Afghanistan sucks; and a few letters

View 717 Sunday, March 11, 2012

The news from Afghanistan confirm the view of Lt. Col. Davis:

Truth, lies and Afghanistan

How military leaders have let us down

By LT. COL. DANIEL L. DAVIS

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level. http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030

A simple summary of Davis’s findings: Afghanistan sucks, and no one at the pointy end wants to be there.

Maybe after this last incident we won’t be.

Sandra: A one act play by Dr. William Briggs, Statistician to the Stars

Hello Jerry,

You have had a couple of comments about the ‘Trials of Sandra’ and how her rights were being violated, so I thought that you may enjoy Dr. Briggs’ (http://wmbriggs.com/) little one act play:

"Sandra Fluke Mows The Lawn: A Play In One Act Published under Culture, Fun

Scene: A suburban Washington DC street some sunny afternoon in July.

Little Sandra and her friend Mark arrive at the house of Mr George.

Little Sandra pushes a manual lawn mower, the kind where the blade spins by pushing the wheels, and Mark holds a broom.

Little Sandra: Excuse me, sir. Would you like your grass mowed?

Mr George: Well, hello there. Trying to drum up a little business, eh? But aren’t you two a trifle old for this?

Little Sandra: Yes, sir, we are. Trying to earn money, I mean. We’re both college students and our stipend of fifty-five-thousand isn’t enough to make it through the whole year. So in the summers we cut grass to make something extra on the side.

Mr George: Isn’t that nice. Makes my heart sing to see gumption like that. Reminds me when I was a boy cutting tobacco. I suppose the lawn could use a trim—

(On these words, Mark takes the mower from Little Sandra, hands her the broom, and begins cutting the lawn.)

Mr George: (With a smile in his voice) Anxious, isn’t it!

Little Sandra: He sure is, sir. And now, sir, the matter of payment?

Mr George: (Pulling out his wallet) Of course, of course. This outta do it. (He hands her a ten)

Little Sandra: Very funny, sir. But I’m sure you know there are laws that specify that employers must pay their employees a certain minimum wage?

Mr George: Now just a minute, young lady—

Little Sandra: The laws also stipulate a minimum number of contracted hours. This doesn’t include mandatory breaks and a lunch which must be a full hour.

Mr George: Why would you need lunch? This lawn isn’t—

Little Sandra: Yes, sir. Lunch. You’re not responsible for paying for our lunch, but you should be aware—here are the numbers (she hands over a sheet of paper)—those employers that received the highest Diversity rankings sponsored their employees’ meals.

(It is clear Mark is doing a half-assed job of the mowing.)

Mr George: The whole job will only take you half an hour!

Little Sandra: The law’s the law, sir. And I’m a law student and activist so I know what I’m talking about.

(Mr George fishes in his wallet and pulls out more cash)

Mr George: Fine, okay. Here. Just get the job done and go.

Little Sandra: This barely covers it, sir. But since this is your first offense, we won’t file charges. But now there is the matter of my morning after pill, sir?

Mr George: Morning after?

Little Sandra: My abortifacient. I’m not obligated to tell you this, but Mark and I last night, for a very special reason, were in a hurry and I worry something might have happened. So if you’ll just…

Mr George: Young lady, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Little Sandra: (Sighs) You already acknowledge you’re my employer?

(She doesn’t wait for an answer) We’re already covered the wage laws, but you should know that under the new Obamacare laws, you have to pay for my abortions. You’ll also have to pay for my future birth control.

Mr George: What! I will not pay for yours—or anybody’s–abortion! I am a Catholic and I believe abortion is murder.

Little Sandra: Look, sir. I’ll make this easy. Your religious beliefs are irrelevant. And in any case, they are trumped by me being a woman. I want the abortion and you have to pay for it, and that is that.

Mr George: This is insanity! Why should I give you money to murder your baby?

Little Sandra: I’ll not answer the implied charge, sir. But you obviously have to pay because you’re my employer. When you became an employer, you took on the implied duties of being my bedroom monitor.

You must fund the prevention of and the eventual abortion of any children I decide I do not want. Or if I decide I do want the child, you have to pay for that, too. And you must do this because you’re an employer.

Mr George: Why should I pay because I’m an employer? Why should you allow me to have that level of intrusion into your life? You have your own money. Take responsibility for yourself! You pay for it!

Little Sandra: Surely you realize this is an issue of women’s health, sir. Here are the relevant statistics. (She hands him another paper) You wouldn’t want me, a woman, to become sick because I had unprotected sex, would you? It will be cheaper for you to pay for my abortion than to pay for the birth of the child.

Mr George: You’re out of your mind, young lady. I’m not paying for either. It’s your life. You pay. You damn your own soul. Don’t make me complicit. I only wanted you to do a specific task for me, a task for which I’m already paying more than enough.

Little Sandra: Employers must pay because they are employers.

Employers have a duty to pay for whatever might affect their employees’ bodies, wherever and whatever the employees do with those bodies. Employees have no monetary or personal responsibility at all.

Employees have rights. If you don’t give me the money, I will run to Congress and tell on you, sir. Now if you would just fetch your checkbook?

Mr George: And to think I’ve always been a loyal Democrat!

(Mr George exits off stage to fetch his checkbook.)

Little Sandra: Mark? Ready? He’s going to get the money. That’s good enough.

(Mark leaves the lawn mower and doesn’t bother sweeping the clippings. Mr George returns)

Mr George: This whole thing is surreal. I can’t believe what has become of my country.

(He begins to write a check)

Little Sandra: Just one moment, sir. Don’t forget that we need funds to cover Mark’s gender reassignment surgery. Tomorrow, he will be Mary! (Whispers) That’s why we were in such a hurry last night. You know, one last time?

Mr George: But…what?

Little Sandra: You’re an employer, sir.

(Mr George knows he’s beaten, his shoulders slump and he writes a check and hands it over)

Little Sandra: Thank you, sir. Nice doing business with you.

(Little Sandra and Mark/y drop the equipment and turn to leave, laughing as they go. After a few paces, Little Sandra’s cell phone

rings)

Little Sandra: Hello, Mr President!

(The end)"

Like I said before: the lines between parody, satire, and factual reporting are now indistinguishable. We now live in a country in

which the above could be a transcription of an actual event.

Wonderland, in retrospect, is beginning to seem staid and stogy. And sane.

Bob Ludwick=

I’m not certain I have ever said that Ms. Fluke’s rights were violated, and I certainly don’t agree with her views about my obligation to pay for her contraceptives.

Review: Into the Forbidden Zone: A Trip Through Hell and High Water in Post-Earthquake Japan, by William T. Vollmann

http://www.downloadtheuniverse.com/dtu/2012/02/a-guided-tour-of-hell.html

"Likewise, it’s impossible to read Into the Forbidden Zone without feeling like we have missed the forest for the trees when it comes to covering this disaster. So much of the media attention since March 12 has been focused on Fukushima. In fact, just last week, I went to a panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, where reporter Michael Hanlon showed us charts documenting how quickly and thoroughly the nuclear aspect overshadowed everything else—to the point that we, the media, began to ignore the far greater suffering and loss of life caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

"A year after the accident, there’s still not a single person who has been killed by radiation from Fukushima. (Even the Fukushima 50 are still alive and well, months after the media predicted they would die horribly. That surprised me, but it comes from Pieter Doornenbal, a scientist who studies radiation in Japan.)"

In fact the death toll from radiation at Fukushima Daiichi remains zero, and the predicted deaths from future cancer are indeterminate, but not high. This was not Chernobyl.

Odysseus Lies Here?

<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/kristof-odysseus-lies-here.html>

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Roland Dobbins

I remember looking over the island now called Ithaca and wondering if this could possibly be the island described by Homer. This seems much more reasonable.

John D. Clark’s Ignition: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants

http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf

Dear Dr Pournelle,

I do not know whether this is an authorized publication, but I do know it’s out of print and commanding $500+ on amazon.

If this is authorized, it might be of interest to your readers.

best regards,

Jean-Louis Beaufils

Paris

To the best I can determine this is at worst an orphan work whose copyright owner, if there is a valid copyright owner, is unaware of its existence.