered where I first read about her – at OpinionJournal’s Best of the Web, where they were wondering if this was what he meant when Senator Kerry said that US troops are terrorizing children in Iraq. James Taranto was referencing CNN, so maybe y’all *have* heard about it.
UPDATE: She arrived in Atlanta this evening, and her first surgery is scheduled for Jan 9.
JSF Development Money Cut
This from Aero-News:
Department of Defense representatives told Bloomberg News Friday the Pentagon plans to end a development program for a backup powerplant for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF.)
The move — which would have to be approved by Congress — aims to save approximately $1.7 billion through 2011, according to a DoD memo released last week. That’s not a small amount of money by any means — but it is a relative drop in the bucket compared to the $256 billion total cost of the fighter jet development program.
The backup program was initiated by Congress in 1995, according to Bloomberg, with the intent of maintaining competition and, thus, lowering costs of the Pratt & Whitney-designed powerplant intended to be the primary engines for the JSF. In a $2.2 billion deal, GE and Rolls-Royce teamed up to develop a backup powerplant — which also would have been utilized had technical problems cropped up with the P&W F135 units (below).
This would seem to me to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Single-sourcing on any major component is just never a good idea. Even if there are no technical problems with the Pratt & Whitney design, any of myriad problems can develop to disrupt supply over the decades which this aircraft is expected to be in service. And I don’t believe, on a program of this size, any economies-of-scale will be realized by giving the entire production to one supplier.
My feeling, however, is that this cutback will not last. General Electric simply has to much clout in Congress (and Rolls-Royce in Parliament) to be nudged-out without a major fight.
But, as Military.com reports here, engine development is not the only part of the program facing cutbacks:
The plan would scale back the Pentagon’s requested JSF research, development, testing and engineering funding level by $108 million. The Senate-passed appropriations bill called for a larger $270 million reduction. The House’s defense spending bill fully funded the Pentagon’s $2.4 billion JSF RDT&E request.
The report accompanying the conferees’ FY-06 defense appropriations bill contains no language explaining the JSF reduction. But in a separate September report on the version of the defense spending Legislation that was later approved by the full chamber, the Senate Appropriations Committee said “continuing uncertainties” surround the joint Air Force-Navy program, making it “difficult to estimate the resources needed for the program.”
I find it a bit unsettling that these “continuing uncertainties” exist this far into the program. But it would seem to me that cutting development money would only hinder their resolution.
Caption This One (051230)
Wizbang’s got proof that not all members of the bin Laden clan are worthless.
Rodney’s finally given up the Santa references and is back to…politics as usual.
And a question for you regulars. Do you WANT me to pick a winner or are you okay with my just letting it fade away?
and one more, before I head out to lunch
Just read this on Yahoo! News….
The National Guard has found a way to help out its soldiers who were affected by Katrina. If the soldiers’ job is gone due to Katrina, they can extend their active duty time (up to one year), and work on rebuilding projects, including an NG headquarters building in New Orleans.
So far, over 200 LA Guardsmen have signed up, and some MS troops are interested, as well.
PFC Pedro Martin – American Soldier
From Sgt Hook (always one of my fave reads), comes a story he originally posted on Blog Cuba.
If Sgt Hook ever writes a book, I’ll be standing in line to buy one of the first copies.
Pedro Martin (Originally posted at Val’s Blog Cuba, August 2004).
Private First Class Peter Martin lay on his cot made of an aluminum frame and green nylon, dressed only in his desert camouflage trousers and a brown t-shirt and tan suede combat boots. His blouse hung on a hook fashioned out of 550 cord and an expended 7.62 shell casing tied to a section of the tent’s metal frame. He lay on his back, with his hands behind his head, staring at the canvas ceiling, tiny rays of sunlight piercing the many holes in the tent, waiting. He’s been there waiting for three days now while his platoon was on patrol in the village to the east of their forward operating base. The tent flapped violently in the wind and dust settled on everything. Pete Martin tired of waiting and tired of the heartache he felt within.
He had joined the Army just less than two years ago, shortly after the events of September 11, 2001. He signed on to be an infantryman, he loved being an infantryman. The day that he raised his right hand taking an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies was one of the proudest moments in his life, he was twenty-one years old at the time. He had trained hard after enlisting, first at Fort Benning’s school for boys during the Army’s basic training, then with his unit at Fort Campbell, Kentucky before coming to Afghanistan two months ago.
Christmas Cheer
Blonde Sagacity posts about a special train ride – no, it wasn’t the Polar Express. It was more special than that. The complete article can be found here.
It seems that last year a certain Philadelphia gentleman and his wife were sad when they thought about the troops who were stuck at Walter Reed and Bethesda, recovering from wounds received overseas. So this year, they decided to do something about it.
Since the gentleman in question owns a few luxury rail cars, he hooked up with other luxury rail car owners, and they ran a special train to the Army/Navy football game. Luxury cars, gourmet meals, seats on the 50-yard line, corporate goodie bags, and each military member was allowed to bring a guest (the Marines chose to forego the guests, so that more Marines could attend). The guests got goodie bags, too. There were no press on the train, no politicians, and no “pentagon suits” so the troops could just enjoy themselves.
Probably the part of the article that hit me the hardest was towards the end. The author was detailing the reactions of the philanthropists and their guests, and it was wonderful to read. I especially liked this paragraph:
The most poignant moment for the Levins was when 11 Marines hugged them goodbye, then sang them the Marine Hymn on the platform at Union Station.
“One of the guys was blind, but he said, ‘I can’t see you, but man, you must be f—ing beautiful!’ ” says Bennett. “I got a lump so big in my throat, I couldn’t even answer him.”
It’s been three weeks, but the Levins and their guests are still feeling the day’s love.
“My Christmas came early,” says Levin, who is Jewish and who loves the Christmas season. “I can’t describe the feeling in the air.”
Give me back my damned party!
God help us all. B Dubya is in the house. Crazy old coot…
Once upon a time, when I was very young and living in Washington State, my family was Democrat, and had been since WWI.
I remember John Kennedy’s inaugural. I especially remember this line: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” I have always translated that to mean that we would stand by our friends and allies and visit seven kinds of hell on our enemies and let God do the worrying about the body counts. That was the Democratic Party I knew right up until 1972. And then the left wing of the party hijacked the bus and ran Eugene McCarthy (I’m personally glad the old bastard is dead).
Jack Kennedy may have been a flawed human being, but by God, he acted on the beliefs he swore to us, “For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed…….” and I believe he was sincere. He took us all to the brink of nuclear war over Cuber and he was prepared to take the next step. Khrushchev wasn’t, had miscalculated the metal of the man, and realized that the Soviet Union could not survive unless the Soviet Premier blinked, and so backed down.
The assassination and the Johnsonian presidency led us to Viet Nam, where we found that we really weren’t willing to live up to Kennedy’s admonition to the world. Instead, we got MSM trading on defeatism for larger market share and the collapse of will in the Democratic ranks of the west and north. Instead of Ed Murrow, we got Walter Cronkite. Instead of Harry Truman, we got LBJ bleating that he would not run for a 2nd term after he’d spent his entire political life trying to be what he wasn’t the right stuff for, President of the United States.
No person who earns less than $750,000 (adjusted for inflation..) per annum has any business being a Republican, not since before Hoover.
Here is my political wish list for a party of Democracy:
I want my party back from the self loathing, cringing, defeatist, collaborating left that has made it too sickening to be associated with. That includes Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, John Dean, and Bill Clinton (though maybe not Hilary) and virtually all of the surviving Kennedy clan…
I want a party that believes that people have rights, and that Corporations are legal constructs, made for generating money only, are not equal to individuals under the law, and that they should be regarded, at best, as predatory creatures and at worst, as amoral enterprises that would seek financial advantage for themselves at the expense of every American liberty or value.
I want a party that pledges to help the poor, the aged, the infirm, widows and orphans in need, but who will tell able persons that they are on their own to live or die as free men and women should.
I want a party that will prosecute war against our enemies without reserve and with all available resource and energy. A party that can recognize friend from foe and that does not give a Tinker’s goddamned what the decadent Old World has to say about it.
I want a party that presents candidates for office who are honest, able to say the hard stuff, and willing to serve if elected, not rule.
Give me a system of taxation that is fair and not one designed to fund the nanny state or maintain the existence of government entities that have had no purpose since the 19th century.
I want a party that believes that if you can’t pay for it, and it’s not vital, you don’t get it.
I want a party that believes that the life of a single US citizen is worth more than the lives of all of our enemies. That believes that wars should be fought to protect American lives and freedoms. That wars can be fought to bring liberty to our friends. A willingness to shed blood for liberty may make our neighbors fear us, perhaps even hate us, but they will certainly be able to guide their future actions toward us so as not to anger us. I personally do not crave the approval of the French, or of the Germans. I only require that they understand what it means to be a friend or a foe of my country.
I will settle for a party that comes remotely close to it. That’s why I am forced to vote as a Republican.
You’ve Got to Laugh (051229)
There was a particularly contrary officer that worked in my area. He wasn’t in my chain of command, but I had to deal with him on a regular basis. His problem: He simply didn’t trust anything enlisted people said. He wanted chapter and verse and a copy of the page where it’s written. And sometimes even when he’s wrong he’ll argue that it didn’t apply to us because we weren’t assigned to the Air Force at the time. He made me tired.
After two plus years and two hours of going around on one issue in particular, I threw up my hands in exasperation and simply said:
“Sir, I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what I say to you, I’m going to be wrong.”
Without any irony whatsoever his response was:
“Now that’s just not true.”
Luckily we were interrupted by one of the older civilian guys dragging me away because he needed something and I didn’t ruin the rest of my time there by laughing in the man’s face.
Just for Fun…
go to the NSA’s official website and read their mission statements and outline of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). Hell, dig through the whole thing.
Tell me again the kerfuffle? I’m more confused than ever. If the signal orginates overseas from a known bad guy, we’re supposed to ignore it because the guy at this end might be a U.S. Citizen and
a righteous dude?
The Blog Game
Shamelessly stolen from The Venemous One, here’s a list of end of year memes for you all to play with:
1. Who is your candidate for the Biggest Idiot of 2005 (excluding yours truly, of course) and why?
Howard Dean for making it appear that the Democrats truly do hate our country.
2. If you had a time machine, what one event in 2005 would you undo?
Hurricane Katrina.
3. List someone famous (living or dead) who ought to be a blogger and think up a blog title for his/her blog.
John Belushi blogging at, Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
4. Run to your underwear drawer (or wherever you stow your undies) and list all of the things there that are not underwear. (No fibbing!)
Various and sundry laundry tags, a collection of orphan socks and an old Zippo Lighter.
5. List the title (with a link) to the single worst entry you wrote during 2005. (Score extra karma points if you post an entry on your blog linking back to this question.)
I don’t like most of what I write about two days after I’ve written it. Why don’t you all tell me what your least favorite post of mine was?
6. Let’s pretend you’re going to write your autobiography next year. What will it be titled?
The Recruiter Forgot to Mention That
MORE:
7. What did you do in 2005 that you’d never done before?
Shaved my head.
8. What was the best thing you bought?
Toss up between our iPods and the Bose Home Theater.
9. Where did most of your money go?
Paying off debt and getting some things that improved our quality of life.
10. What was your greatest musical (re)discovery?
Led Zepplin. Especially Robert Plant.