Iran is asserting that it has shot down a stealthy U.S. intelligence drone.  Tehran has made similar announcements in the past, but this time U.S. officials are confirming the incident off the record. 

What seems to have happened, at least according to those who will speak to reporters, is that an RQ-170 Sentinel Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) lost connection to its controllers, ‘strayed’ into Iranian airspace,  then landed in accordance with its programming.

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Hold on, let me read that again:

According to a senior U.S. military source with intimate knowledge of the Sentinel drone, the aircraft likely “wandered” into Iranian air space after losing contact with its handlers and is presumed to be intact since it is programmed to fly level and find a place to land, rather than crashing.

Are you freaking kidding me?  You have an aircraft that you haven’t officially released even a picture of, which apparently is built to be less visible to radar, and you program it to find somewhere nice and flat to land rather than crash in unfriendly territory when it can’t phone home?

I’m not going to divulge anything about my past, but I think it’s probably public knowledge that it’s old technology to have a set of coordinates programmed into the control software of a UAV that is its failsafe point to return to when it loses its control link.  Heck, anyone who flies expensive model planes can tell you the same thing.  Why in the name of all this holy would you program a surveillance platform to fly a steady track and find somewhere to land rather than give it a return coordinate or have it assume a vertical flight pattern and gun the engines so that all that is available for collection and exploitation is scraps.

Iran hates our guts, and they know who in the international community is shielding them, Russia and China.  Anyone want to bet on the possibility that this little lost airplane, along with all of its surveillance, communications, and cryptologic equipment, is in a shipping crate on its way to either Beijing or Moscow?

I hope that whoever made the decision that it’s better for a drone to find a place to land than it is for it to return to some arbitrary place for recovery or destroy itself is pilloried.  Since in the event of any conflict between China and the U.S. UAV’s will be the first wave of aircraft to go in for air defense suppression and intelligence gathering, this is a kick to the gut for our abilities.  We just put a bow on one of our most advanced technologies and shipped it to the Chinese. 

Sometimes, you just have to shake your head.

To the people who were shopping in the same store as my family this weekend:

I would like to offer my sincere and heartfelt apology for all of the evil and hateful things I thought while shopping yesterday.  I am sure that very few of you are truly inbred, bucktoothed, anencephalic sons of syphilitic swineherds, and for those of you who are, I hope things turn around for you.

I would also like to apologize for the mean things I thought about you, your ancestors, your descendants, people who are related to you either by blood or marriage, and the doctors who helped to bring you into this world.

Sincerely,

DaddyBear

We all worry about the danger of a stranger hurting us or our family.  Call them a goblin, mookie, sumdood, or whatever, we worry about the external threat.  We put locks on our doors, acquire tools for protection, and gain skills to effectively use those tools to protect our families.

But what do you do when the threat is from within?

A man in New Hampshire recently pled guilty to killing his wife after finding that she had strangled their children, killing one of them.  The woman had a history of mental illness and may have been under the delusion that her husband and mother-in-law were trying to take the children away from her.  The father came home, found both children strangled by his wife, and beat his wife to death with a flashlight.  He believed that she had killed both children.  He then tried to take his own life, but was awoken the next morning by his daughter, who had survived the attack.

He has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, but if he keeps his nose clean, gets counseling, and completes his education while in prison, he may be free in 10 years.  In the meantime, his son and wife are dead and his daughter will be raised either by family or in a foster home.  Either way, her life has been shattered.  Her brother is dead at the hands of her mother, her mother was killed by her father, and her father is in prison for at least the rest of her childhood.

Like the title says, I would hate to have been on a jury for a case like this.  A man kills his wife after finding his children dead at her hand.  Can a father look at another father who does such a thing and not put himself in his shoes?

Like I said, we all prepare for the external threat, but what do you do about the internal threat?  It’s easy to tell an abused woman to jettison the abuser, but what if she truly loves the man?  The father in this case knew that his wife was mentally unstable, but can the human heart cut a part of itself out as easily as one would reject any other kind of poison?

I can honestly say that I don’t know how I would handle such a situation.  If my wife was having psychological problems, but hadn’t shown any signs of being an overt danger to the rest of the family, what would I do?  Would I try to make sure she was never alone with the children?  Would I try to force them to get treatment, even using the threat of divorce to get them to seek help?  Could I be strong enough to force her out of our home until she had gotten treatment and had her psychological problems under control?

And if the worst happened, and I found that she had harmed the children, how would I react?  Would I be able to keep it together enough to call the police?  Would I snap as this man did and take matters into my own hands?  I honestly don’t know.  I hope I never have to find out.

During a recent episode of his radio show, Bryan Suits gave his opinions about the children who have been raised on praise for each and every thing they’ve ever done.  His opinion, and it’s one I share, is that by making every baby step in maturing and growing a cause for celebration, children never learn to grow on their own without that celebration.  Here’s an example he points out of the result of that kind of upbringing:

As I grew up, effort and results were expected, with results being more important than the amount of effort you put in.  A’s were rewarded, but B’s were expected.  There was no “you tried really hard!  Yeahhh!”.  This carried over into my adult life very well.  A professor, a boss, or anyone else in the real, adult world is going to reward me because I had good intentions, or I tried really hard, or if I was just a good person.  I get rewarded for results, and children should be raised the same way.

I reward my children when they achieve important milestones, but not for everything they do.  The first time Girlie Bear made her bed and cleaned her room without help or prompting, she was taken out for breakfast.  Now, it’s expected, and it’s not even listed as part of the chores she does to earn her allowance.  Boo is still at the stage where he needs lots of reminding and encouragement, but I don’t make a big deal out of each and every thing he does.

I don’t believe in graduation ceremonies after 1st grade.  I don’t believe in telling children that they’re smarter/prettier/more talented than anyone else, especially if they truly are.  I don’t give an allowance that isn’t earned through manual labor, and I don’t plan on buying anyone a car just because they survived to the age of 16.  I wholeheartedly believe in the truth of TANSTAAFL, and strive to instill its wisdom into my kids.

What we are dealing with now are people coming into the work force who expect to be infantilized and praised by everyone in their life.  They want the security of a corporate job, but demand the perks of working for themselves.  It is becoming harder and harder to find talented people who have a work ethic good enough to do work that is hard, boring, and dirty.  But that’s the kind of work that new workers are expected to do, and they usually get paid dirt to do it.  Yeah, it sucks, and it’s not what kids are told to expect, but that’s the way it is.  Either accept it, find a way to make money, or learn to live with vastly dimished monetary requirements.

I guess this is one of the reasons that Junior Bear and I clashed so much while he was in high school.  His entire life, he’d been praised for doing things that I expected him to do without anyone noticing.  While his teachers would tell him he did a good job getting a C in a subject because he “worked really hard”, I would accept the C, but not tell him he was doing an exceptional job.  I refused to be a helicopter parent, and he was shocked to the bone when I followed through on a threat to pull him out of his band program if he didn’t start performing in his other classes.  Even the band director, who seemed to be an early product of the “Everyone gets a trophy” generation, was aghast as I signed the paperwork to put Junior into a health class instead of marching band.  Over time, Junior’s inability to deal with my high bar for excessive praise was corrosive to our relationship.  Everyone else in his life was telling him he was the next best thing to Einstein, while I was the one who expected him to perform because that was the right thing to do, not because someone was patting him on the butt for it.

Take a good hard look at the individual in that video folks.  That is an example of the people who are going to be running this world in a couple of decades.  We’ve got our work cut out for us if we’re going to get them to accept that the world doesn’t care about your effort or intentions before they take over management.

Greetings from Seattle on the Ohio!

North brings us something so simple and beautiful that I can’t describe it.  Go read it.

• From the “Hockey Stick” Department – A study by the National Science Foundation has concluded that the planet is indeed warming, but the impact of human activities has been, shall we say, overstated.  No word yet on whether or not we can expect to see a dime of the money we’ve spent on ‘green’ technology and reducing our carbon footprints returned to us.  But I’m a starry-eyed optimist, so here’s hoping that the Obama administration will admit errors and publicly shame Al Gore on the Washington Mall.
• From the “Cut Out the Middle Man” Department – Pakistan and China recently finished a joint military exercise.  Let’s see, we’re borrowing money China to give to Pakistan in foreign aid so they can give the money back to China to pay for weapons and exercises.  Why don’t we just ask China to give the money directly to Pakistan and save on the interest payments?  Seems to me that would be more honest on the part of our Pakistani “allies” too.
• From the “Government Efficiency”  Department – The Russian government has budgeted $8 million for the construction of a website for young people.  The site will be used to teach them about Russian history.  For that much money, couldn’t you just hire a few teachers to go around Russia and talk to students about history?  For 8 million, it ought to be designed and executed by Pixar.  Then again, this is the same government whose idea of a snow plow was 10 guys with shovels and a dump truck, so what do I know?
• From the “Fox News is Hiring” Department – A Russian news anchor has been fired after she flipped the bird at the camera while talking about President Obama.  I don’t think she should be fired for this.  Honestly, I’ve flipped the bird at my TV when the president is being discussed so often I’m worried that Boo might pick up the habit.  Why should she be penalized for doing it on the supply side of TV when I do it so often on the consumer side?

H/T to JayG on this one!

Jack Daniels Distillery has announced a program to assist soldiers from Fort Campbell in getting home for the holidays.  Soldiers who are cash-strapped will be given vouchers for either airline tickets or gas and lodging so that they can go home to their families.

Looking back at my time in uniform, I guess I was very fortunate in that I was home for the holidays most years, but a lot of my friends weren’t so lucky.  Being away from home on a post that’s mostly deserted because everyone else has gone home for Christmas is depressing in a manner that’s hard to articulate.  It’s good to see a company recognizing that and putting their money on the line to help out these soldiers and their families.

Our family is going to support this campaign with a small donation, and I’m going to support the company that put this together with a purchase of their product.  Jack Daniels is owned by Brown-Forman, who makes something for every taste.  If you’re not a JD fan, I’m sure they make something you’ll like.   I’ve also reached out to Brown-Forman and Jack Daniels and let them know how much I appreciate their efforts, and I encourage you to do the same.

Let’s do something good for a company that’s doing something good!

Size – 21 pounds
Activity – Roasting
Location – Kitchen
Unit – 321st Guards Gobbler Regiment, 3rd Shock Poultry Army
Time – 4 to 6 hours at 300 degrees
Equipment – Butter, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, apple

Target was last seen being probed with a temperature monitor and being covered.  Sources indicate a link up sometime this afternoon with mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberries, dressing, and pumpkin pie.