Mr. Well Spoken ("W") speaks!

"I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember --I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" -- George W. Bush, asked if the tide is turning in Iraq

This was copied from Doonsbury in Slate on 23 July 2006.

It's hard to believe that folks are still proud to have voted for this man!

National Weather Service Employees Organization to the Rescue!

The National Weather Service Employees Organization NWSEO had to take the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center to court for failing to bargin over safety issues. The judge sided with the Union! Here is his report:
FEDERAL LABOR RELATIONS AUTHORITY MEMORANDUM dated June 30, 2006 about proposed unsafe penetrations of Tropical Systems by
Gulfstream-IV aircraft.

The AOC bypassed the Union and "negotiations" directly with the flight personnel. A major function of a Union is to represent and champion the weak (employees) against the strong (management). Without a "level playing field", such negotiates" between management and workers ends up with workers rubber stamping any proposal management choices to impose...

As an aside, the Union Stewart and Vice Union Steward at the AOC are in grave danger of being fired. This is the traditional fate of "whistle blowers", of course...

Bull Ensign certification...

______I was an Ensign at a Naval Command on Guam. I had been prior Enlisted for about 10 years and simply didn't "fit the mold". So, I inadvertently pissed off the Commanding Officer (Naval Captain Jesus Bernard Tupaz). Very reliable people told me that "Je-zus" (he called himself "Jessie" actually) got royally fucked over by his classmates at the Naval Academy; he was apparently the first "Mexican American" to attend the "Boat School". (He was born and raised in the part of Northern Baja Mexico called "Los Angeles".)
______I could do no right in his eyes even though I tried very hard.
______Anyway, in the fullness of time, I became the Senior Ensign and thus the "Bull Ensign".
______It was traditional in 1982 to have the Commanding Officer sign the "Bull Ensign Declaration" and to present this to said Bull Ensign. (Perhaps it didn't help that I'd laughed myself into hysterics at my predecessor's "initiation"; it was simply ludricious and horribly funny!)
______So, my beloved and precious CO waited until he was away from the Command and had his XO sign the form. Then, because the XO had probably gotten the "hint" that it wouldn't be a good idea to give this to me, he stated he had to "go to an important meeting" and had my Department Head, CDR Ronald Garcia, (a "white" man in spite of the name) "grant" me this "distinction".
______It was most uncomfortable because Garcia really didn't want to be issuing this "honor" and Tupax had (and not for the first time) succeeded it turning a "sacred Navy ritual" into dog shit for me...
______Tupaz had a bad habit of micromanaging everything, especially the "Joint Typhoon Warning Center". There were several instances when Tupaz forced the JTWC to issue Tropical Storm warnings for large thunderstorm clusters that simply died off. After a while, the JTWC became known as the "Joint Thunderstorm Warning Center"!
______Here is a thank you note, in one of the JTWC annual reports, writen about a decade before Political Correctness became popular. To be fair, I should give "the Devil his Due" (for "Devil" was much closer to the way he was seen than "Jesus"!). CAPT Tupaz does have a PhD in Tropical Forecasting. (God help anyone who made the mistake of calling him "Dr"!)

The staff of JTWC is indebted to Captain Jesus B. Tupaz, USN for his many valuable suggestions and insightful comments throughout the preparation of the 1981 Annual Tropical Cyclone Report.

______Tupax was a very dangerous enemy to have and an especially dangerous enemy in that he did not know how to write officer fitreps (Fitness Reports) that would allow an officer to get promoted. He hurt a lot of his officers...
______Words can not express how relieved I was when Tupax was transferred to another command.

______There is a belief that one's time as an Ensign is when one is allowed to screw up and to learn the trade of Naval Officer. Unfortunately, in 1982, the Navy had gone a long time since their last war. In that situation, with no external enemies, the United States Navy turns on it's own and an Ensign's Mistakes can't be survived. I didn't survive the errors of my first serveral months and I knew other officers who didn't either. If we'd been in a major, decades long war, I would have retired as a LCDR or CDR but I had the misfortune to be serving during a "time of Peace" (the 1980s)
______(This is a bit simplistic I must admit...)
A better view:

Carl Rove should be fired...

This news item says that Robert Novak used Carl Rove to confirm that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA "spook". Didn't "Bush the Younger" say he'd shitcan -er- fire anyone who leaked secrets. The "secret idenity" of Valerie Plame was secret. So, why hasn't Carl Rove "been sent down the road"?

some scary shit: "How bin Laden got away"

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0304/p01s03-wosc.html

This article from the March 04, 2002 Christian Science Monitor details how bin Laden escaped. This isn't exactly what I'd been hoping to ever read; I don't recall this story making it onto the "International Section" of the local TV news or CNN or "unFair and unBalanced",.

The Libertarians political quiz...

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html and is well worth taking. I am a Liberal.


http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html and is well worth taking. I am a Liberal.

on child abuse...

Here are comments on the nature of "child abuse" and the conclusion is this "Jill" (ref: http://www.slate.com/id/2145277/) is a child abuser. Then, too, so are parents. I'll quote "RonMan":

"Also, The National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, is a good source for information on what constitutes child abuse. From the publication here

http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/general/legal/statutes/defineall.pdf

it states: "Willful harming or injuring of a child or the endangering of the person or health of a child means a situation in which any person willfully causes or permits any child to suffer, or inflicts thereon, unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or custody of any child, willfully causes or permits the person or health of the child to be placed in a situation in which his or her person or health is endanger." WILLFULLY CAUSES ANY CHILD TO SUFFER, OR INFLICTS THEREON…MENTAL SUFFERING. This is exactly what Jill has done."

After reading our governments definition of child abuse I must conclude that each and every parent is a child abuser. The first thing a baby learns on its own is to cry. Its natural, it's the only way for the baby to get its mother's attention. It can't speak and tell you its hungry so it cries, it can't tell you it has to poop so it cries and this goes on and on and on and on till about 3-4 years of age. My kids will fall and look at our reactions to figure out if they should laugh or cry. Here is a situation that I would like you to explain to me what the difference is. The other day I refused to stop at McDonald's and my kids cried. This was a deliberate act on my part, to not stop and so am I now a child abuser? This is why this discussion is a waste of time; we should be more concerned about the globing warming problem and the destruction of our planet…

That would include the last time my father beat me (I was 16). He gave me the choice of "beating or leave the house forever". I took the beating, didn't leave the house physically for another year (off to the safety of college and the Navy) and never reconsiled with him...

I kind of wish we could have reconsiled. I miss the loving Father of when I was a child and think I found a Father in my Father-In-Law...