Friday, November 06, 2009

Hugo Chavez, Submariners and Water Rationing

In adjacent Miranda State the Lagartijo Reservoir is at the lowest level ever recorded. Residents of Venezuela’s capital face strict cuts in water service through May 2010.

President Hugo Chavez has urged citizens to reduce water consumption, including his suggestion last week that showering should last only 3 minutes.

In response to drought, water supplies in Caracas are shut off for as much as 48 hours per week, staggered throughout the city, according to state-owned water utility Hidrocapital officials cited in AFP reports.

But is something more amiss? Critics, including the municipal agency that distributes Hidrocapital's water to the city, say that poor infrastructure has made it difficult for water pressure to reach some of the poorest parts of the city. Water taps in poor districts are known to run until they dry up, because nobody can turn them off. The real cause of the trouble is decades of inadequate system maintenance.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, however, prefers to blame excesses of unfeeling, inhuman capitalism.
What will the rich fill their swimming pools with? With the water that is denied inhabitants in the poor neighborhoods. source


Which brings about today a spot of good news: Shortages pose a risk to Venezuela's Chavez

What are submariners to think? One diesel submariner revealed this:

We generated only sufficient fresh water for officers to shower every 11 days, general enlisted showered every four days, and only food handlers were permitted to shower every day.

And, even in the nuclear era, we were informed during submarine school how to take the 2-minute shower. But not from this lady.

Labels:

|

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Death toll rises: "It could be a terror attack"

9:52 PM EST PREDICTION: Major Malik Nadal Hasan will be declared dead (again) as soon as he is able to make a statement that he was acting alone. - Vigilis

UPDATE: 9:34 EST- FOXNEWS - Hasan was in stable condition condition at a local hospital Thursday night, Cone said after previously reporting that he was killed at the scene.

This story (cover-up) is getting weird. It is taking on the wild, inexplicable aura of the JFK assassination timeline. The nation's top cover-up team, again in a Democrat administration, is exercising th endless imagination of Hollywood scrip writers to suppress the truth. With this obvious cover-up in play, Vigilis will no longer be updating this tragedy. Tomorrow or later, we may elaborate our opinion in more detail. The rate of change of "facts" tonight makes tracking the story hopeless (as the Obama's administration fully intends).

UPDATE: CNN 9:07 EST - Surviving Fort Hood shooting suspect arrested at golf course, officer says - A senior officer who was playing golf said an MP told him that authorities considered the man to be a suspect in the shootings after having overheard the man say he was with the shooter.

UPDATE: 8:29 EST - The massacre at the Fort Hood military base that killed at least 12 people and wounded 31 at Fort Hood appears to be the deadliest mass shooting at a US military base in modern history. Officials at the Texas base, the largest US military base in the world, said a soldier opened fire in a busy processing centre where troops go before being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a psychiatrist on the base, according to records uncovered by ABC News. Hasan, who was born in Virginia, was single with no children. The Austin American-Statesman reported his parents were originally from Jordan. At this time the numbers that we’re looking at are 12 dead and 31 wounded and they are dispersed among the local hospitals here in the central Texas area. The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.
.
At this time, it appears to M.E. that the Army is working on excuses to release the living suspects. Otherwise, our Commander-in-Chief will come under severe scrutiny for his stance on waterboarding, and blinding a proven avenue used to uncover terrorist conspiracies on domestic soil.

.

UPDATE: 7:07 EST - US Army Major Malik Nidal Hasan Identified As Primary Shooter At Fort Hood Maj. -- Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army mental health professional has ties to the Washington, D.C. area. Military officials said that Maj. Hasan was a psychiatrist who had been recently promoted to major and transferred to Fort Hood from Washington's Walter Reed Medical Center. Maj. Hasan's professional specialties included post-traumatic stress disorder, combat stress and other emotional issues common to the troops implicated in earlier incidents of military fratricide. - WSJ

During my time in the military, the title of M.D. (medical Doctor) was used for ranks lower than Commander (O-5). In other words, Lt.s were called doctors. If Army Major Hasan (O-4) was really an M.D., why is no one calling him Doctor? Molten Eagle believes Hasan is a psychologist, unless current military title conventions elevate O-5 (Majors) over M.D.s.

The U.S. Army will soon decide whether or not to claim this was an isolated incident, or a well-planned terrorist plot. As M.E. said earlier. highly educated Islamists act alone; otherwise, they tend to conspire. Is it not grand! Guess what the Army will decide.

If anyone conspired, ME. has said in advance:
Obviously, if an al-Qaeda terror bombing were to occur in the U.S. now, Obama and his fawningly supportive 111th Congress Democrat majority Congress will be held inextricably culpable of executive inexperience and gross negligence, respectively.



At Least 7 Dead, 12 Wounded in Shootings at Ft. Hood in Texas
.
A pair of mass shootings at Ft. Hood military post in Texas left at least 7 dead and 12 wounded Thursday, and one suspected gunman is on the loose, the Army said. A massive manhunt was under way for the suspect at large, Fox News confirmed, and one person was in custody. The New York Post said that there were two shooters at the Army post massacre; other reports said there were three.
.
"It could be a terror attack, it could be a disenchanted soldiers, it could be a varity of people," said Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis.
.
In every act of attempted Islamic terror on U.S. soil dissclosed to date, at least 2 perpetrators, more often 3 or more, have been involved. Such acts contrast with the delayed teenage rebellion episodes involving highly-educated Islamic rogues like this one, who struck in Chapel Hill, NC on March 4, 2006. On August 26, 2008, Taheri-azar was sentenced on two counts of attempted murder to 26 years and 2 months to 33 years in prison by Orange County Superior Court.[2]

Labels:

|

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Two Cells and Bad Vibes X 3


FACT: BlackBerry smartphones feature worldwide phone capabilities.

QUESTION: So who is President Obama calling with his BlackBerry?

.

FACT: Even the cell area dedicated to East German Stasi [Secret Police] prisoners in an area called the submarine was several times larger than most crewmen get on today's U.S. submarines.

QUESTION: How would female crew react to areas smaller than shown in the prison photo?

.

FACT: Published October 28, 2009 -Underwater Entrapment - Today's Imminent Warning!

QUESTION: 11:15 pm November 1, 2009 - Tragic coincidence?
Our sincerest sympathies go to the families and friends for the tragic loss of three wonderful and talented young women.
.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Labels:

|

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

New York Times 3 Years Late and a $Billion Short

May 31, 2006 - Occupation: Global Warming Mongers by Vigilis -
It is becoming clearer that he [Gore] is either very dim-witted, or is spearheading a scam for which he has a financial conflict of interest. In fact, his interest in the recent movie An Inconvenient Truth, could be offset by production costs claimed as advertising/marketing for his investment company, based in London. Shameful, really shameful, but not illegal.

November 2, 2009 - The New York Times - Gore’s Dual Role: Advocate and Investor - by John M. Broder -

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, asserted at a hearing this year that Mr. Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.

Mr. Gore said every penny he has made from his renewable energy holdings — as well as from his book and movie efforts — into the non-profit he chairs, the Alliance for Climate Protection.

.

The founder and current chairman of the alliance is former US Vice President Al Gore. [1] Does Al Gore ever mention the CEO salary and benefits he receives from the non-profit? No, he does not. Or, does he cleverly have proceeds deposited in the Gore Family Trust, as perhaps one of his major league lawyers have advised?

.

We do not know, and it is very unlikely that anyone from the NYT will ever ask.

Labels:

|

Steely Question of the Week: 11-3-2009



November 2, 2009 - New York City - USS New York arrives in New York City -


LPD 21 arrived in New York City on Nov. 1 as PCU (precommissioning unit) New York. After the commissioning ceremony on Nov. 4 the ship--built with 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center in her bow--will officially become USS New York.


Questions of the week:
.
1) In tons, what was the reported range of weights of salvaged WTC steel used in building LPD-21?
.
2) In tons, what were the reported range of weights of fallen steel that fell on the deck of the San Francisco's Oakland Bay Bridge recently?
.
3) Will the USS New York (LPD-21) be a terrorist target of choice?
.
Answers Wednesday
.
Submarines are always silent and strange.


Labels:

|

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Shhh... Secret!

Terrorism was predictable (published as a major, post-Soviet threat) by the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Even authors and Hollywood were kicking the idea around. True Lies is an extended remake of a 1991 French movie La Totale!,[1] Released in 1994, True Lies a film by director James Cameron was a blockbuster featuring a spectacular nuclear weapon detonation in the Florida Keys by a terrorist network called the Crimson Jihad.

It may have been the one result of a U.S. military planning exercise, however. Perhaps some highly placed U.S. and French civilians knew quite a bit more about a certain kingdom's true role.

Just a theory.

Labels:

|

Friday, October 30, 2009

Biggest Baseball Bat in the Navy

UPDATE: Nov 1, 2009 -

Friday Oct 30, 2009- MCLEAN, Va. — Top nuke officer details training backlog

In an anecdote about baseball great Ted Williams refreshing his skills during slumps by reviewing fundamentals and using a light bat, Adm. Kirkland Donald, head of the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program, joked that in the naval reactor realm,


“we always found heavier bats worked better.” - NavyTimes
Thursday Oct 29, 2009- McLEAN, Va. - U.S. Navy Facing Submarine Challenges -Adm. Kirk Donald, director of U.S. Naval Reactors, cast a self-critical eye on the submarine force he leads during a presentation at a submarine symposium here Oct. 28, addressing challenges the force is facing.
.
The submarine force’s acquisition strategy also is getting a closer look. “Our plans will experience intense scrutiny,” Adm. Donald said.
“We have an obligation to deliver capability at the best price, without compromising safety.” - Aviation Week

Submarines are always silent and strange.


Labels:

|

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Underwater Entrapment - Today's Imminent Warning!


Besides collision and sinking, what are two very ominous incidents for submarine crews?
Entrapment, of course, and getting swept overboard.
.
But what is actually the Major Cause of most Underwater Entrapment?


Over the last fifty years, around fifteen thousand people have perished due to vehicle entrapment drowning according to numerous sources. ... These people followed the ever shrinking air bubble until it was gone. They died, minutes later. .. It is probable that some of the people that died at the I-35W bridge collapse were trapped inside their car with no other, or minor injuries. They tried their doors and they would not open. They tried their windows, and they would not open. Their vehicles filled with water. As they tried their windows again, the water rose. - Lonny MacDougall, Egression Technologies LLC


How many navy veterans and civilains stationed at Treasure Island, Mare Island or the Navy Airfield in Oakland traversed the Bay Bridge hundreds of times to get home, work, study or for great liberty?
.
Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009 - Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a civil engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley who has spent 20 years studying the Bay Bridge, called the initial crack a "warning sign" of potentially bigger safety issues with the bridge.


"The repair they were doing was really a Band-Aid," said Astaneh-Asl, who criticized Caltrans at the time for rushing to reopen the bridge. "The Band-Aid broke, in essence." Astaneh-Asl said the failure of the repair job demonstrates the need for a longer-term solution. The bridge's age and design make it susceptible to collapse, especially if commercial tractor-trailers are allowed to continue using it, he said."I think Caltrans is putting public relations ahead of public safety," he said.
Submarines are always silent and strange.

Labels:

|

Corpsman Chief Wins Bronze Star - His Specialty Suffers no Lack of Valor


M.E. has always held navy hospital corpsman, including this one, in high regard. Accordingly, we were pleased to see this award:
.
A sailor at Naval Hospital Beaufort became the latest recipient Friday of one of the military's highest decorations. Chief Hospital Corpsman Troy Murphy, a 36-year-old Tucson, Ariz., native was "humbled almost to the point of embarrassment" to receive the military's fourth-highest decoration for meritorious service.
.
From May 2008 until July, while stationed at Combined Security Transition Command in Kabul, Murphy worked as the senior noncommissioned officer to a team teaching combat medics from the Afghan National Security Forces the most up-to-date life-saving techniques. The award citation said Murphy's leadership "enhanced the Afghan National Security Force's Combat Medic Program, significantly improving the life-saving skills of medics deployed in a combat environment."
.
In attempts to explore Murphy's citation (not found), we did find some interesting commentary concerning awards of the medal to SSN skippers, and tough questions by CDR Salamander that readers may find also interesting.
.
Readers interested in the Valor device (“V”) authorized by all services to distinguish those awards from meritorious achievement awards should read this. Basically, awards resulting from combat heroism (Army and Air Force) or earned in combat (Navy), are distinctive from meritorious achievement Bronze Stars awards.
.
Consider the posthumous awards to rank-and-file, WWII submariners sunk in combat. What is the Purple Heart equivalent for drowning deaths in combat? Hmmm.
.
Submarines are always silent and strange.

Labels:

| Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com