Raleigh CAC chair

Oh, by the way, I won another election last night when I was elected chair of the Raleigh Citizens Advisory Council. As far as I know, it’s the first time a soon-to-be-former CAC chair will lead the council since it’s inception in 1974.

One thing that is up for discussion is the fact that the bylaws have no provision for an ex-CAC chair to vote. Thus I will preside over the meetings but have no vote. The group could amend the bylaws to change this, of course, and it might be helpful to do so. With 18 CACs, getting a tie vote on a matter is a possibility, remote as the chance may be. Getting the opportunity to vote in a tie might be useful at the very least.

Anyhow, I’m looking forward to serving in this new role and making Raleigh’s neighborhoods stronger!

What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447

Popular Mechanics published and translated a partial transcript of the cockpit voice recorders of the doomed flight Air France 447. As the flight data recorders indicated, one of the pilots was pushing the nose up the entire time the stall took place. The voice recorder does not indicate why the first officer made this simple but tragic mistake, however. It simply indicates the level of confusion in the cockpit, and the unfortunate fact that the other two pilots realized the error far too late.

We now understand that, indeed, AF447 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had caused. Neither weather nor malfunction doomed AF447, nor a complex chain of error, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one of the pilots.

Human judgments, of course, are never made in a vacuum. Pilots are part of a complex system that can either increase or reduce the probability that they will make a mistake. After this accident, the million-dollar question is whether training, instrumentation, and cockpit procedures can be modified all around the world so that no one will ever make this mistake again—or whether the inclusion of the human element will always entail the possibility of a catastrophic outcome. After all, the men who crashed AF447 were three highly trained pilots flying for one of the most prestigious fleets in the world. If they could fly a perfectly good plane into the ocean, then what airline could plausibly say, “Our pilots would never do that”?

via Air France 447 Flight-Data Recorder Transcript – What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 – Popular Mechanics.

Gas-Fracking Chemicals Found in WY Aquifer

Whoopsie.

And to think the American Petroleum Institute ran a 3/4 page color ad in today’s News and Observer, singing the praises of fracking.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said for the first time it found chemicals used in extracting natural gas through hydraulic fracturing in a drinking-water aquifer in west-central Wyoming.

Samples taken from two deep water-monitoring wells near a gas field in Pavillion, Wyoming, showed synthetic chemicals such as glycols and alcohols “consistent with gas production and hydraulic-fracturing fluids,” the agency said today in an e- mailed statement.

via Gas-Fracking Chemicals Found in WY Aquifer – Bloomberg.

Lonelier street

McNultys' moving van


I watched with sadness today as our next-door neighbors, the McNultys, moved out. I remember how welcome they made us feel when we moved in almost four years ago. Now their house stands empty and our little end of Tonsler Drive has gotten a bit lonelier.

Life is full of moments where everything can change in an instant. The death of a loved one, or a pet, or when good friends move away. They knock you out of your happy slumber, sudden reminders that nothing in this life is permanent.

You’d better enjoy every moment in life because they’re here and they’re gone. All too soon.

Congress about to undermine our basic constitutional rights

I’ve said again and again, if people like Jose Padilla, a U.S. Citizen accused of terrorism, are truly as evil as the government says they are, then put them on trial and prove it. Padilla did finally get a trial, by the way, but not until he spent years without trial in solitary confinement in a sensory-depravation situation – destroying his personality, according to psychologists.

Apparently Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and other senators believe the government can ignore the U.S. Constitution and detain U.S. citizens indefinitely without trial – for life!

So much for liberty, folks.

Should the U.S. military be given the power to arrest U.S. citizens, here on U.S. soil, and to detain those citizens indefinitely in military prisons, without access to legal counsel or due process, and without trial in civilian court?

The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights say hell no. Holding U.S. citizens in military prisons without right to trial or counsel? Really?

Centuries of American liberty also say hell no. The CIA, FBI and the entire U.S. intelligence system say no, as does the military. They do not want the power to arrest and detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, and any legitimate reading of our nation’s traditions, beliefs and founding documents says they should never have it. It is antithetical to a free people.

Yet a majority of the U.S. House and Senate says otherwise. Despite a stern veto threat by President Obama, Congress is about to pass such language into federal law as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. I hope and pray that Obama has the guts to carry out his veto threat, and I hope freedom-loving Americans of all ideologies rally to support him in that cause.

via Congress about to undermine our basic constitutional rights | Jay Bookman.

How to shoot down an F-117 – lessons from the Serbian war

I had heard rumors of this before but this is the first time I’ve learned the details of how the Serbs defeated America’s stealth and cruise-missile technologies.

The myth of a push-button war grows smaller each day.

The Serbian battery commander, whose missiles downed an American F-16, and, most impressively, an F-117, in 1999, has retired, as a colonel, and revealed many of the techniques he used to achieve all this.

Colonel Dani Zoltan, in 1999, commanded the 3rd battery of the 250th Missile Brigade. He had search and control radars, as well as a TV tracking unit. The battery had four quad launchers for the 21 foot long, 880 pound SA-3 missiles.

The list of measures he took, and the results he got, should be warning to any who believe that superior technology alone will provide a decisive edge in combat. People still make a big difference. In addition to shooting down two aircraft, Zoltan’s battery caused dozens of others to abort their bombing missions to escape his unexpectedly accurate missiles. This is how he did it.

via Military Technology / Videos | How to shoot down an F-117 – lessons from the Serbian war | Military technology and military videos.

Sniffling

Been a busy, fun weekend but I’m beat. I’ve had a cold for the past few weeks and it’s really starting to become a drag.

I spent some time Saturday working on my satellite dish. I also helped host a playdate for my son and his friend. Then I leaf-blowed the leaves in the back yard.

Later, we went to Raleigh’s Winterfest celebrations last evening. We had fun, even the kids. Today we went for a hike at Falls Lake. It was a short-ish hike but Kelly and I felt worn out afterwards. It seemed much more vigorous than we expected.

I’m on my way to bed soon in the hopes that tonight’s sleep refreshes me. It’s going to be a busy week with the city council swearing-in ceremony, a dentist appointment, a planning meeting, a park dedication, and a Raleigh CAC holiday party – all this week. Oh, and I have some work mixed in there as well!

It must be Obama’s fault

Political strategist Chris Sinclair whines in the New York Times about why his candidate lost the election for mayor of Raleigh. Apparently, it was the secret army of zombie Obama supporters that made the difference in Nancy McFarlane being elected mayor, not that Ms. McFarlane was the better candidate.

Having worked a bit with McFarlane’s campaign, I can say that if there were thousands of Obama supporters helping to get her elected, I sure never saw ’em. All I saw was the typical municipal campaign’s half-dozen volunteers out canvassing on any given Saturday. Even so, if Republicans want to believe that a ragtag group of campaign volunteers performed like an army, … well, who am I to dissuade them?

I’m surprised the Gray Lady would reprint Wake GOP Chair Susan Bryant’s crazy ramblings without checking the facts.

“It was very scary,” said Chris Sinclair, a strategist for Billie Redmond, the Republican candidate for mayor in Raleigh. “You don’t know what’s going on until you wake up after Election Day and go, ‘Oh my gosh, what happened?’ ”

What happened was that candidates supported by Democrats trounced Republicans in the Raleigh and Charlotte mayoral races this fall, and even wrested control of the Wake County school board from Republicans associated with the Tea Party.

It was only after the damage was done that local party leaders learned of the hidden hand of thousands of Obama for America volunteers and staff members. Never publicizing their work, they went door-to-door across the state, successfully getting their voters out to the polls in a highly effective dry run for 2012.

via Team Obama Gears Up for 2012 – NYTimes.com.

Health care


My wife and I were talking the other day about what passes for healthcare these days. As a runner, she gets some pain in her leg but the doctors are completely clueless as to how to fix it. It seems that more often than not doctors have no answers.

I’ve noticed the same in trying to get a diagnosis on various ailments I’ve suffered. When I bring some health mystery to my doctor for diagnosis, rarely do I seem to get my doctor’s attention. Doctors are great at being mechanics of the body – they can change a tire and even rebuild the occasional engine – but the deep insight into why something happens seems unimportant to them. The preventative maintenance isn’t a priority. I may be cynical, but if they can’t write a prescription for something they don’t want to bother with it.
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