The Wall Street Journal, reporting yesterday on the potential causes of the recent collisions at sea, reports that the NORMAL workweek for a Sailor at sea is 80 hours a week, but that Sailors are AVERAGING 108 hours a week.
I wonder what their pay is at the burger-flipping request for $15 per hour?
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The Navy is under the microscope for it recent Pacific area collisions, but my view is that we should ask, “What do you do when ‘can do’ can’t.
I remember a near 600 ship Navy, and now we have 278, with more challengers on the high seas. The only way to cover is to Work everyone twice as hard, which you can do for short periods but not as the norm. It has been the norm for years.
Anyone who has ever been a Blue Water Sailor knows that ships operate in a hostile environment, salt water, and that maintenance must be constant. If you drive that ship, and therefore its crew, twice as hard then men and machines decay at four times the normal rate.
I stood with a Commanding Officer of my Submarine in Pearl Harbor, who with tears on his face said, “This crew is not ready to deploy, but we will tomorrow because if I say we are not ready, they will replace me with another CO who knows our crew less but will take us on patrol.”
We fortunately came to no major problem, but in those days deployments were only six months. Today deployments are twice that. The Navy is destroying itself because the brass won’t say, “Finally, we no longer can.”
Can do no longer can. Either reduce the tempo of operation, or increase the ships and sailors to get relief for a badly overworked Navy.
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Usually, I pass on presidential speeches, but I hoped he would announce our withdrawal from Afghanistan, and while he did not make me happy with his Pakistan remarks.
One of the reasons I wanted a withdrawal is that we have have paid tribute to Pakistan for more than a decade so that we could provide vehicles, and supplies over the Afghanistan/Pakistan border while at the same time Pakistan has hidden Al Queda fighters. Pakistan has played us like a drum, so if we are to remain we need to weigh heavily on the side of India in the India/Pakistan dispute.
Pakistan my yet overplay their hand and try to choke off the US supplies, but we have a small footprint and can sustain our forces now without Pakistan. We should.
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So what are we to make of the attacks on the settled culture of the nation?
We have sports figures taking a knee or sitting during the National Anthem, statues of not just Confederate soldiers but Christoper Columbus, Washington and Jefferson.
(Conveniently missing are protests against FDR, who racially incarcerated 127,000 Japanese -Americans, seized their homes, land and businesses. Also missing are protests against American Indian warrior statues who fought the US, often joining the armies or navies of American war opponents, and lived in communities who owned slaves. Slavery was a staple of Indian societies both before and during the European invasion.)
In the attack on our culture, technology giants such as Google are reducing conservative sites — joining a general lumping conservatives with Nazis. This cynical lumping is certainly a political attack in reaction to losing the recent national election.
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Perhaps you have never shopped for Walking Sicks or Canes, but if you haven’t then you could be opening up to another world if you did.
I had not thought past a HurryCane for my wife, and when she needed one I bought three because I always wanted one to be at hand when she wants one.
I have been reading novels of Britain in the early 1800s when men carried them as a fashion statement, not just for orthopedic needs. I now need one for balance, so I looked on Amazon and was stunned at the available assortment, and the referrals to other sources!
I really wanted a solid brass Goose head stick but could not easily find one so I ordered my second choice, and when it arrived I was not happy with the wood. Anything made of wood should be spectacular, so I sent my General Factorum across the street where my neighbor turns wood at the museum level, and asked him for a new shaft.
My neighbor immediately brought me a magnificent solid brass Goose head stick with a beautiful walnut staff! He had just produced one stick for his ankle-injured son, and gave several away. . His son had healed so fast, he had not needed a walking stick so my neighbor had offered me one of the sticks for free. I of course refused, and he is now trying to establish a price.
My roaming through the internet brought me into a stick banned by the French during the French Revolution because pushing a button ejects spikes should the Police grab your stick (it is more than $5,000), and another with a sword. Sword canes might have been very useful in crime-ridden London. Even without a sword, a solid brass Goose head cane is a substantial weapon
I am a happy puppy. Now my neighbor must make several for Jean — women staff heads are more colorful, and offer even more options. There is more to life than a Hurry Cane!
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Democrats skate on thin ice, supporting the destruction of Confederate statues, lest someone remember FDR.
FDR racially interned more than 127,000 Japanese in 10 concentration camps during WWII. There were no trials, no Due Process, and it was simply the color of their skin.
FDR was aided and abetted by Democratic scion, California Democratic Governor Earl Warren, who was subsequently awarded by FDR with a Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.
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The KKK members in Charlottesville, and the vandals who pulled down the Confederate statue in just learned a great lesson!
Cameras!
Not just police and media cameras, but neighborhood surveillance cameras and private cameras as well. And those cameras will convict people (one already arrested), and have already caused at least one firing, one man disinherited, and the 82nd Airborne looking for some kid who wore one of their caps while giving a KKK salute.
No longer can you do things in public, anonymously, and the sooner we ban masks, hoods and veils the better off society will be.
But speaking of cameras — the president needs to learn a lesson! He IS his own worst enemy! General Kelley can’t “revise and extend” the president’s remarks when the president is on tape.
Right now, the president’s supporters are hoping this current kerfuffle blows over fast, but as long as there are cameras the president’s lack of self control will be in public display!
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