63% Dixie

Posted by Lex, on July 21, 2008

I’d have thought a little more.

Now you go.

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Wings of Gold

By lex, on June 30th, 2010

For most of my active flying career, Navy hemorrhaged pilots to the airlines as soon as their obligated service was complete. Accession of new aviation officers was structured with relatively low retention rates in mind, even after the payback period from winging was increased from five years to eight. Guys couldn’t wait to get out and start earning that huge paycheck, and all the ready room chat among the instructors at the training squadron was about FedEx or United interviews, and getting to 1500 hours for that Airline Transport Rating. People looked at you funny if you said you were in for the long haul.

These days, not so much:*

Manifold Absurdities

By lex, on June 28th, 2010

Pakistan has taken receipt of first lot of F-16 strike fighters:

Democracy in America

2 books I read many years ago on the subject are certainly classics. One, The Federalist Papers, was written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison on the records of the Constitutional Convention that took place at Philadelphia in 1787. It’s been 46 years since I read it, but they were a series of essays on why the Founding Fathers decided what they did in creating the Constitution.

Here they set terms of the Legislative and Executive branches going into detail about the why they did things as they did. They set up the 2 houses of the Legislative branch, the Senate and the House. If I remember correctly, they even go into detail on why they set up the Electoral College. A lot of the debates and (not adopted) proposals are recorded for posterity.

It is something I have to read again. Political candidates of both parties are woefully ignorant about the “why” things were set up as they were.

The other book, Democracy in America, was written by a young French Nobleman, Alexis de Tocqueville.

Asymmetries

By lex, on June 8th, 2010

North Korea torpedoes a South Korean corvette in a clear act of war and all the world stand’s a-tiptoe, hoping not to offend the nuclear armed nuthouse. Israel enforces a blockade against an existential foe and is drawn reluctantly into a confrontation with agents provocateurs, leaving nine of them as “martyrs” to their cause, and all the world is in uproar.

Caught

By lex, on June 7th, 2010

A 22-year old army intelligence specialist has been arrested in Baghdad for leaking highly classified material to a former hacker, according to Wired:

Strange Charity

Posted by Lex, on June 3, 2010

 

IHH, the Turkish NGO that sent “peace” activists armed with clubs to Gaza, has some strange antecedents according to Bill Gertz:

100% Effort – Every Moment

“Anybody can conceivably die on any given day. And we’re all going to die eventually. Soloing just makes it far more immediate. You accept the fact that if anything goes wrong, you’re going to die. And that’s that.”

Alex Honnold

Justice Delayed

By lex, on May 8th, 2010

Midshipman 3/C Curry is off the football squad ** at Navy:

Who Lost Turkey?

Posted by Lex, on June 3, 2010

 

The Turks themselves, according to Robert Pollock: