Posts from — June 2014

Back-lit Vigilance II

Mine … All mine!

[Editor: The Kit prepares to defend her sunny spot from a curious puppy.]

Friday Ark

This is the 70^th anniversary of one of history’s biggest military gambles – the invasion of Normandy. There were so many things that had to fall into place for it to work, that it really is amazing that it did.

President Franklin D Roosevelt told a news conference the invasion did not mean the war was over. He said: “You don’t just walk to Berlin, and the sooner this country realizes that the better.”

The war continued for almost a year, but FDR did not, dying a month before the German surrender.

Duncan linked to a local Philly blogger who is upset about the reaction to Bergdahl’s release. The post includes the official Army picture of Bergdahl which showed something that I wasn’t aware of, Bergdahl was Airborne. The majority of the Army wears a black beret with an infantry blue flash on it, but Bergdahl is wearing a maroon beret with a unit flash. Airborne is a volunteer assignment.

In their coverage of the controversy CNN had this tidbit:

But a U.S. official who has been briefed on the initial Army fact-finding investigation conducted in the months after Bergdahl disappeared told CNN that Bergdahl’s commanders referred to him as “a good soldier” in that report.

Some of his teammates said he had expressed “boredom” and thought his unit was too passive and should have been “kicking down doors,” the official said.

I’m sorry, but Bergdahl doesn’t seem like someone trying to avoid a fight; he sounds like someone looking for a fight.

If Bergdahl’s unit was passive, that would explain why former members are claiming that people died looking for Bergdahl, because without those missions the unit would have been staying on their base.

In the end the facts won’t matter, because reality left the building when Zero was elected.

My XP box died, so I bought a used Dell because I need to work on some legacy software.

I have been spending my time upgrading the drivers et al. so I can work on it. It won’t be on the ‘Net after it gets updated and Microsoft and Dell are the only sites I’m visiting so I will wait until my Eset software is up for renewal to put any virus software on it.I’m transferring things with a thumb drive and eset scans it whenever I plug it in, so there isn’t much chance of an infection.

I’m getting really sick of the XP start-up tune.

In order to generate “local excitement” [sell stuff] the chamber of commerce is once again annoying people with the Billy Bowlegs Festival. This year the unavoidable part runs from Thursday, June 5^th and finishes up on Saturday. The really obnoxious parade on Thursday screws up traffic and sends a lot of noisy people through my neighborhood.

Almost at bad as the parade 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.

With luck it will rain the rest of the week… 😈

The first tropical disturbance of the Atlantic hurricane season, Invest 90, has formed in the southern end of the Bay of Campeche. All of the models currently say it will drift West into Mexico.

Mexico doesn’t need it because they are dealing with massive amounts of rain from Tropical Storm Boris, an eastern Pacific storm, that has come ashore due South of Invest 90. Flash flooding and mudslides will be major problems for southern Mexico and Honduras.

Steve Bates made a calm, reasoned comment to the FCC on “Net Neutrality” discussing the impact on small business of the proposed two tier system. He covers a very important point about the need for a “level playing field” where the best product or service can attract customers without millions spent on marketing.

I will be commenting shortly on the effect on the average user in the area of downloading software updates. Imagine what it would be like to update Windows every month with a dial-up connection…

Not everyone is satisfied with with the reasoned approach, and the CBC reports on a different tack: John Oliver’s net neutrality rant crashes FCC website.

John Oliver is another Daily Show alumnus who has branched out to his own show and his rant is definitely worth a look.

Goes unpunished, when there’s a Democrat in the White House.

The BBC covers the latest example: Bowe Bergdahl release: US parties clash on Afghan deal.

Congress passed a law that required the President to consult with it 30 days before any major detainee was moved from Guantanamo and Zero didn’t do it when he swapped 5 Taliban for for a US soldier who has been held by the Taliban in Afghanistan for five years, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

Reagan did it; the Israelis do it; POW swaps have been taking place for centuries; but Democrats are not allowed to swap POWs.

Apparently some Congresscritters are unaware that Afghanistan is already dangerous for Americans, and another 5 Taliban aren’t going to make any difference. People are saying that Bergdahl wasn’t ‘really a POW’, that he deserted. The military said he was a POW and treated him like a POW for 6 years. Bitching about being lied to by the military isn’t treasonous, it’s normal [and true: see the official stories about Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman].

The Republicans refuse to acknowledge the possibility that a Democratic President may, occasionally, do something right. They will insist on an investigation and hearings.

June 1^st:

The official start of the hurricane season.

Events:
1495 – Friar John Cor records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.
1660 – Mary Dyer is hanged in Boston, Massachusetts, for defying a law banning Quakers from the colony. She is considered by some to be the last religious martyr in what would become the United States.
1890 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machine to count census returns.
1967 – The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is released.
1980 – The Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting.

Births:
1563 – Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, English statesman and spymaster (d. 1612)
1780 – Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian general (d. 1831)
1804 – Mikhail Glinka, Russian composer (d. 1857)

For some reason I didn’t make the list.