Posts from — June 2008

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.

I was literally on the edge of tomorrow flying from an island that was only technically on the same side of the international date line as the US because of a jog in the line. By the time you climbed out after take off, you were in a different day, which is why we used Greenwich Mean Time, which is now formalized as the Coordinated Universal Time [abbreviated UTC for political reasons].

We didn’t discuss politics in the military except in groups of equal rank because it was a violation of military rules, and we had all the fighting we could handle on duty, but there were a lot of us with our hopes pinned on Bobby Kennedy. If he won California, the traditional Chicago-Boston alliance would give him Illinois to go with the Northeast and he would be the winner at the end of the convention.

The country was in trouble and so was the military. After the MLK assassination and the riots people weren’t sure who they could trust, and that included people in uniform.

We got the high of the win, and then the low of the shooting. I remember one of the guys saying “Please, G-d, don’t let the killer be black.” Of course, it was another day before he died, but the hopes died on the 5^th. His brother’s grave had an eternal flame, but most of us felt that the candles that we used for guidance were being snuffed out one after another.

This is the BBC reporting on the events of June 5^th, as BBC shortwave was our primary news source [no one believed anything on Armed Forces Radio].

Mustang Bobby also remembers That Morning.

Good news from the BBC: Space station crew repair toilet

Crew members have fixed a toilet at the International Space Station with a pump delivered by the shuttle Discovery.

After three tests, the toilet appeared to be working, according to an update from US space agency Nasa.

The toilet’s urine collection unit had been broken, meaning that astronauts had to operate a pump manually.

Astronauts also opened a Japanese laboratory Kibo, which will be used for the study of biomedicine and material sciences at the station.

The gazillion dollar lab module is all very well and good, but nothing gets done when the loo’s busted.

In order to generate “local excitement” [sell stuff] the chamber of commerce is once again annoying people with the Billy Bowlegs Festival. This year it runs from tomorrow and finishes up on Monday with a really annoying parade that screws up traffic and sends a lot of noisy people through my neighborhood.

Almost at bad as the Monday traffic jam are the Friday fireworks. I know a lot of people enjoy fireworks, but they probably have not seen what loud noises and flashes of light can do to people and aircraft – I am definitely not a fan.

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They really do seem hellbent on annoying as many people as possible around the world with their stupid rules and massive data collection operations. The BBC reports on the latest effort to make the US the last place anyone would choose to visit – US to tighten visa restrictions

The US is to tighten visa restrictions to allow it to screen all short-term visitors from Japan and Western Europe.

US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said visitors to the US who do not need visas will be required to register with the government online.

The security regulation, set to begin next year, will require visitors to register three days before they visit.

The online registration will remain valid for a two-year period, Mr Chertoff said.

I have no idea what they think this will accomplish, except to provide terrorists with lists of real people with real passport numbers when DHS leaves a laptop somewhere, or has its site hacked.

After a while you begin to feel that the US has the worst military procurement program devised since the Byzantine defense official told the Czech cannon maker to find another client for his fortress destroying cannon in 1453. [He did and Constantinople was history.]

It is therefore encouraging when you find that others have problems, as reported by the BBC – MoD accused of Chinook ‘cock-up’

The Ministry of Defence has been accused of a “gold standard cock-up” over eight helicopters which have cost £422m but have yet to fly for the RAF.
…

[Commons public accounts committee chairman Sir Edward Leigh] said: “The Ministry of Defence’s programme to make airworthy the eight Chinook Mk3 helicopters, which it acquired in 2001 for special operations work, has been a gold standard cock-up.

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Jonathan S. Landay of McClatchy Newspapers notes that Both McCain, Obama exaggerating Iran’s nuclear program

WASHINGTON — The presumptive Republican nominee for president and the leading contender for the Democratic nomination are exaggerating what’s known about Iran’s nuclear program as they duel over how best to deal with Tehran.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., say that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

The U.S. intelligence community, however, thinks that Iran halted an effort to build a nuclear warhead in mid-2003, and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating the program, has found no evidence to date of an active Iranian nuclear-weapons project.

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Just to prove that all of the jerks are not running for office, Elsa Wenzel at CNet’s green blog tells us about ‘Carbon Belch Day’ promotes un-green actions

Smoke cigars, do a partial load of laundry, drink bottled water, and feel no shame. That’s what a campaign against a carbon trading bill is urging.

The latest parody of the proliferation of “green” social-networking sites and eco-friendly events comes via “Carbon Belch Day,” a campaign from the conservative Grassfire.org alliance that encourages people to pollute as much as possible on June 12.

So far, more than 140,000 people have signed a petition against “climate alarmism,” according to Ron De Jong, spokesman for Grassfire.org. If the effort attracts half a million people, it would lead to the release of 105 million pounds of carbon a week from this Thursday.

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If you didn’t pick them off of your plants, wash them really well.

The Associated Press reports that Tomatoes eyed in salmonella cases in 9 states

ATLANTA – An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning first linked to uncooked tomatoes has now been reported in nine states, U.S health officials said Tuesday.

Lab tests have confirmed 40 illnesses in Texas and New Mexico as the same type of salmonella, right down to the genetic fingerprint. An investigation by Texas and New Mexico health authorities and the Indian Health Service tied those cases to uncooked, raw, large tomatoes.
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Walter Brasch writing at Pacific Views looks at The Politics of Humanitarian Aid beginning with the complaints about the way the junta in Burma reacted to the recent cyclone and then does an in depth review of all of the missteps made by the Hedgemony in the response to Katrina.

The Hedgemony has left the US in a moral pit, rather than the high ground.

that even the inexperienced press secretary from Texas could figure out that Condoleezza Rice wasn’t doing her job as National Security Advisor.

Fresh Air has an interview with Scott McClellan, and Terry Gross was asking general questions about how things worked in the White House. When it came to the Iraq invasion, she asked who really made the decisions.

In the course of answering the question [the Shrubbery, in case you’re interested], McClellan noted that instead of advising, Rice simply agreed with whatever policy the Shrubbery seemed to prefer. She never challenged the process or pointed out any problems. Rather than seeing her role as being an advisor, she acted as an “agreer”.

We could have saved a lot of money by buying Dubya a Furby rather than paying Rice’s salary.

On May 30^th in Vermont a former Director of the National Security Agency, Russian linguist, and realist passed away. The Washington Post covers the life of William E. Odom, Lieutenant General, US Army (retired):

He had a reputation as a military hard-liner who opposed any compromise with the Soviet Union, which made his vocal opposition to the current involvement in Iraq all the more cogent and surprising.

“Among senior military people, he was probably the first to consider the war in Iraq a misbegotten adventure,” Brzezinski said yesterday. “He believed that we’re just stoking hostility to the United States in that region and developing an opposition that cannot be defeated by military means. He was very outspoken.”

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In what will probably not be the last of such occurrences, Mary Beth & EBW at Wampum have decided to to close down the blog. The archives will remain available.

It is one of the veteran “lefty” blogs and probably the only place you would find discussions of autism, Native American issues, politics, and heavy-duty geek posts on the same page. They hosted the Koufax Awards, the only important awards for the Left, for many years. The choice to start or end a blog is personal, but reasonable and realistic voices are rare, and will be missed when they fall silent.

I wish them well.

Mustang Bobby has been dealing with Real Estate Realities, chief among them is that the house he has been renting is in foreclosure.

Fortunately, he has found a two-car garage … oh, there’s also a house attached.