Quotulatiousness

September 15, 2014

The “semi-war” against ISIS – watch their actions, don’t listen to their words

Filed under: Middle East, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:46

Brendan O’Neill notes the huge gap between what western politicians say about ISIS and what actually happens:

Has anyone else noticed the colossal disconnect between Western leaders’ rhetoric on the Islamic State and their proposed action against it?

With their words they tell us IS poses the greatest threat to Western civilisation. This bloody cowboy statelet is an ‘imminent threat to every interest we have’, says US defence secretary Chuck Hagel. This ‘death cult’ is a threat not only to the people of Iraq and Syria but to ‘the whole world’, says Australian PM Tony Abbott. Fighting IS is the ‘greatest struggle of our generation’, says Canada’s foreign affairs minister, adding: ‘[The IS] worldview is a direct challenge to the values of Western civilisation.’ IS is ‘the most serious threat’ the Western world faces right now, says British PM David Cameron.

And how do these leaders of the West, these fretters over the future of Western civilisation, plan to tackle this barbaric pseudo-state that is apparently a challenge to every interest we have? With some airstrikes. And by arming the Kurds. That’s it. There will not, as President Obama emphasised with gusto during his address to the American people last week, be boots on the ground. This great struggle to defend the vales of the West ‘will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil’, he said.

In short, this is a generational struggle that will involve very little struggle, a fight to defend civilisation that will involve next to no fighting. Our leaders ramp up the rhetoric – talking about the need to galvanise the West and its allies against what the Canadian minister calls ‘one of the most barbaric terrorist groups the world has ever known’ — while making clear that no Westerner, not even our soldiers, will be expected to put themselves in harm’s way to guard the gates of civilisation from these ‘barbarians’. We won’t fight them on the beaches (or rather, deserts); we’ll just bomb them from the air and leave the messy business of hand-to-hand combat to the ill-trained, already stretched Kurds. Let the Kurds defend the ‘values of Western civilisation’.

RCAF “raids” air force museum for spare parts

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:27

We often joke about the “museum pieces” that the Canadian Armed Forces have to operate, due to very long procurement processes and budget shortfalls, but this is the first time I’ve heard of scavenging spare parts from actual museum displays:

The Ottawa Citizen has learned that in July 2012 air force technicians raided an old Hercules airplane that is on display at the National Air Force Museum of Canada because they needed navigational equipment for a similar aircraft still in use.

The revelation highlights the difficulties military personnel have increasingly faced in keeping Canada’s ancient search-and-rescue planes flying after more than a decade of government promises to buy replacements.

The air force museum is at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont., and boasts a large collection of military aircraft that have been retired and subsequently placed on display.

[…]

“They sort of called (Colton) up and said ‘Hey, we have these two INUs that we can’t use. Do you have any on yours?’ ” Windsor said. “Some of the parts are interchangeable. They just kind of got lucky on that.”

Defence Minister Rob Nicholson’s office defended the air force’s decision to ask a museum for parts to keep its search-and-rescue planes flying.

“The RCAF took the initiative to remove these functional, perfectly good parts and use them effectively,” spokeswoman Johanna Quinney said in an email.

But former head of military procurement Dan Ross said it’s “embarrassing” that the air force has to “cannibalize old stuff that’s in museums” to keep its planes flying.

Update, 16 September: The story triggered a question to the minister in parliament.

NDP defence critic Jack Harris: “Mr. Speaker, the government’s failed plans to replace Canada’s aging search and rescue aircraft hit a new low with the news that the RCAF had to source parts from a 50-year-old plane on display at the National Air Force Museum. It would be funny if it were not for the fact that Canadians rely on the Hercules and Buffalo aircraft to respond to thousands of emergencies every year. Though started by the Liberals in 2002, there will not be replacement planes in operation until 2019, at the earliest.

Does the minister simply expect the RCAF to raid other museums in the meantime?

Defence Minister Rob Nicholson responded: “What the honourable member was referring to was a mistake. When it was discovered, the RCAF took the appropriate measures. That being said, this is the government that has delivered 17 new Hercules transport aircraft, four strategic transports, and 15 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters. How did the NDP vote? The NDP voted against all of these; every dollar for the military is opposed by the NDP.”

Not sure what Nicholson meant by “a mistake.” He didn’t elaborate in the House of Commons.

But it’s different than the earlier response from his office, which acknowledged the scavenging and praised it as taking the “initiative.”

Matt Cassel throws four interceptions in 30-7 loss to Patriots

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:43

It was no surprise to see the Vikings come out for Sunday’s game a bit distracted, after the bombshell of the Adrian Peterson situation. What was unexpected was for quarterback Matt Cassel to have one of his worst career games, matching his record of four interceptions in one game. When he wasn’t throwing to guys in the wrong coloured jerseys, or underthrowing passes to the guys in the purple jerseys, he was holding on to the ball far too long and inviting sacks … it was a bad game all around for Cassel. It’s probably too much to say that he lost the game single-handedly, but his performance was the key to everything else going wrong. A blocked field goal attempt made the score 24-7 instead of 17-10 at the half, and the Vikings never got closer in the second half.

Midway through the third quarter, after Cassel’s third pick of the day, the crowd at TCF Bank Stadium started to chant “Teddy”, hoping that Mike Zimmer would bench Cassel and send in Teddy Bridgewater. This inspired @Hiigashi to post this on Twitter:

The Teddy Sign

Like many Vikings fans, I’m looking forward to the debut of our new quarterback, but Zimmer is right not to send him in if he’s not ready yet. And no matter how badly Cassel played, it was still better than we saw in the dying moments of Donovan McNabb’s career (that forced Christian Ponder into the starting role before he was ready).

Offensive woes aside (and there were enough of them), the defence did not do well and the special teams performance was cover-your-eyes bad. The blocked field goal run back for a Patriots TD was the lowlight, but at one point, the Vikings only had nine players on the field for a punt return. The first task of returning special teams co-ordinator Mike Priefer will be to fix the issues that hamstrung the team yesterday (Priefer’s three-game suspension was reduced to two, so he’ll be back in the team facility this week).

Update: Jim Souhan explains the two phases of Matt Cassel.

It took Matt Cassel just two games to deftly summarize his career.

In Game 1, DiploMatt, the nice-guy professional who makes everyone comfortable, eased the Vikings to a 34-6 victory over St. Louis while playing flawlessly.

In Game 2, facing a superior defensive coach and lacking a star running back, HazMatt, the toxic quarterback, threw four interceptions, dooming the Vikings in their 30-7 loss to the Patriots at TCF Bank Stadium.

DiploMatt can make the best of a good situation. DiploMatt won 11 games with an excellent Patriots team in 2008, and won 10 with a previously inept Kansas City team in 2010.

HazMatt has gone 13-27 in his other five seasons, dooming his stay with the Chiefs in 2012 by throwing 12 interceptions and fumbling eight times in nine games.

DiploMatt runs the offense with discipline.

HazMatt stares down receivers so long defensive backs have time to Xerox blocking schemes for their interception returns.

If the Vikings are using kid gloves with rookie Teddy Bridgewater, they need to wear yellow jumpsuits when they approach Cassel.

BBC Last Night of the Proms 2014 – Jerusalem, God Save the Queen and Auld Lang Syne

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

QotD: Formal learning, versus what will actually be useful to know

Filed under: Education, Humour, Quotations — Tags: — Nicholas @ 00:01

First of all, as I see it, no one has any ability whatsoever to figure out what is going to be important to people. I look back on my own life. When I was in high school I had two habits that greatly irritated my teachers; actually, many more than two, but let’s focus. One was writing funny notes to my classmates, trying to make them crack up in the middle of class. The other was spending hours of valuable study time making mystifying totals from the agate type in the sports pages. I was called on the carpet any number of times and told to stop doing this stuff and pay more attention to What Was Really Important.

As I look back on those years, the two most useful things that I was doing, in terms of preparing me for my career, were 1) Writing humorous notes to my classmates, and 2) Making mystifying totals from the agate type in the sports pages. By writing amusing if vulgar notes to my classmates, I was learning to write — not learning to write in a way that would please English teachers, but learning to write in a way that would hold the interest of people who had no reason to read the note, other than the expectation that they would enjoy reading it. That’s much, much closer to writing books than writing insipid research papers to please bored English teachers. The adults in charge thought they knew what was important, but in retrospect they were just completely wrong.

Bill James, Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence, 2011.

Powered by WordPress