Trying to Keep Things In Perspective

Land mine mitigation actions in 33 countries and territories are expected to cost about $459 million in 2009 according to a report (front page of the report pictured) provided to the UN back in December. It further states that countries included in that report only have about 5% of the funding leaving a $437 million gap.

The countries involved in this report are those that have support from the UN and other organizations to provide the data. I didn't read the full report, (458 pages in pdf) but from the absence of countries involved in WWII, The Korean War and other more localized events (like those south of us) tell me that despite best efforts from well meaning organizations, no one knows about all the unexploded mines out there.

I bring this up to show that the $437 million shortfall problem is huge ("....nearly 6000 casualties last year, more than half of them children") for its affect on the people involved yet it's small in comparison to the money being discussed in the 2009 budget or what we already blew on "TARP". It's more or less equal to what we spent every seven months on "emergency spending" bills for Iraq under the debacle of the Bush years as well as less than 10% of our annual military budget.

I wonder how the priorities of the republicans, suddenly finding a concern over the dollar figures that are flying around now, would change if a portion of these mines were in the US?

Human Hemroid

This shot was originally part of a very valid post at blondsense, which I love reading by the by. Go read the post at blondsense `cause its good....real good and puts this shot in better context than I will. So now that I've given credit for ripping off the shot, I'll bring all of this to a lower level.

I spewed coffee all over the keyboard and had tears I was laughing so much at this shot. I have to believe that the dude up the elephants ass in no way had this in mind when applying for the job. Just how does one cover this in an interview:

"Can you work nights, weekends?" "Can you travel?" "If the travel involves cramming yourself up an elephants ass from time to time...is that a problem?"

Do ya suppose they drew straws to see who's "going in" and why is the guy on the right is so smug? What sort of a suit is the ass-diver wearing? Do they make a garment specifically for elephant ass spelunking? What covers the guy's head in there and how does he see or is this a tactile job only? I only hope that yellow hose going up the ass-divers suit is for his air supply. Most importantly, I wonder how you prep an elephant for this event? A 55 gal drum of "KY" comes to mind but is it available in drums and how embarrassing would that be to order? Does the elephant like it, especially the tactile part?

Trial Starts For The Iraqi Journalist That Missed Bush With His Shoes

Muntadhar al-Zeidi goes to trial today and could get 15 years. Lets hope that the 15 year maximum is not enforced but instead the whole thing is dismissed - it was a fuckin shoe for chrissak!

On a side note, note in the photo that he had his shot partially blocked by the guy on the left, or maybe this was a shot taken of the second shoe being tossed......and is that Jonah Goldberg in the lower right (for some reason the words "Jonah Goldberg" and "lower right" strike a certain harmony)?

Just Being American Ain't Enough, You Have to Look Like One Too.

In my opinion, one of the casualties of Bush's "global war on terror" (GWOT) is the perception and prejudice against US citizens of Muslim faith. I remember watching the events of 9/11 as they happened on TV and thinking that collectively as a country, we have no understanding of the people that did this and the religion in the name under which they perpetrated it, however misguided. From my meager understanding of the Muslim faith, 9/11 was as much an abomination to them as it was to non -Muslims. To keep things in perspective here, Christians have their own set of nut cases as evidenced by the Reverend Jerry Falwell who thought it reasonable to blame gays for 9/11, and others that do worse things driven by their faith like murdering doctors or bombing clinics.

The prejudice toward the Sikh family, silently profiled to be dangerous in the minds of the Harris County (Houston TX) Sheriffs deputies that responded to the family's 911 call about their home being burglarized, is very apparent. This family was "terrorized in their own home" because they didn't look are act like the officers expected. While wearing turbans and ceremonial daggers may be unusual, there should be no reason to swear at 8 year old children or to handcuff a 60 year old woman.

The Hudson Aircraft

These are photos of the fuselage of aircraft that ditched in the Hudson River being transported through New Jersey. The aircraft played no small part of the survival of those on board.

Note the lower rear portion of the fuselage is crushed and the belly skin is gone and wrinkles are visible on the upper side of the fuselage closer to the over wing exits. The aircraft ditched with the nose high and the rear fuselage making first contact with the Hudson River. This initial impact crushed the lower fuselage (damaged in "tension"), actually bending the entire fuselage as if the tail was pushed up which is where the "wrinkles" come from (damaged in compression).

Great job "Sully", and the aircraft did its job as well by absorbing and distributing the unusual applied loads from the ditching to remain relatively intact.

I'm really taken with this song. My lovely daughter turned me on to it...or rather it was on her Rhapsody page and I fell into it. I looked around on "You Tube" and other locations and viewed quite a few slide shows people put together behind the music, all of them good but when it came right down to it the original was the best. The music and the lyrics are so powerful it augments any visual accompaniment and apparently it moved others as well. I was thinking how appropriate this is for the Bush years. Then it occurred to me how well it would have fit during our Viet Nam era, the current situation in Darfur, and almost anytime during my lifetime for Israel/Palestinian problems. Now that we have a new president with some long overdue "change" promised, I'm disappointed to say that its still appropriate.

Dammit willis, give Obama a chance. Jeebus dude, he's only been in office for a few weeks! That would sell except for me "change" meant investigations into the Bush administrations wrong doings......all of them, bring in help if you have to but people need to be held to account. That and we shouldn't be bombing Pakistan whenever we feel like it! I'm impressed with Obama and I know he's not going to do everything willis wants. But these things are the big ones...the ones he swore to uphold in his oath, the ones people have died for and are still dying for."

....Don't know why I say the things I say but I say them anyway."

Ain't" No Reason By Brett Dennen

PS: I couldn't figure out how to embed this video so you have to link. Dammit, I said there'd be challenges.....deal with it!

Texas Republicans...yep, that about says it!

"Honey, you know the difference between the Taliban and Texas Republicans? One is opposed to science, equal rights for women, religious freedom, peaceful resolution of disagreements, and democracy. The other is the Taliban."

Shamelessly ripped off from one of my new favorites, Brains and Eggs

Obama "Screws up" ProvingThe Imperfections Of His Adminstration

I may be rehashing stuff someone already posted or posting the painfully obvious but I remember in an April 2004 news conference when asked if he could recall any mistakes he's made and Bush was stumped for an answer. Note the date is not only after the Iraq invasion, WMD, etc. (maybe an error or two there ya think?) it's also after his first 4 years in office. Fast forward to now, President Obama after just a Little over two weeks in office admits he's "screwed up" with his last two cabinet nominations.

What appears consistent to me is that both Presidents were wrong. Obama in the poor vetting of his nominations and Bush in thinking he hasn't made a mistake. If one is going to try to fix something or make a correction, it helps if a problem or mistake is identified. All this seems to support the Bush administration's opinion that everything they did over the last eight years, while unpopular, is never the less correct.

This may have had something to do with the results of the last election......I hope the republicans don't figure this out for awhile.

Flinging Some POO on Senator Cornyn

John Cornyn enthusiastically supported the Alberto " fuck you, we waterboard" Gonzales nomination to be the head lawbreaker, formerly the office of the Attorney General, and oozed the following:

"Senate confirmation was a repudiation of ‘unjustified attacks’ and a victory for national and homeland security.
"Despite the angry rhetoric and unjustified attacks by Democrat leadership, I’m delighted that Alberto Gonzales has been confirmed as our nation’s top law enforcement officer," Cornyn said. "I’m confident he’ll do an outstanding job in this new post and his example will be an inspiration, not just for the Hispanic community, but for all Americans.""

Cornyn will never miss an opportunity to fling poo at the obstructionist Democrats while licking Bush's ass regardless if any of them reluctantly supported Gonzales.

Despite "You Tube", the Congressional Record, and other Islamic media formats that record him verbatim, he erases his earlier remarks from everyone's memory on 8/10/2007 with the following to the American-Statesman editorial board:

"He's (Gonzales) a good person, but I look at his jobs he's held, and I wonder what has prepared him for being the head of the Department of Justice and 110,000 employees in a highly partisan and difficult political environment,"

A little over two weeks later Abu Al resigns and Cornyn is taken with the sadness of the occasion.

There were two short term AGs after Gonzales hung up his jumper cables, Paul Clement for 24 hours then Peter Keisler. Both out of session appointees by Bush. Clement resigned to teach at Georgetown then Keisler came in. If guilt by association means anything, Peter clerked for Judge Bork and defended Bushes policies in our never ending GWOT. Mukasey came in after a stormy approval to finish the Bush term.

Under Obama, Holder is now confirmed and approved but Cornyn, his ethics intact, has reservations:

“Part of my concern relates to his statements at the hearing with regard to torture and what his intentions are toward our intelligence personnel who were operating in good faith based on their understanding of what the law was.”

The former AG for the State of Texas doesn't care if any laws were broken, only that intelligence personnel might be prosecuted. Give me a break. Cornyn cares as much for intelligence workers as he does for child health care and veterans - ZIP! All he wants to do is protect the people of power responsible for establishing an environment that allowed the shredding our Constitution.

If he can't be arrested, why can't he be disbarred, or waterboarded, or even had some poo flung at him?

Molly Ivins

She left us two years ago today. We were richer than we knew for the time she was here. Go read.

John Cornyn is a Major Asshat

Chart positioning Cornyn at the left isn't much more than I would need to convince myself but after listening to this idiot today on C-Span I couldn't stand it. So you get a small rant from willis.

Just from memory during Senator's Fiengold's censure hearing on Bush when John Dean was called to testify, Cornyn "assailed Dean calling him a “convicted felon” and accusing him of selling a book and his testimony being “part of the marketing effort.”" Dean is no angel. He is a convicted felon from the Watergate fiasco and regrets his crime. Cornyn's disregard for convicted felons only seems to go so far as he licks Oliver North's ass. Just as a side bar, North's actions in Iran-Contra resulted in deaths untold while I don't believe anyone lost their life in Dean's obstruction of justice.

Pastor John Hagee supports Cornyn with financial contributions (along with Huckabible and McSame). I don't care if its legal or not. Both are way right and way asshat.

Now Cornyn is all upset about "oversight" and vetting the new appointments from the Obama administration. Forchrisakes he hasn't batted an eye about oversight, subpoena avoidance, or spending us into oblivion for the past 8 years and now he gives a shit? I almost starting drinking at 10AM!

Cornyn will say whatever he has to to shove his philosophy forward. He is an opportunist that will shield his lies in persuasive oratory. He'll do his campaign ad's in jeans, cowboy hat and a work shirt on the Texas prairie to smoosh his re-election. What's worse is he enjoys the support of most Texans. Most Texas don't even know who the new vice president is. Gads!

Later in Life

No child left behind strikes. Ah, maybe not. I remember being forced to do this stuff when I didn't want to and the project reflected it. I had to do a term paper in Senior HS English where we couldn't pick our subjects and I was assigned "the effects of the middle ages on Thomas Gray". I had no idea who the fuck Gray was or how the middle ages affected him. It strikes me later in life that these were assigned to make it easier for the teacher to spend less time grading because it was a subject she knew. The bitch... why do I have to know about anything she enjoyed versus something I want to do (which was nothing, by the way)? I turned in something plagiarized from an encyclopedia, triple spaced and as a result, I hated Senior HS English and graduated with a "D".

It also strikes me later in life (as so much does - anyone have time for crap that smacks them later in life versus dealing with "later in life" as it is? Okay thanks.) that if I was her I probably would have done the same thing or worse. I'd have told the miserable little fucks to provide a written description of how to tie your shoe and pass it to the idiot to the left, see what they do with it and base the grade on that. Just because I didn't care about Gray or the middle ages doesn't mean crap. She wanted to see what I could do... the bitch.......I'll never forgive her for letting me graduate.

Former French President Chirac hospitalised after mauling by his clinically depressed poodle

No need to go into how I found this but it is pretty good. I'll try to make an effort not to post trash here....no I won't, I'll post all kinds of stuff here.

Do you know....

...That while the us airlines are required to meet very stringent interior flammability requirements to enhance occupant survival, there are no such regulations for buses or rail cars? From my background in maintaining & modifying transport category aircraft I have no problem with anything that helps anyone (child, adult, handicapped, etc) survive an accident. To me this was government oversight at it's best because as an airline, this stuff doesn't make any money except as a sales tool (Check a Volvo commercial for advertising pro activity). All it does is add weight and make maintenance more difficult but it forced the airlines to adopt standards that, at least in my opinion , have been a factor in saving lives in several accidents over the last 10 years. Most recently demonstrated by the Continental crash in Denver earlier this month. The caption to this picture from the Federal Railroad Administration is:

"Instrumented Anthropomorphic Test Devices (“crash dummies”) are used to develop improved occupant protection strategies in passenger rail cars.
The Train Occupant Protection Program will carry out research on structural crashworthiness and interior safety of locomotives and in intercity and commuter rail cars, in addition to improve the survivability of rail passengers and crewmembers in accidents. It also addresses system safety and fire protection issues. The goal of this research program is to promote and improve the safety of the national passenger rail transportation system."

Okay, all well and good. Why now.....Why isn't rail, bus, ship, ferry passenger transportation as overseen as much as air transport. The size of the transport vehicle or the medium in which it operates should not be what drives the oversight for passenger safety. The "Sunset Limited" didn't burn but after the recent "ditching" in the Hudson River demonstrated the relevant issue is "crashworthiness" of the vehicle and it applies to all vehicles.

Money to Local Schools, Not So Fast Says Brady

There's an article in today's local paper describing that the schools in Montgomery County Texas could be in for about 36 million dollars if the the new stimulus package goes through. Our local US Rep Kevin "I'm still carrying Bush's water" Brady (TX-8) isn't so sure its a good idea as it isn't "free money".

I don't know if the package is a good deal or not but I am amazed at the emergence of Brady's zeal for oversight now and wonder where the hell it was when retroactive immunity was approved for shredding the constitution and allowing an invasion of a country that didn't do anything to us. Asshat.

PS: I commented to this effect in the paper's web page. May stir this county's over-population of repubs to attack.

willis

There are pilots, then there are pilots!

This may be dated but still worth a look.

This pilot makes it look like part of the show. When these aerobatic aircraft fly wings vertical (or any aircarft for that matter. These are designed for it), they use the fuselage as an airfoil, a bunch of power and deft handling of the rudder and elevators. All that and some airspeed which this pilot acheived by the loss in altitude and full throttle.

So, the aircraft will need at least the right wing, maybe some landing gear work, and probably a new seat cushion!

Its January 20th, 12:15 in the AM Houston Time. Early but still 1/20/2009 and I have a blog (OMG!) where I can post anything I want to say to the world. First off, willis is fairly inebriated. Not planned, but it is what I am as shit sneaks up on one once in a while.

Tomorrow at 12:01PM we will have a new president. The eight years of horror from the Bush administration have resulted in two wars, one of them started under false assumptions aggressively sold to us and Congress resulting in almost 5000 American soldiers lost, close to 20,000 disabled and an untold number of innocent civilians dead in both theatres, the loss of New Orleans, The adoption of torture as a military means of intelligence gathering, the shredding of our rights of individual protections under the Constitution, etc.....Fuck it, check this to see all of it as it's too long a list.

I hope the bastards are all held accountable for their crimes. All of `em; Rice, Wofowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Pearle, Ashcroft, Gonzales...my god, where does it stop.

If I was Obama, I wouldn't want the job. But he's there with better than a million others hoping for some salvation from the last 8 years of destruction, and I hope to hell he can deliver. I fear, however it may be beyond what any one man can do in 4 years or even 8, regardless how competent he is. Still I look on this new administration with hope. There'll be disappointments for sure, things he'll do I won't like and maybe policies I won't agree with. But as long as his administration is "relatively" straight with me, I can deal with it. I say "relatively" as there are 300 million of us....I don't expect a personal call!

If there is a God, now is the time for him to bless America and its leaders.

willis

Somebody May be Hiding Your Mail, & You Might Care!

Periodically, the Post Office audits the functions of carriers, clerks and others which doesn't seem like a big deal. Afterall, prudent management would want to be aware of changes in order to properly respond by shifting manpower or changing route structure, etc. as things evolve. However, recently in Philadelphia it was discovered by Nick Casselli (pictured at the link) after a little snooping that management at a Philly postal processing plant was using their audit to support management's position that they were over staffed by falsely dropping the workload by "hiding" the mail.

So why does "willis" give a shit what happened to postal workers in Philly beyond being the caring individual I am? My first wife (also my current and only wife) is a letter carrier at a Houston area post office which is undergoing the same audit process. It's odd that for some reason the mail volume at her office drops almost in half during "audit week" and this phenomenon occurs without fail every time they are audited. Her office currently operates with too few clerks and several "open" routes and yet they are taking the numbers they get from this audit to use to support additional staff cuts. Right now they use overtime to support the open routes.

Maybe not germane to any of this but the Postmaster General, John E. Potter, received a whopping 39% compensation increase last year ........$258,840, up from $186,600 . I'm sure its just a coincidence.

I'd like to put on the Greg Palast Hat and go under cover to see what really goes on. There would have to be a fair number of folks involved and everyone either isn't as good a liar as Rumsfeld, Rice, or Cheney and/or they would blow the whistle on a deception of this scale. One would think. However, rank and file postal workers are not generally millionaires and whistle blowing is a rare occurrence for fear of retaliation I have on good athority.

I'll post more if I hear anything....

willis

The View from Russia

Alaska village dying while Palin focuses on her mistreatment at the hands of the "liberal media". She needs to do the job she was hired to do and stop worrying about the national media.

View of Russia

Wanted to catch up on world affairs this AM, particularly the happenings in Russia so naturally I checked the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman in Wasilla. It's a better view than NORAD has nevermind the fact I have no access there.

Anyway, I was drawn to the following gossip on the Op-ed page. Go look, the comments are the best part.

http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2009/01/08/opinion/letters/doc496060ba26f97695081760.txt

PS: I know there's a way to link to stuff by embedding the address in my text....I just don't know how. Any help there would be appreciated. I said I'd be challenged, dammit.