Do you believe this guy? Whack job Congressman and failed presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich,(D)--Crazyville, bought a wrap from the House cafeteria back in 2008. He claims that there was an olive pit in the wrap, which rendered it "unfit for human consumption". He further claims that said olive pit hurt one of his teeth. So this guy--a guy who makes $174,000 a year AND gets free dental care courtesy of the US taxpayers--is trying to sue the cafeteria contractor and pretty much everyone who ever had anything to do with making or selling that wrap. He's demanding $150,000 for "current and future dental expenses" even though he gets free lifetime dental care, and for "pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment".
Does he care this this suit takes money out of the pockets of all of those "little people" that he and his party claim to represent? Obviously not. All he really cares about, apparently, is enriching himself by any means, even if it takes food off the tables of many people who will never land a cush job like he's got...one where he gets paid mad money and gets lifetime medical and dental care (none of that "Obamacare" crap for him) just for showing up most days.
$150K. Just because he bought an olive sandwich with an olive in it. Half of me hopes that he never orders a fish dinner lest he find a fishbone in his meal. The other half of me hopes that he does and chokes on that fishbone.
What a scumbag. No wonder that neither he or his lawyer are willing to answer questions about this suit. Dennis Kucinich is a poster boy for the old saying about us getting the government that we deserve.
Wait--that's not correct. The losers in Ohio may deserve the guy, but I sure don't. How about you?
Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Stacie Mullins at it again.
Stacie Mullins, the Ohio woman charged back in March for her part in the theft and senseless torture death of a baby alpaca has been arrested again after she and co-punk Nicolas Reynolds fled from the police, reaching speeds of 80-90mph before they crashed into a tree after stop-sticks were deployed.
Stacie is reportedly married to and has a daughter with a soldier serving in Iraq. He's got to be overjoyed to know that while he's overseas risking his life for this country, the mother of his child is still whoring around with the same teen-aged boys that she was arrested with earlier this year. Now I don't hold much stock in the idea of men hitting women, but if there was ever a justification for domestic violence it's this case, and I would not blame her husband one bit for giving her the ass-whipping that she so richly deserves when he gets home.
Seriously, some people just need to be taken out to sea, tied to an anchor and pitched off the deck of a ship.
more here
A teen aged suspect in the alpaca beating case now has a 250,000.00 bond.As part of her pre-trial release in this case, she'd been ordered to stay away from co-defendant Reynolds, but we can see how well that order worked out. Hopefully that 250,000 bond is a cash bond that will ensure that she'll be held at least until her September trial.
17 year old Nicholas Reynolds and 23 year old Stacie Reynolds were arrested together Saturday night after leading police on a chase and crash.
Police say Reynolds was driving drunk at the time of the crash.
Judge Speath initially revoked both Mullins and Reynolds' bonds. Mullins and the teen were ordered to stay away from eachother.
Reynolds and 18 year old Marcus Miller stole an alpaca in January and beat it to death. Mullins was the driver during that incident.
Marcus Miller has changed lawyers and will be in court July 20th. Reynolds does not have his next court date scheduled, yet. Stacie Mullins has a status report coming up September 13th, while a jury trial scheduled for September 21st.
Stacie is reportedly married to and has a daughter with a soldier serving in Iraq. He's got to be overjoyed to know that while he's overseas risking his life for this country, the mother of his child is still whoring around with the same teen-aged boys that she was arrested with earlier this year. Now I don't hold much stock in the idea of men hitting women, but if there was ever a justification for domestic violence it's this case, and I would not blame her husband one bit for giving her the ass-whipping that she so richly deserves when he gets home.
Seriously, some people just need to be taken out to sea, tied to an anchor and pitched off the deck of a ship.
more here
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Back in town
Posting has been sparse lately because I've been out of town. Family business took me away for a bit, but Lagniappe and I are back now. Lagniappe will now be going on a diet, since his spending several days with my mother always results in his eating far too much ice cream.
We got back in last night and unpacked, and today it's back to business as usual. I would, however, like to give a perfect example of why capitalism and competition in the marketplace will always beat the alternative such as we're seeing with Obama's mandated health care scam. Forf this example, I have to point you all to the Ohio Turnpike.
At each rest stop along the turnpike, east or west, there is a restaurant. Typically the Turnpike Authority grants the concession to one food-serving restaurant only. Sometimes there may be a Starbucks or some other lite venue there, but only one "sit-down" concessionaire per stop. In most of these rest stops, it's a McDonalds.
Now this would not be bad in itself. I can eat at McDonalds occasionally. However these McDonalds restaurants typically suck in both pricing and the customer service department. Prices are much higher in these stores than in any other McDonalds, and in every one that I saw in both directions, there were long, slow lines for service because they were only manning one or two registers while three to five other registers just had "Next Register Please" signs on them. Lots of people wanted food, but they all had to wait ridiculously long times to get it--and pay more for it.
Why does it work like that? because there is no alternative. It's McDonalds or nothing. They are the only food choice on the turnpike, and you can't just hop on and off easily anywhere you like because the exits are few and far between and you have to screw with the tolls both exiting and re-entering if you do. So it makes sense to just stay on and deal with it, but that also means that you have to accept whatever shitty service that McDonalds feels like giving you, and they know that most of you will because there's just no other choice. You can't just shrug at their lines and prices and go over to the Burger King next door; McDonalds has a monopoly and they exploit that fact to the detriment of their customers.
After seeing this played out in multiple rest stops both going and returning, I finally confronted a manager named Samantha at the Glacier Hills store, 12500 Beard Road, in Springfield, Ohio. I pointed out that she had four cash registers but only one was being used. There was a long line of customers--it would have been longer but people kept walking away in disgust--but she was still only running at 25% capacity. Meanwhile, it took me ten minutes to get to the counter just to order a damned Big Mac. Samantha was quick to start tossing out excuses. One worker has a seizure and broke her nose. Another one was pregnant. Two others had just left--during the lunch rush--because it was the end of their shifts. She was short-handed and there was nothing she could do about it.
"You could hold people over or call them back in for overtime," I suggested.
"Oh, I can't do that," she replied.
"No, you can do it," I corrected. "You just won't. There's a difference. Don't tell me that none of these people working here would take the opportunity to make some time and a half if you offered it to them." I made sure to say that loudly enough for several people behind the counter to hear.
"You've got the people. You're just not willing to cut into the owner's profits because you don't worry that any of these people in line here are going to go buy food somewhere else. You've got a lock on the market here so you're not worried about treating the customers like crap."
Samantha again began to reel off a litany of excuses as to why she was short-handed and unable to remedy the situation, but she was talking to other people in line now--I was walking out. I was, however, pleased to see that others in the line had taken up where I left off and were giving her hell about it. I had given voice to the frustrated people and spurred them to protest. My job was done.
I am, however, still writing letters to both McDonalds and the Turnpike Authority. McDonalds needs to kick their franchisees in the ass and the TA needs to allow some competition in these rest areas and put two or more full-service restaurants in them. That way, customers would have a choice and if one didn't want to treat them right or offer decent prices, they could walk over to the other one, just like we used to be able to do with our health care providers before St. Barack rode in on his magic unicorn and pushed a law through saying that from now on, we can only eat at McDonalds, and that henceforth, no one can refuse to eat at McDonalds, even if they aren't hungry.
I can hardly wait for the new health care scam to take effect, because then every visit to the doctor's office or hospital will be just like driving on the Ohio Turnpike! Yay.
We got back in last night and unpacked, and today it's back to business as usual. I would, however, like to give a perfect example of why capitalism and competition in the marketplace will always beat the alternative such as we're seeing with Obama's mandated health care scam. Forf this example, I have to point you all to the Ohio Turnpike.
At each rest stop along the turnpike, east or west, there is a restaurant. Typically the Turnpike Authority grants the concession to one food-serving restaurant only. Sometimes there may be a Starbucks or some other lite venue there, but only one "sit-down" concessionaire per stop. In most of these rest stops, it's a McDonalds.
Now this would not be bad in itself. I can eat at McDonalds occasionally. However these McDonalds restaurants typically suck in both pricing and the customer service department. Prices are much higher in these stores than in any other McDonalds, and in every one that I saw in both directions, there were long, slow lines for service because they were only manning one or two registers while three to five other registers just had "Next Register Please" signs on them. Lots of people wanted food, but they all had to wait ridiculously long times to get it--and pay more for it.
Why does it work like that? because there is no alternative. It's McDonalds or nothing. They are the only food choice on the turnpike, and you can't just hop on and off easily anywhere you like because the exits are few and far between and you have to screw with the tolls both exiting and re-entering if you do. So it makes sense to just stay on and deal with it, but that also means that you have to accept whatever shitty service that McDonalds feels like giving you, and they know that most of you will because there's just no other choice. You can't just shrug at their lines and prices and go over to the Burger King next door; McDonalds has a monopoly and they exploit that fact to the detriment of their customers.
After seeing this played out in multiple rest stops both going and returning, I finally confronted a manager named Samantha at the Glacier Hills store, 12500 Beard Road, in Springfield, Ohio. I pointed out that she had four cash registers but only one was being used. There was a long line of customers--it would have been longer but people kept walking away in disgust--but she was still only running at 25% capacity. Meanwhile, it took me ten minutes to get to the counter just to order a damned Big Mac. Samantha was quick to start tossing out excuses. One worker has a seizure and broke her nose. Another one was pregnant. Two others had just left--during the lunch rush--because it was the end of their shifts. She was short-handed and there was nothing she could do about it.
"You could hold people over or call them back in for overtime," I suggested.
"Oh, I can't do that," she replied.
"No, you can do it," I corrected. "You just won't. There's a difference. Don't tell me that none of these people working here would take the opportunity to make some time and a half if you offered it to them." I made sure to say that loudly enough for several people behind the counter to hear.
"You've got the people. You're just not willing to cut into the owner's profits because you don't worry that any of these people in line here are going to go buy food somewhere else. You've got a lock on the market here so you're not worried about treating the customers like crap."
Samantha again began to reel off a litany of excuses as to why she was short-handed and unable to remedy the situation, but she was talking to other people in line now--I was walking out. I was, however, pleased to see that others in the line had taken up where I left off and were giving her hell about it. I had given voice to the frustrated people and spurred them to protest. My job was done.
I am, however, still writing letters to both McDonalds and the Turnpike Authority. McDonalds needs to kick their franchisees in the ass and the TA needs to allow some competition in these rest areas and put two or more full-service restaurants in them. That way, customers would have a choice and if one didn't want to treat them right or offer decent prices, they could walk over to the other one, just like we used to be able to do with our health care providers before St. Barack rode in on his magic unicorn and pushed a law through saying that from now on, we can only eat at McDonalds, and that henceforth, no one can refuse to eat at McDonalds, even if they aren't hungry.
I can hardly wait for the new health care scam to take effect, because then every visit to the doctor's office or hospital will be just like driving on the Ohio Turnpike! Yay.
Monday, March 01, 2010
What should we do with Stacie Mullins?
22 year old Stacie Mullins of Madison Township, Ohio has just reached the top of my list of people who need to be beaten within an inch of their lives, then branded with a scarlet letter on her forehead, then sterilized to prevent her from ever having children, then flown to the Sudan and sold into slavery.If you've guessed by this point that I have a real problem with this person, you've guessed correctly.
Oh--and I want the same penalty applied to her two teenaged accomplices in the savage and totally uncalled for and inexcusable beating death of a baby Alpaca.
Two teens and an adult have been charged in the theft and fatal beating of a Madison Township family's alpaca.Seriously, how do you do something that inhumane, the purely evil?The 3-month-old animal, named Masterpiece, was taken Feb. 5 from the family's farm in the 1700 block of Browns Run Road, and investigators said they found a trail of blood leading away from the scene.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested last week and charged with animal cruelty, breaking and entering and tampering with evidence.
A second teen and a woman, identified as 22-year-old Stacie Mullins, have also been charged in the attack.
Authorities have not released the names of either teen because they are juveniles.
Detectives said the three photographed themselves at least once as they beat the animal with a wooden board.
The animal's owner, Rebecca Hardin, had said the suspects videotaped themselves as they hung the animal and beat it, but police said that information was not accurate.
A detective said the teens, who both had dropped out of Madison High School, stole the animal to "mess with it and have fun."
Police said the teens admitted to taking the alpaca from Hardin's yard and beating it to death, then placing its remains in Mullins' car, taking it to her home and beating it some more.
"Each of them even ended up writing out statements to their involvement to taking the alpaca, striking it with a board several times in the side and head, killing it and dumping it in Montgomery County," said Detective Mike Gutowski, of the Butler County sheriff's office.
Its eyes were missing when the body was discovered, but police were not sure if another animal had eaten them or if the suspects damaged them.
The alpaca also had broken ribs and a punctured lung, police said, and a necropsy has been scheduled.
Some of the family's neighbors hope to raise $8,000 to buy them another alpaca, which are South American herd animals related to camels and llamas.
I've seen some horrible things in my time--probably more than most people ever will--but this sort of casual savagery just takes the prize.
And there's no coming back from doing something this depraved; there's no redemption possible. How do you take a baby animal from it's mother and then sadistically torture it to death? What kind of twisted person would ever consider that "fun" the way that Stacie Mullins and her two teen friend admittedly did? Stacy Mullins and her co-criminals need to be segregated from the normal decent people, and steps need to be taken to ensure that they're never allowed to be around animals or small children, and that includes ever having children of their own.
If you're as outraged and appalled as I am, take a moment and call or write to Butler County Prosecutor Robin N. Piper and urge that the two juveniles be prosecuted as adult offenders and that maximum penalties and permanent records be sought for all three of these scumbags.
Robin N. Piper
Butler County Prosecuting Attorney
P.O. Box 515
Hamilton, OH 45012
Main Number: 513.887.3474
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Come on, Ohio....Kill the guy already.
Romell Broom needs to be off our planet today. But those prison volunteers just can't seem to get it together.
LUCASVILLE, Ohio — Executioners struggled to find suitable veins to put a condemned inmate to death Tuesday in a prison scene reminiscent of the problems that delayed executions in 2006 and 2007 and led to changes in Ohio's lethal injection process.Guys--he raped and murdered a 14 year old girl--someone's child. And this was after he'd already done time for raping another 12-year old girl. If you can't find a vein, I'll donate a baseball bat. Come to think of it, I'll just loan you the bat. I want it back when you're done. I'm betting I could auction it off for big bucks on eBay and donate the proceeds to a crime victims' fund.
The team of prison volunteers was having trouble inserting IVs into the arms of 53-year-old Romell Broom, who entered the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility shortly before 2 p.m., said Tim Sweeney, one of Broom's attorneys.
Sweeney said execution team members took a break after struggling to access the Broom's veins.
He lost a last-minute appeal earlier in the day, delaying the execution originally scheduled for 10 a.m.
Messages were left for prison officials in Lucasville and for the Ohio Attorney General's office.
A medical evaluation Monday determined that veins in Broom's right arm appeared accessible, while those in his left arm were not as visible.
Broom is sentenced to die for raping and killing 14-year old Tryna Middleton in Cleveland in 1984.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
USS Cod Pt.2
Sorry for the scarcity of posts. I've been sick these past few days.
Anyway, here's more of my pics and info on the USS Cod (SS224), the Gato-Class fleet submarine now moored in Lake Erie just east of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland.
Our visit begins with a drop down a hatch via a vertical ladder into this room, the forward torpedo room. Cod, like the rest of the Fleet Boats, had ten torpedo tubes, six forward (shown here--the bottom two are hard to see with the decking in place.) and four more in the aft end. She carried 24 torpedoes. A number of the crew also berthed in these compartments among the torpedoes, and they were always happy when some were fired, because it meant that much more room. The torpedoes were either electric or steam-powered and the ones in the tubes had to be withdrawn every few days to have their battery or alcohol levels checked--not an easy task when a torpedo weighed over 3,000 lbs and had to be moved around by block and tackle and muscle power.
Here's a look into one of the torpedo tubes. You're looking at the inside of the outer door twenty-one feet away. When the torpedo is inside, the inner door is closed, the tube is flooded, the outer door is opened, and a blast of compressed air shoots the torpedo forward. as it goes, the torpedo's motor is started and once out of the tube, it's off on it's own, hopefully to run straight and true to the enemy. Sadly this was not always the case, and many torpedoes surfaced prematurely, ran too deep, and in at least two known incidents, ran in a large circle and sank the submarines that launched them. (Tang, SS306, and Tullibee, SS284.)
These cozy little bunks in the forward torpedo room were known as the "honeymoon suite" and generally fell to the Stewards--black or asiatic men who took care of the menial kitchen and laundry duties. It was as cramped as any other, but also the hottest and wettest due to condensation from the humid air inside forming on the torpedo-loading hatch above the bunk.
Going aft, we entered into "Officer's Country", where the ship's seven or eight officers worked, slept and ate. They had their own small kitchen (shown here) and wardroom and one shower between them, and except for the Captain, they bunked two to a small compartment. Sorry that I have no pictures of this area, but I was trying to keep up with a hyper-excited ten-year old.
I caught the kid in the Control Room, just aft of Officers' Country. this is where the submarine's electrical panel is as well as her targeting computer and the wheels that control her dive planes fore and aft. Also in this compartment are the handles that operate the valves to the ballast tanks that open to dive the boat and the compressed-air valves that fill those tanks with air again to surface the boat.
Shown here are those handles that open the ballast tanks, just below a panel with red and green lights known as the "Christmas Tree". Those lights represent every hatch and intake on the sub and show with red for open (bad for diving)< and green for closed. when the signal to dive is given, everyone throughout the boat has a job to do, and someone is responsible for closing each of those openings before the boat can dive.
These are the switches that activate the various horns telling the crew to either prepare to dive or report to General Quarters ("Battle Stations"). The klaxons still work on the Cod, but these days when you activate them, instead of 80 men jumping to various stations, you get one grumpy mechanic from the Engine Room coming forward wanting to know who is fooling with the alarms.
And since it was obvious that those switches still worked, I decided to leave this one alone.
Back in the day, our submarines were considered state-of-the-art secret weapons and highly classified. So in oder to keep them from falling into enemy hands, they came equipped with a "self-destruct" system (shown here) that would scuttle the boat if capture appeared imminent.
It's noteworthy to mention Captain John P. Cromwell, USN here. He was aboard USS Sculpin (SS191) on November 19, 1943, when she was damaged to the point of being forced to surface. Cromwell had been briefed on the upcoming Tarawa invasion and rather than risk having the Japanese find out about it via torture, he elected to go down with the ship after the rest of the crew had abandoned it. For that act of selfless sacrifice, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Notable about the Cod is that her conning tower compartment is partially accessible, something not usually seen on these museum subs nowadays due to liability concerns. But here, you're allowed to climb part way up the ladder into the conning tower and see where much of the actual war-fighting was done. Notice the periscope here. This is where the 'scopes were in real World War Two submarines. Most war movies show the captain using the scope down in the Control Room below. But that wasn't the case in reality; the periscopes (there were two--an observation scope for general looking around and a narrower attack scope for combat use) only came down into this small compartment. Kudos to the Cod Association for opening this up to the public.
Aft of the Control Room there was this small radio room. This was the submarine's only way of communicating with the rest of the world. It was high-tech back in the 1940's, but today one could simply mount more powerful and versatile radio gear on a shelf or two somewhere. This was vacuum-tube equipment!
Then it was aft again, through the crew's galley and mess (shown in the previous Cod post here with Spud at the table.) This set-up fed the eighty or so enlisted men of the crew. One thing about sub duty though was that they got the best food of any ship type in the navy. It was a small perk, but an appreciated one. They also got 50% added to their pay for submarine duty, and 20% for sea duty. Of course the basic Seaman Apprentice was only making twenty-one dollars a month at the beginning of the war.
Aft of that was the main crew berthing area, where most of the enlisted crew slept. At least on these boats, most of the crewmembers got their own bunks, but "hot-bunking", a practice where two men shared a bunk--one sleeping while the other worked--was not unheard of when space was short. Again, I have no pictures of this area, thanks to the kid. I also have none of the engine rooms, but that was my fault, because I was talking to the mechanic about the four General Motors diesel-electric motors therein and forgot to take any. Sorry!
Now back past the engine rooms (there were two--one for each pair of engines) was the Maneuvering Room. This was where the power was channeled from the four engines either into the batteries (recharging) or to the electric motors that actually turned the propellers, or a combination of both. In these boats, the diesels just turned generators, and that power was used to run the boat. The propellers were coupled to electric motors housed in a compartment below this one and not directly hooked to the diesels. This room and the engine rooms forward of it were the hottest and noisiest, with temperatures as high as 130 degrees not uncommon. There was no air conditioning back then, and hearing loss was inevitable.
Aft of this was the After Torpedo Room, and the hatch leading to the deck above.
These are the propeller guards, installed to protect the prop blades when coming alongside piers or other vessels. The prop arc extended out past the normal curvature of the hull, and without guards like this, damage to--or destruction of--the propellers was virtually inevitable.
And here's the view looking back up her deck. The closest hatch is the one coming out of the Aft Torpedo Room, and ahead of that you can see the hatch coming up off of the crews' mess. The yellow tub on the port side is a rescue buoy that would be released in the event of a sinking to mark the sub's position. During wartime, however, it would be welded in place to prevent it from being jarred loose by enemy action. Also note the four rings in the hull around the aft hatch. Those were used to secure specialized diving bells intended to be used to rescue the crews of sunken submarines (in peacetime). This was done in 1939 when the USS Squalus (SS192) was sunk by flooding due to a catastrophic valve failure during a test. 32 sailors and a civilian contractor were rescued.
Note also the decking. It's perforated steel now, but during the war, it would have been teakwood. Teak was used because it's dense and heavy and would sink if broken off by depth-charging instead of floating to the surface to give the sub's position away. Unfortunately, it's hard to get enough teak these days to replace an entire sub deck.
Here's the sub's deck gun, in this case a 5"/25 wet gun. This gun could be submerged under water and still remain functional. It had a five-inch bore, a range of 14,500 feet, and could fire about ten rounds a minute with a well-trained crew. It used two crewmen to aim--one to traverse it right-to-left, and the other one to raise and lower the barrel vertically. This gun was used to attack targets considered too small to waste a torpedo on. Torpedoes cost $10,000 each--a fortune in 1940's money.
And here's the fairweather from the outside. Note the 40MM Bofors gun on the fore and aft decks. These were intended for anti-aircraft use as well as for use against small vessels.
And then there's the scoreboard. During her seven WW-II war patrols Cod fired 122 torpedoes recording 39 hits. Her skippers claimed 10 ships sunk and 5 damaged by torpedo. Cod also chalked-up another five ships, 24 junks and 11 floating mines as "sunk by gun fire".
Note also a martini glass, symbol of a celebration between the crew of the Cod and the Dutch Submarine O-19, which had run aground and was destroyed by Cod after her crew was taken off.
See that video here:
I have to say that Cod is one of the best-preserved museum subs left in the country, and I've seen most of them. It was an honor and a privilege to go aboard this proud veteran and should you find yourself anywhere near Cleveland, I'd recommend that you make the time to see her. And when you do, remember that 52 of these boats went out during the war but never came back. Most were lost with all hands and many still lie in locations known only to God. Over 3,500 servicemen made the ultimate sacrifice in submarines--over 22% of the men who served in them. This was the highest loss rate for any branch of the US Armed Forces in World War Two.
See more of the USS Cod and read more of her story here.
Anyway, here's more of my pics and info on the USS Cod (SS224), the Gato-Class fleet submarine now moored in Lake Erie just east of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland.
Our visit begins with a drop down a hatch via a vertical ladder into this room, the forward torpedo room. Cod, like the rest of the Fleet Boats, had ten torpedo tubes, six forward (shown here--the bottom two are hard to see with the decking in place.) and four more in the aft end. She carried 24 torpedoes. A number of the crew also berthed in these compartments among the torpedoes, and they were always happy when some were fired, because it meant that much more room. The torpedoes were either electric or steam-powered and the ones in the tubes had to be withdrawn every few days to have their battery or alcohol levels checked--not an easy task when a torpedo weighed over 3,000 lbs and had to be moved around by block and tackle and muscle power.
Here's a look into one of the torpedo tubes. You're looking at the inside of the outer door twenty-one feet away. When the torpedo is inside, the inner door is closed, the tube is flooded, the outer door is opened, and a blast of compressed air shoots the torpedo forward. as it goes, the torpedo's motor is started and once out of the tube, it's off on it's own, hopefully to run straight and true to the enemy. Sadly this was not always the case, and many torpedoes surfaced prematurely, ran too deep, and in at least two known incidents, ran in a large circle and sank the submarines that launched them. (Tang, SS306, and Tullibee, SS284.)
These cozy little bunks in the forward torpedo room were known as the "honeymoon suite" and generally fell to the Stewards--black or asiatic men who took care of the menial kitchen and laundry duties. It was as cramped as any other, but also the hottest and wettest due to condensation from the humid air inside forming on the torpedo-loading hatch above the bunk.
Going aft, we entered into "Officer's Country", where the ship's seven or eight officers worked, slept and ate. They had their own small kitchen (shown here) and wardroom and one shower between them, and except for the Captain, they bunked two to a small compartment. Sorry that I have no pictures of this area, but I was trying to keep up with a hyper-excited ten-year old.I caught the kid in the Control Room, just aft of Officers' Country. this is where the submarine's electrical panel is as well as her targeting computer and the wheels that control her dive planes fore and aft. Also in this compartment are the handles that operate the valves to the ballast tanks that open to dive the boat and the compressed-air valves that fill those tanks with air again to surface the boat.
Shown here are those handles that open the ballast tanks, just below a panel with red and green lights known as the "Christmas Tree". Those lights represent every hatch and intake on the sub and show with red for open (bad for diving)< and green for closed. when the signal to dive is given, everyone throughout the boat has a job to do, and someone is responsible for closing each of those openings before the boat can dive.
These are the switches that activate the various horns telling the crew to either prepare to dive or report to General Quarters ("Battle Stations"). The klaxons still work on the Cod, but these days when you activate them, instead of 80 men jumping to various stations, you get one grumpy mechanic from the Engine Room coming forward wanting to know who is fooling with the alarms.
And since it was obvious that those switches still worked, I decided to leave this one alone.
Back in the day, our submarines were considered state-of-the-art secret weapons and highly classified. So in oder to keep them from falling into enemy hands, they came equipped with a "self-destruct" system (shown here) that would scuttle the boat if capture appeared imminent.
It's noteworthy to mention Captain John P. Cromwell, USN here. He was aboard USS Sculpin (SS191) on November 19, 1943, when she was damaged to the point of being forced to surface. Cromwell had been briefed on the upcoming Tarawa invasion and rather than risk having the Japanese find out about it via torture, he elected to go down with the ship after the rest of the crew had abandoned it. For that act of selfless sacrifice, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Notable about the Cod is that her conning tower compartment is partially accessible, something not usually seen on these museum subs nowadays due to liability concerns. But here, you're allowed to climb part way up the ladder into the conning tower and see where much of the actual war-fighting was done. Notice the periscope here. This is where the 'scopes were in real World War Two submarines. Most war movies show the captain using the scope down in the Control Room below. But that wasn't the case in reality; the periscopes (there were two--an observation scope for general looking around and a narrower attack scope for combat use) only came down into this small compartment. Kudos to the Cod Association for opening this up to the public.
Aft of the Control Room there was this small radio room. This was the submarine's only way of communicating with the rest of the world. It was high-tech back in the 1940's, but today one could simply mount more powerful and versatile radio gear on a shelf or two somewhere. This was vacuum-tube equipment!
Then it was aft again, through the crew's galley and mess (shown in the previous Cod post here with Spud at the table.) This set-up fed the eighty or so enlisted men of the crew. One thing about sub duty though was that they got the best food of any ship type in the navy. It was a small perk, but an appreciated one. They also got 50% added to their pay for submarine duty, and 20% for sea duty. Of course the basic Seaman Apprentice was only making twenty-one dollars a month at the beginning of the war.
Aft of that was the main crew berthing area, where most of the enlisted crew slept. At least on these boats, most of the crewmembers got their own bunks, but "hot-bunking", a practice where two men shared a bunk--one sleeping while the other worked--was not unheard of when space was short. Again, I have no pictures of this area, thanks to the kid. I also have none of the engine rooms, but that was my fault, because I was talking to the mechanic about the four General Motors diesel-electric motors therein and forgot to take any. Sorry!
Now back past the engine rooms (there were two--one for each pair of engines) was the Maneuvering Room. This was where the power was channeled from the four engines either into the batteries (recharging) or to the electric motors that actually turned the propellers, or a combination of both. In these boats, the diesels just turned generators, and that power was used to run the boat. The propellers were coupled to electric motors housed in a compartment below this one and not directly hooked to the diesels. This room and the engine rooms forward of it were the hottest and noisiest, with temperatures as high as 130 degrees not uncommon. There was no air conditioning back then, and hearing loss was inevitable.Aft of this was the After Torpedo Room, and the hatch leading to the deck above.
These are the propeller guards, installed to protect the prop blades when coming alongside piers or other vessels. The prop arc extended out past the normal curvature of the hull, and without guards like this, damage to--or destruction of--the propellers was virtually inevitable.
And here's the view looking back up her deck. The closest hatch is the one coming out of the Aft Torpedo Room, and ahead of that you can see the hatch coming up off of the crews' mess. The yellow tub on the port side is a rescue buoy that would be released in the event of a sinking to mark the sub's position. During wartime, however, it would be welded in place to prevent it from being jarred loose by enemy action. Also note the four rings in the hull around the aft hatch. Those were used to secure specialized diving bells intended to be used to rescue the crews of sunken submarines (in peacetime). This was done in 1939 when the USS Squalus (SS192) was sunk by flooding due to a catastrophic valve failure during a test. 32 sailors and a civilian contractor were rescued.
Note also the decking. It's perforated steel now, but during the war, it would have been teakwood. Teak was used because it's dense and heavy and would sink if broken off by depth-charging instead of floating to the surface to give the sub's position away. Unfortunately, it's hard to get enough teak these days to replace an entire sub deck.
Here's the sub's deck gun, in this case a 5"/25 wet gun. This gun could be submerged under water and still remain functional. It had a five-inch bore, a range of 14,500 feet, and could fire about ten rounds a minute with a well-trained crew. It used two crewmen to aim--one to traverse it right-to-left, and the other one to raise and lower the barrel vertically. This gun was used to attack targets considered too small to waste a torpedo on. Torpedoes cost $10,000 each--a fortune in 1940's money.
And here's the fairweather from the outside. Note the 40MM Bofors gun on the fore and aft decks. These were intended for anti-aircraft use as well as for use against small vessels.
And then there's the scoreboard. During her seven WW-II war patrols Cod fired 122 torpedoes recording 39 hits. Her skippers claimed 10 ships sunk and 5 damaged by torpedo. Cod also chalked-up another five ships, 24 junks and 11 floating mines as "sunk by gun fire".
Note also a martini glass, symbol of a celebration between the crew of the Cod and the Dutch Submarine O-19, which had run aground and was destroyed by Cod after her crew was taken off.
See that video here:
I have to say that Cod is one of the best-preserved museum subs left in the country, and I've seen most of them. It was an honor and a privilege to go aboard this proud veteran and should you find yourself anywhere near Cleveland, I'd recommend that you make the time to see her. And when you do, remember that 52 of these boats went out during the war but never came back. Most were lost with all hands and many still lie in locations known only to God. Over 3,500 servicemen made the ultimate sacrifice in submarines--over 22% of the men who served in them. This was the highest loss rate for any branch of the US Armed Forces in World War Two.
See more of the USS Cod and read more of her story here.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
I'm back
Sorry for the absence--had to head up to Lake Huron for a week-end of wreck diving and shooting with Aaron of The Shekel. I had a good drive up, and we got in plenty of great diving and some shooting. Now I'm back, and I'm blessed (or cursed...I haven't decided yet) with the presence of my ten year old nephew whom I shall call "Spud".
Now this will be the first time that I have had a kid around for a whole week with no other adults around to foist him off on. We'll see how this goes. I have one week to turn him into a man and/or make him into a little "Mini-me", and I'm not really sure how to go about it. I have been looking to R. Lee Ermey for some pointers on how best to motivate him, but I'm not 100% convinced that it's the right way to go about it.
On the way down, we stopped in Cleveland for a few hours.
I took the boy on a tour of the USS Cod, a World War two Gato class fleet submarine. It's moored off E. 9th Street just east of the Science Center, and of all of the surviving museum subs I've seen--and I've seen most of them--this one's probably in about the best shape.
Here's the Spud climbing down the ladder into the forward torpedo room. He was totally in awe of being able to do this. He had to touch and see everything--he was so fascinated. Seeing him have an actual interest in something that's actually real and not a video game was terrific.
And here's the Spud in the crew's mess. He looks like a natural, doesn't he? FOOD!!!
After seeing the whole interior from bow to stern--and seeing what happens when his uncle flips the switch to activate the still-functional "Dive" alarm (a staff member comes forward from the engine room and demands to know who is monkeying with the alarms when you do this, just so you know when you visit.)--we went topside and he got to spin the cranks and traverse and elevate the deck gun.
He loved this submarine and wouldn't stop talking about it and telling me how "cool" it was...at least until we got to the next thing to see...the Great Lakes ore carrier William G. Mather.
This beautiful ship worked the Great Lakes as part of the Cleveland Cliffs fleet from 1925 until 1980, when she was retired. Now moored at the Cleveland Science Center, it's a fantastic example of what shipping on the lakes used to be like.
Here's the Spud, trying his hand as a wheelsman.
And here's a shot of the engine room, showing the massive diesel that the Mather finished her career with. The engine room is larger than a typical house and is four stories tall. And when a volunteer asked the Spud if he had any questions about it all, Spud just pointed to a nearby drinking fountain and asked "Does that still work?"
Kids...
But apparently I tired him out, because he slept much of the way back after that.
And Lagniappe? He was just happy to be rescued--Uh, I mean "retrieved"--from Nicki's house and brought back to the Lair.
So now that I've got a kid for the rest of the week, what am I supposed to do with him? Any ideas?
Now this will be the first time that I have had a kid around for a whole week with no other adults around to foist him off on. We'll see how this goes. I have one week to turn him into a man and/or make him into a little "Mini-me", and I'm not really sure how to go about it. I have been looking to R. Lee Ermey for some pointers on how best to motivate him, but I'm not 100% convinced that it's the right way to go about it.
On the way down, we stopped in Cleveland for a few hours.
I took the boy on a tour of the USS Cod, a World War two Gato class fleet submarine. It's moored off E. 9th Street just east of the Science Center, and of all of the surviving museum subs I've seen--and I've seen most of them--this one's probably in about the best shape.
Here's the Spud climbing down the ladder into the forward torpedo room. He was totally in awe of being able to do this. He had to touch and see everything--he was so fascinated. Seeing him have an actual interest in something that's actually real and not a video game was terrific.
And here's the Spud in the crew's mess. He looks like a natural, doesn't he? FOOD!!!
After seeing the whole interior from bow to stern--and seeing what happens when his uncle flips the switch to activate the still-functional "Dive" alarm (a staff member comes forward from the engine room and demands to know who is monkeying with the alarms when you do this, just so you know when you visit.)--we went topside and he got to spin the cranks and traverse and elevate the deck gun.
He loved this submarine and wouldn't stop talking about it and telling me how "cool" it was...at least until we got to the next thing to see...the Great Lakes ore carrier William G. Mather.
This beautiful ship worked the Great Lakes as part of the Cleveland Cliffs fleet from 1925 until 1980, when she was retired. Now moored at the Cleveland Science Center, it's a fantastic example of what shipping on the lakes used to be like.
Here's the Spud, trying his hand as a wheelsman.
And here's a shot of the engine room, showing the massive diesel that the Mather finished her career with. The engine room is larger than a typical house and is four stories tall. And when a volunteer asked the Spud if he had any questions about it all, Spud just pointed to a nearby drinking fountain and asked "Does that still work?"
Kids...
But apparently I tired him out, because he slept much of the way back after that.
And Lagniappe? He was just happy to be rescued--Uh, I mean "retrieved"--from Nicki's house and brought back to the Lair.So now that I've got a kid for the rest of the week, what am I supposed to do with him? Any ideas?
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Andrew Mizak--nominee for Loser of the Year, 2009
File this one under "You've got to be kidding..."
An Ohio man actually called the police because his obese 28 year old son--who still lives in the man's basement--refused to clean his room and threw a plate of food at him.
And if that isn't weird enough, the overgrown man-child, Andrew Mizsak, is a member of the local school board and insists that he's prominent in local Democratic Party politics.
So what we have here is a fat, over-indulged loser who has become, thanks to his parents’ enabling and refusal to push him out the door into the grown people’s world, a 28 year old spoiled brat. He even cries when the police tell him to go clean his room. I’ve known six-year olds more mature than this putz.
Anyone wanna place a bet on whether or not he’s still single?
And I can’t help but notice the fact that the stories all seem to avoid mentioning his political affiliation. So with that in mind, I did a bit of Google investigating.
Sure enough, he’s a Democrat.
I was pretty confident that he would be, because if he’d been a Republican, it would have been in the headlines. But I figured that he might also have been a Libertarian, what with him living in his parents’ basement and apparently not having a real full-time job and all.
(School board jobs are part time and usually don’t pay a lot of money if they pay at all, and “political consultant” is like “artist” or “actor”. Yeah, it’s possible to make a living doing just that, but most people who so label themselves actually spend a lot more time waiting tables or flipping burgers.)
Here's an article that he recently wrote for the Bedford, Ohio School Board website. In that article (besides gushing over Obama), he writes:
So Dad—who seems to lack any idea of what it means to be a man (undoubtedly a Democrat as well)—has to call the police because his fat (270 lbs) slob of an underachiever son won’t clean his room. Then dad apologizes, clearly not because he wasted the time of the police officers, but really because he doesn’t want to harm his fat sissy of a son's obviously promising chance for a career in politics. The nut sure didn’t fall far from the tree in this goofy family.
But it sure does say something for the voters in Bedford, Ohio that this whole family has been elected to some political office or another. And while it’s true that we usually get the government that we deserve, if I lived in Bedford, I’d be pissed if my slack-jawed, idiotic neighbors continually imposed losers like that on me come election day.
An Ohio man actually called the police because his obese 28 year old son--who still lives in the man's basement--refused to clean his room and threw a plate of food at him.
And if that isn't weird enough, the overgrown man-child, Andrew Mizsak, is a member of the local school board and insists that he's prominent in local Democratic Party politics.
It's odd enough that a Bedford father would actually call police after arguing with his son about cleaning his room.
Stranger still, the sloppy son is 28 years old and serves on the Bedford School Board.
"I know this looks bad," said School Board member Andrew Mizsak, who lives with his parents and also works as an independent political consultant. His mother, Paula, is a Bedford councilwoman.
Mizsak's dad, also Andrew, called 9-1-1 on Thursday after his son threw a plate of food across the kitchen table and balled his fist up at his dad when told to clean his room.
The senior Mizsak, 63, wouldn't press charges and told police, "I don't want to ruin his political career." According to the report, he said: "Andrew is 270 pounds and he can't fight him, that they do everything for Andrew and he doesn't even pay rent."
The elder Mizsak said Saturday, "I overreacted. No big deal."
According the report, "Andrew was sent to his room to clean it. He was crying uncontrollably and stated he would comply."
Mizsak said he was embarrassed to take police away from more important work.
"My dad and I love each other very much," he said, promising to keep his basement room clean. "I'm lucky to be living in their house."
So what we have here is a fat, over-indulged loser who has become, thanks to his parents’ enabling and refusal to push him out the door into the grown people’s world, a 28 year old spoiled brat. He even cries when the police tell him to go clean his room. I’ve known six-year olds more mature than this putz.
Anyone wanna place a bet on whether or not he’s still single?
And I can’t help but notice the fact that the stories all seem to avoid mentioning his political affiliation. So with that in mind, I did a bit of Google investigating.
Sure enough, he’s a Democrat.
I was pretty confident that he would be, because if he’d been a Republican, it would have been in the headlines. But I figured that he might also have been a Libertarian, what with him living in his parents’ basement and apparently not having a real full-time job and all.
(School board jobs are part time and usually don’t pay a lot of money if they pay at all, and “political consultant” is like “artist” or “actor”. Yeah, it’s possible to make a living doing just that, but most people who so label themselves actually spend a lot more time waiting tables or flipping burgers.)
Here's an article that he recently wrote for the Bedford, Ohio School Board website. In that article (besides gushing over Obama), he writes:
I must tell you that I am not just a Democrat, I am the Democratic Leader of the City of Bedford and Village of Walton Hills, Ohio,...All I can draw from this is that the other Democrats there must be some serious goobers if this lame-o can rise to the top of their heap.
So Dad—who seems to lack any idea of what it means to be a man (undoubtedly a Democrat as well)—has to call the police because his fat (270 lbs) slob of an underachiever son won’t clean his room. Then dad apologizes, clearly not because he wasted the time of the police officers, but really because he doesn’t want to harm his fat sissy of a son's obviously promising chance for a career in politics. The nut sure didn’t fall far from the tree in this goofy family.
But it sure does say something for the voters in Bedford, Ohio that this whole family has been elected to some political office or another. And while it’s true that we usually get the government that we deserve, if I lived in Bedford, I’d be pissed if my slack-jawed, idiotic neighbors continually imposed losers like that on me come election day.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Living in the country is great...until city folks move in next door.
And in Ohio we have a case of two self-absorbed yuppie "artists" who bought a house knowing that it was next to a Boy Scout camp that has been teaching shooting to kids for over sixty years and who are now trying to get the camp's range shut down.
And it's not like the Scouts haven't been trying to fix things. Norris explains:
So what we have here is hippies lying about the level of annoyance and also putting up loudspeakers and cursing at the Scout Leader. That makes it pretty clear just what sort of folks these "artists" are. I wouldn't want them as my neighbors either.
Cutting to the chase, I think it's obvious what this is about. It's nothing more than a couple of elitist leftist hippie-types who undoubtedly hate guns, hate the Scouts, and just want to drive them off the land that they were using before these whiners were even born. They couldn't possibly have not known about that camp and it's activities before moving in had they exercised even a tiny bit of diligence and asked their realtor or any of the other neighbors. They knew that they were moving in next to a place where wholesome American kids learned valuable skills, including marksmanship and hunter safety. This is just another example of someone who moves from the city out to a nice country environment and then tries to bring all the city rules and regulations with them to impose on the people that were there first.
And what is it that these "artists" create that requires so much silence? Is it something worthy of Rembrandt, Degas, Van Gogh or Renoir?
Nah. It's just a bunch of fake-assed African schlock where guys in suits worship antelopes.
Yeah, that's sure worth more than guiding and teaching hundreds of young men every year.
Damn hippies need to move in next to Lagniappe and me. We'd make it a point to run at least one belt through the Browning every evening just to help them put the Boy Scouts and their occasional use of single-shot .22's in perspective.
......................................."Yo! Hippies! GET SOME!"......................................
source more
HENRIETTA TOWNSHIP -- Deborah Banyas and her husband, Terry Speer, thought they were buying their dream house in the rolling farmland of southwestern Lorain County 10 years ago. Then the gunfire started, spoiling their idyllic retreat.But that's not exactly true. According to the Scouts,
The source of the gunfire is a shooting range at the neighboring Firelands Scout Reservation on Gore Orphanage Road.
"It's constant banging all day long," Banyas said. "Even if we go in the house, close the windows and turn up music, it's loud. It never stops."
shooting only happens 9 a.m. to noon and 2 to 5 p.m. on weekdays during the five weeks camp is open. Children also shoot 7:30 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday nights during camp. There is also shooting six to 10 Saturdays a year and one day of shooting when the Young Marines come to camp.That's hardly "constant" or even regular. Five weeks in the summer during set daytime hours, and six to ten Saturdays. And what do scouts shoot? .22 rifles and small-bore shotguns. Nothing large or noisy.
Since 1998, the couple have lived on their 20-acre property, home to their Riverdog Art Studio, where the two artists create mixed-media sculptures. They said they have a hard time working with all the racket coming from the 450-acre reservation next door.
Banyas said the noise is at its worst during the annual six weeks of summer camp, which ended recently, when the shooting goes on all day long. But the noise also continues much of the year, she said. It got worse three years ago when the camp put up a metal roof over part of the range.
"Now the gunfire echoes even louder," she said.
Palli Holubar, who has lived nearby since 1998, said she gets frustrated at the "endless staccato and noise." The blasts intrude on simple pleasures like Sunday morning walks on her property.
Camp Executive Director Barry Norris said the camp has been there for more than 60 years and the Scouts have worked hard to be good neighbors. The shooting ranges are needed so the Scouts can qualify for merit badges.
And it's not like the Scouts haven't been trying to fix things. Norris explains:
"We put up wooden panels to deaden the noise and covered some with carpet. . . . We moved our shotgun range to the other side of the camp. We eliminated the black powder gun demonstrations because they were too loud," he said. "I don't know what else we could do."And of course the hippies claim that the Scouts shoot machine guns, a claim that the Scouts deny. Rick Cloud, program director for the Scouts’ Heart of Ohio Council, said no one is permitted to shoot automatic or semiautomatic weapons. He also said that the Scouts tried to soundproof the range near Banyas that is used for .22-caliber rifles and that neighbors have put loudspeakers on the edge of the property to harass the Scouts and cursed in the presence of children.
Three township trustees inspected the range and were satisfied with what they found, Township Trustee Butch Born said.
Banyas said the loudspeakers were used only once, on July 4 weekend.
Speer acknowledged using a “rather nasty” word to camp Ranger Dan Thomas while calling him a liar, but Speer said no children heard him.
So what we have here is hippies lying about the level of annoyance and also putting up loudspeakers and cursing at the Scout Leader. That makes it pretty clear just what sort of folks these "artists" are. I wouldn't want them as my neighbors either.
Cutting to the chase, I think it's obvious what this is about. It's nothing more than a couple of elitist leftist hippie-types who undoubtedly hate guns, hate the Scouts, and just want to drive them off the land that they were using before these whiners were even born. They couldn't possibly have not known about that camp and it's activities before moving in had they exercised even a tiny bit of diligence and asked their realtor or any of the other neighbors. They knew that they were moving in next to a place where wholesome American kids learned valuable skills, including marksmanship and hunter safety. This is just another example of someone who moves from the city out to a nice country environment and then tries to bring all the city rules and regulations with them to impose on the people that were there first.
And what is it that these "artists" create that requires so much silence? Is it something worthy of Rembrandt, Degas, Van Gogh or Renoir?
Nah. It's just a bunch of fake-assed African schlock where guys in suits worship antelopes.
Yeah, that's sure worth more than guiding and teaching hundreds of young men every year.
Damn hippies need to move in next to Lagniappe and me. We'd make it a point to run at least one belt through the Browning every evening just to help them put the Boy Scouts and their occasional use of single-shot .22's in perspective.
......................................."Yo! Hippies! GET SOME!"......................................source more
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Day #2. Camp Perry
Even though I wasn't registered to shoot this year, I still had to stop by Camp Perry, Ohio to take in a bit of the National Matches.
If nothing else, is was just good to listen to all of the shooting and see several hundred Americans walking around with military rifles, no doubt giving Sarah Brady nightmares but otherwise harming no one. For you see, these are some of the best people in America--the dedicated marksmen (and markschicks) who use these guns to compete while maintaining their readiness for military service should this nation ever need them. (Yes, that's what the old Department of Civilian Marksmanship was set up for in the first place--to train capable civilian shooters with military weapons should they ever be needed for military service.)
In past days I'd spent hundreds (or thousands) of dollars here buying guns and ammunition. But this year money being tight, I bought a coffee mug and went on my way. And I will be back in 2008 as a serious competitor again.
If nothing else, is was just good to listen to all of the shooting and see several hundred Americans walking around with military rifles, no doubt giving Sarah Brady nightmares but otherwise harming no one. For you see, these are some of the best people in America--the dedicated marksmen (and markschicks) who use these guns to compete while maintaining their readiness for military service should this nation ever need them. (Yes, that's what the old Department of Civilian Marksmanship was set up for in the first place--to train capable civilian shooters with military weapons should they ever be needed for military service.)
In past days I'd spent hundreds (or thousands) of dollars here buying guns and ammunition. But this year money being tight, I bought a coffee mug and went on my way. And I will be back in 2008 as a serious competitor again.
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