Recently in Current Events Category

U.S. forces rolling towards Baghdad

"The U.S. Navy will bring in trained dolphins this week to hunt for seaborne mines in the waters around Umm Qasr, Navy officials said. The animals will seek out floating mines and mark them for Navy divers to inspect."

Ok, so CNN didn't really say dolphins were better than Frenchmen, but at least the dolphins are useful, right? Best quote so far: "Let's give France back to Germany".

In the right hand column, you'll see a little banner that says 'I Support Our Troops'. It's not a big banner, it doesn't move, and it doesn't say the war is either good or bad. It just says 'I Support Our Troops'. Whether you're for or against what's going on, you can at least hope that our soldiers come home safe and sound so they can resume their duties as husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, and brothers. They're merely doing their jobs, following orders, and trying to serve their country.

Feel free to copy the image to your own server and use it. Feel free to modify it or edit it. Feel free to support or protest the war. But please, don't feel free to take our troops for granted. Their sacrifices are what American freedoms are built on.

Update: For google searchers coming to this page, you'll find the banners on my Support Our Troops Banner Page.

History repeats itself, and once again the Iraqis have set fire to oil wells. Shortly after the Gulf War I read an article about Red Adair, a gentleman involved in extinguishing those fires. I couldn't find the article, but I'll summarize as best I can.

Oil wells burn at a incredibly high temperature and typically have an endless supply of fuel. Water is basically useless by itself. In order to fight these fires, engineers use water to cool the fire down and then use a series of explosives to cut off the fire's air supply (remember, fires need oxygen to burn). It's like blowing out a candle. Once the fire is extinguished, the well needs to be capped in order to protect against further environmental damage as well as waste.

The whole process is extremely involved. The wells are in the middle of the desert, requiring pipelines to be built that can pump in seawater for firefighting purposes. The smoke can be extremely toxic and deadly, and due to the extreme heat the fires are hard to get next to. Many skills are needed, requiring teams of experts to be flown in. At the same time, the oil fields are basically a warzone. After the Gulf War, one of the biggest hurdles was cleaning up booby-traps and munitions left over from the battles fought there so that the environment would be safer to work in.

Since the Bush Administration is counting on oil money to help subsidize the rebuilding of Iraq as well as to help lower fuel prices thereby kickstarting the American economy, it is extreemly important that the fires be dealt with quickly and efficiently.

For more info, see the following links:

• Boots and Coots Group: One of the four major participants (the others were Red Adair, Safety Boss, and Wild Well Control, Inc.) in extinguishing the Gulf War oil fires. They specialize in preventing these types of disasters, but also have a task force to deal with emergency situations. If you think you'd like to buy their stock, though, you'd better think again as before the war they were filing bankruptcy.
• OSHA on Oil Well Safety: OSHA has numerous guidlines to help ensure the safety of personnel working in the oil fields. The information here gives a good understanding of how dangerous this is on a normal day, as well as what equipment is used and how it works.
• Fighting Oil Well Fires: Part of the Gulf War Illness site, this page gives a good summary of the oil well firefighting efforts. The toxicity of the smoke from these fires is believed to be the cause of some of the illnesses found among Allied Veterans of the Gulf War.
• The Language of Drilling: An oil well blowout is when oil is forcefully ejected from the well due to differences in pressure. During normal drilling, mud is forced into the well to help counterbalance these forces. This dictionary (in word) has very basic explanations of many other terms related to oil drilling.

I've mentioned Shawn Yeager and his site algorhythm a few times in the past, but I thought I'd mention it again. If privacy is of interest to you, his blog is definitely one to check out.

His latest post is regarding Delta Airlines. He says:

Having learned of Delta’s participation in the CAPPS II program via the Boycott Delta site, I decided to put my money where my mouth is. Specifically, I contacted Delta via email, stating that I would no longer fly them due to their decision to participate in CAPPS II, and asking them to cancel my SkyMiles account. Following is the reply I received:

When I was younger, I built a model of a NASA orbiter. Like many kids, I dreamt of being an astronaut. I visited the Boston Musem of Science and crawled around inside model space vehicles. Like many Americans, I've seen the video clips of the moon landing, feeling pride that our country, the United States of America, was the first to have a man walk on the moon.

As I've watched and listened to all of the coverage today, one thing has kept coming back to me. No matter what happened, both the astronauts and their families knew what the risks were. They knew there was a chance they might not make it back from their adventures, yet they went anyway. They died in the pursuit of knowledge and the advancement of science. Who's to know if the results gained from their experiments might have cured a disease, or lead to further gains that might have made the world a better place?

Today's events are heart-breaking, but such events are bound to occur as we explore things that we are unfamiliar with. The only thing we can do is vow not to forget the sacrifices made by others as the science of tomorrow will be built upon the shoulders of the scientists of today.

Update: From LGF, by Cox and Forkum

Dave, over at scripting news, has some great coverage of the current events ragarding the Space Shuttle Columbia. His coverage is much better than anything I could offer, and I have nothing else to say as I haven't really wrapped my head around all of this yet. More later.

The LGF take on things, also very good. Look there for links to Reagan's speech following the Challenger disaster, still relevant now...

The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. -- Ronald Reagan

'Duck in Noose' Reference Explained
I was curious about that myself...

lgf: They Want to Kill Us All
I would have linked to Steyn's article, if it had loaded.

This summary of why the terrorists do what they do is the one that I'd say most closely matches my beliefs. They don't want to accomplish any politcal or social agenda, they just want to kill us. And when you look at it like that, as far as I'm concerned it's kill or be killed. Personally, as much as I'd like to change some aspects of my life, I'd definitely like to keep living. That leaves only one option: hunt those damn terrorists until they're all dead.

Looks like Dawn got her wish, as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld gave the green light for use of military surveillance equipment in the sniper investigations. I agree with Dawn: our tax dollars are paying for a lot of equipment that could help.

I'd also like to say that I've heard numerous reports (the latest on MSNBC) stating that this guy is not necessarily a trained sniper. The guns that he could be using are all extremely accurate weapons and could be the criminal in this case isn't shooting from that far away.

Based on the fact that this guy is still loose, I don't think its going to be the police who crack the case. I think either the bastard will make a mistake, or someone will point the cops to him. Until this happens, I think we'll see more killings. I'm just not convinced that the authorities involved have shown very much skill. Maybe things haven't changed as much as they'd like us to believe post 9-11.

This is messed up. One of the guys I work with thinks they're practicing to take out the President. Makes you wonder what's next, eh?