GUSTATUS SIMILIS PULLUS

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN


The 509th Bomb Wing of the USAF was stationed at the Roswell Army Air Force Base at Roswell (yes, THAT Roswell), New Mexico, in the late 40's and early 50's. They are the ones who dropped the A-Bombs on Japan. For a while, in the 60's the Bomb Wing was located at Pease Air Force Base, just outside of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Today they are the fliers of the B-2 Stealth Bomber.

A new book has been published that provides an interesting insight into the "black ops" portion of our government. Things that don't "officially" exist do have military shoulder patches.

I can remember my Dad telling me a story, in the 60's about a time when he was laying over at Wake Island. A "May Day" was received from a plane that had flamed out and was unable to restart its jet engine. It was over 1,000 miles from Wake and the ATC wanted to know where to send search & rescue. The pilot of the striken craft stated that he should be able to "dead stick" it to Wake. Every pilot knew you couldn't glide an aircraft for 1,000 miles. What no one knew was that this was a U-2, the plane made famous when Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR in 1960.

Dad couldn't talk about this until the secrecy veil had been removed.

Here are some other patches, in a slide show, that have interesting symbology.

Oh, the "To Serve Man" is a reference to the classic “Twilight Zone” episode in which man is the entree, not the customer.

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Scientists have discovered that smallest "Black Hole" ever. It is only about 15 miles (24 kilometers) wide and it's mass is only 3.8 times that of our Sun. The theoretical minimum size for a star to become a black hole is somewhere between 1.7 and 2.7 times our Sun's mass. A star above the threshold will become a "Black Hole" and those below will become a neutron star when it dies.

Science and space fascinate me.

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As mandated by the Constitution, the USA conducts a census every 10 years. The next one will be in 2010. Originally, enumerators would go to every place of habitation in the country to gather the necessary info. In the 20th Century, they would mail out census forms to all known addresses from data provided by the USPS and only send out a real live "counter" if the form was not returned in a timely manner. Now that we are in the 21st Century, the Dept. of Commerce had decided that the counters would use handheld computers instead of the old fashioned paper & pencil. So they ordered 500,000 of the computers, at a cost of more than $600 million. The devices, which look like high-tech cell phones, will still be used to verify every residential street address in the country, using global positioning system software but can't be used to garner the necessary personal information. The project to develop the computers "has experienced significant schedule, performance, and cost issues." What that means is that the computers proved too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year in North Carolina and the programming to transmit/download the collected data wouldn't work.

You might say: "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

The Feds have decided to scrap the system.

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Is America better off now than it was 5 years ago? 78% of us say NO!
This poll also showed that 28% of the population still approve of the job Dubya is doing. Ah, the reasoning of Prozac. They need their meds adjusted.

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As does Cancun, Mexico, we have a few thousand tourists currently stranded in Hawai'i. The result of yesterday's decision by ATA Airlines, Inc. to quit the business. Those on the mainland can at least hop on a bus if their credit cards (or cash) won't cover a new ticket back home. The next couple of weeks should be interesting.

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Well, its TGIF! I'll be here for those of you who want to drop in over the weekend. Just ring the doorbell and come on in. Should be some coffee in the pot.

Mahalo

Aloha

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THE PICTURE GALLERY

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"