More than half a century after he died in the flaming crash of a CIA-owned cargo plane and became one of the first two Americans to die in combat in Vietnam, a legendary soldier of fortune known as "Earthquake McGoon" is finally coming home.
The skeletal remains of James B. McGovern Jr., discovered in an unmarked grave in remote northern Laos in 2002, were positively identified on Sept. 11 by laboratory experts at the U.S. military’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii.
The remains will be flown back to the mainland next week for a military funeral in New Jersey on Oct. 28, said McGovern’s nephew, James McGovern III, of Forked River, N.J.
"Bottom line, it’s closure for my family and a great feeling," McGovern said. Six feet and 260 pounds - huge for a fighter pilot - McGovern carved out a flying career during and after World War II that made him a legend in Asia. An American saloon owner in China dubbed him "Earthquake McGoon," after a hulking hillbilly character in the comic strip "Li’l Abner."
McGovern died on May 6, 1954, when his C-119 Flying Boxcar cargo plane was hit by ground fire while parachuting a howitzer to the besieged French garrison at Dien Bien Phu.
"Looks like this is it, son," McGovern radioed another pilot as his crippled plane staggered 75 miles into Laos, where it cartwheeled into a hillside. Killed along with "McGoon," 31, were his co-pilot, Wallace Buford, 28, and a French crew chief. Two cargo handlers, a Frenchman and a Thai, were thrown clear and survived.
Ho Chi Minh’s communist forces captured Dien Bien Phu the next day, ending a 57-day siege that had captured the world’s attention. It signaled the end of French colonial power in Indochina, and helped set the stage for the 15-year "American war" that ended with the fall of the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government in 1975.
Although civilians, the swashbuckling McGovern and Buford, an ex-World War II bomber pilot, were the first Americans to die in combat in the Asian country where war would later take nearly 60,000 American and more than a million Vietnamese lives.
It was no mystery in 1954 that the United States was supporting colonial France against Vietnam’s communist-led rebellion, and "McGoon" was already famous for his exploits when he was killed. The only secret was that his employer, a charter airline called Civil Air Transport, or CAT, "was owned by the CIA - lock, stock and barrel," Felix Smith, a retired CAT pilot and McGovern friend, said in an interview in 2002.
It was not until the 1990s that the CIA-CAT connection was finally declassified.
The CIA is arranging for James McGovern III to fly to Hickam Air Force Base near Honolulu and escort his uncle’s remains home, he said. The CIA did not immediately return a call for comment.
Dr. Thomas Holland, director of JPAC’s Central Identification Laboratory, said McGovern was only the second person ever identified through "nuclear" DNA from a male relative - a particularly difficult task with bones that are decades old. The first was another Southeast Asia casualty identified recently.
Most cases rely on mitochondrial DNA, from female relatives.
McGovern first went to China in 1944, as a fighter pilot in the 14th Air Force’s "Tiger Shark" squadron, descended from the famous Flying Tigers. According to Smith, he was credited with shooting down four Japanese Zero fighter planes and destroying five on the ground.
At war’s end in 1945, McGovern signed on with CAT, which was under contract to Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese Nationalist regime, then fighting a civil war against Mao Zedong’s communists. Captured by communist troops after a forced landing, "McGoon" was freed six months later. Colleagues joked that his captors simply got tired of feeding him.
CAT moved to Taiwan after Chiang’s 1949 defeat. In 1950 it was secretly acquired by the CIA, and continued to fly commercially as a cover for clandestine activities. Three years later it was detailed by the Eisenhower administration to Indochina, flying supply missions for the French with its planes’ insignia painted out.
Ultimately, CAT morphed into Air America, the "CIA airline" that operated in Laos and South Vietnam during America’s Vietnam War.
McGovern’s exact fate was unknown until a French visitor learned of the crash during a 1959 visit to the Laotian village of Ban Sot. That report was suppressed by the CIA, Smith said, but after a private historian found it in French files years later, a group of former CAT pilots led by Smith persuaded the CIA to back a search effort.
In 1997, an American MIA team investigating an unrelated case found a C-119 propeller at Ban Sot, and a JPAC photo analyst spotted possible graves in aerial photos. Excavation in 2002 uncovered remains that turned out to be McGovern’s.
JPAC experts are still seeking the remains of co-pilot Buford, one of 35 civilians among 1,797 Americans still unaccounted for in Indochina.
James McGovern III said his namesake uncle will be buried with military honors in Basking Ridge, next to his brother John, a former sportswriter who died in 2001.
James McGovern III said that as a Purple Heart recipient in World War II, his father was eligible for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, but had expressed hope of one day lying next to his long-lost brother. "All those years were enough of a separation," James III said.
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Credit Card Companies Want You To Take Another Card
I have always done my best to inform you about the latest scams and schemes by the credit card companies to keep "revolvers" revolving and to get the "dead-beats" revolving.
Remember, "revolvers" are people who carry credit card balances on these revolving lines that are bread and butter to credit card companies, while "dead-beats" are the people who don’t carry a balance, thus robbing the credit card companies of interest charges and fees.
Well, I just finished reading an article in BusinessWeek about our good friends at Capital One and their latest round of trickery. I hope my warning will catch you before you fall victim to their latest trick.
I must begin by pointing out two important changes in the credit card industry.
There was a time when once you had a Capital One credit card, you were no longer a potential customer for a Capital One credit card. They made their money off of the interest that you paid on the card and then received bonus income when you went over the limit or were not able to make the minimum payment. And if you needed additional credit, you asked for an increase on your credit card’s limit.
While Capital One loves to get your interest charges, today, the majority of its money comes from what used to be the occasional bonus...the overlimit fees and late fees.
As the spending and credit habits of consumers have evolved to be less and less responsible, the credit card companies have adapted to take advantage. There is change number one...credit card companies today make more money from the fees than they do from the interest they charge on the loans.
On to change number two. If you have a Capital One credit card, you may notice that you still receive applications in the mail from Capital One, and you probably think that this is just some mail list error and that if you send in the application, they will tell you that you already have a Capital One credit card and apologize for the confusion, but this is actually not the case.
What many American consumers do not realize is that these Capital One applications are the result of a new capital idea from Capital One. Don’t increase credit limits...issue more than one card to each consumer. If you have a "revolver" who is at the limit and paying late fees and overlimit fees, chances are, that "revolver" is going to open up a new credit card to borrow against to pay those fees, and once that second card is maxed, then open up a third, then a fourth, and so on, just to pay the fees on their cards until their miracle happens and all the sudden they can somehow pay off this credit card debt that they have accumulated on all these different cards...so why don’t we, as Capital One, make sure that each of those credit cards that are maxed out and wracking up fees is a Capital One card?
Don’t give the consumer one card with a $1400 limit and collect one set of fees, issue that consumer two cards with $700 limits and literally double our income by collecting two sets of fees.
So, there is change number two. Capital One no longer will say, "Sorry, you already have a credit line with us and you’re not doing so good with it so we can’t increase your credit limit," but in fact, will now say, "Thank you very much for maxing out your card, please, have another!"
And so began a new chapter in credit card history. Capital One would wait until you maxed out card #1, hit you with fees, then send you an application for card #2 so that you’d cash advance that baby to pay for card #1, borrowing at a higher interest rate on card #2 than on card #1, thus maxing out card #2 at an even faster rate.
Naturally, when you’d maxed out card #2, the applications for card #3 were already in your mailbox. Once you were at card #3 or #4, you just kept sending in the applications, just hoping they’d allow you a card #5 or card #6 just so you could keep your head above water.
Of course, the using one card to pay the other wasn’t new, just now, all these cards were from the same bank. The article I just read told the story of some folks that had as many as six Capital One cards, each with a ridiculously low credit line of $200 to $700, some of them paying a much as $400 per month in fees alone.
Again, I go back to personal responsibility and must say that Capital One discloses all of the fees that you will be charged when you apply for a card when they issue it and tell you up front what will happen when you max it out.
Every step along the way, they let consumers know on the statements and in the terms pamphlets what they will do when consumers get to and go over the limit, so we, as consumers, know up front how things will be and then we, as consumers, agree to these horrific loan terms.
What most American consumers fail to realize, but must begin to understand, however, is that these credit card companies pay a lot of very smart people to analyze us as a group to determine the best way to get us to run up credit card debt, and then, determine the best way to make money off of that debt once it has been created.
I am not saying that you can’t beat the credit card companies, because each of us knows full-well that we could have a credit card in our pocket and just not use it, thus avoiding self-perpetuating debt, but we must be aware of the forces that are working against us to get our dollars and to break our banks.
We have to be aware of these forces, know that they are working against us, and remind ourselves of it every single day. It is not easy to do, but it is much easier to remind yourself not to charge today than to get out of credit card debt tomorrow.
I have said it before and I will say it again, please do not carry credit card balances in any situation other than a dire emergency. Say, a root canal or a co-pay on a surgery that saves your life, as opposed to a new TV that is better than the one you bought two years ago, or the cell phone that is better than the cell phone you already have.
The article in BusinessWeek touched on the need for federal regulators to step in and stop this multiple-card-issuing practice, but we cannot expect the "powers that be" to protect us from credit card companies.
It’s not the government’s job...it is our job to police our spending habits ourselves...
Remember, "revolvers" are people who carry credit card balances on these revolving lines that are bread and butter to credit card companies, while "dead-beats" are the people who don’t carry a balance, thus robbing the credit card companies of interest charges and fees.
Well, I just finished reading an article in BusinessWeek about our good friends at Capital One and their latest round of trickery. I hope my warning will catch you before you fall victim to their latest trick.
I must begin by pointing out two important changes in the credit card industry.
There was a time when once you had a Capital One credit card, you were no longer a potential customer for a Capital One credit card. They made their money off of the interest that you paid on the card and then received bonus income when you went over the limit or were not able to make the minimum payment. And if you needed additional credit, you asked for an increase on your credit card’s limit.
While Capital One loves to get your interest charges, today, the majority of its money comes from what used to be the occasional bonus...the overlimit fees and late fees.
As the spending and credit habits of consumers have evolved to be less and less responsible, the credit card companies have adapted to take advantage. There is change number one...credit card companies today make more money from the fees than they do from the interest they charge on the loans.
On to change number two. If you have a Capital One credit card, you may notice that you still receive applications in the mail from Capital One, and you probably think that this is just some mail list error and that if you send in the application, they will tell you that you already have a Capital One credit card and apologize for the confusion, but this is actually not the case.
What many American consumers do not realize is that these Capital One applications are the result of a new capital idea from Capital One. Don’t increase credit limits...issue more than one card to each consumer. If you have a "revolver" who is at the limit and paying late fees and overlimit fees, chances are, that "revolver" is going to open up a new credit card to borrow against to pay those fees, and once that second card is maxed, then open up a third, then a fourth, and so on, just to pay the fees on their cards until their miracle happens and all the sudden they can somehow pay off this credit card debt that they have accumulated on all these different cards...so why don’t we, as Capital One, make sure that each of those credit cards that are maxed out and wracking up fees is a Capital One card?
Don’t give the consumer one card with a $1400 limit and collect one set of fees, issue that consumer two cards with $700 limits and literally double our income by collecting two sets of fees.
So, there is change number two. Capital One no longer will say, "Sorry, you already have a credit line with us and you’re not doing so good with it so we can’t increase your credit limit," but in fact, will now say, "Thank you very much for maxing out your card, please, have another!"
And so began a new chapter in credit card history. Capital One would wait until you maxed out card #1, hit you with fees, then send you an application for card #2 so that you’d cash advance that baby to pay for card #1, borrowing at a higher interest rate on card #2 than on card #1, thus maxing out card #2 at an even faster rate.
Naturally, when you’d maxed out card #2, the applications for card #3 were already in your mailbox. Once you were at card #3 or #4, you just kept sending in the applications, just hoping they’d allow you a card #5 or card #6 just so you could keep your head above water.
Of course, the using one card to pay the other wasn’t new, just now, all these cards were from the same bank. The article I just read told the story of some folks that had as many as six Capital One cards, each with a ridiculously low credit line of $200 to $700, some of them paying a much as $400 per month in fees alone.
Again, I go back to personal responsibility and must say that Capital One discloses all of the fees that you will be charged when you apply for a card when they issue it and tell you up front what will happen when you max it out.
Every step along the way, they let consumers know on the statements and in the terms pamphlets what they will do when consumers get to and go over the limit, so we, as consumers, know up front how things will be and then we, as consumers, agree to these horrific loan terms.
What most American consumers fail to realize, but must begin to understand, however, is that these credit card companies pay a lot of very smart people to analyze us as a group to determine the best way to get us to run up credit card debt, and then, determine the best way to make money off of that debt once it has been created.
I am not saying that you can’t beat the credit card companies, because each of us knows full-well that we could have a credit card in our pocket and just not use it, thus avoiding self-perpetuating debt, but we must be aware of the forces that are working against us to get our dollars and to break our banks.
We have to be aware of these forces, know that they are working against us, and remind ourselves of it every single day. It is not easy to do, but it is much easier to remind yourself not to charge today than to get out of credit card debt tomorrow.
I have said it before and I will say it again, please do not carry credit card balances in any situation other than a dire emergency. Say, a root canal or a co-pay on a surgery that saves your life, as opposed to a new TV that is better than the one you bought two years ago, or the cell phone that is better than the cell phone you already have.
The article in BusinessWeek touched on the need for federal regulators to step in and stop this multiple-card-issuing practice, but we cannot expect the "powers that be" to protect us from credit card companies.
It’s not the government’s job...it is our job to police our spending habits ourselves...
Monday, September 11, 2006
U.S. Marine Courage On 9/11...
For years, authorities wondered about the identity of a U.S. Marine who appeared at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, helped find a pair of police officers buried in the rubble, then vanished.
Even the producers of the new film chronicling the rescue, “World Trade Center,” couldn’t locate the mystery serviceman, who had given his name only as Sgt. Thomas. The puzzle was finally solved when one Jason Thomas, of Columbus, Ohio, saw a TV commercial for the new movie a few weeks ago as he relaxed on his couch.
His eyes widened as he saw two Marines with flashlights, hunting for survivors atop the smoldering ruins. “That’s us. That’s me!” thought Thomas, who lived in Long Island during the attacks and now works as an officer in Ohio’s Supreme Court.
Thomas, 32, hesitantly re-emerged last week to recount the role he played in the rescue of Port Authority police officers Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, who were entombed beneath 20 feet of debris when the twin towers collapsed.
Back in New York to speak of his experience and visit family, Thomas provided the AP with photographs of himself at ground zero. As further proof of his identity, the movie’s producer, Michael Shamberg, said Thomas and Jimeno have spoken by phone and shared details only the two of them would know.
Thomas, who had been out of the Marine Corps about a year, was dropping his daughter off at his mother’s Long Island home when she told him planes had struck the towers. He retrieved his Marine uniform from his truck, sped to Manhattan and had just parked his car when one of the towers collapsed. Thomas ran toward the center of the ash cloud.
“Someone needed help. It didn’t matter who,” he said. “I didn’t even have a plan. But I have all this training as a Marine, and all I could think was, ‘My city is in need.”’
Thomas bumped into another ex-Marine, Staff Sgt. David Karnes, and the pair decided to search for survivors. Carrying little more than flashlights and an infantryman’s shovel, they climbed the mountain of debris, skirting dangerous crevasses and shards of red-hot metal, calling out “Is anyone down there? United States Marines!”
It was dark before they heard a response. The two crawled into a deep pit to find McLoughlin and Jimeno, injured but alive. Jimeno would spend 13 hours in the pit before he was pulled free. Thomas stayed long enough to see him come up, but left due to exhaustion before McLoughlin, who remained pinned for another nine hours, was retrieved.
Thomas said he returned to ground zero every day for another 2 1/2 weeks to pitch in, then walked away and tried to forget. “I didn’t want to relive what took place that day,” he said.
Shamberg said he apologized to Thomas for an inaccuracy in the film: Thomas is black, but the actor cast to portray him, William Mapother, is white. Filmmakers realized the mistake only after production had begun, Shamberg said.
Thomas laughed and gently chided the filmmakers, then politely declined to discuss it further. “I don’t want to shed any negativity on what they were trying to show,” he said. As for his story, Thomas said he is gradually becoming more comfortable telling it. “It’s been like therapy,” he said.
Even the producers of the new film chronicling the rescue, “World Trade Center,” couldn’t locate the mystery serviceman, who had given his name only as Sgt. Thomas. The puzzle was finally solved when one Jason Thomas, of Columbus, Ohio, saw a TV commercial for the new movie a few weeks ago as he relaxed on his couch.
His eyes widened as he saw two Marines with flashlights, hunting for survivors atop the smoldering ruins. “That’s us. That’s me!” thought Thomas, who lived in Long Island during the attacks and now works as an officer in Ohio’s Supreme Court.
Thomas, 32, hesitantly re-emerged last week to recount the role he played in the rescue of Port Authority police officers Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, who were entombed beneath 20 feet of debris when the twin towers collapsed.
Back in New York to speak of his experience and visit family, Thomas provided the AP with photographs of himself at ground zero. As further proof of his identity, the movie’s producer, Michael Shamberg, said Thomas and Jimeno have spoken by phone and shared details only the two of them would know.
Thomas, who had been out of the Marine Corps about a year, was dropping his daughter off at his mother’s Long Island home when she told him planes had struck the towers. He retrieved his Marine uniform from his truck, sped to Manhattan and had just parked his car when one of the towers collapsed. Thomas ran toward the center of the ash cloud.
“Someone needed help. It didn’t matter who,” he said. “I didn’t even have a plan. But I have all this training as a Marine, and all I could think was, ‘My city is in need.”’
Thomas bumped into another ex-Marine, Staff Sgt. David Karnes, and the pair decided to search for survivors. Carrying little more than flashlights and an infantryman’s shovel, they climbed the mountain of debris, skirting dangerous crevasses and shards of red-hot metal, calling out “Is anyone down there? United States Marines!”
It was dark before they heard a response. The two crawled into a deep pit to find McLoughlin and Jimeno, injured but alive. Jimeno would spend 13 hours in the pit before he was pulled free. Thomas stayed long enough to see him come up, but left due to exhaustion before McLoughlin, who remained pinned for another nine hours, was retrieved.
Thomas said he returned to ground zero every day for another 2 1/2 weeks to pitch in, then walked away and tried to forget. “I didn’t want to relive what took place that day,” he said.
Shamberg said he apologized to Thomas for an inaccuracy in the film: Thomas is black, but the actor cast to portray him, William Mapother, is white. Filmmakers realized the mistake only after production had begun, Shamberg said.
Thomas laughed and gently chided the filmmakers, then politely declined to discuss it further. “I don’t want to shed any negativity on what they were trying to show,” he said. As for his story, Thomas said he is gradually becoming more comfortable telling it. “It’s been like therapy,” he said.
Friday, September 1, 2006
Non-U.S. Revenue Percentages...
One of the most important aspects of investing your hard-earned dollars is to ensure that you are diversified to guard against fluctuations in sectors of your portfolio that may be overweighted, such as what happened to a lot of people in 1999 when they were overweighted in tech and what happened to people at Enron who were way overweighted in their own company stock.
It pays to do a little digging because things may not always be as they seem.
For instance, you may be invested in a U.S.-based company thinking that you have covered the U.S. portion of your portfolio, when in fact, most of that company’s revenue is coming from more unstable foreign sources.
Below, find the 15 largest U.S. firms and the percentage of their non-U.S. revenue...
Intel - 80%
ExxonMobil - 75%
Coca-Cola - 70%
Chevron - 63%
IBM - 63%
Altria Group - 62%
Proctor & Gamble - 53%
Cisco Systems - 50%
AIG - 44%
Pfizer - 43%
General Electric - 41%
Johnson & Johnson - 41%
PepsiCo - 36%
Dell - 33%
Microsoft - 32%
It pays to do a little digging because things may not always be as they seem.
For instance, you may be invested in a U.S.-based company thinking that you have covered the U.S. portion of your portfolio, when in fact, most of that company’s revenue is coming from more unstable foreign sources.
Below, find the 15 largest U.S. firms and the percentage of their non-U.S. revenue...
Intel - 80%
ExxonMobil - 75%
Coca-Cola - 70%
Chevron - 63%
IBM - 63%
Altria Group - 62%
Proctor & Gamble - 53%
Cisco Systems - 50%
AIG - 44%
Pfizer - 43%
General Electric - 41%
Johnson & Johnson - 41%
PepsiCo - 36%
Dell - 33%
Microsoft - 32%
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
"Yes, But Who Will Police The Police?..."
In 1911, at the Justice Department’s request, the U.S. Supreme Court broke up John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil monopoly, which began in 1870. It was split into 33 companies, including Jersey Standard (Exxon), Socony (Mobil), and Socal (Chevron).
In 1945, a federal appeals court found that Alcoa had illegally maintained its monopoly over aluminum ingot production, which began in 1888. The company was not broken up, but the government strengthened competition by selling its own wartime plants to Kaiser and Reynolds.
On January 8, 1981, after 13 years of litigation, the Justice Department dropped its effort to break up IBM for allegedly monopolizing the computer industry.
Also on January 8, 1981, AT&T signed a consent decree with the Justice Department ending Ma-Bell’s century-long telephone monopoly. It agreed to divest its 22 local operating companies, which were then recognized as the seven Baby Bells.
In June 2000, a federal judge found that Microsoft had illegally maintained its monopoly on PC operating systems and ordered the company split in two. A year later, however, portions of the ruling were overturned, and Microsoft then settled, avoiding a breakup.
So, the lesson here is, do well, be successful, provide a good product that is needed and/or wanted by the people, and eventually you will get so big that some couldn’t-make-it-in-the-real-business-world failure who had to settle for a job in the Justice Department will either put you in your place by breaking up your company, or extort you for a bunch of money that will earn him a promotion.
It worked for Spitzer, didn’t it? It’s a good thing racketeering is illegal in this country...Hey, wait a minute...
In 1945, a federal appeals court found that Alcoa had illegally maintained its monopoly over aluminum ingot production, which began in 1888. The company was not broken up, but the government strengthened competition by selling its own wartime plants to Kaiser and Reynolds.
On January 8, 1981, after 13 years of litigation, the Justice Department dropped its effort to break up IBM for allegedly monopolizing the computer industry.
Also on January 8, 1981, AT&T signed a consent decree with the Justice Department ending Ma-Bell’s century-long telephone monopoly. It agreed to divest its 22 local operating companies, which were then recognized as the seven Baby Bells.
In June 2000, a federal judge found that Microsoft had illegally maintained its monopoly on PC operating systems and ordered the company split in two. A year later, however, portions of the ruling were overturned, and Microsoft then settled, avoiding a breakup.
So, the lesson here is, do well, be successful, provide a good product that is needed and/or wanted by the people, and eventually you will get so big that some couldn’t-make-it-in-the-real-business-world failure who had to settle for a job in the Justice Department will either put you in your place by breaking up your company, or extort you for a bunch of money that will earn him a promotion.
It worked for Spitzer, didn’t it? It’s a good thing racketeering is illegal in this country...Hey, wait a minute...
Monday, June 19, 2006
Your Tax Dollars At Work...
With such a big debate constantly raging about who tax cuts benefit and how much things like the War on Terror or Katrina Relief cost, I think we as Americans fail to look at, analyze, and complain about how much of our tax money is wasted on the smaller, day to day projects that add up to far more money than any of these single-ticket large budget items.
The Department of the Interior spent $63,000,000 to consolidate 16 financial systems into one, but the project has failed and will be restarted from square one.
The Department of Homeland Security spent $104,000,000 on an infrastructure upgrade that did not meet federal law requirements.
The Department of Defense has spent $264,000,000 on their online travel booking system, a project that is currently four years behind schedule.
The FBI spent $170,000,000 on a web-based case management system that has failed to work properly and is also being restarted from square one.
The Transportation Security Administration spent $834,000,000 on their infrastructure modernization, but the project has never yielded the results they were looking for, and they, too, are starting over.
And lastly, our friends at the Federal Aviation Administration have spent $11,400,000,000 (yes, $11.4 billion) on 16 separate improvement projects, 12 of which are behind schedule, and one of which is currently 13 years behind schedule.
The Department of the Interior spent $63,000,000 to consolidate 16 financial systems into one, but the project has failed and will be restarted from square one.
The Department of Homeland Security spent $104,000,000 on an infrastructure upgrade that did not meet federal law requirements.
The Department of Defense has spent $264,000,000 on their online travel booking system, a project that is currently four years behind schedule.
The FBI spent $170,000,000 on a web-based case management system that has failed to work properly and is also being restarted from square one.
The Transportation Security Administration spent $834,000,000 on their infrastructure modernization, but the project has never yielded the results they were looking for, and they, too, are starting over.
And lastly, our friends at the Federal Aviation Administration have spent $11,400,000,000 (yes, $11.4 billion) on 16 separate improvement projects, 12 of which are behind schedule, and one of which is currently 13 years behind schedule.
Thursday, June 1, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Life With The Clintons...
Bill Clinton will clear all future public-policy statements with his wife.
Senator Hillary Clinton was embarrassed last month by reports that her husband was advising the United Arab Emirates at the same time she was denouncing a ports deal involving a Dubai-owned company.
Now the couple has agreed that Hillary will get "the final say" over what Bill says and does, sources told the New York Daily News.
"He knows it’s Hillary’s time now," said an advisor close to both politicians.
A spokesman for Bill Clinton said that with Hillary preparing for a 2008 presidential run, the former president is willing to do "anything he can" to help - including, presumably, keeping quiet.
Senator Hillary Clinton was embarrassed last month by reports that her husband was advising the United Arab Emirates at the same time she was denouncing a ports deal involving a Dubai-owned company.
Now the couple has agreed that Hillary will get "the final say" over what Bill says and does, sources told the New York Daily News.
"He knows it’s Hillary’s time now," said an advisor close to both politicians.
A spokesman for Bill Clinton said that with Hillary preparing for a 2008 presidential run, the former president is willing to do "anything he can" to help - including, presumably, keeping quiet.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
A Health Warning About Food & Plastics...
I have long been very concerned about the mixture of food and plastics. Just the other night I saw a commercial for plastic crock-pot liners that keep the pot clean while you simmer food for hours on end that made me think about how dangerous a combination hot plastics and food can be.
I find it very hard to believe that a plastic bag next to a heat source will not release chemicals into the food that it is holding. Then, this week, I received an email that addressed that very issue.
I must admit I was not surprised about heat and plastics, but I was surprised about cold and plastics. The email talks about the dangers of warming and freezing food and drinks in plastic containers.
Studies at Johns Hopkins are now showing that cancer-causing dioxins in the plastic containers that we use each and every day are seeping into food when it is being heated.
Dioxins are absorbed, eaten and then begin poisoning your body’s cells, leading to the development of cancer.
Johns Hopkins recommends the following:
1. DO NOT put plastic containers, even so-called "microwaveable" containers, in the microwave. Dioxins can seep into your food while it and the plastic container are being heated.
2. DO NOT put plastic water bottles in the freezer. Dioxins seep into the water as the water freezes.
3. DO NOT use plastic wrap in the microwave. Dioxins seep into your food when the plastic wrap is heated.
I find it very hard to believe that a plastic bag next to a heat source will not release chemicals into the food that it is holding. Then, this week, I received an email that addressed that very issue.
I must admit I was not surprised about heat and plastics, but I was surprised about cold and plastics. The email talks about the dangers of warming and freezing food and drinks in plastic containers.
Studies at Johns Hopkins are now showing that cancer-causing dioxins in the plastic containers that we use each and every day are seeping into food when it is being heated.
Dioxins are absorbed, eaten and then begin poisoning your body’s cells, leading to the development of cancer.
Johns Hopkins recommends the following:
1. DO NOT put plastic containers, even so-called "microwaveable" containers, in the microwave. Dioxins can seep into your food while it and the plastic container are being heated.
2. DO NOT put plastic water bottles in the freezer. Dioxins seep into the water as the water freezes.
3. DO NOT use plastic wrap in the microwave. Dioxins seep into your food when the plastic wrap is heated.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The Leap Days
Today, we worry about millisecond and nanosecond inaccuracies in times, but in the past, there have been discrepancies the length of days.
When Julius Caesar invented the Julian calendar, it was off by 11.5 minutes each year. Over the centuries, that small error added up so that by 1582, the Julian calendar being used by the Western Roman World was 10 days behind.
To fix the discrepancy in the Julian calendar, Pope Gregory XIII gave us leap days. However, before the Gregorian calendar could be put into place, the extra 10 days given to mankind by the Julian calendar had to be done away with.
Pope Gregory XIII then declared that the day after October 4, 1582 would be October 15, 1582. In Rome, all the days in-between never existed. There was wide-spread rioting in Rome because many Christians alive at the time felt that if their date of birth and date of death had been pre-ordained, the Pope had just shortened their lives by 10 days.
In defiance of Rome, England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar, so for nearly two hundred years it was always ten days later in Rome that it was in London.
Finally, in 1752 when England adopted the Gregorian calendar to sync itself up with the rest of the Western World, the day after September 2, 1752 was September 14, 1752, 11 days having never existed in London.
The problem this time, however, was not that people felt their lives were being shortened, but people actually were incensed to riot because they paid rent by the month and only got 19 days for their monthly rent that September. Naturally, landlords refused to make exceptions and expected October’s rent right on the first of the month.
When Julius Caesar invented the Julian calendar, it was off by 11.5 minutes each year. Over the centuries, that small error added up so that by 1582, the Julian calendar being used by the Western Roman World was 10 days behind.
To fix the discrepancy in the Julian calendar, Pope Gregory XIII gave us leap days. However, before the Gregorian calendar could be put into place, the extra 10 days given to mankind by the Julian calendar had to be done away with.
Pope Gregory XIII then declared that the day after October 4, 1582 would be October 15, 1582. In Rome, all the days in-between never existed. There was wide-spread rioting in Rome because many Christians alive at the time felt that if their date of birth and date of death had been pre-ordained, the Pope had just shortened their lives by 10 days.
In defiance of Rome, England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar, so for nearly two hundred years it was always ten days later in Rome that it was in London.
Finally, in 1752 when England adopted the Gregorian calendar to sync itself up with the rest of the Western World, the day after September 2, 1752 was September 14, 1752, 11 days having never existed in London.
The problem this time, however, was not that people felt their lives were being shortened, but people actually were incensed to riot because they paid rent by the month and only got 19 days for their monthly rent that September. Naturally, landlords refused to make exceptions and expected October’s rent right on the first of the month.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Leap Second
It received some news coverage, but nothing really major. At the end of 2005, there was a leap second that was added to analog clocks to get them caught up with atomic clocks.
To understand this, you must first know that there are currently two time-keeping systems in place for the civilized world.
Analog clocks are kept and maintained by measuring the Earth’s cycle around the sun and the Earth’s rotation on it axis, just as has been done for thousands of years.
The problem with analog, however, is that each time the Earth revolves around the sun, there is an average discrepancy of a half-second each year. In addition, each day is actually not exactly as long as each other due to the pulling of the tides on the Earth’s rotation which cause fluctuations of milliseconds.
Realizing that there was a problem with this analog time keeping, scientists developed a new method called the atomic method some 40 years ago. The atomic method uses the measurement of the extremely accurate and precise cycle of an atom of the isotope cesium-133.
In one second, the atom cycles 9,192,631,770 times. This cycle is constant, never varying and means that a half-second variance like the one that occurs in analog time each year, occurs only once every 10 million years in atomic time.
Since 1967, because of the variance in the two time-keeping methods, mankind has had to add a leap-second to analog time 23 times to ensure that the analog clocks and the atomic clocks are in sync to the tune of no more than a 0.9 second variance.
Why is it important to keep the clocks in sync? Well, if we stopped adding the leap seconds today, in the year 5000, the sun would be right overhead at noon, but your atomic clock would say it was getting close to midnight.
So, what’s the problem with leap seconds? Well, remember Y2K? There are some folks that believe if we keep stopping our atomic clocks for one second intervals every couple years, it will cause wide-spread system failures in the flight control, traffic control, power grids, mobile phone networks and defense systems that are all tied to atomic clocks.
For example, if a GPS satellite sends a signal a millisecond early or late, it can provide a reading that is inaccurate by 100 miles. You do not want a ballistic missile being 100 miles off its target.
So, for now, while scientists debate the best method, atomic clocks continue and the old-time Earth-monitoring analog time continues, both being continually checked against the other.
To understand this, you must first know that there are currently two time-keeping systems in place for the civilized world.
Analog clocks are kept and maintained by measuring the Earth’s cycle around the sun and the Earth’s rotation on it axis, just as has been done for thousands of years.
The problem with analog, however, is that each time the Earth revolves around the sun, there is an average discrepancy of a half-second each year. In addition, each day is actually not exactly as long as each other due to the pulling of the tides on the Earth’s rotation which cause fluctuations of milliseconds.
Realizing that there was a problem with this analog time keeping, scientists developed a new method called the atomic method some 40 years ago. The atomic method uses the measurement of the extremely accurate and precise cycle of an atom of the isotope cesium-133.
In one second, the atom cycles 9,192,631,770 times. This cycle is constant, never varying and means that a half-second variance like the one that occurs in analog time each year, occurs only once every 10 million years in atomic time.
Since 1967, because of the variance in the two time-keeping methods, mankind has had to add a leap-second to analog time 23 times to ensure that the analog clocks and the atomic clocks are in sync to the tune of no more than a 0.9 second variance.
Why is it important to keep the clocks in sync? Well, if we stopped adding the leap seconds today, in the year 5000, the sun would be right overhead at noon, but your atomic clock would say it was getting close to midnight.
So, what’s the problem with leap seconds? Well, remember Y2K? There are some folks that believe if we keep stopping our atomic clocks for one second intervals every couple years, it will cause wide-spread system failures in the flight control, traffic control, power grids, mobile phone networks and defense systems that are all tied to atomic clocks.
For example, if a GPS satellite sends a signal a millisecond early or late, it can provide a reading that is inaccurate by 100 miles. You do not want a ballistic missile being 100 miles off its target.
So, for now, while scientists debate the best method, atomic clocks continue and the old-time Earth-monitoring analog time continues, both being continually checked against the other.
Monday, January 2, 2006
What Can Congress Do?
A senator can have a corporate jet make a special flight just for them and reimburse the company for one seat's worth of first-class airfare, not the actual cost of the flight. See how a company can donate to their senator through this airfare reimbursement?
A representative cannot take travel expenses directly from a lobbyist, but can take expenses from a charity or other organization with a lobbyist on its board. This means that the lobbyist cannot give travel expenses to the representative, but the lobbyist's charity can.
Corporations cannot contribute to a politician’s campaign fund, but the corporation can contribute to a charity that a politician is associated with. These charitable donations do net even need to be reported by the politician.
Senators, representatives, and their staffers cannot take a single gift, including food and entertainment, worth $50 or a collective of gifts worth $100 from a single person. If that person, however, is a "personal friend" of the representative, that $100 increases to $250. Because of these limits, the owner of the NBA Wizards and the NHL Capitals has set the price of club tickets at $49.50.
A lobbyist can provide up to $49.99 worth of food per person for a representative and staff for late-night sessions, provided the lobbyist has no "direct interest" in the legislation they are working on that particular night.
Senators and representatives are allowed to use campaign funds to defend themselves in bribery investigations that are related to their office.
A representative cannot take travel expenses directly from a lobbyist, but can take expenses from a charity or other organization with a lobbyist on its board. This means that the lobbyist cannot give travel expenses to the representative, but the lobbyist's charity can.
Corporations cannot contribute to a politician’s campaign fund, but the corporation can contribute to a charity that a politician is associated with. These charitable donations do net even need to be reported by the politician.
Senators, representatives, and their staffers cannot take a single gift, including food and entertainment, worth $50 or a collective of gifts worth $100 from a single person. If that person, however, is a "personal friend" of the representative, that $100 increases to $250. Because of these limits, the owner of the NBA Wizards and the NHL Capitals has set the price of club tickets at $49.50.
A lobbyist can provide up to $49.99 worth of food per person for a representative and staff for late-night sessions, provided the lobbyist has no "direct interest" in the legislation they are working on that particular night.
Senators and representatives are allowed to use campaign funds to defend themselves in bribery investigations that are related to their office.
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