April 22nd, 2009
The following is via an e-mail I was forwarded.
Based on content, it seems to me to be written by a retired senior or flag officer. While there are some areas I have quibbles about, the original author seems well informed and talks the talk.
My edits and comments are marked by [brackets] or by use of italics. The original text contained no bolding (and no graphics), so those would be my choices for emphasis.
First though, let me orient you to familiarize you with the “terrain.”
In Africa from Djibouti at the southern end of the Red Sea eastward through the Gulf of Aden to round Cape Guardafui at the easternmost tip of Africa (also known as “The Horn of Africa”) is about a 600 nm [nautical miles ~ 1.15 statute miles] transit before you stand out into the Indian Ocean. That transit is comparable in distance to that from the mouth of the Mississippi at New Orleans to the tip of Florida at Key West– except that 600 nm over there is infested with Somalia pirates.
Ships turning southward at the Horn of Africa transit the SLOC (Sea Lane [Line] of Commerce [Communication]) along the east coast of Somalia because of the prevailing southerly currents there. It’s about 1,500 nm on to Mombassa, which is just south of the equator in Kenya. Comparably, that’s about the transit distance from Portland Maine down the east coast of the US to Miami Florida. In other words, the ocean area being patrolled by our naval forces off the coast of Somalia is comparable to that in the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River east to Miami then up the eastern seaboard to Maine.
Second, let me globally orient you from our Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, VA, east across the Atlantic to North Africa, thence across the Med to Suez in Egypt, thence southward down the Red Sea to Djibouti at the Gulf of Aden, thence eastward to round Cape Guardafui at the easternmost tip of Africa, and thence southerly some 300 miles down the east cost of Somali out into the high seas of the Indian Ocean to the position of MV [Motor Vessel] ALABAMA is a little more than 7,000 nm, and plus-nine time-zones ahead of EST. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Military, Naval | 1 Comment »
April 15th, 2009
In a noteworthy departure for Bay Area protests, an orderly and peaceful group of between 2,000 and 2,500 gathered today in down-town San Jose. The Tea Party, a protest of out of control federal spending and the taxes which will have to pay for it, started shortly before 5:00pm and started dispersing an hour later.
There were plenty of signs and flags.
Families, couples, individuals, young, middle aged, and older were all present. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Protest, Tax Day, Tea Party
Posted in Bay Area, California, Domestic Issues, National Politics, Regional Issues, The West | 2 Comments »
April 9th, 2009
…Monterey, and Santa Cruz counties not an accident.
Sabotage.
San Jose police: Sabotage caused phone outage in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz counties
By Mark Gomez, Ken McLaughlin and Julia Prodis Sulek
Mercury News
Santa Clara County officials have declared a local emergency after they said someone intentionally cut an underground fiber optic cable in south San Jose, causing a widespread phone service outage in southern Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties today that included disruption to 911 emergency phone service.
John Britton, a spokesman for AT&T, said it appears somebody opened a manhole in South San Jose, climbed down eight to 10 feet and cut four or five fiber-optic cables.Britton also said there was a report of underground cables being cut in San Carlos.
AT&T is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible for the sabotage, Britton said.
The article actually downplays the severity of the outage. One of my employees reported that all land line, data, and cell phone access was out in the Santa Cruz mountains. A colleague of mine notes that this outage just happens to coincide with the end of a contract between AT&T and the union which provides fiber optic cable repair services to them…
As the article notes, there’s $100,000.00 on offer for anyone who can help identify and prosecute the pertpetrators.
Tags: communications, sabotage
Posted in Bay Area | No Comments »
April 7th, 2009
The numbers are in, and they are not what the proponents of anthropogenic global warming predicted. In point of inconvenient fact, they falsify the theorem:
The End Of The Global Warming Myth
By A. J. Strata
The Strata-Sphere
The high Priests of the Church of Al Gore/IPCC have been predicting pending global doom for coming on 20 years now. There so called scientific models predicted if nothing was done about CO2 levels over that period the Earth would warm up by 0.6° C since 1988-90 (within the range of 0.4°-1.0° C). It never happened. The actual data shows how pathetically wrong these Chicken Littles were:
We’ve had 20 years to validate the mythological theories, and the data is in. The IPPC theory is on the top arcing out of reality, the actual measurements are on the bottom. Here is another chart proving the obvious:
Each figure is a link to the original sources [links preserved, graphics stored locally]. The myth of Man Made Global Warming due to CO2 is now busted! Reality meets theory, and the man-made models lost to reality.
You can read about all the other hard evidence to this now established fact in my earlier posts on the matter.
A great catch on A.J.’s part.
One of the linked articles (at Icecap) features this graphic as well (click thumbnail for larger image) which nicely illustrates the primary factors influencing global climate:
Cross Posted to: Say Anything Blog
Tags: Global Warming
Posted in Global Warming | No Comments »
April 2nd, 2009
Santa Clara valley is rather flat.
We’ve mountains to the East
and West, but the rest is mostly, well, flat.
Dairy Hill used to be a (wait for it) dairy farm, just as most of the Santa Clara Valley used to be orchards and farms. Dairy Hill is thus one of the few elevated areas in (as opposed to around) the Santa Clara Valley, and it’s only a few miles away from Downtown San Jose:
The houses are well below the peak of the hill. Even so our house is about a hundred feet or so above the valley floor, which means we have a view. From the crest of the hill, you can see the Bay Bridge on a clear day.
As for the sub-head, let’s just say we have the quietest backfence neighbors
one could ever ask for!
Tags: about
Posted in Site Notices | No Comments »
April 2nd, 2009
I suspect we shall see!
Lessons Learned:
1. Lots of malicious types out there.
2. No security=no-good
3. Security by Obscurity=not-much-better
Tags: administrivia, Site Notice, technical
Posted in Site Notices | No Comments »
