It’s A Start
CNN reports Air Force officials ousted over nuclear gaffes
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The top military and civilian leaders of the U.S. Air Force were forced out Thursday over the handling of nuclear weapons, the Defense Department secretary said.
Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael W. Wynne resigned over the department’s concern over two incidents, including the August flight of a B-52 bomber that flew across the country with nuclear weapons.
“Focus of the Air Force leadership has drifted” in terms of handling nuclear weapons and equipment, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.
Gates also cited this year’s discovery that four nuclear warhead fuses were accidentally shipped to Taiwan in 2006.
It’s a start, but the commanders of the Air Combat Command, Eighth Air Force, and Fifth Bomb Wing also need to be shown the door, to prevent another unacceptable failure.
20 comments
Bob Gates is a distinct improvement over Don Rumsfeld. Not that this is saying much, but it’s something.
Have to agree with you there Michael.
But there is a long way to go yet. However, it is a start… and I agree Bryan, several more need to be shown the door, and all should lose their entitlements as a warning to the others (not that I expect THAT to ever happen!)
Oh well…
You can’t do more that loss of non-permanent rank and early retirement without a court martial, but that is something, and might make others wake up that voting for the proper party and attending the right church aren’t enough anymore.
This crap happens because of McPeak’s shift of emphasis to fighter pilots for command positions. Fighter jocks don’t know or care what the majority of the Air Force that doesn’t fly fighters do. They stay fixated on more and faster fighter aircraft.
McPeak was Air Force CoS at the end of Bush I and beginning of Clinton. He was a Cheney choice, and a disaster for the Air Force.
OT: This was as close as an appropriate thread to post this gem! 😀
Just to prove that the USA isn’t the only Land of Insanity… We have the EU! I don’t even know where to begin to describe who stupid and useless this idea is, really! (I can’t believe it’s not the USA! Sorry… you understand, right?) 😉 😀
EU project scans air passengers for terrorist tendencies
Next thing you know, they’ll have a laser installed and the next time a kid jumps up to run around, he/she will get their brain fried.
I must have taken a wrong turn a decade ago, and I wound up in Bizzaro World!
*sigh* who stupid -> how stupid.
So anyone who has a fear of flight, any OCD, a half dozen medical problems, been a member of a “clandestine service”, or is an air marshal, can generate an armed response.
I would love to take these “researchers” out to a “family disturbance” call and see if they can predict which of the people is going to attack the police officer, because most experienced police officers will tell you there is no way of knowing but the safest move is too suspect the one that your “gut” tells you is no threat.
that little bit of irony brightened my day considerably, the thought of an anti-terrorist automaton taking out a real live air marshal.
not that i want anything bad to happen to real live air marshals.
If you are looking for shady characters, plain clothes cops act really suspiciously.
the bum bot will love you.
That is a law suit in the making.
i sure hope so. fervently.
In general, no matter what state you are in, you have wide latitude to do much of what you want on your own property. If you leave your property, you leave behind those rights. Unless he owns that parking lot, he is essentially “assaulting” people with that robot. He can be arrested for his current behavior, and anyone who got sprayed certainly can sue.
While I doubt the police want to get involved, there are always lawyers available to deal with vigilantes.
Here’s the bio of the lunatic that started this. He’s a lecturer in the Computational Vision Group at Reading University, UK.
Staff Profile: Dr James Ferryman
Perhaps he should have a team of behavioral scientists and experienced police (as Bryan correctly points out) working with him. Not for the project, they would all know it’ll be a dismal failure, but because he’s a dangerous lunatic.
What a World! LOL
You have to wonder if projects like this were the source of the “scientists” who came up with things for Stalin and Hitler.
Back in the days when I was flying commercial, I remember that the people who made me nervous were the “first flyers”. If I had one sitting next to me I knew I would get no sleep, and this was in the days when you could actually fit in a coach seat on an aircraft, and you got fed.
You had to keep up a litany of what was happening – landing gear retracting, flaps retracting, fuel transfer pump – to keep them from going bananas.
After a while I paid full-fare so I wasn’t in uniform and a target for these people. The extra money was worth it.
There is no silver bullet! There is no magic formula! There is no quick and easy solution!
Walking and talking is how you solve crimes and find criminals. You piece together the “clues” and locate the guilty. If you want to prevent crime, guarantee that every child will have a happy childhood. That’s the answer; that’s always been the answer; that will always be the answer. We can’t do that, so we have to go back to walking and talking.
i grew up being flown around in small planes, mostly 4-seaters. neatest stuff, and i loved it. can’t remember how old i was before i realized that not all kids did this. but the first time i flew on a commercial airliner [i was 20something i think] i was nearly paralyzed with terror. zomg! what was that noise? this thing’ll never get off the get off the ground. the wings! they’re shaking! they’re gonna fall off!! we’reallgonnadiewe’reallgonnadiewe’reallgonnadie.
If you want to prevent crime, guarantee that every child will have a happy childhood. That’s the answer; that’s always been the answer; that will always be the answer. We can’t do that, but we need to keep trying. it’s also why we need to elect bunches and bunches of truly liberal politicians, because generous social safety nets really do help.
You always start with the kids. That is the logical starting point for every ill society has. If the kids start out right, they can eventually take care of themselves.
We wouldn’t be spending all this money on prisons if we had spent a little money on prenatal care and early childhood development, but people don’t see the connection, no matter how many studies prove it exists.
people do see that connection. that’s why they spend top dollar to buy their homes in the best school districts, and send their kids off to private schools if they can afford to. it’s why we have kindergarten and prekindergarten and day care with all kinds of ‘enrichment.’ it’s why pregnant women cart their babies-to-be around to museums and classical music concerts. it’s why we have prenatal vitamins and super-duper-enriched baby formula and scientifically-balanced baby foods and countless visits to the obstetrician during pregnancy and to the pediatrician after.
the connection that it’s harder to get people to see is the myriad ways that the robber barons and their minions have been dismantling everything for the past quarter century. subprime mortgages. usurious fees and interest on credit cards. defined contribution pensions replacing defined benefit pensions. looted and/or mismanaged pension funds. deregulation of commodities trading [enron anyone? and now it’s happening to agricultural commodities — your food]. new, ‘modern’ financial instruments in a new, more ‘nimble’ market. automation/outsourcing/offshoring of good-paying jobs. manipulation of the h1b visas program. the myth of ‘retraining’ go back to college, spend thousands to get another degree, and we’re not going to tell you that once you start making too much money in your new vocation we’re going to do the same thing all over again. not to mention the rise in predatory lending for college loans. health insurance that isn’t. property insurance that isn’t. insane ceo pay. huge tax cuts and loopholes for corporations and the wealthy. tiny tax cuts for the rest of us to keep us from looking behind the curtain.
oh, and the privatization of prisons is making money for the robber barons too.
It’s nice that individuals see it, but we need for societies to see it and do something about it.
Society will spend $100K a day for a premie in a neonatal unit, but won’t spend the $500 for prenatal care that would have resulted in a normal, healthy baby. That is insane.
It’s almost as if the “powers that be” are programming poor people to be criminals, because that’s the only job they can afford.
the very top of the wealth food chain is certainly doing all it can to move the middle class down to poverty. programming poor people to be criminals on top of that makes it easier to demonize them and keep them poor, and locked away out of sight. harder to do that if they’re real people.
and keeping the rest of the middle class on edge about whether they too are going slide off into poverty does keep them distracted from minor issues like social justice.
otoh, i read somewhere [wish i could find that link] that something like 60% [more? can’t remember] of our incumbent elected politicians are further right than their constituencies. so while it’s society’s fault to some extent for electing these goons, iirc, an awful lot of them were something of trojan horses, only revealing their inner sociopath after they were in office. the shrub did win a lot of people over with his compassionate consrvatism shtick. not all of us, of course, but it was a popular meme a the time.
speaking of which, do you know anything about jeff miller’s challengers? i haven’t found much about them on the web anywhere and it’s been several years since i kept up with local politics much.
Last I heard, Joe Roberts dropped out and Jim Bryan is the only one left. He’s the sacrificial Democrat who can’t get any money because all of the local contributors are sending their funds to national campaigns, and the state Democratic party is broke for the same reason.