Month: July 2008

What it is like to run over a man with a subway train

Kind of eerie story about a Tube driver who hit a suicidal person lying on the tracks. The driver is still a bit messed up by the whole incident, though that wasn’t the case with one of the people standing on the platform.

By the time we were stationary, four of my eight cars were in the platform and I was on autopilot. I told the passengers there would be a delay in opening the doors due to an “incident”, and was calling the line controller for assistance when I heard a tap on my cab door. A smart man inquired, “Do you know there’s a person under your train?” I looked at the blood on the windscreen momentarily before assuring him that, yes, I was aware.

He paused for a heartbeat, looked at his watch and said, “So, how long before we get on the move again?”

I was to look back on this exchange with amusement and also, strangely, comfort: in the midst of the horror, normality was briefly restored by a commuter asking for alternative travel arrangements.

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When the nuke hits Washington, this guy is in charge, maybe, kind of, well we'll see.

In an interview that I have to describe as ‘less than reassuring’, DC’s Director of Homeland Security puts his political spin and utilize years of government ’speak’ to assure residents of DC that there will be chaos when a dirty nuke goes off in DC. Following a semi-disaster day last month when a power substation failure shut off traffic lights, a fire broke out in a Metro station and massive gridlock stymied D.C. police and emergency crews, Darrell Darnell talks about the agency’s pathetic lack of services response.

He even offers a website where you can sign up to receive electronic communications after the nuclear bomb goes up (yea, cause my Blackberry is hardened against EMP–how about yours?). DC residents have already been given their evacuation routes in a piece of paper strategically placed in the plastic package full of ads for Best Buy, carwash services, coupon clippings and all the other junk that 99% of DC residents throw out instantly into the trash when it arrives in the Sunday paper.

Anyway, read the article. The guy’s resume looks good doing a lot of homeland security consulting but this interview just made me think ‘Joe Forehead politician’ in charge. I’d much rather have some cussing and swearing former fire chief who knows all the cops, fireman, power repair guys by first name because he hangs out with them in a bar during off hours than a guy who looks good on paper.

All I can say is a) thank god I’m no longer living in DC, b) that I have a gun, and c) that I have an abundant food and water source not requiring government assistance (eventhough I hate fishing).

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Caviar Smuggling a growing trade

High speed boats flying through the sea being chased by even faster patrol boats. Cargo and contraband thrown overboard just in time before heavily armed paramilitary troops jump on board the seized vessel. Sounds like another day in the Caribbean, but it’s not.

Caviar smuggling on the Caspian Sea is now a big business. With the price of caviar in the 1000s of Euros, poor fisherman from Dagastan are pilfering the sturgeon out of the Caspian and smuggling the prized eggs back to the fashionable shops of Paris.

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Obama's vanity easy fodder for critics

Pulling no punches, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer goes after the narcissism present in the Obama campaign in a blistering attack.

Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself. There’s nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted “present” nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

Ouch. Krauthammer is infuriating the Obama-tons who troll the Internet seeking to squelch any dissent or criticism of their candidate. The comments section of the Post on this story is already filled with far more vitriol and bile than anything ever said about Bill Clinton or George Bush (well, somewhat similar on the latter). It’s enough to make someone vote against Obama just to smite these types, though I have another standard for my ballot this November.

As I said somewhere else: I always try to vote for a President who is smarter than me but I will never vote for someone who thinks he is.

You know which way I’m voting.

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GAO says MRAP costs growing out of control

The MRAP was an interesting, almost World War II-era emergency procurement program. Utilizing standard compoents and somewhat standard parts, multiple manufacturers rushed to deliver these mine-resistant vehicles to the conflict area without necessarily crossing all the t’s and dotting the i’s in the paperwork.

But now that car bombs and IEDs are down as much as 80% in Iraq, the paperwork is starting to catch up. The GAO is raising concerns about maintenance costs and budget overruns in this ‘emergency’ funding program. This comes as Congress is considering a version 2 of the MRAP, perhaps this time through the normal budgetary channels.

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German press goes after John-Pierre Gontard for being a FARC sympathizer

John-Pierre Gontard, rumored to be the ‘leaker’ in the FARC / Betancourt ransom story, finds himself the subject of a story in the German press that does not paint him, or Switzerland, in a good light. The article is based on some of the emails captured from FARC lapotps and points out how Switzerland was less than a neutral mediator in the dispute.

Switzerland has played a central role in the Colombian hostage crisis as a supposedly “neutral” mediator. But the e-mail correspondence of the FARC, extracts from which are available to Die Weltwoche, shows that a solution of the hostage crisis was never in fact a priority for the FARC. The “negotiations” as such, which provided an international stage for the militarily beleaguered guerilla, were from the start an end in themselves for the FARC. The Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs (EDA), under the direction of Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, took on the role of helpful courier in the cynical game of poker being played by the guerilla and often neglected to take even the slightest distance from the FARC extortionists.

The article later notes that Gontard was offering political advice to the FARC and how to deal with the US captives:

According to the report, the professor also offered his services to Reyes as strategy advisor in the poker game surrounding the hostages. The three Americans that the FARC have likewise taken captive are, according to Gontard, “definitely members of the CIA, the governments represented by him have no interest in them.” On Reyes’s account, Gontard advises him, nonetheless, not to kill the three Americans and to “preserve them in very good condition, since they could still be very useful sometime in the future.” The Swiss professor reportedly tells Reyes that a FARC demand for one hundred million dollars in exchange for a six month ceasefire is realistic. And verbatim: “He says that Ingrid is a jewel [una joya] in the hands of the FARC, because she is very important for the French government.”

Finally, the German press slams Gontard and the ransom story:

The false report concerning a supposed ransom payment originated from his milieu. With it, Swiss diplomacy has lost its last trace of credibility.

It is also worth noting that no additional information regarding a ‘ransom’ has been discovered by any media since the initial claims. Reading through the stories that have been published, they are most a rehash of the original rumor, or slight (and unprovable) theories surrounding the story.

Normally when you have a ’scandal’ story it gets people to digging, but all that has been dug up since the initial press release is, well, nothing. Slightly odd. One would hope even the ‘truther’ types would come up with some explanation that was at least interesting. We’re still waiting for the facts.

Counterterrorism blog has more on this and the Switzerland diplomatic ‘dance with the devil’ policies around the world.

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The lost electronic & dance tracks of the Doctor Who theme composer

Anyone who has heard the original Doctor Who theme knows it was a major event in electronic music. While it seems somewhat simple by today’s standards (probably pretty easy to do with a computer) it was light years ahead of its time when released nearly 40 years ago.

Now a wealth of recordings have been discovered, including some music that would be at home in today’s modern dance clubs.

A hidden hoard of recordings made by the electronic music pioneer behind the Doctor Who theme has been revealed – including a dance track 20 years ahead of its time.

Delia Derbyshire was working in the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop in 1963 when she was given a set of written instructions for a theme tune for a new science fiction series.

Now David Butler, of Manchester University’s School of Arts, Histories and Cultures has revealed for the first time the existence of 267 tapes found in Ms Derbyshire’s attic when she died in 2001.

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