Hack 'em up.......
Last week's organized "hack-a-thon" involving one hell of a lot of work by the hackers, apparently only created some small degree of mischief. Defacing a few minor websites, knocking some off the web in denial of service attacks but generally small potatos stuff. Oh boy, big fun. Time not well spent.
Now I'm no hacker, I don't have the time nor the skills at this point. But it sure sounds interesting. I have thought for some time now that if I were a hacker I would use my skills for the good of mankind. That good would be knocking scumbag spammers off their digital perches. Slamming them, causing their servers to fry and if I could, blowing up their mobile homes via the Internet, generating fake messages telling them that their Rent-a-Center furniture is being repossesed and in general causing mischief designed to make their lives miserable.
Perhaps there are hackers out there at this very moment carrying out devious plans against these spamming scabs on the butt of humankind, but I never hear about them. And I would really like to. It would give me a vicarious pleasure. So if by some mistake my small site is hacked, here for you dear hacker is an IP address to start in on: 217.107.216.18. They're home, I just heard from them tonight.
Go to the Spews Spam Report and read all about these criminals. Perhaps you'll recognize some of the fine products they want to sell you. From fake Viagra to fake sex.....they stock it all. Also notice that, as usual, the spamsite host declines to do anything about these vagrants. Where is a good hacker when we need one?
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Hillbillies Revisited...
I kept looking at the picture of Buddy Ebsen as Uncle Jed posted yesterday and I thought....wow what a great show, I wish we had something like that now. Younger readers will think, "yeah, right Dude, people back in the early 60's must have been real rubes to have watched that hick show"! Simple people in simple times who would lap up anything and call it entertainment.
Not so! During the first years that TBH's was on the air we had some of the most difficult events to handle that the 20th century offered. We had a President assasinated and we thought anarchy might reign, the democratic system could collapse. We were within a cat's whisker of a real nuclear war with the Russkies over Cuba, we know only now just how close. When TBH's had been on a few years, we started losing hundreds of young men every month in Vietnam, escalating to 1000's. These were serious and tough times.
And this is the reason that The Beverly Hillbillies was so immensely popular across a wide spectum. Why? Because it was funny and it was really stupid. And.....we laughed and we knew it was really stupid. It was supposed to be stupid and we needed and appreciated stupid. Compare this to the immensely popular show genres of today, the "reality shows". The Discovery Channel has probably five shows based on the "Trading Places" premise: turn a perfectly good room into something belonging in a cheap trailer park. The major networks each seem to have several shows based on "The Bachelor" premise: get people without a real life themselves to believe that two people can actually meet in a staged competition, get married and live happily ever after.
Like The Beverly Hillbillies these shows provide some form of entertainment and are really stupid, but the difference now is that a large sgement of the population doesn't seem to know that they're stupid. So as I set down by the cement pond with a mess of hog jowls and use my 5th grade education to do some 'cypherin', I conclude that I miss shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and that 20 years from now young people will look at Trading Places reruns and think, "What a bunch of pathetic losers people were in 2003.....didn't they have lives of their own, the rubes".
I kept looking at the picture of Buddy Ebsen as Uncle Jed posted yesterday and I thought....wow what a great show, I wish we had something like that now. Younger readers will think, "yeah, right Dude, people back in the early 60's must have been real rubes to have watched that hick show"! Simple people in simple times who would lap up anything and call it entertainment.
Not so! During the first years that TBH's was on the air we had some of the most difficult events to handle that the 20th century offered. We had a President assasinated and we thought anarchy might reign, the democratic system could collapse. We were within a cat's whisker of a real nuclear war with the Russkies over Cuba, we know only now just how close. When TBH's had been on a few years, we started losing hundreds of young men every month in Vietnam, escalating to 1000's. These were serious and tough times.
And this is the reason that The Beverly Hillbillies was so immensely popular across a wide spectum. Why? Because it was funny and it was really stupid. And.....we laughed and we knew it was really stupid. It was supposed to be stupid and we needed and appreciated stupid. Compare this to the immensely popular show genres of today, the "reality shows". The Discovery Channel has probably five shows based on the "Trading Places" premise: turn a perfectly good room into something belonging in a cheap trailer park. The major networks each seem to have several shows based on "The Bachelor" premise: get people without a real life themselves to believe that two people can actually meet in a staged competition, get married and live happily ever after.
Like The Beverly Hillbillies these shows provide some form of entertainment and are really stupid, but the difference now is that a large sgement of the population doesn't seem to know that they're stupid. So as I set down by the cement pond with a mess of hog jowls and use my 5th grade education to do some 'cypherin', I conclude that I miss shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and that 20 years from now young people will look at Trading Places reruns and think, "What a bunch of pathetic losers people were in 2003.....didn't they have lives of their own, the rubes".
Monday, July 07, 2003
Spam on Rye..
As mentioned previously, Spam is one of my pet peaves. True, it's easy enough to hit the delete button, and by having my own domains with the ability to easily change addresses it's fairly easy to manage and keep the crap to a minimun. But, some still gets through, most recently thanks to Earthlink, who didn't have tight enough security on their mail servers to stop a spam house from sending through an "alphabet attack". For you novices, this involves a spammer hitting a mail server with millions of mail request using computer generated alpha letter combinations and seeing which ones are "bounced" and which are not. The "non-bouncers" are then stored in the scumbags data file for future spamming. So...I'm getting a few spam sandwiches to my default generic Earthlink address. Thanks Earthlink!
The real reason I hate Spam is that I just don't like the thought of these morons being able to do this with impunity. Which they are generally able to do because A] it's not against the law, B] they have sophisticated software and C] because the people who could put a dent in it...won't.
I'm not naive enough to think that making Spam illegal will stop it all, but it will provide a legal basis for bringing lawsuits against the scum and make it easier to win MONEY from the spammers...which is all they care about and which will hurt them. It would also allow the legal system to keep track of those offenders who are convicted and start up new spam operations. At present, when a spammer is cut off from his ISP or Internet backbone connection, it is a matter of days before they spring up elsewhere.
The software developed for the spam industry is significant. Just several years ago, I could trackback through the email header and generally tell the IP address and the point of origin of the spam message. Not today. Their software creates fake email headers and shows fake IP addresses as the rule. It does no good to try and trackback. The reply addresses are fake as are the ID message lines. I have a little program which creates fake "bounce" messages, designed to send mail back to spammers announcing that "this is not a good address" and hopefully they would delete my address from their database. This is no longer useful.
There is one source link to the spammers that can still be traced. In order for the spammer to sell you some fake Viagra, he has to have a point of sale...usually a website. Now some of these are "confuscated" web addresses, in other words they are written in various coding that the average person could not decipher in order to report. But through the links I'll provide below you can do this. Many addresses linked on spam are normal Dot.Com addresses. The trick is to find out who is really behind this address. Be forewarned that the owners listed are mostly fake names and addresses commonly now coming from China or Brazil. But, and a big But....what you want to determine is how, what route and backbone server, does the URL get from the spam site to your computer. Sad to say, this is commonly through large well known companies such as Verio, ATT, Cable and Wireless or Verizon who really don't give a crap about your little complaint. Until, hopefully, they get hundreds of thousands or millions of complaints. These are the people who have the power to shut spam sales sites down, by blocking the IP addresses of the offenders. This is why I still send Abuse reports on every piece of spam I receive. If everyone did, perhaps they'd listen.
OK, here are two useful sites to start to chase Spam.
Sam Spade: allows you to do WHOIS searches, i.e. see how owns the site, do a TRACEROUTE to determine where the spam site URL enters the Internet backbone [usually a large well known company 5 or 6 hops up the list]. Allows you to deciper the "confuscated" URL's.
UXN Spam Combat: Here I utilize the Traceroute function and the very important SPEWS refernce. SPEWS keeps track of well known spam operations and can help you figure out the latest. You'll need the numeric IP address for this one. [many Spams are using html formated mail "right click" and use "source" to see the associated URL for the site.]
While using these tools remember: Never send a reply back to a spammer, nor use their "take me off your list" return address. This just confirms that your address is active...! You can send complaints to legitimate ISP's or Backbone providers by using the email address abuse@whomever.net. Always send a copy to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov. They won't act on the complaint but they are providing the statistics on Spam to the Congress [don't laugh, please].
There is some thought that since, hopefully, fewer and fewer people are buying anything from these scum, they will eventually implode. The biggest source of their revenue seems to come from selling spam email lists and spam software to each other. But until that happens, report the scumbags. Good luck and good hunting!
As mentioned previously, Spam is one of my pet peaves. True, it's easy enough to hit the delete button, and by having my own domains with the ability to easily change addresses it's fairly easy to manage and keep the crap to a minimun. But, some still gets through, most recently thanks to Earthlink, who didn't have tight enough security on their mail servers to stop a spam house from sending through an "alphabet attack". For you novices, this involves a spammer hitting a mail server with millions of mail request using computer generated alpha letter combinations and seeing which ones are "bounced" and which are not. The "non-bouncers" are then stored in the scumbags data file for future spamming. So...I'm getting a few spam sandwiches to my default generic Earthlink address. Thanks Earthlink!
The real reason I hate Spam is that I just don't like the thought of these morons being able to do this with impunity. Which they are generally able to do because A] it's not against the law, B] they have sophisticated software and C] because the people who could put a dent in it...won't.
I'm not naive enough to think that making Spam illegal will stop it all, but it will provide a legal basis for bringing lawsuits against the scum and make it easier to win MONEY from the spammers...which is all they care about and which will hurt them. It would also allow the legal system to keep track of those offenders who are convicted and start up new spam operations. At present, when a spammer is cut off from his ISP or Internet backbone connection, it is a matter of days before they spring up elsewhere.
The software developed for the spam industry is significant. Just several years ago, I could trackback through the email header and generally tell the IP address and the point of origin of the spam message. Not today. Their software creates fake email headers and shows fake IP addresses as the rule. It does no good to try and trackback. The reply addresses are fake as are the ID message lines. I have a little program which creates fake "bounce" messages, designed to send mail back to spammers announcing that "this is not a good address" and hopefully they would delete my address from their database. This is no longer useful.
There is one source link to the spammers that can still be traced. In order for the spammer to sell you some fake Viagra, he has to have a point of sale...usually a website. Now some of these are "confuscated" web addresses, in other words they are written in various coding that the average person could not decipher in order to report. But through the links I'll provide below you can do this. Many addresses linked on spam are normal Dot.Com addresses. The trick is to find out who is really behind this address. Be forewarned that the owners listed are mostly fake names and addresses commonly now coming from China or Brazil. But, and a big But....what you want to determine is how, what route and backbone server, does the URL get from the spam site to your computer. Sad to say, this is commonly through large well known companies such as Verio, ATT, Cable and Wireless or Verizon who really don't give a crap about your little complaint. Until, hopefully, they get hundreds of thousands or millions of complaints. These are the people who have the power to shut spam sales sites down, by blocking the IP addresses of the offenders. This is why I still send Abuse reports on every piece of spam I receive. If everyone did, perhaps they'd listen.
OK, here are two useful sites to start to chase Spam.
Sam Spade: allows you to do WHOIS searches, i.e. see how owns the site, do a TRACEROUTE to determine where the spam site URL enters the Internet backbone [usually a large well known company 5 or 6 hops up the list]. Allows you to deciper the "confuscated" URL's.
UXN Spam Combat: Here I utilize the Traceroute function and the very important SPEWS refernce. SPEWS keeps track of well known spam operations and can help you figure out the latest. You'll need the numeric IP address for this one. [many Spams are using html formated mail "right click" and use "source" to see the associated URL for the site.]
While using these tools remember: Never send a reply back to a spammer, nor use their "take me off your list" return address. This just confirms that your address is active...! You can send complaints to legitimate ISP's or Backbone providers by using the email address abuse@whomever.net. Always send a copy to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov. They won't act on the complaint but they are providing the statistics on Spam to the Congress [don't laugh, please].
There is some thought that since, hopefully, fewer and fewer people are buying anything from these scum, they will eventually implode. The biggest source of their revenue seems to come from selling spam email lists and spam software to each other. But until that happens, report the scumbags. Good luck and good hunting!
Thursday, July 03, 2003
Independence Day...!
God Bless America, land of the Free and Home of the Brave...
And as a reminder that Freedom is Not Free, and why we should remember at what price our liberty is held and what the cost is when we take it for granted, please take the time to view Why we should not forget!
God Bless America, land of the Free and Home of the Brave...
And as a reminder that Freedom is Not Free, and why we should remember at what price our liberty is held and what the cost is when we take it for granted, please take the time to view Why we should not forget!
Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Mysterious Blob.....
Scientists in Chile are studying the remains of a mysterious huge gelatinous creature that has washed ashore on the coast of that South American country. The animal, which was discovered June 23 washed up on a Chilean beach, was described as a 40-foot-long (12-meter) mass of rotting grey flesh that scientists estimated to weigh about 13 tons.
My first thought as to it's identity was this:
Has Michael Moore been reported missing?
Scientists in Chile are studying the remains of a mysterious huge gelatinous creature that has washed ashore on the coast of that South American country. The animal, which was discovered June 23 washed up on a Chilean beach, was described as a 40-foot-long (12-meter) mass of rotting grey flesh that scientists estimated to weigh about 13 tons.
My first thought as to it's identity was this:
Has Michael Moore been reported missing?
Monday, June 30, 2003
How's the Weather?....
Weather, the most talked about subject on the planet. But so far as we know, a subject completley ignored in the BlogWorld©. Now it will be at the new Interactive International weathertalk space known as How's the Weather. See comments from around the world about how weather is affecting people's lives.
Correspondents from your area are needed now? No sign-up, no fees. It's fast, it's compelling and it's free!
Weather, the most talked about subject on the planet. But so far as we know, a subject completley ignored in the BlogWorld©. Now it will be at the new Interactive International weathertalk space known as How's the Weather. See comments from around the world about how weather is affecting people's lives.
Correspondents from your area are needed now? No sign-up, no fees. It's fast, it's compelling and it's free!
Friday, June 27, 2003
The US Federal Government has finally done something useful for consumers. The new Federal Do Not Call list has been put into effect to try and limit unsolicited phone calls. You can register here. Reports indicate a heavy response.
I intend to sign up, but I am already on the Texas Do Not call list, which predates the Federal list by several years. And for the most part it works. I've only had one unsolicited call that I know of, and it was from a scummer who left a message on my answering machine recently. No return number, or I would have reported it and tried to collect my reward.
Now....if the Fed's would only get busy with SPAM protection for us online junkies! Don't hold your breath. I have been a SPAM fighter now for several years and have become fairly proficient in tracking down the origins of these messages and the SPAM sites that support them. As gratifying as this is, it is mostly in vain.....the spammers have for the most part become professionals and they cover their tracks very well. With modern SPAM sending software, it is almost impossible to track the ownership of the accounts. One can, however determine where the SPAM target sites are being hosted.....mainly in China. These Chinese based hosts do not care one whit if they get complaints and in fact laugh all the way to the Bank of Beijing. Therefore the only recourse is to complain to the American backbone server who is allowing that IP address into their network.
And then guess what happens? Nothing. Because Verio, CW, or AT&T are laughing all the way to the Bank of America. Nothing will be done until these companies, and others, that are permitting this [and making big bucks] are held accountable and/or liable.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Whee Doggies..
Jed Clampett, aka Buddy Ebsen, has been hospitalized. I wish him well and hope that Jethro and Ellie Mae are there by his side! But the stunner for me is that he is 95 years old! How old does this make me feel. Especially since I still remember him as George Russell, the sidekick to Fess Parker on "Davy Crockett" back in the 50's.
Jed Clampett, aka Buddy Ebsen, has been hospitalized. I wish him well and hope that Jethro and Ellie Mae are there by his side! But the stunner for me is that he is 95 years old! How old does this make me feel. Especially since I still remember him as George Russell, the sidekick to Fess Parker on "Davy Crockett" back in the 50's.
Blog surprise...
Wow, what fast action after mentioning that I might move my Blog business to Moveable Type! Upon trying to update Streams yesterday, I was confronted with a strange webpage, blogger.sorry.streams.htm. My blog had been hijacked to be updated by Blogger.Com. That process is now completed and therefore I type this on the new Dano based system they have installed...whatever that is.
The SORRY webpage told me that this is the "new, all improved" version of Blogger. We'll see.
PS: the basic post function actually worked, and it appears to post and publish in a more speedy fashion. I wait in breathless anticipation for something to completely pfutz up.
Wow, what fast action after mentioning that I might move my Blog business to Moveable Type! Upon trying to update Streams yesterday, I was confronted with a strange webpage, blogger.sorry.streams.htm. My blog had been hijacked to be updated by Blogger.Com. That process is now completed and therefore I type this on the new Dano based system they have installed...whatever that is.
The SORRY webpage told me that this is the "new, all improved" version of Blogger. We'll see.
PS: the basic post function actually worked, and it appears to post and publish in a more speedy fashion. I wait in breathless anticipation for something to completely pfutz up.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Blogged Down...
It may be about time for me to buck up, buckle down and move on to Moveable Type, for all my blogging needs. I'm not one to complain about free services...but I'm going to. Blogger.com has gone downhill, to the point that it's not worth trying to fight uphill any longer. Free is no good if it drives you insane. I'm not alone in this feeling if my blogmates around the world are any indication. Most complain about the archive function, which frankly I have not had much problem with. My problems are more basic. The templates.
Some time ago I complained in this very text space about my Streams blog template not holding changes. After a month or so, that gradually and magically fixed itself after much consternation on my part. Then in the last month, Julie's informative cybernews spot The Yellow Bug Schmooze started acting up, by adding an unclosed bold start tag into the archived, but viewed entries causing all but the current entry to become bold. I have searched, and searched, and searched for an answer to this problem, driving me to distraction. There doesn't seem to be a logical explanation for this occurence. None at all, it just happens.
And now...I have dragged out and rehabed an old obselete Blog property of mine in order to start a very informative local weather and international news webspace and I'm having problems with it. I haven't touched this Blogspace in over a year, no changes to the template, no entries, it's been in dry storage. So what happens? The first entry I make on the Beta version of the international weather blog causes a nasty and persistent fault error on the Blogger upload page. Something to the effect of !Error 104:Java Meltdown. Danger Will Robinson!
I have learned that to search for the cause of this type of error is fruitless and will short circuit my brain and my good nature. When I made the effort to use the Blogger "self help" page, the only search result for this type of error gave as it's remedy "Exit Blogger and Log In again". Please....I don't need this kind of Microsoft© solution. If I believed this would work you can rest assured that I believe that the "Blue Sreen" warning is for my own good.
Yup I believe it's time to move on.
It may be about time for me to buck up, buckle down and move on to Moveable Type, for all my blogging needs. I'm not one to complain about free services...but I'm going to. Blogger.com has gone downhill, to the point that it's not worth trying to fight uphill any longer. Free is no good if it drives you insane. I'm not alone in this feeling if my blogmates around the world are any indication. Most complain about the archive function, which frankly I have not had much problem with. My problems are more basic. The templates.
Some time ago I complained in this very text space about my Streams blog template not holding changes. After a month or so, that gradually and magically fixed itself after much consternation on my part. Then in the last month, Julie's informative cybernews spot The Yellow Bug Schmooze started acting up, by adding an unclosed bold start tag into the archived, but viewed entries causing all but the current entry to become bold. I have searched, and searched, and searched for an answer to this problem, driving me to distraction. There doesn't seem to be a logical explanation for this occurence. None at all, it just happens.
And now...I have dragged out and rehabed an old obselete Blog property of mine in order to start a very informative local weather and international news webspace and I'm having problems with it. I haven't touched this Blogspace in over a year, no changes to the template, no entries, it's been in dry storage. So what happens? The first entry I make on the Beta version of the international weather blog causes a nasty and persistent fault error on the Blogger upload page. Something to the effect of !Error 104:Java Meltdown. Danger Will Robinson!
I have learned that to search for the cause of this type of error is fruitless and will short circuit my brain and my good nature. When I made the effort to use the Blogger "self help" page, the only search result for this type of error gave as it's remedy "Exit Blogger and Log In again". Please....I don't need this kind of Microsoft© solution. If I believed this would work you can rest assured that I believe that the "Blue Sreen" warning is for my own good.
Yup I believe it's time to move on.
Friday, June 20, 2003
Enviro Friendly...
Our area of the country is rich in oil and gas deposits, primarily because 300 million years ago, we were the bed of the Permian Sea, an area of shallow ocean now long gone. Left with the biological deposits of flora and fauna that became oil, were vast amounts of salt water now located at varying depths below us, some quite deep.
When we drill oil wells we usually encounter this brine to greater or lesser degrees, and it comes flowing up with the oil. Before the oil can be sold the water must be seperated which we do in large heat treating tanks, the oil floating to the top. Of course, then the problem becomes what to do with the brackish water. In the old days of the business, the water was simply flowed out onto the ground, and in fact in some less developed areas of the world, I'm sure they still practice this method. However, it is catastrophic to the soil and plant life, effectively making the area a salt desert.
Today there are two options of dealing with this water. In many areas the water is held in storage tanks to be trucked away for safe disposal, such as to man made salt lakes where shrimp are raised. This costs around one dollar a barrel. The other option, an injection well, is pictured above. Where there are old non producing wells in proximity, the brine can be re-injected down the old well bore to be placed back in the bowels of the earth where it came from. The injection well above, handles water from 8 wells and is 14,000 ft. deep. The two lines with their solar powered meters running into this injection system come from two of our wells, and from six wells owned by another company in the area. The eight wells flow approximately 900 barrels of water per day back to the Ellenberger formation far below, and costs us 28 cents a barrel to dispose of. One of the ancillary costs of producing oil, but worth it.
Our area of the country is rich in oil and gas deposits, primarily because 300 million years ago, we were the bed of the Permian Sea, an area of shallow ocean now long gone. Left with the biological deposits of flora and fauna that became oil, were vast amounts of salt water now located at varying depths below us, some quite deep.
When we drill oil wells we usually encounter this brine to greater or lesser degrees, and it comes flowing up with the oil. Before the oil can be sold the water must be seperated which we do in large heat treating tanks, the oil floating to the top. Of course, then the problem becomes what to do with the brackish water. In the old days of the business, the water was simply flowed out onto the ground, and in fact in some less developed areas of the world, I'm sure they still practice this method. However, it is catastrophic to the soil and plant life, effectively making the area a salt desert.
Today there are two options of dealing with this water. In many areas the water is held in storage tanks to be trucked away for safe disposal, such as to man made salt lakes where shrimp are raised. This costs around one dollar a barrel. The other option, an injection well, is pictured above. Where there are old non producing wells in proximity, the brine can be re-injected down the old well bore to be placed back in the bowels of the earth where it came from. The injection well above, handles water from 8 wells and is 14,000 ft. deep. The two lines with their solar powered meters running into this injection system come from two of our wells, and from six wells owned by another company in the area. The eight wells flow approximately 900 barrels of water per day back to the Ellenberger formation far below, and costs us 28 cents a barrel to dispose of. One of the ancillary costs of producing oil, but worth it.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Iran......
It is just 24 years since 1979 when it seemed that every single person in Iran hated the United States, hated democracy and was ready to vow his or her perpetual allegiance to the Muslim clerics, mullahs, and poobahs who had taken over that country. It is with some amazement that I read what is happening there today. It bears a close watch and the support of all who can reach them....which is you via the power of the Internet.
Take a moment to visit these Blogs from Iran:
Iranian Girl
Whoman
Lady Sun
Jactancy
It is just 24 years since 1979 when it seemed that every single person in Iran hated the United States, hated democracy and was ready to vow his or her perpetual allegiance to the Muslim clerics, mullahs, and poobahs who had taken over that country. It is with some amazement that I read what is happening there today. It bears a close watch and the support of all who can reach them....which is you via the power of the Internet.
Take a moment to visit these Blogs from Iran:
Iranian Girl
Whoman
Lady Sun
Jactancy
Monday, June 16, 2003
Why we study history.....[or need to]
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage."
These words of wisdom current in their warning were written by Scottish historian Professor Alexander Tyler in 1787, concerning the Athenian civilization.
Thought on Democracy...
As an addendum to this thought on the state of democracy, Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University of Law, St. Paul, MN provides the following 2000 election factoids for consideration..
*Population of counties won by Gore 127 million, won by Bush 143 million.
*Square miles of country won by Gore 580,000, won by Bush 2,427,000.
*States won by Gore 19, by Bush 29 .
*Murders per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore 13.2 - by Bush 2.1
Professor Olson comments, "And may I add that the map of the territory Bush won was (mostly) the land owned by the people of this great country not the citizens living in cities owned by the government and living off the government".
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage."
These words of wisdom current in their warning were written by Scottish historian Professor Alexander Tyler in 1787, concerning the Athenian civilization.
Thought on Democracy...
As an addendum to this thought on the state of democracy, Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University of Law, St. Paul, MN provides the following 2000 election factoids for consideration..
*Population of counties won by Gore 127 million, won by Bush 143 million.
*Square miles of country won by Gore 580,000, won by Bush 2,427,000.
*States won by Gore 19, by Bush 29 .
*Murders per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore 13.2 - by Bush 2.1
Professor Olson comments, "And may I add that the map of the territory Bush won was (mostly) the land owned by the people of this great country not the citizens living in cities owned by the government and living off the government".
Sunday, June 15, 2003
Energy Update.....
From my perspective as a producer and supplier of energy commodities [oil and gas], things are looking very good indeed for the near future. We who explore for, and produce oil and natural gas are like farmers. We spend large amounts of money to produce the raw commodity, but have no say so in the price we get for our products. This is decided these days in the world markets and on the commodity exchanges of New York. And for so many years, decades really stretching back into the mid 1980's, oil and gas has been oversupplied, keeping prices low.
In fact in some years because of low prices it did not even make economic sense to drill new wells, and to operate existing wells meant barely breaking even. But things are changing now. Many analysts believe that we have crested the top of the curve where new supplies coming into the market outweighed the demand. Now demand in growing energy use in the industrialized world, and especially the newly developed third world is going to, henceforth, outstrip existing and newly found supplies. Of course daily world events, weather and manmade market disruptions cause fluctuations, but the trend in prices is definetly and irreversably towards the upside. Just this week the US Department of Energy raised their predictions for year 2003 natural gas price averages by 11%......this over their prediction of just one month ago, and 80% over year 2002!
It is an exciting time to be in the energy business in Midland Texas, not only because our bottom lines look better, but more importantly because of the new innovations that are being developed in response to the growing awareness of our energy needs and the recognition that our area is one of the world's leading locales for expertise in the energy business. Just this week we have had in town a large group from Japan who are exploring ways to more efficiently produce gas from their fields, and due to our Sister City arrangement with Dongying, China we have Chinese techicians in town constantly and now televised classroom links between our college and theirs .
People are looking at new ways of doing things in the oil field. My partners and I have decided to look more broadly at things and truly go into the energy business. We are in negotiations with a major US oil and gas corporation to construct an electrical power generation plant for their use powered by low BTU gas from existing wells that we have. This gas contains high levels on nitrogen and sulphur causing it to sell for a very low price and with the consequence that no one will drill new wells of this type. But this gas will power modern electric generation equipment with no problems. So we will turn an unused resources into one that will turn out low cost, clean electrical power. The Department of Energy is interested in our concept, as is the State of Texas.
Our region is at the forefront in the development of renewable resources too. Over 1000 Megawatts of electricity is currently being produced by wind driven generators, and solar powered plants are finally being considered. An Australian company is exploring solar power on a grand scale as seen in the article Solar Turbine Towers. These are exciting developments, but of course, have their drawbacks as well. The wind turbines, massive and numerous, are placed on hills and mesas which out in this country pass for our only scenic views. Visual pollution. And the solar turbine project is so costly and massive I have doubts about it's viability. And none of these alternative energy sources work economically without large tax incentives. But these new avenues for energy must be explored and perfected. For although when prices are high, we in the business benefit, prices that are too high are no good for anyone.
From my perspective as a producer and supplier of energy commodities [oil and gas], things are looking very good indeed for the near future. We who explore for, and produce oil and natural gas are like farmers. We spend large amounts of money to produce the raw commodity, but have no say so in the price we get for our products. This is decided these days in the world markets and on the commodity exchanges of New York. And for so many years, decades really stretching back into the mid 1980's, oil and gas has been oversupplied, keeping prices low.
In fact in some years because of low prices it did not even make economic sense to drill new wells, and to operate existing wells meant barely breaking even. But things are changing now. Many analysts believe that we have crested the top of the curve where new supplies coming into the market outweighed the demand. Now demand in growing energy use in the industrialized world, and especially the newly developed third world is going to, henceforth, outstrip existing and newly found supplies. Of course daily world events, weather and manmade market disruptions cause fluctuations, but the trend in prices is definetly and irreversably towards the upside. Just this week the US Department of Energy raised their predictions for year 2003 natural gas price averages by 11%......this over their prediction of just one month ago, and 80% over year 2002!
It is an exciting time to be in the energy business in Midland Texas, not only because our bottom lines look better, but more importantly because of the new innovations that are being developed in response to the growing awareness of our energy needs and the recognition that our area is one of the world's leading locales for expertise in the energy business. Just this week we have had in town a large group from Japan who are exploring ways to more efficiently produce gas from their fields, and due to our Sister City arrangement with Dongying, China we have Chinese techicians in town constantly and now televised classroom links between our college and theirs .
People are looking at new ways of doing things in the oil field. My partners and I have decided to look more broadly at things and truly go into the energy business. We are in negotiations with a major US oil and gas corporation to construct an electrical power generation plant for their use powered by low BTU gas from existing wells that we have. This gas contains high levels on nitrogen and sulphur causing it to sell for a very low price and with the consequence that no one will drill new wells of this type. But this gas will power modern electric generation equipment with no problems. So we will turn an unused resources into one that will turn out low cost, clean electrical power. The Department of Energy is interested in our concept, as is the State of Texas.
Our region is at the forefront in the development of renewable resources too. Over 1000 Megawatts of electricity is currently being produced by wind driven generators, and solar powered plants are finally being considered. An Australian company is exploring solar power on a grand scale as seen in the article Solar Turbine Towers. These are exciting developments, but of course, have their drawbacks as well. The wind turbines, massive and numerous, are placed on hills and mesas which out in this country pass for our only scenic views. Visual pollution. And the solar turbine project is so costly and massive I have doubts about it's viability. And none of these alternative energy sources work economically without large tax incentives. But these new avenues for energy must be explored and perfected. For although when prices are high, we in the business benefit, prices that are too high are no good for anyone.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
So long Mr. Peck......
Hollywood star Gregory Peck has died at age 87. With his passing one more true old fashioned "film star" has left us and will make us wonder whether any more film greats of this sort will arise.
There are many movie and media entertainment stars today, but true film stars may be a thing of the past. The film stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, I think, weren't so much worried about their mass market appeal or their commercial success as they were their craft. No, they tended to concern themselves with making great pictures, improving their performances and in securing meaningful roles that told a story and had depth. They made some bombs along the way, but by and large, the film stars had one or perhaps several films that are rated as classics. Such was the case with Gregory Peck. His role as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, has been rated by the public as the #1 hero in filmdom.
The stars of today, seem to take any role that will make them a dime. They are bombarded upon us with interviews, tabloid stories, talk show appearances and they become too familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt, or at least boredom with them. In thinking of names who are big stars today, I quickly come up with people like Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford. Good actors with some really good entertaining films.......lot's of them. Too many of them. We are over saturated with Mel and Harrison, their mystique is gone. On the other side is someone like Meryl Streep. She remains, in my mind, aloof and out of the public eye. Until, she rises from her private world to make another great film. At which time I am awed by her talent and say to myself, "What a great actor, where has she been lately?" She's an old time star, like Gregory Peck and I am sorry there are not more like them.
Hollywood star Gregory Peck has died at age 87. With his passing one more true old fashioned "film star" has left us and will make us wonder whether any more film greats of this sort will arise.
There are many movie and media entertainment stars today, but true film stars may be a thing of the past. The film stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, I think, weren't so much worried about their mass market appeal or their commercial success as they were their craft. No, they tended to concern themselves with making great pictures, improving their performances and in securing meaningful roles that told a story and had depth. They made some bombs along the way, but by and large, the film stars had one or perhaps several films that are rated as classics. Such was the case with Gregory Peck. His role as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, has been rated by the public as the #1 hero in filmdom.
The stars of today, seem to take any role that will make them a dime. They are bombarded upon us with interviews, tabloid stories, talk show appearances and they become too familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt, or at least boredom with them. In thinking of names who are big stars today, I quickly come up with people like Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford. Good actors with some really good entertaining films.......lot's of them. Too many of them. We are over saturated with Mel and Harrison, their mystique is gone. On the other side is someone like Meryl Streep. She remains, in my mind, aloof and out of the public eye. Until, she rises from her private world to make another great film. At which time I am awed by her talent and say to myself, "What a great actor, where has she been lately?" She's an old time star, like Gregory Peck and I am sorry there are not more like them.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
A Toad Floater.....
Last week it was a close call with death by dust suffocation, this week death by drowning. For those not familiar with West Texas weather, dust storms and floods are close cousins, it just depends on how the thunderstorms grow and where they dump their much needed moisture. Tonight they chose to dump on us. I surmise close to 2 inches in just about 45 minutes. I'm not complaining about the rain, true West Texans never do for we know in August we'll be praying for anything we can get. But.....this storm started my roof leaking again after winter repairs, I'm just glad I was still up to set the buckets by the offending fireplace.
This storm started off as a small line of thunderclouds off to the west of us and grew rapidly, and came swiftly. At 8:30 p.m. it was barely a blip on the radar, and by 10:30 had grown into a storm packing 70 mph winds and dime sized hail. To give out of towners a scale, the distance on the map from Midland to El Paso is over 300 miles.
We genteel folk call these big rains toad floaters, but really the common Texas vernacular requires you to juxtapose two other letters into the "toad". The term originated in the ranching business, describing rains large enough to float the cow pies and start them drifting off out of the pasture. You figure it out.
Thursday, June 05, 2003
Blown Away...
Midland, Texas is generally a great place to live, but it does have it's drawbacks. Dust being chief among the negatives. The picture above is not a 1930's Dust Bowl retinted image, but a weather event that happened here this last Tuesday.
This roiling, seething mass of geologic particulate hell was caused by a micro-burst [a misnomer here..this was mega!] from a thunderstorm that was over 90 miles away to our north. For those of you who don't have massive thunderstorms coupled with flat prairieland, I'll explain the concept. As thunderstorms build with rising heat they carry massive amounts of moisture aloft to great altitudes of 40, 50, 60,000 feet or more. As the clouds encounter colder temperatures at these altitudes they lose the ability to hold this moisture, and if conditions are right, the moisture rich center of the cloud basically collapses on itself releasing the water and huge amounts of energy in the form of wind, which goes straight down. When it hits dry, dusty flatlands it spreads out and travels for long distances. Think of blowing a hard concentrated breath straight down into a pile of flour and you'll get the idea, except on a grand scale.
This one must have had the force of a small nuclear weapon; large, amazing and somewhat spooky. As I was standing in the front yard facing south and with a clear blue sky overhead, I noticed an orange glow starting to embue itself on everything. Turning around I noticed this wall cloud of dust some miles north. Before I could go inside, procure the camera and come back out, it was on us, the wind going from 0-60 mph in zero seconds. I got a rather bad image of the wall almost over me, a sheer face thousands of feet high, so I'm lucky a friend took the image above from an office building. I could barely see across the street for an hour or more and when the dust settles it covers everything with the consistency of fine talcum powder. One minute perfectly clear and calm, the next instant a maelstrom. I have some feeling of how the citizens of Pompeii must have felt as they watched the volcanic gas cloud descend upon them!
I'm still cleaning dust from the estate!
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Letter from the Prime Minister...
It's not often that I get a letter from a world leader, but one came in the mail today. Arriving in a fairly nondescript envelope I almost threw it in the trash thinking it was another "special deal" offering a no interest credit card. I'm glad I didn't, for the letter was from Prime Minister John Howard of Australia. I had found his address on a link in down under Blogmate, Tim Blair's informative column and had jotted off a quick note to the Prime Minister thanking him for his steadfastness concerning Iraq, when so many other world weasels were scurrying for their holes.
I'm glad Mr. Howard found the time to write. And, OK, doubters I know you are saying........"form letter". Perhaps some of it is, but he does allude in paragraph 2 to my comments about the closeness those of us in the United States feel for our Aussie brethren...Texans in particular. And, I am basically a doubter too...so I wet my fingers and tried to smudge the ink. A successful smudge as seen on the signature. It's an inpiring letter, I hope you find the time to read it:
Prime Ministers Letter
It's not often that I get a letter from a world leader, but one came in the mail today. Arriving in a fairly nondescript envelope I almost threw it in the trash thinking it was another "special deal" offering a no interest credit card. I'm glad I didn't, for the letter was from Prime Minister John Howard of Australia. I had found his address on a link in down under Blogmate, Tim Blair's informative column and had jotted off a quick note to the Prime Minister thanking him for his steadfastness concerning Iraq, when so many other world weasels were scurrying for their holes.
I'm glad Mr. Howard found the time to write. And, OK, doubters I know you are saying........"form letter". Perhaps some of it is, but he does allude in paragraph 2 to my comments about the closeness those of us in the United States feel for our Aussie brethren...Texans in particular. And, I am basically a doubter too...so I wet my fingers and tried to smudge the ink. A successful smudge as seen on the signature. It's an inpiring letter, I hope you find the time to read it:
Prime Ministers Letter
Monday, June 02, 2003
Divorce, European Style........
Writer Ralph Peters pens what many Americans have been thinking.........
"The societies of "Old Europe" remind Americans of the Arab Street. Preferring comforting delusions to challenging realities, Europeans talk a great deal, do very little, and blame the United States for home-grown ills.
The recent chants in the boulevards of Berlin were almost indistinguishable from those heard--until recently--in downtown Baghdad. Europe's culture of complaint, its enthusiasm for accusing America of every wickedness while assigning every virtue to itself, and its stunning lack of self-examination leave Americans bewildered.
We thought you were adults, but, from across the Atlantic, you look like spoiled children. And your recent tantrums have convinced Big Daddy America to deposit you on the steps of the strategic orphanage.
The damage done by the recent confrontation between The United States and those nations whose vocabularies collapsed to the single words "Nein!" or "Non!" will be repaired--on the surface. We shall continue to cooperate on matters of mutual interest. But, on a deeper level, the exuberantly dishonest attacks on America heard from France and Germany (Belgium simply doesn't count), along with the shameless grandstanding of Mr. Schroeder and Mr. Chirac, appear to even the most pragmatic Americans as grounds for divorce from our long marriage of convenience.
The divorce is long overdue. Ignoring "Old Europe" on questions of grand strategy will liberate the United States, freeing us at last from the failed European model of diplomacy that has given the world so many hideous wars, dysfunctional borders and undisturbed dictators. The recent mischief wrought in Paris and Berlin has enabled Washington to escape a long thrall of enchantment, a slumber of sorts during which America allowed Europe's ghost to haunt its decisions. Now you have awakened us, and we see that Europe's influence was nothing but a legacy of nightmares. We shall no longer subscribe to your bloodsoaked, corrupt rules for the international system, but will forge our own.
You will not like many of our new rules. But to paraphrase Frederick the Great's remark about Maria Theresia, you will cry, but take your share of any available spoils. As a result of a series of remarkable strategic miscalculations, France and Germany have lost their international footing--not only with the USA, but with the world. You had your moment in the anti-American sun. High noon revealed you as powerless and inept.
For Germany, this divorce will offer some advantages. American combat forces soon will begin to leave German soil permanently, followed in good time by our logistics facilities, which are simply more difficult to shift. This will be to Germany's benefit practically and psychologically--and very much to the benefit of America's armed forces, which have become nothing but a cash cow for greedy organizations ranging from your railways to your labor unions.
NATO will survive, of course. Along with the European Union, it's an indispensable employment agency for Europe's excess bureaucrats. But other bilateral and multilateral military arrangements will take precedence in Washington's strategic calculations.
On the negative side, Germany will lose almost all of its diplomatic influence beyond continental Europe--and Berlin never had much, at least since 1945. The world will take your Euros, but will not take you seriously. You have asserted your independence from America. Now you have it. Good luck.
We won our war, easily, despite your protests and without your help. And do not flatter yourself with rhetoric about refusing to be America's vassals. No one in the United States questioned Germany's right to decide for itself whether or not to support our efforts to depose Saddam Hussein. Germany had every right to decline to participal, but it was the way you did it that infuriated us.
Bundeskanzler Schroeder astonished us. We long had recognized him as a political charlatan, but the extent of his demagogy and his amateurish inability to foresee the consequences of his ranting still came as a surprise to us. We see Mr. Schroeder as a man utterly without convictions-a man without qualities--a political animal so debased that he resembles no one so much as he does European caricatures of small-time American politicians. His opportunistic anti-Americanism seemed all for effect, without substance or genuine belief.
Yet, in other respects, Schroeder proved quintessentially European: He criticized, but failed to offer meaningful solutions of his own. He chose slogans over ideas, convenience over ethics, and portrayed small-minded selfishness as political heroism. What qualities might better describe 21st century Europe? Germany has come a long way downhill from Adenauer and Schmidt to Gerhard Schroeder.
Most difficult of all for us to stomach were remarks from members of the German government comparing President Bush to Hitler. Now, does anyone reading this newspaper believe that's an honest comparison? And was it fitting coming from a German official? One thinks not. Americans heard the echo of Joseph Goebbels.
Then there were all the demonstrators waving signs equating the United States to the Nazi regime, as tasteless a display as Germany has managed since the last crematorium went cold. Once our tempers cooled, we realized that all these Nazi comparisons weren't really about us. It was all about you, your guilt and your evasions.
Perhaps the most revealing incident of the war came during a television interview with a young protester in Berlin after Baghdad had fallen. The reporter asked him what he thought of the images of Iraqis cheering U.S. Marines and toppling Saddam's statue. The young German said the scenes "annoyed" him. Doubtless. Reality is annoying, indeed.
Oh, we know how you see us. You never cease telling us. We are uncultured, because we cannot recall the date of the first performance of Das Rheingold. We are heartless, since our society favors opportunity over security. We are na ve, since we do not share your prejudices. We are warmongers, because we still believe some things are worth defending. And now we are Nazis, because we moved to depose a dictator who had slaughtered his own people as well as his neighbors, while harboring terrorists and pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, you continue to buy our cultural products. Your brightest young people come to our shores to work. We Americans have moved beyond the racism that blights Germany and France (we look forward to meeting a German Colin Powell of Turkish ancestry in Berlin or an ethnic-Senegalese Condoleeza Rice in Paris), so we certainly do not share your prejudices. And after the events of September 11th, 2001, we will not wait to be attacked, but will strike pre-emptively wherever we believe it to be necessary--and we shall do so without ever again asking Europe's permission. So we are, indeed, warmongers by European standards.
But what about the charge that Americans are the new Nazis? I think I understand the sickness that afflicts you. I received my first insight as a young Army sergeant in a not-yet-reunified Germany a quarter-century ago. Although the event was ten years past, young Germans unfailingly brought up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam during our conversations. My Lai was one of two documented American atrocities in that war. Almost two hundred villagers were murdered. It was inexcusable, and we did not try to excuse it. But those young Germans grasped at the My Lai massacre with an alacrity that astonished me. To them, the two-hundred dead at My Lai canceled Auschwitz and Treblinka, six million murdered Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and dissenters. The message was, "See! You Americans are just as bad as we Germans were-maybe worse." I did not find the comparison convincing.
Now, with Germany's Jews long since slaughtered or driven out (to America's great benefit, thank you), you attack Israel at every opportunity, hanging on every Palestinian claim, no matter how absurd, and inventing Israeli atrocities. Americans see Israelis as fighting for their existence against those who want to exterminate them. You view Israelis as a reproach to your past deeds, and you lash out at them. Clausewitz is no longer a guide to your national behavior. Today, we need to consult Sigmund Freud. A Jew, of course.
The Israelis, too, have been called Nazis by your elected politicians-indeed, "Nazi" seems to be your favorite insult. At times it sounds to us as though everyone who isn't a German is now a Nazi. Unless, of course, we are talking of Arabs who murder Jews, in which case a good German speaks of freedom fighters. Here in America, Holocaust survivors live among us, as do those aging G.I.s who opened the gates to Dachau. They have been our fathers, our teachers and our neighbors. Is it any wonder that we find your rhetoric repulsive? Hitler, at least, was honest about his bigotry.
And now we must endure the ludicrous schizophrenia of your present society, in which you alternate between insisting that German guilt must have an end and indulging in revisionist history that equates the allied bombing campaign against your cities or the sinking of ships ferrying submarine crews with Nazi evils. Your attempts to excuse the inexcusable merely remind us that Germany deserved every bomb dropped upon its soil. Bush the equivalent of Hitler? Show us the American death camps, please.
As a lifelong admirer of German culture, you leave me in despair. Your chancellor has transformed the worthy old maxim "Be more than you appear to be" into "Appear to be more than you are." Goethe's timeless query, "Germany...but where is it?" has been answered with "Between France and Russia, duped by Chirac and cooly manipulated by Putin." And Faust has been outed as Professor Unrat.
Auf wiedersehen, Lili Marleen. It was great while it lasted.
And Marianne? Since no one took Germany seriously to begin with, Berlin had less to lose in l'affaire Iraq than Paris. France gambled with Dostoevskian abandon in the strategic casino and ended up bankrupt in the morning light. President Chirac and his sorcerer's apprentice, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, emerged as one of the most incompetent combinations in diplomatic history, two drunkards behind the steering wheel of policy. It astonishes us that the French actually believed that Paris could dictate terms to Washington. Sorry. Gaul does not give orders to Rome.
We understood that Chirac was playing to the Arab world as well as to his domestic electorate. But the succession of French refusals to negotiate seriously or even to consider compromises at the United Nations, climaxed by France's announcement, in advance, that it would veto any further resolutions introduced by the United States or Britain, seemed suicidal to us.
And it was suicidal. The legacy of Charles de Gaulle perished in the Security Council. The tradition of permitting France a greater voice in trans-Atlantic decision-making than its place, power or contributions merited is over, as dead as Jean-Paul Sartre or his idol, Josef Stalin. The Gallic cock crowed so loudly it fell off the fence and broke its neck. Washington will no longer entertain the views of Paris on vital international issues. Nor will we risk another French veto on a matter we view as critical to our national security. And we will feed the United Nations the crumbs of strategy. Far from expanding its influence, France has forced its collapse. A quick round of applause in Algeria is hardly worth the loss of America's ear. Briefly the champion of all the anti-American forces in the world, from Libya to North Korea, France is left unable to resolve the civil strife in Ivory Coast. And Paris will not be given a significant role in rebuilding Iraq.
France long has seemed to Americans to be the apotheosis of European hypocrisy. While defending Saddam Hussein from "American aggression," Mr. Chirac hosted Robert Mugabe in Paris in a pathetic attempt to expand French influence into Anglophone Africa. But I was in Zimbabwe when the visit occurred and the degree of fury the people of that country felt toward France for hosting Mugabe--whom they have nicknamed "Robodan Mugabevich"--guaranteed that the French will never be welcome between the Zambezi and the Limpopo. France seems to us an aging whore desperate to attract even the most diseased customers.
But, above all, it is French naivete that leaves us shaking our heads. How could they so misjudge the situation? Aren't the French supposed to be terribly clever and devious? How could they be so clumsy, and on such a grand scale? The short answer is that, like Arabs, they believed their own fantasies. In addition to the forlorn illusion that France is still a great power, Mr. Chirac and Mr. de Villepin utterly misjudged George Bush. They had called him a cowboy for so long that they came to believe there was nothing to the man. And they were wrong.
I did not vote for President Bush. But, after 9/11/01, I was glad he was our president. Had Al Gore been in the White House, we would have done the European thing and formed a committee to ask how we had brought disaster upon ourselves. President Bush led a galvanized nation into a series of deliberate, carefully-considered actions that have broken the back of one terrorist organization after another while removing a brutal, backward theocracy from one country and a blood-encrusted dictatorship from another.
And America is not finished. We will no longer subscribe to the European system in which dictators may do as they wish with impunity within their own borders--your insistence on respect for national sovereignty simply means that Hitler would have been perfectly acceptable had he only killed German Jews. And we will not follow the traditions of kings and kaisers in which heads of state are exempt from personal punishment, no matter their crimes. We will go after the truly guilty, not the masses. And no amount of insults hurled from beneath the Brandenburg Gate or from the Place de la Concorde will deter us. We are finished with your delight in weeping over past holocausts while you remain unwilling to act to prevent or interrupt new holocausts. Srebrenica is the European model. Baghdad is ours.
President Bush is a Texan, as Europeans never fail to remind us. But the intelligence services of France and Germany seem to have failed to understand the character of Texans. They don't speak artfully, but they act resolutely. They aren't relativists. Texans believe there is a difference between right and wrong. And when you insult a Texan to his face while betraying his trust, he is not going to take it kindly. Confronting a Texan in public is always ill-advised, unless you intend to fight it out to the end--and have the means to do so. Texans don't even care where Europe is on the map.
We Americans are all Texans now. You have left us no choice."
Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of sixteen books, including novels, collections of essays and works on strategy. His most recent book is Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World.
Writer Ralph Peters pens what many Americans have been thinking.........
"The societies of "Old Europe" remind Americans of the Arab Street. Preferring comforting delusions to challenging realities, Europeans talk a great deal, do very little, and blame the United States for home-grown ills.
The recent chants in the boulevards of Berlin were almost indistinguishable from those heard--until recently--in downtown Baghdad. Europe's culture of complaint, its enthusiasm for accusing America of every wickedness while assigning every virtue to itself, and its stunning lack of self-examination leave Americans bewildered.
We thought you were adults, but, from across the Atlantic, you look like spoiled children. And your recent tantrums have convinced Big Daddy America to deposit you on the steps of the strategic orphanage.
The damage done by the recent confrontation between The United States and those nations whose vocabularies collapsed to the single words "Nein!" or "Non!" will be repaired--on the surface. We shall continue to cooperate on matters of mutual interest. But, on a deeper level, the exuberantly dishonest attacks on America heard from France and Germany (Belgium simply doesn't count), along with the shameless grandstanding of Mr. Schroeder and Mr. Chirac, appear to even the most pragmatic Americans as grounds for divorce from our long marriage of convenience.
The divorce is long overdue. Ignoring "Old Europe" on questions of grand strategy will liberate the United States, freeing us at last from the failed European model of diplomacy that has given the world so many hideous wars, dysfunctional borders and undisturbed dictators. The recent mischief wrought in Paris and Berlin has enabled Washington to escape a long thrall of enchantment, a slumber of sorts during which America allowed Europe's ghost to haunt its decisions. Now you have awakened us, and we see that Europe's influence was nothing but a legacy of nightmares. We shall no longer subscribe to your bloodsoaked, corrupt rules for the international system, but will forge our own.
You will not like many of our new rules. But to paraphrase Frederick the Great's remark about Maria Theresia, you will cry, but take your share of any available spoils. As a result of a series of remarkable strategic miscalculations, France and Germany have lost their international footing--not only with the USA, but with the world. You had your moment in the anti-American sun. High noon revealed you as powerless and inept.
For Germany, this divorce will offer some advantages. American combat forces soon will begin to leave German soil permanently, followed in good time by our logistics facilities, which are simply more difficult to shift. This will be to Germany's benefit practically and psychologically--and very much to the benefit of America's armed forces, which have become nothing but a cash cow for greedy organizations ranging from your railways to your labor unions.
NATO will survive, of course. Along with the European Union, it's an indispensable employment agency for Europe's excess bureaucrats. But other bilateral and multilateral military arrangements will take precedence in Washington's strategic calculations.
On the negative side, Germany will lose almost all of its diplomatic influence beyond continental Europe--and Berlin never had much, at least since 1945. The world will take your Euros, but will not take you seriously. You have asserted your independence from America. Now you have it. Good luck.
We won our war, easily, despite your protests and without your help. And do not flatter yourself with rhetoric about refusing to be America's vassals. No one in the United States questioned Germany's right to decide for itself whether or not to support our efforts to depose Saddam Hussein. Germany had every right to decline to participal, but it was the way you did it that infuriated us.
Bundeskanzler Schroeder astonished us. We long had recognized him as a political charlatan, but the extent of his demagogy and his amateurish inability to foresee the consequences of his ranting still came as a surprise to us. We see Mr. Schroeder as a man utterly without convictions-a man without qualities--a political animal so debased that he resembles no one so much as he does European caricatures of small-time American politicians. His opportunistic anti-Americanism seemed all for effect, without substance or genuine belief.
Yet, in other respects, Schroeder proved quintessentially European: He criticized, but failed to offer meaningful solutions of his own. He chose slogans over ideas, convenience over ethics, and portrayed small-minded selfishness as political heroism. What qualities might better describe 21st century Europe? Germany has come a long way downhill from Adenauer and Schmidt to Gerhard Schroeder.
Most difficult of all for us to stomach were remarks from members of the German government comparing President Bush to Hitler. Now, does anyone reading this newspaper believe that's an honest comparison? And was it fitting coming from a German official? One thinks not. Americans heard the echo of Joseph Goebbels.
Then there were all the demonstrators waving signs equating the United States to the Nazi regime, as tasteless a display as Germany has managed since the last crematorium went cold. Once our tempers cooled, we realized that all these Nazi comparisons weren't really about us. It was all about you, your guilt and your evasions.
Perhaps the most revealing incident of the war came during a television interview with a young protester in Berlin after Baghdad had fallen. The reporter asked him what he thought of the images of Iraqis cheering U.S. Marines and toppling Saddam's statue. The young German said the scenes "annoyed" him. Doubtless. Reality is annoying, indeed.
Oh, we know how you see us. You never cease telling us. We are uncultured, because we cannot recall the date of the first performance of Das Rheingold. We are heartless, since our society favors opportunity over security. We are na ve, since we do not share your prejudices. We are warmongers, because we still believe some things are worth defending. And now we are Nazis, because we moved to depose a dictator who had slaughtered his own people as well as his neighbors, while harboring terrorists and pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, you continue to buy our cultural products. Your brightest young people come to our shores to work. We Americans have moved beyond the racism that blights Germany and France (we look forward to meeting a German Colin Powell of Turkish ancestry in Berlin or an ethnic-Senegalese Condoleeza Rice in Paris), so we certainly do not share your prejudices. And after the events of September 11th, 2001, we will not wait to be attacked, but will strike pre-emptively wherever we believe it to be necessary--and we shall do so without ever again asking Europe's permission. So we are, indeed, warmongers by European standards.
But what about the charge that Americans are the new Nazis? I think I understand the sickness that afflicts you. I received my first insight as a young Army sergeant in a not-yet-reunified Germany a quarter-century ago. Although the event was ten years past, young Germans unfailingly brought up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam during our conversations. My Lai was one of two documented American atrocities in that war. Almost two hundred villagers were murdered. It was inexcusable, and we did not try to excuse it. But those young Germans grasped at the My Lai massacre with an alacrity that astonished me. To them, the two-hundred dead at My Lai canceled Auschwitz and Treblinka, six million murdered Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and dissenters. The message was, "See! You Americans are just as bad as we Germans were-maybe worse." I did not find the comparison convincing.
Now, with Germany's Jews long since slaughtered or driven out (to America's great benefit, thank you), you attack Israel at every opportunity, hanging on every Palestinian claim, no matter how absurd, and inventing Israeli atrocities. Americans see Israelis as fighting for their existence against those who want to exterminate them. You view Israelis as a reproach to your past deeds, and you lash out at them. Clausewitz is no longer a guide to your national behavior. Today, we need to consult Sigmund Freud. A Jew, of course.
The Israelis, too, have been called Nazis by your elected politicians-indeed, "Nazi" seems to be your favorite insult. At times it sounds to us as though everyone who isn't a German is now a Nazi. Unless, of course, we are talking of Arabs who murder Jews, in which case a good German speaks of freedom fighters. Here in America, Holocaust survivors live among us, as do those aging G.I.s who opened the gates to Dachau. They have been our fathers, our teachers and our neighbors. Is it any wonder that we find your rhetoric repulsive? Hitler, at least, was honest about his bigotry.
And now we must endure the ludicrous schizophrenia of your present society, in which you alternate between insisting that German guilt must have an end and indulging in revisionist history that equates the allied bombing campaign against your cities or the sinking of ships ferrying submarine crews with Nazi evils. Your attempts to excuse the inexcusable merely remind us that Germany deserved every bomb dropped upon its soil. Bush the equivalent of Hitler? Show us the American death camps, please.
As a lifelong admirer of German culture, you leave me in despair. Your chancellor has transformed the worthy old maxim "Be more than you appear to be" into "Appear to be more than you are." Goethe's timeless query, "Germany...but where is it?" has been answered with "Between France and Russia, duped by Chirac and cooly manipulated by Putin." And Faust has been outed as Professor Unrat.
Auf wiedersehen, Lili Marleen. It was great while it lasted.
And Marianne? Since no one took Germany seriously to begin with, Berlin had less to lose in l'affaire Iraq than Paris. France gambled with Dostoevskian abandon in the strategic casino and ended up bankrupt in the morning light. President Chirac and his sorcerer's apprentice, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, emerged as one of the most incompetent combinations in diplomatic history, two drunkards behind the steering wheel of policy. It astonishes us that the French actually believed that Paris could dictate terms to Washington. Sorry. Gaul does not give orders to Rome.
We understood that Chirac was playing to the Arab world as well as to his domestic electorate. But the succession of French refusals to negotiate seriously or even to consider compromises at the United Nations, climaxed by France's announcement, in advance, that it would veto any further resolutions introduced by the United States or Britain, seemed suicidal to us.
And it was suicidal. The legacy of Charles de Gaulle perished in the Security Council. The tradition of permitting France a greater voice in trans-Atlantic decision-making than its place, power or contributions merited is over, as dead as Jean-Paul Sartre or his idol, Josef Stalin. The Gallic cock crowed so loudly it fell off the fence and broke its neck. Washington will no longer entertain the views of Paris on vital international issues. Nor will we risk another French veto on a matter we view as critical to our national security. And we will feed the United Nations the crumbs of strategy. Far from expanding its influence, France has forced its collapse. A quick round of applause in Algeria is hardly worth the loss of America's ear. Briefly the champion of all the anti-American forces in the world, from Libya to North Korea, France is left unable to resolve the civil strife in Ivory Coast. And Paris will not be given a significant role in rebuilding Iraq.
France long has seemed to Americans to be the apotheosis of European hypocrisy. While defending Saddam Hussein from "American aggression," Mr. Chirac hosted Robert Mugabe in Paris in a pathetic attempt to expand French influence into Anglophone Africa. But I was in Zimbabwe when the visit occurred and the degree of fury the people of that country felt toward France for hosting Mugabe--whom they have nicknamed "Robodan Mugabevich"--guaranteed that the French will never be welcome between the Zambezi and the Limpopo. France seems to us an aging whore desperate to attract even the most diseased customers.
But, above all, it is French naivete that leaves us shaking our heads. How could they so misjudge the situation? Aren't the French supposed to be terribly clever and devious? How could they be so clumsy, and on such a grand scale? The short answer is that, like Arabs, they believed their own fantasies. In addition to the forlorn illusion that France is still a great power, Mr. Chirac and Mr. de Villepin utterly misjudged George Bush. They had called him a cowboy for so long that they came to believe there was nothing to the man. And they were wrong.
I did not vote for President Bush. But, after 9/11/01, I was glad he was our president. Had Al Gore been in the White House, we would have done the European thing and formed a committee to ask how we had brought disaster upon ourselves. President Bush led a galvanized nation into a series of deliberate, carefully-considered actions that have broken the back of one terrorist organization after another while removing a brutal, backward theocracy from one country and a blood-encrusted dictatorship from another.
And America is not finished. We will no longer subscribe to the European system in which dictators may do as they wish with impunity within their own borders--your insistence on respect for national sovereignty simply means that Hitler would have been perfectly acceptable had he only killed German Jews. And we will not follow the traditions of kings and kaisers in which heads of state are exempt from personal punishment, no matter their crimes. We will go after the truly guilty, not the masses. And no amount of insults hurled from beneath the Brandenburg Gate or from the Place de la Concorde will deter us. We are finished with your delight in weeping over past holocausts while you remain unwilling to act to prevent or interrupt new holocausts. Srebrenica is the European model. Baghdad is ours.
President Bush is a Texan, as Europeans never fail to remind us. But the intelligence services of France and Germany seem to have failed to understand the character of Texans. They don't speak artfully, but they act resolutely. They aren't relativists. Texans believe there is a difference between right and wrong. And when you insult a Texan to his face while betraying his trust, he is not going to take it kindly. Confronting a Texan in public is always ill-advised, unless you intend to fight it out to the end--and have the means to do so. Texans don't even care where Europe is on the map.
We Americans are all Texans now. You have left us no choice."
Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of sixteen books, including novels, collections of essays and works on strategy. His most recent book is Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World.
Sunday, June 01, 2003
Major League Guy......
We've been attending numerous charity events of late, last night's soiree benefited the West Texas Kidney Foundation. The speaker was Major League great ballplayer, Jay Johnstone, a funny guy with impressive baseball credentials. Like four World Series rings, being named the American League Rookie of the Year during his inaugural season and a record setting pinch hitter. He has written three books about his experiences including the best seller, "Temporary Insanity". He is still involved with baseball, broadcasting for Fox Sports and in a management capacity with the World Champion Anaheim Angels.
Baseball stats not withstanding, however, I was as much impressed with the charity work that he does including the Boy Scouts, the Special Olympics and being named the Big Brother of the Year, not once but twice, in two seperate cities, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He also has a company, SporThings that provides sports collectibles to charity events. You should have seen the ones last night. Too varied to mention, but how does an autographed picture of Roger Stabauch, Sammy Baugh and Troy Aikman sound......all in one photo.
But most impressive to me, and the subject of a nice conversation with Jay, is the fact that he is a former U.S. Marine, and Vietnam Vet. An accomplishment that in my book is as good as any World Series ring!
We've been attending numerous charity events of late, last night's soiree benefited the West Texas Kidney Foundation. The speaker was Major League great ballplayer, Jay Johnstone, a funny guy with impressive baseball credentials. Like four World Series rings, being named the American League Rookie of the Year during his inaugural season and a record setting pinch hitter. He has written three books about his experiences including the best seller, "Temporary Insanity". He is still involved with baseball, broadcasting for Fox Sports and in a management capacity with the World Champion Anaheim Angels.
Baseball stats not withstanding, however, I was as much impressed with the charity work that he does including the Boy Scouts, the Special Olympics and being named the Big Brother of the Year, not once but twice, in two seperate cities, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He also has a company, SporThings that provides sports collectibles to charity events. You should have seen the ones last night. Too varied to mention, but how does an autographed picture of Roger Stabauch, Sammy Baugh and Troy Aikman sound......all in one photo.
But most impressive to me, and the subject of a nice conversation with Jay, is the fact that he is a former U.S. Marine, and Vietnam Vet. An accomplishment that in my book is as good as any World Series ring!
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Document this...
Frankly, We had never heard of the large European television channel "Arte", but here was their documentary film crew taping in my home this week. I would like to think that Europeans come to Midland, Texas to view my photographic work, or because they value my opinion on world affairs, but actually the media's goal is to speak with a special person I know, Julie, who once worked for a small oil and gas company here in town. Not that Europeans care one whit for small ten person oil companies, unless of course, one of those persons later becomes President of the United States, which is the case here.
Andrea and cinematographer Peter flew in from Vienna on Sunday, awaiting our return from Fredericksburg and our Memorial Day weekend. They seemed to have done well with the culture shock of leaving the forested beauty of Austria and landing right in the middle of some...well, rather stark countryside which abounds in West Texas. They even paid some small compliment by saying that it was not the complete desert that they had imagined. They wanted to get a flavor of the place so they met with the Mayor, toured the Petroleum Museum and we took them to get some footage of an oil well pumping. They were interested in filming everyday events in the Presidents old home town, so yesterday we took them to a Little League baseball game that Julie's son Jack was participating in. It was interesting trying to explain the game to Andrea who had never in her life seen a baseball game and knew nothing of the rules.
Julie's interviews with the media consist of recounting her years with the future President, what he was like then and how his life, policies and actions have been molded by his years in Midland. At least I think this is the gist of her talks, as I am sent out of the room. I know she does well though, because she speaks from the heart. My taped interview revolved around the history of Midland, the oil business, the ethos of the people and how I, from my perspective inside the oil business, view world events and the Presidents actions. I hope that I'm not heavily edited as it was a brilliant dissertation, at least from my humble perspective.
In our interviews with the BBC and now the Arte Channel, we made a basic assumption that their reporting would have a rather liberal tinge to it, and we tried to keep that in mind. But being Texans, we have a hard time not being ourselves and showing people who we really are and what we think. I believe that these more reserved Europeans have a hard time at first grasping this and it takes them some little while to adjust to this openess. But I think that this has served us well. I know it did with the BBC, as I still get email from one of their correspondents and their article pulled no surprises on us. After the first day with these Austrian filmmakers, we could laugh at our differing philosophies on world events and Andrea and Peter seemed to be genuinely having a good time. At least I hope they did. And I hope that they better understand our President, a man who like us, says what he thinks and means what he says.
If you are vactioning in France or Germany at the end of June, I hope you can catch the program and if you do, drop me a note and let me know how my hair looked.
Frankly, We had never heard of the large European television channel "Arte", but here was their documentary film crew taping in my home this week. I would like to think that Europeans come to Midland, Texas to view my photographic work, or because they value my opinion on world affairs, but actually the media's goal is to speak with a special person I know, Julie, who once worked for a small oil and gas company here in town. Not that Europeans care one whit for small ten person oil companies, unless of course, one of those persons later becomes President of the United States, which is the case here.
Andrea and cinematographer Peter flew in from Vienna on Sunday, awaiting our return from Fredericksburg and our Memorial Day weekend. They seemed to have done well with the culture shock of leaving the forested beauty of Austria and landing right in the middle of some...well, rather stark countryside which abounds in West Texas. They even paid some small compliment by saying that it was not the complete desert that they had imagined. They wanted to get a flavor of the place so they met with the Mayor, toured the Petroleum Museum and we took them to get some footage of an oil well pumping. They were interested in filming everyday events in the Presidents old home town, so yesterday we took them to a Little League baseball game that Julie's son Jack was participating in. It was interesting trying to explain the game to Andrea who had never in her life seen a baseball game and knew nothing of the rules.
Julie's interviews with the media consist of recounting her years with the future President, what he was like then and how his life, policies and actions have been molded by his years in Midland. At least I think this is the gist of her talks, as I am sent out of the room. I know she does well though, because she speaks from the heart. My taped interview revolved around the history of Midland, the oil business, the ethos of the people and how I, from my perspective inside the oil business, view world events and the Presidents actions. I hope that I'm not heavily edited as it was a brilliant dissertation, at least from my humble perspective.
In our interviews with the BBC and now the Arte Channel, we made a basic assumption that their reporting would have a rather liberal tinge to it, and we tried to keep that in mind. But being Texans, we have a hard time not being ourselves and showing people who we really are and what we think. I believe that these more reserved Europeans have a hard time at first grasping this and it takes them some little while to adjust to this openess. But I think that this has served us well. I know it did with the BBC, as I still get email from one of their correspondents and their article pulled no surprises on us. After the first day with these Austrian filmmakers, we could laugh at our differing philosophies on world events and Andrea and Peter seemed to be genuinely having a good time. At least I hope they did. And I hope that they better understand our President, a man who like us, says what he thinks and means what he says.
If you are vactioning in France or Germany at the end of June, I hope you can catch the program and if you do, drop me a note and let me know how my hair looked.
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
A True Memorial Day......
During five hellish days in November of 1965, 234 young, proud and brave Americans died 10,000 miles from home at Landing Zones X-Ray and Albany in the Ia Drang Valley of the central highlands of South Vietnam. Their story was told in the bestselling book We Were Soldiers Once...and Young and later in the Mel Gibson film We Were Soldiers. Julie and I had the honor of spending Memorial Day with some of the Ia Drang survivors at the Adm. Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas. This is what Memorial Day should be and I will never forget this one.
Most of these young men had been together and known each other for 18 months before they went to Vietnam....they knew each others wives, kids and families. They were close then, and they are perhaps closer now, more attached to each other than many of us are to our own kin. The Band of Brothers. Tears are still shed all these years later for those comrades who fell that day, and for the many wounded, and for those who have never been the same since. But also there is joy in seeing each other again and joy in sharing the good things that life has brought in the years that followed.
These are amazing men, with some amazing stories. Vince Cantu [black shirt/yellow tie] was a classmate of the books author, Joe Galloway, at tiny Refugio Texas High School, with a graduating class of 55 kids. Joe and Vince had not seen each other in the six years since their graduation. As a young UPI reporter Joe stepped off the helicopter at LZ X-Ray to cover the battle and one of the first voices he heard said, "hey Joe, you'd better get down, people are dying here". He wondered, "who the hell knows me in the middle of a battle in Vietnam"? That voice was none other than his old classmate Vince Cantu..... Vince is retiring soon from his job in Houston, and is planning to start up a new Tejano music band.
Will Parrish [red polo shirt] was a young kid from Oklahoma, and certainly had no dreams of becoming a hero. He was about to be become one, though it's a term he would not use on himself. During a human wave attack by the North Vietnamese at LZ X-Ray, Will found himself alone, manning a machine gun. He fired up all the machine gun ammunition and when that ran out, he emptied two .45 cal. pistols into the enemy.....they were that close. When the battle was done, over 100 enemy soldiers were found in front of his position. He won the Silver Star for Valor that day. Today, he is the mostly quiet modest person he has always been, still living in Oklahoma. He shies away from the term hero, an overused used term today, but his buddies know that he truly is.
Lt. Col.[retired] Bob Barker [yellow shirt/black hat] commanded one of the supporting artillery batteries at LZ Falcon, some 5 miles from LZ X-Ray. Bob and his fellow artillerymen, firing constantly for 3 straight days, poured some 18,000 high explosive shells into the enemy, and when necessary, right on top of the American soldiers at X-Ray. There is not a man who was at the battle who will tell you that the reason they are alive today is because of Bob and his artillery. That says it all. Bob is now retired in Hemphill Texas, a true gentleman and a great pleasure to be with.
Robert Saucedo [far left] was an extraordinary soldier who Joe captured on film during the battle and can be seen on our photo website, photo #2, assisting a wounded comrade to evacuation. George Kelling [red shirt] ran the evacuation medical facillity to which wounded soldiers were sent, and through his skill many lives were saved. He is now a PhD. and lives in San Antonio. Chip Parker [blue shirt/black hat] was an attack helicopter pilot in the Ia Drang Valley and provided continuous, accurate and deadly fire on the attacking NVA. He and his wife have been close friends of mine for years. Chip owns a telecommunications company in Dallas. I met Joe Pena [far right] and his wife Rose on the airplane flying to an Ia Drang reunion in Washington D.C. several years ago.....we have been friends since. Joe retired as the Chief of Police in Port Lavaca, Texas and now assists in helping youth in that area.
And the young man in the dark suit and tie is Dacien De la Paz. Dacien's father was killed at LZ X-Ray. The troops vowed that no one would be left behind and no one would be forgotten. Dacien is an example that the vow has been kept. Dacien is a living Memorial to his father and to all those who died that day and he is a member of the Band of Brothers and attends many of the reunion functions. He is a Doctor in Houston.
And finally there is the book's author, Joe Galloway [brown coat].....the reason for my association with this group. Joe has been a friend and business partner for some years now. I thank him often for my introduction to these great guys and for his efforts in telling the true story of the soldiers in Vietnam.
Friday, May 23, 2003
Memorial Day.....
Streams will be closed for the Memorial Day weekend. The management and staff will be at a fundraiser for The Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas with our good buddies from the We Were Soldiers crowd. What a great group to spent the holiday with.
Enjoy your burgers, dogs and potato salad and have a cold soda for me......but please remember the true meaning of Memorial Day. Many good Americans have died and suffered so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have!
Streams will be closed for the Memorial Day weekend. The management and staff will be at a fundraiser for The Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas with our good buddies from the We Were Soldiers crowd. What a great group to spent the holiday with.
Enjoy your burgers, dogs and potato salad and have a cold soda for me......but please remember the true meaning of Memorial Day. Many good Americans have died and suffered so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have!
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Find the animal in you.....click here!
Which animal are you?
This is fairly accurate for me...which is why I love dogs so much. I love my packmate Julie too and eagerly seek her out! You receive five bonus points if you can identify the four examples of misspelled words above. Who does these things?
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Rain....!
To all the Native American rain dancers who responded to my plea last week, a big Thank You. It is raining here today. Well we call it rain, really it's just wet. Folks in New Orleans or Seattle would consider the amount of moisture we've had today just spit in a bucket, but when you have had no rain all year you learn to alter you're perspectives. It has not been cloudy in, well I can't recall, but let's call it a coon's age. The dramatic change rather scared the Big Gold Dog who is a creature of habit and he was somewhat tentative about going outside this morning, thinking that perhaps he had awakened on a different planet.
And cool! Oh my, how delicious is cool when it's been so hot. We're talking a major league cool down today. About 50° cooler. The difference in 102° yesterday and 52° as I write will really get your attention. I had to wear a light coat on the morning dog walk today for the first time in months. So far in May we've had 10 days of over 100° temperatures and summer hasn't even started. Summer here proceeds on unceasingly until late September. I have to add, that although the final verdict on Global Warming is not in, there are indeed strange things going on with the weather in West Texas!
To all the Native American rain dancers who responded to my plea last week, a big Thank You. It is raining here today. Well we call it rain, really it's just wet. Folks in New Orleans or Seattle would consider the amount of moisture we've had today just spit in a bucket, but when you have had no rain all year you learn to alter you're perspectives. It has not been cloudy in, well I can't recall, but let's call it a coon's age. The dramatic change rather scared the Big Gold Dog who is a creature of habit and he was somewhat tentative about going outside this morning, thinking that perhaps he had awakened on a different planet.
And cool! Oh my, how delicious is cool when it's been so hot. We're talking a major league cool down today. About 50° cooler. The difference in 102° yesterday and 52° as I write will really get your attention. I had to wear a light coat on the morning dog walk today for the first time in months. So far in May we've had 10 days of over 100° temperatures and summer hasn't even started. Summer here proceeds on unceasingly until late September. I have to add, that although the final verdict on Global Warming is not in, there are indeed strange things going on with the weather in West Texas!
Monday, May 19, 2003
Yo Mama's a Redneck...
It appears that my wardrobe has been saved by the US Supreme Court . The high court refused to hear arguments from a New Jersey school district that wished to ban students from wearing clothes identified as "Redneck" or having redneck sayings on them. The school district's logic was that clothing with redneck connections was used to harrass or indimidate other students of the non-redneck persuasion.
A specific slogan mentioned in the lawsuit was "How you know you are a redneck: You wear a baseball cap to bed, and You know the Hooter's menu by heart. Holy damn cow, these aren't offensive, these are trifling. If they want to hear offense redneck sayings, they should have emailed me. You want 'em, I got 'em. Not that I wear my little jewels on a T-shirt, but I have them ready for use at the proper occasion. Offensive redneck sayings need to have references to plywood porches on trailer homes, marrying your cousin who has no front teeth...these sorts of things stray towards the offensive. You wear a baseball cap to bed? This is offensive?
Really I'm a sophisticated redneck, a suave and debonair redneck, but I have it in me none-the-less. Ask Julie. I admit here publicly that I on occasion chew Redman and occasionally when some bit slobbers off on my shirt, I consider the shirt still wearable for several more weeks. When I get a'holt of a good pair of shorts, or a T-shirt I like, you might plan on seeing it on me for extended lengths of time, like everyday. I don't see the need in getting a clean coffee cup out everyday just to put another cup of java in it. Having a dog sleep right next to my face don't bother me a lick. And I'll tell you up front I do have a Hooter's T-Shirt....given to me with love by Julie.
You'd think that the New Jersey school board would have more pertinent matters to consider than suing dumb ass redneck kids. Giving dumb assed redneck kids an education is one idea that comes to mind. What they were trying to litigate was a fashion statement. Redneck dress is no more insulting than the kids who wear baggy "shorts" that come down to their ankles or kids who wear nuts and bolts stuck through their tongues. In fact, if I was gonna' sue a kid, I'd go after the nuts and bolts crowd first...and they call rednecks stupid.
It appears that my wardrobe has been saved by the US Supreme Court . The high court refused to hear arguments from a New Jersey school district that wished to ban students from wearing clothes identified as "Redneck" or having redneck sayings on them. The school district's logic was that clothing with redneck connections was used to harrass or indimidate other students of the non-redneck persuasion.
A specific slogan mentioned in the lawsuit was "How you know you are a redneck: You wear a baseball cap to bed, and You know the Hooter's menu by heart. Holy damn cow, these aren't offensive, these are trifling. If they want to hear offense redneck sayings, they should have emailed me. You want 'em, I got 'em. Not that I wear my little jewels on a T-shirt, but I have them ready for use at the proper occasion. Offensive redneck sayings need to have references to plywood porches on trailer homes, marrying your cousin who has no front teeth...these sorts of things stray towards the offensive. You wear a baseball cap to bed? This is offensive?
Really I'm a sophisticated redneck, a suave and debonair redneck, but I have it in me none-the-less. Ask Julie. I admit here publicly that I on occasion chew Redman and occasionally when some bit slobbers off on my shirt, I consider the shirt still wearable for several more weeks. When I get a'holt of a good pair of shorts, or a T-shirt I like, you might plan on seeing it on me for extended lengths of time, like everyday. I don't see the need in getting a clean coffee cup out everyday just to put another cup of java in it. Having a dog sleep right next to my face don't bother me a lick. And I'll tell you up front I do have a Hooter's T-Shirt....given to me with love by Julie.
You'd think that the New Jersey school board would have more pertinent matters to consider than suing dumb ass redneck kids. Giving dumb assed redneck kids an education is one idea that comes to mind. What they were trying to litigate was a fashion statement. Redneck dress is no more insulting than the kids who wear baggy "shorts" that come down to their ankles or kids who wear nuts and bolts stuck through their tongues. In fact, if I was gonna' sue a kid, I'd go after the nuts and bolts crowd first...and they call rednecks stupid.
Saturday, May 17, 2003
Rock on.......!
Julie and I just finished watching Austin City Limits, tonight featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd. We enjoyed hearing a couple of their old tunes, but they have not aged well, compounded by the fact that they are just plain ugly. But after the debauchery we all lived through in the 60's and 70's I suppose they are to be congratulated on being alive. Coincidentally with the door to the house open we could hear Jerry Jeff Walker playing live in concert at our May Arts Celebration about a mile from my house . Jerry Jeff, another survivor.
This got me thinking about all the old rockers and songsters from the 60's that I've had the privelage to see live. The conversation with Julie on this subject started by my mention of my encounters with ZZ Top. Going to college in San Antonio, we had ZZ play several of my fraternity parties before they got to be famous. Just 50 or so guys, our dates and ZZ Top.....pretty cool looking back now. As the treasurer, I was responsible for paying them for the two hours of music they provided. I paid them the grand sum of $400. I think that they get more now.
We then moved on to my mention of the Sir Douglas Quintet who played in our student union at Trinity University on several occasions. No concert, they just showed up and played. Julie, being younger, was not really that familiar with Sir Doug, who met with moderate success, but had a big influence on later music. While still in college I heard The 13th Floor Elevator a short lived cult psychedelic band who had a band member from Trinity U. They later imploded under a drug induced haze. Throw in The Association and you've rounded out my college era rock experience. The Association appealed more to women, but they were great musicians and vocalists. Well, I also saw Barbara Mandrell at the San Angelo Rodeo before she made the big time, but we won't count her in this rock related memorial.
Prior to going to college my experience with big time rock bands was front row seats at Paul Revere and the Raiders. Some called them rock bubble gum, but they were BIG when I was in high school....some top 10 hits. And of course at my high school all night party we had the one hit wonders, well two hit wonders.....the The Five Americans playing Western Union and I See the Light.....Being full of high school graduation and intoxicating beverages, I don't remember much about that.
Some of the best, meaning my favorite, musicians I saw while living in Hawaii. Both Canadians. Joni Mitchell was just hitting her stride as a crossover rock star coming from folk music. She was in concert with the Braker Brothers Band and was simply fantastic! She still is. And then within several months of seeing her, I saw the other great crossover of the day, Gordon Lightfoot. Saw him for the first time......three all together. This first was in a sold out Honolulu Bowl appearance where Gordo was so....well drunk....he could hardly stand up, but never missed a word in any of his numbers. The next time I saw Gordo was in Dallas at a really cheesy, sleazy little venue playing before no more than several hundred fans. I have recently met, online, Rick McGinnis the photographer who did a recent album cover for Gordo, and I'm informed that, like me, Gordo has seen the advantages of not drinking himself to death.
My later life has put me in the crowd at an outdoor performance of the original [minus Brian Wilson] Beach Boys, a B.B.King concert [where he played in the aisle right next to me] and at a private party where Ray Charles was the entertainment. Nice private party!
Perhaps my most memorable brush with musics best came several years ago when Willie Nelson was in town playing a small outdoor gig here, much like Jerry Jeff Walker is doing tonight. I had a backstage pass for Willie, and since there was really no backstage, I got to sit on the side of the 2 foot high platform, right next to Willie's sister Bobbie. Then afterwards I was invited to meet Willie at his bus. I was thinking that Willie would come out for a cameo appearence, say hey and bug out. Not So! Willie stayed for two and a half hours talking, signing autographs, and getting his picture taken. By three in the morning there were just three of us and Willie. Willie probably would have stayed longer, but the rest of us were tired. Willie is one of the most genuine, nice, and humble people I have ever met, counting himself grateful for a great career. I rue the fact that this was in my pre-digital camera days, or I'd post a picture of Willie and Me, though I did cop an autograph.
Julie and I just finished watching Austin City Limits, tonight featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd. We enjoyed hearing a couple of their old tunes, but they have not aged well, compounded by the fact that they are just plain ugly. But after the debauchery we all lived through in the 60's and 70's I suppose they are to be congratulated on being alive. Coincidentally with the door to the house open we could hear Jerry Jeff Walker playing live in concert at our May Arts Celebration about a mile from my house . Jerry Jeff, another survivor.
This got me thinking about all the old rockers and songsters from the 60's that I've had the privelage to see live. The conversation with Julie on this subject started by my mention of my encounters with ZZ Top. Going to college in San Antonio, we had ZZ play several of my fraternity parties before they got to be famous. Just 50 or so guys, our dates and ZZ Top.....pretty cool looking back now. As the treasurer, I was responsible for paying them for the two hours of music they provided. I paid them the grand sum of $400. I think that they get more now.
We then moved on to my mention of the Sir Douglas Quintet who played in our student union at Trinity University on several occasions. No concert, they just showed up and played. Julie, being younger, was not really that familiar with Sir Doug, who met with moderate success, but had a big influence on later music. While still in college I heard The 13th Floor Elevator a short lived cult psychedelic band who had a band member from Trinity U. They later imploded under a drug induced haze. Throw in The Association and you've rounded out my college era rock experience. The Association appealed more to women, but they were great musicians and vocalists. Well, I also saw Barbara Mandrell at the San Angelo Rodeo before she made the big time, but we won't count her in this rock related memorial.
Prior to going to college my experience with big time rock bands was front row seats at Paul Revere and the Raiders. Some called them rock bubble gum, but they were BIG when I was in high school....some top 10 hits. And of course at my high school all night party we had the one hit wonders, well two hit wonders.....the The Five Americans playing Western Union and I See the Light.....Being full of high school graduation and intoxicating beverages, I don't remember much about that.
Some of the best, meaning my favorite, musicians I saw while living in Hawaii. Both Canadians. Joni Mitchell was just hitting her stride as a crossover rock star coming from folk music. She was in concert with the Braker Brothers Band and was simply fantastic! She still is. And then within several months of seeing her, I saw the other great crossover of the day, Gordon Lightfoot. Saw him for the first time......three all together. This first was in a sold out Honolulu Bowl appearance where Gordo was so....well drunk....he could hardly stand up, but never missed a word in any of his numbers. The next time I saw Gordo was in Dallas at a really cheesy, sleazy little venue playing before no more than several hundred fans. I have recently met, online, Rick McGinnis the photographer who did a recent album cover for Gordo, and I'm informed that, like me, Gordo has seen the advantages of not drinking himself to death.
My later life has put me in the crowd at an outdoor performance of the original [minus Brian Wilson] Beach Boys, a B.B.King concert [where he played in the aisle right next to me] and at a private party where Ray Charles was the entertainment. Nice private party!
Perhaps my most memorable brush with musics best came several years ago when Willie Nelson was in town playing a small outdoor gig here, much like Jerry Jeff Walker is doing tonight. I had a backstage pass for Willie, and since there was really no backstage, I got to sit on the side of the 2 foot high platform, right next to Willie's sister Bobbie. Then afterwards I was invited to meet Willie at his bus. I was thinking that Willie would come out for a cameo appearence, say hey and bug out. Not So! Willie stayed for two and a half hours talking, signing autographs, and getting his picture taken. By three in the morning there were just three of us and Willie. Willie probably would have stayed longer, but the rest of us were tired. Willie is one of the most genuine, nice, and humble people I have ever met, counting himself grateful for a great career. I rue the fact that this was in my pre-digital camera days, or I'd post a picture of Willie and Me, though I did cop an autograph.
Monday, May 12, 2003
Achtung! Verboten!
From Tim Blair down under, comes a distressing story concerning the plight of one Herr Stefan Lukoschek and his protest against the German government. Stefan is angry with the Schroeder government and has painted "The Government is Crap" on the sides of his Yellow VW Bug. The German government, not being able to accept some critical thinking, is threatening to send Stefan to prison unless he removes his slogan.
Now this hits close, very close, to home with us. Julie drives a Yellow VW Bug and and someday we might just want to slap a slogan of our choosing on the door. As long as we don't espouse the violent overthrow of the government, racial hatred, criminal activities or try to advertise tacos for sale without a permit, we are free to paint whatever slogans we wish on our Yellow VW Bug. We are grateful that we live in Texas, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, where we can paste slogans critical of the German Government on our Yellow Bug without the threat of prison hanging heavy on our heads. And if the German government secret agents read this, don't bother to send your Jack Booted Storm Troopers here, our Yellow VW Bug is parked right under our symbol of slogan freedom....the Stars and Stripes!
If you own a Yellow VW Bug, now is the time to speak out! Don't let the left wing fanatics trample on your right to put slogans on your Bug! Today political slogans, tomorrow Smiley Faces!
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Short Subjects......
Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers. Mothers truly do make the world go around, and functioning smoothly. One of the reasons I love Julie so much is that she is such a great Mom. She takes care of Jack, Amanda........and Me in superb fashion.
Congratulations to Lisa who completed the 13 mile Moonwalk for Cancer in London on Saturday night. You are an inspiration to us all, and it makes me want to start running in my underwear thru the streets again.......!
If you are a Native American and know anything about making rain, please do so now...target West Texas. We have not had any significant moisture this entire year. It is bleak. Several inches would be fine, but any amount would be appreciated.
On Saturday, Julie and I took Jack and several of his friends in Cub Scouts to the Kids Day at the Planetarium. We all had a bang up time participating in the varied events demonstrating elementary science. While there I was touched by a little group of girls......Brownies. These girls were from Kermit, Texas, which is generally a pretty poor small town. But here were these girls and their leader attending this learning experience forty miles from home. I wanted to thank this adult leader for taking the time to make a difference in these kids lives. I didn't lest I might embarass them, but I hope she might somehow know that someone noticed.
Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers. Mothers truly do make the world go around, and functioning smoothly. One of the reasons I love Julie so much is that she is such a great Mom. She takes care of Jack, Amanda........and Me in superb fashion.
Congratulations to Lisa who completed the 13 mile Moonwalk for Cancer in London on Saturday night. You are an inspiration to us all, and it makes me want to start running in my underwear thru the streets again.......!
If you are a Native American and know anything about making rain, please do so now...target West Texas. We have not had any significant moisture this entire year. It is bleak. Several inches would be fine, but any amount would be appreciated.
On Saturday, Julie and I took Jack and several of his friends in Cub Scouts to the Kids Day at the Planetarium. We all had a bang up time participating in the varied events demonstrating elementary science. While there I was touched by a little group of girls......Brownies. These girls were from Kermit, Texas, which is generally a pretty poor small town. But here were these girls and their leader attending this learning experience forty miles from home. I wanted to thank this adult leader for taking the time to make a difference in these kids lives. I didn't lest I might embarass them, but I hope she might somehow know that someone noticed.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Oh Poo to the British....!
How lucky to live in Britain where Microsoft© is soon going to feature Wireless toilets, or as it is termed, the iLoo. As if lines to public restrooms aren't long enough, now we will have to wait for some gaseous teenager to finish reading his email. And how exciting to have web addresses on your toilet paper!
Actually this makes more sense as an option on home toilets for those of us fast readers who have exhausted our monthly Readers Digest by mid-month.
How lucky to live in Britain where Microsoft© is soon going to feature Wireless toilets, or as it is termed, the iLoo. As if lines to public restrooms aren't long enough, now we will have to wait for some gaseous teenager to finish reading his email. And how exciting to have web addresses on your toilet paper!
Actually this makes more sense as an option on home toilets for those of us fast readers who have exhausted our monthly Readers Digest by mid-month.
Sunday, May 04, 2003
Pepe Le Pooch.......
In a half hearted attempt at international reconciliation, The Big Gold Dog tries on my old beret. I had a hard time convincing him to do this. He hates snails, bleu cheese and women who don't shave under their arms, but he was a good sport.
Actually, this beret brought distant memories flooding back. I received it in approximately 1953, a gift from my grandparents on one of their trips to Paris. Apparently as a young lad I loved it so much that I wore it all the time resulting in the nickname, "Frenchie" which was bestowed upon me by my grandfather, Norm. A name which stuck with him until his death in 1995. My brother was "Stuffer", the derivation of which is lost to history, but I can still hear Norm's voice on the phone from St. Louis......"OK good bye Frenchie, and tell Stuffer hell-o".
I don't really recall wearing it, and was unaware that it existed until several weeks ago, when my Mother was on one of her "I want to get rid of everything in the house" binges. I received it today, still looking brand new and surprisingly it has grown on me, having played so much a part in my childhood....or so they tell me. It doesn't fit my adult sized head, but gives the dog quite the continental look.
In a half hearted attempt at international reconciliation, The Big Gold Dog tries on my old beret. I had a hard time convincing him to do this. He hates snails, bleu cheese and women who don't shave under their arms, but he was a good sport.
Actually, this beret brought distant memories flooding back. I received it in approximately 1953, a gift from my grandparents on one of their trips to Paris. Apparently as a young lad I loved it so much that I wore it all the time resulting in the nickname, "Frenchie" which was bestowed upon me by my grandfather, Norm. A name which stuck with him until his death in 1995. My brother was "Stuffer", the derivation of which is lost to history, but I can still hear Norm's voice on the phone from St. Louis......"OK good bye Frenchie, and tell Stuffer hell-o".
I don't really recall wearing it, and was unaware that it existed until several weeks ago, when my Mother was on one of her "I want to get rid of everything in the house" binges. I received it today, still looking brand new and surprisingly it has grown on me, having played so much a part in my childhood....or so they tell me. It doesn't fit my adult sized head, but gives the dog quite the continental look.
Friday, May 02, 2003
Story of the year.......!
Amazing things are revealed in this recent article from the World Weekly News! I'm not sure about the credibility of the World Weekly News, but I can attest that this article was sent to me by an old friend, who is in fact, a high ranking FBI supervisory agent in Washington D.C. Decide for yourself.......!
-------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK -- FBI Agents have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street whiz on insider-trading charges -- and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256!
Sources at the Security and Exchange Commission confirm that 44-year-old Andrew Carlssin offered the bizarre explanation for his uncanny success in the stock market after being led off in handcuffs on January 28. "We don't believe this guy's story -- he's either a lunatic or a pathological liar," says an SEC insider.
"But the fact is, with an initial investment of only $800, in two weeks' time he had a portfolio valued at over $350 million. Every trade he made capitalized on unexpected business developments, which simply can't be pure luck." "The only way he could pull it off is with illegal inside information. He's going to sit in a jail cell on Rikers Island until he agrees to give up his sources."
The past year of nose-diving stock prices has left most investors crying in their beer. So when Carlssin made a flurry of 126 high-risk trades and came out the winner every time, it raised the eyebrows of Wall Street watchdogs. "If a company's stock rose due to a merger or technological breakthrough that was supposed to be secret, Mr. Carlssin somehow knew about it in advance," says the SEC source close to the hush-hush, ongoing investigation.
When investigators hauled Carlssin in for questioning, they got more than they bargained for: A mind-boggling four-hour confession. Carlssin declared that he had traveled back in time from over 200 years in the future, when it is common knowledge that our era experienced one of the worst stock plunges in history. Yet anyone armed with knowledge of the handful of stocks destined to go through the roof could make a fortune.
"It was just too tempting to resist," Carlssin allegedly said in his videotaped confession. "I had planned to make it look natural, you know, lose a little here and there so it doesn't look too perfect. But I just got caught up in the moment."In a bid for leniency, Carlssin has reportedly offered to divulge "historical facts" such as the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden and a cure for AIDS. All he wants is to be allowed to return to the future in his "time craft." However, he refuses to reveal the location of the machine or discuss how it works, supposedly out of fear the technology could "fall into the wrong hands."
Officials are quite confident the "time-traveler's" claims are bogus. Yet the SEC source admits, "No one can find any record of any Andrew Carlssin existing anywhere before December 2002."
In a follow-up article on 29 April 2003, the Weekly World News reported that mysterious time-traveling Andrew Carlssin had been bailed out by an "unidentified benefactor" who ponied up $1 million, then jumped bail before an April 3 court hearing and disappeared without a trace.
Amazing things are revealed in this recent article from the World Weekly News! I'm not sure about the credibility of the World Weekly News, but I can attest that this article was sent to me by an old friend, who is in fact, a high ranking FBI supervisory agent in Washington D.C. Decide for yourself.......!
-------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK -- FBI Agents have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street whiz on insider-trading charges -- and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256!
Sources at the Security and Exchange Commission confirm that 44-year-old Andrew Carlssin offered the bizarre explanation for his uncanny success in the stock market after being led off in handcuffs on January 28. "We don't believe this guy's story -- he's either a lunatic or a pathological liar," says an SEC insider.
"But the fact is, with an initial investment of only $800, in two weeks' time he had a portfolio valued at over $350 million. Every trade he made capitalized on unexpected business developments, which simply can't be pure luck." "The only way he could pull it off is with illegal inside information. He's going to sit in a jail cell on Rikers Island until he agrees to give up his sources."
The past year of nose-diving stock prices has left most investors crying in their beer. So when Carlssin made a flurry of 126 high-risk trades and came out the winner every time, it raised the eyebrows of Wall Street watchdogs. "If a company's stock rose due to a merger or technological breakthrough that was supposed to be secret, Mr. Carlssin somehow knew about it in advance," says the SEC source close to the hush-hush, ongoing investigation.
When investigators hauled Carlssin in for questioning, they got more than they bargained for: A mind-boggling four-hour confession. Carlssin declared that he had traveled back in time from over 200 years in the future, when it is common knowledge that our era experienced one of the worst stock plunges in history. Yet anyone armed with knowledge of the handful of stocks destined to go through the roof could make a fortune.
"It was just too tempting to resist," Carlssin allegedly said in his videotaped confession. "I had planned to make it look natural, you know, lose a little here and there so it doesn't look too perfect. But I just got caught up in the moment."In a bid for leniency, Carlssin has reportedly offered to divulge "historical facts" such as the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden and a cure for AIDS. All he wants is to be allowed to return to the future in his "time craft." However, he refuses to reveal the location of the machine or discuss how it works, supposedly out of fear the technology could "fall into the wrong hands."
Officials are quite confident the "time-traveler's" claims are bogus. Yet the SEC source admits, "No one can find any record of any Andrew Carlssin existing anywhere before December 2002."
In a follow-up article on 29 April 2003, the Weekly World News reported that mysterious time-traveling Andrew Carlssin had been bailed out by an "unidentified benefactor" who ponied up $1 million, then jumped bail before an April 3 court hearing and disappeared without a trace.
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
The Secret.......Football
The Secret of American Foreign Affairs
By Stanley K. Ridgley, Ph.D.
During his administration, Bill Clinton cut the United States Army from 18 active divisions to 10 and presided over an aimless "Blackhawk Down" foreign policy. How, then, could the U.S. military remain so formidable as to conquer Iraq, a nation of 24 million people, in three weeks. A larger question is how does our military continue to outstrip the rest of the world in every category, from soldier training to leadership to the will to win? The answer to that question is one of the great secrets of American foreign affairs.
There is one primary reason for the rise of U.S. military power over the past century and its overwhelming capability to fight and win wars: American football.
Decried by some as a simple-minded sport that "glorifies" violence and appeals to the blue-collar, beer-bellied crowd, football is a phenomenon woven into America's social fabric and into the psyche of her people. The United States is a football nation - football players and football fans - and this sociological factor sets Americans apart from every other nation on earth.
American football is a brutal collision sport in which every player's mettle is tested on every play. At its supreme level, the mutual human violence done in football is greater than that of any other sport in the world. The only other sport that approaches football in bone-crunching controlled mayhem is rugby, another Anglo-Saxon game played almost exclusively by the British and Australians. Coincidentally, they were the two major powers providing ground troops for the war in Iraq.
Football is violent, but it is not aimless violence. Each individual collision is a tightly circumscribed competition that measures each man's heart, drive, intellect, skill and cunning. On both sides of the ball, strategy and counterstrategy - the multiplicity of options on a single play - contrive to create an intricate and sophisticated contest. Football is as cerebral as it is violent.
The only people who cannot comprehend football's sophistication are snobs who would like nothing better than to believe that these slashing wide receivers and great gridiron behemoths smashing into each other are dumber than they are. What a devastating ego shock to realize that the average college professor would be incapable mentally, as well as physically, to play successfully the modern game of football.
Why incapable? Because a working intellect under intense psychological pressure and physical exhaustion is an entirely different quality than a working intellect languishing in the library. Players must execute a sophisticated battle plan swiftly, decisively and flawlessly in extreme situations, while a similarly equipped and talented group of athletes is doing its best to stop them. Play after play, there is no room for error. In football, there is no time for still more "resolutions." The threat must be perceived and evaluated and the correct decision made now or the consequences could be ignominious defeat. The ethos of football and its prerequisite talents, attitudes and qualities are inculcated in abundance in America's military leaders.
While the football ethos is reflected in America's national spirit and her military, the Europeans draw from a distinctly different sports tradition; one developed on the playing fields of Paris and Potsdam, Boulogne and Berlin. The ethos of what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called "Old Europe" is exemplified in the game of soccer. Soccer is a beautiful and well-powdered sport, much like "diplomacy," bringing to mind men in top hats and striped pants walking herky-jerky, as in black-and-white silent newsreels. Soccer is French jeu d'esprit, and it is the sport of the United Nations.
Soccer rules are easily understood, and the sport is imbued with a comradely egalitarian aspect. Players run about. They wave their arms. Sometimes, they fall down. Sometimes, they can even be tripped, and it is in these moments that Europeans first learn to be either bad actors or diplomats; tumbling on the turf, clutching a "bruised" shin, then bounding up unhurt to take a free kick (or a post-war oil concession.) Soccer matches can and frequently do end in a tie. This abundance of scoreless ties leads one to suspect that for soccer players, as for U.N. diplomats, the goal is to stall until ultimately nothing is resolved, and no one can really be blamed. Tie-breaking "shootouts" in international play ought to be eliminated altogether, since an egalitarian draw of no winner, no loser, and no hurt feelings is a U.N. dream come true. The activity, in the end, is pointless. But fans will neither despair nor rejoice at the outcome; aficionados in smoky salons, sipping espresso, can debate endlessly who played the better game.
Is it any wonder that the Old European nations shrink from decisive action, taking only tentative, mincing steps, hoping they'll never have to fight for anything and unable to decide firmly whether there is anything at all worth fighting for? Consider also what American football is not. It is not about passing the buck, walking while others carry the load or debating until you are overcome by events. Nor is it about ennui, languor and the c'est la vie attitude.
Football is about character and courage, might and mettle, decisiveness, strength and stamina. It is about men who sacrifice, who dare great things and who are not afraid to win great victories. Hundreds of thousands of American boys and young men play football each year, forging a distinctly American character in the fire of competition. This character is reflected in the American military and its successes.
I am not the first to claim more from sport than might be deserved. Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, supposedly credited his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo to his having been schooled on the "playing fields of Eton," his famous alma mater. So mightn't there be substance here? Perhaps. American football might not be the great secret of American foreign affairs success of the past 100 years, but it does capture much that is true about the United States and her mettle. And surely, it is one small part of why she is great.
The Secret of American Foreign Affairs
By Stanley K. Ridgley, Ph.D.
During his administration, Bill Clinton cut the United States Army from 18 active divisions to 10 and presided over an aimless "Blackhawk Down" foreign policy. How, then, could the U.S. military remain so formidable as to conquer Iraq, a nation of 24 million people, in three weeks. A larger question is how does our military continue to outstrip the rest of the world in every category, from soldier training to leadership to the will to win? The answer to that question is one of the great secrets of American foreign affairs.
There is one primary reason for the rise of U.S. military power over the past century and its overwhelming capability to fight and win wars: American football.
Decried by some as a simple-minded sport that "glorifies" violence and appeals to the blue-collar, beer-bellied crowd, football is a phenomenon woven into America's social fabric and into the psyche of her people. The United States is a football nation - football players and football fans - and this sociological factor sets Americans apart from every other nation on earth.
American football is a brutal collision sport in which every player's mettle is tested on every play. At its supreme level, the mutual human violence done in football is greater than that of any other sport in the world. The only other sport that approaches football in bone-crunching controlled mayhem is rugby, another Anglo-Saxon game played almost exclusively by the British and Australians. Coincidentally, they were the two major powers providing ground troops for the war in Iraq.
Football is violent, but it is not aimless violence. Each individual collision is a tightly circumscribed competition that measures each man's heart, drive, intellect, skill and cunning. On both sides of the ball, strategy and counterstrategy - the multiplicity of options on a single play - contrive to create an intricate and sophisticated contest. Football is as cerebral as it is violent.
The only people who cannot comprehend football's sophistication are snobs who would like nothing better than to believe that these slashing wide receivers and great gridiron behemoths smashing into each other are dumber than they are. What a devastating ego shock to realize that the average college professor would be incapable mentally, as well as physically, to play successfully the modern game of football.
Why incapable? Because a working intellect under intense psychological pressure and physical exhaustion is an entirely different quality than a working intellect languishing in the library. Players must execute a sophisticated battle plan swiftly, decisively and flawlessly in extreme situations, while a similarly equipped and talented group of athletes is doing its best to stop them. Play after play, there is no room for error. In football, there is no time for still more "resolutions." The threat must be perceived and evaluated and the correct decision made now or the consequences could be ignominious defeat. The ethos of football and its prerequisite talents, attitudes and qualities are inculcated in abundance in America's military leaders.
While the football ethos is reflected in America's national spirit and her military, the Europeans draw from a distinctly different sports tradition; one developed on the playing fields of Paris and Potsdam, Boulogne and Berlin. The ethos of what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called "Old Europe" is exemplified in the game of soccer. Soccer is a beautiful and well-powdered sport, much like "diplomacy," bringing to mind men in top hats and striped pants walking herky-jerky, as in black-and-white silent newsreels. Soccer is French jeu d'esprit, and it is the sport of the United Nations.
Soccer rules are easily understood, and the sport is imbued with a comradely egalitarian aspect. Players run about. They wave their arms. Sometimes, they fall down. Sometimes, they can even be tripped, and it is in these moments that Europeans first learn to be either bad actors or diplomats; tumbling on the turf, clutching a "bruised" shin, then bounding up unhurt to take a free kick (or a post-war oil concession.) Soccer matches can and frequently do end in a tie. This abundance of scoreless ties leads one to suspect that for soccer players, as for U.N. diplomats, the goal is to stall until ultimately nothing is resolved, and no one can really be blamed. Tie-breaking "shootouts" in international play ought to be eliminated altogether, since an egalitarian draw of no winner, no loser, and no hurt feelings is a U.N. dream come true. The activity, in the end, is pointless. But fans will neither despair nor rejoice at the outcome; aficionados in smoky salons, sipping espresso, can debate endlessly who played the better game.
Is it any wonder that the Old European nations shrink from decisive action, taking only tentative, mincing steps, hoping they'll never have to fight for anything and unable to decide firmly whether there is anything at all worth fighting for? Consider also what American football is not. It is not about passing the buck, walking while others carry the load or debating until you are overcome by events. Nor is it about ennui, languor and the c'est la vie attitude.
Football is about character and courage, might and mettle, decisiveness, strength and stamina. It is about men who sacrifice, who dare great things and who are not afraid to win great victories. Hundreds of thousands of American boys and young men play football each year, forging a distinctly American character in the fire of competition. This character is reflected in the American military and its successes.
I am not the first to claim more from sport than might be deserved. Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, supposedly credited his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo to his having been schooled on the "playing fields of Eton," his famous alma mater. So mightn't there be substance here? Perhaps. American football might not be the great secret of American foreign affairs success of the past 100 years, but it does capture much that is true about the United States and her mettle. And surely, it is one small part of why she is great.
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Charity fund raiser
The last 12 days have been the most active of my recent social career. Saturday night was a fund raiser for my old High School and their band program. No, I wasn't in the band......back then you were a nerd if you were in the band. Not so anymore and the band program shows it. We have 300+ kids in the band. And I ruefully wish now, that I would have learned an instrument well enough to still be playing.
I started out in elementary school playing the drums, for about six months, until my Mother had had enough of that at home. She then suggested a much more sedate instrument, the flute. Really I was a natural at this, I apparently had the right genetic mouth and teeth alignment to pick up the this instrument readily. But alas, the Mother figure interceded again. After a year, I think she decided that this wasn't "manly" enough for me and might damage my self-esteem. Darn her......I was pretty good. So I moved on to the trombone for two years of junior high school, and was a mostly disinterested player, and where teenage social pressures made me give up on my muscial career. I did, however, teach myself to play the guitar later, at which I was moderately good.......and had the opportunity to play in front of 2000 people at my college musical festival [with back-up thank God].
The featured speaker at the gala charity event was our good friend Bruce Crandall who was portrayed by Greg Kinnear in the recent film We Were Soldiers. Shown above is Bruce with his lovely wife Arlene and Julie and me.
Friday, April 25, 2003
Slow Week...
It's been a slow week in the Blogworld. Bernard down in Geelong Australia has pictures of his good looking kids, James Lileks can't get the Gnat to sleep, Professor Bunyip had a hard time down in the Billabong with his in-laws visiting from prison and the NZ Pundit features a story about the 4 millionth New Zealander being born. Good Blog topics seem to be in short supply.
I think it's the let down, so to speak, after the military action in Iraq. The big news is over except for capturing a few of the scoundrels from the pack of 55. The anti-war crowd is, not surprisingly silent, providing little for us to rant and rave about in our Blogs, so we have turned back more to the mundane. In fact, this is quite alright with me. I have been busy with the mundane also.
First it was Easter with most of the surviving members of the Craig family in town. Nieces and nephews to entertain and to catch up on news of their lives, a brother and sister to visit with. A lavish meal for eleven to prepare and serve. And now Julie and I are on the benefit circuit. Tonight it was a silent auction for little Jack's school, this weekend a fund raiser for my high school. And, of course, Jack's baseball games and Spring yard work. And the news channels are no help in providing fodder for the blog. Fox News, has gone from great war coverage back, I'm afraid, to more of a tabloid oriented fare. I'm sorry, but I don't want to know every detail of the Laci Peterson murder case, and I'm not going to Blog about it.
So, come back soon. For the time being, I may have Jack's Junior Little League scores, he's much improved over last season. I like mundane sometimes.
It's been a slow week in the Blogworld. Bernard down in Geelong Australia has pictures of his good looking kids, James Lileks can't get the Gnat to sleep, Professor Bunyip had a hard time down in the Billabong with his in-laws visiting from prison and the NZ Pundit features a story about the 4 millionth New Zealander being born. Good Blog topics seem to be in short supply.
I think it's the let down, so to speak, after the military action in Iraq. The big news is over except for capturing a few of the scoundrels from the pack of 55. The anti-war crowd is, not surprisingly silent, providing little for us to rant and rave about in our Blogs, so we have turned back more to the mundane. In fact, this is quite alright with me. I have been busy with the mundane also.
First it was Easter with most of the surviving members of the Craig family in town. Nieces and nephews to entertain and to catch up on news of their lives, a brother and sister to visit with. A lavish meal for eleven to prepare and serve. And now Julie and I are on the benefit circuit. Tonight it was a silent auction for little Jack's school, this weekend a fund raiser for my high school. And, of course, Jack's baseball games and Spring yard work. And the news channels are no help in providing fodder for the blog. Fox News, has gone from great war coverage back, I'm afraid, to more of a tabloid oriented fare. I'm sorry, but I don't want to know every detail of the Laci Peterson murder case, and I'm not going to Blog about it.
So, come back soon. For the time being, I may have Jack's Junior Little League scores, he's much improved over last season. I like mundane sometimes.
Saturday, April 19, 2003
POWs........
After watching CNN tonight, fawning over the recently released POW's, I have to add my own thoughts on the matter. I'm glad they are back home, I know they and their families went through some trying days, and things could have ended much more tragically. Again, thank God they are back home.
However, they are not heroes. They were put in the situation of being POW's by the luck of the draw and bad map reading on someone's part. Not that I don't know this can happen to the best of us in the military, but it was a mistake none the less. They were prisoners somewhere in the neighborhood of three weeks. I have met some of the POW's from Vietnam who were kept captive in brutal conditions for five, six, or seven years. Three weeks is not years. The darling of the media POW story, PFC. Lynch, was captive for only days, and was found hiding under a sheet. I'm glad she is back and will be OK, but she is not a hero.
Who are the heroes of the story? First the two or more brave Iraqi's who reported the location of the Americans. Secondly the Rangers and Special Operations soldiers who raided the compound where Lynch was being held.
Where are their stories?
After watching CNN tonight, fawning over the recently released POW's, I have to add my own thoughts on the matter. I'm glad they are back home, I know they and their families went through some trying days, and things could have ended much more tragically. Again, thank God they are back home.
However, they are not heroes. They were put in the situation of being POW's by the luck of the draw and bad map reading on someone's part. Not that I don't know this can happen to the best of us in the military, but it was a mistake none the less. They were prisoners somewhere in the neighborhood of three weeks. I have met some of the POW's from Vietnam who were kept captive in brutal conditions for five, six, or seven years. Three weeks is not years. The darling of the media POW story, PFC. Lynch, was captive for only days, and was found hiding under a sheet. I'm glad she is back and will be OK, but she is not a hero.
Who are the heroes of the story? First the two or more brave Iraqi's who reported the location of the Americans. Secondly the Rangers and Special Operations soldiers who raided the compound where Lynch was being held.
Where are their stories?
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Leno Laughter....
For those who don't stay up to late, here are a few Iraqi zingers from Leno.
Did you see the Iraqi people dancing in the streets today? It made me realize, you know what they need more than food and medicine? Dancing lessons. They don't know how to dance. They haven't danced in 30 years.
Tonight President Bush warned, don't be too gleeful, there are still pockets of resistance. Barbra Streisand, the Dixie Chicks, Susan Sarandon...
Reports are coming in now that Saddam Hussein has been spotted in central Baghdad. Parts of him were also spotted in northern Baghdad, western Baghdad and eastern Baghdad.
You know that story by now. The U.S. military bombed a restaurant where they thought Saddam Hussein was eating. Well, actually, the military heard it was either Saddam Hussein or Geraldo. So they figured either way they'd make their move.
They dropped four 2,000-pound bombs on the place. Actually, we may have killed two birds with one stone. It turns out it was also karaoke night.
We have now captured all of Saddam Hussein's palaces and residences; he has no place to live! If he thinks Bush was hard on him before, wait till Saddam sees how Republicans treat the homeless!
Some Iraqis are looting the presidential palaces, taking stationary, ashtrays, pillows, even a grand piano. Reporters say they haven't seen looting like this since Clinton's last days in the white house.
For those who don't stay up to late, here are a few Iraqi zingers from Leno.
Did you see the Iraqi people dancing in the streets today? It made me realize, you know what they need more than food and medicine? Dancing lessons. They don't know how to dance. They haven't danced in 30 years.
Tonight President Bush warned, don't be too gleeful, there are still pockets of resistance. Barbra Streisand, the Dixie Chicks, Susan Sarandon...
Reports are coming in now that Saddam Hussein has been spotted in central Baghdad. Parts of him were also spotted in northern Baghdad, western Baghdad and eastern Baghdad.
You know that story by now. The U.S. military bombed a restaurant where they thought Saddam Hussein was eating. Well, actually, the military heard it was either Saddam Hussein or Geraldo. So they figured either way they'd make their move.
They dropped four 2,000-pound bombs on the place. Actually, we may have killed two birds with one stone. It turns out it was also karaoke night.
We have now captured all of Saddam Hussein's palaces and residences; he has no place to live! If he thinks Bush was hard on him before, wait till Saddam sees how Republicans treat the homeless!
Some Iraqis are looting the presidential palaces, taking stationary, ashtrays, pillows, even a grand piano. Reporters say they haven't seen looting like this since Clinton's last days in the white house.
Monday, April 14, 2003
An open letter to Baghdad Bob.....
Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf or may I call you Bob? I am as American as apple pie, I am an ex-American army officer, I was for this military action against the Iraqi regime.....and yet I have to say with all candor, that I miss you. I know that as a stooge of Saddam you were only doing your duty as you saw fit, producing some of the greatest lies mankind has ever produced, yet you did this with grace, honor and a sense of diginity not often seen in the media these days.
Steadfast in your duty, you were our daily warped inverse look at how the war was going. Your greatest whoppers told us that things were going well. While all the assorted scum around you ran for their lives, you were there for us, brightening our day with your merry good wit. While journalists of the world gave us innuendo, double talk and conjecture, there you stood, beret held high, telling us the complete truth as you saw it, made up on the spot. And we felt your pain, the pain of lying for murderers and criminals!
Bob, we the American people are a forgiving nation and I personally will hold no ill feeling, no grudge against you. You were not even included in the "death card" pack, a sign that the healing has begun already. We wish you well in your hiding place and hope that you can continue your remarkable career in other endeavors in the media. The opportunities are many. CNN needs professional liars. Hollywood celeberties need professional liars. The BBC needs professional spin men. Game shows need hosts adroit in their speech. I remember one of your pithy, inspiring quotes while speaking of the coalition forces, "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" Bob, this is the spirit that made you great, don't let one little defeat keep you down. I hope to see you back on the air soon.
Baghdad Bob Fan Site
Friday, April 11, 2003
America finally wakes up....
The alarm clock, that's what we thought we heard on the 11th of September 2001 and maybe it was, but I think it should have been "Get Out of Bed!" In fact, I think the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.
The beginning.....
It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign US embassy set the stage for the events to follow for the next 23 years.
America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Viet Nam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then President Carter had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal with terrorism. America's military had been decimated and downsized / right sized since the end of the Viet Nam war. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.
Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.
In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.
Then just six short months later a large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut. 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.
Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber.
The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gates of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.
Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe.......
In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid.
Then in August a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rhein-Main, 22 are killed and the Snooze Alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US soil is continually attacked.
Fifty-nine days later a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.
The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259.
America wants to treat these terrorist acts as crimes; in fact we are still trying to bring these people to trial. These are acts of war...the Wake Up alarm is louder and louder.
The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America.......
In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The following month, February 1993, a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war? The Snooze alarm is depressed again.
Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women.
A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500.
The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively. They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. These attacks were planned with precision; they kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.
The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.
And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America. How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we have chosen to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep.
In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high official in government over what they knew and what they didn't know. But if you've read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don't have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979. The President is right on when he says we are engaged in a war. I think we have been in a war for the past 23 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough.
America has to "Get out of Bed" and act decisively now. America has changed forever. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to hit the Snooze Button again and roll over and go back to sleep. We have to make the terrorists know that in the words of Admiral Yamamoto after the attack on Pearl Harbor "that all they have done is to awaken a sleeping giant."
--------------------------------------------------
From a speech given by U.S. Navy Capt. Dan Ouimette Executive Officer of NAS, Pensacola.
Perhaps with the commitment to fight wherever necessary to destroy terrorism, we have finally gotten out of bed!
The alarm clock, that's what we thought we heard on the 11th of September 2001 and maybe it was, but I think it should have been "Get Out of Bed!" In fact, I think the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.
The beginning.....
It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign US embassy set the stage for the events to follow for the next 23 years.
America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Viet Nam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then President Carter had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal with terrorism. America's military had been decimated and downsized / right sized since the end of the Viet Nam war. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.
Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.
In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.
Then just six short months later a large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut. 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.
Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber.
The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gates of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.
Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe.......
In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid.
Then in August a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rhein-Main, 22 are killed and the Snooze Alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US soil is continually attacked.
Fifty-nine days later a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.
The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259.
America wants to treat these terrorist acts as crimes; in fact we are still trying to bring these people to trial. These are acts of war...the Wake Up alarm is louder and louder.
The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America.......
In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The following month, February 1993, a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war? The Snooze alarm is depressed again.
Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women.
A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500.
The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively. They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. These attacks were planned with precision; they kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.
The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.
And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America. How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we have chosen to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep.
In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high official in government over what they knew and what they didn't know. But if you've read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don't have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979. The President is right on when he says we are engaged in a war. I think we have been in a war for the past 23 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough.
America has to "Get out of Bed" and act decisively now. America has changed forever. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to hit the Snooze Button again and roll over and go back to sleep. We have to make the terrorists know that in the words of Admiral Yamamoto after the attack on Pearl Harbor "that all they have done is to awaken a sleeping giant."
--------------------------------------------------
From a speech given by U.S. Navy Capt. Dan Ouimette Executive Officer of NAS, Pensacola.
Perhaps with the commitment to fight wherever necessary to destroy terrorism, we have finally gotten out of bed!
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