Keeping it simple and close to home this year . . . counting our blessings that are more plentiful than we deserve.

Merry Christmas from the ol’ Okie!

I originally posted this in 2005 and have updated it a couple of times. I like to present it every December 7th as the story is as poignant as ever, especially with thousands more of our troops being sent off to war in Afghanistan. They really are our best and brightest — far too many were lost 70 years ago today.

This post is one that I wrote in 2005 to commemorate this tragic, special day. Instead of just linking to it I decided to post it anew, as the stories of those that worked valiantly to save as many lives as possible deserve to be told again. The comments that I made about our brave men and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are even more true today. Our fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts — The Greatest Generation — stepped up, took on the mantle of terrible responsibility and did their duty — history awaits whether we will stay the course and complete the tasks that destiny has assigned to our own.

It’s Pearl Harbor day, and most veterans, especially those that saw battle, never talk to non-veterans about their military service. In my own family, I know that all of my uncles served, many in WWII, but only much later, most after their passings, did I find out only a little of what they had done in the war.

My wife’s and my father were Navy guys, mine a pharmacists mate on a troop/supply transport ship named the “Mighty A”. The most dangerous thing that he ever told me about was his ship being hit with a dud torpedo. If it hadn’t been a dud, the story would have been more exciting, but he would not have been the one to tell me about it! I know nothing about my wife’s father’s Navy experiences, I just have a picture of him in his dress blues, dashing in appearance, with a small earring worn in a defiant manner, along with a scan of his honorable discharge that I worked into a pictorial tribute that accompanied his funeral almost a decade ago. Several of his brothers were also in the Navy, a couple were in the BUDs area of service that later became the Navy SEALS, and were covert operatives in Naval Intelligence and served in later branches of the intelligence services during Korea and Vietnam.

Which brings me to today, Pearl Harbor Day. I don’t know if any of my uncles were at Pearl Harbor. If they were, they never talked about it with me. In reading the LA Times this AM, I learned that the USS Oklahoma, a 27,500-ton Nevada class battleship, and the men who served and died aboard her, have finally been given their own special acknowledgment.

Tribute to Pearl Harbor Battleship Is Unveiled

From Times Wire Reports

Sixty-three years after the surprise attack that plunged the United States into World War II, hundreds of men who died aboard the battleship Oklahoma are finally getting their own special tribute.

A new exhibit of photos, artifacts and oral histories was unveiled in Honolulu to honor the 429 men from the Oklahoma who died in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack by the Japanese.

That is the second-highest number of Pearl Harbor casualties behind the battleship Arizona, where most of its 1,177 killed crew members remain entombed after the ship sank in the attack.

I guess King Neptune had plans for this mighty ship, other than allowing her to be scrapped. The Kansas City Star adds more information to the above.

The Oklahoma was refloated in 1943 and sold for scrap after the war, but it sank in the Pacific Ocean while being towed to California.

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and other military bases on Oahu lasted two hours. Twenty-one ships were heavily damaged, and 320 aircraft were damaged or destroyed. In all, about 2,390 persons were killed and about 1,178 were wounded, according to the National Park Service, which maintains the Arizona site.

Powerline has a wonderful tribute that includes President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech asking Congress for a declaration of war and Churchill’s reaction.

As we remember those lost and those who fought so bravely on this day, 63 years ago, let us reflect on the fact that Japan is now one of our strongest allies and important trading partners. It took a long time to help them overcome the damage to their country and society caused by their leaders’ wartime ambitions, but with our guidance and financial help, Japan was brought into the modern world and became an important part of the world’s economy. They are a part of the “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq.

We must look to our past and not be too impatient in our present. The same fighting spirit of our fathers and forefathers exits within the warriors that are helping the Iraqi people even at this very minute. Many will come back, and not tell their stories for years to come, if at all, but they will be valiant stories, none the less! . . . db

[Update] LGF provides this link to the Navy’s archive of images and information, with some of the pics taken from Japanese warplanes.

According to the Navy site the following is what was going on here, as taken from a Japanese fighter:

Torpedo planes attack “Battleship Row” at about 0800 on 7 December, seen from a Japanese aircraft. Ships are, from lower left to right: Nevada (BB-36) with flag raised at stern; Arizona (BB-39) with Vestal (AR-4) outboard; Tennessee (BB-43) with West Virginia (BB-48) outboard; Maryland (BB-46) with Oklahoma (BB-37) outboard; Neosho (AO-23) and California (BB-44).
West Virginia, Oklahoma and California have been torpedoed, as marked by ripples and spreading oil, and the first two are listing to port. Torpedo drop splashes and running tracks are visible at left and center.
White smoke in the distance is from Hickam Field. Grey smoke in the center middle distance is from the torpedoed USS Helena (CL-50), at the Navy Yard’s 1010 dock.
Japanese writing in lower right states that the image was reproduced by authorization of the Navy Ministry.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Vertical aerial view of “Battleship Row”, beside Ford Island, during the early part of the horizontal bombing attack on the ships moored there. Photographed from a Japanese aircraft.
Ships seen are (from left to right): USS Tennessee with USS West Virginia moored outboard; USS Maryland with USS Oklahoma moored outboard; and USS Neosho, only partially visible at the extreme right. West Virginia and Oklahoma are gushing oil from their many torpedo hits and are listing to port. Oklahoma’s port deck edge is already under water. Nevada has also been torpedoed.

Rescue teams at work on the capsized hull of USS Oklahoma (BB-37), seeking crew members trapped inside, 7 December 1941. The starboard bilge keel is visible at the top of the upturned hull.
Officers’ Motor Boats from Oklahoma and USS Argonne (AG-31) are in the foreground.
USS Maryland (BB-46) is in the background.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

I hope that the Navy won’t mind that I’ve “borrowed” these three images and descriptions to help make this a better presentation and memorial for this day. I urge anyone interested in Pearl Harbor to follow the links to the Navy Archives site to better comprehend the full extent of the tragedy and valiant courage that defines this “day that lives in infamy”!

(Okie)

Over at Watts Up With That? they are still hammering away on the newly-released emails that are fueling Climategate 2.0 revelations which continue with the outing of the deceptions of the scientific consensus for Anthropogenic Climate Change . . . aka Global Warming. One of the ways our scientific overseers have been trying to convince us of their infallibility is with “faked” Photoshopped images. Here’s one case in point from a WUWT post: Photoshopping in the “worseness”

Wow! That looks gnarly, right? All that black smoke pouring out of the smokestack — must be some mighty nasty pollution belching out of there . . . maybe even some vile, repugnant, Global Warming causing CO2, right?

[CO2 is a clear, tasteless, odorless gas that we breath out of our bodies with every exhale -- don't know about you but my breath ain't BLACK!!!]

Back to the narrative. Noting that said stack was identified as being from the “Eggborough power station” and showing in another image that said station’s stacks pump out WHITE smoke, Anthony Watts goes on to investigate whether this image was altered via Photoshop to turn the white smoke that yucky-darkish-gloomy color . . . ie BLACK! He ran some diagnostics on it and voilà, here’s what came up:

Two definite ranges of image alteration . . . so easy to do, even a Geico Neanderthal could do it. Just make an area selection with the lasso tool, feather the edges and tweak the contrast settings of the selection and — ta da — white becomes black.

Instant pollution!!!

If, you don’t have a problem with lying to make your point.

Watts found two versions of this same image and they both showed Photoshop alterations. But, were they ever used anywhere? He answers that:

Nelson asks:

If you have time to compile a list of the mainstream media uses of this photo, please let me know. If you’ve taken some action to protest this propaganda (maybe a letter to an editor?) please also let me know.

By the way, has this photo been altered in any way? [YES - Anthony]

Update: A TinEye search for the top image yields 92 results.

A TinEye search for the bottom image yields 94 results.

So, the not-so-enquiring minds of the main stream media (MSM) pushed this image off on the public at least 186 times in support of articles about pollution and Global Warming, or Climage Change. Don’t ya just LUV our media, how truthful, how investigative, how . . . much they are lying pieces of crap!!!??? And, this isn’t hard to do folks.

Watts then does a show and tell to show just how easy it is for these jokers to lie to us, and presents even more examples of the blatant fauxtography by the Climategate scientific consensus.

Continuing updating of Climatgate 2.0 here: Watts Up With That?

Don’t be left uninformed . . . and don’t let the “Climate Change” hysterics make you lose any sleep . . . and vote to keep them from costing you both arms and both legs — ’cause they won’t be stopping there!!!

Sample Blocks of Green Cement Concrete – photo by Alex Masi/Smithsonian

I just read a story in the current Smithsonian magazine about “Green Cement”, new mixtures being created to replace the Portland cement that has been a staple of modern construction since the 1820s when “Joseph Aspdin invented modern cement.” You see, Leftist sources of information like Smithsonian are still all Coo-Coo-for-Coco-Puffs over Global Warming and the making of cement releases a lot of CO2 — the devil incarnate of green-house gases according to the “consensus” of climate scientists hacks that control the current dialog on Climate Change. So that makes concrete BAD!!!

And the Obama EPA totally agrees and is implementing draconian regulations on our domestic cement industry that will shut down plants, make cement prices soar along with building costs — all of which will cost America more and more jobs.

Portland cement is a type of cement created by grinding base materials and heating them in kilns to a high temperature. The EPA has proposed new regulations on kiln emissions, which would severely impact the cement industry. The cement industry is already one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country.

Potential Impact on Jobs and the Economy

These new regulations set emission levels at unreachable levels and are expected to result in 18 plant closings, approximately 11 percent of production. The estimated $3.4 billion price tag over the next three years – which totals half of the entire industry’s annual revenues – would lead to at least 4,000 lost jobs and to increased costs.

In fact, a recent study by the Portland Cement Association estimates these regulations would raise the cost of state and local road projects between $1.2 billion and $2 billion annually.

But hey now — cement is BAD don’t ya know??? What to do, what to do? Why, make a BETTER, GREENER cement of course! Everyone wants to go GREEN nowdays — it’s on all the product labels so it must be true.

From the Smithsonian article:

The chemicals [Nikolaos] Vlasopoulos mixes with magnesium oxide and water to make the cement harden are magnesium carbonates, which he makes by adding carbon dioxide to other raw materials. That means the cement, in some scenarios, is not just carbon neutral—it’s carbon negative. For every ton of Vlasopoulos’ cement produced, one-tenth of a ton of carbon dioxide could be absorbed.

Eventually Vlasopoulos, with Cheeseman’s help, started a company, Novacem, to develop a new cement. The firm, with more than a dozen employees and partnerships with some of the biggest cement companies in the world, is located in a business incubator for high-tech startup companies at Imperial College.

{…}

“The cement industry is now stepping up in financially significant, in scientifically significant ways right now,” said Jennings, referring to all of the various experimental approaches. “The world is changing. Everyone, including all the cement companies, will need to be as green as possible and take care of the world a little better.”

{…}

The major obstacle that the company still has to overcome is history. Portland cement works. Always has, since that afternoon in 1824 in Joseph Aspdin’s kitchen. “Cement has been around a very long time,” Bhardwaj said. “People trust that. They can look around at all the buildings that have survived hundreds of years. So for Novacem, the proof of durability will take time. They will have to go slow. If I have to build a bridge or a building using Novacem cement, how do I convince people that that is OK? That’s the challenge. Nobody wants a bridge to fall down.”

Go and read the entire article. For me, one thing missing was any discussion of the cost of these new cements, let alone any comparison of their costs to the existing Portland cement. That leads me to believe that they will be a factor, or multiple factors more expensive than the cost of what we use now. And that make the existence of the EPA regs crystal clear.

The only way to get industry to switch to these new GREEN cements is to make Portland cement just as expensive or more so, if not regulate it completely out of the industrial system!

Just more strong-arm tactics from the Obama administration to promote and shove the radical-environmental movement down America’s throat!

It’s the Chicago way . . .

More secret emails are coming out from the Climate Change scientists and hang on tight ’cause, here we go again. Ace post segments from some and then writes:

“All these people have a big problem with Mann’s falsified and fake Hokey Stick graph. They want it to quietly go away, without a fuss. What they don’t want to do is publicly announce that it is false, because that would hurt their dear friend Mann and hurt the cause as well.

In fact, that’s what they did end up doing — without ever stating the reasons why, they have in fact simply stopped referring to the Mann Hockey Stick.

Usually, in science, when a major falsehood like this is abandoned, there is a public repudiation of it, so that scientists coming later know they cannot rely on it any further.

But not here. Scientists working in this field, relying on the public record, would think the Mann graph is still part of “science.”

They’d have to be included in the secret emails to find out it’s not.”

There’s a download link to the entire email collection here: Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular!

I had a Facebook exchange with a Lefty buddy of mine last week and made mention of the fact that a lot of the temperature data being collected was skewed by having the data collectors in artificially warm places. Here’s some corroboration for that from the emails:

date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:30:08 -0400
from: “Thomas.R.Karl” subject: Re: Keenan, China etc
to: Phil Jones

Hi Phil,
Well… there will always be some outliers. Would be great to get IDAG and DAARWG on the same timeframe. Although let’s hope we don’t get the weather we had last Dec and early Jan in Boulder this year!
Regards, Tom

P.S. We are getting blogged all over for a cover-up of poor global station and US stations we use. They claim NCDC is in a scandal by not providing observer’s addresses. In any case Anthony Watts has photographed about 350 stations and finds using our criteria that about 15% are acceptable. I am trying to get some our folks to develop a method to switch over to using the CRN sites, at least in the USA.

It’s bad enough that we have to listen to our politicians lying to us all the time, now we have to be super skeptical of our men/women of science . . . because they, in their quest for the three Fs (funding, fame & fortune), have become totally political animals and are willing to lie, even when the truth sounds better.

Hey there buckaroos and other lunatics, best to grab that ol’ gas mask out of the closet, and put on your foil hat too for good measure ’cause they be sprayin’ “NoMemAtAll” today.

This public service message comes from the deepest, darkest reaches of a disturbed mind and is total B.S.!!!

But, that won’t keep some o’ you from believein’ it. LOL

‘Okie’