Follow-up to the FAA complaint

I've actually got the FAA and the local newspaper contacting me about the complaints over that damned helicopter.

My email to the FCC

Hello,

I'm trying to find out the best solution to low-flying news aircraft. A local news station in Raleigh, NC (ABC 11, WTVD) has repeatedly placed a low-hovering helicopter (below 500ft) over a residential area.

This aircraft is there to provide camera shots of a major highway interchange and the largest of the local shopping malls. However, the helicopter goes into a low hover over the neighborhood before 7am, to provide fewer than 30s worth of camera coverage to the morning news. In the meantime, the helicopter is flying so low that it's disturbing the residents, waking folks early.

One of these incidents occurred on the Friday after Thanksgiving, when many folks are intentionally sleeping in to avoid the shopping insanity at the mall. The last thing we needed was a helicopter waking us at 650am to provide a 'traffic' report to the mall. Pretty much anyone who cared what the traffic was like at the mall was already at the mall.

What is the best solution for stopping these intrusive disturbances? This is not a flight necessary for military maneuvers, nor was is a pre-existing flight route with a neighborhood built under it. This is a TV station showing off the fact that they have a news helicopter with no regard to the level of disturbance they inflict on the local residents.

Who's your vote for the MLB Hall of Fame?

Alomar, Martinez, Larkin & McGriff on Hall ballot - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

Roberto Alomar is among 15 first-time candidates of this year’s Hall of Fame ballot, joining holdovers Mark McGwire, Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven.

Edgar Martinez, Barry Larkin and Fred McGriff also are new to the ballot this year. There are 26 candidates, three more than last year when Rickey Henderson was elected in his initial appearance and Jim Rice made it on his 15th and final try. Dawon fell 44 votes shy of the 75 percent needed and Blyleven was 67 short.

Also on the ballot for the first time are Kevin Appier, Ellis Burks, Andres Galarraga, Pat Hentgen, Mike Jackson, Eric Karros, Ray Lankford, Shane Reynolds, David Segui, Robin Ventura and Todd Zeile.

Other holdovers on the list announced Friday include Harold Baines, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Tim Raines, Lee Smith and Alan Trammell.

My vote, if I had one?
Roberto Alomar
Bert Blyleven
Andre Dawson
Barry Larkin
Don Mattingly
Mark McGwire
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
Tim Raines
Lee Smith
Alan Trammell

Ah yes, the stray commas...

CNN Political Ticker: Pres. Obama cheers on brother-in-law at basketball game

Robinson, who coaches the Oregon State Beavers, was cheered on by the President, who snacked on popcorn, the First Lady, Sasha, Malia and the girls’ grandmother Marian Robinson.

Is it just me, or would you be full after snacking on the First Lady, your daughters, and mother-in-law? Oh, and popcorn.

Reason number 547586 that Africa isn't worth saving

Report: Scores of albinos in hiding after attacks - CNN.com

As many as 10,000 albinos are in hiding in east Africa over fears that they will be dismembered and their body parts sold to witchdoctors, the Red Cross said in a recent report.
The killings of albinos in Burundi and Tanzania, who are targeted because their body parts are believed to have special powers, have sparked fears among the population in the two countries, the report said.
Body parts of albinos are sought in some regions of Africa because they are believed to bring wealth and good luck. Attackers chop off limbs and pluck out organs to sell to dealers, who in turn sell them to witchdoctors.
Scores of albinos have fled to Tanzanian schools for the disabled or in emergency shelters set up by police in Burundi to avoid attacks, according to the report.
"Thousands more albinos across a huge swathe of countryside ... are unable to move freely to trade, study or cultivate fields for fear of albino hunters," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.
Tanzanian government officials have said they are mobilizing police to help the embattled population, but admit it is hard to quell the attacks.
Most happen in rural areas, where there is not enough police presence, according to Lucca Haule, assistant commissioner of police.
"We don't have the resources in those places ... it is not easy, but we are trying to map out locations where albinos live so that we can better protect them," he told CNN earlier this month.
In early November, a court sentenced four people to death in northern Tanzania for killing an albino man and selling his body parts. So far, seven people have been sentenced to death for the killing of more than 50 Tanzanian albinos, including children, in the past two years, Haule said. Dozens more are awaiting trial.

Yesterday's entertainment

John and Steve and a table of dice:

Counterattack at Salyan - Liveblogging today's Warfighter game - ConsimWorld

Liveblogging Warfighter game 2 - ConsimWorld

Black Friday madness

No, no, not the stores, the fucking ABC 11 News helicopter that was hovering over the neighborhood at 300ft for 20 minutes before 7am on a non-school holiday. Why? To get an exterior shot of Crabtree Valley Mall. Talk about fucking stupid. Anyone who gives a crap about the traffic at the mall at 7am is already at the fucking mall!

The damn chopper woke my wife up and annoyed the shit out of an entire neighborhood on a morning when most people sleep in.

The Parade

Yep, we're watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I don't mind the musical numbers, but I'm wish it was a bit more holiday sentiment and less NBC TV infomercial. They've got everyone but Leno on there, and that's probably because he's asleep.


The "national high school band" or somesuch is out there right now, and the dancing girls in the middle of the formation are decked out in Macy's logos that make them look like the Star-Bellied Sneetches from Dr Seuss.

Too much to do

Being a dad

Getting ready for holidays

IRB for dissertation & finish dissertation proposal

Coordinate it with ROTC dets

Turkey Day

work

ugh!

Soccer

Missing many of our better players, we nonetheless hung on last night in a game of attrition. We had 1 sub and played on the big field, but still punched in a few extra goals and won 7-5.

Standings and results

Forcing it

I'm trying to force myself to write something each day, in the attempt to accidentally get around to something meaningful. I admire Mark Walker for churning out something worth reading each day, but then I remember that he's retired and his kids don't need a lot of supervision in the morning, either.

Repeat it enough and it becomes true...

So there's this whopper of a pile of bullshit about about women working in the sciences

Since Lawrence Summers's ill-considered remarks at a 2005 economics conference (he blamed the lack of tenured female scientists on their biologically inferior intelligence and aptitude; he was president of Harvard University at the time) there has been a steady stream of books, reports and panel discussions chronicling the woes of women who wear lab coats.

That's not even fucking close to what he said.

What he said was that no one had ever investigated why there weren't more women in science. He said no one had ever looked into whether or not the might have different forms of intelligence or aptitude, or whether women just didn't like science, or whether it was being taught improperly to them back in elementary school so they didn't like it, or because lab coats make them look fat. He never - EVER - said it was because they're dumb. He said no one knows and they ought to look into it without ruling out any option for political correctness.

Amazing that the PC police will trump up such a blatant lie because it makes for good copy. What crap.

Congress

"Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature ... If the next centennial does not find us a great nation...it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces."

-James Garfield, 1877

Best. Penalty. Call. Ever.

Ohio Democratic Party are twits and morons...

Email at my Ohio State email account - which isn't even the right address anymore and it being forward to the new, correct Ohio St email.

From: Ohio Democratic Party [contact@ohiodems.org]
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 9:17 AM
To: [REDACTED]@osu.edu
Subject: A Special Invitation
Dear BRANT,

One year ago, the Ohio Democratic Party (ODP), the Obama campaign, and you worked closely together to make history.

That's a really neat freakin' trick considering (a) I'm a Libertarian because I hate how the Democratic Party sold out to the unions, and (b) I'M REGISTERED TO VOTE IN NORTH CAROLINA.

So tell me again how I worked closely with the ODP to elect *anyone*....

"Terrorism"? Really? REE-ally?

Cops: Student threatened "snitches" in UConn death - College Football - Rivals.com

A University of Connecticut student committed an act terrorism by posting Internet messages telling people to “stop the snitching” after the stabbing death of football player Jasper Howard, university police said Thursday.

Christopher Mutchler, an 18-year-old freshman from Wethersfield, faces charges of hindering prosecution, committing an act of terrorism and several misdemeanors. He is due in court Nov. 10.

The messages were found Oct. 20, posted on an ESPNU news page about the stabbing and a Facebook wall set up for mourners to leave condolence messages.

“STOP the snitching and post the names of anyone you know who gave information to the cops,” read one profanity-laced posting on the ESPNU site. “jazz didnt deserve do die the person who killed him didnt intend to kill HIM anyone who snitched should face the social consequences.”

Over 8,000 people visited the Facebook wall, and police say they had reason to believe the messages were instilling fear and preventing witnesses from coming forward.

“Although his motive for the postings was unclear, it has been determined that Mutchler had no link or relation to others arrested in this case and his threats were termed empty threats,” UConn police said in a news release.

A man answering the phone at Mutchler’s house Thursday would not comment.

'Cuz y'know, posting empty threats to a Facebook wall is comparable to flying jet airplanes into international landmarks and blowing up marketplaces with explosive-packed cars.

Scouts at Ft Sumter

Find more photos like this on ConsimWorld

Comedy Freakin' Gold from the London review of Books

A guy I know had a link to the LRB classified personals on his blog. Some of these are a freakin' riot.

Schiele take a bow! Irritating Austrian art fanatic/eighties Morrissey fantasist (M, 43) would like your input (F to 50 or agents to 76) on campus-shenanigan novel he’s been writing since sixth form. Sex is fine too. No Johnny Marrs/Brian Sewells/David Lodges.
box no. 20/02

When I was married, Saturday night was our date night. More often than not it became ‘complain about the microbiotic diet the doctor has me on’ night. Anything was better than ‘re-enact scenes from Lord of the Flies’ night. What I’d really like it to be is ‘play Scrabble then snuggle’ night. Just so long as it doesn’t eventually become ‘wear this leather gimp mask and don’t let go of the chains’ night. Nervous M, 54, WLTM woman who isn’t mental or prone to candidiasis.
box no. 20/03

There are 289 species of octopus. I can, and will, name them all during the act of love. M, 58.
box no. 20/04

Many people carry scars from previous relationships. Not me: mine come from Chinese buffets. Clumsy, argumentative dim sum enthusiast (M, 45). Not good with children or animals. Or anything else that isn’t a fork.
box no. 20/05

Carl at the Toyota dealership told me I should probably put an ad in somewhere. So here goes. M, 37.
box no. 20/07

I have two great talents. One is writing superb adverts like this, the other is cage-free chicken farming. If either of those appeal, please write. F, 32. Shrops.
box no. 20/10

42 year old clinically depressed transvestite and father of two seeks jaded but intellectual supermodels to share misery , bills and alcoholic blackouts.Costume desired but not essential. I am hugely attractive and overwhelmingly charismatic.
email: nwtv@ymail.com

If you can, and do, talk for hours and hours about your love of elderflower kombucha, refuse to eat anything containing wheat, endlessly refer to your travels to India at dinner parties, correct other people’s pronunciation at every opportunity and insist on naming your children (all four of them, born in rapid succession) after members of the Bloomsbury Set, are 46, cold and sexually hostile, you’re either my PhD supervisor or my ex-wife. Good day to you both. The rest of you can try saying something nice to:
box no. 19/02

AAARGH! My eyes! My brain! My sanity!

So I'm sitting in a working group meeting and we're projecting a set of requirements on the screen. The list is in an Excel spreadsheet, and certain cells were color-coded red. The text, however, was still black against a red background, and therefore hard to read.

So guess what this nitwit does to make it "easier" to read? Turn the lights off... yeaaaahhhhhh, that'll make black text on a red background stick out better. Sigh.

Yes, for your dog

I just saw a snuggie ad on TV - there's now a snuggie available for your dog...

Can't have any productivity, can we?

So we're at a conference for work down in Tampa, and plugged into the network in the conference room here.

I can get to www.consimworld.com but not to www.wargamer.com.

I can get to my company email, but not Yahoo email, or even Ohio State University email.

My favorite 'block' message thus far? Trying to go to the Yahoo Messenger web access...

WebSense Enterprise filters and restricts access to Internet sites in accordance with SAIC Electronic Communications Policy SG-30, Section 5.
URL: "http://messenger.yahoo.com/"
REASON: Your request was denied because of its content categorization: "unavailable;Instant Messaging;Productivity"

Because we can't have any productivity on the network, can we?

Krauthammer provides a solid critique of current waffling on Afghanistan

The State | 10/11/2009 | Krauthammer: Obama's agony over Afghan war

Krauthammer: Obama's agony over Afghan war
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
The Washington Post
The genius of democracy is the rotation of power, which forces the opposition to be serious - particularly about things like war, about which until Jan. 20 of this year Democrats were decidedly unserious.

When the Iraq War (which a majority of Senate Democrats voted for) ran into trouble and casualties began to mount, Democrats followed the shifting winds of public opinion and turned decidedly anti-war. But needing political cover because of their post-Vietnam reputation for weakness on national defense, they adopted Afghanistan as their pet war.

"I was part of the 2004 Kerry campaign, which elevated the idea of Afghanistan as 'the right war' to conventional Democratic wisdom," wrote Democratic consultant Bob Shrum shortly after President Obama was elected. "This was accurate as criticism of the Bush administration, but it was also reflexive and perhaps by now even misleading as policy."

Which is a clever way to say that championing victory in Afghanistan was a contrived and disingenuous policy in which Democrats never seriously believed, a convenient two-by-four with which to bash George Bush over Iraq - while still appearing warlike enough to fend off the soft-on-defense stereotype.

Brilliantly crafted and perfectly cynical, the "Iraq War bad, Afghan War good" posture worked. Democrats first won Congress, then the White House. But now, unfortunately, they must govern. No more games. No more pretense.

So what does their commander in chief do now with the war he once declared had to be won but had been almost criminally under-resourced by Bush?

Perhaps provide the resources to win it?

You would think so. And that's exactly what Obama's handpicked commander requested on Aug. 30 - a surge of 30,000 to 40,000 troops to stabilize a downward spiral and save Afghanistan the way a similar surge saved Iraq.

That was more than five weeks ago. Still no response. Obama agonizes publicly as the world watches. Why? Because, explains national security adviser James Jones, you don't commit troops before you decide on a strategy.

No strategy? On March 27, flanked by his secretaries of defense and state, the president said this: "Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan." He then outlined a civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

And to emphasize his seriousness, the president made clear that he had not arrived casually at this decision. The new strategy, he declared, "marks the conclusion of a careful policy review."

Conclusion, mind you. Not the beginning. Not a process. The conclusion of an extensive review, the president assured the nation, that included consultation with military commanders and diplomats, with the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, with our NATO allies and members of Congress.

The general in charge was then relieved and replaced with Obama's own choice, Stanley McChrystal. And it's McChrystal who submitted the request for the 40,000 troops, a request upon which the commander in chief promptly gagged.

The White House began leaking an alternate strategy, apparently proposed (invented?) by Vice President Biden, for achieving immaculate victory with arm's-length use of cruise missiles, predator drones and special ops.

The irony is that no one knows more about this kind of warfare than Gen. McChrystal. He was in charge of exactly this kind of "counterterrorism" in Iraq for nearly five years, killing thousands of bad guys in hugely successful under-the-radar operations.

When the world's expert on this type of counterterrorism warfare recommends precisely the opposite strategy - "counterinsurgency," meaning a heavy-footprint, population-protecting troop surge - you have the most convincing of cases against counterterrorism by the man who most knows its potential and its limits. And McChrystal was emphatic in his recommendation: To go any other way than counterinsurgency would lose the war.

Yet his commander in chief, young Hamlet, frets, demurs, agonizes. His domestic advisers, led by Rahm Emanuel, tell him if he goes for victory, he'll become LBJ, the domestic visionary destroyed by a foreign war. His vice president holds out the chimera of painless counterterrorism success.

Against Emanuel and Biden stand David Petraeus, the world's foremost expert on counterinsurgency (he saved Iraq with it), and Stanley McChrystal, the world's foremost expert on counterterrorism. Whose recommendation on how to fight would you rely on?

Less than two months ago - Aug. 17 in front of an audience of veterans - the president declared Afghanistan to be "a war of necessity." Does anything he says remain operative beyond the fading of the audience applause?

E-mail Mr. Krauthammer at letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

Really pissy on the plane today

545am flight to DC, and I have to eat my knees for an hour because some fucktard 3 rows in front on me w/ no overhead bin has to take up 2/3 of mine with his crap. I wasn't going to hand his shit forward but the guy in front on me reached back to grab them. Why hey let the guy in the front-most seat board first I have no idea.
Then on the bus to the terminal, the luggage rack fills up with small backpacks from people who couldn't be inconvienced to hold them on their laps, resulting in at least one person with a large duffel sharing a seat with a kid.


(sent from my phone)

New Record for Missing the Point?

I just watched Eric Michael Dyson on The Today Show insist that the dislike of President Obama was based on a "fear of a black president and a fear of a black planet."

Please.

Dyson makes a good point earlier when he says that you don't ask the abuser to assess the improvement in treatment of the abused, you ask the victim.
Unfortunately, in this case, the abused only sees the world through a single narrative: abuse. And when you see everything as abuse, there's no alternative.

I'm here to provide one, and to point out how absolutely non-racist this is.

The vociferous opposition to the current presidential policies is no less loud, energetic, or appropriate than was the Code Pink-inspired anti-war protests of 2005-2006 after the Kerry-Bush election.
(Once that election had been lost, the partisan poles of the political spectrum targeted 2006 mid-terms as time to try and take Congress. Unfortunately for the Republicans, 2006 was a very bad year in Iraq, and their party took a beating at the polls because of their association with the President.) The 2006 elections were about Iraq. Between 2006 and 2008, though, Iraq stabilized, and the economy tanked, and the 2008 election was no longer about overseas (mis)adventures. Instead, we were talking about the economy.

And the discussion of the economy never had the narrative of "black man seeks to impose socialism on America".
Instead, the narrative was "Democratic policies from Congress will get an enabler of Obama is elected in 2008".
You see, the bulk of the issues around which the opposition has coalesced existed before Barry O became "President Obama". They existed when Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi took control of Congress, and persist now that Congress knows that there's not a rubber-stamp veto waiting for them at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Race is not a determining factor in opposition to housing policies that include the government propping up house prices when the market is correcting 5 years of over-valuation.
Race is not a determining factor in opposition to shifts in strategic approach to overseas wars when the result is to change rules of engagement that are already endangering American lives.
Race is not a determining factor in opposition to changes being promoted as "health care reform" that are actually "health insurance reform" and fail to address any underlying systemic problems, but instead install another permanent layer of government on top of an already bloated and broken system.
Race is not a determining factor in opposition to federal control of education standards (note: this has squat to do with the President's speech to schoolchildren, with which most people I know had -zero- problem).
Race is not a determining factor in opposition to continued funding for a community organizing group that has turned in tens of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations and was being given a prominent role in the census.
Race is not a determining factor in opposition to any form of immigration reform that rewards illegal behavior.

Race is only a determining factor for those who fail to see the world through any narrative other than race. Dyson has been trained from birth by the Sharptons, Jacksons, and Clyburns of the world to scream "race" as soon as anyone disagrees with a black man's idea. That does a great disservice to the black man, in that it says, in short, that their ideas are not worthy of intellectual discussion. It's sad, and pathetic, and never moves out national narrative forward when a large minority refuses to engage in an issue-driven discussion because they can always scream "race!" at the first person who disagrees, and everyone will put their heads down, and shuffle along a bit faster without bothering to investigate whether or not the "race" accusation is legit, never mind continuing the discussion that first sparked the accusation.

Dyson has set the political narrative in this country back about 30 years, and Maureen Dowd's recent column on Joe Wilson has put an 'acceptable' white face on the bogus accusations. These discussions happen to be led by a President who is 50% black. But they also happen to be led by a man who is making political decisions with which people disagree, no matter what color the skin of the man (or woman) promoting them. After all, it's not like people are swallowing what Reid and Pelosi are selling, either, and they're pretty damn white. The political disagreements we're having did not suddenly materialize when there was a black face in the Oval Office promulgating them. The disagreements have gone back decades, but even more recently, they predate Obama's challenge for the Presidency, and they manifested themselves very directly in the 2006-2008 Congressional sessions when Pelosi and Reid were calling the shots, with nary a black face among them. Hard to disagree with other white people on racist grounds - a fact that Dyson would do well to notice.

This is about politics, pure and simple. And to assign "race" as the narrative through which we are to discuss it is disingenuous and shows a lack of intellectual depth ont he part of the accusers.

An appropriate response

Jefferson County Sheriff defends soldier's funeral procession

Someone you need to know about

911 Remembered: Rick Rescorla was a soldier