deaths

Billy Breault left a message on my cell phone … says he has collected enough money to ship the dead terrorist to Russia. Good! Let’s get rid of his body ASAP. If his parents, who live in Russia, have second thoughts and decide not to take him, then the body should be cremated and deposited in the ocean a la Osama bin Laden. That way no extremist of any political strip will make it his or her mission to FIND THE BODY. If the body gets stuck in Worcester, Cambridge, Massachusetts  - or America – the burial site will be a shrine for jihadists the world over. More guns, more bombs, more violence on American soil.

Dispose of this nightmare ASAP.

- R. Tirella

By Edith Morgan

We all have an opinion about weapons: How many, what type, who should have them, where to use them, etc. Our country is awash in guns, assault weapons, and ammunition. Our movies and television programs extol weapon-wielding “heroes” who are presented to our children as the “good guys.” Many of grew up to believe that these brave heroes solve their (and our) problems by shooting the bad guys and thus making us safe. But do we actually feel safer? Do all the motion detectors, alarms, guns under pillows and in drawers, foot patrols, surveillance cameras, deadbolts, and the myriad other defensive devices really make us feel safer?  How much more “protection will we need to feel safe?

Perhaps our problem lies in our definition of “Safe.” Cowards are always afraid. Brave people much less so. The persons who will go down in history as having accomplished great things and influenced millions to do better, have stood up UNARMED , against well-armed enemies, and won. Think of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Moses, Jesus, Buddha – and numerous others like them.

Much closer to home, we all know real ”heroes and heroines” who took risks , and unarmed, convinced others to follow their better selves.

For example: her home never had a weapon in it; but when a young Nazi lieutenant came to her door in the middle  of the night to arrest her husband, she had the courage to demand to see the paperwork, and asked the name of his commanding officer. The young recruit, unaccustomed to being questioned, retreated to get the paperwork, giving the family time to get help and make plans. That same woman, on vacation in Paris, walked up to a group of young American students in the hotel lobby where she and her husband were staying, and asked them to take their feet off the glass-topped table, then proceeded to lecture them on how to behave as representatives of their mutual country, America. Back home, this remarkable lady, while on her daily walk with her husband, found their way obstructed by a group  of teenagers loitering on the corner. She marched up to the group and asked them to make way on the public sidewalk so she and her husband could pass. Miraculously, they did. That woman was my mother – who saved our family many times during the difficult days of WW II.

If we look around our neighborhood, I think we could find people who display that kind of bravery every day: parents, teachers, friends, neighbors – who stand up for what is right, armed only with the courage of their convictions, They should be the real heroes to whom we pay homage. And sometimes, we are smart enough to elect such a person to represent us – a person who speaks truth to power again and again, does not enrich himself at our expense, and bravely forges on despite the odds.

By Steven R. Maher

“Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” have become the United States’ weapon of choice in the war on terror. Better known as “Predator drones”, these 8,000 remote controlled robots have devastated Al Qaeda, disrupted its chain of command, and played a large role in allowing American troops to be withdrawn from Iraq and now Afghanistan.

“According to data compiled by the New America Foundation from reliable news reports, 337 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan have killed an estimated 1,953 to 3,279 people since 2004, of which 1,526 – 2,649 were reported to be militants,” reports one Internet web site. “This means the average non-militant casualty rate over the life of the program is 18-23 percent. In 2012 it was around 10 percent, down sharply from its peak in 2006 of over 600 percent.”

“”In 2012 the USAF [United States Air Force] trained more drone pilots than ordinary jet pilots for the first time,” says Wikipedia.

What are drones made off and how do they work? What are the moral implications of “targeted killings”?
Primary aircraft

Drones were first used for high altitude surveillance in the 1990s. After 9/11, the drones were modified to include ordnance and automate the military’s “kill chain” – “find, fix, track, target, engage and assess” against high value, fleeting and time sensitive targets.

There is a large amount of Internet drone literature, including the Wikipedia entry and the U.S. Air Force web’s “fact sheets” on the nine drones in usage. Robert Valdes has published on Lafayette.edu an insightful article on drones. In an effort to convey to readers the essence of how drones operate, we boiled down the information available, summarizing data to reduce verbiage. Military acronyms are not used extensively. We concentrated on the RQ-1 predators.
“Following 2001, the RQ-1 Predator became the primary unmanned aircraft used for offensive operations by the USAF and the CIA in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas,” says Wikipedia.

The MQ1-B is an armed RQ-1. The change in designation came when the reconnaissance-purpose RQ-1 was armed with two Hellfire missiles in 2002, making it a multi-purpose device (hence the “M” re-designation). Not long afterwards, on November 2, 2002, a predator was first used outside the Afghan war drone, to kill in Yemen Qaed Senyan Al-Harthi, the Al-Qaeda commander of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
“The MQ-1’s capabilities make it uniquely qualified to conduct irregular warfare Operations in support of Combatant
Commander objectives,” says the air force.

How it’s built

Operated in clusters of four, the MQ1-B is made by General Atomics Aeronautical at a fiscal 2009 cost of $20 million for four Predators, the ground control station, and the satellite link up.

The MQ-1B is two yards high, nine yards long, and with a wingspan of roughly nineteen yards. It looks smaller than it appears in pictures. Miniaturization and nano-technology allow packing this small device with much hardware.

• The front compartment contains a “Multispectral Targeting System” that includes the Hellfire missile targeting system; an electrical optical infrared system which can see through haze, smoke or clouds; a laser designator; and a laser illuminator. There is also a GPS system and an ice detector. The equipment in this section “paints the target” by shooting a laser beam, which electronically puts a bull’s eye on the object by sending a pulse from the target to the two Hellfire missiles attached to the Predator. A computer generated “firing solution” calculates the distance, trajectory, wind speed, and other variables to hit the target with pinpoint precision.

• The second compartment contains a satellite communications antenna, a videocassette recorder, the de-icer, flight sensors, a receiver/transmitter, a “friend or foe” transponder, an avionics tray, and a communications sensor.

• The next third of the drone consists of a fuel cell, fuel cell assembly, and accessory bay.

• The fourth compartment of the plane contains the engine cooling fan; the oil cooler/radiator; secondary control module; two eight pound battery backups; a power supply; and a four cylinder, 115 horsepower engine similar to the engines used to power snowmobiles. At the rear is a two-blade propeller providing the drive and lift, and attached is a rudder, which is used to navigate the vessel.

The two fuel tanks are rubberized bladders in the fore and aft sections of the Predator, capable of holding 665 pounds (100 gallons) of 100-octane gasoline. The craft is lubricated by 7.6 liters of standard oil. The de-icer operates through microscopic “weeping holes” on the wings through which an ethylene glycol solution drips out to melt ice accumulated at the 25,000 feet altitude at which the MQ-1B flies.

The rib cage, surrounding the Predator like an elongated oval shaped skeleton, is made up of carbon/glass fiber tape and aluminum. The sensor housing and wheels are aluminum, the edges of the wings titanium. Between the rib cage and operating devices is a layer of carbon and quartz fibers with a mix of Kevlar. Further insulating the components are layers of foam and wood laminate; a sturdy fabric is sandwiched between these layers.
Empty of fuel and ammunition, the MQ-1B weighs 1,130 pounds, a very light aircraft. Fueled, armed, locked and loaded with two Hellfire missiles with a 450-pound payload, the Predator weighs 2,250 pounds, still a lightweight.

How it works

A drone can be disassembled into six parts and loaded into a single container, which can be transported to a war drone in a C130 Hercules, or larger transportation aircraft. It can be reassembled in four to eight hours. It takes 82 men or women to operate one four Predator active service unit over a twenty-four hour period. The flight begins, from a minimum 5,000 feet long surfaced runway, when an operator attaches a power cord to the Predator and turns the drone on.

The MQ-1B has a range of 700 miles and a cruising speed of 135 MPH. This means it must be launched from relatively near the war drone. It takes three to operate a drone: a pilot sitting in front of a computer screen using a flight stick to guide the aircraft, and two sensor operators. The pilot can see what the Predator sees in “real time”, i.e., instantaneously.

Once out of line of sight from its take off point, a satellite transfers control to an operator in the continental United States. “[I]f a predator is lost in battle, military personnel can simply ‘crack another one out of the box’ and have it up in the air shortly – and that’s without the trauma of casualties or prisoners normally associated with an aircraft going down,” writes Valdes. For a casualty conscious military, the predators are the perfect weapons; operators are not exposed to enemy fire. Click to continue »

By Alisa Mullins

The dog on the chain vibrated with excitement as the woman picked her way through the muddy, junk-strewn yard. She was only bringing a bale of straw to line the floor of the dog’s dilapidated doghouse, a small measure of comfort that would hopefully prevent the dog from freezing to death in the coming winter months. But for a dog who goes without human—or canine—contact for 23½ hours out of every 24, this was a thrilling event.

Such impoverished living conditions might find favor with South African President Jacob Zuma, who caused an international uproar recently when he told attendees of a rally that people who lavish their dogs with so-called extravagances, such as taking them to the veterinarian when they are sick, show a “lack of humanity.”

Zuma has it precisely backwards, of course. It has been demonstrated over and over again—so many times that you’d think that it wouldn’t bear repeating—that it is not the people who are kind to animals that we have to worry about. It is the people who are cruel.

That’s because cruel people are equal opportunity abusers. Men who beat their dogs often beat their wives and kids, too. In three separate studies, more than half of battered women reported that their abuser threatened or injured their animal companions. The same goes for negligent and abusive parents. Sixty percent of more than 50 New Jersey families being monitored because of incidents of child abuse also had animals in the home who had been abused. Click to continue »

By Karen Porreca

What if, at your local pet-supply store, you could purchase a dog-training tool that would make your dog weaker, klutzier and less intelligent? And what if this tool increased your dog’s frustration and fearfulness about the world and made him or her less likely to bond with you? Would you buy it? Of course not! Yet, millions of these “tools” are sold every year to unsuspecting dog lovers who want the absolute best for their dogs. The tool is a “crate,” which is just a euphemism for a cage. In fact, dog crates are even smaller than most cages that are used to house dogs in laboratories.

In their new book Dogs Hate Crates: How Abusive Crate Training Hurts Dogs, Families & Society, Ray and Emma Lincoln discuss in detail the detrimental effects of crating on dogs’ well-being. They explain how the crating trend got started, what continues to fuel it, why it’s so harmful and what the alternatives to crating are. The authors are experienced dog trainers and behavior specialists who found that they were spending much of their training time trying to undo psychological and behavioral symptoms caused by crating.

Shockingly, it is now commonplace for people who use crates to keep their dogs in them for upwards of 18 hours per day, according to the authors: nine hours while the owner is at work (including a commute), another eight hours at night, any hours during which no one is home in the evening and on the weekend and any time that company comes over or the dog is simply “underfoot.” Click to continue »

Why are China and Russia – two of the most repressive countries on earth – allowed to be voting members of the United Nations? Why is it that what they think carries the same weight as the opinions of  the USA, England, France? Amazing! Secretary of State Clinton will have none of their nefarious games – especially when the roads of Syria are littered with corpses of women and children – many beheaded.

We must help the people of Syria!

Good piece:
http://mobile.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-05/clinton-calls-for-immense-pressure-on-assad-after-un-veto.html

R. T.

By Paula Moore

November is the peak month for collisions between cars and deer, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Insurance groups estimate that about one in every 100 drivers will be involved in a deer-vehicle collision at some point in his or her life. A fatal crash late last month in Indiana illustrates how heartbreaking such encounters can be. Seven people—including four children—were killed after their minivan hit a deer and was subsequently struck by a semi-trailer.

While hunters invariably point to such tragedies as justification for killing even more deer, the blame for deer-vehicle collisions falls at least partly on their own shoulders.

Pennsylvania-based Erie Insurance, which has analyzed deer-vehicle collision data in the state for more than a decade, found that the opening day and opening Saturday of deer hunting season are “[t]wo of the most dangerous days to drive.” According to the Missouri Insurance Information Service, increased deer activity associated with hunting is a “major factor” in the rise in deer-vehicle collisions in the last three months of the year. Click to continue »

By Deb Young

VegWorcester and Private Citizens for Pets in Peril , two Worcester based organizations met with many concerned people from around the region and members of the Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition last month to protest the Ringling Bros. Circus, outside the DCU Center.

We met with much support and very little criticism, only one man who walked by shouted at an older protester for her to “Get a life” and her quick response was “ I have one, Do you?” Click to continue »

This from today’s Boston Globe (Boston.com). We wholeheartedly agree with the Feds! Let’s get something started, Worcester!

- R. T.

By Boston Globe Staff:

“Federal transportation safety experts say Massachusetts is among the eight states that have done the least to stop hardcore drunken driving.

“The National Transportation Safety Board, which is holding a news conference Thursday on the measures that states can take, has made 11 recommendations intended to stop what the agency calls “hard core drinking driving,” which is defined as either driving with a prior DWI arrest or a blood alcohol content of 0.15 or more.

“Six states have implemented eight or more of the recommendations; 36 have implemented five or more. Eight, including Massachusetts, have implemented four or fewer, the NTSB said in a statement.

“The feds would like the state to enact, among other proposals, laws requiring convicted DWI offenders to maintain a zero blood alcohol level while driving; restricting the plea bargaining of a DWI offense to a lesser, non-alcohol-related offense; and eliminating diversion programs that would erase a DWI offense record or allow the offender to avoid license suspension.

“The agency said that in 2009, 7,607 of the of the 10,839 people killed in alcohol-related crashes were killed in accidents involving hardcore drunken drivers.”