Why England Slept
by John F. Kennedy
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| Editorial Reviews Book Description Written by John F. Kennedy in 1940 when he was still in college and reprinted in 1961 when he was president, this book is an appraisal of the tragic events of the thirties that led to World War II. It is an account of England’s unpreparedness for war and a study of the shortcomings of democracy when confronted by the menace of totalitarianism. Customer Review: Customer Review |
Surfing — Lido Sailing Club
How to Surf the World’s Best Waves for FREE
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Iraq, For Those Who Came In Late
I‘m so awfully tired of seeing people who don’t know what they’re talking about. And because I feel sorry for you, here is everything that should speak for itself (that is, if anyone took the time to read it, in an age of soundbytes, 3-minute long MTV videos, and pop-stars that don’t last much longer than their videos).
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Iraq, For Those Who Came In Late
When I was a kid, I loved Sunday mornings. I could hardly wait for the paper to come so I could get to the comics… especially The Phantom, the “Ghost Who Walks.” Unlike most of the other comics in my Sunday paper, The Phantom (written by creator Lee Falk until his death in 1999, but inked at that time by Sy Barry) was well-drawn and had ongoing, interesting story arcs. Every once in a while, Falk would go back and explain the family background of his hero, the 21st Phantom. It gave the comic a sense of history and continuity that no other strip had. Each of those retrospectives was a copy of the very first Sunday strip, which showed the first-Phantom-to-be washing up on a 16th century Bengal beach and swearing on the skull of his father’s murderer to fight piracy. Each started with a banner saying, For Those Who Came In Late. It was a great way to bring new readers into the ongoing story.
Most people don’t pay attention to politics until they have to. For the last year, Democrats and Liberals have been tossing out lies about why we’re in Iraq, hoping they stick, and those lies have been debunked over and over. At this point, many who hear John Kerry and his minions repeating the same lies are tempted to laugh it off, since we’ve “been there, done that.” But those lies are not old news to those who have only just begun to pay attention to the campaign speeches. The lies Democrats tell about Iraq need to be exposed again… For Those Who Came In Late.
Lie #1: The Rush To War. There was no rush to war. There were twelve years and seventeen resolutions demanding that Saddam Hussein comply with the 1991 cease-fire agreement that he signed, which specified that he must completely disclose all his weapons programs and materials to the UN. He never did so. The UN Security Council unanimously issued resolution #1441 in November 2002, which gave Iraq one month as a “final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations”, or face “serious consequences.” Saddam still did not do so. Rather than “rush to war,” President Bush waited three more months for him to acquiesce, giving him further “last chances.” At that point, walking away and not forcing Saddam to disarm by force would have destroyed the credibility of both the US and the UN, and Saddam would have won a major victory over both without a shot being fired. No statement or warning by the UN or the US would have ever had weight again.
Lie #2: Going It Alone. The only major countries that did not send troops or support the liberation of Iraq in other ways were France, Germany, Russia and China. It’s no coincidence that three of those are the same countries that were trading illegal arms and other banned materials (like Roland missiles and Mirage helicopter parts from France) to Saddam Hussein in return for lucrative exploitation rights in the West Qurna (Russia), al-Ahdab (China), and Majnoon (France) oil fields, as well as other deals all four had made. Iraq was one of German industry’s biggest customers, and Iraq owed Germany billions of dollars, which would probably never be collected if Saddam was forced from power. Their opposition to Saddam’s removal was far less based on principal than capital. If we had to “go it alone” in Iraq with our paltry coalition of 46 nations, it was because our “traditional allies” failed us, not the other way around. I’m curious about whether Kerry has any plans to apologise to all the nations he’s insulted by calling them “a trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted,” just because France didn’t join.
Lie #3: No Ties to al-Qaeda. There are two parts to this one. Iraq did have ties to al-Qaeda, but specific links to al-Qaeda alone was never one of the reasons Congress voted to remove Saddam from power, as laid out in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq. One of those reasons was his long-time sponsorship of international terrorism, not just the one group. The fact that he openly awarded $25,000 (later reduced to $10,000) to the families of Hamas suicide bombers was proof of this. In fact, Russian President Vladmir Putin warned President Bush that Saddam was planning new terrorist attacks against the US after 9/11. As for al-Qaeda, the Washington Times noted, “The fall of Baghdad has produced new evidence to buttress the Bush administration’s prewar contention that Saddam Hussein’s regime and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda had a long history of contacts.” Kerry supporters often state that the 9/11 Commission said that Iraq had no links to al-Qaeda, but that’s a misquote, if not a lie. NBC’s Tom Brokaw had the audacity to “correct” Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi when he mentioned Saddam’s ties to al-Qaeda. The 9/11 Commission stated that Saddam might not have had direct, specific cooperation on 9/11, but that he did have ties to al-Qaeda. Commission Chairman Thomas Kean stated: “There were contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda, a number of them, some of them a little shadowy. They were definitely there.” More links to terror, including al-Qaeda, can be found in a publication by the Hudson Institute called Saddam’s Philanthropy of Terror.
Lie #4: No WMDs in Iraq. Every intelligence service on the planet agreed that Saddam had not fully disclosed his illegal weapons programs, or else UN resolution #1441 would not have been adopted unanimously. All Saddam had to do at any time, even after the UN’s deadline had passed, was turn over all the requested materials and documents. David Kay’s interim report to the CIA showed that Saddam had clandestine laboratories (including prison testing facilities), long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, hidden and dual-use manufacturing capabilities, and advanced work on anthrax, ricin, aflatoxin, and other biological weapons. None of this had been disclosed to the UN weapons inspectors. Saddam was poised to replenish his WMD stockpiles the minute UN sanctions were dropped, according to Charles Duelfer’s final report. To put it more simply: Saddam had lemons, sugar, and a pitcher of cold water at a lemonade stand. Can anyone seriously doubt his intent to make lemonade? So where are they now? Israel told us, CIA satellite photos confirmed, and David Kay’s research revealed that much of Saddam’s WMD materials were moved across the Syrian border right before the war in Iraq began. Perhaps being so patient was an error; perhaps we should have used force the day after the UN’s final deadline lapsed.
Lie #5: Diversion from the War on Terror. Iraq is, in fact, an essential part of the War on Terror. At one point, even John Kerry agreed; on 7 September 2004 he stated that American soldiers who died in Iraq gave their lives “on behalf of their country, on behalf of freedom, the war on terror.” Afghanistan and Iraq were essential components of a larger strategy than shooting a few killers and calling the war a success. Democrats base this attack on a false assertion that troops were pulled out of Afghanistan to fight in Iraq but not replaced. In reality, troop levels in Afghanistan were never affected by the fighting in Iraq; only the composition of the troops has changed. If anything, overall troop levels have increased. The only groups that switched focus from one country to the other were the Democrats and their enthusiasts in the “mainstream” media.
The War on Terror is not about one country, one group, or one person. Democrats don’t want to admit that Pakistan has given up its terrorist support, becoming an ally in the war. They don’t want to acknowledge that Libya has also given up terror support as well as its WMD programs, as a direct result of Saddam’s removal. (Ghaddafi phoned Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi to say, ”I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.”) Syria has begun to buckle under pressure to withdraw troops from occupied Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia is moving towards democratic reforms. If the mullahs that rule Iran stop working on a nuclear weapon, the Iranian people may get their chance to institute a democracy on their own. That’s how the war will be won, not by pulling out of Iraq and leaving a lone fledgling democracy to be swallowed by its surrounding enemies.
If John Kerry and his cronies can again force the US to abandon its responsibilities by turning public opinion against the war, if we’re forced to watch helplessly as innocents who trusted our promises are butchered again, then the Democrats will at last be justified in calling Iraq a second Vietnam. |
Grace Murray Hopper: Pioneer Computer Scientist
Remembering Grace Murray Hopper: A Legend in Her Own Time By Elizabeth Dickason but that’s not what ships are built for. – Grace Murray Hopper Eighty-five-year-old Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper who dedicated her life to the Navy passed away on 1 January 1992. As a pioneer Computer Programmer and co-inventor of COBOL, she was known as the Grand Lady of Software, Amazing Grace and Grandma COBOL. She’ll be remembered for her now famous sayings, one of which is “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.” It’s only fitting that Grace Brewster Murray was born between two such memorable events as the Wright Brothers’ first successful power-driven flight in 1903 and Henry Ford’s introduction of the Model T in 1908. Taught by her father at an early age to go after what she wanted, Grace’s life consisted of one success after another, including the significant contributions she made to the computer age and the Navy. Young Grace’s diligence and hard work paid off when in 1928 at the age of 22 she was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College. She then attended Yale University, where she received an MA degree in Mathematics and Physics in 1930 and a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1934. Hopper began teaching mathematics at Vassar in 1931 where her first year’s salary was $800. She stayed there until she joined the United States Naval Reserve in December 1943. Upon graduation, she was commissioned a LTJG and ordered to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University. There she became the first programmer on the Navy’s Mark I computer, the mechanical miracle of its day. Hopper’s love of gadgets caused her to immediately fall for the biggest gadget she’d ever seen, the fifty-one foot long, 8 foot high, 8 foot wide, glass-encased mound of bulky relays, switches and vacuum tubes called the Mark I. This miracle of modern science could store 72 words and perform three additions every second. Hopper’s love affair with the Mark I ended in a few short years when the UNIVAC I, operating a thousand times faster, won her affections. In 1946 Hopper was released from active duty and joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation Laboratory where her work continued on the Mark II and Mark III computers for the Navy. In 1949 she joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in Philadelphia-later called Sperry Rand-where she designed the first commercial large-scale electronic computer called the UNIVAC I. She changed the lives of everyone in the computer industry by developing the Bomarc system, later called COBOL (common-business-oriented language). COBOL made it possible for computers to respond to words rather than numbers. Hopper often jokingly explained, “It really came about because I couldn’t balance my checkbook.” She’s also credited with coining the term bug when she traced an error in the Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay. The bug was carefully removed and taped to a daily log book. Since then, whenever a computer has a problem, it’s referred to as a bug. Hopper retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of Commander at the end of 1966. She was recalled to active duty in August of 1967 for what was supposed to be a six-month assignment at the request of Norman Ream, then Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy for Automatic Data Processing. After the six months were up, her orders were changed to say her services would be needed indefinitely. She was promoted to Captain in 1973 by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr., Chief of Naval Operations. And in 1977, she was appointed special advisor to Commander, Naval Data Automation Command (NAVDAC), where she stayed until she retired. In 1983, a bill was introduced by Rep. Philip Crane (D-Ill.) who said, “It is time the Navy recognized the outstanding contributions made by this officer recalled from retirement over a decade and a half ago and promote her to the rank of Commodore.” Rep. Crane became interested in Hopper after seeing her March 1983 60 Minutes interview. He’d never met Hopper, but after speaking with several people, was convinced she was due the added status of being a flag officer. The bill was approved by the House, and at the age of 76, she was promoted to Commodore by special Presidential appointment. Her rank was elevated to rear admiral in November 1985, making her one of few women admirals in the history of the United States Navy. On 27 September 1985, the Navy Regional Data Automation Center (now the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station), San Diego, broke ground on a 135,577 square foot data processing facility, The Grace Murray Hopper Service Center. The building contains a data processing center as well as training facilities, teleconferencing capabilities, telecommunications and expanded customer service areas. A small room-sized museum contains numerous artifacts, awards and citations that Hopper received during her lengthy career. The guest visitor’s book contains the names of some prominent people paying homage to the computer pioneer. There is also a Grace Murray Hopper Center for Computer Learning at Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where she spent her childhood summers. In 1986, eighty-year-old Grace Hopper retired involuntarily from the Navy. The ceremony was held in Boston on the USS Constitution, fulfilling Hopper’s final request before ending her Naval career. Three hundred of her friends and admirers and thirty family members were there to watch as the end came to her 43-year Naval career. As then Secretary of the Navy John Lehman said in his speech, “I’m reminded of that famous story by P.T. Barnum. About the turn of the century, his principle attraction, the human cannonball, came to P.T. Barnum and said, `Mr. Barnum, I just can’t take it any longer. Two performances a day and four on weekends are just too much. I’m quitting.’ Barnum said, `You can’t possibly quit. Where will I find someone else of your caliber?’ They realized Hopper was irreplaceable.” In her retirement speech, instead of dwelling on the past, she talked about moving toward the future, stressing the importance of leadership. “Our young people are the future. We must provide for them. We must give them the positive leadership they’re looking for…You manage things; you lead people.” It was at her retirement in 1986 that she was presented the highest award given by the Department of Defense – the Defense Distinguished Service Medal – one of innumerable awards she received from both the Navy and industry. Other awards include the Navy Meritorious Service Medal, the Legion of Merit and the National Medal of Technology, awarded last September by President George Bush. She also received the first computer sciences “man of the year” award from the Data Processing Management Association (DPMA) in 1969. Other achievements include retiring from the Navy as a Rear Admiral and the oldest serving officer at that time, and being the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale University. For a CAPT Grace Hopper, Head of the Navy Programming Section of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OP-911F), at work in her office in August 1976. She was the first Naval Reserve woman to be called back to active duty.more in-depth list of her accomplishments, see the side bar on this page. Retirement didn’t slow Grace Hopper down. Shortly thereafter, she became a Senior Consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation where she was active until about 18 months before her death. She functioned in much the same capacity she did when she was in the Navy, traveling on lecture tours around the country, speaking at engineering forums, colleges, universities and computer seminars passing on the message that managers shouldn’t be afraid of change. In her opinion, “the most damaging phrase in the language is `We’ve always done it this way.’” Grace said in many of her speeches, “I always promise during my talks that if anyone in the audience says during the next 12 months, ‘But we’ve always done it that way,’ I will immediately materialize beside him and haunt him for the next 24 hours and see if I could get him to take a second look.” Embracing the unconventional, the clock in her office ran counterclockwise. Her favorite age group to address was young people between the ages of 17 and 20. She believed they know more, they question more and they learn more than people in what she called the “in-between years”, ages 40 to 45. She always placed very high importance on America’s youth. Hopper often said, “working with the youth is the most important job I’ve done. It’s also the most rewarding.” This seems perfectly natural since she spent all her adult life teaching others. Hopper was a big hit at the Navy Micro Conference. She loved to tell the story of how the conference started because it supported her famous saying, “It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.” Here’s the story: A sailor in the Pacific fleet built a computer aboard ship. A picture of the computer appeared in Navy Times where a rear admiral saw it. He wrote the sailor a letter of encouragement. The sailor decided to answer the rear admiral directly, telling him exactly what was wrong with computers in the Pacific fleet and what could be done using microcomputers. (The computer mentality at that time was geared around mainframes.) As events evolved, the sailor was transferred to the Navy Regional Data Automation Center (NARDAC) in Norfolk, Virginia (now called Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station LAN) where his technical expertise could be fully utilized. He was part of the team that birthed the first microcomputer conference in 1982. A five point plan was developed that centered around the microcomputer contracts. It provided other needed services for users, including the ability to communicate via a conference. What started off as a small seminar for 400 people the first year has grown into a full-blown conference, averaging over a thousand attendees every year. It wasn’t until the third year that the conference became completely legal. Chips magazine is an offshoot of this same five point plan. In an effort to communicate with even more microcomputer users, NARDAC Norfolk decided to also start a newsletter, then called Chips Ahoy. Neither Navy Micro nor Chips might have been started if someone didn’t take the initiative first, worrying about asking permission later. Grace Hopper was a keynote speaker for the conference in its earlier years, drawing a standing-room-only crowd. Although she had a standard keynote speech, stressing the same message over and over, people were fascinated by her. Her lectures challenged management to keep pace. The Navy Micro Conference still goes on today, alternating between the east and west coasts, still stressing Hopper’s unique message to the world: Be innovative, open minded and give people the freedom to try new things. Hopper enchanted her audiences with tales of the computer evolution and her uncanny ability to predict the trends of the future. Many of her predictions came true right before her eyes as industry built more powerful, more compact machines and developed the operating systems and software that matched her visions. Some of her more innovative ideas include using computers to track the lifecycle of crop eating locusts, building a weather computer, managing water reserves so that everyone would have a fair share and tracking the waves at the bottom of the ocean. She also thought every ship should have a computer that the crew could play with and learn to use. I never met Grace Hopper, but I did see her at Navy Micro ’87. She passed by with her entourage, smoking a filterless Lucky Strike cigarette as she often did. You could hear people whispering, “There she is,” as she passed by. My first impression of her was that of a friendly, grandmotherly-type woman who looked almost frail. Those words don’t exactly describe the public side of Grace Hopper. She was described by one reporter as a “feisty old salt who gave off an aura of power.” This held true in her dealings with top brass, subordinates and interviewers – always interested in getting to the bottom line. One dream Hopper didn’t fulfill was living to the age of 94. She wanted to be here December 31, 1999 for the New Year’s Eve to end all New Year’s Eve parties. She also wanted to be able to look back at the early days of the computer and say to all the doubters, “See? We told you the computer could do all that!” Her insight into the future will stay with us even though she’s gone. Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was laid to rest with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. from http://www.chips.navy.mil/links/grace_hopper/file2.htm 
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Poor Boats. . . .
Thank you to www.saysuncle.com for posting this picture. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
Wind-Borne III
Click below for the weblog of Wind-Borne III, currently in Bonaire. Their most recent entries describe how they prepared for Hurricane Ivan.
Excerpts from Sept. 6-10, 2004:
 September 6, 2004 Although Ivan is projected to pass through the island chain near St. Lucia there are still Tropical storm warnings for Grenada and Trinidad. We decided to go into the internet café before they closed at noon (holiday hours). Everyone was there again and making plans. Some boats are now talking about heading to Curacao and tucking into Spanish Waters, others are talking about making a run for Venezuela. Then there are others, which include ourselves who are planning more for a wind reversal than an actual hurricane. Our current plan is to move into the marina if necessary. September 8, 2004, Kralendijk, Bonaire Rick and I were up and preparing the boat as best we could for Ivan. The weather reports indicate that conditions are worsening. Ivan has not turned and seems to refuse to track to the Northwest, as he should. Here’s what we did to prepare Wind-Borne III to be as hurricane ready as possible: We tied lines to and from every available cleat on the boat and then doubled or duplicated the same lines with brand new line tied just a little looser to an alternative cleat on the dock. If one should snap there will be another to take it’s place. We also tied two lines from our boat to the boat beside us. Every fender we own and some that are the large flat fenders are tied along the boat next to the dock. The round fenders may fly up in the wind but the flat ones are secured so they shouldn’t. We removed the headsails, bimini, dodger, solar panels and even the rubber matting from the cockpit floor. Anything at all that could possibly fly was removed or secured. Rick spent almost an hour raising and securing the dinghy into the davits so that it couldn’t move but we still didn’t feel comfortable with the windage it created. Walt (Cop Out) had the same concerns so he asked the marina if we could take the dinghies ashore and secure them in between some of the condo buildings in the resort. We were given the ok and it took no time to lower the dinghies and get them ashore, tucked in and secured. There are a couple of large mooring balls behind us for large boats that like to dock stern-to the condo wall. We had a boater down the dock who still had his dinghy in the water, tie a line from our stern to one of the mooring balls. Down below everything was stored away. The cockpit cushions, mats, mops etc. were all stored in the aft cabin. The solar panels were tied upright to the table. Sails and canvas were stored in the bathtub. The radar reflector and barbecue were on the floor between the table and the settee. By noon everything that we could do to prepare was done. I even had our passports, cash, credit cards, camera and computer in a ditch bag ready to abandon ship. We stopped for lunch and then I went ashore for a shower (my bathtub is full of sails and canvas). It was starting to rain a little when I returned to the boat. Rick went a little later had a second rinse on his way back to the boat after his shower as the rain had become heavier. We both decided to have a siesta and wait for Ivan to make his appearance. The Island turned off all of the electricity at 12PM and there was an Island wide curfew in effect at 2PM. No one was to be on the streets including tourists who had to return to their hotel rooms. We had a few squalls in the afternoon but nothing to uncomfortable. The 2PM forecast indicated that we would feel the worst of Ivan at about 6:30PM. At that time the eye would be about 80 miles to the north of us. This was good news because the lighter winds of Ivan are in the southern quadrant. Our winds are now forecast to be around 60 knots which is an improvement from the last couple of forecasts. Ivan is now a category four hurricane with winds up to 150 MPH. All of the cruisers were helping each other prepare and it was a very jovial atmosphere but everyone was quite scared after hearing about the devastation in Grenada. With the storm getting closer and being in the marina with a lot of electrical interference it was very difficult to hear any weather reports on the SSB/HAM radio. It was also impossible to send email. Just after 6:30PM the winds started to pick up and soon they were howling but Wind-Borne III seemed to be sitting quite comfortably at the dock. We’re tucked into a corner of the marina with concrete condos all around us blocking the wind. The roofs are heavy tile and with the less than 60 knot winds they should not be a problem. By a little after 7PM I was feeling comfortable enough that I finally dozed off to sleep. I had not slept very well last night and I made up for it tonight during the hurricane. Every few hours either Rick or I would wake and look out the companionway to check conditions and each time everything was fine. September 10, 2004 We continued on our walk and headed to the shore to see if the swell had diminished. Some of the boaters had wanted to leave the marina and return to the moorings in the morning but the harbour master had said no. The moorings had to be checked and the swell had to come down a bit before he would allow the boats on the moorings. We still may receive a few squalls from the feeder bands of Ivan. It was an interesting walk. The winds and waves from Ivan had been a lot stronger than we had realised. All of the docks along shore were all ripped apart. Club Nautico and the fishermen’s docks sustained the worst damage. The salt spray had damaged the trees on the opposite side of the street and there was coral and sand strewn across the road. The surf or surge must have been worse than the wind because the roofs that were made of palm fronds were still in place. |
Automatic Hand Ban
Last week, some teenagers got into a fight over a girl in a movie theater parking lot. One of the teens brandished. . . his fist, and smacked the other kid in the head really hard. He died from an epidural hematoma.
Hey, California, it’s time to start banning hands. Hands kill people, you know.
CUT THEM OFF! You know, like the Koran tells you to. . . .
Or better yet, let’s tax them.
Blood for Oil (-worker Unions)
Devich: She said we’re fighting in Iraq so we can get the oil.
Matt: We are.
Devich: And that gas prices should go down afterwards.
Matt: She’s wrong, then.
Devich: Why?
Matt: Because a free Iraq can go on strike for higher oil prices, the same way Venezuela does all the time. They couldn’t do that before the war.
Devich: Aren’t you glad we didn’t buy a motor boat?
Matt: I still want jet skiis.
Devich: [Grrr.]
