Merry Christmas from the ol’ Okie!

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)

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!!!

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’

On this Veterans Day we honor all those who have served their country making the many sacrifices for the rest of us so that WE can enjoy the benefits of freedom and justice for all.

However, it’s the public employee unions that have the most balls there: They ‘steal’ Medicaid money from recipients, calling them “public employees” and therefore subject to automatic deduction of “dues” from the funds that are supposed to be paying for their healthcare! Funds that WE, the taxpayers are supplying. Disgusting!!!!!

If you’re a parent who accepts Medicaid payments from the State of Michigan to help support your mentally-disabled adult children, you qualify as a state employee for the purposes of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). They can now claim and receive a portion of your Medicaid in the form of union dues.

Robert and Patricia Haynes live in Michigan with their two adult children, who have cerebral palsy. The state government provides the family with insurance through Medicaid, but also treats them as caregivers. For the SEIU, this makes them public employees and thus members of the union, which receives $30 out of the family’s monthly Medicaid subsidy. The Michigan Quality Community Care Council (MQC3) deducts union dues on behalf of SEIU.

Michigan Department of Community Health Director Olga Dazzo explained the process in to her members of her staff. “MQC3 basically runs the program for SEIU and passes the union dues from the state to the union,” she wrote in an email obtained by the Mackinac Center. Initiated in 2006 under then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., the plan reportedly provides the SEIU with $6 million annually in union dues deducted from those Medicaid subsidies.

SEIU — super big supporters of Obama and Co. Figures . . .

While we GOP are eating our own on this side of the pond, Obama is doing his “thing” in Europe — campaigning as usual — and hugging Islamists!

An interesting bit from White House reporter Tangi Quéméner’s latest pool report from the G-20 in Cannes, France:

[President Obama] entered the room at 1:15 and took to his left, heading to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. They chatted for a few seconds before British Prime minister David Cameron joined them. Hard to understand what they were saying amid the cameras noise. POTUS then took a stroll to Australian Premier Julia Gillard who got a hug as European president Herman van Rompuy, European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan were watching. Eventually the Europeans got a handshake but Erdogan got the hug treatment.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sure doesn’t deserve a “hug” from a U.S. President, considering his ties to Hamas and his feelings toward Israel.

Just more Obama being . . . Obama!

Conservative thought-master Bill Whittle on just about . . . everything!

From Newsbusters:

According to our friends at Celebrity Net Worth, Moore’s fortune currently totals $50 million:

Fahrenheit 911 raked in $230 million in theaters and another $3 million in DVD sales. After the theaters take their traditional 50% cut, that leaves roughly $130 million. Take away marketing, production and distribution expenses and Moore is conservatively left with $80 million. Moore was able to secure a deal from Miramax which guaranteed him 27% of his film’s net revenues, or roughly $21.6 million. Michael also was entitled to 50% of the profits of Sicko which are estimated to be $17 million.

Moore wants to dress and act as if he’s just a regular guy part of the 99 percenters, but he is every bit a multimillionaire doing everything in his power to make more money for himself.

He invests his fortune in stocks – including the Left’s most-hated company Halliburton! – and isn’t pro-union when it comes to managing his own business.

That folks in this movement hold this man up as an icon for what they stand for is an indictment of how clueless and hypocritical they are as well.

Well said!

“We need to have a democracy in this country where people have the right to print their own money.”

Yep, dudes and dudettes . . . the little vacuous blond actually says that, and I believe that she means it. More pearls of wisdom from the OWS movement — Oh, ya betcha!

Wait a minute . . . maybe she’s got something there?

Tesla is Elon Musk’s company that currently makes the little electric sports car. He also started/runs SpaceX. His company is the first private U.S. rocket company to send a payload into orbit. Their Dragon capsule can either deliver cargo or be outfitted to accomodate up to 7 astronauts and is scheduled to have a close rendezvous with the International Space Station before the end of this year.

All of the science fiction from my youth had space being conquered/developed by private enterprise. Governments militarize it — the private sector makes it pay.

Musk was the co-founder of PayPal and got his mega-hundred-millions when PP was sold to Ebay. He’s now a automotive manufacturer and a space pioneer . . . not a bad way to redistribute his own wealth by creating companies, creating high-tech jobs — paying it forward to better humanity, and I’m sure, hoping to make a few billion bucks in the process.

What is it about this that Progressives just can’t manage to understand?

I really don’t know just what to say, so I’ll quote one of the commenters at the YouTube page:

“Last night (Last night) I had a dream (I had a dream) That was really scary (That was really scary) My country was full of f**king idiots (My country was full of f**king idiots) Like this chick (Like this chick) Oh shit, that wasn’t a dream (Oh shit, that wasn’t a dream) It was real (It was real)”

Amazing what the American University system is turning out . . . makes ya feel all hopey/changey inside now don’t it?

I really don’t mind if a bunch of smelly, irrational wanna-be hippies camp out in the Big Apple and I don’t really love those big banks that we had to bail out in ’08 & ’09 . . . but I do really HATE that we 53%ers that actually pay into the Federal Income Tax system will be having to pony up 35% of every dollar donated to the Occupy Movement “charity fund” setup by the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible organization. At least the Tea Party groups aren’t calling themselves “charities”.

One way or another — these “folks” are determined to get your hard-earned money!

Now to be fair, Pelosi and Obama probably don’t share the more extremist views expressed there — but when you lie down with filthy dogs, you’re gonna pick up a few fleas. How many political fleas are the Democrats willing to let live on them and such their political blood?

Hey! How about some hot, commie action?

Tax the Rich!

Wow, haven’t we heard that coming from some prominent pie holes lately? Who woulda thunk it was a major program pushed by the American Communist Party?

Thanks to Gateway Pundit for this heads up and the links!

These protesters sure have a funny way of showing their “patriotism” and “love of country”.

Gotta love this comment on the video’s YouTube page:

“The closest “movement” this resembles is a bowel movement. What a bunch of losers.”

Ain’t that the truth!!!

WaPo is reporting today that “Obama plans to turn anti-Wall Street anger on Mitt Romney, Republicans” — ooooooo, big surprise . . .

President Obama and his team have decided to turn public anger at Wall Street into a central tenet of their reelection strategy.

The move comes as the Occupy Wall Street protests gain momentum across the country and as polls show deep public distrust of the nation’s major financial institutions.

And it sets up what strategists see as a potent line of attack against Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, a former investment executive whom Obama aides plan to portray as a wealthy Wall Street sympathizer.

Many Democrats consider Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, the greatest threat to Obama when it comes to wooing centrist independents next year, and Romney this week has begun to present himself as a champion of middle-income Americans.

Obama aides point to recent surveys that show anger at Wall Street spanning ideologies, including a new Washington Post-ABC News poll in which 68 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans say they have unfavorable impressions of the big financial institutions.

But the strategy of channeling anti-Wall Street anger carries risks. Many of Obama’s senior advisers have ties to the financial industry — a point that makes Occupy protesters wary of the president and his party.

Of course, Obama his own self lives like a Monarch now, and will continue to do so for a long time to come. Hobnobbing with the Google boys and the Facebook guy as well as all those Wall Street fat cats like J.R. Emmelt, GE CEO & Chairman and also Obama’s chairman of his outside panel of economic advisers. You know, GE, the company that made billions and paid NO federal income taxes — that GE! Yeah, this next one says it all — Obama is the epitome of the so-called ‘One Percent’.

From ExurbanKevin

And remember . . . all these little over-educated, under-qualified-to-hold-a-real-job darlings have a message for Obama and his wealth cronies.

Okie, he say — “Occupy This!”