We Need a Do Over

Posted on 08/10/2013 by Grumpa Joe
Cray X-MP/24 (serial no. 115) used by NSA

Cray X-MP/24 (serial no. 115) used by NSA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The National Security Agency

The National Security Agency (Photo credit: @mjb)

The Edison bulb lit up over my head again while Peg and I were having our pork chop. I think the Smoking Loon Merlot had something to do with it. The Obama Care sign up website has been bothering me ever since it became clear that the site is worse than any hurricane that has hit North America. One question keeps coming into mind, how can the world’s most powerful country be so stupid as to allow a software program bring them down? We are the world’s software experts. Our computer scientists are known worldwide for their ability, yet we introduce software that will control one sixth of the US economy that is a pile of cow dung. “A few glitches” O said. It is becoming apparent as the days roll by that the glitches are major screw ups in the architecture. He will never admit it but he owns this one. There is no way to blame it on Bush or the Republicans.

The engineer in me has been working overtime to figure out what I would have done differently. The problem with this type of analysis is that I have the benefit of the Monday morning quarter back. Nevertheless, I began analyzing what I would do. The first thing is I’d hire my brainiac son who is a computer scientist. He works on huge financial analysis software and is known for his ability to test the living crap out of his programs before they go on-line. The problem is that he won’t take the job because he is more conservative than I am, and he would rather see the big O flushed down the toilet.

Any software needed to do this job has to perform fast, and must handle terabytes of information. Hmmmn, where have I heard that before? Yes, the NSA does exactly that. They monitor billions of phone call, e-mails, and video cameras daily. They respond quickly at the command of the Big O. They have a complex of buildings in Utah to house their new computers designed to handle the load with capacity for the future. Those are the guys, I will call to consult on this problem.

How is it possible that the huge government of over educated liberals failed to see the NSA as a contractor for the health care program? They would most likely handle it like a kiddy game compared to the work they do spying on us.

All I can come up with is that the NSA is the NSA, and Health Care is Health Care and never shall the two bureaucrat organizations meet to coöperate with each other and make synergy happen. The number one problem we have is a government that is too large, second, we give the government too much money, and three, we propagate bureaucratic empires.

After World War II the Japanese government was broke; their economy starved for cash. We didn’t help them because we didn’t want them to rebuild their war machine. Yet, by the nineteen eighties the Japanese auto industry started a war against the US big three and they won commercially. How did they do it? They didn’t have cash to invest extravagantly like GM, Ford, and Chrysler, in fact they had but a shoe string budget to invest. Today, the Japs make the best cars in the world.

Necessity made the Japs think outside the box, they worked with their government in a positive way. Japanese engineers came up with ingenious ways to make things with limited stamping presses and tooling. The government handled a plan to protect their markets while attacking the US market. The engineers stole an idea from the progressive die makers and applied it to making auto body parts. Our guys in America thought it was a stupid idea and laughed them off. The result was a car body made in Japan with superior fit and minimal assembly. They were also smart enough to hire an US quality control consultant who taught them the basics of just in time manufacturing. The US auto industry controlled by the UAW unions were too stupid to see the value of the process.

What does this have to do with Obama Care? The point I am making is that attacking the problem with a team and a very specific well-defined goal would have resulted in a superior roll out experience and Obama would have signed up 2.5 million people on day one.  The health care software didn’t need tons of money to reach the goal, but it will to fix it. We need a do over.

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The Stupidity of Shutting Down the Washington Mall

Posted on 02/10/2013 by Grumpa Joe
View of The National WWII Memorial (bottom) an...

View of The National WWII Memorial (bottom) and the Lincoln Memorial (top) from the Washington Monument (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A few years ago, Peggy and I visited Washington, D.C. and toured the war memorials on the Washington Mall. All of them are easily accessible and none required opening a door, nor a gate to enter. Public streets surround the Washington Mall on four sides. It has walkways crossing from one side to the next, and from one end to the other. Yes, the responsibility for the mall belongs to the National Park System.

How many memorials are there? Let me count, Viet Nam, Korea, Nurses, World War I, Lincoln, Washington, and yes, World War II. All are totally exposed and in the open.

All the memorials mesmerized us. We found Peg’s cousin on the Viet Nam Wall, prayed for her husband at the Korean, prayed for her father at the World War I, and prayed for all the vets we grew up knowing in World War II. We stared at the size of the Lincoln Monument As President Lincoln saw through us with his soulful eyes. The shadow of the Washington Monument followed us like the wing on a sun-dial. Of all the monuments, the Washington Monument obelisk is the only one that has a door for entry, and it was closed then as it is today for repairs.

What I am getting at here is there is nothing to shut down. The Park Ranger’s assigned to this park just stayed home and John Q. Public missed out on their polished speeches about the monuments.

If Obama really wanted to punish us he would have to drape a huge tent over the area to cover it up, and there is no money in his budget for that.

When I heard that the WWII vets just moved the menacing barricades out-of-the-way and visited anyway, I cheered. They did a lot more to move Hitler and Tojo out-of-the-way during their service time and they were not intimidated by a puny barricade even though many of them were in wheel chairs. There is a doorway into the lower level of the WWII memorial leading to the public restrooms. For an old guy with prostate problems that is a major hurt, but I’m sure they dealt with it heroically and saved it for the bus.

President Obama has again thrown a temper tantrum and most likely ordered his administration to hurt as many citizens of the USA as is humanly possible to make them “feel the pain” of the government shutdown, and to let us know that he is the “one” in charge and Lord over all.  Just add a few hundred WWII vets in wheelchairs to the eleven million people without jobs who have felt the pain to the hurt-the-citizens list.

How stupid can he be? Worse yet, how stupid does he think we are?

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Mac Arthur Versus the Emperor

Posted on 10/04/2013 by Grumpa Joe
MacArthur signs Japanese surrender instrument ...

MacArthur signs Japanese surrender instrument aboard USS Missouri. Generals Wainwright and Percival stand behind him. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The Emperor” turned into a surprisingly good historical story. I know that today’s youth hate anything historical, but for an old guy like myself it is entertaining because I lived through the period. Tommy Lee Jones plays General Douglas Mac Arthur as Mac begins to rebuild Japan after the atomic-bombs forced Japan to surrender. Before Mac Arthur can do any positive rebuilding, he must first bring Japan’s war criminals to justice. One of his big concerns is whether the Emperor, who is god to his subjects,  started, or made decisions in the conduct of the war.

Mac Arthur relies on General Bonner Fellers, an officer who is expert on Japan affairs and who speaks the language, and knows the culture. General Fellers, played very well by Matthew Fox, went to school with a Japanese girl in the States and then followed her back to Japan before the war began. Therein lies a sub-plot between the girl and the officer.

The story gets into the culture of Japan and the blind loyalty of the people to the Emperor. It is this loyalty that makes Fellers job to discern the truth about the emperor impossible. General Fellers finally submits a report which Mac Arthur finds useless. Mac must decide the Emperors guilt based an Fellers’ opinion, and not on the facts of the case.

Tommy Lee plays a great MacArthur, and Matthew Fox portrays General Fellers well.

The film went  by so fast I felt we were in the theater for only fifteen minutes.

This is a great story with good acting, and direction. There is a glimpse of the destruction brought on by the atomic bomb, but nothing unbearable. The sub-story of the love affair between the officer and his Japanese girlfriend made the story that  much more interesting.

What disappointed me was the lack of people who attended this showing. I guess this story appealed to an old fart like me because it occurred when I was seven years old.

I found this film well worth the time spent from those precious minutes I still have remaining on this earth.

English: Emperor Hirohito and General MacArthu...

English: Emperor Hirohito and General MacArthur, at their first meeting, at the U.S. Embassy, Tokyo, 27 September, 1945 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Four Hearts ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
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Why the Peaceful Majority is Irrelevant

Posted on 28/09/2012 by Grumpa Joe
The distribution of the predominant Islamic ma...

The distribution of the predominant Islamic madhhab (school of law) followed in majority-Muslim countries and regions (English) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been an advocate of banning Muslims from America for some time. Their ideology is in direct contradiction to the principles of the United States. Islam and America cannot coexist within the same borders. It is that simple. Perhaps if the Islamists were to separate their religious beliefs from their political beliefs it could be possible for America to embrace them under our First Amendment right to Freedom of Religion. When the first muslims arrive here they do assemble peacefully and we embrace them. Things change as their numbers increase. A once peaceful religion begins spewing hate and vile messages about the infidel (all of us).

Muslims firmly believe that the Koran is the Law from God and as such it is the only law they must obey. The Koran and American laws are at odds with each other. We separate our churches from our state. In Islam they are the same. That is why I believe we must close the doors on people who profess the Islāmic faith. Their faith commits them to overtaking our country and converting us to their religious beliefs.

The article below is an articulate essay that supports my belief.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This post is re-blogged from Arutz Sheva 7,  Israel National News.com

Paul E. Marek

Paul E. Marek is a second-generation Canadian, whose grandparents fled Czechoslovakia just prior to the Nazi takeover. He is an educational consultant specializing in programs that protect children from predatory adults.

I used to know a man whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War II. They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.

“Very few people were true Nazis,” he said, “but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”

We are told again and again by experts and talking heads that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unquantified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars world wide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behea

The fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.

d, murder, or execute honor killings. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard, quantifiable fact is that the “peaceful majority” is the “silent majority,” and it is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a war-mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across Southeast Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians – most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery? Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were “peace loving”?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt; yet, for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by the fanatics. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because, like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Bosnians, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians and many others, have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us, watching it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts: the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

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Incredible Heroes Of WWII

Posted on 14/08/2012 by Grumpa Joe
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, "Yankee Lady...

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, “Yankee Lady” (4/5) (Photo credit: jimflix!)

Heroic B-17 Flight

by Pacific Aviation Museum on Friday, April 1, 2011 at 1:41pm ·

A mid-air collision on February 1, 1943 between a B-17 and a German fighter over the Tunis dock area became the subject of one of the most famous photographs of World War II.  An enemy fighter attacking a 97th Bomb Group formation went out of control, probably with a wounded pilot then continued its crashing descent into the rear of the fuselage of a Fortress named All American, piloted by Lt. Kendrick R. Bragg, of the 414th Bomb Squadron.  When it struck, the fighter broke apart, but left some pieces in the B-17.  The left horizontal stabilizer of the Fortress and left elevator were completely torn away.

The two right engines were out and one on the left had a serious oil pump leak.  The vertical fin and the rudder had been damaged, the fuselage had been cut almost completely through – connected only at two small parts of the frame and the radios, electrical and oxygen systems were damaged.   There was also a hole in the top that was over 16 feet long and 4 feet wide at its widest and the split in the fuselage went all the way to the top gunner’s turret.  Although the tail actually bounced and swayed in the wind and twisted when the plane turned and all the control cables were severed , except one single elevator cable still worked, and the aircraft still flew-miraculously!

The tail gunner was trapped because there was no floor connecting the tail to the rest of the plane.  The waist and tail gunners used parts of the German fighter and their own parachute harnesses in an attempt to keep the tail from ripping off and the two sides of the fuselage from splitting apart.   While the crew was trying to keep the bomber from coming apart, the pilot continued on his bomb run and released his bombs over the target.

When the Bombay doors were opened, the wind turbulence was so great that it blew one of the waist gunners into the broken tail section.  It took several minutes and four crew members to pass him ropes from parachutes and haul him back into the forward part of the plane.  When they tried to do the same for the tail gunner, the tail began flapping so hard that it began to break off.  The weight of the gunner was adding some stability to the tail section, so he went back to his position.

The turn back toward England had to be very slow to keep the tail from twisting off.  They actually covered almost 70 miles to make the turn home.  The bomber was so badly damaged that it was losing altitude and speed and was soon alone in the sky.  For a brief time, two more Me109 German fighters attacked the All American.  Despite the extensive damage, all of the machine gunners were able to respond to these attacks and soon drove off the fighters.  The two waist gunners stood up with their heads sticking out through the hole in the top of the fuselage to aim and fire their machine guns.  The tail gunner had to shoot in short bursts because the recoil was actually causing the plane to turn.

Allied P51 fighters intercepted the All American as it crossed over the Channel and took one of the pictures shown below.  They also radioed to the base describing the empennage was “waving like a fish tail” and that the plane would not make it and to send out boats to rescue the crew when they bailed out.  The fighters stayed with the Fortress taking hand signals from the Lt. Bragg and relaying them to the base.  Lt. Bragg signaled that 5 parachutes and the spare had been “used” so five of the crew could not bail out.

He made the decision that if they could not bail out safely, then he would stay with the plane and land it.   Two and a half hours after being hit, the aircraft made its final turn to line up with the runway while it was still over 40 miles away.  It descended into an emergency landing and a normal roll-out on its landing gear.  When the ambulance pulled alongside, it was waved off because not a single member of the crew had been injured.

No one could believe that the aircraft could still fly in such a condition. The Fortress sat placidly until the crew all exited through the door in the fuselage and the tail gunner had climbed down a ladder, at which time the entire rear section of the aircraft collapsed onto the ground. The rugged old bird had done its job.

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