Quotulatiousness

July 7, 2011

The end of Canada’s combat deployment in Afghanistan

Filed under: Cancon, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:44

Matthew Fisher reports on the handover ceremony:

Canada’s first war in more than half a century ended at 11:18 a.m. local time Thursday, about 300 metres away from where the first Canadian combat troops set foot in Kandahar on Jan. 19, 2002.

The seventh and last Canadian to command Task Force Kandahar, Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, signed over responsibility for Canada’s battle space to Col. Todd Wood of the 1st Stryker Combat Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, as NATO’s senior officer in the south, U.S. Army Maj.-Gen. James Terry, presided.

Milner repeatedly returned to the close friendships he had forged with Afghan security forces during a sometimes emotional address at the “transfer of authority” parade. In particular, he singled out his Afghan partner, Brig.-Gen. Ahmed Habibi for “leading from the front.”

July 5, 2011

F-22 still grounded

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:53

What initially seemed like an urgent, but relatively trivial problem with the F-22 may involve more time out of service:

What appeared as a simple problem with the U.S. F-22 fighter, has kept 168 of them grounded for over two months, so far. It all began when it appeared that the F-22 fighter might be having a problem with its OBOG (OnBoard Oxygen Generating) system, causing pilots to get drowsy, or even black out, from lack of oxygen. There have been five reports of potential problems in this area lately. As a result, on May 3rd, all F-22s were grounded. But the U.S. Air Force is also checking the OBOGs in F-16, F-15E, A-10, F-35 and T-6 aircraft as well. The problem may just be with the F-22 OBOG, or a general problem with all air force OBOGs. The air force also believes the F-22 problem may not just involve the OBOG. As a result, the grounding is “indefinite” and will continue until the source of the breathing problem is found, and definitely fixed.

If it goes on too long, the air force may consider fitting some F-22s with the older air supplies, just so some of their newest combat aircraft will be available for combat. In the meantime, pilots and ground crews are using simulators and (for the ground crews) and maintenance exercises on the grounded aircraft (in addition to checking a growing list of aircraft components in support of the search for the breathing problem) to retain their skills. The 168 F-22s, costing over $200 million each, have become the most expensive hanger queens (aircraft that spend a lot of time sitting in a hanger getting repaired or worked on) ever.

July 4, 2011

The difference between the 4th of July and the 1st is more than a few days

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Government, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 16:06

Publius, from his Dominion Day post this year:

It’s a quibbling nonsense and very foreign. The idea of an independence day is unCanadian. It is mostly an unconscious American import. Well, if the Yankees have it then so must we. Given that history is not taught in the school it is a plausible enough mistake. One of the reasons we are not taught our history in the schools is that so much of it is, how to put this, British. Not Swinging Sixties British. Not even Cool Britannia British. It’s the boring old sort of British. Queen Victoria. Old men in wigs. Long speeches that refer in passing to Magna Carta. Very dull. Since history abhors a vacuum many Canadians simply import whatever they’ve picked up about our southern neighbours.

It is one of this blog’s governing theses that Canada is the most boring nation on earth. Boring in the sense that nothing “exciting” ever happens her. No civil wars, insurrections, coups, putsch and the last rebellion was during Queen Victoria’s reign. Dull, duller, Canada. That is why the idea of an independence day is so unCanadian. A clean break from something implies drama. A gradual development is very dull. It is also very practical and very sensible, thus very Canadian. We might even venture to say that it is positively Burkean.

I was once asked, many moons ago now, by an American friend to explain how Canada became independent. My explanation ran like this: We went over to London, along with the Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Irish and Newfoundlanders and asked, very politely, if we might become independent. Nothing personal. It was just time to leave. We’d definitely stay in touch. Family being family and all. We’re definitely keeping the monarchy. Send us a telegrams if the European continent starts getting dicey. All the best chaps.

I can’t really improve on that explanation. I’m missing the odd imperial conference, to say nothing of the battle of Vimy Ridge and the Hundred Days. The gist is about right. No muskets, no machine guns, no blood bath. Civilized men speaking in polite tones to one another. A fuss was not made. Everyone was terribly decent. The British officials sighed about how time had passed. Their work was done and all. The final act of parenthood is to see the young ones off. So they did. Nary a tear. Upper lip being kept quite stiff.

July 3, 2011

Separation of church, state, and common sense

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Religion, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:11

The notion of separating church and state has been a good one: religion backed by the power of the government is a dire situation for non-believers and believers in other faiths. This, however, is just stupidity:

Veteran groups are taking legal action after they say they were banned from saying the words ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’ during funeral services at the Houston National Cemetery.

Three veterans organisations are to take the Department of Veteran Affairs to court over claims that they have censored prayers and demanded that words be submitted in advance for government approval.

Cemetery officials ordered volunteers to stop telling families ‘God bless you’ at funeral and said that the words ‘God bless’ had to be removed from condolence cards, according to court documents filed this week in federal court.

H/T to Iowahawk, who commented “Apparently, the only person now allowed to say ‘God’ at a military funeral is Fred Phelps”.

Women now being recruited for US Special Forces work

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

Strategy Page has the details:

Earlier this year, the U.S. Army Special Forces began recruiting women for the first time. The women were needed for “Cultural Support Teams” (CST) for use in Afghanistan. There, it has been found that, if you send in female troops to an area, you are much more likely to get useful information from Afghan women. This was a technique that was developed, and worked, in Iraq. The U.S. Marine Corps pioneered the use of these all-woman CSTs.

The Special Forces does it differently, by using the same selection and training routines (in abbreviated format) for the women as they do for the men. Thus the Special Forces Assessment for CST volunteers is nine days, rather than 24 for the men. About half the volunteers do not pass this, a bit higher than the third of male volunteers who don’t make it. That’s probably because Special Forces recruits mostly infantry and other troops in combat jobs (where there is constant training to prepare you for the stress and physical demands of combat). The year-long Special Forces basic training has been cut to six weeks for CST members. That’s because the women are not expected to do a lot of the training and combat operations the male operators must be prepared for. For the women, selection is mainly concerned with intelligence and adaptability. The CSTs, after all, specialize in intelligence work and forming relationships with Afghan women. But the women do get a lot of weapons and special skill (like roping down from a helicopter) training during those six weeks.

So far this year, 30 CST operators have been sent to Afghanistan and their performance has been outstanding. Special Forces commanders want more CST troops, and want them fast. As word gets around about the success of the program, more women will volunteer. The actual work of each team (of 3-6 women, attacked to a twelve man ODA or “A Team”) is providing health care to women and children, collecting intelligence and participating in raids (where they can more easily search women for weapons and other contraband).

July 1, 2011

Canadian and US judicial differences

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:49

Conrad Black, who is now very well-versed in the oddities of American court practices, contrasts them with their Canadian equivalents:

This brings me, most happily, to the subject of Canada Day, 2011. I regret to have to write that I have also discovered in this mundane Odyssey that Canada, too, has its share of obtuse judges. But it does not actively encourage pre-trial media lynchings; requires a plausible test before charges are laid and not just the mockery of the grand jury; has reasonably even and impartial procedural rules; the defence speaks last in trials; acquittals are not immediately reversible for sentencing purposes; few prosecutors revert to the private sector in Canada, and very few become politicians; and most judges are not, as they are in the United States, ex-prosecutors. And in Canada, the prison and prosecution industry is not a Frankenstein Monster that incarcerates 1% of all adults as in the United States (only about one-sixth of that, in Canada), or more African-Americans of university age than there are in university, as in the United States. And in Canada, the number of people with “a record,” (even if for impaired driving 10 years ago, or being disorderly at a fraternity party 30 years ago), is not 15% of the entire population, as it is in the United States (47 million people, none of whom is eligible, for that reason, to enter Canada, even on a family holiday to look at the Calgary Stampede).

Canada is not a prosecutocracy amok in a carceral state, and the United States, no matter how fervently tens of millions of Americans may stand, hand over heart, singing their splendid anthems on Monday, is. Above all other things, if I were in Canada this weekend, and a Canadian citizen, I would celebrate the country’s good fortune in having 33 million relatively well-adjusted people in a mighty treasure house of a country, a steadily more geopolitically enviable condition as the developing world, led by China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil, four of the five most populous countries, with 40% of the world’s population, consistently put up six to 10% annual economic growth rates, and buy Canada’s resources. Canadians can also celebrate their good fortune that there was never an economic justification for slavery in Canada; that its only close neighbour has not been militarily aggressive, and that it has the official languages of two of the world’s very greatest cultures.

June 30, 2011

US Army declares war on “toe shoes”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 15:50

Apparently the toe shoe is too unmanly and detrimental to a proper military appearance for American soldiers:

Vibram, one of the leading makers of the trendy footware, claims that its FiveFingers shoe “allows our anatomy to work naturally and move more freely.” FiveFinger fanatics claim that the shoe strengthens muscles in the feet and lower legs and improves their range of motion, balance and agility.

But in the military, it seems to come down to image, not performance, reports the Washington Post.

“Effective immediately, only those shoes that accommodate all five toes in one compartment are authorized to wear” because toe shoes “detract from a professional military image,” states the military notice.

I have no idea if Vibram’s claims are true, but I do rather agree with Thomas Ricks, who wrote “An army that is more concerned with looks versus results IS a matter of national security”.

Someone accidentally told the truth on network TV

Filed under: Humour, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:45

It’s okay, though, he’s been suspended indefinitely:

Joe Scarborough: Mark Halperin, What was the president’s strategy? We are coming up on a deadline and the president decided to please his base, push back against the Republicans. I guess the question is, we know a deal has to be done. Is this showmanship? A lot of times you go up there and both sides and they act tough so their base will be appeased, then they quietly work the deal behind the scenes.

Mark Halperin: Are we on the seven second delay?

Mika Brzezinski: Lordy.

Halperin: I wanted to characterize how the president behaved.

Scarborough: We have it. We can use it. Go for it. Let’s see what happens.

Brzezinski: We’re behind you, you fall down and we catch you.

Halperin: I thought he was a dick yesterday.

Scarborough: Delay that. Delay that. What are you doing? i can’t believe — I was joking. Don’t do that. Did we delay that?

Halperin: I said it. I hope it worked.

Scarborough: My mom is watching! We’ll know whether it worked or not.

Either his apology will be accepted (eventually) or he’s managed to resign in the most public way imaginable.

June 29, 2011

Canada’s constitution has the “notwithstanding” clause . . .

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 16:42

. . . but that’s just a loophole compared to the utter legal devastation contained in the American constitution’s Commerce Clause:

Obama and, it seems, many courts, would like to pretend that while the Constitution generally speaks of enumerated and limited powers — all other powers, such a the police power, reserved for the people and the states — that the Commerce Clause generally is a “Take-Back” clause that essentially calls bullshit on everything else in the Constitution.

That is, everything else in the Constitution is about establishing particular powers of the federal government, and, expressly, reserving those not named (or “necessary and proper” to undertake a named power) to the states.

But this new claim is that really there is only one clause that matters in the Constitution, and that is the Commerce Clause, and this one brief clause renders all 4400 other words in the Constitution null and void, because the Commerce Clause says, it is contended, that the federal government may do anything so long as, in the aggregate, it “affects interstate commerce,” which, as is often pointed out, applies to everything.

Having sex with your wife? This affects interstate commerce, as you might wind up creating the ultimate economic effect — a child; a future one-man army of economic activity, labor, investment, and consumption — and even if you don’t, your choice to have sex is a choice not to sample the fruits of interstate commerce, which is affected, then, by your choice to not enter the stream of paid entertainments.

The US federal government clearly does believe that the Commerce Clause is the trump card in the deck. You play that and it doesn’t matter what the other cards may be: you win.

If the framers of the Constitution meant for this one clause to have such omnipotent power, trumping everything else, establishing well-nigh plenary power of the federal government over every aspect of human existence —

Why did no one seem to think it necessary to add even the most gentle limitation on such a far-reaching power?

In other words, if this Clause means what it is, apparently straight-faced, contended to mean, and therefore is the only real clause in the Constitution at all — why did no one think to elaborate upon it?

Why all that wasted time on Amendments and specific powers of Congress, the President, and the Courts, when the only real grant of power in the Constitution is the Commerce Clause?

From the comments, where it’s been pointed out that if this decision is upheld, the government can mandate how many children you have to have:

Bob Saget: If you cannot afford a wife for bearing the Federally mandated minimum number of children, one will be appointed for you.

Canada’s Cormorant fleet to stay airborne thanks to former “Marine One” helicopters

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Italy, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:29

The Cormorant is not quite the success story we hoped for when we bought the helicopters for our search and rescue operations. Part of the problem is that spare parts for the choppers are in very short supply. An unexpected source of spare parts just happened to come our way recently:

The helicopters sold to Canada are the so-called US101 version of the EH101 aircraft developed during the 1980s and 1990s in the UK and Italy by companies which are now grouped as AgustaWestland. The UK forces, after massive delays and cost overruns, eventually received two versions, both known as “Merlin” — a naval submarine-hunting variant and a cargo or troop-carrying one for the RAF. Both types finally reached frontline useability around 2004-2005, but their availability rates have been poor: perhaps due to the fact that the Merlin didn’t sell well worldwide and thus parts were at a premium.

However the Merlin did sell to the Bush administration, which was seeking to replace its ageing VH-3 Sea King presidential helicopters operated by the US Marines (the president’s chopper becomes “Marine One” when he is aboard, just as his airforce-operated plane becomes “Air Force One”). But the US101 project, managed by Lockheed on behalf of AgustaWestland, soon became mired in cost and time overruns every bit as bad as those which had hit the Royal Navy’s HM1.

The plan might well have been doomed from the outset, with requirements calling for 14 VIP seats, hardening against electromagnetic pulse, an executive washroom and communications equivalent to “a flying Oval Office” — a pretty big ask for an aircraft which can only lift four tonnes in its RAF cargo-carrying incarnation.

The US101 problems became bad enough that each new Marine One copter was projected to cost as much as an Air Force One jumbo jet, and the costs became an issue in the presidential election — with both Mr Obama and his opponent John McCain vying to issue the strongest condemnation of the aircraft. Obama in particular described it as “procurement amok”, and unsurprisingly it was axed as soon as he took office.

Now the Canadians, who also operate the EH101 under the name “Cormorant”, have snapped up the former presidential fleet of nine aircraft for $164m.

June 28, 2011

When headline writers go feral, or a typical day at The Register

Filed under: Law, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:44

I mean, really. How else can you describe an article headlined like this:

Drunken bust-up woman sprays cops with breast milk
Ohio jub juice bandit faces substantial rack of charges

An Ohio woman is facing a substantial rack of charges after allegedly getting drunk at a wedding reception, assaulting her husband and then spraying cops with breast milk.

Stephanie Robinette, 30, (pictured) was cuffed in the early hours of Saturday morning outside a banqueting hall in Westville. Delaware County sheriff’s deputies responded to a call that she was having a bit of a ding-dong with her other half.

Having allegedly whacked her husband various times, an “intoxicated” Robinette locked herself in their car, and refused to get out when officers moved in with the cuffs.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, Robinette loudly declared she was a breastfeeding mother, “removed her right breast from her dress and began spraying deputies and the car with her breast milk”.

June 27, 2011

“A substantial expansion of the FBI’s power to monitor innocent Americans”

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:06

Julian Sanchez on the changes to the FBI’s domestic rulebook:

The change in the rules will remove a crucial deterrent for any of the 14,000 FBI employees who might be tempted to use their government access to all kinds of databases for improper personal ends, or to flout rules prohibiting religious, racial and political profiling. This is no hypothetical concern: Shortly after the new guidelines were announced, a former CIA official alleged that the Bush administration had asked the spy agency to dig up dirt on academic and blogger Juan Cole, whose fierce criticism of the war in Iraq earned the ire of the White House.

The new manual will also give agents who have opened assessments greater authority to employ physical surveillance teams. If the FBI thinks you might make a useful informant, agents will be free to dig through your garbage in hopes of finding embarrassing trash that might encourage you to cooperate. And they will be able to do this without first having to show any evidence that you are engaged in wrongdoing.

The FBI, predictably, is downplaying the changes in its rulebook, characterizing them as “clarifications” and “tweaks.” But all these tweaks add up to a substantial expansion of the FBI’s power to monitor innocent Americans — power Congress wisely curtailed in the 1970s in light of the bureau’s ugly history of spying on political dissidents. The law set broad limits on the most intrusive investigative techniques, such as wiretaps, but the details of who could be investigated and how were largely left to executive branch regulation. As statutory restraints on surveillance have been peeled back over the last decade, Americans have been asked to rely more than ever on those internal rules to check abuses.

June 25, 2011

Taxes must rise to maintain “the overall size of government programs”

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:59

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was being as honest as he knows how in talking to the House Small Business Committee this week. Reducing the size of government is literally unthinkable:

[T]he Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.”

The administration’s plan to raise the tax rate on small businesses is part of its plan to raise taxes on all Americans who make more than $250,000 per year — including businesses that file taxes the same way individuals and families do.

[. . .]

Geithner, continuing, argued that if the administration did not extract a trillion dollars in new revenue from its plan to increase taxes on people earning more than $250,000, including small businesses, the government would in effect “finance” what he called a “tax benefit” for those people.

“We’re not doing it because we want to do it, we’re doing it because if we don’t do it, then, again, I have to go out and borrow a trillion dollars over the next 10 years to finance those tax benefits for the top 2 percent, and I don’t think I can justify doing that,” said Geithner.

Not only that, he argued, but cutting spending by as much as the “modest change in revenue” (i.e. $1 trillion) the administration expects from raising taxes on small business would likely have more of a “negative economic impact” than the tax increases themselves would.

June 24, 2011

Cato Institute: The President doesn’t take an oath to the UN charter

Filed under: Government, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:08

June 23, 2011

More on Mexico’s plight

Filed under: Americas, Government, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:08

With the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives losing control of their crack-brained “Operation Fast and Furious” (aka “Gunwalker”), you’d think that the firearm problem in Mexico has gotten worse. Even if the low estimate of 2500 weapons delivered to the narcotrafficers is accurate (most think it’s at least 4 times that number), it barely puts a dent in the extent of Mexico’s problems:

By now it should be clear that the Mexican drug cartels have taken over the country. They’ve murdered journalists, politicians, judges, businessmen, police, soldiers and each other, with impunity. Their control is so complete that they’ve set up roadblocks to extort blood money from anyone bold enough to believe they have the right to travel freely. They’ve murdered so many people that they’ve resorted to dumping lifeless bodies into mass graves.

Every single day, there’s a fresh story of murder and mayhem. Today, it’s “Eight Bodies Found in Mountains in Northern Mexico” and “Gunmen Kidnap 7 from Drug Rehab Center in Northern Mexico”. The crime-related casualties number in the tens of thousands. That’s to say nothing of the thousands physically and psychologically maimed by torture, or the millions of Mexican living in fear, denied their basic human rights. The Taliban have nothing on these guys.

In other words, adding a few thousand guns from American sources isn’t even a drop in the bucket as far as Mexico’s real problems are concerned:

The ATF purposely mislead Americans to believe that “90 percent of Mexican cartels guns come from Bob’s Gun Store.” That lie was exposed: 88 percent of guns confiscated by the Mexican authorities and successfully submitted for trace to the ATF came from America. (Not necessarily American gun dealers either, BTW). How many qualifiers can you stick in a stat to make it bark like a dog? More importantly, the total population of guns confiscated by the Mexicans in that stat was 30,000.

Now consider the fact that the Mexican police and military are thoroughly corrupt. In fact, there’s every reason to believe that these two entities have supplied the drug cartels with majority of their box fresh military-grade weapons. Weapons that American and foreign weapons makers sold to the Mexican authorities legally. And that means the Mexican have no reason to confiscate any weapons — other than creating a little security theater and transferring ownership from one cartel to another.

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