Out on a limb at Mike Lief.com

August 27, 2010

"I fought for you"

This is a palate cleanser, something to erase the foul taste left behind by the worst woman in England -- the unrepentant barbarian who urinated on a memorial to the men killed fighting to defend her freedom.

Those of you who consider yourselves sophisticates may think this terribly unsophisticated.

It is not. It's a heartfelt tribute to those who have sacrificed, who have risked everything in defense of liberty. And it's a demand that we teach our children to remember and honor our veterans, and those men who never made it home.

Found at Vanderleun's American Digest.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

The decline and fall of Western Civilization

The decline of Western Civilization continues apace, the rot within manifested in human form by barbarians like Wendy Lewis, dubbed by English veterans "Britain's Most Disgusting Woman." after she urinated on a memorial to England's war dead.

Lewis, 32, was originally due to be sentenced last week but fled after being confronted by a group of ex-servicemen who vented their anger by slow-handclapping and shouting 'disgusting.'

After three days at large, police arrested Lewis on Tuesday morning and she was finally hauled before magistrates.

And after she escaped jail Lewis's boyfriend Frank McKenzie managed to further offend the former soldiers by performing a Nazi salute and yelling pro-IRA abuse at them.

Sentencing Lewis at Blackpool Magistrates' Court to 15 weeks' jail, suspended for a year, deputy district judge Roger Lowe told her that he had spared her custody to allow her to get help for her drink and drug problems.

The veterans attended court again yesterday to see the mother-of-two brought to justice.

Lewis, of Princess Street, Blackpool, faced further disgrace. The former heroin addict, who was found guilty of outraging public decency at an earlier hearing, also pleaded guilty to assaulting the female police officer who arrested her.

The judge told her: 'You are a young woman. You don't remember the First World War and the Second World War. There are people in this room who do.

'You have got the right to do whatever you want, think whatever you want and say whatever you want. Those rights were won by people who fought for us and died for us.

'The memorial in this town remembers the people who gave their lives for values which we hold so dear.

'When you urinated on the memorial you desecrated on their memory. You brought shame on yourself and you brought shame on the town.'

Lewis, wearing a pink hooded top and white jacket, nodded as she was sentenced to 12 weeks for outraging public decency. A three-week sentence for the assault of Pc Halliwell was suspended for 12 months.

She was also ordered to complete a drug rehabilitation programme and pay £200 in costs and £50 in compensation to Pc Halliwell.

[...]

Lewis was dubbed 'Britain's most disgusting person' by Ian Coleman, who has been president of the Blackpool Royal British Legion for 24 years, after her court appearance on Friday.

'This woman is the most disgusting person in the country,' he said. 'The names on the cenotaph are those of people that have given us all our freedom.'

After yesterday's sentencing, Mr Coleman said: 'War memorials up and down the country are being desecrated. It seems the perpetrators just get a slap on the wrist and possibly stronger laws have to be implemented to have a deterrent to stop these people defiling this sacred ground.'

He suggested those who disrespect war memorials should be made to clean them up and added: "I wouldn't want to see anybody put in prison. But that memorial is sacrosanct and we do need a deterrent.'

Lewis, who is believed to be living on benefits, was arrested in June after the CCTV operators spotted her relieving herself next to poppy wreaths on the top step of the cenotaph near the North Pier, which is inscribed with the names of soldiers who gave their lives in the two World Wars.

At a previous hearing, magistrates were shown footage of the incident. Lewis, with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, could clearly be seen pulling down her jeans while cyclists and members of the public passed by.

[...]

Derrick Wyeld, 87, who served from 1941 to 1946 on Lancaster bombers with the Australian RAF, said: 'She is clearly a cowardly person who can't face her accusers.

'Fifty-five per cent of RAF crew were killed in the war and thousands of them have no known grave. The cenotaph represents the gravestones of the people who were left behind. It is their memorial.'

D-Day veteran James Baker, 88, was one of only two men from his Army unit to survive the 1944 landings and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

'This woman is a disgrace to her sex,' he said. 'She insulted the good name of every soldier named on that memorial. They died for their country so people like this woman could live in freedom. It is unforgivable what she did in the face of these dead men. Some of them never saw 18.'

Major Jim Houldsworth, 68, who served with the Royal Artillery for 25 years, said: 'She has showed the same contempt for the veterans that she showed for the court. What she did is an insult to everybody named on that cenotaph and their family. We need to send out a message that this is totally unacceptable.'

A suspended sentence? She should be tarred and feathered, her citizenship revoked, exiled to a far off, distant land.

Disgusting. But the weak response from the British legal system is a symptom of the decay as well, an indication that there is an unbelievable resistance to pass judgement in any meaningful way.

A truly honorable society would offer a complete legal defense to any citizen who administered a beating to a person caught desecrating a war memorial.

What a vile, disgusting creature Wendy Lewis is.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 26, 2010

The cold, flat eyes of a killer teen

Most news organizations have a policy of not publishing information about juveniles who commit crimes -- mirroring a general societal belief that minors ought not be exposed to the harsh glare of public condemnation, lest it forever tarnish their shiny, new reputations, causing irreparable harm to their self esteem.

The theory is that children can be salvaged, and their crimes are often the result of immature impulse control.

Within certain limits, the idea has some merit -- as in, minor crime, Huck Finn sort of stuff, stealing a pack of gum or setting off firecrackers in the girl's bathroom.

But extending that shield to the most heinous crimes has never made sense; rape, murder, robbery, torture are all crimes which reveal an inner malevolence that demands that the rest of us be put on notice as to the identity of the feral predators who lope amongst us, looking for prey.

Gaze upon the face of another irredeemable, stone cold killer.

Arteesha Holt, 14, walked up to Wilmer Bonilla, 26, and Jose Rodolfo Gonzalez-Coreas, 43, a little before 10 o'clock at night; the two men were sitting on the front steps of a Baltimore row house, presumably enjoying the warm summer night. Holt pulled out a gun and demanded the men hand over their cash.

Coreas laughed, probably at the incongruity of a middle-aged man being robbed by a girl young enough to be his granddaughter.

Big mistake.

She shot him in the forehead; doctors kept him on life support long enough to harvest his organs.

According to Baltimore police, Holt may have been taking part in a gang initiation. The killer teen reportedly told friends about what she had done; shame, not surprisingly, does not appear to be in her moral lexicon.

I'm a firm believer in the existence of evil, that we all must decide on a daily basis to make decisions: right or wrong, help or harm. And there are acts so depraved, so devoid of even a spark of humanity, that there is no hope of redemption, rehabilitation a fool's errand.

Arteesha Holt took a man's life because he had the nerve to laugh at her.

My condolences to the family of Mr. Coreas.

May his killer rot, never again allowed contact with the rest of society.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

August 21, 2010

Like being handed an icepick

Richard Fernandez provides an interesting look at Australia's unexpected election; the liberal Labor Party was widely assumed to be coasting to victory -- if the MSM were to be believed -- but the conservatives have seemingly surged ahead, leaving the final result in the hands of the absentee voters (Florida and Bush v. Gore, anyone?) for an edge-of-your-seat photo-finish.

Fernandez buries a delicious turn of phrase near the bottom of his piece, wherein he discusses the possibility of Labor forming an alliance with the Green Party to keep conservatives from taking power:

[A] possible victory over the conservatives will be purchased at the price of a coalition with the Greens. That will drag Labor to the Left, which can only mean it will have more of what made it unpopular in the first place. A coalition with the Greens is like being handed an icepick to put out the fire in your hair.

Liberals seem to be on the defensive even Down Under, and the only thing more unpopular than liberals are tree-hugging, global-warming moonbats, aka, the Green Party.

"Like being handed an icepick to put out the fire in your hair."

Brilliant.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 16, 2010

The Obama Administration: Enhancing criminals' job prospects

I read this the other day and flagged it for later incredulity: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has expanded it's mission, presumably under the guidance of the Obama Administration, to include telling employers they may not consider whether or not someone interviewing for a job is a criminal.

Lest you think I'm making this up, I went to the EEOC website, where I grabbed this screenshot:

How do you like them apples?

Ed Morrisey argues over at Hot Air:

Actually, no, it’s not also true for a conviction. With a conviction, an employer can assume that the person committed the crime and make hiring decisions based on that information, in whole or in part. The point about arrests is a good one, but most background checks done by hiring companies only include convictions (and in some cases, civil actions as well); arrest records that don’t lead to court appearances are not usually that easy to acquire.

The hiring process involves a series of value judgments, with only a few objective measures. For employers who conduct background checks, conviction records supply one of the few objective measures in the process. If an employer has a choice between two equally qualified applicants and one has a conviction for fraud or theft, it would be absurd to tell the employer that the hiring decision cannot rest on that data. And yet, that’s exactly what the EEOC argues in this “advice” on compliance with its regulations — which in this case the EEOC acknowledges doesn’t exist on this topic. The EEOC is making a recommendation based on its own opinion rather than actual law.

[…]

But here’s the real question: if truly unfair discrimination has become so rare that the EEOC has to attack reasonable and rational choices in hiring based on the actual record of the applicant, hasn’t the EEOC argued for its own dismantling?

I think -- based on the evidence before us -- that it's well past time to send the EEOC packing.

BONUS: Did you note the passage in the EEOC's post that refusing to hire someone because of criminal conduct "could limit the employment opportunities of some protected groups"?

Is the EEOC saying that certain "protected groups" are more likely to have criminal records than other prospective employees who, perhaps, don't belong to any "protected groups"?

Sounds pretty racist to me -- and I should know, for I've recently attended my two-hour, taxpayer-funded refresher on preventing workplace discrimination.

Shame on the EEOC. Bad commission! Bad!

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 15, 2010

Israel, Harvard and Occam's Razor

I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent reason for Harvard selling all its shares in Israeli-owned corporations.

After all, Harvard University wouldn't get rid of all its investments in the only democracy in the Middle East, the only Western nation in a sea of repressive, dictatorial regimes and theocracies, wouldn't divest itself of these holding just because Israel's full of ... Jews, would it?

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

The Mosque at Ground Zero: Color this Brit "Astonished but not surprised"

Perhaps the most concise explanation yet for what is behind the proposed mosque next to Ground Zero, as well as a scathing review of the craven political leadership who sing its praises, from Brit Pat Condell, who says, "Is it possible to be astonished -- but not surprised?"

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 11, 2010

Airshow: Wildcat and Zero!

I spent this past weekend at Naval Air Station Ventura County, where my California State Military Reserve unit was recruiting next to the C-130 transport. I was parked next to a B-25 Mitchell bomber, the plane Jimmy Doolittle and his men used to hit Tokyo shortly after Pearl Harbor.

Sitting in my 1945 Willys Jeep, dressed head to toe in WWII gear, I had a great view of the mock dogfight in the skies above between a Japanese Zero -- the plane that dominated the skies during the early days of the war -- and an American F6F Wildcat, a plane that more than made up for its less-than-graceful lines (especially when compared to the lithe Zero) with gobs of power, lots of firepower, and enough armor to keep the pilot protected.

Here, the Zero maneuvers to get on the Wildcat's six.

The Wildcat presented a big target for the Japanese pilot (actually a white guy from Camarillo).

The Wildcat used its massive engine to pull away from the pursuing Zero, the sound of the big radial's exhausts music to my ears.

The maneuverable -- but lightly-armored Zero -- soon found itself in the sights of the massive Wildcat and it's array of .50 caliber machine guns, capable of putting pounds of lead on target with the press of a finger.

The Wildcat and the Zero flew in formation after they finished their mock dogfight, providing the crowd a nice view of the birds during a photo fly-by. The Zero is one of three still flying; the only one with the original -- and extremely rare Japanese engine -- is based at Chino, CA. This bird has an American Wright Cyclone radial engine under the cowling.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

August 03, 2010

So this is what it's like to sit in a P-51 Mustang!

Did you ever wonder what it was like to sit in the cockpit of a P-51 Mustang, arguably the greatest fighter of World War II? For many of us aviation enthusiasts, this is the closest we'll ever get.

It's a 360-degree, high-resolution, click-and-draggable virtual reality rendering of a P-51. It'll take a while to load, even with a high-speed internet connection, but when it's done, you'll be able to zoom in to get a close look at the controls, spin around, look up, down and around the inside of the old warbird.

This is a screengrab after I zoomed in on the throttle and the controls for the weapons. I've reduced the size and resolution, which should give you an idea of just how detailed this rendering is.

Based on the shape of the canopy -- lots of framing, as opposed to an unobstructed bubble -- she looks like an early-war, "Razorback" model.

Very, very cool.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 02, 2010

Constitution? We don' need no stinkin' Constitution!

Rep. Pete Stark (Moonbat Dem., San Fran. Bay Area) is noted for his combative stance when confronted by unhappy constituents, most famously telling one that he wouldn't waste his own urine on the man.

In the clip above, Stark is asked by a woman just what limits he thinks the Constitution places on the Federal Government. His answer is revealing.

Ed Morrisey over at Hot Air also thinks that Stark's body language is quite telling, the subdued demeanor and slumping posture of a man who knows what he says is indefensible.

Morrisey also points out that, in addition to the argument made by the woman (13th Amendment prohibits Obamacare), "the Fifth Amendment protection against confiscation of private property also applies, as does the Article I, Section 8 mandate on Congress to protect the ownership of “exclusive right to their Writings and Discoveries” for those in the sciences and the arts."

While I constantly lament the weak, attenuated dedication to liberty and limited government that is often on display from the GOP, this clip is as good a litmus test as anything I've seen for separating the knaves and fools from the Congressional herd.

Stark's answer leads to tyranny -- and should bother civil libertarians, be they liberal or conservative.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 26, 2010

The Best and the Brightest, Part II?

A rather surprising opinion piece in the Boston Globe yesterday, comparing Obama and his merry band to JFK and the Ivy League braintrust that ever-so-confidently bollixed things up.

Media critic Neal Gabler penned the piece; he begins by reminding us of the origins of "the best and the brightest," a phrase given ironic significance by the late author David Halberstam.

WHEN ... Halberstam wrote his account of what got this nation into Vietnam, he didn’t find that the architects of the war were obtuse or illogical or commie-obsessed or infatuated with American might. Instead, in Halberstam’s now iconic term that became the title of his best-selling book, they were “the best and the brightest’’ — a superior governing class that was the product of America’s best families, its most prestigious prep schools and universities, and most august law firms and investment banks. The irony is that these geniuses turned out to be so dangerously wrong that the very term “best and the brightest’’ became a sarcastic euphemism for a hubris that leads to disaster.

Do you begin to get a sense of where Gabler's critique is heading? If you know anything about Gabler's political predilections, that opening was like storm clouds on the liberal establishment's horizon.

Gabler explains:

One might have thought, then, that the “best and the brightest’’ would have been eternally discredited like the war they promulgated. But Barack Obama has such a strange, almost reverential faith in the very sorts of folks Halberstam flayed that the president threatens to lead his administration and the country down the same hubristic path.

[...]

Above all, the best and the brightest believed in their own infallibility. They distrusted politics almost as much as they distrusted the proletariat because politics was about compromise and satisfying ninnies (us) who they felt were much beneath them. They were cold, logical, bloodless, and deeply pragmatic. They considered liberal idealists fools, and emotion a weakness. They knew best, which made them extremely intimidating. They failed because they didn’t think they could possibly be wrong.

In many ways, Obama was a sucker for this kind of coldblooded, upper-crust approach to policy and the elitism that went with it ... [s]o it is really no surprise that he has packed his administration with what one might call The Best and the Brightest 2.0 — people who are as dispassionate and rational and suspicious of emotion as the president prides himself as being: a bunch of cool, unflappable customers. (The exceptions are Vice President Joe Biden and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.)

[...]

The difference between 1.0 and 2.0 is that 2.0 are not all Protestant, white males sprung full-blown from the Establishment as 1.0’s fathers and their fathers’ fathers were. Like Obama himself, they are by and large onetime middle-class overachievers who made their way into the Ivy League and then catapulted to the top levels of class and power by being . . . well, the best and the brightest. But in elitism as in religion, no one is more devout than a convert, and these people, again like Obama, all having been blessed by the Ivy League, also embrace Ivy League arrogance and condescension. On this, the Republican critics are right: The administration exudes a sense of superiority.

So what difference does it make if our policy-makers think they are above criticism? As Halberstam shows in “The Best and the Brightest,’’ people who are concerned not with the fundamental rightness of something but with its execution, because the rightness is assumed; people who see what they want to see rather than what is; people who see things in terms of preconceptions rather than of human conduct; people who are incapable of admitting error; people who lack skepticism and the capacity to grow beyond their certainties are the sorts of people who are likely to get us in trouble — whether it is an ever-lengthening war in Afghanistan or ever-deepening economic distress here at home. After all, we’ve been there once before.

Gabler is no one's right-wing ideologue; until a few years ago he was the resident lefty on Fox News Watch (a weekly critique of the media), before moving on to teach at U.S.C., and is currently a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., a think tank that features global warming and carbon trading propaganda front and center on its website.

Let me be clear: I don't buy Gabler's entire premise. I do not think the current administration features anything approximating the best and the brightest, in either an ironic or irony-free sense. But Obama and his advisors do embody the Ivy League elitism and arrogance of the JFK-era crew, coupled with an unalloyed hardcore, left-wing ideological underpinning, something that was notably absent from Kennedy's advisors, many of whom were dedicated anti-communists and World War II veterans.

What I find most significant about the piece is the source of the critique, and the recognition that hubris may be the defining characteristic of this administration.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 18, 2010

Morning flowers

Carnations and roses in the morning sun. I sit at the island, bleary eyed, sipping my coffee and gazing at the flowers, the sun moving slowly, creating blazing highlights and inky black shadows. I set my mug down and pick up my camera ....

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 17, 2010

Tom Jones: Maybe older, but just as good as ever

Tom Jones performed this version of "Green, Green Grass of Home" back in 1968, when he was 28 years old. It's a great performance, but I think Jones is one of those rare performers; his voice seems as strong as ever, mellowing with age, but still capable of killing.

Here's Jones performing "Green, Green Grass of Home" on Jools Holland's New Years' Eve Special, from December of 2009.

I'd never seen this before: Tom Jones paired up with Nina Persson for a cover of the Talking Head's "Burning Down the House."

It's hard to believe Tom Jones was 69 years old when he rocked the stage with this performance of "Kiss" last year. Most '60s-era stars strike me as ridiculous when they strut and strike poses on stage (Rolling Stones? Aerosmith? The Who?), but this guy has the kind of stage presence that younger singers can only dream of.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

What's an anti-establishment, '60s icon to do? Join the GOP

I've often wondered how folks who fashion themselves freedom-loving, anti-establishment types reconcile themselves to a liberal Democratic Party and president who seem ever more interested in micromanaging every aspect of our lives.

If folksinger Arlo Guthrie is any indication, they become Republicans.

Novelist, editor, critic and former hippie John Harding knows where Arlo's coming from.

When singer Arlo Guthrie appeared at the Columbia Festival of the Arts last month, he steered clear of politics. So what he told Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post came like a bolt from the blue: He’s now a registered Republican.

Hey, this is Arlo Guthrie we’re talking about — son of famed Dust Bowl protest singer Woody Guthrie and himself a long-haired icon of the draft-dodging ’60s . … “Flying into Los Angeles, bringing in a couple of keys.” You know? That Arlo Guthrie … a reconstituted conservative?

[...]

Arlo and I are about the same age, and while no one asked me to sing at Woodstock, I probably would have. I made a lot of odd lifestyle choices in those days. To me and my friends, “grass roots” meant something other than a populist uprising.

Still, we were aghast at the idea of Big Brother, and were against most state intrusions into private lives. When I saw how the government was harassing and intimidating students against the Vietnam war, I threw myself into George McGovern’s presidential campaign because his platform included stopping the draft and reining in an out-of-control central government.

Arlo Guthrie’s famous anthem about “The Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” was nothing if not a parable about private citizens standing up against the hydra-headed authority of an overzealous power structure.

It’s not hard to understand Arlo gravitating toward the only party now paying lip service to a limited Federal government. That’s the GOP.

Of course, as time has passed, neither party has been too mindful of its primary mission, which is to look out for our interests. NAFTA? No threat there to American jobs. The border? Good as sealed. A Social Security lock box? No one’s going to rob that baby.

These days, we’re at the mercy of legislators who sign bills without reading them, rack up trillion dollar debts without explanation, and bet our children’s future on impractical energy fixes and economic theories still not proven to work in the real world.

It’s no wonder that everyday people rose up and began mailing empty tea bags to their elected officials— a reminder of the tea tax rebellion that motivated our nation’s founders. We’ve learned that King George can be a nanny as well as a bully, and where is the counterculture ready to oppose that more benign tyranny?

I’m wondering if Arlo hasn’t also been thinking, like me, that these tea party folks could be the hippies of today. They have no leaders, no lobbyists in Washington, no financial backers telling them what to do next.

But they do have powerful media critics. The mainstream newspapers and news outlets have spent a lot of time and energy trying to demonize and marginalize the tea party movement.

I’m sure Arlo remembers how the establishment treated hippies in the 1960s, when even tossing Frisbees in the park was suddenly deemed a subversive activity.

Hippies were mocked as outcasts by late night comedians then, too. They were called rowdy and disrespectful and ill-groomed. Rather than rebut the ideas of a peace activist like Joan Baez, she was rechristened “Phony Joanie” in the funny pages of the so-called “straight” press.

Those tactics would be familiar to anyone who has bothered to meet the real Sarah Palin.

All I’m saying is, don’t be surprised if Arlo Guthrie shows up at a tea party rally some day. I know he’ll agree to sing to the crowd, and when he does, I can’t think of a better choice for him to sing than a little ditty his daddy wrote called “This Land Is Your Land.”

If the GOP can keep concentrate on limited government as its core philosophy, I suspect more and more people who thought of themselves as lifelong Democrats might consider switching parties in order to keep government -- and know-nothing, busybody bureaucrats -- out of our homes, our lives, and our pockets.

Here's the most interesting thing about this story: I suspect that Arlo Guthrie is a more principled conservative than Sen. Lindsay Graham or "Maverick" John McCain.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Something for the glass-is-half-full crowd

There must be something in the air -- economic disaster, car bombs in Mexico, class warfare touted by the president -- that has me scanning the internet for advice on how to survive parlous and perilous times.

Popular Mechanics offers this second-by-second guide (or is that foot-by-foot?) to surviving a 36 thousand-foot plunge after your airplane disintegrates. Remarkably, 31 people have survived such a plunge, without the benefit of a parachute.

In 1972, Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulovic was traveling in a DC-9 over Czechoslovakia when it blew up. She fell 33,000 feet, wedged between her seat, a catering trolley, a section of aircraft and the body of another crew member, landing on—then sliding down—a snowy incline before coming to a stop, severely injured but alive.

Surviving a plunge surrounded by a semiprotective cocoon of debris is more common than surviving a pure free-fall, according to Hamilton’s statistics; 31 such confirmed or “plausible” incidents have occurred since the 1940s. Free-fallers constitute a much more exclusive club, with just 13 confirmed or plausible incidents, including perennial Ripley’s Believe It or Not superstar Alan Magee—blown from his B-17 on a 1943 mission over France. The New Jersey airman, more recently the subject of a MythBusters episode, fell 20,000 feet and crashed into a train station; he was subsequently captured by German troops, who were astonished at his survival.

The tone of the article is remarkably hopeful. Why not? What's the point of being a pessimist as you hurtle through the sky at terminal velocity, shrieking like a banshee?

You have a late night and an early flight. Not long after takeoff, you drift to sleep. Suddenly, you’re wide awake. There’s cold air rushing everywhere, and sound. Intense, horrible sound. Where am I?, you think. Where’s the plane?

You’re 6 miles up. You’re alone. You’re falling.

Things are bad. But now’s the time to focus on the good news. (Yes, it goes beyond surviving the destruction of your aircraft.) Although gravity is against you, another force is working in your favor: time. Believe it or not, you’re better off up here than if you’d slipped from the balcony of your high-rise hotel room after one too many drinks last night.

Or at least you will be. Oxygen is scarce at these heights. By now, hypoxia is starting to set in. You’ll be unconscious soon, and you’ll cannonball at least a mile before waking up again. When that happens, remember what you are about to read. The ground, after all, is your next destination.

Granted, the odds of surviving a 6-mile plummet are extra ordinarily slim, but at this point you’ve got nothing to lose by understanding your situation.

[...]

Whether you’re attached to crumpled fuselage or just plain falling, the concept you’ll be most interested in is terminal velocity. As gravity pulls you toward earth, you go faster. But like any moving object, you create drag—more as your speed increases. When downward force equals upward resistance, acceleration stops. You max out.

Depending on your size and weight, and factors such as air density, your speed at that moment will be about 120 mph—and you’ll get there after a surprisingly brief bit of falling: just 1500 feet, about the same height as Chicago’s Sears (now Willis) Tower. Equal speed means you hit the ground with equal force. The difference is the clock. Body meets Windy City sidewalk in 12 seconds. From an airplane’s cruising altitude, you’ll have almost enough time to read this entire article.

The author discusses the relative merits of a water landing (best to be avoided) and how best to "stick" the landing (head-first is not a good strategy).

Remind me to print this one out for my next flight.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 14, 2010

Oh my! CBS poll: Support for AZ law hits 74 percent

The announcement that the Obama Administration is suing Arizona over the state's anti-illegal immigration law is even more out of step with public opinion than I'd thought. Check out the latest polling from CBS News, hardly a bastion of right-wing reportage.

Public support for Arizona's controversial new immigration law has increased slightly, a new CBS News poll shows, with 57 percent of Americans characterizing the law as "about right" in the way it addresses the issue of illegal immigration.

Support for the measure increased five points since May. Since then, the Justice Department has filed suit against the law, claiming that it usurps federal authority to enforce immigration laws.

The measure in question, signed into law in April and slated to go into effect later this month, makes it a state crime for a person to be in the country illegally. It also requires local law enforcement to question a person about his or her immigration status during all "lawful stops" if there is "reasonable suspicion" that person may be in the country illegally.

Twenty-three percent of Americans think the law goes too far, according to the poll, conducted July 9 - 12. That's down five points from the 28 percent who said in May that the measure goes too far. Another 17 percent said it doesn't go far enough.

About half of Americans - 52 percent -- say states should be able to enact laws regarding illegal immigrants, while 42 percent think only the federal government should able to do so.

There is a sharp partisan divide on this question: most Democrats (58 percent) say laws covering illegal immigration should be the responsibility of the federal government only, while Republicans (64 percent) and independents (58 percent) think the states should be allowed to pass such laws.

More than half (nearly 60 percent!) think the law's about just right -- and another 17 percent think it doesn't go far enough?

Yeah, immigration's going to be a great issue for the Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections.

Stay tuned.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 07, 2010

"Is my dog retarded?"

As the owner of one very smart dog -- and one not-so-smart pup -- I can both empathize with and feel smugly superior to this poor gal and her hilariously dim dog.

Very funny.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 05, 2010

Gov. Chris Christie continues to impress

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie continues to impress me, most recently on last week's edition of The Wall Street Journal Report, where the first 14 minutes of the show featured a one-on-one interview with the governor.

Christie clearly, without equivocation (or a teleprompter) lays out a cogent argument for restoring New Jersey's fiscal health by limiting spending, capping property taxes, and taking on public-sector unions.

Powerline's Scott Hinderaker likens Christie's leadership to that of Winston Churchill; I'm not quite ready to characterize him as Churchillian -- but he is a straight-talking, principled politician, which just doesn't seem possible in this age of Congressional crapweasels and Oval Office community activists.

Beyond his calm presentation of what needs to be done, the other thing that stands out is Christie's unwillingness to pander to the electorate; he's preaching some harsh fiscal medicine, with reductions in services likely, yet he says that the public is smart enough to realize that there's no other way to fix their broken state.

That reveals a deep-seated respect for his fellow citizens, something entirely different from the contempt for the unwashed masses that seems to seethe just beneath the surface of most pols.

Familiarity may breed contempt with most politicians, but the more I learn about Christie, the more impressive he becomes.

Watch the video and see if you agree with me.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 04, 2010

Uncomfortably close to home?

I was reading the Declaration of Independence today; it's something we all ought to do, especially on Independence Day. The Founding Fathers lay out a bill of particulars against King George III, a detailed list of the abuses of power that moved the signatories to the Declaration to risk all -- treason and a date with the hangman if they lost -- in pursuit of liberty.

This charge strikes me as jarring; timeless ... and timely:

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

If you had to summarize Pres. Obama's actions, inaction or reactions (Arizona, anyone?) when it comes to controlling our borders, would you write anything substantially different than what Jefferson, Adams and the others put on parchment in Philadelphia during that long, hot summer?

Remarkable.

How many other portions of the Declaration of Independence apply as much to our own government as they did to the English king?

Start reading!

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Independence Day: We hold these truths to be self-evident ...

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

You can view high-resolution versions of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of RIghts here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Reflecting on Independence Day

This clip, from HBO's miniseries, "John Adams," recreates the moment when George Washington took the oath of office, becoming the nation's first president. An almost unrecognizable David Morse portrays the former general, capturing the man's humility, but it's Paul Giamatti as Adams who's unforgettable; his eyes burn with emotion and revolutionary zeal as he watches the former colonies gain their first chief executive.

It's hard for us today to realize the passions that moved our nation's founding fathers to rebellion -- treachery and treason in the eyes of those loyal to the English monarch -- risking their lives and the lives of their families for independence.

This clip, from the 1972 film version of the hit Broadway musical, "1776," has John Adams (played by the wonderful William Daniels), expressing his frustration with and contempt for Congress -- a feeling well deserved and little changed amongst Congress watchers past and present.

It opens with one of the best lines ever, as Adams storms into Congress:

ADAMS: I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm; and that three or more become a Congress! And, by God, I have had this Congress! For ten years, King George and his Parliament have gulled, cullied and diddled these Colonies with their illegal taxes! Stamp Acts, Townshend Acts, Sugar Acts, Tea Acts! And when we dared stand up like men, they have stopped our trade, seized our ships, blockaded our ports, burned our towns and spilled our blood! And still this Congress refuses to grant any of my proposals on independence, even so much as the courtesy of open debate. Good God, what in Hell are you waiting for?

If you're in the mood to be both entertained and informed, start with "John Adams" and finish with "1776."

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 03, 2010

More depravity, courtesy of the enlightened European Left

Germany's Spiegel provides a mindboggling glimpse into the lunacy of the Left's obsession with remaking society, starting with the children.

I realize the article concentrates on something that happened in the '60s and '70s, but there's a remarkable lack of moral outrage to be found in the story, a fact that is unfathomable to me.

There are three parts to the article, with an accompanying slideshow; read the whole thing.

On this Fourth of July weekend, it's as good a reminder as you're likely to find about the differences between us and our supposed European betters.

Blecch.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

BANG! CRACK! POW! (Now that's a 4th of July celebration)

Honestly, five of the original 13 colonies have banned all consumer fireworks? Is there anything more quintessentially American than kids celebrating the day of the nation's independence with firecrackers? Yeah, I know they were invented by the Chinese almost two thousand years ago, but if they were good enough for the American Revolutionaries, they're damn well good enough for me.

Notice that the further away you get from the coasts, the less control the Nanny State seems to insist on having over its poor, dimwitted subjects.

I grew up in that mythical land known as Post War Baby Boom America, where kids stayed out until dark, swimming pools weren't fenced, no one wore helmets riding bikes, and everyone played with matches, fireworks and realistic-looking toy guns.

The risk-avoidance culture takes all the spontaneity and fun out of life, and in some sense robs Independence Day of its participatory nature, the sense that WE fought for and won our freedom, and that it's truly something worth celebrating.

Quite frankly, my childhood was a lot more fun that that of the overly-supervised, overly-regulated don't-do-that-and-certainly-don't-touch-that modern era.

Happy Fourth of July.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 02, 2010

Hummingbird Tales: We've got a bird down!

I arrived home from work yesterday afternoon and grabbed my camera, ready to see how the hummingbird chicks had fared since I last peeked into their nest.

Making my way through the garage, I opened the side door, which is about three feet away from the birds, and grabbed the six-foot stepladder. As I was about to step outside, I glanced down and saw something on the concrete, next to the doorway -- a tiny clump of frizzy fur and a beak.

What the hell?

It was one of the hummingbird chicks, feebly moving around, lifting its head, eyes still shut. I quickly climbed up the ladder and peered into the nest: Empty! Not a trace of the other chick.

I gathered up a couple of leaves from the trumpet vine and crouched down, trying to roll the chick onto one leaf without touching it with my hands (wanting to avoid having the mother reject the offspring 'cause it smelled of human).

Straining to reach the nest without dropping the chick, I placed it back into the nest, the concerned mother buzzing angrily overhead, then began looking around, trying to figure out what had happened.

There were bits of the nest -- chunks, really -- laying on the ground, but they seemed to have come off of the top lip; the bottom portion seemed intact. I carefully walked the area, looking for the missing chick, which was more difficult than you might think, as the trumpet vine dropped little husks that looked a lot like the baby birds, at least at a glance.

The search was futile; not a trace remained of the missing bird. I backed off and a few minutes later the mother had returned to the nest, sitting atop her remaining offspring.

When I checked on the nest this morning, the chick was laying in the nest, beak pointed up into the air, awaiting the return of it's mom with breakfast.

I'd initially thought that one of the neighborhood cats was responsible, perhaps making a leap for the nest and knocking it about enough to dislodge its occupants, but wouldn't that have caused more damage to the nest?

It's a mystery.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 01, 2010

HP Printers: Consumer Testimonial of the Year

I'm guessing this isn't exactly the kind of publicity Hewlett Packard is looking for, but clearly HP wasn't offering the kind of customer service this soldier needed.

Thus, a lesson in how to disassemble a recalcitrant piece of equipment in mere seconds -- from 20 feet away.

I'm guessing, based on the uniform, that it may actually date from the first Gulf War, so HP may have improved their customer care program in the intervening years, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Hey, I wonder if Carly Fiorina was the CEO of HP when this video was made!

Found via Vanderleun.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:16 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

June 27, 2010

Moonstruck and the Towers

I'm watching Moonstruck on MGM(HD), a movie I haven't seen since the summer of '88. It features a sharp, funny script by playwright John Patrick Shanley, and some incredible casting: Nicholas Cage as the one-handed baker; Danny Aiello as the older brother he blames for the loss of his hand and his fiancee; Olympia Dukakis and Vincent Gardenia; John Mahoney before he was Frasier's grumpy father; and, in a marvelous performance, Cher as the harried bookkeeper with "bad luck" who comes between the brothers.

It's a funny, whimsical film, filled with larger-than-life characters, snappy dialogue, and operatic emotions. But there's a sadness that lurks around the edges, especially if you're a New Yorker, a nostalgia for the ancient bakeries and butcher shops, the family-owned businesses handed down from generation to generation that seemed to thrive in Brooklyn and the narrow streets of TriBeCa, Alphabet City, and Little Italy. And Checker Cabs, when they still looked like real cabs.

Manhattan is as much a star of this film as any of the actors, and it manages to do the seemingly impossible: Make me nostalgic for the Twin Towers. From the opening title sequence, the World Trade Center towers rise above the skyline, the glittering skyscrapers gleaming amongst their lesser neighbors, the inescapable centerpoint of an unforgettable nightline, especially with that big moon, "Que Bella Luna!" shining brightly nearby.

That jarring sensation, that moment when I'm pulled out of the movie because of those ghostly towers, that's just one more reason I hate the bastards who took them down and slaughtered my fellow New Yorkers.

Then the anger subsides and I succumb to the pleasures of a crazy Italian family, La Boheme, and a great romantic comedy.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Amazing low-tech visit to the edge of space -- with a Ventura County angle

Pacific Star II from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

This fellow used styrofoam, duct tape and two cheap digital cameras bought on Ebay to capture some stunning images from the edge of space. Nearly as impressive, he managed to find the cameras after their 35 minute descent, all the way to an olive orchard outside Santa Paula, CA.

At the top of the ascent, the sun shines bright in the inky black of space, the curved horizon of the Earth marking the end of the atmosphere, California nearly 24 miles below.

Great stuff.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 20, 2010

Hummingbird Tales: They're back!

A third generation of hummingbirds are gestating in the nest alongside our house, sheltered beneath the leaves of the trumpet vines. The nest is being recycled just a few months after the last couple of chicks took wing from its downy confines; there had been a year-long break between the laying of the TicTac-sized eggs in the same spot -- but it seems that the pace of egg-laying has accelerated.

The mother -- whom I suspect is one of the chicks from this past Spring -- allowed me to get about two feet away before she took wing, apparently after I crossed the invisible line that separates annoying-but-harmless from could-be-a-threat.

The renovations to the nest this time were subtle: a new layer of what looks like cotton and down, clean, soft and white.

The mother hovered nervously above and to the side, waiting to see what mischief this human was up to.

I snapped a quick picture of the lilliputian eggs nestled in the, well, in the nest, then beat a hasty retreat so the attentive bird could return to her charges.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

A look at the best Dad a guy could have, from the 1930s through the 2000s.

Dad in Golden Gate Park with my Grandmother and his younger sister, my Aunt Lee, circa 1937.

This shot is probably from 1950 -- in Brooklyn -- before Dad joined the Navy.

Dad aboard ship during the Korean War. My father is proud to have served; I'm glad I could carry on the family tradition.

Working at a pharmacy in downtown Los Angeles, circa 1965.

The Lief Family, circa 1965, with Dad's parents. If I haven't mentioned it, it's a scientific fact that they were the best grandparents known to mankind.

Disco Dad. Polyester leisure suit and a redonkulous moustache. Oy.

I snapped these shots during our cross-country train ride in 2004, when Dad and I celebrated his 70th and my 40th birthday by indulging our dislike of flying by riding the rails to Florida, returning to California via the Panama Canal aboard a cruise ship.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:15 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 16, 2010

The Great Communicator II?

Has there been a politician in recent memory who so clearly summarizes what has gone wrong with his state? What needs to be done? Chris Christie is talking about New Jersey, but what he says applies to the rest of the nation, too.

Gov. Christie is speaking at a town hall in Perth Amboy, N.J., but he's speaking directly to what troubles me about California, as well. He speaks for nearly seven minutes -- without a tele-prompter (ahem) -- and delivers a compelling message.

Accountability is important, now more than ever ...

We have to hold each other accountable. All of us understand -- we were taught by our parents, I suspect -- that you don't get something for nothing in this world, ever.

Yet government had tried to sell you over the course of time this idea that we're not going to give you something for nothing -- but we're going to give you something that someone else is going to pay for. So it's not for nothing, but it's for nothing to you.

[...]

The new path, and the bolder path, is a path that will be lined with resistance from those who are benefitting from the current system. And they will attempt to scare you. They'll attempt to scare you about change. And they'll attempt to tell you that your ox is the one that's going to to get gored.

The same people who were telling you that you could get something that someone else will pay for, are now going to tell you to watch out, when change comes, they're going to take it away from you.

We all know that it's being taken away from us as we speak.

Our standard of living, our way of life, is being challenged by an economy where we have too much debt, too big a government, to much spending, and taxes being too high.

[...]

The Day of Reckoning is here.

There's something about governors, serving as the chief executive of a state, that makes them more effective at getting things done, of seizing the bull by the horns, if you will, rather than assuming the blathering personae that seems to attach to those pols who come out of Congress, all talk and little action.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Do the Republicans finally have a candidate for 2012?

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

"Appropriate action will be taken"

The ever-accelerating slide into sloth and unearned entitlement continues apace, the latest example courtesy of the spoiled, slack-jawed mouth-breathers at a school in the Bronx.

Department of Education officials are investigating after students at a Bronx school claimed they were forced to clean toilets as a punishment.

Some students at In-Tech Academy in Kingsbridge say they were assigned janitorial duties as part of their detention as recently as last week.

"After school the principal came in with the inspector lady and she was like 'Oh, everyone has to pitch in and clean the toilets and stuff.' So we was cleaning them and we had to clean around them and nasty, it was just mad nasty," said one student.

"Like that's not cool, like making kids clean toilets like that's not how that should go," said another student.

The DOE says if the allegations are true, appropriate action will be taken.

Look, I'm an educated man, I wear a suit to court, drive a nice car, live in a nice house, and I've been known to take a brush to a toilet bowl upon occasion. When I was a teenager, I used my bare hands -- without a toilet brush! -- to scrub the toilets aboard a submarine, the same toilets more than 90 of my often-disgusting shipmates used.

Cleaning the crappers was work, and someone had to do it. There was no dishonor in the task. And, truth be told, when I was done those stainless-steel bowls gleamed.

For at least a little while.

But my point is it was honest work, I took pride in a task well done, and it was appreciated.

On the other hand, we have geniuses like Mookie:

"Like that's not cool, like making kids clean toilets like that's not how that should go."

I disagree, Chumley. Not only is it "cool" to make kids clean toilets, it's admirable. It could conceivably result in cleaner schools; it might teach students to respect property; and it also drives home the concept that there's value that attaches to labor, no matter how menial some may think it.

I'm in the rare position of applauding the efforts of school administrators.

Especially when they make their charges do things that are "mad nasty."

If only they could teach their students to speak English.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 06, 2010

Remembering D-Day

Looking back across the 66 years since Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, it's easy to forget just how precarious, what a tremendous gamble the ambitious amphibious landing really was. General Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, sat at his desk during the long, stormy night before the invasion and wrote a letter conceding failure -- just in case things went badly -- taking responsibility for the defeat. The following hours would be critical: Would the soldiers of the Third Reich throw the Americans, Brits and Canadians back into the sea?

Eisenhower's pencilled draft was found in a pocket by an aide some days after the Allies had broken through the German defenses and made their way off the beaches. Ike wrote:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops have been withdrawn.

My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

General Eisenhower issued this proclamation to the men before they set sail for France across the stormy Channel, reminding them of what was at stake during the coming desperate hours.

GIs from Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, are amongst the first Americans to set foot on Hitler's Festung Europa in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944. The waiting German troops greeted them with a hail of steel, MG-42 machine guns mowing down men with their distinctive "ripping-cloth" buzz.

Robert Edlin, fighting with the 2d Ranger Battalion, remembered the invasion getting off to a bad start:

"Our assault boat hit a sandbar. I looked over the ramp and we were at least seventy-five yards from the shore, and we had hoped for a dry landing. I told the coxswain, "Try to get in further." He screamed he couldn't. That British seaman had all the guts in the world but couldn't get off the sandbar. I told him to drop the ramp or we were going to die right there.

We had been trained for years not to go off the front of the ramp, because the boat might get rocked by a wave and run over you. So we went off the sides. I looked to my right and saw a B Company boat next to us with Lt. Bob Fitzsimmons, a good friend, take a direct hit on the ramp from a mortar or mine. I thought, there goes half of B Company.

It was cold, miserably cold, even though it was June. The water temperature was probably forty-five or fifty degrees. It was up to my shoulders when I went in, and I saw men sinking all about me. I tried to grab a couple, but my job was to get on in and get to the guns. There were bodies from the I I6th floating everywhere. They were facedown in the water with packs still on their backs. They had inflated their life jackets. Fortunately, most of the Rangers did not inflate theirs or they also might have turned over and drowned.

Having left the relative -- and illusory --safety of the landing craft, GIs from the 16th Infantry Regiment begin the maddeningly slow slog toward the beach, as the German defenders hit them with mortars and machine gun fire.

I began to run with my rifle in front of me. I went directly across the beach to try to get to the seaway. In front of me was part of the II6th Infantry, pinned down and lying behind beach obstacles. They hadn't made it to the seaway. I kept screaming at them, 'You have to get up and go! You gotta get up and go!' But they didn't. They were worn out and defeated completely. There wasn't any time to help them.

I continued across the beach. There were mines and obstacles all up and down the beach. The air corps had missed it entirely. There were no shell holes in which to take cover. The mines had not been detonated. Absolutely nothing that had been planned for that part of the beach had worked. I knew that Vierville-sur-Mer was going to be a hellhole, and it was.

When I was about twenty yards from the seaway I was hit by what I assume was a sniper bullet. It shattered and broke my right leg. I thought, well, I've got a Purple Heart. I fell, and as I did, it was like a searing hot poker rammed into my leg. My rifle fell ten feet or so in front of me. I crawled forward to get to it, picked it up, and as I rose on my left leg, another burst of I think machine gun fire tore the muscles out of that leg, knocking me down again.

I lay there for seconds, looked ahead, and saw several Rangers lying there. One was Butch Bladorn from Wisconsin. I screamed at Butch, 'Get up and run!' Butch, a big, powerful man, just looked back and said, 'I can't.' I got up and hobbled towards him. I was going to kick him in the ass and get him off the beach. He was lying on his stomach, his face in the sand. Then I saw the blood coming out of his back. I realized he had been hit in the stomach and the bullet had come out his spine and he was completely immobilized. Even then I was sorry for screaming at him but I didn't have time to stop and help him. I thought, well, that's the end of Butch. Fortunately, it wasn't. He became a farmer in Wisconsin.

Men from the 16th Infantry Regiment try to find protection from the German machine gunners, hiding for a few moments behind anti-tank obstacles placed on Omaha Beach as part of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's plan to keep the Allies from establishing a beachhead on the Normandy coast.

As I moved forward, I hobbled. After you've been hit by gunfire, your legs stiffen up, not all at once but slowly. The pain was indescribable. I fell to my hands and knees and tried to crawl forwards. I managed a few yards, then blacked out for several minutes. When I came to, I saw Sgt. Bill Klaus. He was up to the seaway. When he saw my predicament, he crawled back to me under heavy rifle and mortar fire and dragged me up to the cover of the wall.

Klaus had also been wounded in one leg, and a medic gave him a shot of morphine. The medic did the same for me. My mental state was such that I told him to shoot it directly into my left leg, as that was the one hurting the most. He reminded me that if I took it in the ass or the arm it would get to the leg. I told him to give me a second shot because I was hit in the other leg. He didn't.

There were some Rangers gathered at the seaway - Sgt. William Courtney, Pvt. William Dreher, Garfield Ray, Gabby Hart, Sgt. Charles Berg. I yelled at them, 'You have to get off of here! You have to get up and get the guns!' They were gone immediately.

My platoon sergeant, Bill White, an ex-jockey whom we called Whitey, took charge. He was small, very active, and very courageous. He led what few men were left of the first platoon and started up the cliffs. I crawled and staggered forward as far as I could to some cover in the bushes behind a villa. There was a round stone well with a bucket and handle that turned the rope. It was so inviting. I was alone and I wanted that water so bad. But years of training told me it was booby-trapped.

Photographer Frank Capa lay in the surf of the Easy Red Sector of Omaha Beach, snapping pictures from the furthest edge of the American assault, capturing the frenzied rush to get ashore and stop being a sitting duck in the surf. Capa's photos were rushed back to London, where the majority were destroyed in an accident in the lab. Only a few survived, comprising the most compelling images of the D-Day landings taken on the American beaches.

I looked up at the top of the cliffs and thought, I can't make it on this leg. Where was everyone? Had they all quit? Then I heard Dreher yelling, 'Come on up. These trenches are empty.' Then Kraut burp guns cut loose. I thought, oh God, I can't get there! I heard an American tommy gun, and Courtney shouted, 'Damn it, Dreher! They're empty now.'

There was more German small-arms fire and German grenades popping. I could hear Whitey yelling, 'Cover me!' I heard Garfield Ray's BAR [Browning automatic rifle] talking American. Then there was silence.

Now, I thought, where are the 5th Rangers? I turned and I couldn't walk or even hobble anymore. I crawled back to the beach. I saw 5th Rangers coming through the smoke of a burning LST that had been hit by artillery fire. Co!. Schneider had seen the slaughter on the beaches and used his experience with the Rangers in Africa, Sicily, and Anzio. He used the smoke as a screen and moved in behind it, saving the 5th Ranger Battalion many casualties.

A wounded GI is helped ashore at Omaha Beach my some of his fellow soldiers. Note the still-inflated life preserver on the soldier to his left.

My years of training told me there would be a counterattack. I gathered the wounded by the seaway and told them to arm themselves as well as possible. I said if the Germans come we are either going to be captured or die on the beach, but we might as well take the Germans with us. I know it sounds ridiculous, but ten or fifteen Rangers lay there, facing up to the cliffs, praying that Sgt. White, Courtney, Dreher, and the 5th Ranger Battalion would get to the guns. Our fight was over unless the Germans counterattacked.

I looked back to the sea. There was nothing. There were no reinforcements. I thought the invasion had been abandoned. We would be dead or prisoners soon. Everyone had withdrawn and left us. Well, we had tried. Some guy crawled over and told me he was a colonel from the 29th Infantry Division. He said for us to relax, we were going to be okay. D, E, and F Companies were on the Pointe. The guns had been destroyed. A and B Companies and the 5th Rangers were inland. The 29th and Ist Divisions were getting off the beaches.

This colonel looked at me and said, 'You've done your job." I answered, 'How? By using up two rounds of German ammo on my legs?" Despite the awful pain, I hoped to catch up with the platoon the next day."

An Army medic moves down the beach providing aid to the wounded, as exhausted troops huddle against the base of chalk cliffs, protected for the moment from the barrage of incoming German fire.

Less than 24 hours earlier the same GIs had marched through the streets of seaside English towns, on the way to the docks where they'd board the troop transports for the ride across the English Channel to the Normandy coast. It's impossible not to wonder how many of these men made it off the beach the next morning.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 31, 2010

Zac Brown Band: "Highway 20 Ride"

The Zac Brown Band has had a series of hits over the last year -- "Chicken Fried" their biggest -- but this song is the keeper on the album, a divorced dad's heartfelt lament to his son. The video's terrific, too; you have to have a heart of stone not to tear up by the time it's done.

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May 28, 2010

Obama wants this guy on a federal appeals court

When people ask me why I consider out-of-control judges to be the weak link in our legal system, it's examples like this that come to mind. In a rational society, a black-robed poltroon who actively intervened to save a serial killer from the death penalty because the judge believed the strangler's sexual sadism somehow lessened the severity of the crimes, would be relegated with great vigor to the unemployment line.

In the Obama administration, it earns the judge a nomination to a lifetime appointment to the federal appellate courts, just one step below the Supreme Court.

The American Spectator lays out the facts about Judge Chatigny and the serial killer; that he remains on the bench -- much less is being considered for a promotion to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals -- is mindboggling.

In 2005, serial murderer and rapist Michael Ross found an unlikely sympathizer -- federal judge Robert Chatigny, who called Ross's sexual sadism a mitigating factor in his case. He threatened and berated Ross's lawyer into further postponing his death sentence against this client's own wishes.

[...]

Ross, called the "Roadside Strangler," was convicted in 1984 after confessing to the murder and rape of eight different women. He was given the only death sentence Connecticut had seen in 23 years, and his attorneys unsuccessfully pursued all of the usual appeals and habeas actions. After nearly twenty years of appeals, Ross made the unusual decision to forego all further post-conviction relief and accept his execution.

District of Connecticut Judge Chatigny entered the picture when a series of "next friend" actions were brought by Ross's family and former defense lawyers claiming, among other things, that Ross was incompetent to make such a decision.

Without recusing himself or disclosing his prior involvement with the original appeal of Ross's conviction, Chatigny appears to have acted as an advocate rather than a neutral judge. State courts had already decided on Ross's competency, but Chatigny held additional factual hearings and granted relief on a basis not briefed by any parties.

After the appellate court and the U.S. Supreme Court vacated his rulings, Chatigny took the extraordinary move of ordering a conference call with Ross's attorney, when appellate courts had vacated any grounds on which Chatigny could take further action.

In this conference call, Chatigny bullied Ross's attorney into ignoring his client's own wishes and seeking a stay of execution. The transcript of the conference call shows that Chatigny repeatedly referred to Ross's attorney as "facilitating" or "bringing about" Ross's execution. Reading the transcript, it's as if Chatigny does not even acknowledge that Ross'a own actions, the rape and murder of multiple women, are the cause of his execution.

He then expressed his opinion, based on a tour of the prison Ross was housed in for a number of years, that it was unlikely that a person in such circumstances could make a knowing and voluntary choice to accept his execution. He told the attorney that "it would cause me tremendous unease if I were in your position....I would need to have an expert who knows why the courts of Europe will not extradite someone to a place like [that]."

Shockingly, Chatigny cites Ross's sexual sadism as a mitigating factor. "But looking at the record in a light most favorable to Mr. Ross, he never should have been convicted. Or if convicted, he never should have been sentenced to death because his sexual sadism, which was found by every single person who looked at him, is clearly a mitigating factor... He can sit on his hands and sit mute and he may find not only that the death sentence is set aside, he may find the death penalty has been abolished. He may find that he gets the life sentence that he has repeatedly said he would take in an instant if it was offered to him."

After this exchange, Chatigny threatened that he would "have [the attorney's] law license" if he did not seek a stay of execution to further investigate his client's competency, despite the state's and the Supreme Court's decisions on the matter, as well as the lawyer's own judgment from working closely with Ross for years.

State attorneys in Connecticut were so shocked by Chatigny's activism on behalf of Ross that they filed a complaint with the Second Circuit alleging judicial misconduct, and a group of legislators urged the House Judiciary Committee to conduct an investigation. The Second Circuit panel, including then Judge Michael Mukasey, opted not to impose sanctions on Judge Chatigny. Chatigny wasn't punished for his conduct, but that doesn't mean we should ignore his actions here when evaluating him for a promotion. It is no surprise that under the unusual circumstances the panel granted him some room to act outside of traditional ethical boundaries, and they acknowledged as much in the opinion.

The video includes Q&A from Chatigny's Senate hearing, along with portions of an interview with the killer, who discusses reliving the murders as he ... pleasured himself while on death row.

Note how carefully Chatigny parses his words when questioned by the senators: He regrets the choice of words, the language he used. But he doesn't regret what he did, his unethical and morally reprehensible conduct.

As the blogger Ace put it:

Obama's nominee thought he was the "least culpable" of all death row inmates, because, he feels, a tendency towards sexual sadism as he had should be a mitigating factor, not merely against the death penalty, but conviction, too.

You know who else is motivated by sexual sadism? All other serial killers in history.

But, you know, we can't even convict him; because he wanted to rape and strangle women to death proves he suffered from sexual sadism syndrome (or whatever) and therefore he's innocent. Must be -- if you have a desire to do this therefore you're too sick to punish therefore, effectively, it's not against the law to strange and rape eight women to death.

To commit the crime is de facto proof of innocence of the crime, in this guy's understanding of the law. If you commit serial rape and murder, you must have some sexual sadism tendencies, and therefore, of course, you don't have the necessary competency to be convicted and certainly not executed.

This is as bad a case of judicial cluelessness as I've ever seen, and it speaks volumes that this is the kind of judge Obama thinks should serve on the Federal Appellate bench.

For more information on Judge Chatigny, click here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

May 25, 2010

Get Lost. Seriously.

Sunday night's series finale of Lost is like that breakfast burrito you bought from a street vendor, a purchase flying in the face of common sense and sound food-handling practices. Oh, sure, it tasted pretty good (at first), but with every passing hour the rumblings and gurglings remind you that something isn't sitting right.

This video is a reminder of what a con job producers Cruse and Lindeloff pulled on viewers, gulling them into believing that there was some internal logic at work here, some grand story arc, a master plan.

How bad was this ending? It makes me pine for the Seinfeld finale, heretofore the worst ending since Hitler and Eva Braun's honeymoon.

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May 11, 2010

Flying Fortress

The late afternoon sun cast its glare over the old warbird's aluminum skin, highlighting one of the numerous .50 caliber machine guns responsible for it's too-optimistic nickname: Flying Fortress. The casualty rate for aircrews was staggering; a GI had a better chance of surviving the war carrying a rifle and fighting his way on foot across Europe.

Nikon D-40, 18mm, 1/800, f14, EV -1.00

The corona of light around the bomber's nose reveals the perspex that provided the bombardier an unobstructed view of the Third Reich's Festung Europa far below -- but scant protection from German fighters making head-on attacks, cannons blazing.

Nikon D-40, 18mm, 1/1250, f18, EV -3.00

The sun peeks through the cloud cover, blue skies revealed as the gale-force winds shred the overcast, opening a hole through which the Fortress seems ready to soar.

Nikon D-40, 18mm, 1/500, f11, EV -1.00

The supercharger beneath one of the B-17's radial engines seems to glow, it's casing pitted and discolored by the tremendous heat generated from boosting the output of the gigantic powerplants.

Nikon D-40, 18mm, 1/50, f3.5, EV -3.0

The Flying Fortress was cutting-edge technology in it's day, but there are constant reminders scattered throughout of low-tech solutions to the emergencies awaiting the airmen in the hostile European skies.

Nikon D-40, 112mm, 1/30, f5.6, EV -2.0

The Aluminum Overcast sits beneath appropriately gloomy Oxnard skies, the same ashen skies that anxious pilots must have peered into as they waited at English airfields, awaiting the word on their next mission.

The Flying Fortress was designed for fighting a new kind of aerial war, but its lethal purpose notwithstanding, the plane had art-deco touches adding a stylish -- and incongruous -- flavor to the bomber, like the detail on the center of the yoke: Moderne fonts evoking speed, "Boeing" forming the shape of a plane.

The B-17's nose art -- and the late afternoon sun -- is reflected in the polished chrome of the spinner covering the port inboard prop.

Nikon D-40, 200mm, 1/80, f5.6, EV -1.67

A self-portrait of the photographer alongside the Aluminum Overcast, Oxnard, California, 2010.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

May 09, 2010

Obama: Forget what I've done if it contradicts what I say

Drudge linked to a story on Pres. Obama bemoaning the influence of "new media" (read: bloggers) he doesn't like and the influence of hi-tech gadgets to college graduates.

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.

He bemoaned the fact that "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction," in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

The story emphasizes Obama's media criticism, which I find troubling, given that a president ought not be singling out any form of media, especially because he doesn't approve of its content.

But the more interesting angle on the story is the one Drudge highlighted by linking another story directly below, as well as posting an illuminating photo, honing in on something I noticed when I first read the college graduation story this morning.

This passage struck me as risible:

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work ..."

When I read that, I thought to myself, "Really? Obama would have us believe he doesn't know how to 'work' an iPod? He doesn't know how to 'work' an iPad? He doesn't know how to 'work' a game console? How stupid does he think we are?"

Apparently he thinks we're this stupid:

That's a picture of Obama using his ever-present Blackberry, the subject of the other article Drudge linked, detailing then-President-elect Obama's obsession with his Crackberry and the up-to-the-minute data and news available to him via the device.

The article -- and the photo -- undercut one premise of Obama's graduation speech, as well as highlight for me the staggering contempt he has for the American people.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when the president of the United States tells you that he can't figger out these newfangled gadgets, these iPods and iPads, he's playing you for fools, acting the fool like the rubes he thinks you are, to prove that he's one of us.

But he assumes too much. He assumes that the vast, unwashed masses are too stupid to use these devices too, and will therefore like and appreciate his faux techo-ineptitude in the service of his political point.

And he also assumes that we'll forget that he's a technophile, a user and consumer of hi-tech information and media devices, like his trusty Blackberry, which of course, makes his throw-away line in his commencement address yet another wholly unnecessary bit of cheap -- and dishonest -- rhetoric.

Stuff like this cheapens and demeans the man -- about whom I care little -- but it also cheapens and demeans the office of the president, which is (or ought to be) of some importance to all Americans.

This guy's a real piece of work.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

May 04, 2010

De Gustibus: Alexis Baking Company & Cafe

Thanks to Yelp! and it's opinionated users, where to eat in Napa was no longer a mystery to us Southlanders: the Alexis Baking Company and Cafe was the place to be for brunch. They open their doors at 8 o'clock, so we hit the bricks and walked the three blocks from the hotel, arriving shortly thereafter -- to find the place packed.

After a moderate wait, we were seated, coffee was poured, and the menus were pored over.

Take a gander at that first item: "Bananas Foster French Toast with Rum Soaked Raisins."

Lo-Carb? What is this "Lo-Carb" of which you speak?

The bananas are fostered, the raisins are rum soaked, the sugar is sprinkled, the maple syrup was poured -- and I was done for.

Magnificent!

The only question was: Would I make it back to the hotel before the carb coma kicked in?

The Quiche Florentine with Spinach and Onions was also delicious -- but it had too many vegetables and wasn't nearly as guilt inducing as the divinely decadent melding of breakfast and dessert into the mindbogglingly healthy-lifestyle-inappropriate concoction that landed on my plate.

Alexis Baking Company and Cafe, 1517 Third Street, Napa, Calif., (707) 258-1827.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The actual law is apparently beside the point

This is great: The most ridiculous arguments -- hysterical, hyperbolic, and often just ignorant -- against the Arizona law targeting *illegal* immigrants. As Byron York points out, most of the arguments can be rebutted simply by reading the statute.

But I particularly enjoyed what Mark Steyn -- the Canadian expatriate pundit who calls New Hampshire home -- had to say in his response to the howls of outrage directed at the so-called Arizona fascists and their new anti-illegal immigration law:

As I write, I have my papers on me — and not just because I’m in Arizona. I’m an immigrant, and it is a condition of my admission to this great land that I carry documentary proof of my residency status with me at all times and be prepared to produce it to law-enforcement officials, whether on a business trip to Tucson or taking a 20-minute stroll in the woods back at my pad in New Hampshire.

Who would impose such an outrageous Nazi fascist discriminatory law?

Er, well, that would be Franklin Roosevelt.

Oh, the irony, hypocrisy and ignorance abound.

Do read the rest of Steyn's commentary, will you?

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April 24, 2010

Michael Ramirez

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