This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Hondo

  • Another “Hothead” With a Gun . . .

    . . . uses it to stop a home invasion.  And this “hothead” did it while in a wheelchair.

    Mark Sikes, an ex-Army MP who now uses a wheelchair, was at his home.  He heard a noise from the vicinity of his front door.

    Then he saw an intruder in his hallway.

    Sikes reached over and took his 9mm pistol out of a nearby drawer.  He raised it.

    The would-be burglar saw this and decided to “exit stage left” immediately.  That was probably a good decision.  Ex-MPs generally can hit a man-sized target at fairly close range.

    Sykes lives in Georgia.  Just think how “wonderfully” this would have all turned out if Sykes had lived in NYC or Chicago – where legally owning a pistol is virtually impossible unless you’re a cop or have “connections”.

  • USS Guardian – An Update

    I wrote a few days ago about the USS Guardian running aground near the Philippines.  The latest word is that the ship is taking on water, the crew has been evacuated, and that the ship will have to be “lifted off the rocks” in order to be freed.  It will reportedly take another week or two to free the ship.

    That’s not good.

    The grounding occurred in an offshore area of the Philippines that has been declared a marine park and a World-Heritage site.  Another report indicates that the ship ignored radio warnings from Philippine park rangers that they were nearing the park, refused to let Philippine Park rangers permission to board in order to check paperwork, and told the park rangers to take their complaints “to the US Embassy.” (This second report is from what appears to be a blatantly anti-American source, so it’s perhaps best taken with the proverbial grain of salt.)

    It’s beginning to look like s fair number of people on that ship might want to start working on resumes.

  • This Week’s Friday “Feelgood” Story

    For a change, this one doesn’t involve firearms.  But I think it still qualifies.

    Poor guy.  He was unable to work, and unemployed.  He said it was due to his injuries while in the military.  He had a bad back and a “mental condition” that prevented him from working.

    So he went down to the VA and applied for disability.  The VA took care of him – to the tune of about $200,000 in benefits.

    There was only one problem:  after a while, the VA checked up on him.  And it turns out the guy was . . . well, lying.

    While “unemployable” and drawing VA bennies, it turns out he had been working for a wreath manufacturer, as a fisherman, and as a painter.  Oops.

    Yesterday, Richard Ramsdell Jr, age 38, pleaded guilty in Federal court in Bangor, ME.   He’s facing a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and full restitution.

    Hope you’re reading this, Joe Cryer.  And I hope you’re looking over your shoulder.

    You should be.

  • Sinclair’s PR Site

    As regular TAH readers know, I’ve been periodically writing about the case of BG Jeffery Sinclair, US Army, who is currently facing courts-martial for a number of very serious charges.  Jonn vectored me to a couple of links he got from another TAH reader, AndyFMF.  The links are from a website that someone – my guess would be Sinclair’s legal team – has come up with a website touting Sinclair’s innocence.

    I took a look at the website.  I’ll hit the high points and give my impressions below.  Disclaimer:  I’m not a lawyer – just an educated layman with some knowledge of and interest in the law.  Comments/corrections from qualified lawyers, particularly from our military JAG readers, are solicited and welcome.

    1. The site can be found here.
    2. The site appears to be essentially a PR exercise aimed at generating sympathy for Sinclair.  Predictably, it attacks Sinclair’s accuser, his prosecutor, and the evidence against him.  It also touts Sinclair’s history and bio.
    3. It does not divulge the name of Sinclair’s accuser.
    4. It points out some legitimate weaknesses in the prosecution’s case.  Some of the evidence for some of the charges indeed appears weak.  Other evidence presented at Sinclair’s Article 32 hearing resulted in some of the original accusations being dropped.
    5. However, IMO in at least one other area the prosecution team may have really stepped on its collective schvantz.  Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a new prosecution team take over the case prior to trial.
    6. That said, some of the “shortcomings” the site points out are, bluntly, BS.  In particular, they make much of the fact that Sinclair “passed a polygraph” and that his accuser has not taken one.  JAGs out there correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that polygraph results are not admissible in courts-martial proceedings as evidence.  There are numerous known instances of a liar “beating” a polygraph.
    7. The site also makes much of the fact that multiple people had access to Sinclair’s computer, where evidence was found that pornographic images had been accessed – in some cases, when Sinclair was known to be absent.  While that is indeed true, charges relating to specific instances where porn was accessed during a time Sinclair was shown to have been absent apparently were later dropped.  And I’d like to think that the Army actually had the sense to have a good computer forensic tech (the Army indeed has some very good ones) look at the machine in question prior to the Article 32 hearing.
    8. The site admits that Sinclair had a consensual extramarital affair with a subordinate as well as use “bad judgment” in exchanging “inappropriate” text messages (presumably racy ones) with four other women – who were apparently also Sinclair’s subordinates.  That admission alone is enough to end Sinclair’s career.
    9. While the “forcible sodomy” charge against Sinclair may sound weak as his PR site presents it, that charge is likely legally much stronger than Sinclair’s site would lead one to believe.  Past instances of Army Drill Sergeants engaging in consensual sex with trainees have been successfully prosecuted as rape.  This was apparently due to the extreme difference in rank under the theory that the extreme difference in rank and position effectively constituted coercion.  I’m guessing a BG hitting on a junior officer (e.g., a LT or CPT) might well be considered just as coercive a situation as a Drill Sergeant hitting on a trainee.

    Bottom line:  the site strikes me as primarily a blatant and rather transparent PR effort, designed to garner sympathy for Sinclair among members of the public.  Even if Sinclair is innocent, I personally find such a public PR effort distasteful and beneath what I’d expect from a military GO.  YMMV regarding both the site and how distasteful you find it.

    Sinclair at this point has to know his career is over.  He’s now simply fighting to stay out of jail and keep his pension.  I’d guess he probably doesn’t much care about appearances and decorum.

    TSO Adds: Um, this is interesting reading…. (Click twice so you can read it.)

    Um

  • “Good Grief!”

    The actor who provided the voice of Peanuts’ character “Charlie Brown” in numerous “Peanuts” TV specials has been arrested on charges including stalking.

    No, I’m not kidding.

    (Sigh.)  Maybe the Mayans were right after all and we just didn’t get the memo yet.

  • Congress Gets One Right

    This story has gotten some publicity elsewhere.  But  I haven’t seen an update on TAH since Jonn’s original article, so I thought I’d do one.

    Apparently a key Senate committee recently refused to recommend approval for one Navy Reserve Captain recommended for promotion to RDML.  The guy they’re”blackballing” is a former naval aviator – with a confirmed air-to-air kill!  The nomination was returned to the White House without action, effectively killing it unless the POTUS chooses to nominate the individual a second time.

    Personally, I’m OK with that.  The air-to-air kill occurred in September 1987, during a training exercise.  And the jet he downed – a RF-4C – happened to belong to the USAF.

    (more…)

  • Stan the Man and the Earl of Baltimore

    A pair of giants of yesteryear from our National Pastime passed last weekend.  Earl Weaver and Stan Musial both died Saturday.

    Both are members of the MLB Hall of Fame.  Both were IMO deserving of Cooperstown.

    They were as different as chalk and cheese.

    (more…)

  • “Good for the Environment”, Eh?

    Looks like our Hollywood “do-gooder” environmentalist extraordinaire Leonardo DiCaprio is at it again.  This time, he’s taking substantial time off from his acting career to do “good for the environment”.

    In an interview with Germany’s mass circulation daily Bild, the 38-year-old American actor said: “I am a bit drained. I’m now going to take a long, long break. I’ve done three films in two years and I’m just worn out.”

    “I would like to improve the world a bit. I will fly around the world doing good for the environment.”

    OK, let’s take him at his word.  And let’s look at what the effect of this trip will be on Mother Earth.

    Now, you know a Hollywood “A-list” type like DiCaprio isn’t going to fly anywhere on regularly scheduled airlines.  He’ll fly on a private or chartered jet.

    Let’s be kind and assume he uses a small LearJet – say, a small one like the Bombardier 35A.  That aircraft can cruise comfortably at around 400 knots, or 460 MPH, for a bit over 2000 miles – in round numbers, about of 4.5 hours flight time.

    That aircraft uses 197 gallons of jet fuel per hour at cruise.  So each 2000 miles will use about 885 gallons of jet fuel.

    Now, assume 30,000 miles for the total length of DiCaprio’s round the world “save the planet” tour.  (He’ll certainly be visiting “down under”, NZ, and probably South Africa and South America, plus North America, Europe, and parts of Asia – so that’s probably an underestimate.)  Doing the math, that comes to around 13,300 gallons of jet fuel.

    Chemically, jet fuel is kerosene-based. Kerosene has an average chemical composition of C12H26.  That means it’s approximately 85% carbon by weight.

    Jet fuel weighs about 6.8 pounds per gallon.  So DiCaprio is going to burn about 90,400 pounds – or about 45 tons – of jet fuel on his trip.

    That amount of jet fuel will contain about 38.3 tons of carbon.  But remember:  according to the “save the world” crowd – “Carbon . . . . baaaaad!”

    Why is carbon “bad”?  Well, according to the “save the world” crowd it’s because it produces carbon dioxide.

    Virtually every atom of carbon in that jet fuel will produce a molecule of CO2 when burned. (The tiny fraction that doesn’t will produce stuff that’s even worse as a pollutant – unburned hydrocarbons, soot, etc . . . .)  Since the carbon is only about 27% of the weight of each molecule of CO2, burning this amount of jet fuel will add more than 140 tons of carbon dioxide to the earth’s atmosphere.

    That’s just the jet travel.  It doesn’t account for the fuel for DiCaprio’s chauffer-driven limo at each stop.  (What, do you expect him to rent a Volkswagon and drive himself anywhere?)  Or the fuel for the vehicles for his bodyguards or his entourage.  Or the energy used to heat/cool their hotel rooms.  Or . . .well, you get the picture.

    Also, a “round the world” trip like this shouldn’t take more than 3 months.  All of the above fuel and energy?  That’s only what DiCaprio’s going to waste – unnecessarily – in about 3 months.  Wonder what he’ll burn through during the rest of the year?

    Here’s a real world sanity check:  a guy or gal driving a car that gets 20 miles to the gallon 15,000 miles annually burns 750 gallons of fuel.  That’s only about 5.6% of the more than 13,400 gallons of fuel DiCaprio will waste in 90 days during his meaningless publicity stunt.

    Hypocrisy, thy name is “Hollywood”.  Or here, maybe that should be “DiCaprio”.

     

    Look, I’m all for conserving resources for the next generation.  I don’t want to see the environment spoiled. I want my kids and grandkids to have a nice place to live.  They won’t if we screw up the planet.

    But what DiCaprio’s doing here isn’t “saving the planet” – it’s nothing more than meaningless grandstanding to feed his ego.  Like so many other libidiot ideas and causes, it sounds good initially and makes people “feel good”.  But when you analyze it, just like many libidiot ideas and causes it’s actually wasteful and counterproductive.

    Want to really help “save the earth”, Lenny my boy?  Then freaking stay home vice traveling the globe – and promote conservation from and within Hollywood.

    You make films for a living.  You should be able to figure out how to reach people from a distance.

     

    (Author’s note:  the original version of this article used diesel fuel as a basis for calculation of the amount of CO2 generated by DiCaprio’s upcoming “save the world” tour.  That was an error.  The reference originally consulted erroneously implied modern jet fuel is chemically similar to diesel fuel. That is not the case; like most older jet fuels, modern Jet A and Jet A1 are kerosene-based. The error has been corrected above.)