The tide is turning

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote about conditions in Lebanon last Wednesday and included comments from the leader of the Lebanese intifada, Walid Jumblatt.

Jumblatt, he said, "is the patriarch of the Druze Muslim community and, until recently, a man who accommodated Syria's occupation. But something snapped for Jumblatt last year, when the Syrians overruled the Lebanese constitution and forced the reelection of their front man in Lebanon, President Emile Lahoud. The old slogans about Arab nationalism turned to ashes in Jumblatt's mouth, and he and Hariri openly began to defy Damascus..."

This paragraph virtually leaps off the page:

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

Bad acid flashback

There are few things more odious than having to endure a performance review by someone who is your professional and intellectual inferior.
Most journalists who have worked for Gannett know what I mean.

What he meant

Washington Times
February 7, 2005
Pg. 19
'Intimate Killing'
Close combat and the art of war
By Robert H. Scales

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on the future of warfare. Marine Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis was one of the panelists. During his remarks he made a statement about the pleasure that young soldiers and marines feel when killing in close combat, a statement that seems to have gotten him in trouble with the fourth estate — prompting an apology and some counseling by the Marine Corps Commandant.

First, a confession: I know Gen. Mattis. He is a central figure in the book I coauthored with Williamson Murray, "The Iraq War: A Military History." For those of you who might have the image of a knuckle-dragging troglodyte, let me assure you that he is one of the most urbane and polished men I have known. He can quote Homer as well as Sun Tzu and has over 7,000 books in his personal library.

Jim is the product of three decades of schooling and practice in the art of war. No one on active duty knows more about the subject. He is an infantryman, a close-combat Marine. He is one of those very few who willingly practices the art of what social scientists term "intimate killing." Those of us who have engaged in the act understand what he was trying to explain to an audience of defense technologists and contractors.

Intimate killing is a primal aspect of warfare unchanged since the beginning of civilization. It involves a clash of two warriors, one on one, armed with virtually identical weapons. The decision goes to the soldier with the right stuff, the one with the greater cunning, strength, guile, ruthlessness and will to win.

For a moment put yourself in the place of a young soldier or Marine fighting house to house in the mean streets of Fallujah. Burdened with over 60 pounds of gear, sweat dripping constantly into your face, you can't stop shaking from the fear of what the enemy has in store for you around the next corner. Just ahead is a darkened house with doors and windows closed and shuttered. The only sound is the crunching of your boots on the trash and broken glass as you move in slow motion to surround the dwelling. You watch as the sergeant signals you to cover a side entrance. Through the faint haze you can see your buddy kick in the door and immediately come face to face with an insurgent who greets him with a burst of AK-47 fire that tears a hole in his chest. Your buddy doesn't die. The terrorist wants him to live just long enough for his buddies to rush in for a rescue and become additional trophies to be laid at the altar of heaven.

Now, it's your turn. You use your superior discipline and skill to approach the insurgent such that you're detected just at the last second. Both of you raise your weapons simultaneously and open fire in a crushing tear of bullets that scatter and ricochet wildly across the room. One bullet finds the bad guy and he falls in a bloody lump just inches from your boots.What exactly do you "feel" at this moment? Relief, to be sure, but also something else that cannot be explained to anyone who hasn't committed an act of intimate killing. It's not joy, exactly, more like exhilaration and an enormous sense of self-satisfaction that in one of the most primal challenges — where all the satellites, planes, ships and smart weapons are of no use whatever — you prevailed, one on one, over a diabolically evil enemy.

Who should be offended by the emotions of "joy" or whatever one feels at the moment of a successful kill? It's a fair fight, you win and the bad guy loses. It's that simple. One more terrorist will not threaten your unit or your buddies. Remember, this isn't a reality show. There are no retakes. Donald Trump doesn't fire you and the price for second place is death.

My point simply is this: We must celebrate the fact that we have men like Jim Mattis willing to devote (and give) their lives when necessary to commit an act that most of those in our society would be horrified to even contemplate. If you are offended by these emotions, then seriously consider joining an Army or Marine infantry unit so that you can demonstrate how to kill an enemy in a more humane and politically correct manner.

Until such an unlikely day occurs, we must all remember that leaders like Gen. Mattis and the men he commands are the rarest commodities that a protected society like ours can produce. All they want is the opportunity to serve a country that truly appreciates the difficulty and dangers inherent in the duties they perform, duties that very few are willing even to contemplate.

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales is a former commander of the Army War College

Tower Talk

Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"
==========================================

"TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 Degrees."

"Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?"

"Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"
==========================================

From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff queue: "I'm
f...ing bored!"

Ground Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!"

Unknown aircraft: "I said I was f...ing bored, not f...ing stupid!"
==========================================

O'Hare Approach Control to a 747: "United 329 heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound."

United 239: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this...I've got the little Fokker in sight."
==========================================

A DC-10 had come in a little fast and thus had an exceedingly long roll out after touching down.

San Jose Tower Noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the Guadalupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport."
==========================================

There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked." Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind an eight-engined B-52 that had one engine shut down.

"Ah," the fighter pilot remarked, "the dreaded seven-engine approach."
==========================================

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent) "Because you lost the bloody war."
==========================================

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7"

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702, contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger...and yes, we copied Eastern. We've already notified our caterers."
==========================================

One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee. Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said, "What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"

The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll have enough parts for another one."
==========================================

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a
short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."

Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."

The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, and I didn't land."
==========================================

While taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport, the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727.

An irate female ATC ground controller lashed out at the US Air
crew, screaming:

"US Air 2771, where the hell are you going?! I told you to
turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!"

Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting
hysterically:

"God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll take forever to
sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?"

"Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded.

Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high.

Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone, asking:

"Wasn't I married to you once?"

Murphy's Laws of Combat

1. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
2. Incoming fire has the right of way.
3. Don't look conspicuous, it draws fire.
4. There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work.
5. The problem with the easy way out is that it has already been mined.
6. Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.
7. Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous.
8. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:
when you're ready for them.
when you're not ready for them.
9.Teamwork is essential, it gives them someone else to shoot at.
10. If you can't remember, then the claymore IS pointed at you.
11. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
12. A "sucking chest wound" is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
13. If your attack is going well, then it's an ambush.
14. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
15. Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
16. If you build yourself a bunker that's tough for the enemy to get into quickly, then you won't be able to get out of it quickly either.
17. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
18. If you're short of everything but the enemy, you're in a combat zone.
19. When you've secured the area, don't forget to tell the enemy.
20. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
21. Friendly fire isn't.
22. If the sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
23. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep.
24. The most dangerous thing in the world is a second lieutenant with a map and a compass.
25. There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
26. A grenade with a seven second fuse will always burn down in four seconds.
27. Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
28. If at first you don't succeed call in an air-strike.
29. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.
30. Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the colonel's HQ.
31. The enemy never watches until you make a mistake.
32. One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.
33. A clean (and dry) set of BDU's is a magnet for mud and rain.
34. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you can't hit the broad side of a barn.
35. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.
36. Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
37. Interchangeable parts aren't.
38. No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill.
39. If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove ANYTHING.
40. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. (in boot camp)
41. The one item you need is always in short supply.
42. The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.
43. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon's operator.
44. Airstrikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.
45. When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones are always illegible.
46. Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up KIA or WIA.
47. The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don't know what they want, but they know for certain what they DON'T want.
48. To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.
49. The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M60.
50. The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone else.
51. When you have sufficient supplies & ammo, the enemy takes 2 weeks to attack. 52. When you are low on supplies & ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.
52. The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Congressional Medal Of Honor.
53. A Purple Heart just goes to prove that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
54. Murphy was a grunt.

My Florida friend Susan. For 8 years she was the chief financial officer of the fastest-growing, most affluent community in Indiana. She was also the most honest, straightforward, no-bullshit elected official I covered in my 34 years in newspapers. 

This one always creeps my wife out. An audiologist is injecting a silicone compound into my ear canal to make custom molded in-ear stereo speakers for use when riding my motorcycle. My wife can't stand anything in her ears. 

I covered a rural house fire last evening. Here's the photo that ran big on the front page this morning. 

Here's another. 

After being inundated by Valentine's Day crap - weddings, proposals, fawning couples - on the morning TV talk shows, this is how I feel about V-Day. 

Shot from the pier at Flagler Beach, Fla., last Thursday. It was a chilly, gray, windy day but perfect for surfers. I didn't expect to see wave action like this on the Atlantic coast. 

Wrong number

I just got a wrong-number call on my cell phone from a woman at 317-357-1121.
Feel free to call her and say, "Oooops. Sorry, wrong number."

This is Florida?

It's 57 degrees, but the wind chill makes if feel like 52, with a heavy overcast and spitting rain here in beautiful Palm Coast, Fla.
Sunshine State, my ass.
It was like this yesterday and will be this way tomorrow.
If I wanted sunshine, I shoulda gone to Colorado.
The Honda del Sol performed splendidly on the drive down, delivering 34.6 miles per gallon. The addition of XM satellite radio to the entertainment options made the trip an easy one, even with a 45-minute crawl through a construction zone on I-75 north of Valdosta, Ga.
I'd envisioned driving around down here with the roof panel stowed in the trunk, but that's not gonna happen until Friday at the earliest and maybe not at all.
Took my friends to see Sideways last night. I enjoyed it and would give it at least an 8 on a scale of 10. It goes deeper into the dynamics of relationships than most movies do and is considerably more thoughtful than 99% of the films out there today. At the same time, there are outrageously funny moments. Whether it's Oscar material is another matter entirely, especially if The Passion of The Christ doesn't even make the nomination cut.
Whatever. It was worth the price of admission.
When we stepped up to the ticket booth, the cashier - a woman I'd judge to be in her 60s - asked if we wanted the senior citizen discount. I glanced up at the ticket price list and noticed the cutoff was 60. Only one of us - Susan's boyfriend - is over 60 and Susan just had a facelift that makes her look early 40-something, but I thought, "What the hell? Why not?"
Judging from the other theater patrons around us, I figured most of them got in at the geezer rate.
So our three tickets came to a modest $18.
I spent much of yesterday helping Ed, Susan's boyfriend, research ways to get his neighbor to stop parking his electrical contracting business vehicles in front of his (the neighbor's) house.
It's obvious the neighbor is running his business out of his home and, under local regulations, that means he cannot park vehicles with painted business signage, in front of his home.
We've determined that he has his business registered at an address in St. Augustine. Turns out he owns several residential rental properties in a white trash neighborhood up there, but our reconnaisance determined there is no electrical contracting business being done at any of them, including the one listed on his St. John County (St. Augustine) business permit.
This scheme to get around Palm Coast ordinances is made all the more interesting by the fact that the guy serves on a town council-appointed technical board for construction review.
So what he have is a government official flaunting the laws of his own community.
My suggestion is to pull together all this information, along with photos of the offending vehicles parked illegally in front of the house, and turn it over to some eager young newspaper reporter.
In the meantime, I need to get out and do some photography for our stock photo business.
*********************
I just answered the doorbell - Ed is out rescuing a buddy whose car broke down on I-95 a few miles from here - and found myself being schmoozed by a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses women. I closed the door in their faces as pleasantly as possible, explaining that I'm Catholic and am quite satisfied with my religion.
Crappy weather, evangelists, strategizing against a sleazy neighbor and now I have a sinus headache. What next?

Florida-bound, weather permitting

The flu hung on a day longer than I expected, but I'm back to about 95% and will head for a week-long photo expedition to Florida tomorrow.
I'll spend tomorrow night at the home of a seldom-seen cousin south of Nashville, Tenn., then on to the home of friends in Palm Coast, Fla., Monday night.
Watching the snow falling outside my office window makes it an easy decision to throw my gear into the trunk of my del Sol, crank up the XM satellite radio and head for the tropics.
Unfortunately, my wife can't come with me. She's saving her vacation time for later in the year and also wants to stay close to home because her Amish sister-in-law is expecting a sixth (!?!?!) child any day now.
So I'll just have to e-mail her photos of palm trees and me driving around with the top off of my car in the balmy Florida breezes.
If I have anything interesting to report, I'll blog it from Florida.

Goddamned flu

I have the flu.
I woke up yesterday morning feeling ever so slightly queasy and the condition intensified through the day. Lunch was a toasted cheese sandwich and cup of soup. By mid-afternoon, I'd run out of stuff to write and edit at my wife's newspaper where I was filling in. I felt sufficiently crappy that I came home and went to bed with body aches, chills and fever.
My wife and stepdaughter had bouts with this or a similar bug in late December and I had been congratulating myself on avoiding it. Obviously, my luck had run out.
My wife was laid low for nearly a week and her daughter was flattened for about three days.
Despite a fever of 100.4 last night and an inability to venture far from a toilet today, I feel pretty good and should be back to normal tomorrow.
It's been a couple of years since I've had so much as a cold, so I guess I shouldn't complain about a 24-48-hour knock-down.
I called my daughter-in-law the doctor when my wife was sick and got very useful advice - drink at least 8 ounces of fluid per hour. I kept the wife and stepdaughter loaded up with Gatorade and have been slugging down lots of the stuff myself. I have no science to back it up, but I think it does a better job of flushing out the debris and keeping me hydrated than does plain water.

Time Marches On

I'm reading proof and writing editorials today at my wife's newspaper.
The editorial page is where they run the "Today in History" and celebrity birthdays and I was startled to discover that Eddie Van Halen tunred 50 today. Now he can join AARP and get senior citizen discounts at Motel 6.
Welcome to the downhill slide, Eddie.

No good deed goes unpunished

This post by a U.S. Navy officer aboard the U.S.S. Lincoln was copied from the Soldiers for The Truth blog: sftt.org
01-20-2005

Guest Column: No Relief in Sight for the Lincoln

By Ed Stanton

It has been three weeks since my ship, the USS Abraham Lincoln, arrived off the Sumatran coast to aid the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that ravaged their coastline. I’d like to say that this has been a rewarding experience for us, but it has not: Instead, it has been a frustrating and needlessly dangerous exercise made even more difficult by the Indonesian government and a traveling circus of so-called aid workers who have invaded our spaces.



What really irritated me was a scene I witnessed in the Lincoln’s wardroom a few days ago. I went in for breakfast as I usually do, expecting to see the usual crowd of ship’s company officers in khakis and air wing aviators in flight suits, drinking coffee and exchanging rumors about when our ongoing humanitarian mission in Sumatra is going to end.



What I saw instead was a mob of civilians sitting around like they owned the place. They wore various colored vests with logos on the back including Save The Children, World Health Organization and the dreaded baby blue vest of the United Nations. Mixed in with this crowd were a bunch of reporters, cameramen and Indonesian military officers in uniform. They all carried cameras, sunglasses and fanny packs like tourists on their way to Disneyland.



My warship had been transformed into a floating hotel for a bunch of trifling do-gooders overnight.



As I went through the breakfast line, I overheard one of the U.N. strap-hangers, a longhaired guy with a beard, make a sarcastic comment to one of our food servers. He said something along the lines of “Nice china, really makes me feel special,” in reference to the fact that we were eating off of paper plates that day. It was all I could do to keep from jerking him off his feet and choking him, because I knew that the reason we were eating off paper plates was to save dishwashing water so that we would have more water to send ashore and save lives. That plus the fact that he had no business being there in the first place.



My attitude towards these unwanted no-loads grew steadily worse that day as I learned more from one of our junior officers who was assigned to escort a group of them. It turns out that they had come to Indonesia to “assess the damage” from the Dec. 26 tsunami.



Well, they could have turned on any TV in the world and seen that the damage was total devastation. When they got to Sumatra with no plan, no logistics support and no five-star hotels to stay in, they threw themselves on the mercy of the U.S. Navy, which, unfortunately, took them in. I guess our senior brass was hoping for some good PR since this was about the time that the U.N. was calling the United States “stingy” with our relief donations.



As a result of having to host these people, our severely over-tasked SH-60 Seahawk helos, which were carrying tons of food and water every day to the most inaccessible places in and around Banda Aceh, are now used in great part to ferry these “relief workers” from place to place every day and bring them back to their guest bedrooms on the Lincoln at night. Despite their avowed dedication to helping the victims, these relief workers will not spend the night in-country, and have made us their guardians by default.



When our wardroom treasurer approached the leader of the relief group and asked him who was paying the mess bill for all the meals they ate, the fellow replied, “We aren’t paying, you can try to bill the U.N. if you want to.”



In addition to the relief workers, we routinely get tasked with hauling around reporters and various low-level “VIPs,” which further wastes valuable helo lift that could be used to carry supplies. We had to dedicate two helos and a C-2 cargo plane for America-hater Dan Rather and his entourage of door holders and briefcase carriers from CBS News. Another camera crew was from MTV. I doubt if we’ll get any good PR from them, since the cable channel is banned in Muslim countries. We also had to dedicate a helo and crew to fly around the vice mayor of Phoenix, Ariz., one day. Everyone wants in on the action.



As for the Indonesian officers, while their job is apparently to encourage our leaving as soon as possible, all they seem to do in the meantime is smoke cigarettes. They want our money and our help but they don’t want their population to see that Americans are doing far more for them in two weeks than their own government has ever done or will ever do for them.



To add a kick in the face to the USA and the Lincoln, the Indonesian government announced it would not allow us to use their airspace for routine training and flight proficiency operations while we are saving the lives of their people, some of whom are wearing Osama bin Ladin T-shirts as they grab at our food and water. The ship has to steam out into international waters to launch and recover jets, which makes our helos have to fly longer distances and burn more fuel.



What is even worse than trying to help people who totally reject everything we stand for is that our combat readiness has suffered for it.



An aircraft carrier is an instrument of national policy and the big stick she carries is her air wing. An air wing has a set of very demanding skills and they are highly perishable. We train hard every day at sea to conduct actual air strikes, air defense, maritime surveillance, close air support and many other missions – not to mention taking off and landing on a ship at sea.



Our safety regulations state that if a pilot does not get a night carrier landing every seven days, he has to be re-qualified to land on the ship. Today we have pilots who have now been over 25 days without a trap due to being unable to use Indonesian airspace to train. Normally it is when we are at sea that our readiness is at its very peak. Thanks to the Indonesian government, we have to waive our own safety rules just to get our pilots off the deck.



In other words, the longer we stay here helping these people, the more dangerous it gets for us to operate. We have already lost one helicopter, which crashed in Banda Aceh while taking sailors ashore to unload supplies from the C-130s. There were no relief workers on that one.



I’m all for helping the less fortunate, but it is time to give this mission to somebody other than the U.S. Navy. Our ship was supposed to be home on Feb. 3 and now we have no idea how long we will be here. American taxpayers are spending millions per day to keep this ship at sea and getting no training value out of it. As a result, we will come home in a lower state of readiness than when we left due to the lack of flying while supporting the tsunami relief effort.



I hope we get some good PR in the Muslim world out of it. After all, this is Americans saving the lives of Muslims. I have my doubts.



Ed Stanton is the pen name of a career U.S. Navy officer currently serving with the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. Send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.

What worries me tonight...

I don’t think of myself as a worrier, although my wife and my sons might have a different view.
But I’m starting to get seriously worried about the epidemic of methamphetamine use and meth-related crime I’m seeing.
It seems that almost every crime and aberration that crops up in this semi-rural part of the state is linked, somehow, with meth.
We live in a town of about 1,500 surrounded by farmland. An abandoned railroad right-of-way runs behind our house and on the other side of it is the local Farm Bureau Co-Op with three or four huge storage tanks full of anhydrous ammonia.
At various times during the year, area farmers apply ammonia to their fields using “nurse tanks,” big white torpedo-shaped tanks on wheels that they pull behind a tractor or a truck.
For the uninitiated, ammonia is a component used to manufacture methamphetamine. Of all the ingredients, ammonia is the only one that meth makers can’t walk into Wal-Mart and buy. So they have to steal it.
The tricky part is that guys who make meth are more often than not meth users, which means they spend a lot of time under the influence of this insanely addictive drug. That means we have inherently stupid people who have further impaired themselves with dangerous chemicals trying to break open valves on big tanks full of a highly toxic substance.
One night during the summer of 2003, one of these morons got in over his head trying to steal ammonia from the Co-Op and left a valve on a nurse tank open. My wife arrived home from work about 7 p.m. and noticed a strong smell of ammonia. It got progressively stronger to the point where we had to go inside and shut our doors and windows to keep it out. A Little League baseball game was in progress a block down the street on the opposite side of our house from the Co-Op. The town marshal called off the game and evacuated the ballpark.
The ammonia finally dissipated, but the episode left us with the disturbing realization that we could all be gassed in our sleep by some imbecile trying to filch ammonia to make meth.
A little reconnaissance revealed there is virtually no security at the Co-Op. No night watchman, no security light, no high fence. The nurse tanks are lined up in an area that opens onto a soybean field. Some bold meth head could easily drive through the bean field some moonless night, hook a nurse tank to his vehicle and make off with several thousand pounds of deadly anhydrous.
Now, I could go off on a homeland security tangent here and suggest that our nation’s unsecured agricultural ammonia supplies are an easy target for terrorists, but let’s stay with the meth angle for now.
I wrote earlier about a cop friend who was involved in a police action shooting that killed a young man who was spun on meth and made the fatal error of pointing a pellet gun at an officer in pre-dawn darkness.
Hardly a week goes by in the nearby county where my wife’s newspaper is based that a highly volatile meth lab doesn’t blow up and damage a house or some other structure. During the winter, meth makers look for abandoned structures or the homes of people vacationing in Florida to break into and set up their labs. I read a police report this week about a guy and his son who were making meth in the crawlspace under a stranger’s house. I saw another report about a 19-year-old and a 22-year-old – both meth heads – who decided to support their habit by passing bad checks. Now they face a combined 19 felony counts of forgery.
My pharmacist has a sister-in-law who is hopelessly addicted to meth – been in and out of rehab countless times but just can’t stay away from it.
Cops will tell you that almost all identity theft is meth-related.
My stepson’s cousin lives by himself in his great-grandmother’s house and my stepson says he’s starting to hang out with the meth crowd.
This week, my wife’s publisher had to fire the best photographer who has ever worked at that paper because of meth.
The guy and his wife moved here from the south a few months ago, pretty much dead broke because – the story goes – they spent the last year or so caring for the wife’s dying mother.
The guy went to work, shooting excellent news photos. It was immediately clear that he had the makings of a top flight photojournalist.
However…
His wife was a dirtbag slut. Soon after they arrived, she started hanging out in the sleazier bars and less than a month later, she disappeared with hubby’s car, having run off to Nebraska with a construction worker.
The photog moped around for a few days, then got back to work and was turning out some brilliant photography – spot news, features, illustrations, you name it – until the wife called and tearfully told him the boyfriend had beaten and abandoned her.
However talented the photog was, he had absolutely no judgment when it came to relationships. He drove to Nebraska and brought her home.
It was all downhill from that point on. Coworkers said they saw the couple out partying all night every night. He was later and later getting to work every day.
A couple of weeks ago, at a time when a nasty flu bug was running rampant in the newsroom, he called in sick on a Monday. His editor checked on him daily until Wednesday when his wife said she’s keep the office apprised of his condition. But there was no call on Thursday and by Friday morning the sports department was getting nervous about whether he would be available to shoot weekend sports or whether they needed to hunt up photo stringers.
My wife, having a good rapport with the police department, called the cops and asked them to drop by his apartment and do a welfare check just to make sure he was still alive.
A short time later, the photog called the newsroom – barely coherent but with his wife screeching in the background. It took the editor a good 15 minutes to explain to him that nobody was angry with him, they just got worried and also wondered what plans to make for the weekend. He didn’t have a phone and had turned off his company cell phone.
So fast forward to Wednesday morning when the folks in the newsroom hear police radio traffic mentioning the photographer’s name and something about a portable police scanner radio belonging to the newspaper.
The editor was off with the flu, so my wife and the publisher went to the police station where they identified the scanner radio as the one they had issued to the photographer.
Seems it turned up in the apartment of a meth dealer. Further investigation revealed that the photographer had earlier sold the meth dealer his Ford Explorer for two grams of meth. The closest we could get to an explanation of how the scanner radio got into the meth dealer’s apartment was that the photog said he’d given it to his wife while he was off shooting a high school basketball game because it’s impossible to hear the scanner in a noisy gym. So we’re left to suppose the wife went visiting and accidentally left behind a device that would be extremely useful to a criminal who wanted to know what the local police were up to.
My wife finally reached the photographer at his apartment – after he had been questioned by police – and told him the publisher wanted him in the office immediately. He tried to beg off, saying he was “too freaked out” at the moment. An hour or so later, the publisher ordered him to report to the office with all of his company-owned equipment within 25 minutes. Otherwise, the publisher would call the police and report the equipment stolen.
A staff member saw the photog park his car in front of the office with the left rear tire up on the sidewalk. His wife was in the car, applying makeup.
He turned in his stuff and was terminated.
His Nikon D70 had a 1 gig Compact Flash card that held 86 photos taken between 7:04 and 7:38 a.m. that same day. Most were of his wife posing seductively by candlelight. Since sunrise wasn’t until a little after 8 a.m., it was obvious that they had been up all night. It was equally clear that they were oblivious to the shit storm gathering around them.
It’s impossible for me to see this stuff happening around me and not be concerned.
What happens when the stepson’s cousin gets seriously spun on meth and tells his buddies about the burglary opportunities at my house? What happens the next time some idiot decides to crack a valve on a nurse tank behind my house?
Like I said, I don’t think of myself as a worrier, but I do have a heightened sense of danger.

Far-fetched, but an amusing thought...

Has U.S. threatened
to vaporize Mecca?
Intelligence expert says nuke option is reason bin Laden has been quiet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Posted: January 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Why hasn't Osama bin Laden's terror network executed an attack on U.S. soil since 9-11?

Simple, says Dr. Jack Wheeler, creator of an acclaimed intelligence website dubbed "the oasis for rational conservatives": The U.S. has threatened to nuke the Muslim holy city of Mecca should the terror leader strike America again.

On his website, To the Point, Wheeler explains how the Bush administration has identified the potential of wiping Mecca off the map as bin Laden's ultimate point of vulnerability – the Damoclean Sword hanging over his head.

..snip...Writes Wheeler in his members-only column: "There has been a rumor floating in the Washington ether for some time now that George Bush has figured out what Sword of Damocles is suspended over Osama bin Laden's head.

...snip...Completely obliterating the terrorists' holiest of holies, rendering what is for them the world's most sacred spot a radioactive hole in the ground is retribution of biblical proportions – and those are the only proportions that will do the job.

"Osama would have laughed off such a threat, given his view that Americans are wussies who cut and run after a few losses, such as Lebanon in 1983 and Somalia in 1993. Part of Bush's rationale for invading Afghanistan and Iraq – obviously never expressed publicly – was to convince Osama that his threat to nuke Mecca was real. Osama hates America just as much as ever, but he is laughing no more."

Wheeler says bin Laden is "playing poker with a Texas cowboy holding the nuclear aces," so there's nothing al-Qaida could do that could come remotely close to risking obliterating Mecca.

How bizarre

Ever stop to wonder how an aggregation of chemicals and subtle electrical impulses (you) have the capacity to wonder about anything? Or to know anything, much less have memories, emotions and values.
Pretty damned uppity for a wheezing bag of protoplasm, don't you think?