Far South of I-10

Mark Steyn has a quote that exactly explains how I feel about 9/11 conspiracy theorists in a review of the Popular Mechanics 9/11 conspiracy debunking book: But the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle made a much sharper point: "I wonder if the nuts even believe what they are saying. Because if something like 9/11 happened in Canada, and I believed with all my heart that, say, Stephen Harper was involved, I don't think I could still live here. I'm not sure I could stop myself from running screaming to another country. How can you believe that your President killed 2,000 people, and in between bitching about this, just carry on buying your vente latte and so forth?"

Here was one key mistake last year, nagin ordered the evac sunday morning, instead of saturday afternoon like Jefferson Parish: Mayor Nagin just ordered a mandatory evacuation, by reading the legaleze version of the order instead of saying more plainly it is time to leave, and if you don't leave no one will come rescue you. Hopefully it wasn't poorly executed and too late. Governor blanco just mentioned that President Bush called to make sure there was a mandatory evactuation. She keeps mentioning being blessed, and she keeps repeating herself and mentioning flying in and looking at the traffic. Instead of a governor she is really just a traffic reporter and a bad one at that. I voted for Bobby Jindal, and I wish that fast talking guy had won. posted by Joe at 7:16 AM | 0 comments I wish I hadn't been right last year. It was apparent to me watching from 2000 miles away what to do and when to do it. People that have never lived in ...

Last year on this day I was working on a drilling project in Barbados and spending my non-working time glued to CNN. It had been apparent to me from the day before that there was a big risk of 'the big one' hitting new orleans and I was glad to see that the local and state officials were starting the evacuation, even if it was a day late. Saturday, August 27, 2005 Katrina is coming I'm watching CNN here in Barbados, and I'm amazed that Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard is giving detailed driving instructions to an international audience. He was mayor of Kenner when I was growing up, now he's a bejowled power broker telling an international audience not to take the Huey P. Long bridge; but he didn't say which way to go. Whew, I'm glad I'm not a resident of the west bank of Jefferson Parish...they've got to take a drive on Highway 90 to lafayette, which is a 2 1/...

Well, I managed to rembember my blogger username and password finally. I couldn't post for week, I was so used to firefox knowing my username/password or when I used another computer I used the dummy "forgot my password" link and blogger emailed the link. Something has changed though. Blogger is becoming more googlefied and apparently I signed into my google account and screwed up the works, because they kept emailing me access to my google account, with no blog anywhere to be seen. I thought: "Shit, I've lost my blog". And I walked around with about 100 ideas for great posts swimming in my head, when normally I have to scrape for 3 or 4 posts per week. Since I made a conscious decision not to post about family or directly about work, anything I'm going to write tends to be about travel or politics and that's not too much to go on when I have to grit my teeth to watch the news. But I found the answer on a blogger user group, someone suggested ...

I posted this as a comment at hugh hewitt's site, I've had a few bloody mary's so maybe my comment doesn't match what his post is about. hmm. damn tomato juice: I think that it's obvious that we'll win, we're now at the low point of the story, things look dark in Iraq, Israeli's are reeling back from lebannon with a peace of paper and a large percent of the people in the us think that the government had a part in 9/11. But all of that and we're way ahead of where europe was in 1939. This lowpoint is just an artificial low setting the stage for the sweep of history, the brave will still step up and fight, the stout-hearted will loyally support what is right and just, and what will seem like miracles of courage will lead us forward to victory. Even in the darkest days of 1940, Winston Churchill never doubted ultimate victory, and I don't either. Even in my black dog days of depression I know that we'll win, because we have more at stake....

Scrappleface has a funny story explaining terrorism and tries to answer the question, why do terrorists hate airplanes? Excerpt: " The expert panel will examine various theories about why airplanes engender such hatred among devoted followers of a peaceful religion. “Is it the horrendous noise? The speed? The condensation trails?” said one unnamed source close to the panel, listing some of the areas of inquiry the experts plan to pursue. “Because if it’s any of those things, we can get to work on engineering changes to make airplanes more tolerable to our Muslim brothers.”

The LA weekly on LGF's discovery of al-reuters publishing retouched photos: In exposing Hajj’s manipulations, Johnson has raised the lid on a potential Pandora’s box. Namely, how our leading news agencies and newspapers increasingly rely on stringers from hostile nations to tell us how we, or our allies, behave in wartime. Since you’d be hard-pressed to find Muslims in the U.S., let alone Europe, who aren’t strongly anti-Israel and opposed to any American presence in the Middle East whatsoever, why on earth would you expect to find neutral Arab reporters in Baghdad or Beirut? This is the kind of question newspaper editors should be asking themselves (and their stringers). If the implications of this are followed through, or if more photographers like Adnan “Photoshop” Hajj are discovered, the ramifications are likely to be significant. In helping bring Hajj’s smoke-and-mirrors game to light, Johnson has performed a great service.

Almost every news item that isn't discussing the war seems to be discussing the price of oil and how we're all going to be sweating in the dark soon. The real solution will require major changes in how energy is generated and used and how we live. But don't go installing the $30k solar electric system this week. Before we can develop real solutions we need to ensure the high price of energy for the forseable future. Most people are hoping for the price of oil to fall back to $12/barrel again where it was just a few years ago, but that is part of the problem. One of the reasons that the world isn't producing enough oil is most projects take several years to develop from prospect to drilling to producing oil, and every 3 years or so the price of oil goes from $50/bbl to $12/bbl. This tends to make oil companies risk averse, if you drill a prospect that has lifting costs of $22/bbl, and then the price of oil goes to $12, you are as they say in spanish, jodido. Even a...

Today in 1945 was the day that the Enola Gay dropped the first fission bomb used in war. People look back at this and say "what monsters we americans were" Euroweenies might say that we should have invaded japan rather than nuking them. [photo link] But President Truman was told that we could suffer 1 million casualties in an invasion of Japan. This was believable after the invasion of Okinawa, where more people died than due to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman's priorities looked something like this: US Civilians US Soldiers Japanese Civilians Japanese Soldiers He weighed the lives of his troops heavier than Japanese civilians, and chose to end the war by nuking the japanese rather than trying the invasion. This ranking is no longer true, enemy civilians deaths are a bigger tragedy than the deaths of our soldiers. Through rules of engagement we expect marines to clear rooms by sticking their head in and looking rather than the older technique of throwing...

The recent bombing at Qana followed by the splashing of the dead children's photos across the front page of newspapers further highlights bias in the press. This event was well documented at EU referendom, and I think it is obvious that the photos were staged by hezbollah and photographed by the press. If one photo shows one guy holding a dead child, then a second photo shows another guy holding the same dead child in the same place in the same pose, then I'd say it's reasonable to say the photos were staged or posed. This issue was discussed on the daily telegraph's blog: But he's not asking any of those things. His contention is that this is a staged photo. Like Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone's JFK, North gives us, in laborious detail, the fruits of his 'research'. I'll let you read the argument in its full glory. Now I have to admit that I have a problem with conspiracy theorists whatever their stripe. Their method is to promote the facts tha...

I see that Allah is drunkblogging to see if he can repeat mel gibson's expirement and start spouting anti-semitic BS just due to alchohol. I'm also drunkblogging, drinking double gin beefeater bloody-marys, switching the tv between CNN, Fox and Entourage on HBO. I'm at the "let's go back to the ship and nuke 'em from orbit" point, as these fuckers in Iraq all chant together. After about 10 oz of beefeaters in 2 hours, not only is the tower guard on the label looking at me funny, but he's got the voice of anderson cooper on CNN, and it sounds pretty bad. I'm sure reality isn't this bleak, but if we were to deorbit 10 or 20 nukes that are probably hanging up there (after withdrawing all of our troops to kurdistan and kuwait) and just roll those bad boys out, roll the bones, zap the neutrons, flash, bang, thank you maam. Wipe the slate clean, Sand to glass. Hot times in the city. Would that be such a bad thing? In a little while my wife...

I'm a little too busy right now to google a good event from history today, so here's likeks: From Lilek's Screedblog today: (8/3) Of course, he’s right. Without the steady, respected hand of Iran on the Middle Eastern helm, the Syrian regime might be replaced by pragmatic elements of the military unwilling to enjoy the boon of Persian dominance. One can excuse the occasional, inexplicable acts of Iranian mischief; the mullahs no doubt are busy destabilizing Iraq today, for example, but only to achieve a more stable future (Would that our leaders had such foresight!) Granted, their rhetoric is hardly helpful – a New York Times photo of a billboard in Tehran shows the well-fed adamant face of Sheik Nasrallah, a man about whose movement the gentle Democrat from Michigan has no opinion, and the billboard’s English text reads “Israel must be wiped out the world.” (sic) Extreme? Sure. That’s how those loveable nuts talk over there. You’d have to be nuts – or a Jew! - to take it s...

1945 - During the night (August 1-2), 820 US B-29 Superfortress bombers drop a record total of 6632 tons of bombs on five Japanese cities including Hachioji, Nagaoka, Mito, Toyama and the petroleum center of Kawasaki. here's a link in german , the photo on the left is the city of toyama: Am 2.8.1945 bombardieren 850 B-29-Bomber die Stadt Toyama mit 6.600.000 kg Brandbomben. 98,6% der Stadt werden vernichtet; es gibt so gut wie keine Überlebenden. Tokio am Morgen nach dem Luftangriff in der Nacht des 10. März 1945. Dem dreistündigem Brandbombardement fielen schätzungsweise 130.000 Menschen zum Opfer. the translated caption: o 2.8.1945 bombards 850 B-29-Bomber the city Toyama with 6.600.000 kg of incendiary bombs. 98.6% of the city are destroyed; it gives as well as no survivors. This is what total war looks like.

Today in 1943 was one of the bigger attacks on the Romanian refineries that helped feed Hitler's war machine. (in elementary school I must have checked out a book, Air War over Europe, I think, at least 10 times, it had this picture as its cover) From the great website http://www.ww2guide.com/oil.shtml Across the Mediterranean Despite careful preparation the operation was marred by bad luck from the start, one B-24 crashed on take-off. Since the mission was flown in radio silence the bomber groups became somewhat separated on the long flight across the Mediterranean. Then just off Corfu, Greece the lead aircraft carrying the route navigator inexplicably plunged into the water. A second plane of the 376th with the deputy route navigator followed down to see if there were any survivors. Unable to regain formation the bomber turned back to base. This left the lead bomber group without the expert navigators to guide them through the difficult low-level approach to the target. Thick cl...

*PETRARCA, FRANK J. Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Medical Detachment, 145th Infantry, 37th Infantry Division. Place and date: At Horseshoe Hill, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, 27 July 1943. Entered service at: Cleveland, Ohio. Birth: Cleveland, Ohio. G.O. No.: 86, 23 December 1943. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty. Pfc. Petrarca advanced with the leading troop element to within 100 yards of the enemy fortifications where mortar and small-arms fire caused a number of casualties. Singling out the most seriously wounded, he worked his way to the aid of Pfc. Scott, Iying within 75 yards of the enemy, whose wounds were so serious that he could not even be moved out of the direct line of fire Pfc Petrarca fearlessly administered ...

I was looking at google smashups linked from the High-tech Texan website , and one of the most interesting is the google map showing locations of all the SR-71 blackbirds with links to all the current photos, including summaries of all the SR-71 crashes. The crash that happened on July 30th 1966: M-21 tail number 06941 was destroyed 30 Jul 1966 when the D-21 drone it was launching bounced off the inside of the mothership's shockwave and struck 941 near the wing root. Lockheed test pilot Bill Park and Launch Control Officer Ray Torick ejected safely over the Pacific, but Torick drowned when his flight suit took on water. Sad to see such dry text to describe the death of someone who died doing their duty for their country.

I had to zoom up to canada for the last couple of days, yet another fools errand and a lot of travel for about 16 hours worth of work. I should have said "that's really not my job to go to the rig" and stayed home, but the manager there asked me, and I could hear in his voice that he was on the verge of mentioning that the last time I went there he paid for my wife to go too. So I went. 8 hours flying to edmonton, 3 hours lost in a hotshot, the driver couldn't find the rig, 3 hours working then 4 hours sleep on a bed with no sheets blankets or pillows (when did I become such a pussy?). 12 hours more work to finish drilling, wait one hour for a car, 2 hours to edmonton... no room at the inn by the airport, so we rode into edmonton. 3 hours sleep, then taxi to the airport in time to be two hours early. Whenever I'm two hours early I'm sure to check in, breeze through customs, immigration and security in about 4 minutes. (US immigration is in Canada, stra...

July 24 North Vietnam Increases Air Defense Capabilities 1965 In the air war, four F-4C Phantom jets escorting a formation of U.S. bombers on a raid over munitions manufacturing facilities at Kang Chi, 55 miles northwest of Hanoi, are fired at from an unknown launching site. It was the first time the enemy had launched antiaircraft missiles at U.S. aircraft. It's interesting to see that the first time we were fired at it probably wasn't a big deal. But after dozens of planes shot down over 8 years it became pretty important. What small seed of the future is happening now i wonder. Missiles shot at Israel or arms shipments from Iran to Syria? Or precision weapons to Isreal? Unfortunately we live in interesting times.

This from today's date during Korean war: Corporal Tibor Rubin distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism during the period from July 23, 1950, to April 20, 1953, while serving as a rifleman with Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in the Republic of Korea. While his unit was retreating to the Pusan Perimeter, Corporal Rubin was assigned to stay behind to keep open the vital Taegu-Pusan Road link used by his withdrawing unit. During the ensuing battle, overwhelming numbers of North Korean troops assaulted a hill defended solely by Corporal Rubin. He inflicted a staggering number of casualties on the attacking force during his personal 24-hour battle, single-handedly slowing the enemy advance and allowing the 8th Cavalry Regiment to complete its withdrawal successfully. Read the rest, the rest is more interesting.

On this date in 2003 Saddam's Sons got their turn in front of the mortician's camera. We can weigh the pluses and minus' of the Iraq war, and this is definitely a plus. I don't have to live in a world where these dickhead are copresidents. As I continue to google this event all I seem to find is the outrage over showing their bullet ridden corpses.