Bayou Renaissance Man

Some great aviation footage

2012-01-28T23:51:00.002-06:00

This video clip, taken from the cockpit, shows Airbus airliners landing and taking off at various South American airports. It's a fascinatingly different look at the process, particularly the vista of the towns and cities spreading out as the aircraft nears the airfields, and the way the pilots use the side-mounted control sticks of the Airbus to maneuver the plane. You can see clearly how even large movements of the stick are translated by the flight control computer into relatively smooth aircraft movements. (I'm not at all happy to think that the computer can override pilot input to that extent, but that's the way Airbus makes its planes, I'm afraid . . . ) It's worth watching the video in full-screen mode.

The music is 'Sail' by the group Awolnation. I'd rather have no music at all, but I'm afraid most people who put up such video clips on YouTube think that music's an essential part of the package. Pity, that . . .

Peter

Remembering a hero of the French Resistance

2012-01-28T23:05:00.015-06:00

I was greatly moved to read a BBC interview with Raymond Aubrac, one of the heroes of the French Resistance during World War II. The subject of the interview wasn't M. Aubrac, however; it was perhaps the greatest of French Resistance leaders, a man very little known outside France, but whose courage and leadership rival anyone else in the pantheon of heroes of the world. That man was Jean Moulin.

Jean Moulin and the Cross of Lorraine, symbol of the French Resistance
(image courtesy of Wikipedia)

I've known of M. Moulin since my teens, when I first came across a book describing his achievements. He was a man almost unique among French wartime leaders. He overcame his own left-wing political views to become an ambassador for unity among all wartime factions, groups and ideologies. As André Malraux would later eulogize him:

Each Resistance group could claim its legitimacy from the ally that armed and supported it; or even from its courage alone. General de Gaulle alone could call upon the Resistance movements to unite and to form one with all the other struggles ... That was why Jean Moulin carried with him, in the false bottom of a box of matches, a microfilm of the following extremely simple order: "Mr. Moulin's task is to bring about, within the zone of metropolitan France not directly occupied, unity of action by all elements resisting the enemy and his collaborators." Unwearyingly, he pointed out to group leaders the danger of the Resistance being torn apart between different influences. Each major event - Russia's entry into the war, then America's, the landings in North Africa - further strengthened his position. In the wake of the landings, it began to seem likely that France would once again become a theatre of operations. The clandestine press and the intelligence service (even when backed up by the infiltration of public services) were geared to Occupation, however, and not to war. Although the Resistance might be well aware that it could not liberate France without the Allies, it was equally aware of the military aid that its unity could contribute to the Allied cause. Gradually the Resistance learned that, while it was relatively easy to blow up a bridge, it was no less easy to repair it; if, however, the Resistance could blow up two hundred bridges, it would be difficult for the Germans to repair them all at once. In short, the Resistance realised that if they were to provide effective aid to Allied armies on landing, they would have to have an overall plan. It was vital that, on every road and on every railway line in France, clandestine groups should methodically disrupt the concentration of German armoured divisions. And such an overall plan could only be devised and executed by a united Resistance.

This was the end towards which Jean Moulin toiled, day after day, difficulty after difficulty, from one Resistance movement to another: "And now let us try to calm tempers on the other side . . . ". Inevitably, there were problems of clashing personalities; worse still, there was the poverty of fighting France, the maddening certainty for each maquis or free group that it was being despoiled for the benefit of another group, which in turn was equally prey to the same illusion. Who now can tell what relentless efforts it took to speak the same language to radical or reactionary teachers, to reactionary or liberal officers, to Trotskyists or Communists fresh out of Moscow, all destined for the same deliverance or the same prison; what rigour was required of this supporter of the Spanish Republic, once a "Prefect of the left", driven out by Vichy, to insist that even former members of a secret far-right organisation, the "cagoulards", should be welcomed into the common struggle!

Jean Moulin had no need to usurp the glory of others: it was not he who created Combat, Libération, Franc-tireur, it was Frenay, d'Astier, Jean-Pierre Lévy. It was not he who set up the many movements in the northern zone whose names are now remembered in history. It was not he who created the regiments, but it was he that created the army. He was the Carnot of the Resistance.

Inevitably, the amount of travel involved in this Herculean task, and the fact that his identity as an "ambassador of Resistance" inevitably became widely known, meant that M. Moulin became a priority target for the German occupation forces. Let M. Aubrac describe what happened, and what followed.

... the end came on 21 June 1943 at a doctor's house in Caluire, a suburb of the south-eastern city of Lyon. A clandestine meeting of Resistance leaders had been called to make arrangements following the arrest of a senior colleague.

But someone had tipped off the Gestapo and its notorious local chief Klaus Barbie. Moulin was arrested with seven others. After prolonged torture, he died on a train to Berlin.

Extraordinarily, some 70 years later, the man who walked with Jean Moulin across Lyon to take part in that ill-fated meeting - who actually stood next to him in the doctor's waiting-room as they were handcuffed by Barbie's men - is still alive to tell the tale.

Raymond Aubrac is France's last survivor from the senior ranks of the Resistance. He is 97 and slightly stooped, but otherwise hale and more than happy to relive those extraordinary times.

"What you have to remember is that when you are living your life on the run, as we were, you are constantly worrying about being arrested," he says.

"So when the Gestapo burst into the house, it was a shock but not a surprise. I was sitting beside Moulin and when the Gestapo burst in, he told me: 'I have a piece of paper in my pocket. Make it disappear.'

"So I put my hand in his pocket and took out the paper and swallowed it - which is not easy. I have no idea what was written on it.

"After the war, I came back to the house in Caluire - and there on the mantelpiece in the waiting-room was my pipe. Exactly where I had left it when the Gestapo came!"

. . .

By that time Aubrac had met Moulin on several occasions and, like everyone else, he had fallen under his spell. "He is very difficult to describe, because in physical appearance he was very normal - except perhaps his eyes," says Aubrac today.

"But it was his way of discussing matters that was so interesting. Never once did he use the way of authority. Don't forget he had real power - over money, over communications, over all the agents.

"And many in the Resistance could have seen him as an enemy. But he never forced his ideas on people. Instead he used a kind of Platonic discussion method, so that all views were aired.

"He was indeed a remarkable man. And do you know for the last 70 years, every time that I find myself confronting a problem I always ask myself what Moulin would have advised me to do. That was the kind of person he was."

After the Caluire arrests, Aubrac saw Moulin only one more time. It was at the Montluc prison in Lyon, were they were taken after the arrests.

"My cell was on the first floor. There were eye-holes in the doors which were meant for the guards, but we could also use them to look out. And the last time I saw Moulin, he was being carried down the stairs outside my cell by two SS men.

"He was in a very bad state. Only later did I learn that he was being taken to Paris, and from there on to Berlin. But he died on the way."

. . .

Aubrac's subsequent story is another chapter of courage and derring-do. Within weeks of his arrest, he was sentenced to death by a court in Paris.

"But luckily they did not shoot me straightaway. That was standard practice. They would wait because they thought we could still be useful to them in some way." The delay gave Aubrac's wife Lucie time to come up with an escape plan.

How Lucie and her Resistance group sprung Aubrac from the clutches of the Nazis is today one of France's best-known stories from the war - as uplifting for the French as the Caluire episode is grim.

Somehow Lucie managed to persuade the German commander that she was a) pregnant by the prisoner Aubrac (this was actually true) and b) unmarried to him.

By feigning horror at the prospect of the child being born out of wedlock, she got the commander to agree to a pre-execution marriage.

And so on 21 October, the convoy taking Aubrac back to Montluc jail from his "marriage" ceremony at police headquarters was attacked by a heavily-armed Resistance gang. Three Germans were killed and 14 prisoners escaped.

"One of the Resistance cars overtook the truck in which I was being transported, and when the two vehicles were level they shot the German driver," recalls Aubrac, who received a ricochet bullet in the side of the face.

There's more at the link.

Jean Moulin displayed his greatest heroism in captivity. As "ambassador of the Resistance", he alone among its leaders knew virtually everything there was to know about that organization: its member groups, their leaders, their plans, the nature and location of their weapons and supply dumps, the names of many of the British and Free French agents sent to help them organize against the Germans and the names and addresses of those who concealed them. If the Gestapo were ever desperate to break anyone, to make him talk, it was Jean Moulin: but he never broke, not even while enduring endless days and weeks of their most brutal, sadistic and vicious tortures. He took his secrets with him to the grave, to the future mortal peril of Nazi Germany, when the Resistance he helped to organize assisted in the liberation of France in 1944.

The nature of Jean Moulin's death remains uncertain. The Nazis claimed he committed suicide while being transferred from France to Germany. Klaus Barbie, the so-called 'Butcher of Lyon' who commanded the Gestapo in that city, almost certainly interrogated and tortured M. Moulin personally; many believe he murdered him. Other sources state that M. Moulin died of the injuries he suffered under torture. After so many years, and the death of almost everyone who was involved, the truth will probably never be known.

Memorial to Jean Moulin at Chartres (image courtesy of Stephen McParlin)

M. Moulin's remains were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris on December 19th, 1964, to join those of other distinguished French citizens in that place of national honor. The speech given on that occasion by André Malraux has become one of the most famous in French history. Let's close with some more of his words.

Leader of the Resistance martyred in hideous cellars, behold through eyes now closed for ever all these black-clad women who watch over our companions: they are in mourning for France, and for you. Behold the dwarf oak forests of Quercy through which, under a flag made from knotted strips of muslin, flit members of the maquis that the Gestapo will never find because it believes only in tall trees, not those closer to the earth. Behold the prisoner who enters the luxury villa and wonders why he has been provided with a bathroom - he has yet to hear of the bath torture. Poor tortured king of shadows, behold your people of shadows rise up in the June night disfigured by torture.

Hear the roar of the German tanks, racing back towards Normandy, over the plaintive cries of sheep and cattle disturbed by their passing: thanks to you, the tanks will arrive too late. And, Prefect, as the Allied breakthrough begins, see the commissioners of the republic rise up from every town and city in France - all those that have not been killed. Like us, you envied Leclerc's epic tramps: now, Resistance fighter, behold your ragged tramps crawl from their forest hiding-places, laying their farmers' hands to bazookas to bring to a halt one of the finest armoured divisions of Hitler's empire, the Das Reich division.

As Leclerc entered the Invalides with his cortège of honour from the hot suns of Africa and the battles of Alsace, enter now, Jean Moulin, with your terrible cortège. With all those who, like you, died in the cellars without breaking; or even, perhaps more atrocious still, those who did break; with all those in the striped garb and shaven heads of the concentration camps, with the last stumbling body from the monstrous lines of Night and Fog, falling prey at last to the rifle-butts; with the eight thousand French women that never returned from the prisons, with the last woman who died in Ravensbrück for having sheltered one of ours. Enter here, accompanied by a people born of the shadow and who disappeared with that shadow - our brothers in the order of the Night. Commemorating the anniversary of the Liberation of Paris, I said, "Listen tonight, you the young people of my country, listen to these anniversary bells that will ring as they did fourteen years ago. May you hear them on this occasion: they will ring for you."

The accompaniment most fitted to today's tribute is the song that will now be sung, the song of the partisans that I have heard murmured like a chant of complicity, then intoned in the mists of the Vosges and the woods of Alsace, mingling with the lost cries of the hill-sheep as the bazookas of the Corrèze advanced against von Rundstedt's tanks, turned once more on Strasbourg. Young people of France, listen today to what was for us the song of misfortune. It is the funeral march of these ashes you see before you. Alongside those of Carnot with the soldiers of the Year II, those of Victor Hugo with his Misérables, and those of Jaurès under the guardian eye of justice, may they rest here with their long cortège of disfigured shadows. Today, young people of France, may you think of this man as you would have reached out your hands to his poor, unrecognisable face on that last day, to those lips that never let fall a word of betrayal: on that day, his was the face of France . . .

Nobly spoken words, in honor of a man who lived nobly and died heroically.

You can read more about Jean Moulin here. I think you'll find it worth your while.

Peter

Italians versus Europeans

2012-01-27T23:56:00.002-06:00

According to the video clip below, they have an interesting partnership.

It definitely seems to be an . . . ah . . . adversarial relationship, doesn't it?

Peter

Jenny has moved

2012-01-27T23:45:00.004-06:00

Those of you who've enjoyed my friend Jenny's blogging at A Call To Wings may have noticed that things came to a halt there some weeks ago. Jenny's moved from Alaska to Massachusetts to be with the man she loves. Hopefully both of them will 'emigrate' to a free state as soon as possible!

Anyway, Jenny will now be blogging at HedgeRoot. Click on over to take a look around her new online home, and welcome her back to the blogosphere in her new finery.

Peter

An expensive mistake!

2012-01-27T23:34:00.005-06:00

Proof that it pays to use an expert when selling family heirlooms has been provided by a court case in Germany.

A Bavarian auctioneer who priced the world’s most expensive rug at €900 [about US $1,190] has escaped paying damages to its former owner. The woman sued the Augsburg auction house after her rug reached €7.2 million [more than US $9.5 million] at a Christie’s auction in 2011.

The woman received €19,700 [just over US $26,000] for the 17th century Persian carpet when it was auctioned by the Augsburg house.

She told the court that if he had spent more than “a few seconds” examining it and had done some background research, he would have identified the carpet as an exceptional piece of art.

But the auction house was let off from compensating the woman, as the court ruled that the antiques dealer neither intentionally violated his professional duty nor had he been negligent while inspecting the piece.

The auctioneer claimed as a general dealer he was no expert in carpets and put it in his catalogue without a picture, with an estimate price of €900.

“Had I known what it was, I would have rejected it,” he told the court. His lawyer said he generally dealt with household items and had never heard of the “Survey of Persian Art” by Arthur Upham Pope, a standard reference book for collectors in which the carpet was pictured.

Shortly after the verdict, the woman’s lawyer Hannes Hartung said she is likely to appeal to the Bavarian state court in Munich. “We will carefully analyze the written verdict and very probably appeal,” he told reporters.

Hartung said that the court had missed a vital point in its verbal ruling. “The auctioneer should have informed his client that he didn’t know anything about this carpet,” he said. He said if the written verdict did not address this point, an appeal would be inevitable.

Dating from the 17th century, the rug may look unremarkable to an untrained eye. It measures 3.39 by 1.53 metres [roughly 11 x 5 feet] and is adorned with a motif of leaves and flowers.

Made by weavers in the Kirman region of Persia, the carpet once belonged to 19th century society host the Countess Martine Marie-Pol of Béhague, who boasted a large collection of Iranian art.

There's more at the link.

So the original auctioneer's estimate was almost eight thousand times less than the price ultimately obtained by a subsequent owner! Yeah, I can understand how the original seller might have been just a little bit miffed by that discrepancy . . .

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #564

2012-01-26T23:05:00.002-06:00

Today's winner comes from Brazil. The video report is self-explanatory.

Uh-huh. If you show off with guns, that sort of thing can happen all too easily . . . although I'm sure the police were delighted by his doofidity!

Peter

We're a nation of coffee addicts!

2012-01-26T22:49:00.005-06:00

An article in National Geographic titled 'How Coffee Changed America' has all sorts of interesting information. Here's a brief excerpt.

Coffee ... has a rich cultural history, both in areas where it is grown and in the wider world. Prized seeds were smuggled into remote jungles to jumpstart illicit plantations, and coffeehouses evolved as centers for alternative gatherings. The coffeehouse has often become a lightning rod for debate about globalization, corporate responsibility, and local ownership. (Activists picketing the first Starbucks in my college town once screamed, “Is your coffee worth it?” at me, although they looked bewildered when I told them I had ordered hot chocolate. A week later the large glass windows of the storefront were smashed.)

There's more at the link, along with a very interesting infographic providing all sorts of facts and figures - for example, that US coffee consumption went up by no less than 700% (!) from 1995 to 2000, almost exclusively as a result of the rise of coffee houses like Starbucks.

I'm more of a tea drinker (the fruits of a colonial heritage, I'm afraid), but I've learned to enjoy a good cup of coffee. Trouble is, thanks to getting to know Miss D. and her Alaskan friends, I've never tasted a finer cup of coffee than that served by Kaladi Brothers in that state. It makes Starbucks coffee look (and taste) like dishwater by comparison! Definitely something I miss . . . I'm going to have to import some Kaladi's 'Red Goat' blend for my lower 48 friends! If you haven't tried it yourself, I recommend it unreservedly. (And no, they're not compensating me to advertise for them: I just like their coffee!)

Peter

EDITED TO ADD: I've just read that US workers spend about $1,000 per year on coffee as a 'work-related expense'! That seems a bit mind-boggling, until you remember that it costs up to $3 for a cup of coffee-house java (it varies from region to region, and by cup size, so that's an average). A specialty coffee (e.g. a latte, 'frappucino', etc.) can easily cost up to double that price; so that total amount translates to about one coffee every working day. Logical . . . but expensive! I think I'd rather take a jar of halfway decent instant coffee to work with me, and save the $1K for more important things!

Photographic portraits of cities

2012-01-26T22:14:00.006-06:00

I'm intrigued to find that well-known art publisher Taschen has begun a series of books about major cities. The first of them was 'New York: Portrait of a City'. Here are a few pictures from its almost 600 pages.

Here's a video report where some of the photographers involved comment on the book, and discuss what it (and its successors in the series) tries to achieve.

The second book in the series is 'Los Angeles: Portrait of a City'. Here are a few of its many images.

At a published price of $69.99 apiece, these books aren't cheap: but they're probably unique in the scope of their visual history. I'm going to add both to my "wouldn't mind owning if I win the lottery" list, along with any more books published in the series. Congratulations to Taschen for taking the commercial risk to publish them, when the size of the potential market is anything but certain in these recessionary times. I hope their gamble pays off.

Peter

"Top 5 Regrets of the Dying"

2012-01-26T22:04:00.004-06:00

That's the title of an article on the Huffington Post's Good News Web page. Here's an excerpt.

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last 3 to 12 weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

There's more at the link. Recommended reading.

As a pastor and chaplain, I've spent more than a little time with those who aren't long for this world. I'd have to say that in my own experience, the author's five points are pretty common, along with a few that she hasn't mentioned (perhaps because, as a pastor, I'd be used to hearing about more spiritual concerns, but a palliative care professional might not be taken into her patients' confidence in the same way).

I certainly think that all five points make worthwhile food for thought for all of us - while we're still young and healthy enough to do something about them!

Peter

It looks like Native Americans really did originate in Asia

2012-01-26T21:48:00.003-06:00

I've long found the argument compelling that Native Americans originated in Asia, crossing the so-called 'Bering land bridge' from what is today Siberia to what is today Alaska, umpteen thousand years ago. However, there's long been a dispute among scientists and researchers about it.

Now, according to an article in the Daily Mail, that dispute may be over.

Altai in southern Siberia sits right at the centre of Russia. But the tiny, mountainous republic has a claim to fame unknown until now - Native Americans can trace their origins to the remote region.

DNA research revealed that genetic markers linking people living in the Russian republic of Altai, southern Siberia, with indigenous populations in North America.

. . .

'Altai is a key area because it's a place where people have been coming and going for thousands and thousands of years,' said Dr Theodore Schurr, from the University of Pennsylvania in the US.

Among the people who may have emerged from the Altai region are the predecessors of the first Native Americans.

Roughly 20-25,000 years ago, these prehistoric humans carried their Asian genetic lineages up into the far reaches of Siberia and eventually across the then-exposed Bering land mass into the Americas.

'Our goal in working in this area was to better define what those founding lineages or sister lineages are to Native American populations,' Schurr said.

The region lies at the intersection of what is now Russia, Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan.

Dr Schurr's team checked Altai DNA samples for markers in mitochondrial DNA which is always passed on by mothers, and Y chromosome DNA which sons inherit from their fathers.

Because of the large number of gene markers examined, the findings have a high degree of precision.

'At this level of resolution we can see the connections more clearly,' Schurr said.

Looking at the Y chromosome DNA, the researchers found a unique mutation shared by Native Americans and southern Altaians in the lineage known as Q.

Mitochondrial DNA is found in tiny rod-like 'powerplants' in cells that generate energy.

Both kinds of DNA showed links between Altaians and Native Americans.

In the Y chromosome DNA, the researchers found a unique mutation shared by Native Americans and people from southern Altai.

The findings are published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Calculating how long the mutations they noted took to arise, Schurr's team estimated that the southern Altaian lineage diverged genetically from the Native American lineage 13,000 to 14,000 years ago, a timing scenario that aligns with the idea of people moving into the Americas from Siberia between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.

There's more at the link.

I'll be interested to see how various Native American advocacy groups react to this news . . . not to mention the Mormon Church, which has a rather different theory about the origins of Native Americans! I daresay that right now, science appears to have trumped theology . . .

Peter

A musical blast from the past

2012-01-25T23:34:00.003-06:00

Readers may be familiar with the 'Concert for George'. It was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England, on November 29th, 2002, one year after the death of Beatle George Harrison, to honor his memory and his music. Harrison's wife Olivia organized the concert, which saw appearances from many top musicians such as Eric Clapton (a close friend of George Harrison's), Jeff Lynne, Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar, Ringo Starr, and more. Harrison's son Dhani appeared on stage as well, his first major musical exposure (he's since gone on to build his own career in music).

I came across some video clips from the concert yesterday, and bookmarked a few for background music while doing other things. This morning I found the clip below: Eric Clapton playing lead guitar, and Paul McCartney on keyboard, performing Harrison's composition 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'. Dhani Harrison plays acoustic guitar next to Clapton, and can be seen on several occasions. It's a wonderful piece of music, and Clapton's guitar solo is magnificent, so I thought I'd share it with you too. Turn up the volume, kick back, and enjoy!

Ah, the memories that brings back . . .

Peter

Fried food is fine - within reason

2012-01-25T23:20:00.004-06:00

At least, that's what the Telegraph reports.

It is a "myth" that regularly eating fried foods causes heart attacks, researchers have found, as long as you use olive oil or sunflower oil.

They say there is mounting research that it is the type of oil used, and whether or not it has been used before, that really matters.

The latest study, published in the British Medical Journal, found no association between the frequency of fried food consumption in Spain - where olive and sunflower oils are mostly used - and the incidence of serious heart disease.

However, the British Heart Foundation warned Britons not to "reach for the frying pan" yet, pointing out that the Mediterranean diet as a whole was healthier than ours.

. . .

The authors concluded: "In a Mediterranean country where olive and sunflower oils are the most commonly used fats for frying, and where large amounts of fried foods are consumed both at and away from home, no association was observed between fried food consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease or death."

Commenting on the findings in the BMJ, Professor Michael Leitzmann of the University of Regensburg in Germany said two other studies - one from Costa Rica and another by an international team - had also failed to find strong evidence of a link.

He said: "Taken together, the myth that frying food is generally bad for the heart is not supported by available evidence.

"However, this does not mean that frequent meals of fish and chips will have no health consequences."

Fried food did contain more calories, he said, while it had also been linked to high blood pressure and obesity.

The authors of the Spanish study noted that the findings could only really be extrapolated to other Mediterranean countries with similar diets, whose people tended to fry 'fresh' with olive and sunflower oil.

Fried foods from modern American-style takeaways were different, they argued, because these tended to have been cooked in re-used oils, higher in transfats.

In addition, such takeaways tended to contain much more salt, known to increase blood pressure and heart disease risk.

There's more at the link.

I'm very pleased to see this. We don't each much fried food, but at the urging of Miss D., we've switched to using olive oil instead of generic 'vegetable oil' when we do fry anything. It tastes better, and now it seems it's healthier too. (And no, we don't eat fried fast food very often, because we know the oils in fast food outlet fryers are usually, shall we say, less than optimally healthy . . . and all too many outlets buy used, filtered oil for re-use. Yuck!)

(Of course, one has to be careful to buy only top-quality olive oil. Adulterated olive oil is a huge problem in many countries, including both Britain and the USA. If olive oil is sold cheaply, the odds are pretty good it's the adulterated stuff. You pay for what you get, I'm afraid, in olive oil as in anything else.)

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #563

2012-01-25T23:05:00.002-06:00

Today's winner is from Oklahoma.

A Republican state senator from Oklahoma City introduced a bill Tuesday that would ban the use of aborted human fetuses in food, despite conceding that he's unaware of any company using such a practice.

Freshman Sen. Ralph Shortey said his own Internet research led him to believe such a ban is necessary and prompted him to offer the bill aimed at raising "public awareness" and giving an "ultimatum to companies" that might consider such a policy.

Shortey said he discovered suggestions online that some companies use embryonic stem cells to develop artificial flavors, but added that he is unaware of any Oklahoma companies doing such research.

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Pat El-Hinnawy said: "FDA is not aware of this particular concern."

There's more at the link. Bold print is my emphasis.

Excuse me while I apply a cool, damp cloth to my forehead for a moment. I feel a headache coming on . . . aaahh, that's better.

Right. Getting back to Senator ~~Doofus~~ Shortey: so, he wants to pass a law about a practice that isn't used by anyone, as far as even he knows, and which hasn't raised so much as a twitch of concern among even the most vociferous pro-life campaigners, pressure groups or constituencies. Just what the hell does he think he's playing at? (To be fair, his fellow Senators are asking that question as well - even those from his own party.)

This is utterly ridiculous! It's enough to give a bad name (by association) to even sober, rational, reasonable opponents of abortion. May I suggest to the voters in Senator Shortey's constituency in Oklahoma that they can do much, much better for themselves at the next election by choosing someone more rational to replace him?

Sheesh!

Peter

The "Franken-Mirages" fly again!

2012-01-25T22:35:00.007-06:00

Readers are probably familiar with my detailed history (see Weekend Wings #39) of the Cheetah fighter aircraft of the South African Air Force (SAAF). All were retired from service by 2008, to be replaced by Saab Gripen fighter-bombers.

SAAF Gripens (front and rear) and Cheetahs (left and right) in formation

Ecuador was looking to upgrade its fighter aircraft at the time, but couldn't afford new planes due to economic circumstances. The Cheetahs looked to be a good fit for its needs, particularly because the Ecuadorian Air Force already operated French Mirage 50 aircraft (a derivative of the Mirage 5) and Israeli Kfir fighter-bombers. Both are very similar to the Cheetahs, meaning that Ecuadorian pilots would require minimal re-training to fly the latter aircraft and operate its systems.

After lengthy negotiations, it was announced in 2010 that Ecuador would buy a dozen Cheetahs (ten single-seat C models and two two-seat D's). Denel Aviation of South Africa would provide a maintenance package for at least five years.

Ex-SAAF Cheetah C at an Ecuadorian air base

The twelve Cheetahs have now been delivered to Ecuador, and are entering service. Here's a Spanish-language Ecuadorian news broadcast with some footage of the Cheetahs in the skies over their new home.

It's good to see the old stalwarts of the SAAF in the air once more. They'll provide a cost-effective interim air defense capability to Ecuador for several years while a more modern fighter aircraft is selected, and funds are found to procure it.

Peter

Someone's having way too much fun . . .

2012-01-24T23:56:00.002-06:00

. . . but I'm not sure whether it's the two-legged or four-legged critters in this video clip!

Peter

Has the US Marine Corps disgraced itself?

2012-01-24T23:31:00.013-06:00

I'm infuriated and disgusted to hear of the treatment being meted out to a US Marine officer over an incident in Afghanistan. Admittedly, I only have one report from which to judge: but if the incident occurred as described, senior heads need to roll!

On Nov. 1, Waddell, a 25-year-old executive officer with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Corps Regiment, was monitoring a surveillance camera in Sangin, Afghanistan, when he spotted a man who had been identified as a bomb maker working with area insurgents. Two days earlier, a sergeant from India Company had lost both legs and a hand when a bomb detonated in their area of operation. The man spotted on the camera was believed to be responsible.

After receiving permission from his battalion commanders, Waddell ordered Marine snipers to open fire on the man, and he was hit. A group of Afghans rushed to the man, put him on a tractor and attempted to flee. Waddell ordered the snipers to hit the engine block of the tractor, disabling it so the man believed to be a bomb maker would not escape. The tractor was hit but no civilians were injured.

Then, about three weeks later, the civilians who helped remove the wounded man from the area were found to be teenagers.

As a result, Waddell was demoted from executive officer, and the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Seth Folsom, determined he had violated rules of engagement that governed when Marines could fire, and at whom. Folsom said Wadell "is not recommended for promotion" and "in violation of [combat rules] during an engagement." The report stated that "noncombatant local nationals" were in the area of direct fire and that "the engagement resulted in a damaged local national vehicle."

A Marine brigadier general who reviewed the case was sympathetic to Waddell, whom he described as a "superb and heroic combat leader. But the general said the decision on whether Waddell should be promoted was "the commander's prerogative," noting that the battalion commander on the scene had lost "confidence in [Waddell's] abilities."

Marine Maj. Shawn Haney, spokesman for Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said Waddell's fitness report will go before a review board at the time of any promotion "and everything is under scrutiny, so Waddell will have a chance to defend himself against the accusations." Still, Haney conceded, Waddell's fitness reports play a "significant role in future promotions."

The upshot is that Waddell's career has been effectively blunted, his chance for promotion blocked.

There's more at the link.

Let me take a few deep breaths to try to slow down my pounding heart, and allow the blood-red outrage to recede from my eyes.

Listen up, Marines. I've never worn your uniform, but I've served alongside some of you, and I can - and do - speak to you as a combat veteran.

If you allow this to stand, you will disgrace your entire history as a combat service, and earn the contempt of all those Marines who served before you.

Did that get your attention? I hope so. If it didn't, you don't deserve the name 'Marine'.

You don't hamstring your leaders in combat by burdening them with regulations that cannot be adhered to without getting their own men needlessly (I emphasize needlessly) hurt or killed. Some risks are necessary - that goes with the territory. However, others are not. You do what needs to be done to deal with the enemy, while keeping your own people as safe as possible. If unidentified persons attempt to help your enemies in the midst of a combat operation, those persons have to deal with the consequences. That's the way it is. I've been there and done that on more than one occasion - and I'd do it again if necessary. That's war.

If Lt. Waddell is made to suffer because of this catastrophically ass-covering regulation propagated by desk-bound, politically-subservient senior officers, the entire US Marine Corps will be shamed and dishonored. If you doubt that, ask yourself one simple question:

What would Chesty Puller do?

I think we all know the answer. This cannot be allowed to stand.

As for the senior officers responsible for this regulation - both the generals in the USA who put political correctness over the lives and safety of their troops in propagating it, and local commanders in Afghanistan who were gutless enough to enforce it - I have a simple solution. Break the whole damn lot of them to temporary privates, issue them with a private's uniform, weapon and war load, and send them to patrol the front lines in Afghanistan until they've re-learned what war's all about. Let them experience for themselves the conditions under which their Marines are fighting and dying, so they can learn at first hand the stupidity of regulations such as this one. Those who can't or won't learn can die there, for all I care. The rest should come back considerably improved!

Some senior Marines might argue that they had no choice but to implement such a policy, because it was ordered by the national command authority. I can only respond with the famous dictum of Napoleon Bonaparte:

A commander is not protected by an order from a minister or prince who is absent from the theater of operations and has little or no knowledge of the most recent turn of events. Every commander responsible for executing a plan that he considers bad or disastrous is criminal. He must point out the flaws, insist that it be changed and at last resort resign rather than be the instrument of the destruction of his own men.

If this incident occurred as described, it will demonstrate all too clearly that the senior commanders of the US Marine Corps have forgotten that - or chosen to ignore it.

Peter

Aircraft of a bygone era

2012-01-24T23:02:00.004-06:00

I've been greatly entertained by the Flickr photostreams of a South African user, Etienne du Plessis. Being a former South African myself, some of his pictures have brought back many memories, and I'll be referring to more of them in forthcoming articles. Tonight, I wanted to draw your attention to two of his collections related to aviation history.

First, there's 'Propliners of the South African Airways'. Here are a few examples of the 106 photographs currently in the set.

Avro York, in service from 1945-46

Lockheed Constellation, late 1940's

Douglas DC-7B, 1955

Next, there's 'Aircraft of the R.A.F. (Royal Air Force) and S.A.A.F. (South African Air Force) during World War II in Colour'. Again, here are some of the 350 images he's collected so far.

Captured German Junkers Ju 188, Italy, 1944-45

Early model Lockheed P-38 Lightning undergoing evaluation by the Royal Air Force

Supermarine Spiteful (proposed successor to the world-famous Spitfire), 1945

Many of the images in both sets can be viewed at much larger sizes than I've reproduced here. At each Flickr page linked above, click on the thumbnail image that interests you, then click on the larger image displayed. This will bring up the same image on a black background, with a link in the top corner saying 'View All Sizes'. Click on that, and you'll be able to view the image in a range of sizes. Use your browser's 'Back' button or command, or the links above, to return to the photostream page.

My sincere thanks to Mr. du Plessis for two wonderful collections of rare images. I can see I'm going to get a lot of pleasure - and use - out of them!

Peter

The conundrum of manufacturing in the USA

2012-01-24T22:50:00.003-06:00

The Atlantic has published a very interesting article on US manufacturing industry, and why it poses such a challenge for both businesses and workers. Here's an excerpt.

In the past decade, the flow of goods emerging from U.S. factories has risen by about a third. Factory employment has fallen by roughly the same fraction. The story of Standard Motor Products, a 92-year-old, family-run manufacturer based in Queens, sheds light on both phenomena. It’s a story of hustle, ingenuity, competitive success, and promise for America’s economy. It also illuminates why the jobs crisis will be so difficult to solve.

. . .

I came to think of Standard Motor Products as an enormous machine that regularly scans every tiny part of every engine in every car on the streets of the United States to answer two closely related questions: What makes sense to manufacture here in the U.S., and what should be made in a low-wage country, like Mexico or China?

Standard’s customers, the big auto-retail stores and wholesalers, see the company more as a distributor than as a manufacturer. They expect Standard to be able to deliver any part in its categories — known as engine management and temperature control — to any place in the U.S. in less than 48 hours. Standard doesn’t sell the big stuff — batteries, engine blocks — but it does sell many of the cables and sensors and electrical components that surround those large things. If you look at your car’s engine, Standard has, in stock, many of the small parts that you can’t identify — for your car and for every other make and model with more than 10,000 vehicles on American roads. Standard’s enormous warehouse in Disputanta, Virginia, has tens of thousands of different sorts of parts ready to ship at any moment.

Standard makes only about half of the parts it stocks; it buys the rest from other manufacturers, most of them in China. The company’s engineers are constantly reviewing the parts they buy, to see whether they could make the parts more cheaply in-house. Not infrequently, Standard finds that by doing so it can control costs, quality, and delivery speed far better, and thus can better serve the superstores.

. . .

These meetings can lead the company to move dozens of jobs to another country or, in some cases, to create new jobs in the U.S. When Standard decided to increase its fuel-injector production, it chose to do that in the U.S., and staffed up accordingly (that’s how Maddie got her job). Standard will not drop a line in the U.S. and begin outsourcing it to China for a few pennies in savings. “I need to save a lot to go to China,” says Ed Harris, who is in charge of identifying new manufacturing sources in Asia. “There’s a lot of hassle: shipping costs, time, Chinese companies aren’t as reliable. We need to save at least 40 percent off the U.S. price. I’m not going to China to save 10 percent.” Yet often, the savings are more than enough to offset the hassles and expense of working with Chinese factories. Some parts—especially relatively simple ones that Standard needs in bulk—can cost 80 percent less to make in China.

Nearly every manufacturing company in the U.S. goes through this same process: regularly, carefully studying its products to see if they could be made more cheaply in a lower-wage country. The calculation constantly changes, because the world changes. Sometimes that’s bad news for American industrial workers, other times it’s good news. Workers in China and Poland and Mexico, for example, have become more highly skilled, and their factories are now able to produce more-precise goods than they could a decade ago. But at the same time, the wages of those workers have risen, as have shipping costs. Unrest in northern Mexico or an oil-price spike caused by trouble in the Middle East can encourage manufacturers to keep production lines in the United States. The development of increasingly complex machinery can do the same: because expensive machines are more likely to pay off when they can be counted on to run 24 hours a day, every day, the availability of steady electricity, for instance, is essential.

Yet however chaotic and contradictory these forces can be at any moment, over the years and decades they point in one direction: toward fewer jobs for low-skilled American workers. People who can be replaced by machines or lower-paid workers somewhere else, eventually will be. Unless people like Maddie learn how to do things that computers and overseas workers aren’t able to do, they are likely to lose their jobs one day.

There's more at the link.

The business of manufacturing is a much more complex subject than many people realize, and this article does a pretty good job of summarizing the many factors involved. It's fairly long, but it repays your attention. Highly recommended reading.

Peter

Our infrastructure may be more vulnerable than we realized

2012-01-24T22:18:00.008-06:00

Wired magazine has highlighted a very interesting - and very troubling - dissertation examining the vulnerability of industrial control systems to cyber-sabotage. Here's an excerpt from their article.

A security researcher was able to locate and map more than 10,000 industrial control systems hooked up to the public internet, including water and sewage plants, and found that many could be open to easy hack attacks, due to lax security practices.

. . .

Eireann Leverett, a computer science doctoral student at Cambridge University, has developed a tool that matches information about ICSes that are connected to the internet with information about known vulnerabilities to show how easy it could be for an attacker to locate and target an industrial control system.

“Vendors say they don’t need to do security testing because the systems are never connected to the internet; it’s a very dangerous claim,” Leverett said last week at the S4 conference, which focuses on the security of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems (SCADA) that are used for everything from controlling critical functions at power plants and water treatment facilities to operating the assembly lines at food processing and automobile assembly plants.

“Vendors expect systems to be on segregated networks — they comfort themselves with this. They say in their documentation to not put it on an open network. On the other side, asset owners swear that they are not connected,” Leverett said. But how do they know?

To debunk the myth that industrial control systems are never connected to the internet, Leverett used the SHODAN search engine developed by John Matherly, which allows users to find internet-connected devices using simple search terms. He then matched that data to information from vulnerability databases to find known security holes and exploits that could be used to hijack the systems or crash them. He used Timemap to chart the information on Google maps, along with red markers noting brand devices that are known to have security holes in them. He described his methodology in a paper (.pdf) about the project.

Leverett found 10,358 devices connected through a search of two years worth of data in the SHODAN database.

. . .

He also found that only 17 percent of the systems he found online asked him for authorization to connect, suggesting that administrators either weren’t aware that their systems were online or had simply failed to install secure gateways to keep out intruders.

. . .

Leverett’s tool shows how easy it is for a dedicated attacker or just a recreational hacker to find vulnerable targets online to sabotage.

There's more at the link. For a video tutorial about SCADA systems, see here.

I can only hope that the authorities are taking this report seriously. Think about it. Rogue states such as Iran or North Korea, or terrorist movements such as Al Qaeda or the Taliban, might not be able to directly attack the USA with military weapons (or want to, for fear of retaliation): but they're more than capable of exploiting such vulnerabilities in our industrial control systems to disrupt power generation and transmission, water supplies, sewage processing, and so on. A sufficiently widespread attack could cripple the basic infrastructure of this country without a shot being fired. Imagine a major US city with no water, no working transport control systems (so that road, rail and air transport can't bring food and other essential supplies to the people living there, and those people can't easily be evacuated), and no electric power or natural gas or other sources of energy. I wouldn't like to be living there . . . because that urban society might be facing meltdown after no more than a few hours of such conditions.

Very worrying indeed!

Peter

"What if the Beatles were Irish?"

2012-01-23T23:51:00.002-06:00

That's the question asked - and answered - by comedian Roy Zimmerman in this music video.

A tip o' the hat to Will Profit at Capitalist Preservation for spotting this one first.

Peter

How they built the Golden Gate Bridge

2012-01-23T23:36:00.002-06:00

I recently came across a French Web site with a number of very interesting photographs showing the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco from 1933-37. Here are a few examples.

There are many more pictures at the link; and if you open each one to full size in a new window or tab, most are much larger than the reduced-size images reproduced here. They make very interesting viewing.

Peter

Spider silk, revisited

2012-01-23T23:10:00.002-06:00

A few years ago I wrote about clothing woven from the silk of the Madagascan golden spider. At the time, it wasn't clear to me whether the cloth had been made into a tapestry or a shawl. Now a new report from England helps to clear up the uncertainty.

With its dazzling colour and intricate embroidery, this golden cape is a work of art.

But look a little closer and, sewn into the cloth itself, you’ll see its rather spine-tingling secret – it is made from spider silk. In fact, the silk of more than a million spiders.

The precious garment was painstakingly woven over four years with silk collected from female Golden Orb Weaver spiders, found in the mountains of Madagascar.

Adorned with images of the two-inch spider, the garment is the only one of its kind in the world, and will go on display tomorrow at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The cape takes its colour from the silk itself, which is naturally golden. It was created by Englishman Simon Peers using a process revived from more than a century ago.

Each day workers collected thousands of Golden Orbs. Their silk was extracted using a hand-powered machine which allowed handlers to pull strands from each creature’s multiple spinnerets, before they were released back into the wild.

. . .

Frenchman, Francois-Xavier Bon de Saint Hilaire, first illustrated how fabric could be spun from spider silk in 1709.

He boiled cocoons, extracting the threads with combs to make socks, gloves and supposedly a full suit of clothes for King Louis XIV.

The last known spider silk textile was created at the end of the 19th century for the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900 but no examples remain.

The new piece has been created in the form of a cape, decorated with intricate embroidery and appliquéd motifs.

There's more at the link, including more photographs. I'm glad to finally see the entire article, rather than the close-up photographs of only part of it which is all I'd been able to find for my earlier article. Lovely, isn't it? - but if I were wearing spider silk, I'd worry that every passing arachnid might want to get better acquainted with me!

Peter

That's a heck of a way to fill your tank!

2012-01-23T22:54:00.004-06:00

I've got to hand it to the residents of the frozen North, and to the ship crews who keep them supplied with essentials during the cold, dark months of winter, through all sorts of hazards. The hazards confronting them have been graphically illustrated by the journey of a Russian tanker.

The Seattle-based Healy – the only polar ice breaker in the U.S. fleet — assisted Renda on its mission to deliver more than 1.3 million gallons of fuel to Nome, Alaska, after a winter storm restricted a scheduled delivery by barge.

The storm prevented November’s scheduled delivery, leaving Nome’s 3,500 residents without enough gasoline and diesel fuel before the next scheduled delivery in late May or June. The 370-foot tanker set out from Russia in mid-December. It stopped in South Korea to pick up diesel fuel and then called at Dutch Harbor, Alaska to load up unleaded gasoline. Renda left the Alaskan port — accompanied by Healy — on Jan. 3.

The 420-foot Healy — yes, the ice breaker is bigger than an oil tanker — is designed to break 4 ½ feet of ice continuously at three knots and can operate in temperatures as low as 50 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). Unlike most ocean-going vessels, the Healy has a blunt, rounded bow that enable it to ride up on top of the ice. As the bow goes up and the stern (rear) sinks below the water, the force of buoyancy acting on the submerged part of the stern create a lever-like action bringing Healy’s 16,000 tons down onto the ice — breaking it, according to Lt. Commander Kristen Serumgard of the Coast Guard’s Office of Cutter Forces.

After a 5,000-mile journey, the Renda made it — almost — into port at Nome on Jan. 14. Because of the tremendous amount of ice that was as hard as concrete, the Renda pumped out its cargo through hoses that stretched over 500 yards to the distribution facility.

There's more at the link. Here's a video clip of the ships' journey through the ice.

It's a bit more complicated than simply filling one's vehicle's tank at the corner gas station, isn't it? We take far too much for granted in our comfortable urbanized lifestyles . . .

Peter

A sobering lesson in Big Government

2012-01-23T22:25:00.003-06:00

Via a link at Rev. Paul's place, I came across an excellent (if chilling) article at Down Range Report. Here's an excerpt.

We should know by now the government controls everything in our lives from the time we come screaming into this world and get a govt. issued birth certificate till the time we die and our next of kin gets a govt. issued death certificate. The hospital you are born in has more govt. regulations and licenses than you could possibly dream of. When you leave the hospital as a baby you now have to ride home in a govt. approved car seat, in a car the govt. approved and licensed and driven by a govt. licensed driver.

There's more at the link. Highly recommended reading.

The article was made doubly chilling by a couple of articles I came across today concerning the attitude towards its citizens of the Chinese government. It seems that, if the State decides there are enough vehicles on the roads, it simply stops issuing new licenses, or at least severely restricts the number it issues. If you happen to buy a car, and want to license it so that you can drive it . . . tough. You now own an 'illegal vehicle' - and this is what the State does to it.

Today’s Daily Sunshine reported that 14,277 confiscated “illegal motorcycles” were destroyed by bulldozers in Yungang district, Shenzhen as part of the city’s “motorcycle ban”. The Shenzhen-based newspaper says that in April this year another 9,532 illegal motorcycles were wrecked in the same way.

Shenzhen began taking steps to reduce the numbers of motorcycles in the city as early as 1995. In 1998, the city stopped allowing residents to register new motorcycles and in 2003, the city passed regulations banning motorcycles from most parts of the downtown area. Today’s article says that since 2003 when the ban took effect, a total of over 580,000 motorcycles and electricity-powered bicycle have been confiscated.

That report was from 2008, but nothing's changed. From a report dated July 22nd last year:

More than 3,000 illegal motorcycles and other illegal vehicles are being destroyed in a parking lot of Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong province on July 20, 2011.

Local traffic police confiscated the vehicles during a recent crackdown on the illegal operation of five types of vehicles - tricycles, motor tricycles, wheelchair tricycles used by the disabled, electric bicycles and motorbikes.

Yep. When Big Brother insists on licensing everything you buy, and use, and do, it's a simple step to withdrawing - or refusing to grant - those licenses, thus turning you into a criminal whether you like it or not. At the moment, I think Americans still have enough moxie to (literally) be up in arms about having their property actually destroyed by an arbitrary action of government; but I'm no longer so sure of that as I once was. One can become so conditioned to accepting government oversight of every aspect of one's life that one can cease to function as a free, independent human being. I daresay that's what most governments count on . . .

Food for thought - and motivation for action!

Peter

That's one way to encourage recycling!

2012-01-22T23:55:00.002-06:00

I had to laugh at this video clip, which appears to be an advertisement intended to encourage recycling. It's certainly got a different take on the subject!

Peter