Archive for August, 2003
My thoughts
I just finished watching The History Channel’s two-hour documentary about the flight engineers of Mission Control during the manned space flights of the 1960s and early 1970s. Although there was a lot of good stuff, especially the interviews with some of the principal participants, I sure wish that there had been more information in this program. It was long on generalities and short on details.
The show ran more like a general history of the manned space program from its inception during Mercury through the “successful failure” of Apollo 13. It completely skipped over a lot of things I was hoping to learn more about, especially the nearly-disasterous Gemini 8 mission, and rushed through even the biggest crises of the period, the Apollo 1 launchpad fire and the events of Apollo 13. I was hoping to see and hear some of the actual discussions that the engineers had during these events, and though there were a few snippets, there wasn’t really anything new. I was hoping for more in-depth discussion of the thought processes the men on the ground used to bring the men in space back safely.
I was hoping to get a glimpse of what it was like to be one of the crew-cut, pocket-protector nerds that sent men to the moon while their former high school classmates smoked pot, listened to The Doors, and burned draft cards and bras. There wasn’t much of that. One thing that I did learn, though, is that most of the engineers at mission control were BS degree holders, not PhDs or Masters degree holders. I don’t know what the mix at NASA is these days, but I imagine there aren’t a lot of BS holders running around, at least the ones who’s “BS” stands for Bachelor of Science. Maybe there are too many braniacs, not enough doers these days? Just a thought.
There wasn’t a lot of footage that I hadn’t seen before, and, as usual, I wished that the History Channel would institute a system to let viewers know which footage is genuine, which footage is genuine but not specifically of the events they’re discussing, and which footage is re-enacted. I think an unobtrusive little icon in the lower corner of the screen to let viewers know what it is they’re looking at isn’t asking too much. I understand that often there just isn’t actual footage available, and I value well-researched re-enactments, but I think it’s important that viewers understand exactly what they’re getting. Sort of a truth-in-reporting standard, which I realize Just Isn’t The Way It’s Done.
To get a better look at the flight engineers’ handling of a crisis, I recommend the 1995 film Apollo 13. It seems that The History Channel knows that the film is a top-notch portrayal of that ill-fated flight, since they aired it right after the documentary tonight. Failure Is Not An Option gets one thumb up, one thumb down from MO. Disappointing.
You may have noticed that there aren’t any more banner adds at the top of Murdoc Online. After weeks of trying to sign up for the premium Blog*Spot Plus, I finally got through to a live one. Their ordering system is still down as they upgrade, hopefully imporvements afforded by the recent purchase of Blogger by Google, but I managed to get ahold of someone in support.
After explaining that I had been trying for so long to upgrade (and send them money to do so) she upgraded me on the spot. It also probably didn’t hurt that I pointed out that TypePad had gone live and that they offered similar, if not slightly better, service for about the same price. I said I’d stay with Blogger if I could get what what I needed from them. I was upgraded “as a courtesy.” That’s great, especially since they don’t seem to be interested in charging me for this courtesy. Everyone likes to dog Blogger, but I’ve got to say that, now that I’ve managed to upgrade, that I’ve had good luck in the short time I’ve been posting here.
The upgrade gives me hosting space for files (including pictures), site hit statistics (about 20-30 per day besides me), and increased bandwidth (not currently a concern) in addition to the removal of the banner adds. I can also host sub-blogs and include password protection for the site or particular pages, but I’m not interested at this point. Normally, this level of service is $5 per month, which I expect to start paying once the “new Blog*Spot”, whatever it will be, is up and running.
This morning, while out running, I came up on a group of Marines and a couple dozen teenaged kids, a few of them girls, marching along the public trail I run on. The kids were each wearing a helmet and some webbing. Some of them had packs on, as well. Maybe some ROTC group or something. As I approached, the Marine in the back yelled out “Make room from behind!” and the marchers, in two lines, split to the sides of the path to let me pass between them. I said a number of “Thanks, guys!” as I passed, and several of them called out “You’re welcome, sir!”
I came upon them again as I headed back. This time all the kids were all sitting along the path, out of breath. The Marines were going up and down the path, handing out bottled water. “Don’t say the Corps never gave you nothin’ for free!” a sergeant said as he handed one to a sweaty boy. They moved aside so I could pass, and that was that.
God bless ‘em.
The Marines Want AC-130s (from Strategy Page)
The USMC is looking into getting a couple of AC-130 gunships.
Noting that the AC-130s could circle the battlefield for up to six hours, had excellent night vision devices and a wide array of pinpoint accurate firepower, the marines see the AC-130 as the perfect close air support aircraft in situations where there are no enemy warplanes operating. The marines see themselves getting into urban battles in unruly parts of the world in the future. There will be a need for pinpoint firepower from above, to avoid civilian casualties, and the AC-130 fits the bill.
Most of the enemies we are going to be fighting in the coming decades don’t have air forces. The AC-130 is a superb weapons platform that can loiter for hours and deliver immediate, exact fire support for grunts on the ground.
The F-22 superfighter is a weapon to fight the Third World War. The AC-130 is a weapon to fight the third world. It appears that, for every F-22 we don’t build, we can build three AC-130s. But I guess it depends on who’s congressional districts the AC-130s are built in.
Median Income for 4-Person Families, by State
$63K? I am SO fired as family bread-winner.
Thanks for the heads up, Donald Sensing. Yeah. Thanks a lot.
Magnet for Evil (Registration Req)
I don’t normally read Mareen Dowd’s column, but the title in my local newspaper (remember those?) caught my eye as I think that “Magnet for Evil” is EXACTLY what’s going on in Iraq. She’s referring to the fact that Isalmic militants are apparently heading to Iraq in droves to kill themselves against the infidels.
They [the administration before the invasion] made it sound as if Islamic fighters on a jihad against America were slouching toward Baghdad to join forces with murderous Iraqis.There was scant evidence of it then, but it’s coming true now.
Well, actually, there was a great deal of evidence of it then as it was happening, as reported by CENTCOM, the Pentagon, the Kurds, Iraqi civilians, the Arab press, US troops, and embedded reporters. I mean, I think she may have been the only one that didn’t think foreign fighters were attacking US forces at the time. Apparently she’s only catching on just now.
Here’s another classic move:
Before the Iraq war, the Bush team inflated the threats to America; since the war, the Bush team has deflated the threats to America.
Well, maybe the lack of direct threats has something to do with the bad guys worrying about their own backyard instead of taking piloting lessons in Florida. This argument is usually brought to the surface by opponents of the winning plan after something bad has been averted (victoriously) . Sort of along the lines of “Since the USSR never attacked Western Europe, the threat was overblown, and all the money and effort the military spent was such a waste. Silly, really.
And the ever-popular
Even the Bush people, who tend to look at excruciatingly difficult problems and say no prob, were shaken by yesterday’s carnage, which delivered a terrible truth: just because we got Uday and Qusay, Iraqi militants are not going to stop blowing up Westerners.
Really? I never thought of that! Some guys will still keep fighting even though we got Uday and Qusay? The only people I heard expressing the idea that it was over when we got them were a few clueless people in the media and Scrappleface (which was in all probability making a joke). You’ll notice that Dowd doesn’t actually quote anyone as being shocked, she just implies that “the Bush people” “were shaken.” (And never mind that she hasn’t been above manipulating a quote when it helped.
She closes with
So where are we? We can’t leave, and we can’t stay forever. We just have to slug it out.
Exactly.
It seems that she’s forgotten that there is a WAR on.
And make no mistake, Iraq is only one campaign in what will be a long and brutal war. Iraq is something like D-Day in World War 2. We’ve already taken the fight to the enemy in Italy (Afghanistan) but this is the big push. Were the reporters calling for Roosevelts head three weeks after the troops hit the Normandy beaches because they were tied up in the bocage and Monty still hadn’t take Caen? (He was supposed to take the city on the first day. It took a month.)
The invasion of Iraq went WILDLY better than nearly anyone could have hoped for. The US and civilian casualties were WAY below what anyone predicted. Baghdad fell so quickly that everyone, including the Pentagon, wondered where the hell the Iraqi army was. The horrific terrorist attacks opponents of the invasion said would happen never came off. The unequalled ecological disaster never materialized. So all that’s left is to nitpick the occupation.
Excuse me, but how much better could things really be going?
The military has said all along that foreign fighters were in Iraq. The administration has said that we will be there for a while. So why is the media getting all hyped up about this like it’s some big surprise? The president said “Bring them on!” when asked about foreign fighters in Iraq. He’s goading them on, folks. He’s daring them to come to Iraq and fight. These people are difficult to track down and even harder to corner in their caves and sewers. So we’re just egging them on, then waiting for them to come up into the sunlight and fight.
Was this the plan all along? I don’t know. Neither do you. Neither does Maureen Dowd. It may have been the general idea, and if it was they wouldn’t have told us. If it wasn’t, well, that’s war, boys and girls. Assess. Adapt. Overcome. Either way, we have ourselves nice little base smack dab in the middle of the hornet’s nest. We won’t have to beg for basing rights in Iraq. We won’t have to try and bribe Iraq to let us pass an infantry division through on the way to the next campaign. We won’t have to negotiate for overflight rights. Look at the countries around Iraq. Syria. Iran. Saudi Arabia. We aren’t setting up camp there by accident.
This is a war. We are playing to win.
And Roosevelt didn’t go before the American public in 1943 and try to convince them that his plans to invade Normandy the following year were just.
Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek
A Happy Fun Pundit look at everyone’s favorite sci-fi television series. My favorite:
3. Technobabble.
The other night, I couldn’t get my car to start. I solved the problem by reversing the polarity of the car battery, and routing the power through my satellite dish. The resulting subspace plasma caused a rift in the space-time continuum, which created a quantum tunnelling effect that charged the protons in the engine core, thus starting my car. Child’s play, really. As a happy side-effect, I also now get the Spice Channel for free.
Enjoy.
Israel assassinates Hamas leader
NOW the truce is over? Never mind that
Hamas had carried out two suicide bombings despite the cease-fire, including the bus attack Tuesday.
Now that Israel has struck, the truce is over.
That’s why no one really believes that any ‘road map’ for peace has much hope. There are too many individuals that will break any cease-fire, and it won’t take much (understandibly) to goad Israel into retaliating.
PALESTINIAN PRIME Minister Mahmoud Abbas called the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab “an ugly crime” and warned that it would make it harder to crack down on militant groups.
I guess that depends on who’s going to be doing the cracking.
A reader commented on my post about deregulation of power sales. He says
What if the problem is a system that is not under control for transients of under one second.
and directs me to a piece he wrote about the way electric power is distributed and some issues that crop up when doing so over long distances. Obviously, the practice of importing electricity involves long distances (that’s the whole point) and has been encouraged by the deregulation that has occurred to date.
It’s a very good article. Check it out. The summary is, basically, that blackouts like the recent big one will continue unless either local generation (meaning shorter distribution distances) or effective local storage (to offset the irregularities caused by longer distances) are built. Until they are, we don’t have enough control over a complex system that everyone depends on.
He also comments
What bothers me most about all the commenting on the subject is that everyone with a light switch is an electrical power expert.
Although I never claimed to be an expert, I am a proponent of increased de-regulation of the electricity market, despite not understanding exactly the mechanics of importing electricity.
His article refers to an earlier piece of his about high-speed flywheels, his suggestion for effective local storage. If you don’t check out the above article, at least check this one out.
