Three Senators Put Their Lives On The Line

Yesterday from the AP:

A military cargo plane carrying three senators and a House member was forced to take evasive maneuvers and dispatch flares to avoid ground fire after taking off from Baghdad on Thursday night.

The lawmakers said their plane, a C-130, was under fire from three rocket-propelled grenades over the course of several minutes as they left for Amman, Jordan.

“It was a scary moment,” said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who said he had just taken off his body armor when he saw a bright flash outside the window. “Our pilots were terrific. ... They banked in one direction and then banked the other direction, and they set off the flares.

”Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., as well as Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., were also on the plane.

Cramer and Martinez said they had just begun to relax about five or 10 minutes after the plane took off under darkness.

Crew members apparently communicated to the pilots as they saw the initial RPG fired from the ground, Cramer said. After the first burst, the pilots maneuvered aggressively and set off flares used for drawing incoming fire away from aircraft.

Once the flares lit up the sky, lawmakers said, two more RPGs were fired as the pilots continued maneuvering.

Martinez said he quickly put back on his body armor.

“We were jostled around pretty good,” said Cramer, who estimated the plane had ascended to about 6,000 feet. “There were a few minutes there where I wondered: 'Have we been hit? Are we OK?'”

Capt. Angel Wallace, a spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command, said she was not aware of the incident, and military public affairs officials in Baghdad could not be reached immediately. [Emphasis added.]

Yeehah! Ride 'em Cowyboys!

But there are a couple of aspects to this story that have a fishy odor about them. All you have to do is sniff a little:

First, Bud Cramer "estimated the plane had ascended to about 6,000 feet."

Second, the Senators claim that their plane had been taken "under fire from three rocket-propelled grenades over the course of several minutes..."

Third, the Senators relate that "after the first burst, the pilots maneuvered aggressively and set off flares used for drawing incoming fire away from aircraft."

But if it was dark, how could these clowns 1) estimate that they were at 6,000 feet, and 2) determine that it was RPGs that were being fired at them?

The RPG is a dumb weapon. It has no guidance system. Therefore, had RPGs indeed been fired at them, the pilots would have had no need to employ countermeasures (the flares). If they did, indeed, employ the flares, it would have been because they suspected some sort of shoulder-fired surface-to-air weapon was being employed against them.

The absolute maximum horizontal range of the RPG-7 is 920 meters (3,018 feet). At that range, the weapon has practically no accuracy and would be used exclusively for harassment purposes against stationary targets. Trying to fire the weapon vertically at a fast-moving target 6,000 feet high would have been a fruitless endeavor. I'm quite sure no insurgent or al-Qaeda member would waste an RPG round in such silly way.

You would think that the media would stop interviewing these idiots and give us all a break.

Animals Were Killed In the Production Of This Film

From the Alaska Department of Fish and Game comes this article by Riley Woodford:

Lemmings do not commit mass suicide. It's a myth, but it's remarkable how many people believe it. Ask a few.

"It's a complete urban legend," said state wildlife biologist Thomas McDonough. "I think it blew out of proportion based on a Disney documentary in the '50s, and that brought it to the mainstream.

"Lemmings are a kind of short tailed vole, a mouse-like rodent that favors tundra and open grasslands. Three kinds are found in Alaska, including the collared lemming, the only rodent that turns white in winter.

In 1958 Walt Disney produced "White Wilderness," part of the studio's "True Life Adventure" series. "White Wilderness" featured a segment on lemmings, detailing their strange compulsion to commit mass suicide.

According to a 1983 investigation by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation producer Brian Vallee, the lemming scenes were faked. The lemmings supposedly committing mass suicide by leaping into the ocean were actually thrown off a cliff by the Disney filmmakers. The epic "lemming migration" was staged using careful editing, tight camera angles and a few dozen lemmings running on snow covered lazy-Susan style turntable.

"White Wilderness" was filmed in Alberta, Canada, a landlocked province, and not on location in lemmings' natural habitat. There are about 20 lemming species found in the circumpolar north - but evidently not in that area of Alberta. So the Disney people bought lemmings from Inuit children a couple provinces away in Manitoba and staged the whole sequence. [Emphasis added.]

THOSE HEARTLESS, CRUEL DISNEY BASTARDS!!!! The lemmings "were actually thrown off a cliff by the Disney filmmakers"?

And to think that I've believed that mass-suicide lemming crap my entire life.

Disney sucks.


Animals were, indeed, harmed in the making of that film.

More Whining About Profiling

From NEWS.com.au:

The largest civil rights organisation of American Sikhs has expressed outrage with a new US airport security policy that it says allows arbitrary searches of turbans, a sacred headdress for members of the religion.

The Sikh Coalition said it had been informed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that under its new guidelines, turbans could be subject to manual pat-downs even if their wearers had passed a metal detector test.

"Telling screeners to search people in turbans is the same as telling them to search black people or Arabs or Muslims," Amardeep Singh, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, said.

"The policy allows screeners to single out travelers on the basis of their religion."

TSA spokeswoman Lara Uselding acknowledged that on August 4, the agency that oversees security at 450 US airports as well as railroads, ports and mass transit systems revised its screening procedures for head coverings.

But she denied the changes that would be carried out by all 43,000 US airport screeners had anything to do with religious beliefs espoused by travellers.

The turban is a sacred headdress in the Sikh religion given to its followers by the religion's founding gurus, or prophets.

Obligatory for men and optional for women, it is worn to underscore the distinct Sikh identity and full commitment to the faith, according to members of the religion. [Emphasis added.]

Well what the hell? Someone in the TSA should inform old Amardeep that telling screeners to search people in turbans is NOT the same as telling them to search black people or Arabs or Muslims. It merely tells screeners to pat down igloo-sized cloth headdresses on people going through airport security. After all, who's to say that there isn't a hunk of Semtex or C-4 stuffed up under the igloo-hat? Or some sort of plastic or wooden weapon? Something that metal detectors would miss....

And who's to say that old al-Qaeda Abdul from Al Madinah or Damascus won't grow a curly beard and moustache, wrap an oversized paper towel around his head, and try to pass himself off as a Sikh? While carrying explosives onto a plane....

Try wearing a baseball cap, Amardeep. They're easier to take off.

Hypocrisy

But let's get serious. This is from Fox News:

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards says he wants people to give up their sport utility vehicles. Edwards told a labor group Tuesday that Americans should drive more fuel-efficient vehicles and called the U.S. "the worst polluter on the planet."

Edwards' campaign concedes he does own a hybrid Ford Escape SUV, along with a 2004 Chrysler Pacifica midsize SUV, but says he uses that less often now.

Edwards was also asked about the apparent contradiction of asking Americans to sacrifice while he lives in a 28,000 square foot mansion in North Carolina. He replied that he came from nothing and worked hard all his life — saying, "I have no apologies whatsoever for what I've done with my life."

Translation: Y'all shut up, you toothless unwashed bastards, and buy a Prius!

Meanwhile, here's a picture of Hair Boy getting ready to climb into a....

More Fresh Spinach Recalled

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON - A California produce company recalled bagged fresh spinach Wednesday after it tested positive for salmonella.

There were no immediate reports of illness linked to the tainted spinach, distributed by Metz Fresh LLC of King City, Calif.

The recall comes nearly a year after an outbreak of another pathogen, E. coli, in fresh spinach killed three people and sickened another 200.

The recalled spinach was distributed throughout the 48 states and Canada and sold in both retail and food service packages. It covers 8,118 cases of spinach, although the company said more than 90 percent of that was on hold and would not be released.

While only a single sample from one of three packing lines tested positive for salmonella, the company said it moved to recall all the spinach packed that same day as a precaution.

If I remember right, the last spinach recall had something to do with animal feces getting into the spinach fields from adjacent pasturage.