But only if they're deep fried...

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A1? Somebody pass the A1 Steak Sauce.

What?

I stole this quiz from here, and here. Yes, that's redundant. Thanks, Ken

I remember 9/11

It's been seven years today.

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing.

I was US Navy Chief Warrant Officer. I had spent most of the summer of 2001 traveling up and down the east coast to various naval schools in preparation for my pending assignment as the Signals, Intelligence, and Information Warfare Officer onboard USS Valley Forge. I was enjoying the summer and looking forward to returning to sea duty - for a Sailor there's nothing better than being on a warship at sea and I could hardly wait to report in. Valley Forge would be my first West Coast ship, and I was excited at the prospect of living in Southern California for the next three years. I had been away from sea duty for a long time, having spent most of my career in special operations units on land. That summer I left my assignment in R&D at the Naval Information Warfare Activity in Washington D.C., and while that tour was technically challenging it lacked any kind of excitement whatsoever and I'm just not temperamentally suited to an office job. After two years of Washington military politics, paperwork, and Death by Power Point, I was enjoying having no responsibilities other than schoolwork. My schedule was fairly loose, and as a Warrant on detached duty I was about as free as anybody ever is in the military. I drove down to Florida for some leadership training, then back to Washington for refresher courses at the Agency, then to Wallops Island, Virginia to learn Aegis Combat systems, then back to Washington for yet more refresher training, then down to Virginia Beach for Electronic Warfare Officer's school, back to Washington again, and finally down to the Naval Technical Training Center at Corry Station. The navy was paying for my gas and I was enjoying the trips back and forth.

None of the courses I attended that summer required much in the way of effort on my part. I was familiar with nearly all of the subject matter, and in fact had helped to design some of the equipment and had taught some of the courses previously. But regulations are regulations, and I was required to attend the schools per duty assignment pipeline guidelines just like everybody else - the Naval Personnel Manual doesn't allow for much in the way of deviation from the standards.

And so, in September, I was sitting in a dark classroom in Pensacola, freezing my ass off in the full bore air conditioning, listening to a Chief Petty Officer drone on about Afloat Cryptologic Management. Military courses come in two flavors, incredibly exciting or excruciatingly boring - ACM is of the latter variety. It's mostly about the proper way to fill out paperwork and how to submit afloat intelligence reports - nothing you couldn't learn in twenty minutes from a good Chief or from a couple of hours with the manual, and nothing I didn't already know in detail. To make it worse, I was the only experienced Officer in the room, the rest were Junior Officers or newly minted Chiefs - and their questions were just plain killing me. The more simple and boring the subject, the more dumb questions they had, which just kept making the topics longer and longer until I was ready to start banging their fuzzy heads together.

I was sitting in the back, playing solitaire on my PDA and trying to stay awake while the instructor showed us Power Point slides of various reports, when the door opened and young Petty Officer stuck his head into the room. He motioned to the Chief and they went out into the hall. He came back a moment later.

"A plane of some kind just crashed into the World Trade Center," he told us.

"Holy Shit," somebody in the room responded. "How bad is it?"

The Chief shrugged. "Bad enough I guess. Anyway, just thought you would all like to know. Next break, you can check out CNN in the Instructor's Office if you're interested."

I wasn't, nor was I surprised at that point. I'd flown into JFK more than once, and Reagan National, and O'Hare, and Lindbergh Field, and a dozen other big airports stupidly located in the middle of densely populated urban areas - sooner or later I figured an airliner was going to go down in the middle of a metro center or plow into a building. About the only thing I was surprised at, then, was that it had taken so long to happen.

The Chief flipped through his course guide trying to figure out where he'd left off.

"Warrant Officer Wright, you wanna tell me where we were before the interruption?"

"Black three on red four," I replied helpfully. That got a feeble laugh from the Ensigns, who were afraid to show their amusement in front of the Chief.

The Chief rolled his eyes and didn't bother to say anything, he'd had a number of Warrants in his class and knew we were just there to put a check in the box. He found his place and went back to explaining the data fields in the electronic report displayed on the screen. I went back to my game and waiting for it all to be over so I could head down to the mess and get a beer.

The door banged open again and the same Petty Officer barged into the room.

"Another plane just hit the second tower! They've got video, it was deliberate. It was a huge damn jetliner, like a 747! They're saying we're under attack!" he shouted.

Ah hah! I thought to myself, it's a training exercise - it's about damned time something interesting happened.

Then I took another look at the Petty Officer's face, pale and ashen in the dim light, and knew that it was for real.

I was the first one to reach the Instructor's Office, nearly trampling an Ensign or two in my haste. A handful of enlisted Sailors and Marines were gathered around the TV. The replays were just starting. I don't know how long we stood there in amazement and awe struck horror, long enough for the third plane to reach Washington and find it's target, long enough for the reality of the situation to start sinking in and the rage to begin, long enough for me to realize that a number of my very good friends were most likely dead in the smoking wreckage of the Pentagon, long enough for the base to go to full security alert, long enough for the country to descend into chaos, long enough that when the roar of the fighters - training planes, unaramed but gamely scrambling into the air on full afterburner from the training field at nearby NAS Pensacola - reached us it was no surprise whatsoever.

And long enough to realize with cold certainty that I was an officer who would very soon be leading men into harm's way.

For the rest of that day we knew little more than the civilian population. Everything we knew came second or third hand. Corry Station is a training base, and off-circuit from tactical military channels. The low-level circuits we did have were overloaded until the Joint Chiefs imposed emergency restrictions, then the circuits cleared like magic, the orders and emergency plans for just such a surprise attack flooded in over the wire and America's military machine began to rapidly ready itself for immediate action with superb precision and efficiency.

I managed to get through to my wife's cell phone, she and my son were staying with her mother in Milton, outside of Pensacola and I was damned grateful she wasn't at our house in D.C. I told her what little I knew, and told her to be ready for anything. I wasn't worried about her safety, Pensacola is a southern military town, woe betide any foreign force attempting to invade near there. In fact, by the end of the day the Gulf Coast was bristling with ad hoc Redneck militia in pickup trucks, and God himself couldn't have helped any terrorist foolish enough to wade into the midst of that.

We had no idea who had attacked the United States, or what would happen next, but if invaders had followed that first wave they would have been in for the fight of their life. Attacking or even destroying the Pentagon would have had no appreciable impact on our military ability, strength, or organization. Symbolically it was a powerful blow, militarily however it had no impact whatsoever other than to galvanize our forces. Across the country Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps jets screamed into the sky, fully armed and prepared to take on anything. In Norfolk, Mayport, San Diego, and Pearl Harbor the Fleet stood out to sea and sortied to defend the cities in battle-lines thousands of miles long. Across the continent hardened command posts came to full alert and prepared for the worst case scenario. Sealed safes were opened, safeties disengaged, and hellish weapons came online.

In the days that followed I heard from friends who had been at ground zero in New York and D.C. Stonekettle Station regular and occasional commenter, Rick, was in the Pentagon when Flight 77 skimmed in over the Mall and slammed into the outer ring. Fortunately, he was on the far side of the building and was unharmed. A senior Air Force officer and rock solid in a crisis, he helped get people out of the debris field and later walked out of the chaos across the 14th Street Bridge to safety. I heard from others who there, or in New York, and fortunately none of the people I knew personally were killed or seriously injured.

I attempted to contact Valley Forge, to determine if they wanted me to report in early - but they were gone with rest of the West Coast Fleet - armed and alert and ready to stand into harm's way if necessary - and were unlikely to return to port before the report-no-later-than date on my orders.

A week later, when the who and why and how began to emerge, and armed Guardsmen in camouflage filled the airports and the street corners, I packed my family up and we headed back to D.C.

And a week after that I stood with with a handful of my shipmates on the hill at Arlington, overlooking the Pentagon and knew with absolutely certainty what would come next.

And it did. Less than a year later I led brave men into combat on foreign soil - and I was proud to do it, and I still am. I am proud of those men and women, and proud of what we did. Despite all of the things that have transpired since, despite the lies, and the half truths, and the dishonor our leaders have heaped upon us, and all the rest of it - I am still proud of what we did and the men I served with.

But, today it's seven years later and while we swore we would never forget, many of us already have.

Today there will be ceremonies and vigils and remembrances - many are already over as I write this here in Alaska, the crowds gone, the people returned to their lives. Today, the politicians and the speakers and the families of the victims will have their say, they'll speak of the fallen, of lost loved ones, of heroism and sacrifice. The pundits will wax solemnly philosophical and repeat the same words and show the same tapes we've all heard before.

But, we've already begun to forget.

We've forgotten what it was we set out to do on September 12th, 2001. We've forgotten our resolve. We've forgotten the promises of our leaders who swore to bring the enemy to justice. Many in the country and in Washington have forgotten what this war was supposed to be about. Those in power now, and those seeking power, have lost sight of what it was we swore to do in those dark days after the towers came down - if they ever knew at all. They have forgotten their promise to stand together, to put partisan politics aside, to rally America, to defend the principles we as Americans hold sacred: liberty, justice, and freedom. They have forgotten that the real enemy is neither Republican nor Democrat, liberal or conservative, left or right, and they have allowed the American people to do the same. They have forgotten that the purpose of the ceremonies today is to steel our resolve, not to score political points.

Many in this country have lost sight of who we are, as a people and as a nation - and what the United States of America truly stands for. They have forgotten the things that make us great. They have forgotten the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the true might of a free people.

Many have forgotten why we fight, and why we must fight, and against who.

But I have not.

I remember.

_______________________________

Some additional thoughts on 9/11

The Beast Has Left the House

As I mentioned in the last post - winter is coming.

And coming fast.

There's snow on the mountaintops, and in the passes. In the last three days the leaves have all turned yellow and there is a real chill in the air this morning. For the last two weeks the sky above the shop has been filled with formations of honking geese and quaking ducks, headed south to warmer climes.

And that means it's time for Beastly, AKA my pal Shawn Riley who has spent the summer here at Stonekettle Station, to head south with the rest of the seasonal migrants. We tried to talk him into staying, but he starts to shiver uncontrollably at the mere thought of snow, let alone the thought of the -30F temperatures we'll be seeing soon.

And so, this morning I filled his coffee cup, he saddled up in his RV and headed down the Glenn Highway towards Glennallen and Tok, on his way towards the South West United States.

His departure marks the end of summer for me. The end of full time woodworking and turning, and a return to full time writing. I'll spend the rest of this week, what remains of it, finishing my winterization list, and Monday morning I'll sit down at my desk and begin the final chapters of Iyes of the Dead. The novel is complex and involved, and it'll take me a week of reviewing the finished portions and the outline to get back up to speed, but I expect to have it done before Christmas. If you're intested, an excerp of the first chapter can be found here.

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, and I've got a few words I want to say about that. I'll put those thoughts in a separate post, which will be up in the next hour or so.

Update your spell checker, idiots

It's "Palin" Pee Ayh El Eye En. Palin.

Not "Paulin"

For fuck's sake, if you're going to search the internet for hysteria and hyperbole regarding the prospective VP so you can add more made up crap to it and publish it on your website as "fact," at least get her name right.

That is all. Carry on.

The Best and Worst of Stonekettle Station

Winter is coming, folks.

In Alaska, the cold, it comes early.

Our seasons are not what most of you are used to.  Oh, we have summer - commonly referred to as 'Stinking Tourist Season,' and we do have winter, lots and lots and lots of winter. Winter we got in spades.  Spring? There is no spring in Alaska. Instead, we have 'breakup' - i.e. the period of glop, potholes, mud, rain, slush, and bodies exposed by the retreating snowdrifts right before the mosquitoes show up.  And fall? Well, we just bypass that altogether - one day it's warm and sunny, and the next you're wrapped in three layers of polar fleece like some long lost wooly mammoth and shoveling the driveway three times a day.

I'm seeing snow on the mountain tops and the leaves have turned yellow, the state fair is nothing more than a fading memory of old corn dog grease, Beastly has packed his RV and is pouring over maps to warmer climates, the dog has increased three times in bulk due to her new winter coat, and me? Me I've got a list as long as a Middle Eastern "Roadmap to Peace" to get done before the flakes start falling.

I've got to recaulk the sunroom windows - which is a major pain in the snowsuit.

I've got to wash down the outside of the house with the power washer, and spray wash the outside windows - not my favorite thing.

The garage and shop doors need the insulation touched up.

The yard needs winter fertilizer applied.

I've got to do a wood harvesting expedition, get several tons cut and laid up in the drying racks before the sap freezes.

The external water systems need to be drained and insulated.

The dog kennel needs to be cleaned and filled with fresh straw.

And a dozen other things that are just too damned mundane to list (yeah, like the stuff I did list was so very exciting. Keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all time. Thanks for riding Stonekettle Station and have a nice day).

I really need to get all of this done this week.  Beastly pulls out this weekend, headed towards Arizona, and that means Monday I am officially back in the writer's chair full time come hell or high water.

So, you'll excuse me if the rest of this week I don't post until much later in the day. 

 

Now, since I suspect the posting around here will be a little light the rest of this week, and because I know it's my moral obligation to keep all of you regulars entertained, and because we've had hundreds of new readers around here lately thanks to the political stuff, allow me to direct your attention to some of my favorite posts:

Horrors from my childhood (sorry, Mom)

Why it sucks to be a cat in Alaska

Why I hate the Palmer, Alaska Post Office

Die, Symantec, you miserable bastards, Die!

Advertising, Christmas Carols, and the Fist of Death

Inertia

Stupid Packaging and the mines of Pluto

Wal-Mart, just kill me now

Really, try not to piss me off

 

And there you have it. Be entertained.

Me? I'll outside washing the windows.

Presidential Qualifications - Not What You Think They Are

Naturally enough, last week's posts all seem to revolve around politics and the upcoming US Presidential Election.

There's a reason for that - and no, it's not just because my state Govnacudda was nominated for Veep. It's because with Battlestar Galactica and Heroes on seasonal break, I've basically got nothing else to write about.

And because I've done nothing, nothing, but follow the Democratic and Republican National Conventions for the last three weeks, the election is naturally enough on my mind.

One common theme I see repeated at the conventions and in the endless rhetoric flowing copiously from the various orifices of both parties is experience, and who is best qualified to lead the country for the next four years.

Not exactly a penetrating or unique observation I know.

The debate over experience is nothing new, of course. A candidate's qualifications, experience, training, and etcetera ad nauseam have been the subject of debate since the very first US presidential election in 1789. In that first election, George Washington squared off against John Adams, and while there was little doubt that the vastly popular Washington would win, there were those who questioned the general's ability to lead the fledgling nation outside of military matters - and John Adams was chief among the detractors. (Perversely, under the system then in place, the defeated Adams became Washington's Vice President - sort of a "keeping your enemies close" idea. As a result, Washington rarely sought his VP's advice or counsel during the seven years they served in office together. Try to imagine if we hadn't passed the 12th Amendment, Al Gore or John Kerry would have been George W. Bush's VP and how different would things be today? But I digress).

Fast forward two centuries to the current election. If you set aside the basic obligatory debate over fundamental doctrinal philosophy (i.e. the liberal vs conservative argument), the key issue emerging in this race is experience.

Republicans have harped endlessly, mercilessly, relentlessly on the fact that Barrack Obama is a lightweight when it comes to experience. They've gone on and on and on and on, about his skimpy record, about his limited time in office, about his utter lack of military credentials, about his paltry hands-on knowledge of national security matters and foreign relations. Republicans are pushing the fact that the only thing Obama has going for himself is charisma, he's a rock star - which is all fine and well, but do you really want a musician to marry your sister?

They're right.

Oh, pipe down there, you damned liberals, put down the bunnies and quit hugging the trees for minute and be honest; compared to John McCain, Barrack Obama is a lightweight when it comes to experience in certain areas.

He is.

It's a fact, and an easily provable one at that. There's no need to rehash McCain's experience, I think we all have it memorized by now; in every conventional category that counts he's a heavyweight. (Well, OK, if I have to use the boxing division analogy here - he's actually more in the Super Middleweight category, since he doesn't have actual state or federal executive experience). Others can argue this point, and have at great length, but it's one that Obama and his people are no doubt fully aware of - otherwise they wouldn't have added Joe Biden and his experience to the ticket.

Then ... the Republicans went and nominated Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate.

If Obama is a lightweight when it comes to the kind of experience we're talking about here, Palin is in the featherweight division - and the Democrats wasted no time whatsoever pointing that out. As soon as the bell rang they were out of their corner, swinging (and I'm done with the boxing analogies now, thank you for your tolerance).

Despite the things I've said about Palin this week, and the snarky post last Thursday, the truth of the matter is that Sarah Palin has very little in the way of hard executive experience, almost none in fact, most of what she has is charisma - which is a good thing, because John McCain has all the charm and charisma of a pit bull wearing lipstick. I've known more than a few Navy Captains in my career, lovable guys they ain't.

Oh now, settle down, you damned conservatives. Put down the shotguns and bibles and listen for a minute, be honest. Palin was the mayor of a small town - and yes, Wasilla, Alaska is a small town, not nearly as small as the democrats would have you believe, but small. Believe me, I live here. Palin has been the Govnacudda of Alaska for the last two years, more or less (a little less, actually) and despite our size and resources - our total population is less than that of most small towns elsewhere in the US. We've got issues here that are uncommon to most Americans, giving Palin a unique perspective - but the truth of the matter is that she really has no experience in the Washington meat-grinder at all.

However, Palin brings to the McCain campaign the very same strengths that Obama has going for himself, charisma, charm, good looks, and the ability to rally a crowd. What? You don't think that matters? Think again.

See, no matter what your experience, if you want to be the President of the United States, you've got to get elected first. And charisma is a big, big part of that. If either Al Gore or John Kerry had had any charisma at all, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because, seriously here, George W. Bush appeared a dynamic and charismatic speaker in comparison, almost nucular in fact. Charisma is what got Bill Clinton elected, and perversely garnered a large number of feminist votes in the process. Charisma is what not only got Ronald Reagan elected, but made his enemies love him after he was in office, even when they vehemently disagreed with him.

Understand, I'm not dismissing experience, education, or training - but there are other more intangible traits that a good president should have, and the ability to actually get elected is one of them.

When it comes to job qualifications for the Office of President, the Constitution is a little vague:

Age and Citizenship requirements - US Constitution, Article II, Section 1

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.

Term limit amendment - US Constitution, Amendment XXII, Section 1

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

And that's pretty much it for Constitutional requirements, basically, they've got to be at least 35, a natural born citizen of the US, and can't hold office for more than two terms (Note: natural born citizen doesn't mean the baby has to be delivered on US soil. There's some idiot rumor going around that McCain isn't actually eligible to be the President because he was born in a US Navy hospital in Panama. That's just stupid and plain ignorant, Democrats, please stop it now). The Constitution specifies nothing in the way of experience in the military, economics, foreign relations, domestic issues, or the ability to sing and dance or ride on Air Force one without barfing.

Mothers have told their kids for two centuries: "Work hard, study, and wash behind your ears, and maybe someday you'll grow up to be President." Well, true - as long as the kid in question grows up rich, attends an Ivy League School where he majors in law with triple minors in medicine and economics and ROTC, then after college serves in the military performing heroically in combat as a junior Lieutenant and then parlaying that into a senior staff officer position at an unusually young age, then after the military he goes on to practice law while teaching it on the weekends pro-bono to under-privileged kids, then leaves law to run a major Fortune 500 company for a couple of years, and leaves that to become in order: a statehouse Representative, a US Senator, State Governor and finally Vice President. Along the way, he should acquire experience as an educator, economist, energy expert, astronaut, diplomat, public speaker, comedian, and church elder. He should own a farm, ranch, or family 'compound.' He needs to be smart, but not too smart - a genuine man of the people who enjoys a good BBQ and a tractor pull. He also needs to make time to marry his high-school, home town sweetheart and have at least three kids. It also doesn't hurt if he can play a musical instrument or two. Oh, and he' shouldn't waste any time, because he needs to be relatively young too, say fifty or so.

Maybe he should put on a cape and tights and fly around Gotham fighting crime while he's at it, because that's what the job description sounds like to me: a super hero with Attention Deficit Disorder.

It's ridiculous when all strung together, but that's exactly what we're asking for here - and exactly what the respective parties want us to believe each of their candidates actually are.

So, really, what are the job qualifications for President? What experience, skills, and talents are necessary to a good president?

Here's what I think:

1) Charisma: as I said, first you've got to get elected. You've got to make people respect you, and more than that you've got to make people believe in you, believe in your vision, believe in your sincerity and commitment and ability - or they won't vote for you. And once elected, a good president must be able to rally the country, pull people together, heal division and generate consensus. Kennedy and Reagan both burn bright in recent memory because they were charismatic, they could give a great speech and energize a crowd, they could make us believe. The ability to rally the nation is one of the most important roles of the president. Think about it - many times a President may have to convince the nation to do something that we as a people really don't want to do. A President may have to convince the nation to go to war, that's usually fairly easy. But a truly great president is one that can keep the country focused and supportive when the war goes on past the initial patriotic flush. Now before anybody takes exception to that, do a little research. Neither WWI or WWII were exactly popular, and WWII became less and less so as time went by and the sacrifices and shortages began to add up on the home-front. FDR galvanized the nation and kept the people motivated, more than anything he did that. When he died and the much less charismatic Truman took over, that public support began to fade, but by then victory was inevitable. Today, we find ourselves embroiled in another war, this one extremely unpopular, and Americans expect the next President to end it, one way or the other. One method is going to be quick and largely popular but with unpleasant long term consequences, and the other solution is a long term commitment and consequently it's going to be damned unpopular - and the intermediate solution of rallying the country, making a major effort and significant national sacrifice would be even more unpopular. Either way, the president is going to have to sell their decision to at least half the country. But, you know, it's not just war. The next president, if he's any kind of leader at all, is going to have to solve the energy crisis - and no matter what course he follows, it isn't going to be popular. Americans want cheap gas and big SUV's. The next president is going to have to convince both the people and industry that those selfish desires are wrong headed. Sooner or later, one way or another, we're going to have to change - or die - and the president is going to have to convince us to make those changes. Charisma may be the single most important characteristic any president can have.

2) A strong sense of Duty and Honor. The president must be an honorable man (or woman, but I'm speaking of the next president, who, unless something drastic happens, will piss standing up). Honor is the ability to do the right thing, to adhere to a code of conduct, no matter what and no matter the personal consequences. Duty is the ability to place the needs of the nation and her people above your own personal beliefs and desires. Duty is the ability to represent all Americans, both those who voted for you, and those who did not; the President must represent all Americans, not just those of his party or political affiliation. Honor and duty is the ability to look dispassionately at a problem and choose the best solution, even if that solution is proposed by your political enemy. Honor and Duty mean adherence to the oath of President, either your word is good or it's not - there is no middle ground. A President is sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. Period. Any President who seeks to circumvent the rights of the people or the requirements levied on his office by the Constitution, any President who thinks the Constitution is an outdated piece of paper, is not worthy of the office. Period.

3) Intelligence, commonsense, and idealism: A President must be intelligent, educated, and have the type of drive, vision, and experience in life that fosters wisdom. Somewhere along the line Americans have decided that they don't want wise or intelligent leaders. Somewhere along the line Americans have decided that intelligence and education and wisdom are bad things. A significant number of Americans have come to revel in ignorance and use the designation of intelligence as a curse. What are you, some kind of smart guy? What are you, God forbid, an elitist? Americans want their leaders to go to Yale, and Harvard, and the Naval Academy, they just don't want them to learn anything there. That's crap, if we expect our President to make decisions regarding the economy, industry, medicine, education, energy, foreign relations, domestic issues, veterans, transportation, and our country's future then we want the smartest son of bitch we can get our hands on. Seriously, folks, how many good 'ole boys have turned their bait shops into world spanning multibillion dollar industries? Really? Bill Gates started out in his garage, he just didn't stay there - and frankly, love the guy or hate him I'd rather his genius ass was running the country than Cletus and and his beer swilling buddy, Cooter.

What we're talking about here is leadership, the President must be a true leader, not just a leader in name. Despite what motivational speakers might tell you, leadership traits are often indefinable. All great leaders are different, their greatness comes from different talents and strengths, but great leaders all bear certain common traits: Charisma, honor, duty, intelligence, commonsense, and idealism. Those are the things that are critical to the next president of this country.

And yet, they are the very things we talk least about. The candidates and the conventions and the blogs and the pundits all talk about the things that don't really matter.

Such as military experience: Sure, I value military experience in my leaders. But if we are to be honest, military experience in a civilian leader is overrated. Military people historically don't really make all that good of Presidents, do they? Especially the generals, Grant and Eisenhower come to mind here. The junior military folks are about fifty fifty, Kennedy, Bush the Greater and Bush the Lesser, Carter, Lincoln. Now a number of truly great Presidents have been military leaders, Washington and Teddy Roosevelt for example, but a number of great and even relatively good Presidents have not, FDR and Reagan come to mind here. Military experience might tell you something about a candidate's character, but in and of itself military experience just isn't a defining criteria. It doesn't make you a better American, or smarter, or braver, or necessarily more imbued with a sense of honor, duty, and country (Stop! Stop right there, if you're reading this and you don't know me and you're not a regular reader around here and your hands are clenching and you're just all kinds of offended at what I just said, tough shit. I'm a decorated veteran myself who served this country longer than John McCain. So, if your panties are bunched up and you've decided to make some kind of mindless knee-jerk patriotic statement here about how I'm offending veterans, don't. I'll delete it without comment). If you think that only military service defines patriotism, duty, honor, courage, commitment, country, then you're wrong - I can think of dozens of civilian examples, firefighter, paramedics, cop, doctor, teacher, to name a few. Here's the bottom line, we call the President the Commander in Chief, but he doesn't actually lead the charge waving a flag from the forward tank. He doesn't actually design military strategy, or stand heroically on the bridge of the flagship, or decide what attacking formation we'll use. When the White House runs the war, we lose. Period. In reality it's the Secretary of Defense, the Service Chiefs, Joint Chief's of Staff and the Pentagon who run the military, and that's a good thing, because running the military is a full time job for a lot of professional people - and the President has other things to do, and the bald honest truth is that military service doesn't automatically qualify you to lead the military. Hell, I spent 23 years on active duty, from enlisted to officer, in combat and in peace time, at sea and on land - and I doubt that my military experience would make me a better CINC. Because see, in the military we carry out the orders of the President, we don't make policy, we don't decide when or where to fight, we don't decide who the enemy is - all of those things are the purview of the civilian leadership. Nothing in my military experience gives me the insight into military matters at the presidential level.

Executive experience is another area. Seriously folks, it's time to put this chestnut to bed. The simple truth is that being the President is basically on the job training. I don't care how you slice it. Nothing, no job, no military experience, no governorship or time in the House or Senate prepares you for the Office of President. The Office of Vice President may, to some extent, prepare you, but even Veep isn't a sure thing. A rather significant number of really lousy Presidents were prior Vice Presidents - anybody remember Lyndon Johnson? Face it, the candidates don't exactly pick people as running mates who might pull a coup d'etat and that's how we ended up with Dan Quayle and Al Gore. Governorship? Bah, which governorships? California? Texas? New York? Because those are the only states with executive offices approaching a national type economy - minus foreign relations and the military, of course (and don't start with the "but the Governor leads the state National Guard" bullshit either, deploying the Guard to fill sand bags and evacuate people isn't military leadership, and if the Guard is deployed in Federal service they are under the command of the Pentagon and the governor has nothing to do with it). Should we say that if your governorship is not any of the big three states, you can't run for President? What about representatives, senators and such like? They don't have federal executive experience at all. If executive experience is so important - why aren't we nominating more CEO's?

Knowledge of the Economy is another one. Does anybody really believe that the President is sitting in the Oval Office, late into the night with a calculator and a pile of spreadsheets balancing the country's checkbook? Folks, he may sign the budget, but he sure as hell isn't actually doing the books. And frankly, would you really want him to? Again, it's a full time job for a lot of very savvy professionals.

Foreign Relations? Domestic Issues? Health, education, transportation, the environment, energy, agriculture, commerce, and etcetera - the President cannot be an expert in all areas, and the simple truth of the matter is that he's unlikely to be an expert in even one critical area.

The President's job is to lead the country, to rally the people, to be the human face that represents us to the world, to make decisions based on sound advice and professional knowledge. It is those who surround the President that should be handling the details and the responsibilities that require specialized knowledge and experience.

When it comes to the candidate, I could give a good Goddamn if he was a POW or if he taught law at the Ivy League level. I'll tell you what I want to know, I want to know who the kingmakers are, I want to know who the advisers will be, I want to know who he's going to really listen to. I don't care how sterling his character is, if he's got somebody like Karl Rove pulling his strings and whispering in his ear, he's not getting my vote. I want to know who he intends to place in charge of the things that really matter. Who will he choose for national science advisor? Who does he intend to sit on the National Security council? Who are his nominations for cabinet? For the head of the CIA, the FBI, NSA and NASA? Who will be heading up the Federal Reserve? Who will he promote as Service Chiefs? Who are his top ten choices for the Supreme Court bench? And like that.

The candidate's nomination for these positions tells me far more about him than his military service or his voting record, any speech he gives or the rhetoric he spews. Leadership and the ability to surround himself with good people, that's what matters. Understanding of his own limitations in the areas of knowledge, experience, and training, that's what matters.

None of the people currently running are qualified to be the President, but then again nobody ever is, and it's time that we all acknowledge that fact and move on.

Busy

Folks, I do have a post today, half done and likely to remain that way for a while.

I had a couple of phone calls to deal with - that consulting thing that I occasionally do - and it's set me back significantly. So, posting today is delayed for a couple of hours while I take care of some business.

If you're looking for me online - I'm not here.

Back this evening.

Sarah Palin and Alaska, a few things you should probably know

OK, obviously as an Alaskan I've been reading everything I can access regarding our state governor's nomination as John McCain's running mate.

I've pursed the media, large and small, read endless blogs, and listened to every pundit, Congressman, Senator, Judge, fudge maker, reporter, exporter, expert, ex-admiral, monk, lunk, and lunatic.

And I'll tell you what I've discovered: You people (and by 'you people' I mean everybody who doesn't live in Alaska) know exactly dick about The Great Land.

What?

Oh, The Great Land, see that's what I'm talking about. The word, Alaska, is an Anglicization of a Russianification of a Native Inupiat word, Alyeska - meaning the great land. You didn't know that, did you? That's my point, right there. You don't know beans about Alaska. And it's rather obvious that you know even less about our governor Govnacudda (remember, you saw that term coined here at Stonekettle Station first).

That hasn't stopped you people from going on and on about it though, has it?

In recent days, Stonekettle Station has become a hot spot for Google searches regarding Alaska, right now I'm pushing over a metric gazillion hits on this subject alone. And so, as a public service, let me fill those of you in the media and the blogosphere in on a few things regarding Alaska -where the men are hockey moms and so is the vice presidential candidate.

1. Let's start with geography: Alaska is not the largest state in the union. That's a big fat lie. Hey, it started out as a joke, we were just having one over on a couple of Texan oil workers and things got out of hand. Alaska is really about the size of Connecticut. Sorry about the maps and such.

2. Our state capital is Juneau, which is another native word meaning "No Jews!" The TV show Northern Exposure was actually an accurate depiction of Alaskan life, there are no Jewish people in Alaska other than the morose doctors we've kidnapped from other states and forced to work in small villages. Here in Alaska we are all Born Again Christian White People who go to church four times a week. When we're not in church damning the homos to the fires of perdition, we're burning biology text books and condoms.

3. Yes, we have 24 hours of daylight here, except when we have 24 hours of darkness, which we mostly don't notice as we are all too busy shooting wolves from airplanes with bazookas.

4. Alaskans live in either igloos or log cabins. We have neither electricity or in-door plumbing here in Alaska. For many modern people this would be a problem, especially since we have 24 hours of darkness - except when we don't - but the lack of electric lights doesn't bother Alaskans as the Northern Lights provide sufficient illumination to hunt by. We heat our homes, such as they are, with special furnaces which burn the rendered fat of baby harp seals or free oil that we get from our employers, Exxon, Shell, and BP. Since it's always thirty below here, and we have to snowshoe to the outhouse to do our business - and when you eat nothing but raw salmon and moose meat you have to do a lot of business, just saying - all Alaskans are hirsute and have beards, even the woman.

5. Yes, there is always snow here. Always. Ten feet deep. Even in summer - that's what we build the igloos out of. In fact, snow is one of Alaska's largest exports - every snow cone vender in the world has a vested interest in Alaska. Traditionally snow is carried via bulk tanker down to the real United States, but our Governor, Sarah Ice Water Palin, just signed a deal with the international giant, Tasty Freeze, to build a Mr. Slushy pipeline across Saskatchewan in order to convey the frozen treat directly into every 7/11 and Quik-E Mart in the country. This action will go a long, long way towards reducing America's dependence on foreign shaved ice and break the stranglehold monopoly of the Greenland Dictators.

6. Alaskans drive either dog sleds or snow machines, as such in Alaska, the roads and parking lots are a bit different than they are down there in the real United States. Additionally, since we live in the ass-end of nowhere, and have neither real cities or towns, all of the bridges here are actually bridges to nowhere.

7. Everybody in Alaska works for Exxon. Everybody.

8. It is true that Alaskans get free money from the Oil industry. Lot's of it. We're all millionaires here. We also get gobs of free pork from the Federal Government, food stamps, and an unlimited supply of tasty WIC cheese spread. Unfortunately, other than snow there's nothing to spend our bushels of free money on. And we damned sure aren't putting it into schools, infrastructure, cruise ship docks, or silly stuff like that. So, we use the money to buy Rolls Royces from Amazon, which we then pull through the snow with sled dogs down to the piers where we keep our gold plated fishing boats.

9. The movie Mystery, Alaska is absolutely true. Everybody ice skates here, we skate everywhere, in the bank, in the grocery store, in bed and out to the crapper. That's why Sarah Palin has such shapely ankles. And, we are crazy mad about hockey. Everybody plays hockey in Alaska. We used to play football, but the ball got dropped in a snowdrift and we haven't been able to find it since about 1996.

10. All Alaskan woman begin having babies at twelve years of age. It's cold here and we don't have a lot of intramural sports - knocking up underage girls is almost as good and you don't have to have any special equipment. Frankly we were a bit concerned about Bristol Old Maid Palin's fertility, our population is small and every Christian baby counts, as such we like to pound out as many as possible. So far, abstinence is working just fine for us.

11. Alaskans have no imagination and we don't have any good, old traditions like the rest of the country. So, we really appreciate it when real Americans come here and rename stuff, like Mount Princess Cruise Lines (formerly Mount McKinley named after a dead politician from Ohio, which truthfully was much better than that ten thousand year old name, Denali, that we used to call it. Ten thousand years, jeez, you would have thought we could have come up with something better, but again, that's exactly my point.

12. Screw ANWR, all Alaskans hate the environment. Global warming is a myth, there's absolutely no biblically scientific evidence for it here in Alaska at all. None. Nope. No retreating glaciers, no melting polar ice, no thawing muskeg. Nothing. But damned if we don't wish it were true. It's cold here, Baby, and we wouldn't mind seeing some of that heat.

When it comes to Sarah Drill Baby Drill Palin herself, the Wikipedia entry is an absolutely true and correct source of factual information, compiled by actual and authentic researchers with detailed knowledge of Alaska and Sarah herself. However, there are a few things it doesn't cover. First we all know her, personally. As I said above, Alaska is a tiny little place, with a small population (we're not actually sure how many Alaskans there are, since we don't teach math in our religious schools. We know there's more than sixteen - which most Alaskans can count to, since that's the average number of toes Alaskan babies are born with and the average number of dogs in a sled team - but exactly how many more, we couldn't say precisely, but it's a lot - at least a hundred). Additionally, any tourist who has ever visited Alaska, even if they've only had a one hour layover in the Ted Stevens Pork Barrel Anchorage International Airport and Exxon Headquarters, is an expert on Sarah Fish Camp Palin. Please, feel free to interview anybody in an "Alaska" sweatshirt.

As you know Sarah Hottie Palin comes from a small village, Wasilla. And it is true that she was a beauty queen, but what you may not know is that beauty contests here are a little different than in civilized parts of the world. The year Sarah won the Miss Wasilla pageant, her competition consisted of two moose, a genuine Alaskan penguin, Willie the Singing Sourdough, and an Arctic Cat snow machine. And I've got to tell you, if Willie had combed his beard or the Arctic Cat had been a 700cc model, Sarah would have been runner up. It was that close. There just isn't a lot to choose from in Wasilla, it's a small place, really small. The population is actually about eight people, pretty much the Palin family, Willie, and Lipstick the Pit Bull - a stray abandoned by a tourist family from Utah. Sarah Fahrenheit-451 Palin was elected Mayor of Wasilla mostly because LipStick the Pit Bull didn't want the job, and after burning down the library and squeezing out five grandchildren, Sarah set her sights (literally her sights, as in gun sights, since she carries a good old fashion American made Colt .44 Magnum in a custom Right-to-Life Holster strapped to her shapely muscular thigh everywhere) on the governorship. Now Governor of Alaskan is kind of a goof, there's really no responsibility at all since we don't have any industry except the aforementioned snow cone deal and a corner on the Moose Nugget Jewelry market, so it's more like Governor Lite here. Be that as it may, Alaskans demand that our executive be as fully qualified as any Texas Governor and frankly we were all concerned about Sarah No Experience Palin - until she swapped out her contacts for a pair of sexy librarian glasses. As you know, glasses immediately make you smarterer and more intellectualated, and we're pretty sure that was the deciding factor when John McCain was running down the short list of potential Veeps.

So, there you have it. The truth about Alaska and Sarah One Pulmonary Infarction Away From the Presidency Palin. I hope this clears up a few things for you. Feel free to repost as necessary for the good of the nation.

On the other hand, you could just keep talking out your excretory orifices, either way, I'm good.

Now if you, excuse me, I have to go shovel snow and fight off a pack of atheist gay marriage wolves.

Still doubt me...

...when I said Sarah Palin was the best choice John McCain could have made?

If you didn't watch her speech at the RNC, you really should have. Anybody who underestimates this woman is a fool, she's amazing.

But then I already knew that.

Agree with her or not, I suspect that Sarah Palin will win the Presidency for John McCain.

Overheard at the RNC

"God Bless America!"
- Every single speaker at the convention. Seriously, Republicans can we give this one a rest? Please?


"And I for one welcome our new Republican Overlords!"
- Senator Joe Lieberman. Well, OK, he didn't actually say that, but it sure sounded like it.

____________________________________

I tell you, I love the giant American flag on the Jumbotron screen that forms the backdrop for each speaker. Toss in John Wayne and a Lee Greenwood song and I might even hold up my lighter.


Somebody please explain why, exactly, the GOP is spending bushels of money on this convention? I mean, seriously, folks is there any doubt whatsoever that John McCain is the Republican candidate? Do a quick hand vote, and let's get on with it.

You know the drill, put up your favorite RNC quote in the comments section.

Email Issues

For those you attempting to contact me via my private email address - we're experiencing what I like to refer to as goddamned technical difficulties at the moment.

I am get getting intermittent receipt, but cannot send. It would appear that my firewall proxy, like an inflamed appendix, has turned on me. And like an inflamed appendix, it's about to get some surgery.

My open stonekettlestation gmail account is working fine at the moment, so if you need me go there.

________________

Update: Seems to be working now.

Zsa Zsa's Cat

Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Hungarian 'actress' and socialite, was a frequent guest on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

She appeared many, many times - but it's that one episode, the time she showed up with a large, white Persian cat on late night TV that made history.

You know the story, Zsa Zsa appeared on the show, cat in lap, and famously asked Carson "Would you like to pet my pussy?"

To which Carson replied with his trademark dry wit, "I'd love to. But first, you'll have to move that damned cat..."

Ba dump bump and cue rimshot.

Millions of people saw that episode, it's the stuff of television legend. I've known folks who saw that episode and tell the story with great relish. I know folks who remember exactly what they were doing when it happened, who they were with, and the exact date it occurred on. Hell, I used to know a guy who claimed to have the episode on tape (BetaMax, no less, and extremely valuable if true, since the original tape archives of the Tonight Show were accidentally erased), though he never could find it.

There's just one problem - it never happened.

It never happened, but to this day, and for the foreseeable future, there are folks who truly believe that it did, that they actually witnessed the event with their own eyes.

It began as a joke, an urban legend, spread by rumor and old fashioned word of mouth - long before the days of the Internet and instantaneous communications. And it has become so ingrained into the legendary fabric of Television history that a significantly large number of folks have actually manufactured memories to support the story, some of whom weren't even born when Johnny was in his heyday - and they actually believe those memories are true, and in some cases will vehemently defend those manufactured memories as authentic despite all validated evidence to the contrary.

When I taught intelligence gathering techniques and information warfare to military folks, I used to use this example as a demonstration of why it is so damned important to verify your input, and especially input that is based on data that 'everybody knows is true.' Failure to do so can put people and missions at risk. Somewhere upstairs, in the file I keep of my military service, is a Navy Commendation Medal, awarded to me for saving the lives of 43 Iraqis. I won't go into detail, much of which are still classified, but those men weren't terrorists, Saddam fedayeen, of even common soldiers. They were simply fishermen who's vessel ended up on a target list during the early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom. They were literally within minutes of death when I happened to see the name of their vessel on the strike package. That vessel had been designated as hostile, because intelligence caught them laying mines in the Straights of Hormuz. Just one problem, I and my team had boarded that vessel less than 48 hours previously - and found no mines, no weapons, or anything else of military significance. The vessel's master had been polite and as open as you would expect with a heavily armed US Navy boarding team inspecting every part of his vessel from bilge to gunwales. With strike aircraft moving into launch position on the carrier, I notified my CO and immediately contacted Strike (the senior battle group commander in charge of these types of operations) via radio on the general circuit. Strike dismissed my report, claiming that he had photographic evidence of mine-laying. Well shit, I thought, how did I miss that? I didn't, I knew I didn't, I'd been over that vessel with a fine toothed comb, I couldn't have missed a deck full of mines - but it's pretty hard to argue with a man who has photographs in hand. As a tactical intelligence officer, I demanded the photos via electronic transfer. Strike then reported that while he hadn't actually seen the photos, his intelligence officer had, and that was good enough. I switched to my own encrypted direct intelligence circuits and contacted Battle Group Intel, and demanded the pictures along with the tactical analysis.

As it turned out, nobody in the BG Intel cell had seen the pictures either, but they had confirmed analysis from another source. That source happened to be my own particular branch of tactical intelligence. I switched circuits again - and had my own special intelligence team begin pulling logs of the last 12 hours of raw data - and requested the pictures directly from the originating entity. That entity turned out to be a very junior maintenance technician who was speculating about mine laying on an intel chat circuit with another junior technician while troubleshooting our communications system. Neither of the technicians were actual intel types, or qualified in military or maritime analysis, or were actually even in the theater of operations. There were no pictures. In fact the entire incident stemmed from a single line on an encrypted chat circuit that went something along the lines of "I've seen pictures of vessel xxxx, and I bet it could lay mines..." Like the child's game of "Telephone," the fog of war morphed that single line of speculation into solid, validated, photographic intelligence - and 43 innocent fishermen were about to die.

Logs in hand, and egg on my face (I was a member of that community, remember, one of us screws up, and we all look like idiots) I attempted to call off the strike. But events were already in motion and there was literally only seconds to left to abort, the strike commander was deeply vested in the intelligence and extremely reluctant to change course when assets had already been committed. Admission that the strike was based on false information was extremely difficult for him. (To his credit, he was an exceptionally competent Officer and a good guy, but it is a very difficult thing to admit you've been fooled when you should have demanded confirming proof to begin with, especially in an environment as chaotic as war). In the end I had to put my own ass on the line to get that strike called off. I thought for a while that I would get cashiered over that event because of the methodology I had to use in the end - I was right, but that's not always the right thing to be if you get my drift - but in the end cooler heads prevailed and I ended up with a commendation instead of a court martial for insubordination.

The reason I relate this story is not because I like blowing my own horn about one event, significant only to me and a handful of others, in an operation long buried amongst thousands of similar things. I mention it to illustrate how otherwise shrewd and intelligent people can, just like in the Zsa Zsa Gabor story above, come to believe something that simply has no basis in fact whatsoever, and then act on that false foundation as if it were actually true. And how people can become so emotionally and personally vested in that false position that they lose the power of dispassionate reason and the ability to admit when they are wrong.

In both the civilian world, and in the field of military intelligence, the scope and influence of false or manufactured information used to be self limiting to a certain extent. Time and distance, communication lag and limited bandwidth, and more than anything else professionalism, served as a damper. News organizations prided themselves on their research in the mold of Edward R. Murrow, strictly separating opinion from validated fact. This of course, wasn't a hard and fast rule, witness how America became involved in the Spanish American War, largely at the goading of Hearst and Pultizer's race for dramatic and timely headlines. But in the early days of electronic information, i.e. TV News, there were certain criteria and most editors prided themselves on their professional adherence to those standards. As a result, people came to trust the faces of Network news, Brinkely, Chronkite, Brokaw, and the other famous names from the heyday of broadcast TV. In the military intelligence field, the standards were much stricter. Our bandwidth was limited, and so each piece of information was filtered, verified, and vetted before being placed on the circuit; a senior and experienced officer or NCO signed off on every single piece of information that entered the group consensus. This is not to say that things were perfect, either in the civilian media or within military channels, far from it in fact. But there was layering, filtering, and analysis in both systems, at every step along the way. The drawback, of course, was that information flow was limited by these choke points. Both military leaders and the civilian population demanded more information, faster and more timely. And as the instantaneous connectivity of the information age evolved, and bandwidth on all channels expanded exponentially in accordance with Moore's Law, that's precisely what we got.

In the world of cable news and under increasing pressure to publish first or be left behind, civilian news organizations began to remove those professional filters until there are only vestiges left today - and increasingly the population is being bombarded with raw, unfiltered information. A perfect example is the once vaunted CNN, who nowadays broadcasts a segment called "News to Me," where anyone with a video camera can become an iReporter. Unfortunately, the general population has never had either the training or the need to perform information filtering and validation on their own. They are conditioned to believe that what they see is indeed fact and this increasingly leads to false perceptions on a national level.

At the same time, in government and in the military world, our leaders began to demand raw information as well, believing that they have the ability to sort fact from fiction without the aid of trained and experienced professionals, and that speed over accuracy is what matters. Arguably, the most public example is, of course, the infamous "Yellow Cake" incident which led directly to war in Iraq - and subsequently to the deaths of tens of thousands with the counter still ticking. In addition to that incident, there have been many, many more in recent history - some that I've witnessed personally and have been powerless to divert.

With the advent of unlimited interpersonal connectivity between individuals on a global scale, without filters such as the traditional technical, social, political, geographic, and linguistic boundaries, and without any other form of validation or verification, the ability of information to take on the trappings of reality has become a true and terrifying new power.

Take this website for example, published by a couple of folks who claim to be full time Alaskan residents and appear, as such, to have special insight into the GOP Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. If you surf the site, however, you'll see immediately that these folks are just a touch biased, and that they've actually lived in Alaska for less than a year. They came here with an eco-tourism agenda and, like many of their inclination, a preconceived notion of Alaska and a solid contempt for Alaskans, and they've done nothing to change that. It's their right to do so, but they are hardly dispassionate in their viewpoint. And yet, their words provide unvetted input into the group consciousness, and validation of viewpoints that a certain element of the population already wants to believe.

Take this letter for example, this time from a long-time Alaskan resident. A resident of Wasilla, Alaska and an ardent town meeting attendee (and every other kind of meeting, yes I know who she is) - she's also the town busybody. Note how she, according to her own words, claims special knowledge and selflessly places her own life and livelihood between the vindictive Governor and all those who would be persecuted, and how only she has the courage to stand up when others won't.

Note the number of folks who, never having heard of Sarah Palin before, are suddenly experts. Note the vast army of strawmen suddenly marching forth from our TV screens and Internet browsers. The rumors run the gamut from the already tired whispers of Trig Palin being Sarah Palin's grandson to her reworking of the Alaskan public school system in her own creationist image to the fact that she dines on endangered polar bear meat for lunch.

Strangely, note the vast number of Americans who believe with absolute certainty that if the republicans win the White House, Sarah Palin will become President by default - when John McCain dies in office. I find it strange that so many folks, including a great many republicans, believe this - and yet are willing to vote for a man they are certain will not live out his term.

Understand something here, I am not a Republican, I feel no compelling need to defend Sarah Palin. I am also not a Democrat, I feel no compelling need to attack Sarah Palin. I am not a Libertarian, big L or otherwise, and so feel no compelling need to hide under my bed and wait for the end of the world. I doubt very much that I will vote for John McCain, however, I know why I will not. And that knowledge is based on verified fact and the actual words, actions, and expressed intentions of the candidates - and not the urban legends and false intelligence manufactured by party wonks and propagated by so called 'experts' like those linked to above.

When it comes to Zsa Zsa's cat - I want to see the tape, or I'm going to have to call bullshit on the story. And I highly advise you to do the same.

You're A Winner!

OK, here it is. The moment all of you regulars have been waiting for.

Announcing the winner of the Stonekettle Station Jim is a Jerk Super Sweepstakes.

Now, I'm going to tell you all - picking a winner was a bitch. You're all funny as hell, and at a 167 comments and an even dozen emails there was a lot of snarky anecdotes to wade through. I read them all three times. I picked a winner at least a couple of times, each time it was a different winner.

Frankly I just couldn't decide.

Some of my favorite one liners:

- "And his fucking vote counted."
- "Oops. Godwin's Law. I lose."
- "...potty-mouthed slattern."
- "'What are you whining about?' cried Eric. 'At least you're not dead.'"
- "no, Janiece, you bite me"
- "Seriously? Have you met me?"
- "I was way out of my depth on this one!"

I finally decided to declare Beastly the winner. Since he's staying at my house and I could save myself a couple of bucks on shipping and handling. But as it turns out that he doesn't want the damned prize. And then I started to think about all the whining and complaints of fairness and ethics and that kind of crap. Sigh.

So, just for you I read through the whole stinking list one more time. And there is was, I settled on the one person that made me laugh every damned time I read her comment - no matter how many times I read it. That comment began and ended with "Moo." I don't know why I found that just so damned funny, but I did - along with most everything else she wrote.

So, congratulations to Random Michelle.

Your prize, the fabulous one of a kind Alaskan Birch bowl with magic properties, will be forwarded sooner or later, probably sooner, maybe even tomorrow.

Labor Day, no really.

Folks I am extremely busy this morning, because I've basically accomplished nothing this weekend.

- I took Saturday off and spent it with my son, sue me. I took yesterday off and went to Anchorage with my family. We saw the new movie, Babylon A.D. in the new digital projection format (which just completely rocked, both the format and the movie. I loved this movie - it's everything Children of Men should have been - and wasn't. I don't give a shit what you say, I love Vin Diesel movies). Anyway and as such, I've let a couple of things pile up, and I've had a couple of unexpected issues suddenly appear on the horizon, and I need to deal with those things first. Plus, it's Labor Day today and you should all be out enjoying the day - or at the least putting your heads together and making up shit about Sarah Palin and her family.

- And speaking of Sarah Palin, the previous post has gotten tremendous play in the last three days - tens of thousands of hits, I don't have time at the moment to total it up and it keeps changing moment by moment anyway. Following some of the links back, and reading the comments in both the news and in other blogs (both liberal and conservative) I've discovered a number of interesting, disturbing, and just weird-assed things - which I will share with you. Later. Suffice it to say that if you don't know anything at all about a political candidate, or anything at all about Alaska - it's perfectly OK to just pull it out of your ass as long as you're doing it for Jesus and the Democratic Party. And the Republicans are actually worse. Stupidity, Hypocrisy, Cluelessness, Racism, and Misogyny are rampant. A perfect example is Scalzi's Blog where the discussion predictably turned into an evolution/creationism debate, based on Palin's presumed position divined through sound bites and made up bullshit by people who know absolutely nothing about Wasilla, Alaska, Palin, or the school system here. But that sure didn't stop them. (Update: Uh, re-reading that and suddenly realized how it sounded. John Scalzi didn't say anything like that, or even imply it. It was a numer of commeters, and Scalzi put an end to it as soon as he realized what was going on.) Oh, and it's OK to repeatedly refer to a Down's Syndrome child as a "retard" or a 17 year old girl as a "filthy whore," as long as they're children of a political candidate whom you happen to dislike. I'll talk about this and more, later today.

- I've gotten a lot of mail from the Palin post, and a number of folks who wrote asking about bowls and artwork. Yes, yes, yes, I will do my best to upload pictures later today - in fact I'm in the process now. Check the Flickr site, some are appearing even as we speak. I know I'm horribly behind on doing this - it just takes so dammed long. But I will do it today, and get up a list of what's sold and what's available. Those of you who bought my prize winning fair entries, I'll pick those up and get them in the mail tomorrow. Thanks for your patience. Expect PayPal invoices later today, via email.

- I will get up the Contest winner later today. No, I don't know who it is yet. I've got it narrowed down to those people who bribed me with presents, money, and sexual favors. If you weren't one of those people, so sorry, loser, better luck next time.

So, anyway. There you have it. More later.

The worst kept secret in Ohio (updated)

Update:

This post is seriously out of date and has been deleted.

It's the only post to date that I am embarrassed to have written.

Over the months of the 2008 presidential campaign, as the real NeoCon Sarah Palin emerged, as I heard her speak, as I saw her fan the flames of hatred, as I watched her pander to the lowest common denominator and the loonies and the mental defectives and the ignorant and the bigots and the paranoids, and as I saw how she behaved on the national stage, I altered my perception of her 180 degrees.

I wouldn't vote for Sarah Palin to be in charge of a salad fight, let alone in a position of political power. Today, as an Alaskan, as a decorated Veteran, as an American, I am truly glad this appalling woman is out of office - my opinion of her exit is here.

Jim Wright, Palmer, Alaska

The Firefox 3 for Windows Upgrade

As I mentioned Tuesday, I finally decided to upgrade to the latest release of Firefox.

I'm an unabashed fan of Mozilla's open source browser, and have been since version 1.  But, I'm inherently conservative when it comes to software. I feel no compelling need to have all the latest and greatest shiny new software toys.  I'm a geek, true, and I have a degree or two in computer science, I've done extensive programming, and spent most of my life in the information warfare field and worked with everything from massive MPX mainframes to clustered DEC FIDI systems to a palm-sized Clie - but I hate fooling around with computer systems.

It's like auto mechanics.  Some guys love tinkering under the hood, tweaking, aligning, and polishing the motor. Being covered in grease makes them happy. They talk about cars, and engines, transmission and differential gear ratios, fuel injection versus 4-barrel carbureted air/fuel mixing and that all important quarter mile.  Bah. Me, I can work on cars and trucks, but more than anything I just want the dammed thing to start up reliably and get me where I'm going. And it's the same with software, I'm less interested in bells and whistles and tweaks and geeks, and more interested in having the dammed machine do what I need it to do, when I need it to do it.

As such, I usually wait a bit - sometimes quite a while - to upgrade to the latest software. In fact, I prefer to let everybody else work out the bugs and quirks before upgrading, especially if the software version I'm currently using does everything that I want it to do.  I mean, hey, why the hell should I do free beta testing for a software developer? Frankly I don't need the aggravation.

Be that as it may, I spend a great deal of time hip deep in the Internet, and having the latest version of my favorite browser holds a certain attraction. After a year's development, Firefox 3 has reached stability and is spreading through the web via word of mouth and Mozilla's updater function, and after about the third upgrade availability notification I decided to give it a try.  I figured I'd update the main Vista machine first. If that went well, I'd upgrade the XP tablet, which is where I do most of my online work.  If the upgrade crashed and burned on the Vista machine, well, no big deal.

So, choices, choices. I'm of two minds when it comes to this kind of thing, i.e. should I remove the old version first and do a virgin installation - losing my settings and such in the process, but getting a clean install - or should I simply install over the old version?  Of course, with a browser, even one as advanced as Firefox, this isn't that big of a decision - not like choosing to do a Vista install over XP, for example. However, there have been reported problems with Firefox upgrades over an existing version - especially when it comes to printing (which I'll come back to in a minute) - and as software rapidly evolves and becomes increasingly complex the number of things that can go wrong, both gross problems and subtle incompatibilities which may cause strangely inexplicable problems following an upgrade increase exponentially.  Systems are like snowflakes, the variations in configurations, hardware and software both, are nearly infinite - and there's just no way even the best software development team can foresee every contingency.  Five or six years ago, this wouldn't have been a concern, but browsers and network connectivity are now so deeply integrated into the operating system that it often makes sense to slick the old software first, rather than try and troubleshoot the endless little errors that creep into your system after countless upgrades and tweaks.  You can lose hours of productivity and find yourself chin deep in screaming frustration - all because your upgraded software installation imported incompatible configuration settings from the old version. If it's just one thing, it's usually easy to find. If it's a combination of things, you may never find it - especially if the problem is buried in the program's data and not caused by a bug in the software.

Example: I upgraded from Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 to 2007 recently. I installed over the old version, because I wanted to keep my email, notes, and contact database.  The installation appeared to go off without a hitch - but the dammed thing kept crashing every couple of hours.  And then would hang on crashdump process, so I had no way of figuring out what was causing the problem. I removed all add-ons and plug-ins per Microsoft recommendation. No joy. Crash, crash, crash. Then I noticed the crashes occurred during folder synchronization.  Hmmm.  I flushed the database, archiving anything older than 6 months, and purged the sent items file. And the crashes stopped. Somewhere in my old email files, was a bit of data that kept corrupting the system and inducing the crash.  Did that corruption appear in the old version, or was it an error that occurred during import into the new version during the installation process? I don't know, but it caused me endless aggravation for quite some time.

And it's the same concern here. One of the things that makes Firefox so attractive to me is the ability to add in functionality with third party plug-ins and freeware extensions. And I use a lot of them, not all of which are going to be compatible with Firefox 3 out of the box. And I've got thousands of bookmarks, organized in a very specific manner. And those things could easily cause problems during the upgrade process. 

However,  I decided to go with the upgrade method vice a clean install, for a couple of reasons. First, if it works, it's easier, one click on the upgrade dialog box and off you go. Mozilla has always been extremely good about this process and I was willing to trust them this time based on their past performance - if this was a Microsoft product, I would probably not have been so trusting, just saying, once burned, twice shy and all that. Second, Mozilla has always had very good compatibility checking for add-ons and extensions and again I was willing to trust them.

The download and installation worked smoothly and without error - another advantage of waiting to upgrade, I didn't have to compete with a million other folks attempting to download the pre-release version at the same time.  Once the installation was completed, Firefox's compatibility checker popped and ran automatically - and reported that a number of my existing extensions were no longer compatible.  Some were things I really, really don't want to do without - like PicLens - and some were things that simply aren't necessary in the new version of Firefox.  A number of outdated extensions had compatible updates, and Firefox detected those automatically and downloaded the new plug-ins without problem. I deinstalled the incompatible extensions, after checking manually to see if there were updates. PicLens (a phenomenally useful tool for searching out graphics and video across the web) as it turns out, has been updated and renamed CoolIris - which is why the compatibility updater couldn't find it.

Here are the extensions I know update automatically and work with Firefox 3:

Gmail Notifier, Google Toolbar for Firefox, IE Tab, New Tab Homepage, Adblock, Better Gmail, Colorful Tabs, Foxmarks Bookmarks Synchronizer, Save Session, Split Panel, StumbleUpon, and ClearPersonalData.

PicLens has to be manually upgraded to CoolIris, and after that it updates automatically.

All of the functionality in other extension I had loaded has been incorporated into Firefox itself and I no longer need the third party plug-ins. All in all, they've made over 15,000 changes, according to their website and as far as I can tell after three days of fooling around with version 3, most of them are pretty slick.

None of the themes I used in Version 2 were compatible with the upgrade. Oh well, no big deal, and I deinstalled all of them.  And, truthfully, I like the new default look of Firefox, Mozilla has finally gotten completely rid of the last vestiges of that old hoary Netscape interface and I doubt I'll even load new themes.

 

Now, the good stuff:

In addition to the shiny new look, the thing I like best about Firefox 3 is the significant improvement in performance. It starts up a hell of a lot faster, and page loads seem much quicker and smoother to me.  Firefox now has true image zooming capability, but truthfully I tend to use CoolIris and don't really use this new feature much. I really like the Smart Location Bar, especially the site information feature which I find extremely useful (though I noted that Mozilla itself doesn't provide much useful information on its own site, heh heh), the expanded history drop down is a cool feature as are the one-click bookmark and subscribe controls. I particularly like how browsing history management has been improved and reorganized, and the new Add-on manager. There really are too many new features, all of them good, to mention here. If you're interested, check out Mozilla's Firefox 3 new features page, you can't say Mozilla doesn't listen to their users.

Next, the not-so-good things:

Well, there aren't a lot of problems with Firefox 3, but what problems do exist are a major pain for a number of folks. I haven't experienced much in the way of grief here, but before you upgrade you might check out The How-To Geek as a starting place.

The biggest issue for a lot of folks seems to be with printing, as noted here by commenter Tracy.  In a number of cases Firefox spits out gibberish when it comes to hardcopy.  This problem is not confined to a single printer type or to Vista or XP, and seems to appear equally in both clean installations and upgrades. The problem seems to be a bug in how FF3 communicates with Windows' winPrint module and/or a driver issue and as yet there doesn't seem to be much information available on Mozilla's Support Forums.

A couple of work-arounds that might work for you:

1) under tools/options/content, click the "advanced" button and uncheck the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts." Click Ok, then OK again on the content dialog. Try printing.

2) in the same dialog change the default fonts.  From Times New Roman to Trebuchet for example. Change the font size, save changes and exit. Try printing. If this works, change the fonts back to Times New Roman, save the changes and try printing again.

3) in the same dialog, change the default character encoding to an alternate encoding set.

4) Ensure "Enable Advanced Printer Features" is checked under your printer properties for your selected printer in the Windows Control Panel.

Again, these are work-arounds, not complete solutions. Not all of them work on all machines.

I would expect Mozilla, being Mozilla and not Microsoft, will have this problem fixed pretty quick. 

 

Bottom Line: Overall, I'm pretty happy with Firefox 3, but I haven't had the problems others have reported.  At the moment it appears to be a crapshoot whether or not you'll experience any of the reported problems.  And at least until the printing bug is fixed, I'd be patient if I were you and wait until the next interim update.

Overheard at the DNC

“John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. That’s not a maverick. That’s a sidekick!”

- Senator Bob Casey, D-PA

__________________________
Another good one:

"A woman voting for John McCain would be like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders"
- Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood



Post your favorite DNC quotes in the comment section. There are lots to choose from.

Busy

Sorry, I'm a little busy at the moment.

But later today I will post a review of the new Firefox 3 update for Windows.

The thumbnail version: So far it rocks.

I've got it running under both XP and Vista. There are a few quirks, and a couple of annoying oversights that should have been fixed, and were not. I'll talk about those in the review.

More, later.

UCF Meetup

UCF'er Jeri is dropping by Stonekettle Station this afternoon.

The rest of you are invited, should you be in the neighborhood.

Shiny

Notice anything new?

Yep, just upgraded to Firefox v3.0.1.

Woohoo!

Its still got that new browser smell.

Michelle Obama for First Lady

Anybody else watch Michelle Obama's speech last night at the Democratic National Convention?

This is part one of her speech, which doesn't actually start until about four minutes, thirty seconds into the video. Part two and three.

Personally, I was seriously impressed. She spoke about her life, her husband's life, and the American Dream. She spoke about keeping your word, about honor and integrity, about dreams and hope, and about love of country. She spoke of humble beginnings and unlimited horizons. Every single thing she said I agree with wholeheartedly. I thought it was an excellent speech, an inspiring speech, an amazing speech - and should she become the First Lady, I think she'll do more than just a credible job, I think she'll be an outstanding First Lady. She's articulate, passionate, supremely well spoken, confident, outspoken, idealistic, and obviously thoughtfully intelligent. And she's deeply in love with her husband - does that matter? I think it does, at least to me.

It is apparent to me, and has been for some time, that many of the things said about her are patently false. Last night's speech just cemented that opinion in my mind.

This morning the pundits are taking her speech apart word by word, criticizing everything from her Princeton education to her sincerity to her choice of apparel and hairstyle.  Predictable, and no less nauseating for being predictable.  I read somewhere this morning, a comment from some vitriolic idiot who said in essence, "So what? She's just parroting the words some speech writer wrote for her." Bullshit. Obvious bullshit. Listen to her words, watch her speak, watch her eyes. Her eyes are on America, on the crowd, not on some teleprompter. I've given a lot of speeches in my time. I've stood in front of a lot of people and have spoken passionately and from the heart.  And I know it when I see it. Those are her words, not some speechwriter's, and she believes every one of them. True sincerity, you cannot fake that. You cannot, not in front of me anyway.

I've seen a dozen reports this morning regarding her tip of the hat to Hillary Clinton. The most ridiculous being Fox News (of course. Tediously, predictably, of course) who sneeringly questioned her sincerity with regards to Clinton's achievements and iconic status.  CNN went so far as to hire a so-called "body language expert" to analyze Michelle Obama's stance, posture, and gestures during that portion of the speech - just to determine if Mrs Obama was actually, you know, sincere in her acknowledgement of Clinton.  The expert determined that she was "ambivalent."  

Bah.

Again, listen to her words, watch her talk - she's not blowing smoke up Clinton's tailored pantsuit with empty, politically expedient flattery. She was sincerely acknowledging Clinton's achievement - Hillary Clinton came closer to the Presidency than any woman before her, and her accomplishment paved the way for those woman who will follow the trail Clinton blazed, straight into the Oval Office - maybe one of those women will be Malia or Natasha Obama.  Michelle Obama can, and did, acknowledge that fact without reservation. 

Was it a calculated olive branch to Clinton's supporters? Sure, probably.

So?

Welcome to politics. Was is disingenuous? No. No. No. Again, listen to her words, she spoke about unity, about all Americans standing together. All Americans. And those aren't empty words, she demonstrated her commitment to unity by reaching out, right there in Denver, to one of her husband's most bitter rivals.  Far from insincerity, I take this as a sign of the Obamas' sincere commitment to represent all Americans, to reach across the aisle, to unify instead of divide.

Insincerity? No, wrong word.

It's called class, and grace, and style.

 

I look forward to hearing Cindy McCain speak at the GOP Convention. I'm sure it'll be equally impressive.

What?

This Week's Alaskan Panorama is...

...The Alaska State Fair.

This panorama was stitched together from a seven shots taken in the central intersection of the Palmer Fair Grounds.

I learned something - making panorama's from pictures that have a lot of people in them is a huge, huge, pain in the ass. Hell, taking the pictures is a pain - see that old guy on the left hand side, near the light pole? That bastard deliberately stepped in front of me, and kept stepping in front of me, no matter where I pointed the lens. And he kept doing things like sticking his finger in his nose, or making dumbassed gestures. If he was eight years old, maybe I could understand it. But in this case I'm not sure what his problem was exactly, other than just being an asshole. He's lucky he didn't end up capping his fair visit off with a ride in an ambulance chopper, because he was seriously pissing me off.

Here's another pan, facing in the opposite direction:

Both pans swing through about 200 degree azimuth, and I had a hell of a time stitching them together. I removed a few jarring duplications, but eventually got bored and frustrated with the process. So, there are a number of dupes in each pan, and I didn't fix the shadow orientation. And there are a couple of obvious photoshop errors - I mention this only because I know that at least one of you is just a tad anal about such things. Heh. Overall, I think they give you the general idea of the event.

We were worried that the fair would be a bust this year, with the crappy weather and the high gas prices (And yes, the gas prices here are higher than anywhere else in the nation, including southern California, by about 70 cents. Why? Because our governor pushed to get Alaskans an energy check from the state's oil fund - which the oil companies seem to think somehow belongs to them, as if they haven't been screwing us for the last year already - as soon as the bill passed gas prices jumped up twenty cents and haven't budged since, despite declining prices everywhere else. Attention Exxon, Shell, Atlantic Richfield, and Chevron, you are nothing but utter fucking scum sucking bottom feeders, you bastards), but despite all of that the fair was seriously crowded and we had a good time anyway.

And yes, for those of you wondering how I faired in the judging, I did win a few ribbons. I entered five pieces in the wood turning category and ended up with a 1st Premium, 2nd Premium, 3rd Premium, and two honorable mentions. So, you know, I'm just a little tickled, especially since the competition was extremely well done and I would have been happy just to have been considered to be in the same class with them. Some of those guys are professionals with years of experience and their work is absolutely outstanding - and yet they were extremely gracious to a newcomer like me and complimentary of my work. Nice people, really.

So, despite the rain, the jerk that kept stepping in front of my camera, and the bastards at Exxon it was a good day.