Archive for the 'Public Service' Category

A Public Service Announcment

June 1st, 2009 by xformed

That time again, boys and girls.

Charlie Wilson’s War hd

What Goes Up hd

Florida Evacuated

I will say, this year has not been hype filled screeching from the “news” channels as it was the season following Katrina.

But…Since we have reached that human designated calendar date, maybe, just maybe, Gaia shall deem it necessary to show us she has a schedule that we can manipulate.

Yes, I jest, but it pays not to be completely stupid.

Castle Keep divx

Almost Famous trailer

Category: Public Service | Comments Off on A Public Service Announcment

Memorial Day 2009: Map the Fallen Tribute to Iran and Afghanistan KIAs

May 25th, 2009 by xformed

Sean from San Francisco has used his geoscience education to create a Google Earth Map layer of those who gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been at this for a few years now, and it now complete.

Helpmates divx

On Any Sunday dvdrip

The Return of a Man Called Horse divx

Orgazmo movie full

Amazon Women on the Moon movie

Take a minute and read of the research and connections to many organizations to indicate the home of record for each of the service men, and see the tribute it will create for their families and friends.

Fitting news for a day such as this, as we remember those who went before us and gave us the gift of continuing freedom beyond their time on this earth.

Category: Public Service | 1 Comment »

Stop the Murdoch (Flt 93) Memorial Blogburst: Two Memorial Project Commission members quit over the Project's bad behavior

May 22nd, 2009 by xformed

Blogburst logo, petition

Two Pennsylvanian’s quit the Flight 93 Memorial Commission last week, protesting Park Service plans to condemn five crash-site properties that it never negotiated for in good faith. Consider the case of the Lambert family, who have been on their land for three generations:

“It’s absolutely a surprise. I’m shocked by it. I’m disappointed by it,” said Tim Lambert, who owns nearly 164 acres that his grandfather bought in the 1930s. The park service plans to condemn two parcels totaling about five acres — land, he said, he had always intended to donate for the memorial.

“To the best of my knowledge and my lawyer, absolutely no negotiations have taken place with the park service where we’ve sat down and discussed this,” Lambert said.

Lambert said he had mainly dealt with the Families of Flight 93 and said he’s provided the group all the information it’s asked for, including an appraisal.

They are condemning land that he was trying to GIVE to them, just because he had the gall to expect the Park Service to actually do its part.

Project members have embraced the “absolute moral authority” conceit

How dare anyone not rush to give these grieving 9/11 family members whatever they want? Didn’t they hear Maureen Dowd’s proclamation that “the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq [or on 9/11] is absolute”?

When crash-site owner Mike Svonavec put up a donation box to try to cover some of the cost of hiring security guards for the hugely popular Temporary Memorial, Patrick White, cousin of Flight 93 hero Louis Nacke, told the press:

That land has been paid for with 40 lives … the donation box is an insult to that cost.

When Svonavec insisted that the Park Service follow its own legally required procedures for assessing property values (procedures that, as it happens, take into account current property values, not just pre-crash property values), White accused Svonavec of trying to profit from the blood of his cousin:

“I think Svonavec believes his land, because it has the blood of my cousin and 39 other people, it’s worth more,” he said.

Using the flag of victim-hood to defend Paul Murdoch’s terrorist memorial mosque

Project members use the same trick to deflect criticism of the giant Islamic-shaped crescent that is now being built on the crash-site. When people point out the hidden terrorist memorializing features—things that no one knew about when the Crescent of Embrace design was chosen—like the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent, or the 44 glass blocks emplaced along the flight path, Project members not only deny these easy to verify facts, but they pretend that they are being accused of intending to honor the terrorists:

“That’s an absolute, unequivocal fabrication that is being portrayed as fact,” said Edward Felt’s brother, Gordon Felt [about the 44 blocks claim].

He says he is insulted people would believe he would participate in anything that honored his brother’s killers.

In The Church of Liberalism, Ann Coulter slammed the media for granting the Jersey Girls an “absolute moral authority” card, not questioning the Girls’ practice of blaming the Bush administration instead of al Qaeda for their husband’s deaths on 9/11. The Jersey Girls were bad enough, but nowhere is the flag of victim-hood being used to cover up more bad behavior than at the Memorial Project.

Active cover-up of an ongoing Islamic supremacist plot

Like the Jersey Girls, the Memorial Project gives Islam a pass for 9/11. Project members might not have known about the Mecca-orientation of the Crescent of Embrace, but they DID know that it was a giant Islamic-shaped crescent. Now they are doing far worse. Now they DO know that the giant crescent points almost exactly at Mecca, and are consistently misleading the press about it.

Their own Muslim consultant told them not to worry about the Mecca-oriented crescent, claiming that it can’t be seen as a mihrab (the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built) unless it points EXACTLY at Mecca (a claim that was contradicted earlier this month by Saudi religious authorities).

So what does Project Supervisor Joanne Hanley say when asked about the Mecca-orientation claim?

The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site.

The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie download

They are actively and knowingly covering up clear evidence of an ongoing al Qaeda sympathizing plot. Bad behavior indeed.

To join our blogbursts, just send your blog’s url.

Category: Public Service | Comments Off on Stop the Murdoch (Flt 93) Memorial Blogburst: Two Memorial Project Commission members quit over the Project's bad behavior

Stop the Flt 93 (Murdoch) Memorial: Saudi authorities contradict U.S. Park Service: mihrabs do NOT have to point exactly at Mecca

May 9th, 2009 by xformed

Blogburst logo, petition

A Muslim consultant told the Park Service in 2006 that the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 cannot be seen as a mihrab (the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built), because the giant Islamic-shaped crescent does not point exactly at Mecca:

Mihrab orientation is either correct or not. It cannot be off by some degrees.

Saudi religious authorities recently had to address this question when observers noted that some 200 mosques in Mecca itself do not point directly at the Kaaba (the “Sacred Mosque” that all Muslims are supposed to face for prayer). Meccans who worried that their prayers might not count were assured by the Islamic Affairs Ministry that “it does not affect the prayers.”

The necessity for such a rule is obvious. Throughout most of Islam’s 1400 year history, Muslims who were any significant distance from Mecca had no accurate way to determine the direction to Mecca. Thus it became established religious principle that what matters is intent. It is the mind of the believer that needs to face directly towards the Kaaba, and directly towards God. This principle applies in Mecca the same as anywhere else.

All the great mosques of the ancient world point well away from Mecca

Older mosques often point 10, 20, 30 or more degrees away from Mecca. The most famous mihrab in the world, the mihrab of the Great Mosque in Cordoba Spain, points more than 45° off of Mecca:


The Cordoba mihrab points south, while Mecca is east-southeast of Spain.

In contrast, the Crescent of Embrace points a mere 1.8° north of Mecca, ± 0.1°, which is highly accurate by Islamic standards.

The Muslim consultant who lied to the Park Service was a classmate of architect Paul Murdoch

Who told the Park Service that a mihrab has to point exactly at Mecca to be legitimate? It was Nasser Rabbat, a professor of Islamic architecture at MIT and an expert in the history of mosque design. No one knows better than Professor Rabbat that mihrab orientation does NOT have to be exact.

There is only one reason why Rabbat would lie to the Park Service about such a basic fact. He recognizes that the giant Mecca-oriented crescent at the heart of the Flight 93 memorial IS a legitimate mihrab, and he wants this al Qaeda sympathizing plot to succeed.

A look at Rabbat’s background shows that he was a classmate of Crescent of Embrace architect Paul Murdoch, both getting masters degrees in architecture from UCLA in 1984 Jezebel’s Kiss release and both doing their masters work on Middle Easter subjects. (Murdoch wrote a “masters project” titled: “A museum for Haifa, Israel.” Rabbat wrote a master thesis on house design in Cairo and Damascus.)

This prior connection between Murdoch and Rabbat raises the possibility that Murdoch himself was able to orchestrate the Park Service investigation into warnings about his own design. By the same token, having the two classmates both show up in the Flight 93 memorial raises the possibility that Rabbat was Murdoch’s source of expertise on how to incorporate the full complement of typical mosque features into his Crescent design. (For the dozen typical mosque features, see Crescent of Embrace, chapter 5.)

The Crescent of Embrace also includes an exact Mecca-orientation

While exact orientation on Mecca is not a traditional requirement, modern mosque designers do generally employ now-available techniques for orienting their mihrabs more precisely on Mecca than was previously possible. Murdoch satisfies this modern norm (and provides hidden proof of intent) by including a true thematically-defined crescent that does point exactly at Mecca.

Murdoch’s thematic explanation for his crescent design is that the circle was broken on 9/11 by the path of Flight 93. The terrorist-piloted airplane smashes our peaceful circle, turning it into a giant Islamic-shaped crescent (that just happens to point to Mecca). The terrorist-memorializing implications of this theme are hardly less overt than the Islamic symbol shapes themselves. Nothing particularly subtle here folks.

The symbolic breaking of the circle occurs at the upper crescent tip, where the fifty-foot tall, thousand-foot long Entry Portal Wall is parted by the Entry Portal Walkway, which follows the flight path through the wall:

The section of wall to the right of the walkway in this image is symbolically “broken off” by the flight path. Remove this symbolically broken off part, and the remaining crescent structure points EXACTLY at Mecca, ± 0.1°:


What symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11: a giant Islamic-shaped crescent pointing EXACTLY at Mecca.

Rabbat knew about this too, since the original report that Rabbat was commenting on detailed both the slightly inexact Mecca-orientation of the full Crescent of Embrace, and the exact-Mecca-orientation that results when the symbolically broken-off parts are removed. Same for the Park Service. As the original recipient of Alec Rawls‘ report, the Park Service knew about both orientations. They also knew, because it was also in the original report, that a mihrab does NOT have to point exactly at Mecca. Yet they still publicly touted Rabbat’s claim that the crescent can’t be seen as a mihrab because it doesn’t point exactly at Mecca. A veritable web of self-conscious lies by Rabbat AND the Park Service.

The design is called a broken circle now, but the circle is still broken in the same place as before (where the flight path crosses the upper crescent tip). The unbroken part of the circle, what is symbolically left standing in the wake of 9/11, remains completely unchanged. It is still a giant-Islamic shaped crescent, still pointing exactly at Mecca.

To join our blogbursts, just send your blog’s url.

And So I Go Animal Farm 1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech A Defending Crusader A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever A Liberal’s Worst Nightmare ACT Golden Gate Al Salibiyyah All American Blogger Almost Midnight in the West American Commentaries And Rightly So Anne Arundel Maryland Politics Alamo City Pundit ARRA News Service Atlas Shrugs Auntie Coosa Campfire Journal Bare Naked Islam Battle Dress U Because I’m Right Best Destiny Big Dog’s Weblog Big Sibling

Sweeney Todd movie full

Blackboot Jacks blogito, ergo, sum Bob McCarty Writes Boston Maggie Cao2’s Weblog Cao’s Blog Chaotic Synaptic Activity Chester Street Chicago Ray

Sun Valley Serenade movie

Christmas Ghost Classic Liberal Clay Ritter Clay’s Rants and Musings Cocked and Loaded Colonel Robert Neville Always Dresses for Dinner Common Sense Junction Concrete Bob Covertress Creeping Sharia DC Protest Warrior Democrat = Socialist Dr. Bulldog and Ronin Error Theory EW1’s Intercept Log

Faultline USA Flanders Fields Flopping Aces Founding Fathers of the Vast Right Wing Four Pointer Francase Place Freedom’s Enemies Freedom Warrior Fried Green Onions From My Position On the Way! Ft. Hard Knox Freedom Ain’t Free Garbanzo Toons General Rachel’s weblog GM’s Corner Green Country Values Gunservatively Haid Dasalami Hard to Swallow Heretics Crusade Holger Awakens Hollywood Conservative Hoosier Army Mom I’m having a thought here iOwnThewWorld.com Ironic Surrealism v3.0 Ivy League Conservatives Jack Lewis Jihad Press Jim-Rose – the Libertarian Popinjay Judge Right Just Barking Mad

The Corruptor dvdrip

kae’s bloodnut blog Kender’s Musings Lemur King’s Folly Liberal Guy LGF 2.0: Little Green Blogmocracy Maggie’s Notebook MELAMPUS’S MENAGERIE!!!! Miss Beth’s Victory Dance Monkey in the Middle Muslims Against Sharia My Own Thoughts nabilchitown1 Justice Be Damned video Neoconstant Nice Deb No Apology No Compromises When It Comes To Being Right! Noli insipientium iniurias pati Not A Sheep Ogre’s Politics and Views Old Soldier Papa Mike’s blog Part-Time Pundit Political Islam Principally Political Protest The Church Protest The Left Publius’ Forum Race, Politics, and Religion in the USA Rayra.net Redesigned Flight 93 memorial still an Islamo-fascist shrine Republican Attack Machine Right on the Right Right Truth Ron’s Musings Rosemary’s Thoughts Sad Old Goth Sarah Palin in Español Seattle Express Sharia Finance Watch Sheepdog Barking Shot in the Dark Smooth Stone Space 4 Commerce by Brian Dunbar Stix Blog Stop the ACLU Talk Wisdom Teen Pundit the Avid Editor The Conservative Guy The Gadfly The Great Lie of Islam The Grid The Hinge of Fate The Loyal Eagles The Midnight Sun The Mountain The Paradigm Shift The Political Octagon The Renaissance Biologist The Sanity Sentinel D'Artagnan et les trois mousquetaires hd The Sisyphus Files The Strata-Sphere The Truth of Islam The View From the Turret The Wide Awakes Thunder Run Tizona’s Weblog Tough Girl 101 Traction Control United Conservatives We Have Some Planes Yes, but can I dance to it?

Home Alone 3 full

Category: Public Service | Comments Off on Stop the Flt 93 (Murdoch) Memorial: Saudi authorities contradict U.S. Park Service: mihrabs do NOT have to point exactly at Mecca

RIP – 1LT Jim Helinger, US Army Air Corps

May 4th, 2009 by xformed

James Helinger, Sr passed away this morning at 11AM, peacefully at home.

Tekken: The Motion Picture hd

James Helinger, Sr Official Military Photograph

The Goddess of 1967

Caligula et Messaline film

Feb 22, 1924 – May 4, 2009

I met him by accident, but grew by my association with him over the last 4 years.  He was a character, proud of the moniker of “Damn Glider Pilot.”  He loved General George S. Patton, his friends, and the things he did as Special Services Officer at the Munich Air Base during the Occupation period.  He tried to enter the service on Dec 8th, 1941, but was told he had to be 18 to fly.  He waited until Feb 22nd, 1942 to get in line at the Post Office in Louisville, KY to begin his service to the nation in a time of war.  He wanted to fly, and at that time, gliders weren’t even part of the picture.  He loaned me some of his books.  After reading one (ther are actually very few written), I called to say how lucky I was to have gotten to know him.  Airborne Glider operations had a about a 60%+ fatality rate for pilots.

Angels Fall dvd

Old Sequoia trailer
Cowboy Killer trailer

He spoke, for the Glider’s Pilot’s Association

Hancock trailer

, telling the technical points of flying gliders into harm’s way, but rarely mentioned combat, but certainly he knew things I never will.  We spent  many evenings, Mondays in particular, at a local pub, where the special was Fish and Chips.  He told and retold the story of being handed a newspaper cone on the streets of England, and how he enjoyed that new experience.  Other nights, he indulged in his habit of some fried chicken, something not on his diet, but he still thought he could have some, because he had earned it.  He and I could talk of common things the military life imparts upon one’s life, the fun, the not so fun, and the really unintelligible Army (Navy? way of doing things., and also of business and life in general.  Some things, despite our age difference of 30 years, were the same for us, in our own times.

Later, he brought a bit of London to the Tampa Bay area, buying double decker buses and using them for his advertising business.  He could buy one a year, and he did for several.  I understand they were regularly full for the trips between St Petersburg and the Tampa Bay Bucs games.  During our time together, we went to Sun’n’Fun a few years ago and he stood by the Steermans and Vultees and told me of what it was like to take them, particularly the “Vibrator” up for his flights.  That year, we also had dinner with the Stinson owners who flew in for the event.  He got quite a thrill out of meeting those people and sharing about his escapades in the old days.

He had a big heart and was always ready with a joke.  At his 85th birthday, just recently, the crowd was large and you could tell he had known many of them for a very long time.  I was blessed to have helped get some of his recollections out to the world in this blog.  I was also fortunate to have had some of his pictures to scan in.  Here are some of them:

Jim Helinger, Sr in front of a C-47
Glider pilots were also rated as co-pilots in the C-47s.

Jim Helinger, Sr flying a CG-4 Waco Glider
Jim “at the office” in a CG-4 Waco glider. Lots of plywood and steel tubing, and canvas.

Jim Helinger with his L-5 Stinson Spotter Plane

Jim with his L-5 Stinson Spotter plane. This may have been to one he flew under the Eiffel Tower, with the not yet famous actress Denise Darcell in the front seat. I failed to find out definitely.

Work got in the way, this past year, for traveling to Ohio for the Reunion with Jim and his wife.  We had discussed it, but, I let some of real life interfere.  This year, in October, the Reunion, most likely the last one that will be held (they voted to stick it out one more year in the 2008 meeting), will be in New Orleans.  I had already mentally committed to not let anything stop me from being his escort this year.  Jim and I discussed it a few weeks back at dinner.

I have his stories he shared posted around the blog.  Here’s an easy way to get to them

Justice League: The New Frontier download

.  Read of a young man, who survived to come back,  have a family, grow a business, raise two guide dogs, become my friend and tell me some tall, or maybe not so, tales of a time before my time.

Update 5/6/2009: Jim’s Obituary Twelve and Holding ipod in the St Pete Times.

Category: Public Service | 1 Comment »

Veterans Writing Workshops

May 2nd, 2009 by xformed

Il nano e la strega dvdrip

The Best of Times move

Thanks to some professional writers who want to lend a hand.

The Writers Guild of America, East Foundation thinks this is important.  I concur.

Pass it around, you, or someone you know must have stories to tell, that need to be heard.

Sweet November move

To the people within the WGAEF who conceived this project, and brought it to fruition, and the Board of the Guild, thank you.

The next workshop is planned for the San Antonio, TX area, with the help of the Wounded Warrior Project to find thosse vets interested.

Assault on Devil’s Island dvd

What Doesn’t Kill You download Brainstorm rip

And, some people we should say thank you to, if we get the opportunity:

Mentors include: Neena Beber, Andrew Bergman, Jessica Blank, Rick Dresser, Matthew Eck, Peter Hedges, Erik Jensen , Ryan Kelly, Chris Kyle, Richard LaGravenese, John Markus, Marsha Norman, Mark St. Germain, David Tucker, Michael Weller, Michael Winship, Chris Albers, Tom Fontana, Lulie Haddad and Jim V. Hart

H/T: @millblogging via Twitter

Category: Public Service | Comments Off on Veterans Writing Workshops

Navy Investigations – On the Web via FOIA

April 27th, 2009 by xformed

This is an incredible list of Navy JAGMAN investigations

download Under the Radar

The Searchers trailer

My First Wedding dvdrip download SuperCroc , free to you…

buy He Who Finds a Wife

Category: Public Service | Comments Off on Navy Investigations – On the Web via FOIA

A Date with Destiny – Part VIII

April 24th, 2009 by xformed

21 years ago, the USS BONEFISH (SS-582), while operating to simulate a Soviet diesel submarine, experienced a fire in the battery well.  The fire spread quickly, resulting in the surfacing and abandoning, while at sea, the boat.  The prior post in this series discuss the lead to, and operations on that day, to rescue the crew at sea.

Lt Ray Everts, Jr, USN

In this post, I’d like to ensure the story of LT Ray Everts, USN, is highlighted.  It appears that LT Everts, made a decision that cost him his life, but made sure the conditions he and his shipmates were facing, was not compounded by a collision with one of the two ships using them as a training target.  Last year, a former crew member, FT2(SS) Bill Baker, on the BONEFISH had found the posts by accident, and left this comment, with more details, specifically about LT Everts, and also about other details of the conditions of the equipment, and what it was like to be in that fire.  He ends with some well deserved some BZs for his shipmates, all of this not reported elsewhere:

—————————-

Reason and Emotion video

Update 4/24/09 PM: Some other commenters at Bubblehead’s blog add more detail the post’s comments.

Update 4/25/09:  Hayball’s comments on the US Naval Institute blog shed more light on who Lt Everts was, and a more detailed role he played in this story.

—————————

Bill Baker FT2(SS) said:
April 15th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Lord of the Flies download

Funny, I was looking for something else and came across this.

Mirror, Mirror 2: Raven Dance psp

I have read Richard’s recollection of it many times. I will give you some of my remembrances:

I was on watch as messenger of the watch at the time of the accident (we didn’t run a full time FTOW -Fire Control Technician of the Watch because it was the old Mk101 system).

Ray download

When the call came out “Fire in Berthing, Fire on Third Street”, I sounded the general alarm. I then got out an EAB for me and one for the officer of the Deck (Lt. Ray Everts). The OOD disregarded the EAB to take the ship to PD. If anyone has ever been on a scope with an EAB on, you know that you can’t really do a good search. I believe he disregarded it because of the Carr and Kennedy being in the area, he wanted to get to PD quickly but more importantly, safely. While the boat was on the way to PD, I heard what can only be described as the sound you hear when you throw an old wet decomposing log on a fire. That crackling sound. At that point, smoke entered the control room. I have never believed in smoke as a living thing, but the smoke looked like a hand closing around Lt. Everts. At that point, things are a bit fuzzy. Things I do remember are my EAB getting filled with warm smoke (which I later found out was the dirt, oil, dust from the MSA filters installed in the system burning off). The entire ship went black and literally, you could not see your hand in front of your face.
The next thing I remember was a couple of hands raking down my arm and someone wheezing “Help, I can’t breathe”. I didn’t know who it was but found the persons head, took my own EAB off and put it on his face. Immediately his hands flew to the facemask and I realized he didn’t want to give it back. I forcibly took it back, took 3 breaths and gave it back to him and told him we were going to buddy breath while I secure another mask. When he had the mask, I got out another one. We buddy breathed till I got the mask setup. During all this, the CO came into control and stated “XO, it’s not worth it. Abandon ship”. I know that the word went out on the 1MC. I later heard that people aft of the engine room door didn’t hear the word.

I lost track of Lt. Everts at this time. I know from other accounts that he went to the bridge (without an EAB), tried to open the bridge hatch, but couldn’t. It was known on-board that the dogs were misaligned, but Lt. Everts came from our sister ship Barbel (SS-580) and was already qualified the ship. Squadron also knew that the hatches were messed up but when the TM1 who transferred to squadron tried to do hatch inspections and they started failing, he was ordered to stop. The inspections were later nowhere to be found. Anyway, I saw Lt. Everts on the deck nearby. I grabbed him, got out another EAB and put it on him. I will never forget the next events. I had Lt. Everts head in my lap and I was sitting cross legged. Lt. Ellsworth had gotten the hatch open and the smoke was starting to clear. Lt. Everts proceeded to go into convulsions from smoke inhalation and looked me directly in the eyes. Just thinking it caused a picture of it in my mind that was as vivid as the day it happened. I heard someone calling for people by station to leave. I distinctly heard helmsman, planesman, etc. What I never heard was messenger. The control room got deathly quiet. I called out “is anyone there” and got no response. I did it again, and then lifted the mask thinking people couldn’t hear me because I had the EAB on. Again, I heard nothing. Lt. Everts breathing became very shallow and he was unresponsive. I looked down at him and thought to myself, I can stay here and die with him, or I can get out. I chose the latter. I stood up, and then did the stupidest thing in my entire life. I took the mask off and then attempted to get it free of my belt. In my panic, I ended up pulling my entire belt off. While attempting to locate the bridge trunk, I found the chart table next to the DRT table had come down blocking the ladder. I climbed over it and got about half way up the trunk when I heard my wife’s voice “they aren’t going to do anything about that boat till it kills someone”. My response was always “I’m not going to leave you a rich widow”. I then made it to the upper level and told someone up there I was the last man alive out of control. Funny thing was, Tony Silvia was behind me coming out of the hatch and he had the connection of an EAB in his hand. Tony was in distress. On the other end was Bob Bordelon. Shawn Glappa dropped down to the nav level and was attempting to push Bob up. I had hold of his “poopy suit” at the collar. None of the three of us was able to pull Bob up. Bob was not a big guy, but our strength was just sapped. I can still hear the sound of his body tumbling down the trunk.
Tony was taken off from the fairwater planes by helo. I ended up on the aft deck just past the sail. When the boat would go down in the wave, it would lift us up and when the boat would come back up, we would scramble back to the center and attempt to hold onto the safety track and each other.
When it was my turn to go, I go up, went to the side of the sail and threw my new sneakers into the water. When the lifeboat got close and the boat was up and going down, I jumped on top of the raft and pulled myself inside. The next 2 hours were some of the worst in my life. I was seasick and the only place I could throw up was to unzip my poopy suit and throw up into it. I was by a hatch but couldn’t lean out. I remember just wanting to close my eyes and sleep. TMC Blackburn grabbed my hand and told me I could close my eyes, but I had to occasionally squeeze his hand to let him know I was still alive. I appreciated that. After a while, a diver came to the hatch and we were taken out one by one to a helicopter. I remember when I was in the water with the guy holding me, telling me what was going to happen, I threw up on him [ed: I suspect this was the wet crewman from the HSL-44 helo, AW Brian Hendrix]. To his credit, he just washed it off and kept going. He later ended up on the Kennedy on a makeshift bed next to me. He had rescued about twice the number of people he was supposed to.
From the helo, I was deposited on the Carr and I remember a gung ho corpsman (he had just finished a tour with the marines) [ed: HMC(SW) Mentzer – a superior HMC!] came up to me. All I wanted was to get horizontal. They took my clothes and gave me a dry poopy suit and I lay down. I got an IV and then transferred me to the Kennedy. When the chopper started to take off, the door was open, I was strapped into a stretcher and the stretcher moved. I grabbed the post holding the seats and held on for dear life.

While aboard the Kennedy, they had a fire. I remember having trouble getting to sleep (couldn’t breathe well and throat was sore). On the CCTV was a Captains mast when the fire alarm went off. No one moved. I questioned what I was to do and they told me to go to bed, the fire department will take care of it.

The next day, we go on a helo and were taken to the hospital. En-route, I was allowed to put on a harness and look out the open door. It was cool.

Once at the hospital, they did triage and it was determined that I had pretty extensive smoke inhalation. I ended up on oxygen and albuteral. I was finally able to get in touch with my wife and family. Maybe another time I will tell you what she went through during all this. Suffice it to say, squadron was very unprepared for something like this to happen.

I was discharged a few days later and went home.

There were some definite heroes that day:
Lt. Everts – For getting the ship safely to PD and the surface.
Tony Silvia – For trying to save Bob Bordelons life.
??? Ledbetter – For jumping in and getting the life rafts to the boat when they were dropped off.
Rescue swimmers – For going above and beyond.
Jim Yates – For telling squadron about the hatches -though they shut him down on this.

A Night at the Roxbury video

TMC ??? – Who tried like hell to get squadron to allow the hatches to be inspected.
Lt. Ellsworth – For getting up there and getting the hatch open.

If you haven’t read that entire comment thread, then you’re missing some other first person info, too.

Jim Chapman loaned me the December 1988 Approach magazine, which his parents had saved all these years, so I could scan two articles, one by the SH-3 Helo pilot, CDR Waickwicz (later ADM), and the other by Jim. Click on the cover picture below to get to the .pdf of those pages from Approach.

Well done, LT Ray Everts.  Rest in peace.

Other shipmates of the BONEFISH crew who were lost 4/24/2009 were:

YN3(SS) Marshall Lindgren, USN and RM1(SS) Robert W. Bordelon, Jr, USN

If anyone has any info regarding this disaster, particularly on the salvage operations, please leave a comment and let me know how to contact you.

Category: Public Service | 7 Comments »

Stop the Murdoch (Flt 93) Memorial Blogburst: Moral Muslims don't want a memorial to the terrorists on the Flight 93 crash site

April 22nd, 2009 by xformed

Blogburst logo, petition

Orgazmo video

Thanks to Khalim Massoud, president of Muslims against Sharia–Islamic Reform Movement, for his press release Nancy Drew download in support of Tom Burnett Sr.’s efforts to stop the Park Service from planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent atop his son’s grave.

Islamic Reform Movement is clear eyed on the problem:

We all know who the enemy is. It’s Islamic radicals who are guided by the ideology of Islamic supremacy. Just as Nazis were guided by the ideology of Aryan supremacy. The only difference is that Gihadis consider it their religious duty to impose Islam all over the world and many of them yearn to die (and kill) for Allah. They use lines from the Koran such as “kill them [infidels] wherever you find them” or “slay the idolaters wherever you find them” as their guiding principles.

Islam needs to be reformed so that it rejects supremacism and violent conquest, but trying reform Islam is a difficult and dangerous business:

Islamic radicals murder more Muslims than Christians, Jews, Hindus and everybody else combined. Gihadis may hate you for being infidels. But they really hate us for not following their demented dogma.

In this struggle for the soul of Islam, the last thing that moral Muslims want is any kind of victory for the supremacists, never mind a mind-boggling symbolic victory over the heroes of Flight 93:

What possible reason could be there for including anything Islamic or anything even resembling an Islamic symbol into Flight 93 Memorial? Inclusion of Islamic symbols memorializes murderers who brought down the plane and is tantamount to spitting in the faces of victims and their families. United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked in 2001. Let’s not allow hijacking of Flight 93 Memorial in 2008.

Muslims know all about facing Mecca for prayer

One of the difficulties in getting people to understand the significance of the Mecca-orientation of the Crescent of Embrace is that it all seems so esoteric, and if it is esoteric, how important can it be?

Witness Allahpundit, who as Michelle Malkin’s pointman on this issue ought to be one of our strongest allies. Instead, he dismisses

all concern about Islamic symbolism (effectively dismissing Michelle’s original concern about the giant crescent, which remains completely intact

Hang 'Em High movie download

A Love Song for Bobby Long dvdrip

in the “broken circle” redesign), on the grounds that: “if you need a protractor to properly express your outrage, you’ve probably gone too far.”

We don’t need a protractor to express our outrage. We need a protractor to explain what architect Paul Murdoch did. He built the world’s largest mihrab: the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. The planned memorial will be the world’s largest mosque by a factor of a hundred. The gigantic Sacred Mosque in Mecca would fit four times over inside Murdoch’s 3000 foot wide crescent, which is just the centerpiece of Murdoch’s mosque.

Orientation on Mecca is THE central symbol of Islam, together with the crescent shape. Unlike Allahpundit, Khalim knows these things:

The shape of the “broken circle” resembles a crescent moon. So does the shape of the tower. Crescent moon is the most recognizable Islamic symbol. When we pray, we face Mecca and Mosques are traditionally built to face Mecca. The case could be made that the proposed design is aligned in North-Easterly direction, which corresponds with Qiblah, a direction to Mecca. Conventional wisdom would dictate that since Mecca is located to the South-East of Somerset, Qiblah cannot possibly have a North-Easterly direction. This assumption would be correct if you’re using a flat map. However, if you take a globe, place pins on locations of Somerset and Mecca, and connect those pins with a string, you’ll see that the string at the base of the Somerset pin points North-East. This symbolism may not be noticeable to a non-Muslim, and it is also possible, but likely improbable that the designer is ignorant of its significance. The proposed design would be perfect for EgyptAir 990 memorial. But for United 93 memorial, it is simply unacceptable.

Allahpundit is just being careless, but the willful blindness of the Park Service is foundational

The Memorial Project is committed to the idea that Islam was also hijacked on 9/11. To them, blaming Islam would be as bad as blaming the hijacked passengers and crew. Thus the possibility of hostile Islamic intent cannot be contemplated, no matter how high the “coincidences” pile.

According to Flight 93 Advisory Commission member Tim Baird, the Memorial Project participants all know that the Crescent of Embrace does in fact point almost exactly at Mecca (despite the Memorial Project’s many public denials

Tamara divx

). They just assume it has to be a coincidence, just as they assume it is a coincidence that the Sacred Ground Plaza sits almost exactly in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent-and-star flag.

(Both of these almost-exact Islamic symbol shapes also contain exact Islamic symbol shapes. Remove the symbolically broken-off parts of the giant crescent and what is symbolically left standing in the wake of 9/11 is a giant Islamic-shaped crescent pointing EXACTLY at Mecca. In the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag is a separate upper section of Memorial Wall, centered on the centerline of the giant crescent, that will be inscribed with the 9/11 date.)

Backers of the crescent design chose it specifically as a symbol of healing and outreach, implicitly to the Islamic world. Having been so generous to Islam, they just can’t believe that a hidden al Qaeda sympathizer could be so ungenerous as to take advantage of their outreach by sneaking a memorial to the terrorists past their noses. They just can’t believe that anyone could actually want to hijack Flight 93!

This refusal to acknowledge evidence of hostile Islamic intent stabs at the heart of what Islamic reformers like Khalim are trying to accomplish.

How to distinguish a moral Muslim from an Islamic supremacist

Being knowledgeable about Islam, moral Muslims recognize (as bin Laden’s followers do) that Osama bin Laden is a perfectly orthodox Wahabbist, using traditional means of violence and deception to pursue the traditional Islamic objective of world domination. The difference is that moral Muslims reject the totalitarian methods and objectives of established Islam. Moral Muslims recognize that traditional Islamic orthodoxy needs to be reformed.

Textually, the opportunities for reform are very propitious. The Koran contains both sweeping calls to violence (9.05, 9.29) , and sweeping calls for tolerance (2.256, 109). To turn these diverse commands into a religion of violent conquest, every major school of Islamic interpretation, both Sunni and Shiite, considers the peaceful verses of the Koran to be expunged via the doctrine of “abrogation.” Where different verses can be seen to contradict each other, the doctrine of abrogation holds the earlier verses to be abrogated and replaced by the later verses.

The peaceful verses are all early verses, so as far as traditional Islam is concerned, they don’t even exist, except as a device for deceiving infidels into believing that Islam is a “religion of peace.”

This doctrine of abrogation flies in the face of the Koran’s own insistence that it contains no contradictions (4.82), and that nothing

Jack & Sarah full movie

is abrogated (2.106). Textually, traditional Islam does not have a leg to stand on, but anyone who points it out is subject to the traditional Sharia death penalty for blasphemy. Alternatively, in a Wahabbist specialty called “taking takfir,” such heretical interpretations constitute apostasy, another death penalty crime in every major school of Islamic interpretation.

The Koran repeats dozens of times over that those who forget the words of Moses will burn in Hell forever (e.g. 2.75, 3.187, 5.13, 13.25, 15.90, 16.63). This is repeated so many times because it is Muhammad’s accusation against the Jews: that they twist the “allegorical parts” of the Torah (3.07). But the LEAST allegorical part of the Torah is the Ten Commandments. Thus according to the Koran, the 6th Commandment–Thou shalt not murder–is binding on Muslims.

Murder is any killing that is not in defense against either a violent attack or a conspiracy to violent attack, and there is no clearer case of murder than the traditional Islamic death penalty for apostates, who only want to go their own way. The same goes for blasphemy. To kill someone for challenging doctrine is MURDER. If the Koran really is the word of God, then every traditional Muslim in the entire world who supports established Sharia law is “wood for the fire.”

Whether Islamic reformers are out to save the lives of those who would be murdered, or out to save the souls of the murderers, they are engaged in a great contest with perhaps the greatest evil the world has ever known: a RELIGION of evil. All they need to do to win is expose the truth: that traditional Islam is in systematic violation of the Koran’s own most fundamental commandments, yet to expose this truth they must break through the teeth of traditional Islam’s strength: its totalitarian repression of dissent. In short, all they have to do is bring truth to the most psychologically brutalized people in the history of the planet.

What could be worse, in a battle like this, than to see the land of liberty–the great haven from which truth can be spoken–build a gigantic terrorist-memorial mosque on the Flight 93 crash site?

No helping hand from the land of the free The Valley of Gwangi film

If this willful blindness prevails, it will be a clear signal that in the battle to wrest Islam from the grasp of evil, America will not help. By following the morally blind idea that goodwill to Islam means having a see-no-evil attitude toward Islam, America is refusing to witness what moral Muslims are trying to expose: that the worst evils–condemned to the fire many times over by the Koran itself–thrive at the heart of Islamic institutions.

That evil heart is what throbs, a half-mile across, in the crescent memorial to Flight 93, and the refusal of our own Park Service, fully alert to all the facts, to witness this evil is the worst possible betrayal, not just of America, but of the good people in the Islamic world as well. A see-no-evil attitude towards Islam is NOT goodwill. It emboldens the worst in Islam at the expense of the best. To help the good against the bad, we have to distinguish the good from the bad.

The good are those who are trying to reform Islam. The bad are those who pretend that traditional Islam orthodoxy is already peaceful, and deny that reform is necessary.

Muslims against Sharia has a facebook group

, if anyone wants to join. Check out the Islamic Reform Movement website here.

To join our blogbursts, just send your blog’s url.

Category: Public Service | Comments Off on Stop the Murdoch (Flt 93) Memorial Blogburst: Moral Muslims don't want a memorial to the terrorists on the Flight 93 crash site

Obama Administration "Speak" Translator

April 2nd, 2009 by xformed

.!.

Speed 2: Cruise Control movie download

.!.

Armageddon ipod

I found this on Jumping in Pools Blog

Before Sunrise rip

WALL·E divx

Grizzly Park move , who credits it to the Big Hollywood Blog.

In the Army Now move

Add to it and pass it around!

Quote:

In order for us morons on the right to understand the newspeak of the Obama administration I offer this glossary of terms before and after being “Obamized.” Feel free to add to my list while you are still able.

Old Bush/Cheney/Halliburton Hate Speech – Obama Speak

Terrorist – Misunderstood Islamic Freedom Fighter

Terrorist Act – Man Caused Disaster

Wealth Redistribution Scam – Global Warming

Global Warming – Climate Change

Freedom Tower – Chinese World Business Headquarters

Enemy Combatant – Victim of Bush Chaney War Crimes

Illegal Immigrant – Migrant/Democrat Voter

Global War on Terror – Overseas Contingency Operation

Axis of Evil – Islamic Republic of Iran

Socialism – Government Friendly Capitalism

Welfare – Tax Rebate

Businessman – Greed Monger

Entrepreneur – Government Revenue Enhancer

Middle Class – Rich

Republican -Taxpayer

Conservative – Klansman

Abortion – Reproductive Rights

Unfettered Abortion – Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Windfall Profits Tax – Cap and Trade

Volunteer – Americorps Political Activist

On Time Mortgage Payer – Chump

Marxist/Socialist Liberalism – Historic Presidency

Dollar – Global Currency

Reeducation Camp – Job Training

Health Care – Socialized Medicine

Wall Street – U.S. Department of Economic Control

Rehashed Clinton Administration – Change You Can Believe In

Conservative Supreme Court Justice – Homophobe

Private Property – Future Government Acquisition

Bipartisanship – Do It Our Way

Contract Provision – Government Oversight

Seek input from across the aisle – We won, sit down and shut up

Private Enterprise – Future Federal Employment Project

Unemployment – Idleness Compensation Program

National Security Issue – Law Enforcement Problem

Defend and Protect the Constitution – If It Fits My Agenda”

I have one more (Jumping in Pools):

General Motors – Government Owner Green Motor companies (plural for the upcoming takeover of Chevy)

Mine (Chaotic Synaptic Activity):

Department of Defense Budget – Supplemental welfare programs funding

Ballistic Missile Defense System/F-22 Raptor/DDG-1000 – DoD Waste, Fraud and Abuse Showcase Programs

Update 4/2/2009:

Charlie Daniels adds his own list, after dissing The One’s concept!Mrs. Ratcliffe’s Revolution psp

Category: Public Service | Comments Off on Obama Administration "Speak" Translator

Copyright © 2016 - 2024 Chaotic Synaptic Activity. All Rights Reserved. Created by Blog Copyright.

Switch to our mobile site