This week, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal signed House Joint Resolution 2 (HJ0002), claiming “sovereignty on behalf of the State of Wyoming and for its citizens under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government or reserved to the people by the Constitution of the United States…”
“For decades we have shared increased frustration dealing with the federal government and its agencies. What started out as a leak in the erosion of state prerogative and independence has today turned into a flood. From wolf and grizzly bear management, to gun control, to endless regulation and unfunded mandates – the federal government has become far too powerful and intrusive.”
For your own good, of course. Washington politicians are much smarter than those at the state and local level.
For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a “city of 80,000 people” as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centres in Helmand.
It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.
Gareth’s argument is supported by an ISAF official “who asked not to be identified” confirming that Marjah is a “rural community” — which adds to the air of a secret plot revealed. Except there’s no secret. The official was me, and I didn’t ask to be quoted anonymously.
A murderer who wrote a bragging letter to prosecutors when he believed he could not legally face the death penalty has been executed by electric chair.
Although a distant second to Texas when it comes to the article of capital punishment, the Commonwealth of Virginia doesn’t play when it comes to murderous child rapists.
The Obama administration is poised to ban offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf until 2012 or beyond. Meanwhile, Russia is making a bold strategic leap to begin drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. While the United States attempts to shift gears to alternative fuels to battle the purported evils of carbon emissions, Russia will erect oil derricks off the Cuban coast.
Bit of a dispute in the Great White Up. There was a debate between free thinking Wafa Sultan and Danial Pipes that had the temerity to touch on the Aisha situation. In a synagogue.
There was an (I assume) very occasional reader y-clept Deodo who used to drop in on me in PM whilst I was working on my tailwheel qual to offer encouragement and advice. Mentioned that the Travelair I hope to someday fly was something of a dog contrasted to his own machine, the Bücker Jungmann Bü-131. Which, given the video he sent along – from right here at Gillespie – I’d have to agree.
Not that they’re giving away Bü-131s, or anything.
Deodo and his wife Gail, I was happy to see, got a story on his plane in the Pacific Flyer recently.
Courtesy of occasional reader redc1c4, an English Russia photo essay of a Soviet era Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine. Menacing hull, impressive crew and operations spaces.
Parlous condition of the valves and gear between the pressure hulls.
Still, at a length of nearly two football fields and 20,000+ tons displacement, that’s a damn big boat.
Back in the Cold War days, we in the skimmer carrier Navy didn’t worry much about Admiral Gorshkov’s blue water fleet, no matter how menacing their physical appearance might have been.
We used to worry quite a bit about their subs though.
The commanding officer of the Pearl Harbor-based fast-attack submarine USS Chicago was stripped of command Monday after he was found guilty of drunkenness and conduct unbecoming an officer during an ROTC visit last week, the Navy said.
An interesting contrast from previous reports of relief for cause: Not only is the CO identified by name, but also his dereliction identified.
Usually the cause is not released for “privacy reasons,” and a generalized “loss of confidence” in one’s ability to command cited.
The Senate does something useful, while awaiting the House to gain enough votes to “deem” the Senate’s version of health care reform as having passed:
The Senate late Tuesday unanimously passed a proposal that would dramatically boost the number of flight hours that commercial co-pilots must have before they can fly passengers.
Moving forward on a bill to reauthorize funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, senators approved an amendment offered by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. The measure would require new co-pilots to have 800 hours of flight experience under specific, rigorous conditions. That’s up from the current 250 hours of general experience.
Of course, from the co-pilot perspective, that just means another four or five years of dragging banners up and down the beach or teaching teenagers and retirees to solo before taking on responsibility for dozens of lives.
Intermixed, of course, with “specific, rigorous” training.
This significant investment of time and money will then allow them to earn as much as $25,000 a year, counting per diem.
Two hundred and fifty hours really isn’t that much in an aircraft requiring two rated pilots. Eight hundred?
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
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