Memorial Day, 2010

This Week's Treason

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I'd hang the leaker by the neck, then cut down the body and give it a fair trial. But nobody's going to be punished. High-ranking officials can get away with manslaughter, if not murder. An Army captain would go to prison. A political appointee can expect a promotion.

-- Ralph Peters

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Fuckn' with the Chilluns' Minds

The Washington Post reports on the Texas state school board approval of a new text book:

The Texas state school board gave final approval Friday to controversial social studies standards that minimize the separation of church and state and say that America is not a democracy but a "constitutional republic."

The changes, which passed in a series of 9 to 5 votes, could have reverberations far beyond the Lone Star State's schools and its 4.7 million students.

Many teachers, academics and politicians on both sides of the aisle have condemned
the standards.

According to the WaPo, the new standards include the following outrageous changes:

The new standards say that the McCarthyism of the 1950s was later vindicated -- something most historians deny -- draw an equivalency between Jefferson Davis's and Abraham Lincoln's inaugural addresses, say that international institutions such as the United Nations imperil American sovereignty, and include a long list of Confederate officials about whom students must learn.

They also removed references to capitalism and replaced them with the term "free-enterprise system."

Sons of bitches!!! Fuckn' with the chilluns' minds!

Oh, wait, as Ann Althouse points out, the WaPo does a bit of misrepresenting of its own on the actual changes.

Virtually everything cited in the article to make the curriculum seem controversial is misstated! Appalling!

This conservative asault on the chilluns' minds is being held at bay here in Washington, as we read, also in the Washington Post, and yet without so much clucking, fear and loathing, about an innovative new teaching strategery at The Field School, a local private school:

When Chris Walker signed up to take an advanced honors seminar at the Field School, teacher Emily Kleinman was concerned. The junior hadn't met the prerequisite for the course, and that meant Kleinman needed to have a serious conversation with his mother. "I called his mom because I was really worried because he hadn't seen any episodes of 'Lost,' " Kleinman said. "And I wanted to make sure it was okay with her that he watch all five seasons in three weeks."

Ingesting hours upon hours of inscrutable narrative twists and Smoke Monster attacks is a requirement for an honors seminar? It is at the Field School, a private middle and high school in Washington that for the past two years has offered the elective "Lost in Philosophy," a wide-ranging, often student-driven course that delves into numerous disciplines -- philosophy, literature, ethics, science -- and explores them all through the prism of ABC's series about plane crash survivors desperate to understand a befuddling island.

[...]

The pass-fail class, offered at a beginners' level during the 2008-09 school year and as an advanced option this year, is co-taught by Kleinman, a history instructor, and Kabe ErkenBrack, who teaches geometry.

[...]

They read the works of philosophers whose names are referenced on the show . . . They plumb the ethics involved in the famed Milgram experiment at Yale, a study of people's willingness to blindly follow orders, . . .They read Genesis for greater insight into the show's biblical themes. . . . They deliver oral presentations on time travel and create art.

And they say every moment has been an education.

[...]

And in case you're wondering how their parents -- you know, the ones who pay that $30,000-plus annual tuition -- feel about their scholarly pursuits, the kids say they're very supportive.

Ass Heap of History

TIBETAN spiritual leader the Dalai Lama:

"I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures. . . "(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

Back in February of this year, the Dalai Lama visited the White House and was ignominiously shown out via the back door near the trash heaps.

Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Dalai Lama, being escorted from the White House through a back door, through the Palm Room's door near the WH garbage area Photo credit: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

This appears to have been one of those rare unconsciously correct decisions by the White House.

Moral ethics? Marxism through the vehicle of communist and socialist regimes is responsible for the deaths of approximately 160,000,000 people during the 20th Century. He should ask the Tibetans how they feel about Marxism. Oh, wait . . .

What a shameful, arrogant fool.

Shut up, and meditate.

Bear

Chart of the Day:

How is the stock market performing? It all depends on how you measure. When measured in US dollars, the Dow currently trades approximately 28% below its all-time record high. However, when measured with that other world currency (gold), the picture is even more bleak. To help illustrate the point, today's chart presents the Dow divided by the price of one ounce of gold. This results in what is referred to as the Dow / gold ratio or the cost of the Dow in ounces of gold. For example, it currently takes 8.5 ounces of gold to "buy the Dow." This is considerably less that the 44.8 ounces back in the year 1999. When priced in gold, the US stock market has been in a severe bear market for the entire 21st century.

Draw Mo Day!

Miss Mohammed

SBD does not submit.

Separated At Birth?!

Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Lidia Bastianich, Renowned Italian Chef

One cooks pasta, the other cooks the Constitution.

Why People Eat Birds

Twit in Chief

Why is President Barack Obama twittering? More specifically, why is President Obama twittering the following message on the Monday following the exposure of his administration as first responder hacks in the face of a libtard's bread and butter issue of environmental rape and slaughter and the attempted car bombing of Times Square by a "middle-aged white guy" and the riotous anti-anti-illegal immigration demonstrations spurred in part by the President's own fear of his daughter's unfinished ice cream cones melting in the curb where her father lays beaten and bloody after being "harrassed" by Arizona law enforcement:

At 4:30 p.m. ET, join David Plouffe for a strategy session on #OFA's plan for 2010 and how you can get involved. http://j.mp/9vqMAt

This is the President of the United States tweeting this!

Let's say it again: the President of the United States!

His picture is next to the tweet. Tweeting about Organizing for America, a non-Executive Branch, private sector organization, albeit the successor organization to Obama's campaign, the one through which the president can permanently campaign on all his little diabolical programs to change the country.

Still, he's President now. And what's he tweeting? A reminder about a call-in strategy session, conducted by David Plouffe, now a public servant in the employ of the Executive Office of the President, for Democrats on how in November not to end up zipped up in a full body leather outfit and mask with an S&M ball shoved in their maw and chain around their neck tied to a rusting old radiator in a basement of an abandoned house in Detroit.

That tweet goes into the great big bin of official presidential communications.

Unlike all of President George Bush's tweets about Halliburton's contracting strategy, there are no madeup words or mispellings, so we have to give Obama some props on that.

Still, who is this guy? Some kind of community organizer?

SBD is heartened by the fact that the President of the United States has to tweet his tweeps about a strategy session to stave off the November implosion. The loyal opposition is doing something right. But how weak is this man in his understanding of his responsibility to this nation that he sends out that tweet. That it's on his schedule to send that out. Even that it's on his flack's schedule to send that out under his name.

There is no dignity left in the office nor sense of decorum nor sense of the appropriate when the President feels this level of comfort in sending out reminders about his own personal independent fund raising organization.

As Americans, we strive to respect the Office of the President, to instill in our children the same respect, even when we disagree with the man occupying the office, but it's very, very hard these days.

To wit, what a punk.

LATER THAT DAY . . .:

Well, I guess the first message wasn't enough for the Twit in Chief's tweeps.

You stay focused, Mr. President!

The Next Crisis

The Deepwater Horizon was - and is - the future of deep water drilling. It was an ultra-deepwater dynamic position semi-submersible oil rig. Deep water drilling is the future of hydrocarbon exploitation.

Here is a picture of a similar ultra-deepwater rig - the Deepwater Nautilus under dry tow:

These mammoth ships are the equivalent of the Saturn Vs, Space Shuttles and International Space Station. Designed to work under extreme and uncertain conditions and requiring the highest levels of engineering and brawn to make them successful. These things require the purest combinaiton of American white collar and blue collar skill. It is damned dangerous work. It always has been and it always will be no matter how many rules and regulations you write or procedures you put in place.

Here are the type of rigs is use today:



But what they do is not new; where they do it, in the deep waters of the Gulf, is.

Seventy-seven years of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1933, the first well drilled on state offshore lands was drilled at Creole, LA, approximately, 3,000 ft. off the beach in 12 ft. of water.

In 1947 Kerr McGhee drilled the first well out of sight of land in Ship Shoal Block 52.

In 2001, BP and Exxon announced the largest deepwater oil discovery to date in the Gulf of Mexico, located in 5,640 ft. of water, called Thunder Horse.

In 2002, Marathon and TotalFinaElf marked another milestone for deepwater operations by successfully installing a natural gas pipeline tie in 7,209 ft. of water.

Within the span of these milestones, approximately 4,000 oil platforms and drilling rigs have been erected.

Seventy-seven years. Here's a schematic of the total rigs under operation:



It is unreasonable and simply stupid to be surprised that such endeavors can be subject to total failure and destruction. You'd think that Deepwater Horizon was the first rig attempting to tap into the Earth, only to be snapped in half and pulled into her remorseless blue maw.

A tragic accident, human stupidity, a work of Fate, the manifestation of some enviro-terrorist plot, annular gas migration through the cement sheath, the fruition of an Al Quds in Venezuela training exercise.

As they say, who the fuck knows?

Many, many could bes and now we are told that until we understand what it could be, it must stop. Man must stop. Industry must stop. The rigs anchored up the rivers. The permits cancelled. The roustabouts, the toolpushers, the roughnecks, the mudengineers, the derrickhands, and the engineers are to be laid off, fired, or not hired. Hands must be wrung. Souls searched. Tears shed. Lobbyists deployed. Speeches written. Subpoenas issued. Accusations hurled. Suits filed.

Empty caskets buried.

11 empty caskets. Men lost in the conflagration. Their bodies consumed by fire and water.

Jason Anderson - Toolpusher

Dewey Revette - Driller

Donald Clark - Asst. Driller

Stephen Curtis - Asst. Driller

Dale Burkeen - Crane Operator

Roy Kemp - Derrickhand

Karl Kleppinger - Floorhand

Shane Roshto - Floorhand

Adam Weise - Floorhand

Gordon Jones - Mud Engineer

Blair Manuel - Chemical Engineer

Rest in peace.

Let's remember, too, that 115 people made it off that rig. Most of them will recover and they'll head back out onto some rig and face the same catastrophic risk again.

There have been many accidents, much loss of life, defilement of the environment. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 109 oil platforms and 5 drilling rigs.

According to one report, workers in pursuit of oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico have been dying in accidents at the rate of one every 45 days since the mid-1990s.

And what is President Obama’s reaction?

New exploration and drilling must stop.

Really? For how long?

A transparently political reaction allowing him to avoid meeting his half-assed policy of opening new offshore areas to drilling. If he was truly concerned, he’d call for a moratorium and shutting down of all drilling in the Gulf. The accident has nothing to do with new drilling or exploration. It was a drilling accident, involving existing drilling techniques failing under human action or Earthly force, presumably being put into practice on any other one of those 4,000 platforms glowing yellow on that map above. So the President's initial reaction is like all his other reactions - turn a one time event into a crisis of indeterminate length.

Of course the disaster requires the best forensic response and the cleanup, but a moratorium on new drilling and exploration is irrelevant to the accident. Given the outcomes of all the other crises this country has been through the past two years, it would not be surprising to the complete federal takeover of the oil drilling industry.

The girls running the administration's departments of concern are “frightened.”

"It is of grave concern," David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press. "I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling."

Then get the fuck out of the way, Mr. Kennedy. Frightened and mind boggled. Really?

And of course Mother Nature’s priests are creaming their pants over the thought of broad scale destruction of the Louisiana coast.

"It’s quite possible this will end up being worse than the Valdez in terms of environmental impact since it seems like BP will be unable to cap the spill for months. In terms of total quantity of oil released, it seems this will probably fall short of Exxon Valdez. But because of the habitat, the environmental impact will be worse," John Hocevar, oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA, told MSNBC Thursday.

Or this:

"There are grave environmental concerns which this horrific spill has highlighted," said Bob Deans, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which opposed the policy. "We need a time out on any action to go forward with new offshore drilling because this has obviously raised a bunch of questions. We need a full comprehensive independent investigation."

Hopefully, it will take years to complete the investigation, Mr. Deans thought but didn’t say. Better get moving on those fund raising letters and multi-million dollar ad campaigns excoriating Big Oil and Fat America.

In the world SBD inhabits, the President would stand before the country and announce that 11 good men lost their lives on that platform; 115 others survived because of their training and the hard effort of local fisherman and the USCG; they worked at the forefront of entrepreneurialism and technological prowess to feed our nation's future; their industry is of national strategic importance; and their sacrifice will not be sacrificed to hand wringing, political hackery and bureaucratic immobilization at the hands of the enviro-religious. But we don't have that President. And we don't live in that fantasy world.

There and Back Again

From WSJ's Jim Taranto's Best of the Web Today:

"Even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us--the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of 'anything goes.' Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America--there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America--there's the United States of America."--state senator Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention, July 27, 2004

"In the video message to his supporters, [President] Obama said his administration's success depends on the outcome of this fall's elections and warned that if Republicans regain control of Congress, they could 'undo all that we have accomplished.' 'This year, the stakes are higher than ever,' he said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by Democratic officials. 'It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again. . . .' "--Washington Post, April 26, 2010

And let's not forget this from March 2008:

Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

[...]

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. . . .

[...]

Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.

Life's Last Acts

Lt. Miroslav "Steven" Zilberman:

The plane had blown an engine over the northern Arabian Sea, and the lead pilot, Lt. Miroslav "Steven" Zilberman, had to make lightning-quick decisions.

The E-2C Hawkeye, returning from a mission in Afghanistan, was a few miles out from the Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. Zilberman, 31, was a veteran U.S. Navy pilot who had flown many times in the Middle East with the Hawkeye, a turbo-prop aircraft loaded with radar equipment.

The starboard propeller shut down, causing the plane to become unstable and plunge. Zilberman ordered his three crew mates, including the co-pilot, to bail. He manually held the plane as steady as possible so they could jump.

"He held the plane level for them to do so, despite nearly uncontrollable forces. His three crewmen are alive today because of his actions," Navy Rear Adm. Philip S. Davidson wrote to Zilberman's parents.

Zilberman went down with the aircraft on March 31. The 1997 graduate of Bexley High School was declared dead three days later, his body lost at sea.

Rest In Peace.

The Crisis of the Unfettered Internet

A lose-lose-gamble:

In sum, the FCC deeming broadband to be regulated would be:

•Unnecessary, unwarranted, unjustified, and unauthorized;
•A long-shot bet-the-farm gamble that the FCC would very likely lose in court;
•A lose-lose dynamic with little upside and massive downside; and
•The height of regulatory hubris and irresponsibility.

Read the whole thing as they say.

Friday

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Sydney's posterous

Defiling Mother Earth in Style . . .

The Boomer 8N Tractor

One more reason to buy land . . .

This Day A Certain Number of Years Ago

In hindsight, it was not so wise to pick Earth Day as the day to get married. This day for always will be spent wracked in guilt ridden anxiety.

Why?

For to celebrate the anniversary, Gaia's gentle petals, her most translucent little belly hairs, must be pucked from her skin, bound mercilessly together into unnatural combinations of colors soothing only to selfish human eyes, and then propped in those standup coffins some call vases.

All for the vanity of ones wife!!!!!!

And let us not speak of the trees felled to produce a saccharine card that in ten toxic lines of ink conveys a smorgasbord of feelings that the human male is simply incapable of actually feeling.

And all for the vanity of one's wife!!!!!!!

And we must spare the words with respect to the 20 or so ounces of hoofed flesh that will be slathered in fatty renderings and peppercorns housing the Earth's pheromones, seered with fire produced by the forcible extraction of Gaia's sacred liquids, and served in an extra slatering of fatty renderings upon a table of wood hewn from virgin forests in Kuala Lumpur.

And all for the vanity of one's wife!!!!!

You know what?

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FUCK THE EARTH!







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All Your iPads They Belong to Us

Department of Defense admits its acquisition process wastes taxpayer dollars, adds years to the development of useful gear, and lags in adopting innovative technologies. Its answer?

In a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency solicitation notice, we find out that the answer is ipads and Apple apps.

In today's military, handheld systems are characterized by a tight integration of specialized hardware with a narrowly focused software suite. Most of the handheld devices are heavily optimized for a particular task and are ill-suited for general-purpose use. A soldier's radio, for example, has very limited data capability and essentially no multimedia capability. Current language translation devices support neither messaging nor collaboration of any form. This inflexibility in function is further exacerbated by the military's own acquisition process, a process that can take years to complete and involves an unwieldy linear process of formal requirements definition, technology development, and system certification. The current process adds considerable costs and introduces schedule delays to the deployment of new, cutting-edge technologies. Furthermore, there is a real risk that these very technologies will be obsolete by the time they are in the warfighter's hands.

Phew! It's about time they told us the truth.

A transformation in technical approaches and business processes is called for. DARPA seeks to overcome current limitations and give our military ready access to the leading edge capabilities.As envisioned by DARPA, this transformation will:

• Result in the rapid development of applications and system enhancements that keep up with the fluid demands of warfighter on the ever-changing battlefield;

• Demonstrate both affordability and scalability that enable pervasive use, targeted especially among the end-users at lower levels in the military echelon;

• Encourage and support open competition among a broad set of suppliers in the military applications development process; and

• Support new business models and streamlined processes to incentivize a broad community of suppliers.

The primary purpose of this RFI is to discover sources of commercial and non-commercial apps with potential relevance to the military specifically the national security community more generally. These apps may be used in situations such as the tactical battlefield, for humanitarian assistance, and in disaster recovery efforts. DARPA's initial interest will focus on apps developed on the iPhone or Android platforms that can be used today with little or no additional research and development expenses. Application providers may already have offerings in the commercial marketplace that could be adapted to meet these needs.

In order to meet this objective, DARPA extends an invitation to the developers of currently existing apps encouraging them to submit a whitepaper about their product offerings.

We must have been dreaming . . .

Something's missing from today's WaPo. Gay story? Check. Enviornmental disaster? Check. Sports? Check. Treason? Check. What is it? What is missing? I heard so much about a big event, nay, big events all over the country. Something related to tax day. Gosh, I guess I was dreaming it. If it ain't in the Post, then it didn't happen.

"Assembled in China"

The iPad Lesson for China Trade:

The imported cost of the basic iPads, maybe US$250, will show up as another part of the U.S. "trade gap" with China that needs to be "rebalanced." In reality, as little as 5% of the import price is value added at assembly in China. The real content of an iPad, reports The Wall Street Journal, comes from South Korea's Samsung, Japan's Toshiba, Broadcom in the United States and (for batteries) Amperex Technology, a Hong Kong company owned by TDK in Japan. The touchscreen, processors, wireless gear and a score of other elements are created and manufactured around the world.

[...]

A study by iSuppli Corp. estimated the total parts and manufacturing cost of the mid-range iPad with 32GB and 3G capability at $287, but all of that is parts cost. The final "assembled in China" portion amounted to $11.20.

[...]

With so little of an iPad actually Chinese, iPad imports into the United States become important misleading indicators of the alleged underlying trade imbalance. The import data on a mid-range iPad will raise the U.S. trade gap with China by $287--even though China's role isn't worth more than $12.

[...]

The biggest beneficiary of the system is Apple, which analysts estimate could retain a gross profit of more than $200 per iPad. So here's the issue: The United States is launching a major trade and currency offensive against China which, in the iPad case, amounts to attempting to punish China for trade transactions that are a huge benefit to U.S. companies, investors and consumers.

In raw theory, if China were to revalue it's [sic] currency and raise the yuan by 20%, then the dollar value of an imported iPad would rise 20% from $287 to $344, thereby raising the price of an iPad in [sic] further increasing the trade deficit. But theory is unlikely to apply here, since the deep international Apple supply chain suggests that actual U.S. price of an iPad may not change at all. It would certainly not make sence [sic] for Apple to raise the import price of iPads by $57 to account for a currency shift when the actual yuan value added to an iPad is less than $12.

The iPad demonstrates that trade data are grossly inadequate as indicators of global trade realities. Products, resources, components, design and innovation are now global in nature while trade data are antiquated remnants of national data collections systems. Those systems essentially date from a century ago, when products were actually made in one country and shipped to another. Attempts to manipulate and rebalance global trade flows among countries through currency and other policies are deeply flawed and doomed to fail.