No, I'm talking about the "Plame affair," AKA Nadagate. I'm talking about something I dropped the ball on last week: the 21st was the thirty-seventh anniversery of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon.
Y'all remember how well the MSM covered it. {smirk}
John of Arrgghhh!!! had a nice little post about some of the moonbats who really do think the the landings were fake.
But... What if the moonbats have it right, for once?
It took me nearly a week to find the video -the original website is gone- but I now have positive proof that the landings were faked, right here.
You may want to save some bandwidth by right-clicking on the link and selecting "Save As..." or "Save target as..." depending your browser.
UPDATE: Forgot to mention: listen closely as the astronaut mentions Mr. Gorsky...
Dean Esmay does an excellent job of summarizing the ending of Battlestar Galactica's first season.
He then asks the question: "Whose side are you on, the President's or the Commander's?"
My response:
That wasn't a coup. Not if you want to maintain parallels with our current society.
Now, I don't know if you've ever read -in full- the oath sworn by all those who join the United States military.
Enlistment oath:
I,[name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
Officer's oath:
I, [name], having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.
President's oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Emphasis added in all.
Note that neither oath is to any particular person, administration, or form of government. It is to support and defend the Constitution. Hell, these men and women don't even swear to support and defend democracy; recall that the United States was deliberately designed to be a republic.
What does this mean for the United States? Let's suppose that Bush started behaving like the religious lunatic the idiot moonbats think he is.
Bush starts discussing his recent personal chats with God, how God has told him how to win the GWOT, and then he start shuffling divisions around the globe. He decides to send 3ID (Third Infantry Division) to Israel, and issues directives which allow theater commanders authorize nuclear attacks, if they deem this necessary.
Now. Suppose the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Bowman Myers (AF) took action against Bush in the belief that he was an active threat not only to the US, but to the Constitution. That in fact General Myers removed Bush from office and confined him.
Is this action, in fact, a coup? Or is it a legitimate defense of the Constitution which is in accord with the oath that General Myers swore many years ago?
I believe -objectively- the regulars here would agree that any politician claiming a direct line to God, or having religious visions should be immediately locked up.
On the other hand, I've seen (while watching BSG) what President Roslin has seen, and I can understand both her faith and resolve in this.
That's one of the hallmarks of good writing.
Commander Adama isn't (as Dean characterized it) executing a coup in "blind fury," but isolating what he sees as a dangerous threat to what's left of humanity, and that's a helluva lot more important than "just" defending the Constition, although I don't doubt that the serving members of our armed forces considers that a "just!" Heh.
President Roslin isn't just a religious whacko. Ron Moore has taken pains to paint her as a woman with a brain, a heart, and cast-brass balls. She has -to her- good reason to have followed her recent series of decisions.
So both sides are three-dimensional, and both have good reasons for what they've done. I repeat: that's what makes a good story.
But later on Dean stepped into the doo-doo big time, when he wrote
I thought the coup was wrong the moment it was staged. No responsible officer stages a coup simply because he thinks the President has acted irrationally. There are several more responsible courses of actions to take, including simply informing his officers that he believes the President to be incapacitated and mentally ill and to temporarily disregard her orders while he informs the governing legislature of his concerns. Military operations can proceed apace under those circumstances, as strained as they are, better than they would mounting a coup--because, as young Captain Apollo said when he mutinied against the coup, if she's not the President then Adama's not the commander, there are no officers, and there are no lines of authority.
Um, WRONG. At least if their operations and chain of command remotely resemble ours, and recall that Moore writing this show as a mirror to our own.
It isn't a question whether Roslin "is" the president. The question is: is she competent? And -as I pointed out above- there are times when an officer is not only correct in removing someone from office, but is expected to, in order to fulfill his or her sworn oath.
Dean says that Adama should have merely "informed" his officers that Roslin was incapacitated, and ignore her. The only problem with this is that it violates chain of command. If Roslin is, prima facie incompetant it is Adama's responsibilty to remove her. If she is not incompetent, he should shut up and soldier. Very simple.
What Dean doesn't seem to understand is that you don't leave crazy people in the chain of command, if they are in fact crazy. You don't "just ignore" them.
The other problem is that Apollo's little speech that "if [Roslin is] not the President then Adama's not the commander, there are no officers, and there are no lines of authority. "
No. Roslin may be removed from office, and the next eligble representative may take charge. Recall that's exactly how she was handed the office in the first place, as she was 43rd in line. Think about that: 43rd in line. Surely there were others after her?
That's part of the chain of command. There's always someone else that may be bumped up a grade or two, then handed a new job. A general dies, the colonel gets the job. The colonel buys it, and a major is promoted.
All the majors are wiped out, and a captain gets lucky (although in this context I'm not sure "lucky" is the best adjective). Continue on down the line, if necessary, until a Sergeant First Class gets commissioned into a butter-bar 2LT.
So Roslin gets yanked, someone else picks up the reins, and Apollo gets spanked for being a young idealistic idiot. And yes, that's doubly redundant.
Too many people think that "civilian control of the military" means that the soldiers just shut up and ... soldier. What they don't truly understand is that the men and women in the US armed forces swear to defend the Constitution of the United States. And (and I repeat) "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
In other words, Commander Adama (given a strong similarity between our world and theirs) merely fulfilled his oath of office in removing President Roslin from hers.
In terms of the show: both sides have good and real reasons for taking action. I expect that Roslin will be reinstated (after Starbuck gets back with ... something), and since Roslin is a smart politician, and Adama a smart soldier with a legal background, they'll figure something out.
Just over a half-hour ago London suffered another series of bomb attacks on subway stations.
London Police Chief Ian Blair origonally reported four explosions or attempted explosions. Later reports used the word "bang(s)."
The latest developments at the Command Post blog seem (to me) to indicate that some detonators went off, but no known major explosions as yet.
UPDATE: BBC has more info: "The BBC's Andrew Winstanley said devices had been found but appeared to have been dummies, containing no explosives."
MORE: Instapundit is on it, and apparently the London media is as self-destructive as the D.C. crew: "Some idiot correspondent asked Blair if the attacks were his fault because of the Iraq war. And others are taking an equally negative line -- one asks if the propaganda war against terror is being lost."
I like Reynolds' response:
You're idiots, cowards, and political hacks. Yes! The preening, point-scoring irresponsibility of the press, which is if anything worse in Britain than in America, is one of the most striking things about this war, and it will be decades before it recovers. If it does.
The kind of question I'd like to see from the media? How about: "Mr. Prime Minister, how long do you expect before we hunt these rat bastards to their graves?"
Dean Esmay turns 39.
Next summer, his body falls apart.
Rosemary turns to Ara for comfort.
News at eleven...
Happy Birfday, Dean. Join the Olde Fartes confederation!
Dean reminds us that the first episode of the second season will be shown in less than 24 hours...
Just lemme know where the torrents are. :)
You know, this show could be the Itunes of television. Me, I'm not going to fork out $40/month to see that one show -there's not that much on cable I want to see-, but I'd still love to watch Battlestar Galactica.
I certainly wouldn't mind forking over a couple bucks to pick up a digital capture of a given episode.
So why not graduated downloads? Say $2 or $3 for a good quality digital TV recording, $5 for same with Dolby Digital, and maybe $8-$10 for HDTV w/5.1 sound?
The trick would be limiting this to paid-for downloads, but that's addressable.
Let's look at costs. I pay $7.50/month for 7000MB bandwidth. (Verve Hosting. Excellent service. HIGHLY recommended!!) At that cost I could afford to allow 10 downloads of a 700Mb episode, and that's very high quality. I've seen some (approx.) 350Mb episodes which are still good quality. In other words, a very high quality download (700Mb video file, AKA a single VCD disc) would be $0.75 cents a download, using my current, individual user plan.
So let's call it 20 downloads/month for $7.50, for the bandwidth. "Production" cost in this case is 20 downloads divided by $7.50/month, which gives 37.5 cents per episode downloaded. And that's using an el cheapo "bargain" plan.
Verve Hosting (my ISP) offers 35GB/month for $45/month. That means (roughly) 140 downloads for $45 server cost. In other words, $0.33 cents per download.
These are all end-user prices. I don't doubt that an industrial-strength server contract would allow greater economies to scale.
Now I'll be the first to admit that these are "back of the envelope" numbers. In this case, I think they're solid enough to conclude that $1/download (given 350Mb/episode) is a reasonable cost estimate.
And, yes, I'm ignoring start-up costs for the hypothetical BSG episode server. :)
But when you get right down to it, how many existing fans would be happy to buy legal copies of the episodes for $2-$3 for a 350Mb vid, or $5-$6 for an HQ copy (~ 700Mb)?
Me, I'd certainly go for the 350Mb stuff, and I'd look very favorably at a $5 cost for the HQ stuff, especially if it meant continued existance for the show.
In other words: forget the letter-writing campaigns, here's how real fans show their support. With money.
Even if the studio doesn't have a direct-to-DV machine on-hand, all you need is an HQ digital feed, and a digital video recorder. And how inexpensive is that? After that all they need is to distribute the copy to paying customers.
One way to discourage piracy would be distributing (via BitTorrent) encrypted ARJ or ZIP files. The password could be created for that account, then encrypted on the fly. Anyone in the world could distribute that encrypted ARJ or ZIP file, but you'd need the password to open it.
No, this wouldn't eliminate piracy, but it would discourage it; especially when you consider that most black markets historically exist when "offical" market prices do not match actual market prices. In other words, when the asking price is in excess of the selling price.
But -you ask me- where are the actual data to support this claim? Aren't all music/video dowloaders a guild of thieves?
Good question! Good answer? Look at success of Itunes. Before Apple started that company, no one believed you could sell songs for $1 a pop, and still make money off of the transaction. Itunes is now one of Apple's strongest revenue sources.
Itunes is why I believe most people are willing to spend money on TV shows. I repeat: Ituens is now one of Apple's strongest revenue sources. In other words, people all over the world are willing to pay for legal copies of songs, even though they could get those same songs for free, given current pirating & distribution.
Given that, I'm betting that people will be willing to pay for legal copies of TV shows, even though they could get those same shows for free, given current pirating & distribution.
I can't tell you how much it costs to produce a single episode of Battlestar Galactica, but I'll bet it's in the range of millions of dollars, minimum.
So how much more would it cost for the company to set up a nearly guaranteed source of future revenue (i.e. website dedicated to downloading episodes)? Not much, I'll bet.
Let's let BSG be the new century's Itunes....