I feel sorry for our law enforcement officers here in America and here is why.
Our law enforcement officers have many function but I guess you can say the top two are enforcing the laws and to keep people safe. Most, most if not all, law enforcement officers probably consider keeping people safe the number one priority. I have never seen an officer take this lightly. These are people you call when stuff is going down. These are the people who do there best to save others by putting themselves in the line of fire.
I feel sorry for law enforcement because many times they are under appreciated or blamed for something happening because they weren't right there when called. Now they have to put up with criticism of how they do their job when facing a dangerous situation. People scream murder if an officer shoots a person carrying a knife and acting in a threatening manner. They argue that the knife is not deadly enough to justify the carrier being shot. Sorry folks, a knife can kill you just ass dead as a gun. To let a person just keep going with a dangerous weapon puts not just the officers life in danger but others as well.
What would I do facing a knife wielding suspect? I am not a law enforcement officer but I did serve in the navy and received small arms and security force training. In the situation I would probably aim for center mass and fire. Why not shoot the knife out of his hand or wing the person? This is real life and not the movies. Let's say you try to shoot the knife and miss. Well depending how far away you are or others are to the suspect you will probably get cut or stabbed. Crazy moves fast and is now pissed off at you so they are going to want to draw blood. Now you have to think fast and change your aim (if you couldn't hit the knife when the target was stationary you sure are not going to hit it when it is flailing around) by the time you shift your aim the suspect is right on top of you and you are now wishing you aimed for center mass in the first place.
Now how many shots would I use? Enough to put the person down hard. You just cannot risk the lives of your comrades and innocents. The suspect would probably die, and any death is sad, but once a person takes up a weapon and uses it in a threatening manner they put their own life in jeopardy.
Now there may have been cases, and probably will be cases, when an officer makes a bad decision, but the majority will not. Most officers act to save lives and have and will give their own lives in the process. They do this so you and your loved ones stay safe.
Writing experience, my life as a Christian (I am nowhere near perfect), life in general.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Friday, December 4, 2015
Protect our citizens
Ok President Obama, do you still want to take in Syrian refugees? Probably not a good idea, look at how background checks did not work to keep a person who swore allegiance to ISIS out of our country. Unless you have some super duper mind reading machine there is no way to screen everyone effectively enough to ensure " our citizens " are safe from future acts of terrorism. And the attitude that this is something "we need to get use to" has got to go. It is better to fight the enemy in the field than one's own house.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Please take more action Mr. President!
Mr. President, if because of your inaction there is another attack on our NATO allies who we are obligated to come to their aid if attacked, or an attack on US citizens I would ask that you resign your office and if you do not I implore all congressmen to seek your impeachment be they Republican or Democrat.
It is criminal that by inaction or insufficient action you allow others come to harm.
I am a service veteran and student of history. I think your argument against deploying troops to Iraq and Syria to avoid getting bogged down in a middle-east war is extremely flawed. We our bogged down in a war on terrorism and to go on with a belief that terrorist attacks will be status quo is wrong, it betrays the people who elected you, the people who serve under you, and the memories of the victims of terror and those that died in the fight against terrorism.
Your plan for change in regimes in the middle-east was noble and may have worked if there had been a proper end game but there was not and we, the world, face an evil enemy that filled a void left by the lack of a proper exit strategy. I am not talking about the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, but Arab Spring ant its aftermath. There is a Bible verse that discusses what can happen to one who does not fill himself with the Good of Christ after they've been swept clean, that more evil worse than the original will take its place and that person would be worse than before. This can be said of what is happening in Syria and Iraq.
Do not let pride blind you to what needs to be done. Do not be afraid to admit to a change of middle-Easter n policy because of concern about how your presidency will be defined. There is a high chance that failure to do more to fight ISIS could define your presidency as a failure. I ask you to take action for World safety.
It is criminal that by inaction or insufficient action you allow others come to harm.
I am a service veteran and student of history. I think your argument against deploying troops to Iraq and Syria to avoid getting bogged down in a middle-east war is extremely flawed. We our bogged down in a war on terrorism and to go on with a belief that terrorist attacks will be status quo is wrong, it betrays the people who elected you, the people who serve under you, and the memories of the victims of terror and those that died in the fight against terrorism.
Your plan for change in regimes in the middle-east was noble and may have worked if there had been a proper end game but there was not and we, the world, face an evil enemy that filled a void left by the lack of a proper exit strategy. I am not talking about the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, but Arab Spring ant its aftermath. There is a Bible verse that discusses what can happen to one who does not fill himself with the Good of Christ after they've been swept clean, that more evil worse than the original will take its place and that person would be worse than before. This can be said of what is happening in Syria and Iraq.
Do not let pride blind you to what needs to be done. Do not be afraid to admit to a change of middle-Easter n policy because of concern about how your presidency will be defined. There is a high chance that failure to do more to fight ISIS could define your presidency as a failure. I ask you to take action for World safety.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
My take on nuclear fusion.
Well it is time to torture people with my take on some science stuff. Why? Because I can't sleep!
For a long time scientists have been trying to harvest the power of the sun, or to put it more precisely, what powers the sun. No, I am not talking solar panels. I am talking fusion, the process of joining two hydrogen nuclei to make a helium atom. That is a basic explanation because there is a little more to it than that.
Now you may say scientists have created fusion in the lab and with hydrogen bombs and you would be correct. What they have not done is harness the reaction, to control it for any length of time that would allow the reaction to provide power. You see, when scientists create a fusion reaction in a lab using something like a tokamak reactor or using lasers they are only able to sustain the reaction for a fraction of a second before things break down, confinement normally.
Right now the main way scientists try to contain the reaction is by the use of magnetic fields (electromagnetic). The problem is it requires more energy to create the fields for confinement than what energy is generated by the reaction.
If you look at the sun, (not directly without a filter) you see a nice shaped sphere more or less. This shape is because the mass of the sun and of other stars is enough to act as a containment field. (This is not 100% because sometimes magnetic fields on the sun go wonky and we have a solar flare)
What is really funny about gravity as the confinement field is that in physics gravity is considered a weak force, much weaker than the electromagnetic force. But how can a weak force act as a means of confinement for sustained fusion reaction? It has to do with strength in numbers. Each atom has gravitational pull because it has mass. The gravitational field of an individual atom maybe quite small but when you get enough together in a particular volume of space you have a larger field. In fact if the field is strong enough because there is enough mass in a particular area (this is a basic definition of density) that hydrogen will heat up and start a fusion reaction. When the fusion reaction commences then there will be an outward push by the energy created (radiation pressure). If the radiation pressure pushes outward with the same force as the gravitational force pushing in you have achieved equilibrium and you have a star that will stay that way until something changes to upset the balance.
What scientists are trying to do is create that equilibrium in a lab on a small scale, too small for Gravity to be a factor so they need use force, electromagnetic. Here is the rub, the fusion reaction creates its own electromagnetic fields and it is these fields that cause the confinement to collapse when they interact with the confinement field. There is some hope as there is work being done to use the fusion generated fields to help in confinement. I do not know the specifics but maybe by sensing the fluctuations in the fusion generated magnetic field and adjusting the confinement field to compensate.
What would make things easier, though it is improbable, is to be able to generate and/or manipulate a gravitational field to act as a confinement field. Of course to be efficient the energy used to generate the confinement field needs to be less than the energy output of the fusion reaction.
So this is another of my "interesting things I think about" post.
For a long time scientists have been trying to harvest the power of the sun, or to put it more precisely, what powers the sun. No, I am not talking solar panels. I am talking fusion, the process of joining two hydrogen nuclei to make a helium atom. That is a basic explanation because there is a little more to it than that.
Now you may say scientists have created fusion in the lab and with hydrogen bombs and you would be correct. What they have not done is harness the reaction, to control it for any length of time that would allow the reaction to provide power. You see, when scientists create a fusion reaction in a lab using something like a tokamak reactor or using lasers they are only able to sustain the reaction for a fraction of a second before things break down, confinement normally.
Right now the main way scientists try to contain the reaction is by the use of magnetic fields (electromagnetic). The problem is it requires more energy to create the fields for confinement than what energy is generated by the reaction.
If you look at the sun, (not directly without a filter) you see a nice shaped sphere more or less. This shape is because the mass of the sun and of other stars is enough to act as a containment field. (This is not 100% because sometimes magnetic fields on the sun go wonky and we have a solar flare)
What is really funny about gravity as the confinement field is that in physics gravity is considered a weak force, much weaker than the electromagnetic force. But how can a weak force act as a means of confinement for sustained fusion reaction? It has to do with strength in numbers. Each atom has gravitational pull because it has mass. The gravitational field of an individual atom maybe quite small but when you get enough together in a particular volume of space you have a larger field. In fact if the field is strong enough because there is enough mass in a particular area (this is a basic definition of density) that hydrogen will heat up and start a fusion reaction. When the fusion reaction commences then there will be an outward push by the energy created (radiation pressure). If the radiation pressure pushes outward with the same force as the gravitational force pushing in you have achieved equilibrium and you have a star that will stay that way until something changes to upset the balance.
What scientists are trying to do is create that equilibrium in a lab on a small scale, too small for Gravity to be a factor so they need use force, electromagnetic. Here is the rub, the fusion reaction creates its own electromagnetic fields and it is these fields that cause the confinement to collapse when they interact with the confinement field. There is some hope as there is work being done to use the fusion generated fields to help in confinement. I do not know the specifics but maybe by sensing the fluctuations in the fusion generated magnetic field and adjusting the confinement field to compensate.
What would make things easier, though it is improbable, is to be able to generate and/or manipulate a gravitational field to act as a confinement field. Of course to be efficient the energy used to generate the confinement field needs to be less than the energy output of the fusion reaction.
So this is another of my "interesting things I think about" post.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Using lies to support your side. No, no, no!
I am a person who loves our constitution and the Bill of Rights and will defend them from all attackers. One thing I try to do is use facts in my arguments to keep my position on solid ground, fact based.
Now there are many sites and Facebook pages claiming to be in support our rights like the right to bear arms. The sad thing is these sites can be run by people who do not check facts or make up stories to stir up people to garner support. They think they are helping the cause but in actuality they do harm by making themselves and others look like hacks and nut cases.
A recent example concerns a statement purportedly made by Dianne Feinstein concerning guns. It goes something like "if everyone turns in their guns then the gunman would turn in his gun when he sees everyone else is unarmed.....it's human nature."
Well this is not to support Dianne Feinstein, I strongly dislike her, but she not say this at all, neither did Barbra Boxer. All this story does is discredit any valid argument in support of the 2nd amendment.
Here is a link.
http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/feinstein.asp
Now there are many sites and Facebook pages claiming to be in support our rights like the right to bear arms. The sad thing is these sites can be run by people who do not check facts or make up stories to stir up people to garner support. They think they are helping the cause but in actuality they do harm by making themselves and others look like hacks and nut cases.
A recent example concerns a statement purportedly made by Dianne Feinstein concerning guns. It goes something like "if everyone turns in their guns then the gunman would turn in his gun when he sees everyone else is unarmed.....it's human nature."
Well this is not to support Dianne Feinstein, I strongly dislike her, but she not say this at all, neither did Barbra Boxer. All this story does is discredit any valid argument in support of the 2nd amendment.
Here is a link.
http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/feinstein.asp
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
The problem of misinformation
Is it me or has our society become more fractured than it has been in a long time. I blame two main things media stoking the fire for more sensational headlines and politicians for pandering to special interests groups to get headlines and votes.
It seems like our system is being held hostage by the modern Information Age and it is out of control. False claims reported online spread like wildfire, no verification of sources or stories, no accountability for false information. This is probably one of, if not the biggest, problems we face today and if it is not fixed will be our downfall. It will be "like a firebell in the night!" That quote was from Thomas Jefferson when he was thinking of about the slavery question; he knew that if it were not addressed it would cause a problem and it did. I do not compare slavery with the problem we face with information , the are not comparable but in one way they are the same as they can divide a nation. We need a responsible press to take charge and give unbiased fact based reporting before someone stokes a fire so hot if explodes and can only be extinguished by blood of the just!
It seems like our system is being held hostage by the modern Information Age and it is out of control. False claims reported online spread like wildfire, no verification of sources or stories, no accountability for false information. This is probably one of, if not the biggest, problems we face today and if it is not fixed will be our downfall. It will be "like a firebell in the night!" That quote was from Thomas Jefferson when he was thinking of about the slavery question; he knew that if it were not addressed it would cause a problem and it did. I do not compare slavery with the problem we face with information , the are not comparable but in one way they are the same as they can divide a nation. We need a responsible press to take charge and give unbiased fact based reporting before someone stokes a fire so hot if explodes and can only be extinguished by blood of the just!
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Unequal retirement pay for older veterans
I just heard where there is no cost of living increase for social security this year because of low gas prices. Is congress getting one?
Anyway, I have been thinking of veterans who served and retired years ago, like 30 years or more. Now let's say a veteran retired in the 1970's with a retirement around 400 a month and now with cost of living increases over the years let us put their current retirement at about $1700.00 a month. In this day and age that is not a lot.
Now let us compare congressional retirement : First they are eligible for pension after 5 years of service while military retirement is 20 years at least. Second congressmen have a contribution system for the most part unlike the military but congressmen get paid more. In 1975 congressional salaries were $44,600 per year which is around $194,000 in today's money. You can see that a congressman could contribute a considerable amount of money compared to an enlisted person in the military base pay for an E-9 over 20 years was on around 1200 per month which equates to around $14400.00 per year. Now if you compute retirement using high 3 numbers you will see the enlisted guy gets a much smaller retirement which only increases with cost of living increases which have to be approved by congress. Now look at salary increases between military and congressman. In 2014 an E-9 over 20 was paid $5,674 per month about for a yearly amount of $68088. A congressman gets $174000 per year. Again the congressman who only has to serve 5 years to receive a retirement can contribute more while a veteran who serves 20 years or so get less and still needs cost of living increases controlled by congress. Now even if the military went to a contribution system they would still not be able to contribute as much to retirement and would still have to deal with rising over all costs to them without a corresponding increase in income. Congress grants cost of living increases but it does not take into account real life costs.
Since 1975 congressional salaries have increased by 290 percent while an E-9s salary has increased by 372 percent but still subject to cost of living increases for increase in retirement.
Why do our older veterans have so little retirement compared to today? Since the 1970 congress decided to make military pay closer to civilian pay so they increased pay amounts significantly but the veterans from before this have their retirement calculated with values before the correction plus they use only the final pay to calculate the value so they make less than an E-9 retiring today pretty much. Same job, same amount of service, but older vets get lower pay for retirement and with increase in medical costs as they get older they and their family are screwed. Way to go congress.
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