Shots Across the Bow

Believe it or not, there are sports writers that want us to take all the good that Paterno has done for college football over the years into account instead of remembering him just for the fact that he covered up for a child rapist.

Pete Rose must be furious.

I don't give a damn what 'good' Paterno did as he taught young men how to play a game; he covered up a child rape, and by doing so, enabled the rapist to continue hurting children for over a decade. To me, that's grounds not just for dismissal, but a life time ban from being around kids, civil penalties, and jail time as an accomplice before and after the fact. The Penn State football program should be given the death penalty by the NCAA, the entire chain of command from the assistant who saw the rape through the President needs to be fired and prosecuted.

I'm on vacation and haven't been at the computer that much, but from what I understand, the basic storyline is that Jerry Sandusky, a coach at Penn State has spent the last 30 years or so abusing young boys, most of whom he met through his charitable foundation, The Second Mile, a foundation designed to help boys with bad families. He brought the boys to the Penn State locker room, where he showered with them, and raped them.

In 1998, State College Police were notified by the mother of one victim that Sandusky had showered naked with the boy. They investigated, along with the Pennsylvania department of Public Welfare. Sandusky admits to showering naked with the boy, but no charges are ever filed.

In 2000, a janitor sees Sandusky performing oral sex on a boy between 11 and 13. he informs his superior, as well as his co-workers, one of whom also sees Sandusky with the boy. The report goes nowhere.

In 2002, then graduate assistant Mike McQueary sees Sandusky having anal sex with a 10 year old boy in the shower. He does not stop the rape, does not call the police, but does call and tell his father. The next day, he informed Coach Paterno of what he saw. Paterno does not call the police, but informs the AD, Tim Curley. Curley informs Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz. Neither Schultz nor Curley call the police or inform the family, although several weeks later, they tell McQueary that Sandusky no longer has keys to the locker room, although he still remains on campus and has an office in the athletic complex.

In 2008, a boy's mother reports to her son's school that Sandusky has had sexual contact with her son over a period of several years. In 2009, the DA begins an investigation. In November of 2011, Sandusky was arraigned on 40 counts relating to sexual abuse of at least 9 victims. Curley and Shultz step down, while Paterno and University President Graham Spanier are fired by the University's Board of Directors.

How can you see a 10 year old boy being raped and not step in to stop it immediately? And when you hear about it, how can you cover it up? How can you not call the police? How can you put the welfare of a University or a football program over that of a young child?

Apparently, our culture has sunk to the point where the value we place on our children is lower than the value we place on our institutions and our sports teams. Students at Penn state rioted when they heard that Paterno had been fired, and sports journalists are busy trying to whitewash his reputation already, insulting him from the damage he's caused through his cover up. This even though there is a report that Sandusky has been on recruiting trips for Penn State even this year, which means that Paterno, despite knowing what Sandusky has done, is comfortable sending him out to interact with high school boys.

That just staggers my imagination.

As I said at the start, Paterno needs to go to jail, as does Curley, Schultz, McQueary, and anybody else at Penn State who knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it. Given that the coverup reached the highest level of the school administration, and extended over 10 years, during which time more kids were abused, the NCAA should give Penn State the death penalty for football, if not for all athletic programs. The fact that this probably will not happen is a disgraceful commentary on our society.

A culture is not judged by its best and brightest, but by the lowest level of performance it accepts. Penn State set the bar about as low as it could be set.

Will the rest of us raise it?

The folks at Disney have just made an offer to buy out Marvel Comics.

My interest in upcoming Marvel movie projects just dropped by 75%.

I was profiled and pulled over.

My race wasn't at issue; the issue was that I was driving through New Jersey with Florida tags and pulling a trailer, following another car with Florida tags. The police officer who pulled us over said that he suspected we were carrying drugs, and when he found out we were all in the Navy and that the closest thing to drugs we were carrying was two aspirins and some pipe tobacco, warned us not to tell anybody or he would end our lives.

I was profiled and pulled over another time.

My race wasn't at issue; the issue was that I was driving through a small town in another state at 2AM on a Thursday night. The police officer who pulled me over said I had been "driving erratically," which was completely untrue; he pulled me over because I didn't belong in his town, particularly at 2AM.

Now a Harvard professor was arrested for demanding that an officer give him his name and badge number after that officer questioned him for supposedly breaking in to his own house.

Folks, this isn't a race issue; it's an abuse of power issue. The common factor in all three cases, and in so many others, is not race, but an abuse of police power. I was pulled over twice for the "crime" of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pr. Gates was arrested for refusing to co-operate with an officer, and for demanding accountability from that officer. The interesting question is not "Would a white man have been arrested in the same circumstances?" Believe me, had I or any other white man gotten in the face of that officer, we too would have been arrested. The interesting question is "Would the charges have been dropped without the professors fame and credentials?"

Like I said, it's not about race; it's about power and its abuse. Did the officer abuse his power when he harassed and arrested Gates? It's a hard call to make. Gates deliberately provoked and antagonized the officer, but does that give the officer the right to detain or arrest Gates? Some would argue that the police must maintain an aura of inviolability in order to do their jobs safely. In order to work effectively, police must be able to send the message that if you mess with them, you will pay a price. There is some validity to this argument because without that aura of authority, the only power the officer has is his weapon, and we really don't want that to be the only way he has to enforce the law. Police are not arbiters of the law; they are enforcers. On the other hand, we are citizens, not subjects. Should we be required to surrender our rights at the whim of any police officer who feels like we don't belong? Should we be compelled to identify ourselves to any officer who asks? Obviously not.

On the other hand, did Gates provoke this confrontation and his eventual arrest? Consider the circumstances. The police were called because a neighbor saw two men breaking in to a house. They arrive at the house to find the front door forced open and two men inside the house. Wouldn't it be reasonable for them to ask for identification at this point, whether the two men were black or white? Should Gates have gotten angry for being asked to identify himself, or should he have been grateful that the police were working to protect his property? What if you were in the same situation. Suppose you just had to break in to your own house and a neighbor called the police because they saw two people trying to break in. When the police got there, would you be angry that they wanted to make sure that you belonged there, or would you be grateful that they were doing their job?

It boils down to a simple question: Did the officer ask for Gates identification to verify that he was the rightful occupant, or because he was black? Gates wasn't arrested for breaking and entering; he was arrested for disorderly conduct for arguing with and pursuing the officer when the officer was trying to end the incident. Given the circumstances, and the fact that the officer was trying to leave the property while Gates continued to engage with him, it seems that the former is more likely.

The real profiling here was done by Pr. Gates, who, in his fatigue and frustration, revealed his prejudice against the police. He instantly assumed that it was all about his race, and not the circumstances. He later admitted that the woman who called 911 in the first place did the right thing, which is curious because if she did the right thing, then how could the responding officer be faulted for doing his job by following up on the call? Obviously, he can't. The officer was doing his job, nothing more. I haven't read anything that said he treated Pr. Gates with anything less than full courtesy. There's no reports that he pulled a weapon on him, or physically confronted him. All we know is that he asked for ID. That's his job and in those circumstances if he hadn't done that, he would have been negligent.

To most folks, this negates the racial aspect of this incident completely. Gates wasn't arrested for breaking and entering, and he wasn't arrested for being a black man; he was arrested for getting belligerent with a police officer who was doing his duty. But if this were just a story about a man arrested for getting belligerent with a police officer, well, it wouldn't sell a whole lot of newspapers, would it?

It is simply this:

It wasn't until after Mr. Cronkite retired that we the viewing public learned anything about his politics. Sadly, today's news people see that as a bug, not a feature.

A woman refused a C section and courts ruled that her decision constituted child neglect and abuse and terminated her parental rights.

DYFS commenced a Title 9 proceeding pursuant to the Abandonment, Abuse, Cruelty and Neglect Act (the Act), N.J.S.A. 9:6-8.21 to -8.106, and placed J.M.G. in its custody. At the fact-finding hearing, the trial judge found that J.M.G. was an abused and neglected child due in part to her parents' failure to cooperate with medical personnel at the time of her birth. V.M.'s refusal to consent to a c-section factored heavily into this decision. Later, at a permanency hearing, the judge approved DYFS's plan for termination of parental rights and foster family adoption.

Now, if she had requested a late term abortion, everything would have been peachy, right?

Barack Obama is a hypocrite and a liar. There's no other explanation for a man who on the one hand tells us he;s all about providing healthcare to every one while at the same time looking for ways to remove US military members from the government health care system.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.

I knew the guy was full of crap since he always says exactly what he thinks is best for him at the time he is speaking. Remember the third debate? He and John McCain were both asked if the economy would get worse before it got better. McCain said yes it would, that there were serious problems that had to be dealt with. Obama said no, he had faith in the American people, and that the economy was strong.

We see how well that particular prognostication panned out.

Then, after winning the election., Obama went down the dark path, warning us ominously that if we didn't pass his monstrosity of a spending bill that the crisis, which he failed to see coming, according to his own words, would become a catastrophe that we might never recover from.

But yesterday, like an epileptic juke box, he changed his tune again, saying all those predictions of gloom and doom were maybe just a bit over the top, and that the economy might not be as bad as we had been told.

Now all that posturing and outright lying would be bad enough, but this latest dodge just turns my stomach. He actually wants to force American soldiers, wounded in the line of duty, to pay for their own treatment using their private insurance.

You know, one of the reasons I got out of the military after almost 9 years was that with the election of BIll Clinton, I knew my veterans benefits would come under attack. But it never even crossed my mind that any sitting President, even a leftist twit like Obama would go so far as to try and take medical benefits away from soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen wounded or injured on active duty. I didn't think anyone could be that evil.

Once again, I underestimated the foul depths of the liberal mind. How can anyone have seriously conceived of this plan? And taken it seriously enough to allow a trial balloon to float? And even more importantly, how can anyone continue to support a President who thinks that this is a good idea? If you still support this President, then don't dare try to tell me how much you really support the troops because you are a lying hypocrite if you do.

I know. That's redundant.



Hey Whoopi! You voted for change! I hope you like it!

Here's an odd thing. The guy who is piling up mountains of debt that will have to be paid by our grandchildren is doing his level best to reduce the number of grandchildren who will be around to pay it. First, he supports any abortion anywhere for any reason. (If you think I'm exaggerating, find evidence of any restriction on abortion that Barack Obama has voted for at any time in his political career. Best of luck to you, and dress warmly. You'll be gone a while.) Now he's declared that the next generation can be cannibalized to make spare parts for the current generation.

There's a problem with that math, not to mention the ideology there, but President Obama is claiming that allowing federal funding for embryonic stem cell research is a triumph of science over ideology. Using the same logic, exposing black Americans to syphilis without their knowledge to learn about how the disease progresses is also a triumph of science over ideology.

Oddly, President Obama will keep in place restrictions on cloning humans, because, well, that's just icky.

And just for clarity, although I know nobody really cares, President Bush did not ban ESC research. He didn't even remove all federal funding. HIs restrictions allowed federal funding on ESC research as long as the researchers used existing lines of stem cell producing tissues, much the same way as fetal tissue from abortions performed 40 years ago are used to produce certain vaccines like the Chicken pox and MMR vaccines.

It's significant that during the Bush administration, there were no venture capitalist firms exploiting the wide open field of ESC research. You woulod think that if the field were so promising, that those greedy capitalistic bastards would want to get a head start on developing those therapies. The fact that they didn't tells you more about the actual promise of ESC based therapies than any other indicator. It's too bad that most people aren't paying attention.

Here's a thought. Since we're all about science over ideology, let's allow poor women to get pregnant and sell the embryos to researchers. Their body; their choice, right? Come on, feminists, stand up for your sisters! They're doing it for themselves!

Voting for every spending bill that came your way over a four year period, save one because it funded our combat troops, then voting for an $800 billion bailout for banks, following it up with another $800 billion "stimulus package with virtually no stimulus in the package, accompanied by assorted small $50-100 billion bailouts loans, and other programs, and then saying that it is time we were fiscally responsible.

No matter how many times he tells you he inherited the deficit, remember, he was a member of the US Senate for four years, and he had the opportunity to vote no on every spending bill that came up over that time period.

He didn't inherit the deficit; he voted for it.

And you voted for him.

Chris Peck, who may reside at 21 Belleair Dr.Memphis, TN 38104 and whose phone number may be (901) 276-8314 writes a column in the Commercial Appeal defending the HCP database his paper constructed, and telling all of us gun carrying hysterics to "exhale." The irony of a Commercial Appeal editor quoting Dan Quayle is overwhelming.

My response to Mr. Peck, modified a bit from the email I sent him, follows.

Mr. Peck,

Your argument fails to hold water. As you said, the information in your database is already available for the asking from the TN Department of Safety. The "people's right to know" was already being served by the government. What have you added?

First, you say that "our posted list of permit holders for concealed weapons has less information about individuals than the phone book, your voter registration form or the credit card you use to buy dinner at a restaurant." This statement is simply garbage because the phone book doesn't tell anybody if I have a HCP. Neither does my credit card. The hard fact that you want to gloss over is that you've already taken a selection criteria, HCP holders, and provided personally identifying information about them. Additionally, with the information you provide, I can get an address, phone number and a map to the front door with a single mouse click.

Second, your defense failed to note that you removed addresses and birth dates only after you were deluged in complaints. The initial versions of the database showed both addresses and birth dates, not only marking us as targets, but making identity theft a real possibility. Your removal of that information also reveals something even more telling. That information is part of the public record as well. Anybody who wants it can get it from the Department of Safety, so why remove it from your web database?

In order to explain that, you'll have to explain why you created the database in the first place, and it obviously has nothing to do with "the people's right to know" public data.

Third, if publishing identifying information about private citizens does not subject them to increased risk, then I challenge you to post the name, address, and birth date of every employee of the Commercial Appeal in a searchable database on your website.

Show me just how harmless the data you posted really is. See if your employees find it harmless. Best have some lawyers standing by though, because it could get ugly.

The bottom line is this. Your paper created that database to make it easy for anybody to find out who has a HCP. The reason for that has nothing to do with the people's right to know and everything to do with identifying HCP holders. The question you have yet to answer is why you felt it was important for your paper to make it easier to find this information.

Are you trading our security for more clicks for ad revenue? Or is there something else you're not saying? Now there's an answer the public really does have a right to know.

Normally I avoid KnoxViews, but while checking on a story on the KNS site, I saw a link to KnoxViews concerning a collision between two submarines. As an ex-Navy nuke, I'm always interested in news about nuke ships and subs, so I clicked the link. I'll reproduce the post, since Mr. Neal has been known to redirect links from time to time.

How can two nuclear subs collide and the operators not know it for days?
Submitted by bizgrrl on Mon, 2009/02/16 - 5:12pm.

Unbelievable!

According to the Wall Street Journal, "Earlier in February, the French Navy had said that the 450-foot Le Triomphant had shortened its patrol after 70 days at sea because its nose had been damaged by a collision with an unidentified object, possibly a drifting container. It was only after sending inquiries to other navies that France realized Le Triomphant had actually rammed into a British craft, the HMS Vanguard."

Comedy of Errors? Confederacy of Dunces?

Mr. Neal replied:

And the ocean is such a large place.

Before I get into my response, I want to point out the arrogance and condescension of the post and the reply. Here are two people who to my knowledge have never been aboard a submarine, and apparently have little to no idea how one operates, yet they are ready to ascribe the cause of this incident to stupidity on the part of the French and British crews.

In my lifelong quest to point out ignorance and correct it with knowledge, I left a reply. I reproduce it here for your reading pleasure.

Well, let's just take a closer look before we start calling people stupid.

First, there are no headlights or windshields on a submarine. You can't look out the window to see what's around you. You rely on charts and very precise calculations of speed and heading to determine your position.

Obviously, to most folks anyway, things that move, like say, submarines, are impossible to chart.

The pilot of the sub can confirm those calculation using active sonar, where you send out a ping, a high frequency sound that creates an echo. The return time and characteristics of that echo tell you if you're close to anything and if anything else around you is moving. The drawback is that the ping tells anybody in the area exactly where you are as well. This is a major no-no for ballistic missile subs, whose job is to quietly disappear in the water. Passive sonar on the other hand is the practice of using very sensitive microphones to pick up noise transmitted through the water. The drawback is that it only works to detect objects that make noise.

Again, ballistic missile subs are designed not to make noise.

Second, judging from the fact that there was only minor damage to the sonar dome, which is a very fragile structure, the contact between the subs was a very light graze. The article states that both subs were moving very slowly, which would also tend to minimize the impact. Additionally, because the subs are designed to be quiet, it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that the surface of both subs was coated in some sort of echo reducing material, analogous to the radar damping materials used on Stealth aircraft, which very likely would also act to cushion the impact. The slow speed, angle of impact, light damage, and possible echo reducing coatings all work together to explain why the Le Triomphant classified the collision as one with an unknown container, rather than another sub.

As for the "ocean is a large place" comment, again, let's take a closer look at the facts. We have two submarines with similar construction and similar performance characteristics, carrying similar payloads with similar capabilities, and since they were allies, probably covering similar targets.

How surprising is it really that their patrol routes were similar? It's true that the ocean is large, but both of these subs would be interested in only a small part of it.

And the WSJ article is wrong. This is not the first instance of two nuclear subs colliding. There have been several U.S. Soviet sub collisions in the last 40 years or so, some involving diesel boats, and some involving two nukes. This may have been the first case of two ballistic missile subs colliding, but attack subs and ballistic subs have had many collisions.

Your post and comment provide a perfect example of why many if not most civilians are incompetent to discuss military matters. You simply don't know enough to have an informed opinion. Yet in the arrogance of complete ignorance, you ascribe the cause of this incident to the stupidity of both the French and the British submarine service.

A retraction is certainly in order, but I won't hold my breath waiting for it.

The ignorance of Mr. and Mrs. Neal is outweighed only by their arrogance. But then again, we knew that already.

UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I won't be posting home phone numbers with this list. I have no way of verifying the numbers returned by a web search would be correct. Just as importantly, contacting these folks at home to take issue with something they did at work is not only inappropriate, it's rude. If you feel the need to talk to them directly, then contact them at work, and be professional about it.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal decided to publish a database with the names of everyone who has a TN Handgun Carry Permit. No particular reason, just listing public records.

Cool.

For your enjoyment, using WhitePages.addresses.com, here's the managing staff of the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

Name	Job	Home Address	City,State,Zip
Joseph Pepe	president and publisher	3195 Wetherby Cv S	Germantown, TN 38139
Steve Tomb	VP of Operations	1846 Wildcreek Cv	Collierville, TN 38017
Chris Peck	editor	21 Belleair Dr	Memphis, TN 38104
Otis Sanford	editor/opinion & editorials	3396 Park Ave	Memphis, TN 38111
Eric Janssen	VP of Digital Media	8996 Stratfield Cv	Germantown, TN 38139
Scott Sines	managing editor	2136 Wentworth Ln	Germantown, TN 38139
Daniel Moehle	VP/Chief Financial Officer	3172 Devonshire Way	Germantown, TN 38139
Karl Wurzbach	VP of Sales and Marketing	3098 Bentwood Run Dr	Collierville, TN 38017
Robert Jiranek	VP of New Business Development	175 Waring Rd	Memphis, TN 38117
Bob Pinarski	Advertising director	3961 Herons Landing Ln	Arlington, TN 38002
Denise Holman	Manager of Classified Advertising	720 Litty Ct 103	Memphis, TN 38103
Paul Jewell	Marketing director	1439 Vance Ave	Memphis, TN 38104

No particular reason, just posting public records.

I can add phone numbers to this list if requested.

Disclaimer: The information above comes from a web search and the accuracy of the returned information has not been verified through other means. This list is provided without any guarantees of accuracy, and is provided solely as an expression of the First Amendment. It has been generated solely from public records.

When I wrote these two posts on the economy and basic finance, I was looking for this graph, but couldn't find it. Thanks to John Hindraker at Powerline, I didn't have to find it. He found it.

This graph shows the money supply. Notice what's happening right now? Yeah, we're printing money at a rate never before seen in history, except in Weimar Germany, and we've already explored how well that worked out. WWII ring any bells?

Take a look at the following graph to get a better idea of what's going on.

This is the annual rate of change graph. Notice that it tends to hang out around zero, and until this year, any positive changes in the money supply are balanced by slightly smaller corresponding negative changes. In essence, the money supply is grown a bit above the actual value of the economy in order to encourage growth. As the economy grows, money is removed from the supply to maintain value and limit inflation. Take a look at this same graph, only this time I've zoomed in on the period 1999-2005

After 9/11, President Bush increased the money supply to fund the recovery and cleanup, and to get ready to strike back. He increased the money supply at an annualized rate of almost 50%, followed almost immediately by an annualized rate of reduction of 25%. This tightening of the money supply immediately after an increase acts to put the brakes on inflation.

Now it is intuitively obvious to anyone that there is no way to either grow the economy to add enough value to match the increase in the money supply, nor is it possible to tighten the money supply enough to eliminate an inflationary effect.

The Obama administration has two options. They can put on the brakes and stop printing money, and prepare the country for a crash landing, including double digit inflation, or they can crank the presses even higher, and drive the country over a cliff into complete bankruptcy.

The first course will be incredibly unpopular, and will result in a depression exceeding the 1929 crash by several orders of magnitude. After a decade or so of struggle, America will be able to get back on its feet, smaller, but substantially better off.

The second will be a lot of fun while it lasts, but will mean the end of America as a nation.

Period.

Look at those graphs again and ask yourself a simple question. Would you invest in a business run this way? Would you invest in a currency that is being deliberately devalued this way, knowing you will only get pennies on the dollar for your investment?

Neither would I. And neither would anyone else with a brain.

Last week, I talked about how we fund our debt, and what happens when we print money to cover shortfalls in revenue. To recap, when you print money without a correlating increase in value, you decrease the value of your money, and we call that inflation. It takes more dollars to buy a loaf of bread even though the value of a loaf of bread hasn't changed. The supply and demand are unchanged.

Now we just printed $350 billion for the first half of the bailout, but we haven't seen any real signs of inflation. Why not?

Because those dollars never went into circulation. They were given to banks, and those banks bought other banks with it. What this accomplished was allowing troubled banks to record an infusion of cash which acted as an asset to balance their liabilities. Instead of being in a position where their defaulting loans was dragging them to the point of insolvency, they now had the assets they needed to balance the default rate and remain solvent. Have you noticed that we haven't seen any banks failing since the bailout? Now you know why.

The cool part about this deal is that the inflationary aspect of printing $350 billion dollars is minimized because those dollars never really went into circulation. It was recorded on bank ledger sheets and that's it. It was all a paper shuffle to keep banks from failing, and it worked.

Apparently Bernanke and Co aren't so stupid after all.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the incoming administration. Their plan is to print another $350 billion and put it directly into the economy where it will place a large inflationary pressure on the value of the dollar, and we all know why that's a bad thing. But Obama says the situation is dire, and we must do something now, and his idea is the best one.

Is it just me, or is Obama sounding more and more like a late night TV infomercial?

"But you must act now, before this special offer expires and it's too late. This chance may never come your way again, so send in your money in the next 15 minutes!"

Feh.

"A Well Behaved and Compliant Media, Being Necessary to the Security of the New State, The Right of Obama to Control the Press Shall Not Be Infringed.