Archive for December, 2007

Monday Maritime Matters

December 31st, 2007 by xformed

Note: When you’re done here, don’t forget Sunday Ship History – The AF at Sea and the massive compendium at Frey Fry International Maritime Monday 91!

Bandidas release

History Note: Today is the day ADM Nimitz assumed command of the Pacific Fleet in 1941.
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LCDR Jackson Pharris, USN, MOH

LCDR Jackson Pharris, USN

LCDR Jackson's Medal of Honor

Photo Credit: HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune
Born in Colombus, GA June 26th, 1912, he is another hero of the attack on Pearl Harbor, LCDR Pharris was passing the ammunition anyway he could get it to the anti-aircraft gun crews, and conducting damage control and life saving work at the same time aboard the USS CALIFORNIA on December 7th.From the Arlington National Cemetery site:

Citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while attached to the U.S.S. California during the surprise enemy Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, 7 December 1941.

In charge of the ordnance repair party on the third deck when the first Japanese torpedo struck almost directly under his station, Lieutenant (then Gunner) Pharris was stunned and severely injured by the concussion which hurled him to the overhead and back to the deck. Quickly recovering, he acted on his own initiative to set up a hand-supply ammunition train for the antiaircraft guns. With water and oil rushing in where the port bulkhead had been torn up from the deck, with many of the remaining crewmembers overcome by oil fumes, and the ship without power and listing heavily to port as a result of a second torpedo hit, Lieutenant Pharris ordered the shipfitters to counterflood. Twice rendered unconscious by the nauseous fumes and handicapped by his painful injuries, he persisted in his desperate efforts to speed up the supply of ammunition and at the same time repeatedly risked his life to enter flooding compartments and drag to safety unconscious shipmates who were gradually being submerged in oil.

By his inspiring leadership, his valiant efforts and his extreme loyalty to his ship and her crew, he saved many of his shipmates from death and was largely responsible for keeping the California in action during the attack. His heroic conduct throughout this first eventful engagement of World War 11 reflects the highest credit upon Lieutenant Pharris and enhances the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

Jackson Pharris joined the Navy in 1933 and was stationed aboard the USS MISSISSiPPI (BB-41), serving in the Gunnery Department until 1940, when he transferred to USS CALIFORNIA (BB-44).

From Wikipedia, more on Jackson Pharris’ military career:

Due to the injuries he received, Pharris was hospitalized at Naval Hospital, Pearl Harbor until March 1942. After being released from the hospital, he returned to the USS California. On July 17, 1942, Pharris earned his commission. In January 1943 he was admitted again to the US Naval Hospital after collapsing because of lack of oxygen due to oil still in his lungs. He returned to duty in June.

In October 1944 Pharris moved to Boston, Massachusetts where he reported aboard the USS Saint Paul (CA-73), a newly commissioned heavy cruiser. The ship left for Japan to participate in bombardments of the Japanese mainland. In September 1945, just five days after the surrender proclamation, Lt. Pharris was on deck when a Japanese kamikaze dove at the ship. He ordered the crew to take cover and he directed the firing of the guns and shot it down. His back was broken from the impact of the guns.

Lt. Pharris was transported to US Naval Hospital Oakland, California. In October 1945 he was transferred to US Naval Hospital Long Beach, California. After discharge from the hospital in April 1946 he was temporarily assigned to Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, Terminal Island, Long Beach Naval Shipyard and Port Hueneme. He was medically retired in May 1948 as a Lieutenant Commander. His Congressional Medal of Honor was presented by President Harry S. Truman on June 25, 1948.

LCDR Jackson died Oct 16th, 1966 and is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.

His Medal of Honor (which is the one pictured above) has a story of it’s own, only recently revealed. The report below also provides some insight into the character of the man who was awarded the Medal of Honor, from what he told his children. From the San Diego Union story:

WWII Medal of Honor winner’s family finally regains decoration

By Alex Roth
STAFF WRITER

October 3, 2007

The strange tale of Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jackson Pharris’ Medal of Honor begins as many old-timers’ war stories do: with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

His heroic actions on that infamous day earned him the nation’s highest military award for valor. The medal’s subsequent travels – from Pharris’ possession to a bank vault to the bowels of a government office building – provide a case study in what happens when the state of California seizes unclaimed property.

Unlike many other stories of noble battles waged against foreign enemies and Sacramento bureaucrats, this one has a happy ending. At a Navy base in Coronado yesterday, the medal was returned to Pharris’ family during a posthumous ceremony that served as a reminder of how brave he was.
[…]
After his death, his wife took possession of his medals. When she became ill, one of his daughters, Janet Pharris, placed them in a safe-deposit box at a bank in San Pedro. Then, in 2002, Janet Pharris died of a heart attack, and a few months later her mother died of a stroke.

Jackson Pharris’ three living children went through their mother’s and sister’s possessions and quickly realized their father’s war medals were missing.

The medals, of course, meant the world to them. Pharris’ youngest son, Jeff, recalls giving a report about his father to his sixth-grade class and realizing for the first time what his father had done to earn the Medal of Honor.

“I can remember as a little boy putting it around my neck and wearing it and thinking it was pretty cool,” said Jeff Pharris, 48, who manages a Home Depot in Oceanside.

After Janet Pharris died, the medals sat in the safe-deposit box for three years until the bank, by law, turned the items over to the state as unclaimed property. Several years passed, and Pharris’ children tried to find the medals, with no success.

“By the time we tracked down the bank, it had already been turned over to the state, and it kind of went into a black hole,” said one of his sons, Jack Pharris II, 63, a Rancho Palos Verdes real estate agent.
[…]
Meanwhile, California officials passed a law eliminating some of the red tape that was making it difficult for state officials to find the owners of seized property. State Controller John Chiang, who took office last year, announced in August that he was stepping up efforts to return seized property to its rightful owners.

During the news conference, Chiang mentioned some of the odd items the state has seized over the years. He specifically mentioned a Medal of Honor.

Later that month, Chiang’s staff tracked down Pharris’ children, who were thrilled.

“We’d been looking for the medal for a long time,” Jack Pharris said.

A dozen Pearl Harbor survivors were present for yesterday’s ceremony in the Medal of Honor courtyard at Coronado Naval Amphibious Base. So was Vice Adm. Terrance Etnyre, commander of Naval Surface Forces.

In a brief address to those in attendance, Jack Pharris described his father as “a modest guy” and a “normal dad” who felt sheepish about having received such a prestigious honor. The elder Pharris always believed that plenty of other sailors were every bit as brave as he was that day, his son recalled.

Whenever his children would ask him about the medal, Jackson Pharris would reply, “This is what you did in a crisis situation.”
[..]

USS PHARRIS (FF-1094) on UNITAS XXI 1982
On Jan 26th, 1974, the USS PHARRIS (DE-1094) (later FF-1094) of the KNOX Class, was commissioned.The PHARRIS was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and I can track down two specific deployments of UNITAS XXI (Summer/Fall 1982), and a Mediterranean deployment in 1987-88, when she escorted the MV Mighty Servant while that ship carried the USS SAMUEL B ROBERTS (FFG-58) home after hitting the mine in the Persian Gulf.

IN 1992, the USS PHARRIS was decommissioned and transferred to Mexico and renamed the ARM Victoria (F-213), one of four KNOX frigates serving in the Mexican Navy today..

Category: Navy | 2 Comments »

Air Force – Together We Served Now Up!

December 29th, 2007 by xformed

Found in my comments:

Air Force Together We Served is now fully online.

Loyde Mcillwain
TWS Senior Administrator/Consultant

OK, you light blue suiters: Get to work building your networks!

I’m sure the site is as polished as the Navy one, so I expect you’ll find a great place to catch up with your former AF friends. Geez…we have “shipmates.” What do you AF type call the people you served with?

Category: Air Force, Military, Public Service | 6 Comments »

Before Parachuting from a Aerial Vehicle, There Was a BASE Jump…

December 26th, 2007 by xformed

Dec 26th, 1783. Louis-Sébastien Lenormand was the man who did the deed. From Wikipedia:

After making a jump from a tree with the help of two modified umbrellas Lenormand refined his contraption and on December 26, 1783 jumped from the tower of the Montpellier observatory in front of a crowd that included Joseph Montgolfier, using a 14 foot parachute with a rigid wooden frame. His intended use for the parachute was to help entrapped occupants of a burning building to escape unharmed. Lenormand was succeeded by André-Jacques Garnerin who made the first jump from high altitude with the help of a non-rigid parachute.

BASE jump? It stands for someone who jumps from Bridge, Antenna, Structure (building), Earth.

Category: History, Skydiving, Technology | Comments Off on Before Parachuting from a Aerial Vehicle, There Was a BASE Jump…

Technology Tuesday

December 25th, 2007 by xformed

Tadpoleqa
But a different kind. Today is a day to pay tribute to the Son of God, part of the trinity who hung the stars in the heavens.Technology you ask? Yep, It’s about the Creator of the Universe and all that is in it. Just contemplate the picture of the Tadpole galaxy above for a moment. Consider going to either this or this link to see more pictures from NASA of the universe, or, if that’s too expansive for the moment, our solar system.How did it all get here, from the Black Holes, to the comets, to the atomic interactions of the star’s inner cores, to the wonder of the “universal acid” that fuels life here on Earth and is sought out elsewhere in the Universe by out scientists, as a signal that life maybe accompanied by the presence of water…

What about photosynthesis? Hydrogen bonding? Brownian motion? asexual replication? Gravity? Lift? Hemoglobin? Gold? The things on the Periodic Chart? The brain, in each and every form?

Consider this: Cosmologists/physicists tell us the Universe formed from an incredibly dense ball of matter. Consider this, too: Black holes, as defined in our understood science are balls of matter, held together so tightly, that even photons cannot escape their grasp. We speculate on their existence be derived observations, where light isn’t coming from. Now, I have heard said “the Bible is not a book of science, but when it speaks to it, it is correct.” Take that how you may, but I’ll reference Genesis 1:3:

And God said “Let there be light” and there was light.

Could that have been the unleashing of the very elemental waves/particles we study as light, from the single core of the only black hole in existence? The “Big Bang” as it were? I attribute it to that, aided by the millenia of understanding mankind has determined, to God Himself. My question to those who aren’t sure: How the heck did that large pile of matter end up being assembled in the center of the universe? Makes you wonder, huh? Now, one I don’t think I have encountered: Who placed the large expanse of nothingness around the place we try to reckon as the center of the Universe? Someone had to clear the lot before a house gets built, right?

Psalm 19:

1The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
2Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
3There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
4Their voice goes out into all the earth; their words to the end of the world.

My question now for you: Doesn’t a look skyward, in day or night, give you a reason to wonder? I would hope so. And when you wonder, who do you say did it all?

Take a few minutes to read Job 38 to 41 for a compendium of some of the things God has done to create the Universe and life. It can give one a greater appreciation of the effort it took to do that. Amazingly, it took a man complaining to God about what he wasn’t doing for us to get the Lord’s “resume” for the record, in much greater detail that presented in Genesis.

Having spent a lot of years observing my physical surrounding and the body of (ever changing) science, I have come to a point, about a decade ago, where I let God get the glory for the creation of it all. We, in my humble opinion, are allowed to discover how it works, like kids peering through the dusty garage windows of that seemingly nutty neighbor down the block who has a workshop full of inventions. Sometimes, while looking in, we even figure out a piece of how something works, but we never will know it all, yet we will be happy to use the outcome to our benefit.

He not only took care of the macro level, He spent time designing everything else. King David remarked thusly in Psalm 139:

13For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Remember the high school biology classes about DNA, RNA, transfer RNA, and the 4 proteins that make up DNA? One could certainly describe that process as “knitting.”

Scientists, on a daily basis, ask us to take their understanding on faith and act on it. Even much of what they know is derived from what they can observe, to help the determine what must have been, so that the circumstances they are studying make sense to them first. Faith, is therefore not an unknown thing, and responsible people use it regularly to operate in life.

This day, picked for some reason as a day in the year to celebrate the giving of a gift to us may not be the actual day of the year that Jesus the Christ was born, but a large portion of humanity has picked December 25th as the day, and the business acumen of some of the rest of the world’s inhabitants have made it a great commercial endeavor. It’s not like parents of adopted children haven’t had to sometimes do the same type of thing, let alone the numerous pet owners happy to also make up a birth date. So why argue over the date, when it’s about the issue.

All in all, it is a day to consider that the Creator of the entire Universe, and all that is in it, cared enough to send His Son so we could look forward to a day when all our pain was gone, all our sadness behind us and a life everlasting stands before us, but also so we might understand ourselves and our fellow travelers on this planet, so that we might enjoy life more abundantly here and now. All you have to do is accept that gift. Even more amazing is that He doesn’t force you at all in the decision. He who created gravity to allow us to sit and type our thoughts to one another on the internet, with out the desk, chair and keyboard floating away. If He could do that, why does He let us decide if we will accept His love? Once I got passed my individual arrogance regarding MY view of MY presence and purpose here and now, I understand how awesome that situation is.

You know, even the Koran said God filled the virgin Mary with God’s spirit in the 66th Sura, regarding the birth of Jesus as something special. It even labels Jesus as the Christ in 2:136, “Christ” being Greek for “Messiah.”

So, in closing, Merry Christmas to all.

Category: Technology, Technology Tuesday | 3 Comments »

News We All Can Use

December 24th, 2007 by xformed

Army National Guard Captain adopts an Iraqi orphan, From AOL News:

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER,
Posted: 2007-12-24 10:16:48
Filed Under: Nation News
MAUSTON, Wis. (Dec. 23) – Capt. Scott Southworth knew he’d face violence, political strife and blistering heat when he was deployed to one of Baghdad’s most dangerous areas. But he didn’t expect Ala’a Eddeen.

Scott Southworth makes dinner as his adopted son, Ala’a, watches TV in their Mauston, Wis., home in November. Southworth first met Ala’a, who has cerebral palsy, at a Baghdad orphanage in 2003 while serving in Iraq.
1 of 7
Ala’a was 9 years old, strong of will but weak of body — he suffered from cerebral palsy and weighed just 55 pounds. He lived among about 20 kids with physical or mental disabilities at the Mother Teresa orphanage, under the care of nuns who preserved this small oasis in a dangerous place.

On Sept. 6, 2003, halfway through his 13-month deployment, Southworth and his military police unit paid a visit to the orphanage. They played and chatted with the children; Southworth was talking with one little girl when Ala’a dragged his body to the soldier’s side.
[…]

Quite a Christmas present for a young man.  Go and refresh your soul with this story of an incredible act of kindness.

Category: Army, History, Military | Comments Off on News We All Can Use

Monday Maritime Matters

December 24th, 2007 by xformed

Other fine maritime issues reading (in case you missed it yesterday): Wake Island, 1941 at Eagle Speak and (in case you missed it today): Maritime Monday 90 at Fred Fry International.
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His name was James Richard Ward. A Seaman First Class aboard the USS OKLAHOMA (BB-37) on the morning of Dec 7th, 1941.

S1C James Richard Ward, USN, MOH

Born in Sept 10th, 1921, he enlisted in the Navy in Cincinnati, OH in Nov, 1940. On that fateful day, Seaman Ward had manned his assigned station in one of the 14″ gun turrets. He was, by derivation, a crew member of one of the main guns, as the secondary battery guns are properly called “mounts,” with the title of “turret” being reserved for the large naval guns mounted on battle ships and large cruisers.From the Wikipedia entry:

She was based at Pearl Harbor from 6 December 1940 for patrols and exercises, and was moored in Battleship Row on 7 December 1941, when the Japanese attacked. Outboard alongside USS Maryland, Oklahoma took three torpedo hits almost immediately after the first Japanese bombs fell. As she began to capsize, two more torpedoes struck home, and her men were strafed as they abandoned ship. Within 20 minutes after the attack began, she had rolled over until halted by her masts touching bottom, her starboard side above water, and a part of her keel clear.

Many of her crew, however, remained in the fight, clambering aboard Maryland to help serve her anti-aircraft batteries. Twenty officers and 395 enlisted men were killed or missing.
[…]

James Ward was one of the men who perished when the ship capsized, but he did so ensuring his shipmates had a fighting chance of surviving. The citation for his Medal of Honor tells the story:

For conspicuous devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and complete disregard of his life, above and beyond the call of duty, during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces on 7 December 1941. When it was seen that the U.S.S. Oklahoma was going to capsize and the order was given to abandon ship, Ward remained in a turret holding a flashlight so the remainder of the turret crew could see to escape, thereby sacrificing his own life.

A life defined in 20 minutes and he could have scrambled for the hatch and safety, too, but he didn’t. The USS OKLAHOMA suffered the second highest casualty count of any unit at Pearl Harbor.

USS J RICHARD WARD (DE-243) c. 1943
In honor of Seaman First Class J. Richard Ward, the USS J RICHARD WARD (DE-243), a unit of the EDSALL Class DEs, was commissioned on July 5th, 1943, LT T. S. Dunstan commanding. By September, she had completed her training and was running convoy escort operations between the US East Coast and Europe. The war in Europe ended and she was modernized for duty in the Pacific Theater. Sailing from New York on June 28th, 1945, she was enroute Pearl Harbor when the Japanese surrendered.On June 13th, 1946, the USS J RICHARD WARD was decommissioned and placed in the Reserve Fleet.The Class of EDSALL DEs is memorialized at the USS SLATER (DE-766) museum in Albany, NY. The SLATER is the last DE of the class still in existence.
DESA Header Logo

In doing some of this research, I also found the Destroyer Escort Sailors Association (DESA) website. If you are one, you can join up as a sustaining member to help keep the history records alive. Lots of resoruces there for the history of these small, but important ships, to include some “life aboard DEs” section, and then there are the “sea stories,” including one by Ernie Pyle riding on a DE during the war:

In the Western Pacific — So now I’m a D-E sailor. Full-fledged one. Drenched from head to foot with salt water. Sleep with a leg crooked around your rack so you won’t fall out. Put wet bread under your dinner tray to keep it from sliding. Even got my Jesus-shoes ordered.

And you don’t know what a D-E sailor is? You don’t know the D-E Navy? Better not let one of them hear you say that. They’re 50,000 strong out here. And they pride themselves on their rough life at sea. So better be careful.

A D-E, my friends, is a destroyer-escort. It’s a ship, long and narrow and sleek, along the lines of a destroyer. But it’s much smaller. It’s a baby destroyer. It’s the American version of the British corvette.

It is the answer to the problems of colossal amounts of convoying; amounts so huge that we simply hadn’t the time to build full-fledged destroyers to escort them all. The D-E was the result. It is a wartime product, and it has done very valiantly.
[…]

Many other interesting bits of history are listed on the DESA site.

Category: Navy | 1 Comment »

Sometimes, Too Much Information Gets You…

December 23rd, 2007 by xformed

…P’wned!

Check that post out about an airline passenger, iPhone equipped, who thought he knew what’s up…

H/T: Midwatch Cowboy

Category: Humor, Technology | 2 Comments »

Stop the Murdoch (Flt 93) Memorial Blogburst: TBogg’s phony excuse for the deleted Flight 93 document

December 19th, 2007 by xformed

TBogg has posted an explanation
for how Kevin Jaques’ assessment of the Flight 93 Memorial went missing from one of his comment threads. Sometime following “the Infamous Alec Rawls Comment Thread,” says TBogg:

… after I was done picking up the beer cans, cigarette butts, and the assorted discarded underwear, I switched from Blogspot comments to Haloscan. In the process, all of the previous comment threads were lost…Fortunately through the miracle of intertubes nerdiness the Lost Commentinent has been rediscovered and you can go read them here.

TBogginsinuates that the Holoscan snafu is the reason that the restored comment thread is missing the Jaques comment, but he does not actually say it, and for good reason. The Jaques deletion had nothing to do with any comment system switchover.

A commentator at Alec’s Error Theory blog looked up TBogg’s site on the Wayback Machine. Turns out that Wayback was taking snapshots of Tbogg’s comment threads every week. Only Blogspot comments show up on Wayback, but that is all that is needed to tell the tale.

Throughout the period in question (spring and summer of 2006) all of TBogg’s Blogspot comment threads are stable except for the “infamous” one, which actually exhibits quite a bit of activity. Not only did TBogg hand delete Jaques comment, but he was apparently torn about it, changing his mind a number of times over a period of weeks.

Background, for those who don’t know what Kevin Jaques did

It is not known exactly when Kevin Jaques was asked by the Memorial Project to write an assessment of Alec Rawls’s warnings about Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the Crescent of Embrace design. Most likely he wrote it in late March of 2006, just before he posted it at the end of TBogg’s January 6, 2006 comment thread.

(If anyone wants to look, go open up the March 31st snapshot of TBogg’s site, then find the January 06 archive page. The Lunacy Abounds post is about a third of the way up from the bottom. Click on the permalink and the comment thread will appear, with the Jaques comment at the bottom. In the previous snapshot, March 28th, the Jaques comment has not yet shown up. Ditto for earlier dates.)

The Jaques comment is important because it shows the blatant dishonesty of the Park Service’s internal investigation. Jaques acknowledged that the giant Mecca-oriented crescent at the center of the design is similar to the Mecca direction indicator (called a mihrab) around which every mosque is built, then he told the Park Service not to worry because no one has ever seen seen a mihrab anywhere near this big before:

Thirdly, most mihrabs are small, rarely larger than the figure of a man, although some of the more ornamental ones can be larger, but nothing as large at the crescent found in the site
design. It is unlikely that most Muslims would walk into the area of the circle/crescent and see a mihrab because it is well beyond their limit of experience. Again, just because it is similar does not make it the same.

The Park Service has released excerpts from Jaques’ comment, proving that the TBogg comment comes from Jaques, but it has never released the revealing parts, like where Jaques says not to worry because one has ever seen a mihrab this big before.

How to get rid of the body? TBogg has second, third and fourth thoughts

TBogg is THE source for the full text of Jaques’ analysis, with its blatant excuse-making for the giant mihrab. Having this analysis publicly available was a problem, both for Jaques and for the Park Service. Since TBogg had no way of knowing that on his own, it seems that somebody must have contacted him, because in the July 21, 2006 snapshot of Tbogg’s Lunacy Abounds comment thread, the Jaques comment is missing from the end.

Blogger allows blog administrators to hide and show comment threads, and it allows them to delete individual comments. Blogger also allows people who comment non-anonymously to delete their own comments. Jaques left his comment anonymously, so only a blog administrator could have deleted his comment. Unless TBogg got hacked, that would have been TBogg.

The August 21st snapshot of the Lunacy Abounds post shows shows TBogg having another thought. Here the entire Lunacy Abounds comment thread is hidden, while all the other comment threads on the archive page remain visible. (About half the posts in Wayback’s August 21st snapshot of TBogg’s January 2006 archive page do not have working permalinks, but of the pages that do come up individually, only Lunacy Abounds has the comment thread hidden.)

If “all of the previous comment threads were lost,” that was a separate incident. The archival record shows that a blog administrator went in and turned off the Lunacy Abounds comment thread by hand. Again, unless TBogg got hacked (or the Wayback Machine is wacked), that was TBogg.

Of course TBogg did not say anything about getting hacked. He insinuated that Haloscan is the culprit. Nope. Haloscan is innocent. Does TBogg want to try pointing the finger anywhere else?

On August 28, 2006, the “infamous comment thread” reappears, again without the Jaques comment. Wayback doesn’t have TBogg snapshots for 2007, but for most of this year the comment thread was again turned off (the Haloscan snafu?), until sometime recently TBogg himself retrieved the comment thread (without the Jaques comment) from the wayback machine and linked it to his original Lunacy Abounds post.

Not quite Hamlet. TBogg consistently wants the Jaques comment “not to be.” He just can’t decide how he wants it not to be.

TBogg’s Monica Lewinsky choice

To complete his Clintonian deception, TBogg makes an over the top admission,
pretending it is all a joke:

So, yes. I have been busted. I’ve been getting more payoffs than Bill Bennett with a roll of nickels at Circus Circus. Between George Soros and Osama bin Laden I’ve received so many Miatas, that some of them are still sitting around in the blister
packs.

At least he makes it amusing, but the joke is on the Bogglings. TBogg actually meant the “I have been busted” part.

Will TBogg’s legions of vitriolic followers take this Clintonian lie kneeling down? What’s it going to be TBoggers: spit or swallow?

TBogg will have to suffer some embarrassment for duping his readers, but so what? The man embarrasses himself every day. The important thing is that he is in a position to actually be of help in exposing the cover up of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the Flight 93 memorial.

Who contacted him? What did they say? Did he knuckle to a plea from Jaques alone, or was he actually contacted by the government?

TBogg could well have been duped himself. Maybe someone at the Park Service told him that this was an internal government document that was not supposed to be available to the public and asked if he could please remove it. Now that he knows a) that the Park Service is accused of perpetrating a cover up, and b) how the document that he himself covered up contains clearexamples of dishonest excuse making, TBogg is in the same position as his army of Bogglings. He knows that he has been used.

Is he going to swallow it, or spit it out? Spit TBogg. You’ll feel much better in the morning.

Can’t we all just be against planting a terrorist memorial mosque on the Flight 93 crash site?

There is no reason for a left-right divide over the Flight 93 Memorial. It isn’t the critics of the crescent design that politicized the issue, but the defenders of the crescent, starting with newspapers like the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that knew about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent back in 2005 and decided not to publish it. They were too busy using their editorial page to slam critics of the crescent as right wing bigots. Inconvenient facts could not be allowed to interfere with their chosen story line.

Then there are people like TBogg who politicize everything. Instead of checking the facts, he starts with his presumptions about which side he should be on, then looks for smarmy ways to characterize the opposition. That is not a rational thought process, but he can more than redeem himself if he will just stop deceiving everybody and start helping to expose the facts.

He could also give his moron brigades a chance to redeem themselves by asking them to actually check a couple factual claims about the crescent design:

Is the giant crescent is really oriented almost exactly on Mecca?

Is the 9/11 date really inscribed on a separate section of Memorial Wall that is centered on the bisector of the giant crescent, placing it in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag?

Is it true that every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign?

This is what theblogosphere OUGHT to be good for. If TBogg is too busy to check the facts, why not put his minions to work?

For more on who TBogg has been covering up for, see last week’s post on Dr. Jaques 2001 article, where he argued that we should formulate our response to the 9/11 attacks in accordance with sharia law. How did this advocate for Islamic supremacism become the Memorial Project’s sole consultant on the warnings of Islamic symbolism in the crescent design during a crucial period when the Project’s dismissive posture was set in stone?

If TBogg would tell us what he knows, it might help answer that question, or pose others equally important. No more deception. Just tell the damned truth.

Category: Leadership, Political, Public Service | Comments Off on Stop the Murdoch (Flt 93) Memorial Blogburst: TBogg’s phony excuse for the deleted Flight 93 document

Could Pilots be Next on the Hit List?

December 18th, 2007 by xformed

From the Telegraph in the UK:

Chief scientist in sports cars warning to women:

Professor Sir David King said governments could only do so much to control greenhouse gas emissions and it was time for a cultural change among the British public.
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And he singled out women who find supercar drivers “sexy”, adding that they should divert their affections to men who live more environmentally-friendly lives.

His comments were greeted with anger by sports car drivers who insisted that their vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions were tiny compared with those from four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Sir David, who is due to retire as the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser at the end of the year, said individuals needed to change their behaviour.
[…]

I’m guessing the pilots, ESPECIALLY the real go fast guys, who can step it up that one more notch to “buster” speed, will be the next to fall form grace at the green alter of “Climate Change.” Gotta be lots of “bad emissions” from the raw JP-5 dumping into the afterburner section…

Will pilots have the “fortitude” to stand tall and defend their right to turn a liquid into bone rattling sonic booms?

Ya know, if the women are more concerned about staying cool than dating “cool,” they might want to heed the messenger!

Good thing Lex already has made his mark on the future of society…and needs no more fawning babes at his feet, begging for a “Tiger Cruise” of their very own.

On the other hand…think about a world where the Guv’ment tells you who to date…You think they blew it with Katrina? Yeah, standby to standby for that disaster…Yep, we need to tell women how to think, according to Sir King. Will the feminists come out to protest this round of patently obvious misogyny of this line of reasoning?

I think it’s just jealousy hidden behind the current “blame all” crisis of the moment…I bet Sir King never even owned a super car….

Category: Air Force, Entropy and Irony, Marines, Military, Navy, Political, Science, Stream of Consciousness | 1 Comment »

Monday Maritime Matters

December 17th, 2007 by xformed

Posting is a little light due to the seasonal thing, side work and finally getting all parts assembled for Beast II and the time it took to get the OS and stuff loaded…HOWEVER…

I will be posting a tribute to a maritime hero (pictured below) by this afternoon. Which one is it you wonder….

It’s time. Back in today’s saddle and here’s your maritime hero: ADM Issac C. Kidd, Sr, USN.
ADM Issac C. Kidd, Sr, USN
From the Medal of Honor site:

Isaac Campbell Kidd was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 26 March 1884. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1902, graduating with the Class of 1906 in February of that year, and was commissioned an Ensign in 1908. Kidd participated in the 1907-09 “Great White Fleet” cruise around the World while serving in USS New Jersey (BB-16) . Following service in USS North Dakota (BB-29) and USS Pittsburgh (Armored Cruiser # 4), he became Aide and Flag Secretary to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, the first of his many flag staff assignments. He was an instructor at the Naval Academy in 1916-17.

During and after the First World War, Kidd was stationed on USS New Mexico (BB-40), then had further staff and Naval Academy service. He was executive officer of the battleship Utah (BB-31) in 1925-26, then commanded USS Vega (AK-17) until becoming Captain of the Port at Chrisobal, Panama Canal Zone in 1927-30. Promoted to the rank of Captain, he was Chief of Staff to Commander, Base Force, U.S. Fleet in 1930-32. After three years at the Bureau of Navigation in Washington, D.C., he was Commander Destroyer Squadron ONE, Scouting Force, in 1935-36.

Captain Kidd next attended the Naval War College and served on the College staff. He was Commanding Officer of USS Arizona (BB-39) from September 1938 until February 1940, when he was promoted to Rear Admiral and assigned as Commander Battleship Division ONE and Chief of Staff to Commander, Battleships, Battle Force. On 7 December 1941, he was killed in action on board Arizona during the Pearl Harbor Raid . Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Pearl Harbor attack .

His detailed biography on the web is located here.

The Medal of Honor citation reads:

CITATION:

Rank and organization: Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy. Born: 26 March 1884, Cleveland, Ohio. Appointed from: Ohio. Citation: For conspicuous devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and complete disregard of his own life, during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, by Japanese forces on 7 December 1941. Rear Adm. Kidd immediately went to the bridge and, as Commander Battleship Division One, courageously discharged his duties as Senior Officer Present Afloat until the U.S.S. Arizona, his Flagship, blew up from magazine explosions and a direct bomb hit on the bridge which resulted in the loss of his life.

His remains are aboard the USS ARIZONA. His Naval Academy ring was found fused into the bulkhead of the bridge by Navy divers.

To honor this man who served in the two World Wars, three ships have been named for him:

USS KIDD (DD-661)
USS KIDD(DD-661) c. 1945
A FLETCHER Class DD, commissioned on Apr 23rd, 1943, was the first ship named for Issac Kidd. That ship’s history began by honoring the Naval Academy nickname of ADM Kidd: “Cap,” short for “Captain Kidd:”

The KIDD’s first voyage was one of some notoriety. Under the command of Cdr. Allan B. Roby, the destroyer moved across New York Harbor for delivery to the Brooklyn Naval Shipyards . . . flying the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger high from the foremast. The edition of TIME magazine that week carried a photo of KIDD, announcing that it had been one hundred years since the Jolly Roger had flown in New York Harbor. The crew quickly adopted the pirate Captain Kidd—who ironically hailed from New York—as their mascot and hired a local cartoonist to paint the famed buccaneer’s image high of the forward smokestack. Not wishing to dishonor RADM Kidd, however, the crew obtained permission from Mrs. Kidd first. The Admiral’s nickname at the Naval Academy had

been “Cap” (as in “Captain Kidd”) and he had gone by this nickname his entire life. So on the crew’s behalf, Mrs. Kidd obtained official permission from the powers-that-be in the Navy for them to paint the pirate on the stack and fly the Jolly Roger. The KIDD would become the only vessel in the history of the United States Navy to ever have such leave granted to fly the flag of piracy.

Another unique distinction about KIDD’s first voyage was the make-up of her crew. Anne Randle was the first member of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) to be assigned to the Office of Shipbuilding in New York City. Ordered to take a training tour of the Kearny Shipyards, her name was placed on the list of personnel that were scheduled to report on board KIDD for the purpose of accompanying the destroyer across the harbor to the Brooklyn Naval Shipyards. Her name was listed as “Ens. A. Randle”, omitting any mention of her gender. At that time, there was still an uneasy tradition that having a woman aboard a naval ship was to invite bad luck. However, when KIDD arrived at the Brooklyn yards, the official message sent back to the yards in Kearny read: “The WAVE delivered The Kidd at 2:30 today.”

Commissioned into service two months later on April 23, KIDD commenced her shakedown cruise at Casco Bay, Maine. She saw her first duty covering the North Atlantic sea lanes near Argentia, Newfoundland. She then provided escort for new carriers during their shakedown cruises from Norfolk to Trinidad. In August of 1943, she transited the Panama Canal along with three other destroyers providing escort for USS ALABAMA (BB-60) and SOUTH DAKOTA (BB-57) and proceeded to Pearl Harbor.

During a simulated torpedo attack in September of that year, KIDD was struck by two star-shells fired from the NORTH CAROLINA (BB-55). As fortune had it, her forward damage control party was exercising in the immediate vicinity with a make-believe casualty strapped into a stretcher. One of the shells entered the compartment and crossed just above the chest of the pretended casualty. The sailor suffered a minor abrasion from a fleck of debris. The skipper reported to the task force commander: “KIDD claims to be the best prepared ship in the Navy. We had a victim already strapped in the stretcher when he was wounded.”
[…]

The history, in detail, continues here.

Serving in the North Atlantic, then the Pacific theaters, she participated in battles from Wake Island to Okinawa, suffering a kamakazi hit on April 11th, 1945. 38 died and 55 were wounded, but she was repaired and returned to service. Placed in reserve in 1946, she was activated in 1951 for the Korean War. Conducting NGFS shore bombardment duties and pilot rescue operations, she also stood into Wonson Harbor to draw fire from the camouflaged shore batteries. The remainder of the 50s were spent making Pacific Fleet deployments.

Decommissioned in 1964, she had earned 8 battle stars for WWII and 4 for Korea. She now is a floating museum in Baton Rouge, LA.

USS KIDD (DDG-993)

USS KIDD (DDG-993)
The second USS KIDD (DDG-993) also had an interesting story. Beginning life as one of the “AYATOLLAH Class” destroyers (named Kouroush) being built for the Shah of Iran’s Navy in the mid 70’s, she, and the other three of the KDD Class DDGs reverted to ownership of the US Navy after the revolution in Iran in 1979. We used to say they were built the way SPRUANCE DDs were supposed to have been, had we had the money. Fitted out with the same ASW suite (initially) as the SPRUANCE’s, but with superior AAW capability, we SPRU Can sailors were jealous, but such was life.Commissioned April 27th, 1981, she served in the Atlantic Fleet. In 1985, she was a player in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 with the USS NIMITZ Battle Group. In 1990/91, the KIDD was a part of Operation Desert Storm. Decommissioned March 12th, 1998 in Norfolk, she has been transferred to the Republic of China’s Navy as the ROCS Tso Ying (DDG-1803) and continues in service today. A through Ship’s history is here.
USS KIDD (DDG-100)
USS KIDD (DDG-100)
The third vessel to sail with the Name of ADM Issac Kidd is the USS KIDD (DDG-100). Damaged by Hurricane Katrina while in the building yard at Pascagoula, MS, she was commissioned June 9th, 2007 by Congressman Ron Paul in Galveston, TX. She has yet to make her first deployment as of this posting. The beginnings of this vessel’s history is here.

Category: History, Maritime Matters, Military, Military History, Navy | 2 Comments »

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