Fuggetaboutit!

So, the pissant president of Iran wants to go to Ground Zero to lay a wreath for the victims of the Twin Towers terrorist attacks, and is "amazed" that Americans would take offense?

Give me a break!

Ahmadinejad just wants to go in order to obtain a photo op. The only "victims" he plans to pay his respects to are the terrorist hijackers, whom he has stated acted with the knowledge and assistance of the US government. This man is the president of a country that, at his orders, is participating in the killing of Americans on a daily basis. This man has openly called for the destruction of the United States, the "Great Satan" as he refers to us. This man was one of the "students" who took American diplomats hostage back in 1979, yet he understands that he is safe in America with his diplomatic credentials. And he wonders why Americans don't like him, or Iran? Puh-leeze!

I've got a better idea. I understand that the US is bound by the agreement with the UN which requires us to let anyone with diplomatic accreditation from a foreign government come to New York to visit the UN, and that's fine. No one says that visitors get the freedom to move about the City, however. Meet this wretch's plane with a pair of F-15s when he approaches US airspace, ensure his flight path stays over water and unpopulated areas until it arrives at the airport. Meet his plane with a security detail, for his protection of course. If he stays overnight, escort him to his accomodations and station security outside of his room. Do not allow him to leave his room without US-provided security, and then only to go to and from the UN. Once he's there, let him make his speech, meet with representatives from other countries, etc. When his business is concluded at the UN, take him to the airport, put his sorry butt back on his airplane, and then once again escort that airplane with a pair of F-15s until he is well beyond US airspace. Make sure he understands that, once his plane touches the ground back home, our promise to guarantee his safety ends and the next US airplane he sees might well have already dropped the smart bomb that will send him to his own special place in Hell.

If he has a problem with that, remind him that he is still alive at our discretion, and that if he would prefer, we can treat him the same way he calls for the treatment of his enemies.

Update: I called into a local radio talk show today to give them grief about the liberal host's position that perhaps this was a missed opportunity to "connect" with Ahmadinejad. Give a listen and see what you think! If you get a 'page not found' error when you click on the link, just hit 'refresh' and that should start up Windows Media Player and start playing the MP3...

The First Leaf of Autumn

Taken on Labor Day in the Lisabeula area of Vashon Island, Washington.

Does the tree wake up from summertime drowsing to notice the first dead leaf, and only then realize its mortality? Regardless of how bright the sun or how warm the day, winter eventually comes to us all.

Seafair 2007 Sunday Airshow

I have too many long telephoto shots at airshows, so I thought I'd try something a little different. These photos were taken from just above the I-90 tunnel on the Seattle side of Lake Washington, using my Sigma SD14 and either the 18-50/2.8 EX DG Macro or 50-150/2.8 EX DG lens. I don't know who the first group is (I think it's a group of private pilots who own ex-European military trainers... update: it's the Patriots Jet Demonstration Team), but the second group are the Blue Angels in their very recognizable F-18s.


This first group was actually very good, but they have (had?) the misfortune of going before the Blue Angels in front of a crowd that is used to the levels of performance that only a world-class top-of-the-line military fighter can give... and that only a government can afford to operate! Very precise flying, and the group was fast, but not quick (very slow to accelerate, rejoin, etc.).


Another great hour filled with sonic booms, turnin' and burnin', etc. Until you viscerally feel the vibration from an F-18 making a high speed subsonic pass maybe 100' overhead, watch them go from sea level to 15,000 feet in under 20 seconds, etc., you can't appreciate how astoundingly fast and agile... and loud these planes are.


The 'smoke' (condensed water vapor) above the inboard leading edges of the wings is a sign that the plane is really pulling some 'G's (the air pressure above the wing is dropping so low that the water vapor condenses). I meant to bring my 70-200/2.8 EX and use the TC with it... but my son was in too much of a hurry this morning so I grabbed the small Lowepro instead. No big deal... all's well that ends well.

Tranquility...

I spent last weekend in the San Juans, having rented a house with my family for the week, but alas, we are still trying to ship the product that was supposed to be done at the end of June, so I'm back by myself for the week.


At least the ferry ride back was beautiful.

Update: I did get to go back on Thursday evening and go fishing, bike riding, and just relaxing for a couple of days. I took this picture at sunset on the south end of the Deception Pass Bridge, while I was waiting for the last ferry of the night. A little post-processing magic, and voila!

Getting Ready for a One-Day STP...

I've started training to ride the Seattle-to-Portland, a two-day double-century that goes from (you guessed it...) Seattle to Portland. About 9,000 people start the ride, about 90% finish. Somewhere around 20% do it in just one day. Actually, make that 16 hours or less because the official start time at the University of Washington's parking lot is 5 am on Saturday morning and the finish line checkpoint in Portland's Halliday Park closes at 9 pm.

I've ridden it for the past three years, but now I've been dared to do it in one day, so I've started to train in earnest. First, I realized that the bike I'd ridden for the three previous rides, a RANS V-Rex with a Rohloff Speedhub (a 14-speed internally-geared hub), just wasn't the bike to do this in one day. The V-Rex, especially one set up the way mine is, weighs around 31 lbs. The new bike to get was obvious: a Bacchetta Aero.Why was it obvious? The Aero started the high racer recumbent craze, it weighs 22 lbs, has a titanium frame, and is one of the lightest and fastest recumbents out there. After dithering over 24" or 650c wheels, I went with the latter (better tire choices, lower rolling resistance) despite worries over seat height (I'm 5'6"), and I'm perfectly happy with my choice.

I've had the Aero since early March and have found that it is easily 20% faster than the V-Rex on the flats and perhaps twice as fast climbing. I should have bought one of these when they first came out.

I went on a quick 30-mile training ride tonight. Here's the details, courtesy of my Garmin Edge 305 GPS/Cyclecomputer (ah... gadgets!) and MotionBased.com:


If you want to follow my ride, click on the 'View Activity' link above, then select the orange 'Player' tab at the top far right, then select 'Satellite' and set the speed to '0.5x', and hit the Play button.

Note the elevation graph, at the lower right. I live at the south end of one of a series north-south ridges (a result of glacial activity during the last Ice Age), and I have to descend almost 400 feet to get to the valley below (near sea level). Of course, there's lots of ridges in this neck of the woods, so I have to climb back up a 500' high ridge, then descend down the other side, ride in the Sammamish Valley for a while, and then climb back up the ridge I live on. If the hills don't kill you, they make you wish you were dead. Any wonder why I miss south Louisiana, where the highest hill is a highway overpass?

Why am I writing about this? Because now that I've put this goal in writing, I'm obligated to do it. Ouch.

Making the World Brighter Through Conversation

I ran down to the local Barnes & Noble this afternoon to pick up some books on Scrum methodology for my new feature team leads. After waiting a few minutes in the checkout line, the young sales clerk invited me over with the usual "I can help the next customer down here!"

As I put the books on the counter, the sales clerk started her banter. "How is your day going?"

"Fine," I replied.

"I just know today will be a good day for me, too!" she said. "The past several days have been really bad, so today has to be good, doesn't it?"

"That's an interesting question," I said. "Are you familiar with statistics?"

"No, I'm not."

I warmed to my subject. "Well, let me explain something to you. Let's say you flipped a coin a thousand times, and ended up with a thousand 'heads'. The odds against that are astronomical, right?"

"Yes, I know that much!"

"Okay, but did you know that the odds of your getting heads on the next flip is still 50:50? In other words, regardless of how lousy the past few days have been for you, the odds are just as likely that today, and tomorrow, will be just as lousy, or lousier."

The poor woman visibly deflated, but bravely tried to recover as she handed me my books and my credit card back. "Have a nice day!"

"You, too," I replied as I left.

Anniversary of the Decisive Gulf War Tank Battles

Take a look at this image, from Google Earth. I found it while dinking around this afternoon. It's the location of the Gulf War Battle of 73 Easting, almost sixteen years ago to the day, on the night of February 25-26 1991, when the US VII Corps caught up with one of the three Iraqi Republican Guard armored divisions, the Tawakalna Division and literally kicked their butts in a few hours. Click on the image to see it larger, and use the coordinates to help you zoom in with Google Earth if you want to check out the battlefield. This particular image is, I believe, the graveyard of the Iraqi 12th Armored Division, left behind to guard the rear of the Tawakalna Division while the Republican Guard units tried to retreat back into Iraq. I believe this division was destroyed mostly by Apache helicopter, with some assists from M1A1 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

I've looked further to the north, where the three Tawakalna battalions got theirs, but the density of destroyed vehicles is very low although there are hastily prepared fighting positions where they're suppsed to be. Perhaps the Iraqis salvaged the destroyed tanks after the war, starting at the north and working their way southward.

Despite the impression that we have of Iraqis being most militarily adept at surrendering, the Guards divisions were actually pretty tough customers who tried to slug it out with the American forces. Remember, these are the same tank units that defeated the Iranians for a decade. Their biggest handicap was lack of intelligence; looking at the most-southern fighting positions shows that they were expecting the attack from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the south and east, and were completely surprised by our forces to the left. Coalition forces also had the advantage of superior equipment, training, and communications. Our tanks could detect and destroy their tanks beyond the range that they could even see us through their gunsights. In these battles, the first indication the Iraqis had that US armored forces were nearby was having one of their tanks blow up spectacularly.

One of the tactics used by the Iraqis as the battle raged on was to not power up their tank, instead letting it remain at the ambient temperature and thus be mostly invisible to our thermal sights. One of the US units reported coming over a small ridge and seeing 'basketballs' appearing and disappearing... and realizing these were the heads of Iraqi tank commanders coming in and out of their turrets quickly spread the word to shoot below the basketballs... ouch!

The smarter Iraqis kept their tanks cold and their heads down. After US vehicles would roll past these dormant tanks in the night, the Iraqis would crank their turrets around by hand and shoot us from behind. It was an effective tactic, but once a shot was fired the tank's temperature changed enough to become clearly visible on our thermal sights and most of these tanks only got off one shot before they were destroyed. Unfortunately, US tanks adjacent to those hit turned their turrets around to engage the bypassed Iraqis, leading to several incidents of fratricide, or "friendly fire" deaths when their gun flashes firing westward were mistakenly identified as enemy fire and engaged by oncoming US tanks to the westward.

After the destruction of the Tawakalna Division, the next Guard unit encountered was the Medina, leading to the Battle of Medina Ridge, the largest tank-on-tank battle in the history of the US Army. I think that only the WWII Battle of Kursk between the Soviets and the Germans was larger.

I think a case can be made that the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of the Gulf War and the lopsided US victory. Why? Because the Soviets were in Iraq supporting their client state with technical advisors and the latest and greatest Warsaw Pact armament. The Soviets always outnumbered the US in Europe, just as the Iraqis outnumbered us in Iraq, however US military strategy was predicated on the fact that large conventional battles would always be against numerically superior enemies like the Soviets and the Chinese. And yet, we defeated the fourth largest army in the world in less than 100 hours, while suffering more casualties in traffic accidents at home than we did on the battlefield. I think the Soviet leadership saw that all of their military spending, the decades of deprivation of their people, the lack of progress in their country's standard of living... it was all a waste. They'd never be able to conquer us militarily, they lost 40,000 troops and wrecked their army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and they were getting left further and further behind, while their earstwhile junior partner China was making great economic strides. Despite the Soviets' best efforts, the US was less than 100 kilometers from downtown Baghdad with nothing in the way but sand. And so we saw the coup attempt fail shortly thereafter, and the Soviet Union was no more.

One wonders about the lost opportunities of the 1990s, starting with our running from Somalia to our ineffective responses to Al Qaeda. What would the world have looked like with Bush had won instead of Clinton? Would 9/11 or something similar have happened?

In A Post-9/11 World...

...Americans are refusing to be victims. We saw it when the airline passengers beat the snot out of the Sneaker Bomber, and we see it again when a group of American senior citizens, including at least one retired military, were confronted by three Honduran bad boys with knives and a gun during a cruise ship port visit. When the dust settled, two of the pendejos were running and the third bandito was permanently hors de combat, having suffered a broken collarbone and then death via lack of blood to the brain from what was probably a rear naked choke, a ju-jitsu hold taught in military combatives training.

My favorite part of the article:

The tourists left on their Carnival cruise after the incident and Hernandez said authorities do not plan to press any charges against them, saying they acted in self defense.

"They were in their right to defend themselves after being held up," Hernandez said.

Honduras is a pretty cool country.

Lesson #1: When your life is threatened, fight back with an overwhelming amount of force and definitively eradicate the threat. Mercy can wait until you identify the perp in the ER or the morgue.

Lesson #2: Picking on Americans can be hazardous to your health.

On The Morality of Clubbing Baby Seals

Don't ask me how I wandered on to this, but I thought it was powerful enough to share.



I've never heard of Craig Ferguson before, but he seems like someone worth watching.

The Perils of Shooting Your Mouth Off

Jim Zumbo
c/o Outdoor Life

Dear Jim:

I've met you at sportsmen's shows and at the SHOT Show. I've read your work for a couple of decades now. I'm really pretty disappointed in you, because I don't think you get why people are so upset.

I've hunted for almost 40 years, and owned guns for the same amount of time. I've been in the military. I've shot competitively. And, I've owned a gun shop and shooting range.

People could care less if you do, or don't, hunt with an AR-15, or Mini-14, or AK-47, or SKS, or whatever. That's your business. When you start denigrating people over their choice of hunting firearms, then it becomes a problem. When you call them "terrorists" and call for banning their weapon of choice, then it really becomes a problem. And, in today's political climate, where those who work to ban all firearms look for any and every opportunity to divide the gun owner community on the basis of cosmetics so they can gradually ban all guns by banning this type and then that type, you just handed anti-gunners some potent information. "Why not ban AR-15s from hunting?" they'll say. "After all, noted hunting authority Jim Zumbo says that they are unsporting and don't belong in the woods!"

Jim, the problem isn't that you didn't realize people hunt with AR-15s. It's that both your original post and your apology demonstrate you truly do not believe in the right to keep and bear arms, and that it extends to beyond what type of firearms may be suitable for a week-long elk hunt in the Rockies.

So, going on a hunt with Ted Nugent and using AR-15s isn't going to fix the problem. How about writing an article on how people who don't hunt also have a right to own firearms, including AR-15s, and maybe then following up with another article specifically for non-hunters who own semiautomatic rifles derived from military weapons, directed at how to get them to start hunting with those weapons. After all, we need more hunters!

Hunting as an activity is decreasing in popularity. I'd venture to say that, unlike when I was a boy, the majority of gun owners are not hunters. If you, as a recognized authority on hunting (certainly not guns), dismiss these people for their taste in firearms, then in a few years don't be surprised when hunting as a legitimate sporting activity is ended. After all, we don't need to hunt to feed ourselves, and we can farm elk and deer if we like the taste of venison. It's just a cruel blood sport, isn't it, and no one needs to kill a poor cute defenseless prairie dog or a clever and handsome coyote.

Gun owners and Americans in general are pretty forgiving, if they think you're sincere and if they see that you've changed. But the burden is on you, and not on them. If your apology really is sincere and you really don't think these guns should be banned from hunting, then you need to start writing... and soon.

Sincerely,

John Clifford

ht: Instapundit