Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

60-123 Goes to Final Parking

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

Another’s one gone. After 47 years the photogenic B-52H tail-number 61-023 (a.k.a “Ten-23″) flew its last sortie. Kind of a sad day for those of us who were fortunate enough to have flown her. She’s the first of 18 B-52s the Air Force is removing from the bomber force. When the cutting is done, we’ll only have 76 B-52s to carry on. I could talk about force-structure but instead let me tell you a story about the old girl.

Most bomber aviation connoisseurs already know about Ten-23 losing her tail when Chuck Fisher went looking for mountain-wave turbulence over Colorado in 1964.

If you’re not familiar with the story, you can get a good review of it on Boeing’s web page or Ed Marek’s “Talking Proud” with more details and some nice pictures.

In a nutshell, the vertical tail was snapped off. The crew almost bailed, but using skill and cunning they were able to recover the aircraft. I’m glad they did, because I flew that particular jet several times during my service.
Here’s a few details from one those. I never kept very good personal logs, but I think this happened on Ten-23.

I had just finished the Central Flight Instructor Course (CFIC) back in the mid-1980s. Lt Colonel Tom Ellers, my squadron commander, was evaluating me. He wanted to know if he could trust me as an instructor pilot (IP). Most aspiring IPs would have flown a conservative mission–but I just couldn’t roll like that at the time.

We had a fighter v bomber event planned on that day. We started mixing it up with the F-4 Phantom with Colonel Ellers supervising from the IP seat–which is between and slightly behind the two pilots ejection seats.
Fighters usually come at you in pairs. But on this day, one of the F-4s had problems. We were one verses one (1v1). Better for us.

I know that sounds silly to the needle-nose drivers, but back in the 1980s the B-52H had a fire-breathing 20 millimeter gatling-gun of a stinger. You didn’t have to like us, but you had to honor our tails. And while our ECM suite didn’t compare to what the BUFF has today, it sure as heck could handle the trons of an F-4.

So for a single F-4 to get a kill on a Buff, he needed a special-blend of skill and luck.

After a few failed attempts to get us, he moved in for a close-range gun-pass on us. My gunner wanted him, but he had settled in our four o’clock high. A B-52 pilot can’t see that spot from the left seat because of the cockpit design. Fortunately, we’re issued a copilot when we go fly. That day I had “Smokin Joe” McBrearty in the right seat. He was keeping close tabs the F-4.

The F-4 matched our velocity, preparing to make a raking gun-pass across the top of old Ten-23. But we weren’t going to just hang there and let him have his way with us. As soon as he committed to the diving left turn–I banked hard to the right and then pulled up.

Colonel Ellers was a little concerned about my aggressiveness, but not nearly as much as the F-4 driver was. A speeding freight-train was headed for him and he was standing on the tracks. What could he do?

Yep. He had to move, which made him abandon his gun-pass. No longer the hunter. He pushed his nose over and dove under us. As he did that, I reversed our turn. Then rolled into his six o’clock, probably just inside of 2000 feet away. Way too close for his comfort. He was now the prey.

Imagine his surprise. Embarrassing. What could he do?

He pushed in some power and pulled up into steep climb. So did I. We weighted less than 250,000 pounds at the time, which is very lightweight for the Buff. As his energy ran out, he converted into a lazy-eight. I followed him.
I’m sure he was irritated when he saw us follow him up, over and then started down with him. But not as much as when I made the call, “Guns, guns, guns. Splash one Phantom.”

And you’re right. The Buff didn’t have forward firing guns–not even then. But it really sounded cool at the time. In my years of flying that followed, I taught that maneuver to a few Buff pilots. Warning–it won’t work on the new fighters, unless they really get stupid on you.

What happened to the F-4? Well, he converted into a split-S and the day was over for the F-4. He RTB’d, but we still had some adventures left.

I went on to make a series of overly-aggressive decisions, all of which were debriefed in the sober atmosphere of Colonel Ellers’ office that evening. But that’s what colonels are for–helping aggressive captains mature into dependable instructors.

I could share the details of how I almost ran out of fuel later on that same sortie, but not today. The low-fuel story is not nearly as much fun as one about shooting down a fighter. But it would be more fun than hearing about another reduction in our heavy-bomber force structure.

Seventy-six B-52s. Sixty B-1s. Twenty B-2s. That’s all our heavy bombers. All.

Global war in progress. Enemies like Venezuela acquiring modern weapons and rattling sabers. Nuclear weapons being developed in Iran. How long can we trust North Korea to behave? What is China thinking–planning? Is Russia really talking about putting forces in Cuba?

Seems like we need more heavy-bombers–not less.

It just makes sense.

The 8888 Uprising

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

We’re fast approaching the 20th anniversary of an infamous massacre of people who were protesting against socialist rule. And yet, the majority of Americans won’t even notice.

However, the United States government is well aware of what has been going on in the country calling itself Myanmar since 1989. Last week, President Bush extended our import ban on Burma. The goal of our sanctions is to convince the military dictatorship to stop suppressing democracy and to release Noble Peace Prize winner Dr. Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

She is the daughter of General Aung San. He’s basically the George Washington of modern-day Burma. Following WWII, he led the negotiations with the United Kingdom which resulted in the establishment of the fledgling democracy. Life was good. But democracy was strangled in 1962.

General Ne Win led the coup which transformed the once prosperous nation into a beggar. He set up “the Burmese Way to Socialism” which extinguished the flame of economic freedom and banished Chinese and Indian businessmen. Officially, he stepped down from power in 1988–but ruled in a veil of obscurity until his death in 2002. During that period he transformed the government with a strong hand into one with an iron fist.

Myriad people demonstrated in the streets. Some say it was chaos, but the students and monks used peaceful tactics. Their civil-disobedience was countered with cold steel and hot lead on August 8, 1988. Some reports say more than 3000 people were killed, the junta counters that only a few were killed. You’ll have to decide who you believe.

Regardless of how many were killed during the 8888 Uprising, it didn’t stop the movement toward freedom. The National League for Democracy (NLD) won the 1990 election with a landslide. The only problem was that the junta refused to step down. It seems they had a monopoly on guns–no second amendment over there. Its hard to argue with a government that doesn’t mind shooting its citizens.

Americans learned that lesson in the 1770 Boston Massacre. History records that those demonstrators were not all that peaceful. And only five were killed. But it was enough to help fuel the movement that resulted in the American Revolution. Of course, Burma’s struggle is not over.

In September 2007, the government suppressed protests over fuel prices by killing at least 13 and arresting throngs of people. Since then, government thugs continue to roll through houses and monasteries to arrest anyone they think is associated with the pro-democracy movement. Most Americans didn’t hear much about Burma/Myanmar until May 2008.

That was when category-four cyclone Nargis hit Burma at 135 mph. Causing more than $10 billion in damage, it killed more than 100,000–some extreme reports say nearly a million were washed out to sea. The junta initially resisted foreign aid, maybe fearing they might lose their iron-fisted grip on their people. In response, President Bush encouraged the world to condemn Burma’s military leaders. Under diplomatic pressure from all directions, they eventually allowed aid to flow in. And nobody really knows how many people died lacking timely aid. But it had to be more than a few.

The junta does its best to keep reporters out of the country. They say the people’s unrest is caused by foreign media reports and radio broadcasts in exile. But like a bad movie, the current regime uses those old-time despotic favorites: slaughtering, raping, and displacing to control the folks who oppose them.

But still they oppose.

The people in the democracy-movement in Burma will no doubt do something to remember August 8, 1988 on the 20th anniversary of the massacre. Anyone with even a vague familiarity of the military junta’s iron-fisted tactics should not be surprised when the charge to remember the 8888 Uprising is paid in blood.

But of course, that has been the price of freedom throughout the ages.

It just makes sense.

* (August 8, 1988 – a.k.a 08-08-88 – Thus 8888)

A few opinions about the situation in Burma from people much more famous than me:
Jim Carrey on Burma

Sylvester Stallone on Burma

Will Ferrell on Burma

Damian Marley on Burma

Kim Kardashian

Kids R From Jupiter

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

As challenging as it is for a man and woman–who love each other–to get along. It is nearly insurmountable to come to grasp with how to get along with your kids.

Dr John Gray wrote the famous Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus book in 1993. In it he points out some differences between men and women–besides the obvious–and argues that happier relationship can be achieved by acknowledging and accepting them. It sold a lot of copies back then and is still popular today. Some folks say it actually helped their lives. I remember giving it a try back then, but we gave up on it and just decided to have kids. Now if someone could just write a guide on how kids differ from parents, that might be worth reading–if it revealed how to get along with them.

They must be from Jupiter. Think about it.

Jupiter is the most massive planet in the solar system, which is pretty much symbolic of how much the average parents think about their kids. Even as an empty-nester, you can get all dressed up and go out on the town–and what do you talk about?
Your kids. You can’t help yourselves.

Jupiter has four planet-sized moons and at least 59 smaller moons. That would represent all the friends your kids have, that you don’t know about. They have names like Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. They sound like street names for a bunch of other-people’s kids. And your kids spend more time with their friends than they do with you. Just like Jupiter.

According to NASA, Jupiter resembles a star. Most kids believe they are stars–or even superstars. But alas, Jupiter would need to be about eighty-times more massive to actually become a star. Now does that explain it all? Your kids think they’re a star, but they really don’t have what it takes to become one. Yeah, that was mean. So what?

Did you notice the famous red spot? It supposed to be a huge storm. Maybe it represents the anger our kids have because they’re not natural stars. Then again, it might represent the growing popularity of tattooing, piercing and notching–attracting attention through tribal-like marring of their bodies. Or maybe it just represents self-induced chaos. What ever it stands for–it seems like it applies to our kids.

Jupiter’s year is much longer that Earth’s year. Maybe that is why it takes kids five or six years to finish a four-year degree. And because they are in a distant orbit, they take a lot longer to get around the Sun. No matter how much advice you give them, it seems they have to go their own way.

Eventually, they get where they’re going. Maybe it’s all for the better. Jupiter in all likelihood needs to stay where it is.

If Jupiter tried to move in close and share our orbit, there’d probably be some sort of a collision and precious little room left for us. And then nobody would be happy.

It just makes sense.

Just Words

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts” William Shakespeare’s “As You Like it” Act II: Scene VII. As spoken by the character Jaques.*

Famous words. The character Jaques goes on to identify the seven stages of a man’s life in this oft-quoted Shakespeare passage.

But did you see what I did?

I gave credit to the source of those words. I did that because they’re not really mine.

Even though I could have just used them–the copyright limitations expired long ago–there is probably a lot of people who would read them and get the impression that I’m quite the bard. But if I resorted to such deceitful tactics, eventually someone, such as yourself, would read the words only to get the impression that I’m a liar, a cheat, and a thief. But I didn’t do it, so stay with me and I’ll explain where I’m going with this.

When I was merely a teen, I saw the movie Patton starring George C. Scott in the post theater at Fort Lee Virginia. The famous speech to his troops is legendary. It’s been copied and mocked ever since.

America was struggling for good leadership in those days. I remember believing, in my still-growing mind, that George C. Scott was the man we needed to lead our Army. Yes, that sounds silly now. Being young, dumb and whatever else–I was fooled.

That’s not a bad thing for an actor to do to the audience.

The best actors are the ones who are gifted enough to make you actually believe they are the character they are playing. George C. Scott was a brilliant and gifted actor. But he was not like the real George S. Patton. I didn’t learn that until I watched another movie that starred Scott, which was made three-years earlier. It was called the Flim-Flam Man.

Scott played the character Mordecia Jones, who was a con-artist whose motto was “you can’t cheat an honest man.” He was a master of lying, cheating, and stealing–everything that Patton was not. Mordeica Jones was a parasite. I was nearly mortified until I felt my brain grow.
Once again Scott had proved himself to be such a great actor that he touched my soul. Scott’s performance helped me to understand the difference between a man who reads scripts well and looks good on camera from great Americans who have led our nation in times of crisis.

Like everyone, I remember 9-11 well. I was working with in an Air Force command center as the attack on our homeland began. As the event progressed, I was concerned not only about the attack but also because my generals lacked answers. They stopped being generals. They had never been trained for this. Nothing was scripted. In military contingencies they practice checklist procedures over and over–with tutoring as required–until they appear to be as smart and in-control as we’d expect them to be.

But 9-11 was different. Nothing was scripted.

Seeing my senior leaders appear as confused as everyone else was initially disheartening. But it helped me to understand that there is a difference between leaders and great leaders.

Later on that infamous day, Air Force One came to our base. President Bush made an impromptu speech to the nation via our facilities.
Before he left to lead our nation’s reaction to the unprovoked attack, he talked with my generals. I wasn’t in the room, but they came out quickened. Confusion was lifted. They were not afraid. They held their heads high. They looked like generals again. They were generals again.

We are bombarded with propaganda almost daily suggesting our President is a fake, but I know better. My generals know better. George Bush is a great leader.

Now, I told you those stories so I could tell you this.

We have a presidential candidate who often uses other people’s words as his own. Here’s one example. Here’s another. In each of these Obama uses the exact words Deval Patrick used years earlier. Seeing and listening to the recordings next to each other clearly suggest something is wrong. But not everyone agrees it is wrong.

In Obama’s defense, he has said he didn’t steal these words because he was given them by Deval Patrick. They are friends and often swap words, or something like that.

But do you see anything wrong with it?

Maybe. Because it gives the impression when he is speaking that they are his words. He didn’t just put the concept in his own words, he recited the words exactly. If there’s nothing wrong with it, then its more like acting. No, it is acting. Merely reciting a script. Just words. Written by someone else. Practiced. Polished. Until they can fool most of the audience.

When Joe Biden said that Obama was “articulate” it created quite a stir in some circles. The complaint went something like since Obama was a senator–of course he was articulate. In addition, some people considered the comment to be racist. They said that Biden was suggesting Obama was somehow not expected to be able to speak well because he was black. Most Americans know by now that Obama’s father is African and his mother is not. Nevertheless, that word “articulate” is often used to describe Obama’s speech presentations both by conservatives and those who are not.

But how is he under pressure? What happens if his tele-prompter or the mic in is ear malfunctions? Here’s an example. Obama gets lost, unable to complete his presentation when his audio feed is disrupted.

The Bristol Virginia gaffe is not an isolated event. It seems there are more and more of them, but you just don’t see them on the news very often. You don’t hear much about them unless you scan YouTube or listen to talk radio. And if you do, you’d know there has been some discussion that Obama’s speech writers may have borrowed heavily from popular music lyrics for his Berlin performance. Just words.

I think actors are important. What would we do in our spare time without them?

Some folks have argued that Ronald Reagan was an actor, somehow believing the fact meant he should not have been President.  They leave out the fact that he did other things also.  Things like being Governor of California for twelve years.  That trumps the actor experience.  No one in their right mind could believe actors, even ones who pretended to be Presidents on TV or movies, are qualified to be a real president.  It would be like believing Tom Cruise is qualified to be a fighter pilot because he played Maverick in “Top Gun.”  As a more personal example, would you want Alan Alda (a.k.a. Hawkeye Pierce from M.A.S.H) performing emergency surgery on you?

Don’t be misled by practiced words that flow sweetly from the lips of pretenders. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between a flim-flam man and a great leader. But much depends on your ability to do so.

If you fail in that task, the last part any of us play may be that of the disenfranchised citizen; sans money, sans property, sans freedom.

It just makes sense.

*The entire passage is:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy,
with his satchel
And shining morning face,
creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.
And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace,
with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

— (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)

One More Last Chance for Iran

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

Iran is teetering on a political precipice. Very soon it will fall one of two ways.

Iran will either back down or get shut down.

They’ve adopted an anti-civilization stance since their muslim-revolution in 1979. They purged themselves, fought with their neighbors, threaten the world, and sent terrorists to kill the people in many places. They were identified as a charter member of the “Axis of Evil” by the President of the United States. And have been sponsoring the terrorists in the Global War On Terrorism (GWOT). Even with a stack of sins that high, they weren’t on the edge of what is about to happen.

What put them on the brink of doom is their well-publicized effort to acquire nuclear weapons and their public declaration that they will destroy the nation of Israel. Any reasonable reader of the news should be able to deduce that Iran intends to use nuclear weapons against Israel some time after they get them. Since it appears that nothing short of national disintegration will change their minds, the only solution is to deny Iran the ability to possess nuclear weapons.

As much as a nuclear attack on America would bother us, a geographical small nation like Israel couldn’t absorb the attack and expect to recover. Thus is seems that nothing short of national disintegration will prevent them from doing everything they must to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Some say it would be impossible for Israel to succeed with such a mission against Iran.

That’s what some people said prior to the successful 1981 mission against Hussein’s nuclear reactor in Iraq and the surprising 2006 mission against the “secret” nuclear reactor in Syria. While past performance is no guarantee of future results, it does suggest more truth than those who oppose freedom’s war against terrorism.

Suppose Iran doesn’t back down. Suppose Israel decides Iran is about to have functional nuclear weapons. Suppose no other nations shut down Iran. Then one of two things will happen.

The first possible outcome is that Israel once again pulls off the impossible. They destroy the 1000-megawatt nuclear plant at Bushehr and the other two-dozen or so suspected nuclear targets. In the process they out-think and out-fight what ever defensive actions Iran tosses at them. Standing in the rubble of extensive national damage and total embarrassment Iran would have two choices.

Choice one: Cut their losses and back down. Squeal to the UN and complain about the aggression of Israel, producing nothing more than a tongue-lashing for Israel. Israel, believing they saved their own lives, would tacitly accept the short season of talk. Eventually indigenous forces for change inside of Iran would prevail and they would have regime change.

Choice two: Iran squirts out of their borders with their diminutive airpower only to have most, if not all of it converted into smoking holes in the sand. Iran’s neighbors are not likely to give them free-transit of their airspace. Most of Iran’s neighbors are friendly enough with America to request assistance as needed. Having failed in the air, they would try to shut down the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz. After one or two successful attacks against merchant vessels, American air and sea power would neuter Iran’s ability to project power. Civil unrest at the embarrassing turn of events would most likely produce a violent regime change.

Another outcome supposes something different. Suppose Israel’s attack is unable to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Then Iran will most likely use their nuclear weapons on Israel. Maybe even on some of their other neighbors, but certainly against Israel.

Thanks to Jimmy Carter the world has little doubt that Israel has more than 100 nuclear weapons.

Let’s suppose Iran’s nuclear strike on Israel is successful. Israel would have little need for their nuclear weapons after they’ve been wiped off the map. Thus, they would at least give a major portion of their arsenal to Iran. Pointy end first. The parties in the streets of Iran’s major cities would be short-lived. The bowl of death produced by the nuclear shock-waves rebounding off the mountain ranges around Tehran would probably be studied for years by nuclear weapons experts. There would probably be little left of the near 13 million who live there now. But that would be from just one of the more than 100 weapons that would rain down on the Iranians. The small bands of survivors in the less populated areas of Iran would eventually be assimilated by their neighbors as the land became more inhabitable. The ultimate regime change.

The really ugly part of that entire scenario is that it would establish a precedent for using nuclear weapons in war. A pity for twenty-first century humanity, especially after over 60 years of investment by Americans to deter use of such destructive weapons.

But that’s what happens with rogue nations are not convinced to back down.

When will the attack happen?

According to John Bolton, former American ambassador to the UN, the attack will take place between the November 4, 2008 presidential election and swearing in of whoever replaces George W. Bush on January 20, 2009. Thus George W. Bush will be in command of the American response to Israel’s bombing of Iran.

So is all lost?

Not yet. You might have read in the news about the American envoy going to Geneva this week for the Iran nuclear talks. It hasn’t gotten as much attention as the Obama cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker or Jackson’s vulgar language but it’s much more important than either of those.

It is completely out of step with American policy. Presidents have been impeached for less. Yet, the civilized-world’s leader is sending Williams Burns, the third highest-ranking American diplomat to Geneva. The cover story is that he’s there to listen.

Of course we know that diplomats are best at talking, not listening. Is it possible that America is going to give Iran one more last chance? Will Mr. Burns say something like, “Let me help you save yourself from embarrassment, pain, and national suicide. Back down or get shutdown.” Will he? I hope so.

It just makes sense.

Party Pooper

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Five Hundred and Fifty metric tons of yellowcake. That’s a lot.

A metric ton is equal to a little over 2204 pounds. So 550 of them is just on the shy side of 1 1/4 million pounds. Needless to say, over a million pounds of anything is a huge amount. Thus, 550 metric tons of yellowcake is a huge amount of yellowcake.

No joke.

The Canadians bought the huge amount of yellowcake from the Iraqi government. The US military saw to its safe shipment via aircraft then by ship. Canada will process the yellowcake into energy-producing nuclear fuel. Yellowcake even in its raw form is a radioactive hazard. Now this potentially hazardous material is going to be used for good and not for the evil it was intended.

Certainly the former leftist ruler of Iraq, Hussein was his name, never intended for any good to come of his WMD seed. Even with his body digested by worms, the remnants of his nuclear weapons development program still was a threat to civilized people.

Imagine suicide terrorists padding their underwear-bombs with a few pounds of radioactive yellowcake as they went about their dastardly deeds. Now don’t imagine it, because America and its allies have prevented that from happening.

At least that time. At least in that place. America had the leadership with the determination to do what they believed to be the right thing to do. Since Americans were unable to deter Hussein from plotting, preparing, and performing evil, the next best thing was to invade, dispatch his fielded forces, and force a regime change. The criminal had to be stopped.

To have allowed Hussein’s fascist forces to fully develop nuclear weapons for employment against the civilized world would have been criminal on America’s part. Even though the powerful press in America continued to insist there were no WMD in Iraq, even though influential left-bent politician in America continued to call for the impeachment of President Bush, even though evil still stands strong in some rogue nations, America went the distance.

And it worked.

The terrorists invaders have nearly been completely pushed out of Iraq in a war of attrition. The strategic sponsors of the terrorist fielded forces have been mostly untouched, except for the former regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, which were annihilated. Because the people of Iraq recognized Operation Iraqi Freedom as a liberation campaign within the Global War on Terror (GWOT), they joined forces with the civilized nations of the world. Soon Iraq will be cleansed of any large scale terrorist forces. But the GWOT will continue. It’s not over.

If the majority of the well-financed, left-leaning Americans would stop for a moment and realize that the terrorists are not their buddies, not their ideological soul-mates, they are their want-to-be executioners–then the war could end soon. Before that can happen, those same folks will have to understand that Hussein had a huge amount of yellowcake in his basement. He was planning a surprise death day party for a huge amount of people.

George W. Bush was Hussein’s party-pooper. Thank God for George W. Bush.

It just makes sense.

Have Your Rights Been Violated?

Saturday, June 28th, 2008

Very bad stuff. When your rights are violated by the local or state elected officials, appointed officials, or the police. When that happens without interference by a higher legal authority, the only thing left is something akin to:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It’s basically what all those riots in the 1960s were all about. Nearly 50 years later, it’s a blur to most of us. Maybe that is because we’ve been lectured that it was about racial issues. Without a doubt race was involved, but the ultimate issue was whether Americans had rights that could not be legally infringed by local, state, or even federal governments. It took the federal government’s might to intervene in state and city laws to stop and prevent unlawful rights-violations on some of its citizens.

It’s not about democracy. It’s about a constitutional republic, where all citizens are guaranteed certain rights by the law of the land. The law of our land is the Constitution of the United States. It affirms many God-given rights.

Rights like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of petition, the right to legal counsel, the right to keep and bear arms . . .

Did you see that one coming? Either way, here’s the rub.

The Supreme Court recently affirmed that the simple language in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution means what it says.

The part where it says, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” — it took the highest court in the land to decide that it means the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Infringe means to break, limit, or undermine, or to encroach on. This recent ruling means the Second Amendment really applies to the American people. No city, county, parish, borough, district, or state has the legal authority to infringe or deny you the ability to exercise those rights.

Well, it almost means that. The actual ruling was limited to the District of Columbia. So you could say, the Second Amendment is only a right of the people in Washington D.C. — how does that make you feel in San Francisco, Seattle, Shreveport, or South Carolina? I’d guess it might make you a little irritated with this selective ruling stuff.

Imagine if the 1968 Civil Rights Act only applied within the city limits of where demonstrations were held? How silly would that be? If so, discrimination would be legal in most places. But it is not. Because that is not the way we do things in America. Except for with the Second Amendment, it seems.

Even with the limited scope of the ruling, there was much leftist ranting about militia-only applicability, state-rights (hang the 14th amendment), and even questioning if “arms” really meant handguns were protected by the Second Amendment. Their arguments were soulless and without merit. Some even impugned the intelligence of law-makers and citizens who agree with the simple wording in the Constitution. They were grasping at anything that might negate the ruling or the Second Amendment.

It almost could make a fellow wonder what do these people really want? What are they not telling you? Why does the pistol in the nightstand next to where your grandpa sleeps bother the gun-control addicts? What do they want to do once all lawful citizens surrender their means to protect themselves?

What do they really want to do?

I don’t want to find out.

No more than I want the federal, state, or local government deciding what I can write on this website, or deciding which church I may attend on Sunday, or telling me I can’t go to church on Saturday or even a Tuesday if I decide to. And neither do you.

Even if you’re a low-hanging fruit of a leftist, you’ve got to realize that governments are comprised of people. The more power individual people in certain positions in government have, the more likely it is that self-serving power-addicts will seek to obtain those positions only to enrich themselves. You see, it’s not really the Second Amendment those treasure-hunters want to infringe. It’s the Constitution itself.

It just makes sense.

Great Balls of Fire

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Did you hear the one about Mohamed ElBaradei the director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)? He wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his “efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way,” then in 2008 he threatens to resign his position if a military strike against Iran happens because “it would turn the Middle East region into a ball of fire.”

Not funny? Come on, don’t you get it?

Here you have an Egyptian lawyer in charge of the IAEA since 1997 being credited with preventing nuclear proliferation. But the Israeli Air Force did more on September 6, 2007 to prevent the military use of nuclear weapons by rogue nations than most any nation or UN affiliate since 1981.
In 1981, Israel took out Hussein’s French-built nuclear reactor in Baghdad. Since no other country had sufficient motivation to stop or deter Hussein, the Israeli’s did the job themselves. And it worked. Secretary of State Alexander Haig told President Reagan, “Before this is over, we’ll be on our knees thanking God Israel did what it did.” Over a decade later, Secretary of Defense Cheney referenced the 1981 attack when he told the Israeli ambassador to the US, “If it weren’t for you, Desert Storm wouldn’t have been a success.”

Now do you remember what happened on September 6, 2007? Yes, that was when Israel took-out Bashar al-Assad’s secret nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel’s motivation was probably similar to what they had in 1981. While we haven’t heard any public statements similar to Haig’s comment, I’d think somebody, somewhere must have said it.

In 2008, ABC news reported that Assad’s terminated Syrian reactor was strikingly similar to North Korea’s nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. North Korea? Do they have nukes?

Yes, their nuclear program dates back to the 1960s. The Clinton administration tried several appeasing techniques starting in 1994 to get Kim Jong-il’s newly-inherited regime to abandon the long-running program. While Kim Jong-il freely took the bribes, ultimately funded by the American taxpayer, he never lived up to his word on the North Korean part of the agreement. In 2003 Kim Jung-il’s regime admitted the North Koreans possessed nuclear weapons and then proved it with a successful test on October 16, 2006. The North Koreans apparently got busy exporting their proven nuclear weapons capability to Syria.

Diplomacy didn’t work. Sanctions didn’t work. Appeasement didn’t work. The UN didn’t work at all.

Lesson learned?

For several years, we’ve been listening to Iranian threats to blow Israel off the map. Meanwhile, plentiful evidence has piled up that Iran has been supplying the terrorists in their illegal war against the democratically-elected government of Iraq and its people.

While Israel is politically prevented from helping fight global terrorists operating within sovereign nations around them, they do have a pretty well proven record for doing something if they believe they are about to be blown off the map.

The charter members of the axis of evil identified in the 2002 State of the Union Address, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, all made decisions to continue to defy post-911 America and the rest of civilization. Deterrence failed.

Iraq insisted upon forced regime change before it would change its way. North Korea flaunts their nuclear weapons program while their people starve and their cousins to the south prosper greatly. Iran defiantly is clinging to its threat to destroy Israel, supplying the terrorists invaders in Iraq, and desperately trying to get their nukes developed before it is too late.

But “too late” is defined by their nuclear weapons development progress. The sands of the hour-glass fall to obscurity as their program approaches completion. It is much like they are playing Russian roulette with the tactic of squeezing the rounds off as fast as possible in order to get the game over before they lose. It’s suicide.

The facts are simple:

1)  Israel refuses to die.

2) Therefore they can not allow those who wish them dead to acquire the weapons that can kill them.

3) Therefore if the UN, or America, or any other nation or collection of nations does not want Israel to do the job themselves, they have to do or find somebody to do the job instead.

4) Or Iran has to change.

Iran needs to do a couple to things to rejoin the community of civilized nations. What they chose to do is totally up to them. But if Iran really wants not to be attacked, they need to completely abandon their nuclear weapons development program and then prove it to the world. And if Iran really really wants to end the Global War on Terrorism, they need to join the rest of the civilized nations in the war against global terrorists and then prove they have changed their ways.
A peace-starved world will not hold their past sins against them. If the Iranian did those two simple things, they would not be attacked. They would improve the life of their people. They would prosper like never before. They would even be considered heroes by many.

However, if Iran stays-the-course and doesn’t do those two things then ElBaradei’s opinion that “attacking Iran would be worse than anything else,” would be wrong. Not attacking would be much worse.

It just makes sense.

Socialism is Anti-Freedom

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Maxine Waters (D-CA) used a very thin veil to cover her threat to socialize all the American oil companies. Even though she balked at the public use of the s-word, she couldn’t help but finishing her statement once it was started. At least she was honest about saying what she believes in. We should all thank her for that. There’s few things worse than a socialist who lies about being a socialist. What was the public reaction to her statement?

Except for a little coverage on Fox News…

…and some attention by radio talk-show icon Rush Limbaugh it was allowed to fade away in the background of other news.

Not that they’re trying, but it might be wiser for the Democrats just to forget about defending Waters and just to distance her opinions from the Democrat Party. After all, Democrats are Americans and America has fought against socialism from the very beginning. Right?

What is socialism?

Socialism is a political process where the people who control the central government control the production, distribution, and exchange of property. Advocates of socialism like to argue that it is the community as a whole that is in control, but that would only be in theory. In practice, every time it has been tried, a select group of government officials have the control and the loser has always been the people.

Socialism comes in many flavors, but it always leaves the same bitter after taste.

Some of the flavors sound more appetizing than others, but they all drain away the people’s freedom to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to some degree or another. In 2003, the pan-Arab socialist, Baathists Party lost an advocate when Hussein’s regime was vanquished. With the 1991 fall of the Union of the Soviet SOCIALIST Republic, Marxist-flavored socialism lost its most powerful advocate. The 1945 destruction of National-SOCIALIST (Nazi) Germany, another flavor was removed from the menu.

It is interesting how modern socialist-theory advocates have deceived Americans into thinking of the Nazis along with their fascist partners of Mussolini’s Italy and totalitarian Japan of the 1930s-1940s as “right-wing,” when those governments have always opposed democracy. Many socialist-regimes use the facade of a ballot to fool the masses, but no one who gives it much thought can really be fooled by such a prevarication. Socialist-regimes always take freedom away from the people. Pol Pot’s socialist-regime might have sounded good to him and his fellow freedom-takers, but the average person’s life suffered greatly.

Despite the appeal of a regal King of 18th century England, George was little more than an oppressive, socialist dictator demanding total control to the average cobblers, merchants, and farmers of early America. Since none of us were alive then, we have to imagine for a moment how bad it must have been for the average men of the day, to put down their tools used to provide food and shelter for their families and pick-up their squirrel guns to go do battle against the most powerful army on Earth.

That first generation of real Americans pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to give us the foundation of the freedoms we enjoy today.

One of those freedoms is the right to say what you believe. So it is okay for people who believe in socialist-theory to express their opinions. We don’t want socialist-minded people to think they have to lie about their beliefs.

Waters’ statement is not the problem, it is merely a symptom. The problem is history-ignorant people believing that a socialist government is the answer to all our problems, then those people voting for people who believe the same. Then the rest of us are affected by those people being in office. Yes, they have the right to believe the way they want to, but they don’t have the right to take the freedoms given to us by God and affirmed in our Constitution.

Just yesterday, a group of House Democrats are so bold as to be calling to nationalize (that means socialize) America’s oil refineries.
Can you believe the same type of socialist-minded politicians who oppose the harvesting of American oil reserves also want to seize control of American refineries? You might remember how they tried to socialize the American health-care facilities and professions back in the 1990s, but they were delayed by a group of energetic Americans who saw the danger in that. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be tried again.

Using socialist-minded logic, why stop with the refineries? Why not go ahead and take the oil companies too? Some people might argue that it would reflect poorly on Wall Street. After all, people might pull their money out of the market resulting in economic collapse. But an even bolder socialist solution to that problem would be to seize or at least freeze the entire market. Wouldn’t that do wonders for your 401K? What would this generation of Americans do if that happened? It’s really not that far-fetched.

Those socialist-minded resource-grabbers need to take a history lesson from old King George. Don’t make the same mistake he did before trying to deny too many freedoms to the average American. Not that they haven’t been trying, but they’d better collect our squirrel-guns first.

It just makes sense.

You’re Fired

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

While those words have been heard in millions of homes when Donald Trump said them on his television reality show The Apprentice, they’re not the words anyone wants to hear their boss say to them. In The Donald’s show, he fires a competitor each week, based on poor performance, leaving only one final winner at the show’s finale.  The collection of losers go off to find other jobs on their own.  At least television gives us the perspective that they are losers.

But are they really?  How many people are chosen to be a competitor on a quality reality show?  As each round of elimination progresses, the ones that survive become a member of a smaller, elite minority.  Until there is only one.

They all want to win, but there can be only one.

We all know reality shows are edited, directed, and optimized for entertainment value in order to keep audiences interested in them.  So honestly, they’re just entertainment and not reality.

In reality, all those people who make the sets, run the cameras, provide the meals, edit the film, and basically carry the water for the stars make everything work.  It’s a team effort, but only a few are chosen to be stars and to get the camera focused on them.

The principle is clear.  The ratio of pretty-faced stars for the camera have to be balanced with the number of water-carriers who do the work that make it all possible. Not everyone is destined for fame, but the ones that are, can’t do it without the ones who do the work.

Entertainment is big business.  After all, what would the rest of us do in our spare time if we didn’t have entertainers singing, dancing, posing, or pretending to be somebody else for us?

Entertainment is most interesting when it parallels reality.

Somewhat like a reality show, the career path of an Air Force officer is an exciting competition that most often ends with something like being fired.  Oh, we don’t call it being fired, we use “retired” as the code word.

I think Air Force officers come in something like 256 shades of type-A personalities.  Everyone of them has the secret desire to become the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, but there can be only one.   Most will not get their star, but all of them have their story.

Some of them are told to either take an undesirable assignment or to retire.  Others are told they are too old and they should retire.  Too many are told they aren’t part of the in-crowd, “You’ve done a lot of good things, but I don’t know you and you should retire.”  A few might hear, “I can’t believe you’ve embarrassed me this much–time for you to go.”  It all boils down to, “You don’t fit the mold, you’re fired.”

It’s about as fair as any system can be.  We can’t promote everyone.  There are not enough stars.  Somebody has to go.  At least that’s the mantra.

Operating the Air Force is much more complicated than running a television series, but a common principle applies.  You have to keep enough people around to carry the water or the stars will fall from favor.  As the Air Force has down-sized, the number of stars should have reduced also, but that’s a hard idea for some to understand.  They’d rather cut the water-carriers.

In the process of making room for the clones of themselves, they pushed hundreds of superior officers with great leadership potential out the door to retirement.  They denied them school slots, leadership positions, and commander jobs in order to groom their hand-picked people.  Critical mass was achieved.
For the last 12 years or so the battle-cry has been, “The only thing you need to know about the nuke mission is, it’s easy.”  Well, that kind of thinking has started an earthquake in the Air Force.

How many after-shocks will follow is anybody’s guess.

To use an already over-used Naval metaphor; if an aircraft carrier runs aground, it is certain the captain will be fired, even if it takes a few months to figure out who the captain is.  It is also certain that the replacement captain will not come on-board trusting the crew like the last captain did.  Heads will roll. Planks will be walked.  Keels will be hauled.  DD214s will be signed.

It just makes sense.