The New York Post says that none of the photos taken during the VC-25 flyover of Manhattan will be released to the public, by order. “The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday. ‘We have no plans to release them,’ an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.”
Since the stated purpose of the flight, which nearly caused a panic in New York due its resemblance to the 9/11 attack, was to take publicity photographs of an Air Force One type aircraft over New York City, then that purpose has been defeated by the restriction. “The photos . . . are classified — that’s ridiculous,” Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said. The NY Post speculates that the lid came on in order to avoid reminding the public of the fiasco. Time to move along, I guess.
The photograph shown below is commonly used to illustrate how things “vanish” under political pressure; the missing entity in this case being Nikolai Yezhov, the Evil Dwarf of NKVD notoriety. But ask yourself: how do you know for a fact that the alteration didn’t go the other way? That Yezhov wasn’t added into the picture?
We know the direction of change from collateral information and possibly from the picture itself, where imperfections in the retouching process still show Yezhov’s ghost in the altered photograph. Or do we?
In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston’s arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.
You never know about things which have gone down the memory hole.
 |
 |
OK, so who was taken out (and probably not just from the photo)?
So, we release the remaining photos from Abu Ghraib, but we won’t release some photos of an airplane flying over an American city?
Maybe the camera malfunctioned and there were no photos.
I worked for a while in retirement for the State Department declassifying documents requested by the public under the Freedom of Information Act. The very first thing we learned is that a document can ONLY be classified if its release would jeopardize national security — that it could not be classified to prevent embarrassment to the Department. That was a sacrosanct principle that we adhered to, even when the release of a document would obviously show up some Department employee as a fool, or a the very least as experiencing excessive zeal (a common trait of ambassadors newly-arrived at their post of assignment and eager to describe to the Department how relations under their guidance had or would progress better than under their predecessor.)
If the photo of Air Force One over Manhattan was indeed classified, and not merely stuck in a filing cabinet somewhere, that act is an abuse of the act that authorizes certain government employees to classify certain government documents in order to prevent damage to national security. I think someone should file a Freedom of Information Act request for these photos and force the DOD or White House hand.
F
Excellent point Ammo Guy. Any truth to the rumor and email circulating regarding Georgia Arms’ contract with the DOD for surplus spent brass being terminated?
CBS is confirming the NY Post story.
That’s interesting in it’s own way because even the administration official who is cited as the source is “unnamed”.
Wretchard,
It is convincing that they wouldn’t want the photots released for thee reasons you mentioned. The political hay to be harvested from such a bonanaza would be great.
But what if the entire thing was to create a crisis? To what advantage on that particular day I’m not sure. Was it to prepare a future battlefield? I doubt that.
I think they just thought it would be a neat idea so they did it. Some one should file a FOIA request demanding release. It would be hard for the WH to fight that request on national security grounds which would be absurd and it would give the story legs as the days ticked by with no reponse to obama spending 300k+ on a joy ride…I mean Bill Clinton’s AF-1 haircut at LAX didn’t cost that much.
4. F
FOIA ..ya beat me too it….
I’m sure there’ll even be those who will speculate that no photos were meant to be taken at all. That there were passengers aboard, etc, etc. One could argue that the best way to get this to blow over and avoid all that mischievous theorizing is to simply to remove the blanket of mystery which really lends the incident its legs. Just publish the pictures or treat them routinely. A light touch and a little humor. In the nature of things the VC-25 overflight would have been ancient history by next week and forgotten by all but a handful of ‘right wing conspiracy nuts’.
By maintaining the air of intrigue they are actually keeping the whole thing alive. The alternative explanation is that they are hiding something. But they wouldn’t do that, would they?
I want to see the flight manifest. Who, besides active duty Air Force personnel, was on that plane?
Does the file cabinet marked Obama Memory Hole eventually reach critical mass?
From the last thread regarding Georgia et al, can anyone explain why the Baltics are folding? Armenia and Moldova are no surprise but Estonia and Latvia I thought would put up a fight The financial meltdown must have really taken the wind out of them.
The reason for sequestering the photos which cost the taxpayers something on the order of a HALF MILLION DOLLARS is that contributors to O’s campaign chest would be identifiable thru the windows.
It is no longer sufficient reward to have a photo on your desk showing the President embracing you. Kings use those same hands to cure scrofula (*Ew!*) so you want to be able to show your pals and underlings NOT just that you were hugged (which any prol can get) but that you have been honored by being transported at enormous expense in the most exclusive aircraft in the WORLD.
The photos would have been made by a hideously expensive extremely-high-resolution system – similar to those that can read the date on a penny in your pocket from low orbit – so that the contributors can be seen enjoying caviar and a pony of calvados served to they by the joint chiefs of staff as they lounge naked in the presidential hot tub on the aircraft.
O Hussein can you see why the dawn’s surly light would reveal things that might raise questions and irritations among tax-paying voters?
Nah, that can’t be it. There aren’t enough of those to matter any more.
The only way things gonna change is by transitioning from “one man one vote” to “one dinar one vote.”
When the story first broke of the flyover the WH press claimed obama was “furious”.
My thoughts were that not only is this guy a Marxist pencil neck geek with a gangsta walk that Hollywood thinks is cool but the buck NEVER stops at his desk.
So far he’s “inherited” everything that’s been FUBARRED in his administration. We sure didn’t get a Truman or even a carter.
Joe Buzz: “Any truth to the rumor and email circulating regarding Georgia Arms’ contract with the DOD for surplus spent brass being terminated?”
DOD apparently reversed its decision on re-using spent brass – apparently as a result of a loud outcry.
http://www.theshootist.net/2009/03/plowshares-beaten-back-into-bullets.html
Picture this; two F-16 escorts one with a tail painted red the other with a camera. Photos are requested of the red tail escorting “the one” over lady liberty to prove a new day of white guilt driven hubris has dawned like a fresh new beginning.
These photos will be found in no filing cabinet, look in their socks!
LOTM #10: FOIA includes some 9 exemptions from the requirement that the government release documents to the public, and some of them are fairly mundane but make good sense. For example, a FOIA request for the CIA telephone book or parking lot assignments at their headquarters in Langley may be restricted from public disclosure for obvious reasons. Similarly, the manifest of Air Force One would very likely be covered by an exemption of the FOIA that is not related to national security. And the personal security of the President and even many sub-cabinet officials can be protected without release under FOIA, for example. Even the protection of a private citizen’s identity can be grounds for excision under exemption #7. I remember many times redacting Americans’ names from an embassy’s telegram to State merely because the release of their name would violate the citizen’s freedoms. Similarly, I suspect exemption 7 would cover identification of private American citizens on a manifest or by visual analysis of a photo of the aircraft. That said, we never protected an entire document because of several names; we merely blacked out those names and released the remainder of the document.
I would think the photos over Manhattan could be released, but I am fairly certain the manifest would be redacted in it’s entirety. F
One of the best books I ever read was Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, and the best part of that book was the information about Nikolai Yezhov.
Yezhov was quite a clever, charming and funny guy. And he also had a varied, complicated and intriguing love life. It was surprising and fascinating to read this description of his personality and relationships.
Lavrentiy Beriya had many of the same qualities, but he was not erased from Soviet history as almost completely as Yezhov was erased.
Wow, Wretchard,
You can see the “ghost of the NKVD dwarf” grinning in front of the wall, but you can’t see Badgeman (perhaps Tippett) firing from behind the wall on the Grassy Knoll?
History is just a set of fax agreed on…Napoleon
IIRC last week Michelle Malkin said that she had filed FOIA paperwork regarding the flight.
Hell will freeze over before the passenger list of those on the VC-25 is released. Why was Obama so upset? He doesn’t want the names of the guilty exposed to the public. Even if he was not aboard, some of his family members might have been. . . .
Wretchard: You are assuming a level of competence.
There is none. This was a stupid stunt by someone who has never been able to order anything except lunch (maybe). The same people who are running the economy and trying to run health care, and oh yes, a war.
I would suggest that everyone in the blogosphere mention this incident in passing almost every post. This guy needs a little humiliation. Badly.
Derek
But hey, they’ve got other priorities — like releasing as many photographs of detained unlawful combatants and so-called “torture” memos as possible to smear the reputation of our country and compromise our interrogation procedures.
This Administartion behaves like a bunch of spoiled rich kids whose parents have left them at home while they went overseas on vacation. After acting serious and making promises to behave “grown-up” they began misbehaving as soon as they were sure the adults were gone.
I don’t think things will improve before a disaster befalls us.
OT: CIA vs 0
Linky
Speaking of NYC — Forbes is now calling the recession over as of May 2009. What’s more, they don’t think there will be any more “shoes to drop.”
FOIA?
The Obamistration will just put their new HUD guy on it. Ron Simms will have those manifests released in no time – by 2025 or so, I’d imagine.
I’m sure there’ll even be those who will speculate that no photos were meant to be taken at all. That there were passengers aboard, etc, etc. One could argue that the best way to get this to blow over and avoid all that mischievous theorizing is to simply to remove the blanket of mystery which really lends the incident its legs. Just publish the pictures or treat them routinely.
This is what puzzles me. The way they’re going about it, the only pictures of the event that the public will see are the ground-level ones that look so much like the 9/11 attacks.
By maintaining the air of intrigue they are actually keeping the whole thing alive. The alternative explanation is that they are hiding something.
The question is what? Even if it was a donor rewards program, just release the photos and pretend it was normal. (I don’t buy into Scythianneedles’ high-res theory, but even so, just photoshop out all the, ahem, Little Yezhovs). I think I’m coming down on the side of no photos were taken at all, never meant to be, it was just a sightseeing trip.
There is another explanation. It really was nothing more than an incredibly stupid photo trip, and the administration is so arrogant, thin-skinned and such control freaks that the Memory Hole is as natural a reflex to them as to the good folks of Oceania. (or, what Derek said).
History is just a set of fax agreed on…Napoleon
I’m pretty sure Napoleon didn’t say “fax”. Probably “emails”, since twitter hadn’t been invented yet.
#21 huxley
Don’t forget the “need” for the public to see the coffins of our returning Heroes.
Today is the first I’ve posted here at BC, though I’m happy to say I’ve been reading for years and hope to for many more. Thank You Mr. Fernandez for your terrific commentary and insight and also to all of the thought provoking posters as well. There are just too many to list and though I’m more likely to sit on the sidelines and read, a heartfelt Thanks on my part is long overdue.
But hey, they’ve got other priorities — like releasing as many photographs of detained unlawful combatants and so-called “torture” memos as possible to smear the reputation of our country and compromise our interrogation procedures.
Huxley nailed it. The photo department is currently swamped printing Abu Ghraib photos, and will be for at least another four years. So sorry, we’ll get those Air Farce Noone photos out as soon as we can…
Well, there are photos out there, we’ve all seen them.
The RNC will have a nice photo to build a commercial around for the mid terms, however I believe the topic during mid terms will be Israel’s bombing of Iran and how obama is handling that.
BeBe ain’t gonna wait forever, not with China and NorKo aiding the Persians.
Habu, could the situation in Pakistan impact the Israeli’s decision? If for instance the central government in Pakistan collapses and all he!! breaks loose, would it be more or less likely that they would attack or would it make no difference at all?
Habu/28
Lieberman sez like 3 months for miscellaneous nations to get their duck in order to convince Iran not to nuke up, or else. Bebe’s silent.
Form your conclusion.
Vincent Vega/29
Only marginally. Paki sunni nukes don’t have the range to reach Israel, and Israel would no doubt watch for a snail mail delivery. But they have a range to reach shia Iran. Talibunnies consider shia bonafide infidels, though their first target would be south east.
Thanks twobyfour. I know Israel can’t afford in any way to worry about world perception, but Pakistan and Israel-Iran going off simultaneously would certainly create the appearance (if not the reality) that things are getting out of hand.
Not that anything can be done to prevent it. We long ago passed the point of a diplomatic solution to either situation.
“Faster, Please” is getting close.
OT (or maybe not): White house has called Democratic leaders for an “urgent meeting.” Any intel on what this is about? Could it be about pix of AF-1? Or??? F
Maybe the photos show passengers mooning the statue of Liberty.
30. twobyfour
My response to those nations would be Socratic.
How many times do Islamic nations have to war on Israel before being struck?
How many threats do Islamic countries have to make in their desire to annihilate all Jews from the Earth before the Jews retaliate?
How many missile attacks, blow up buses, and restaurants must civilian Jews suffer?
How civilized is Islam? Has it touched the outer edges of modernity yet?
How long can Israel wait with obama cutting deals and apologizing to every tin horn dictator on Earth?
Any consciously perceiving person knows the answers. The US is backing away from Israel and making demands that are pushing the war. When Israel launches I do not expect obama to aid, but rather hinder them. Why?
Obama is a Muslim but a murtad fitri, the worst type of apostate, because he was blessed by Allah to be born into the true faith of Islam.
There are two types of apostates according to sharia (Islamic law) and the Hadith ,sayings of the prophet Muhammad.
The first type is murtad milli, one who converted to Islam and later renounced the faith. The second, and most egregious, type is murtad fitri. It refers to a person born of a Muslim father who renounces his birthright. Two recent examples of the latter are Magdi Allam (a male Egyptian who converted to Catholicism in Italy) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali-born woman who’s now an atheist). Both now face death threats.
According to Islamic jurisprudence, children of a Muslim father – even an apparently nonpracticing one, such as Obama’s father, and irrespective of the mother’s faith – are automatically Muslims. Most Muslims around the world agree: A child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Period.
obama, were he not Chief Resident would no doubt have a fatwa on him, but the Islams have given him a pass.
So the conclusion is clear. War soon.
More NYC numbers: This articleinforms the Forbes piece above. Takeaways: Forbes is calling a V shaped recession. Most think there is W coming 12-24 months out as the fed raises interest rates to break against inflationary federal spending. (The fed is currently trying to spark inflation so as to break against deflationary pressures.)Mitigating against inflation 12-24 months out is large oil inventory buildups which presage another leg down in oil prices. (Gas price declines have been much steeper–because of a supply glut. Very Large gas deposits have been found in Louisiana which are said to dwarf the Barnett gas around Dallas. Natural Gas prices have already collapsed to nearly 1/3-1/4 of their highs last year.
@32 Vincent Vega
Nice to see you joining in – as for “faster please”, I rather suspect that the “driver” already has stomped the accelerator… we just haven’t heard the wheels squealing quite yet…
Since we’re forced to speculate due to official stonewalling, I’ll submit the following: Ayers & co. wanted to feel the thrill the 9/11 attackers must have felt as they zoomed toward the twin towers, so Obama indulged them as best he could.
36. Charles
Yes VERY large fields of natural gas. Estimates exceed 2,200 trillion cubic feet, or enough to power this country for the next 100 years.
I suspect the Greens will force obama to outlaw natural gas.
Here’s a wall st journal piece on the huge increase in natural gas reserves. The surge is so big that if the US wanted to collapse oil prices (and bankrupt every oil based economy in the world)–the way to do it –as T Boone Pickens has advocated–would be to switch over US trucks to natural gas–thereby eliminating 40% of US demand for oil.
That would collapse oil prices back to their old 1990′s lows of $10@barrel
What would it cost to retrofit every US truck–and supply the gas infrastructure? 10 billion? 100 billion? What would the payback be? 200 billion 2 trillion?
I don’t think this will happen. Too disruptive. There are other less disruptive forces in the pipeline.
It’s a big one…
Haynesville Shale
EDIT… and Charles beat me to it!
Charles,
My absolutely worthless guess is that 18-24 months out we will be facing the perfect storm of inflation caused by the Porkulos and associated financial pressures, such as firms desperate to raise cash because of the tax and regulatory pressures, and wage pressures as card check and Acorn mobilize the masses. That will be accompanied by a second round of contraction as individuals and businesses horde cash and global instability drives down trade. Nuclear war threats do not encourage people to run out and get a plasma TV so they can see armageddon better. The text book says that anticipated inflation encourages spending before the value of the money depreciates but I think that the expectation of increased taxes, unemployment fears and a need to hold onto wealth in expected disorder to come will result in people spending less to hold some liquidity, maybe more will be converted to other stores of value, gold etc.
@42. Lifeofthemind,
I agree with you, a great many people have been converting cash into “stores of value”, check out gun and ammo sales. Can’t buy food with worthless paper, can’t eat gold, but you can defend yourself and yours as well as get food with a gun. I don’t like to think that millions of my fellow citizens are thinking that way but it sure seems like it!
More interesting on the flyby of NYC, would be the seeing the official tasker for that mission.
Obama has the contempt of the mlitary that characterized the Clinton-Gore Administration combined with the bumbling that was such a hallmark of the Carter Adminstration.
I am pretty sure that if the One had put a little thought into it he could have given his buddies the ride they paid for while claiming that he was “repositioning” the aircraft to serve a future use. No harm, no foul.
The inability to think five minutes into the future is either the product of extreme ego or bulk-rate stupidity.
The first thing that I am suspicious of is the $329k price tag. Nuttin that the guvmint does costs so little. I find the classified aspect a little hard to believe and lean towards the photo-op junket for Soro’s but must admit am greatly intrigued by the Ayers reliving the 911 flight possibility.
About the photo, Uncle Joe seems to look schosh thinner in the second photograph. Maybe stripes and Yezhovs make you thick.
The first thing that I am suspicious of is the $329k price tag. Nuttin that the guvmint does costs so little. I find the classified aspect a little hard to believe and lean towards the photo-op junket for Soro’s but must admit am greatly intrigued by the Ayers reliving the 911 flight possibility.
About the photo, Uncle Joe seems to look a schosh thinner in the second photograph. Maybe stripes and Yezhovs make you look thicker.
Grate
Runaway inflation aint happening anytime soon.
Yes, that is the playbook, and Ben wants it desperately so, but it’s not materializing.
To have true inflation, you must have wage inflation. And we’re having the opposite.
I live near the Haynesville shale area, it’s another unconventional shale play that should keep a lot of the blue-collar folks here who run rigs and fractionation equipment busy for years. IF, and it’s a big if, some things can be avoided:
1. Chesapeake, XTO and other NG companies spent like crazy to secure drilling rights. $20K and up per acre for people who knew what to ask for. They’re deep in debt, and now NG prices are bottoming along with oil. Will the gas drillers hold on long enough to make good on their investments? At least in LA what I hear about mineral rights is that unexploited mineral rights revert to the landowner if no drilling is done for a decade, meaning that there may be chicken farmers in northeast Louisiana who win the lottery AGAIN in ten years.
2. Cap & Trade could bollux even natural gas, which while a lower CO2 emitter is nevertheless a CO2 emitter when used for generation. Meanwhile solar and wind limp along with massive subsidies and less than 2% of US power output.
3. Horizontal drilling and fractionation are spectacular technologies that allow harvesting of far more energy than before. Without these improvements, the Barnett shale was essentially useless (that’s why Barnett & Haynesville are ‘unconventional’ gas plays). Any time there is something that’s good and keeps people employed in the private sector, there is likely someone who will regulate it out of existence.
It’s nice to be living next to a giant geologic cash register, but just because it’s there doesn’t mean we can use it.
A few years ago, I had occasion to look for a picture on the internet of Kruschev banging his shoe on the desk at the UN. There was, at that time, NOTHING out there — no pictures, although there were stories and descriptions of the event.
Googling now, I see several people asking for the same picture and not being able to find it, and then, finally, a newly published edition of Time which features Nikita with arm raised, shoe in hand, mouth bloviating. So we didn’t imagine it.
The thought then occurs to wonder where did all of those pictures go from 1960 to May 2009. And who was responsible for the evident world-wide effort to eradicate that image? And why?
Charles @ 40 “I don’t think this will happen. Too disruptive. There are other less disruptive forces in the pipeline.”
Less disruptive? Cap and trade? Substantial increase in oil duties? Conversion to LNG, done in an orderly manner, would result in a LOT of jobs with good pay in small shops with low capital requirements. It would require some large firm work to manufacture the kits and hardware. Money to be made!!
GOBSMACK!
I forgot. The Government wouldnt be in charge so it cant be done. Besides it would enhance AGW and He said the planet had already begun to cool.
38 jrod:
Since we’re forced to speculate due to official stonewalling, I’ll submit the following: Ayers & co. wanted to feel the thrill the 9/11 attackers must have felt as they zoomed toward the twin towers, so Obama indulged them as best he could.
Hey, that looks like a good storyline for a short movie!
So we have a president who has raised more campaign money than anyone ever before, and nobody is asking whom is he beholden to?
Can you absolve yourself of having thrown someone under the bus by offering a compensatory ride on the big toy? Maybe Soros wanted to invite the rev. Wright for cocktail, with the NY skyline for a backdrop? Or did Blago bargain for the ride of his life before going to jail? Was a special furlough granted to Tony Rezko so he could partake?
Maybe the F16s did not take any pictures, but some Arabian sheik on board had given a camcorder to one of his wives, and won’t resist the temptation to have the precious footage broadcasted on Al jazeera?
The more Obama obfuscates, the more we are driven to speculate, and this will boomerang some day. Hey! Mr. transparency, I can’t see you! Oh well, don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain…
40. Charles:
I agree it may be too disruptive but it bears close scrutiny. Isn’t it a comfort to know we aren’t at the mercy of anyone now and if we wanted to we could twist some tails and make’em wail.
OPEC hasn’t particularly been a friend of the US and now, well, it’s get down time.
With that much natural gas perhaps Huey Long was right…every man a king.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Oh about the flyover ..we’ll soon learn at the press briefing that it was all done with teleprompters gone wild….some type of holographic mix up by a lower level audio visual tech, now working on restoring the DEW line at Point Barrow. It’ll be like, “What plane?” That was swamp gas.
Many younger contributors will not recall “Swamp Gas” ..here ya go..
“Swamp Gas” Explanation:
There were numerous sightings during the Michigan wave of 1966. The case itself is very memorable for another important event that occurred. Project Blue Book sent Dr. J. Allen Hynek to investigate the sighting reports. At first, Hynek agreed that there was something going on in the Michigan skies. But after consulting with the Blue Book headquarters, he changed his mind, and said that the sightings were nothing more than “swamp gas.”
http://tinyurl.com/dzkvys
For years I traveled in and out of New Delhi on business and the air quality of the city was horrible. Then the Indian government pushed forward a program to convert the two stroke three wheelers, and diesel powered buses and trucks to compressed natural gas. Almost overnight, the air quality improved and India which has large fields of natural gas is more competitive and less dependent on the Arabs. Herb#52 said it …lots of jobs and money to be made converting from oil to CNG.
o/t –mad fiddler –”dogs of words” –you left a question –
@47 Habu – 747-shaped swamp gas is just a new twist.
Maybe it was a progressive little psy-op.
Under Bush, this woulda been real, y’know, 9/11. Whoa – back in the day, scary! Bummer.
Under President Obama, it’s no big d. Yo, f’geddaboutit, just kiddin’. You didn’t see nothin’.
57. sigintel:
I really like that story. The danes have been giving the thumbs down on wind energy lately so T-Boone’s wind may not be so good. but your indian story makes T-Boone’s gas idea look good. Its not likely that the current admin would go for it however, because $10 oil would wipe out the biofuel biz just as its really ready to take off. Alternative energies currently make up 10% of us energy supply–about of that is biofuels and half is hydro — with wind and solar making up less than 1% of the total US energy supply. The admin want to up alternative energies from 10% to 20% of the US energy supply –in 3 years. There won’t be any increase in hydro. even 40% annual increases in wind and solar will only move them from about 1% to 2% of national energy supply. That leaves only biofuels. fwiw I think that biofuels as a % of national energy supply will grow very significantly at current price levels in just 3 years.
I believe the most likely scenario for the Air Force One mystery flight is the “buzz” theory for friends of Obama.
It troubles me, though, that Air Force One flew in such an erratic and irresponsible manner. It flew very close to buildings with thousands of civilians inside. It took very low and sharp corners to turn and come back.
It seems to me that an authorized pilot of Air Force One is chosen because of superior flying skills. He is also chosen for extraordinary clear thinking and calm in the face of danger. Neither of those characteristics were evident in the NY/NJ flyby. It seems to me that no matter who gave the authority, the pilot of Air Force One is also required not to endanger the lives of civilians unless there is distress or duress.
It also troubles me that there was a directive NOT to inform the public of the flight even though rational minds knew it was cause a certain amount of panic.
All pilots fly for the thrill and buzzing New York would be fun, but the men chosen to be the pilots for Air Force One would be far too professional and responsible to exhibit such erratic behavior.
“OPEC hasn’t particularly been a friend of the US and now, well, it’s get down time”.
that’s why Shah was removed, that’s why Saddam was removed, that’s why… there was a war in Georgia… it’s all about energy access and who’s gonna be the big distributor of it
it’s not finnished, now Russia is fliting with Saudi Arabia… got to think that Brzezinski will have some more brainstormings soon !
Marie Claude said:
that’s why Shah was removed, that’s why Saddam was removed, that’s why… there was a war in Georgia… it’s all about energy access and who’s gonna be the big distributor of it
————–
Total bullshit Claude. 1. Carter is a fool. 2. Saddam lost a war, then refused to surrender. 3. Putin is wearing Saddam’s hat and Jimmy C’s poker face. Georgia is on my mind. Georgia might be the line. Funny how that happens.
42. Lifeofthemind:
18-24 months out we will be facing the perfect storm of inflation caused by the Porkulos and associated financial pressures
……………….
This is conventional wisdom. I’m as clueless to you as to whether its true or not. Seems right. I’m just sketching a scenario by which that might not happen.
I learned one of William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell when I was in high school. It goes like this: “Too much of everything is just enough.” The Greatful Dead included that line as their punch line in the tune “I need a miracle Every Day. The Lyrics are here. The utube is no longer available because of copyright constraints. But Ratdog does a passable version of the tune.
What’s this have to do with the price of oil? Oil prices might stay low or lower–mitigating inflation pressures. Which would be good for Obama. As it rains alike on the just and the unjust so too the sun shines on both.
I’ll be curious to see whether congress really is putting forward legislation to protect pedophiles.
I just think this thing will leak eventually. The crew members know, of course, what it was all about. If Bush had done it, the MSM would be knocking on the doors of everyone involved offering bags of cash for the story. But with O… I guess not even the National Enquirer wants to know the truth.
I’m hoping that among the people who know is (a) an American good and true who will spill the fiasco or (b) a rich airhead who won’t be able to resist from bragging about it on his/her Facebook page.
People of Plenty
“So it’s hats off to the oil-and-gas men with their 3-D computerized formation maps, their rented drilling rigs and their dirty hands. Once again, they have provided us with more energy than all the foundation studies, energy blogs, feed-in tariffs, production tax credits and renewable portfolios will ever generate. Only two years ago it appeared the Lower 48 was pretty well played out for natural gas, just as oil has been for three decades. Now it appears we have enough gas to get us through the 21st century. “
ht – Teresita
Buddy,
What would be the most creative/effective way for Pelosi/Obama to take this off the table?
The only way to find out the truth about Obama’s Excellent Flight would be to put out the story that Trig Palin was on board. Then the NYT would not rest until all the facts were public.
just now got here, doug –have to read up the thread –been outside laying out a victory garden. plantin’ me some vittles.
I was just refering to the Gas Article Buddy:
You’re the Oil Man.
—
Captain Oveur: You ever been in a cockpit before?
Trig: No sir, I’ve never been up in a plane before.
Captain Oveur: You ever seen a grown man naked?
Captain Oveur: Trig, have you ever been in a… in a Turkish prison?
“Total bullshit Claude. 1. Carter is a fool. 2. Saddam lost a war, then refused to surrender. 3. Putin is wearing Saddam’s hat and Jimmy C’s poker face. Georgia is on my mind. Georgia might be the line. Funny how that happens”
Bonzo, Brzezinski engineered Khomeiny’s come back, Iran was a member of OPEC during Shah times, Saddam was also an OPEC member before the desert storm, and Shah and Saddam had the “Alger agreement” of non belligerence between the 2 states.
Both Shah and Saddam had the greatest oil reserves and were directing oil policy in ME.
So Brzezinski’s goal was to break this statut of power, he forecasted that the Mullahs and Saddam soon would clash into a war.
His policy was to bring the mess there so that the powerful states like Iran and Irak would collapse and that they would be divised into small ethnical lands, with no decisive power for making oil prices.
But the mullahs happened to be more dificult to manipulate than he thought, they resisted and organised Iran in a theocratic country.
Saddam was less difficult to subjuggate. See now what happens there The Kurds have their autonomy and oil, Bassora region too, and they have no oil price monopole anymore.
Now, what the new administration is trying to make with Iran is to reach an agreement. After such a long and ruinous boycott, all the Shah infrastructures are kaputt, and The Mullahs have no means to decide for the oil price too, they need foreign invesments.
But Putin is as so clever than Brzezinski, so the set isn’t guaranted,
Plus, Putin managed to attend the islam last convention and he is making a tour in Arab countries to reverse the alliances.
So, there will be some more coups behind the curtains by in between agents.
Uh, I think that Obama will loose the benefit of the last wars
Habu @ 35: “Obama is a Muslim but a murtad fitri, the worst type of apostate, because he was blessed by Allah to be born into the true faith of Islam.”
Says who? What is not to say he did not lie and actually is a practicing Muslim? I think that is more likely. Look at the protestation before the Saud princeling.
Charles @ 36: “Very Large gas deposits have been found in Louisiana which are said to dwarf the Barnett gas around Dallas.”
And southern NM. The meme is drill, proof and cap. They are waiting for the price to go up. Other deposits are in Utah, NW NM, southern CO and others.
Hat tip Doug/TT
I can’t emphasize enough how foundational this is to understanding the tectonic forces underlying the current age.(Consider the date 1970 for US peak oil production precedes Roe V Wade in 1973)
People of Plenty
In my book, Terrestrial Energy, I talk about historian David Potter’s 1956 book, People of Plenty, which redefined Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis.” Whereas Turner said that an abundance of landhad been the defining experience in the American character, Potter argued it was actually an abundance of natural resources.
Following this line of thought, I argued that since our domestic oil production went into decline in 1970 we had entered a new era of American history where we became a “people of scarcity.” It was a pretty good argument at the time, but I think now I’m going to have to revise it for the next edition. Once again we have become a People of Plenty — this time in natural gas.
To use Natural Gas seriously in heavy vehicles, you have to compress it into Liquid Natural Gas.
That takes a fair bit of energy though small NG powered compressor stations might be possible.
NG is just not dense enough for heavy transport as is. You’d end up with a tank the size of a semi-trailer to give you enough range to do anything serious.
There is good news however on actually using gas in diesel engines. For years it used to be just injected into the intake manifold. Now a mob in BC (Britsh Columbia) called Westernport has come up with a computer controlled injector that injects gas and just enough diesel fuel to get compression ignition.
There are some road-train triples running on LNG out here in Oz and from what I understand they are doing fine.
A key is local compressors at transport yards that compress normal NG from city gas mains.
Again, as I understand it, NG fired power stations can be switched on and off far more readily than coal fired ones so that makes NG a lot more compatible with wind and solar power sources that are highly variable in output.
Perhaps these photos will go to surviving members of the Tuskegee airmen. Or to various other leaders of the civil rights work of the day.
It is Obama’s airplanes after all.
@#73 Robohobo
That almost sounds like Taqiyya.
75. Bob Murphy:
To use Natural Gas seriously in heavy vehicles, you have to compress it into Liquid Natural Gas.
That takes a fair bit of energy though small NG powered compressor stations might be possible.
NG is just not dense enough for heavy transport as is. You’d end up with a tank the size of a semi-trailer to give you enough range to do anything serious.
================================
Natural Gas is just a compact Hydrogen storage medium. Liquid packs even more of the good element in the available space. Gasoline is conveniently liquid at STP.
The entire density problem just goes right over the heads of the Hydrogen car witch doctors, along with their diatomic Hydrogen. Why can’t they see it just won’t work?
=================================
=================================
Again, as I understand it, NG fired power stations can be switched on and off far more readily than coal fired ones so that makes NG a lot more compatible with wind and solar power sources that are highly variable in output.
=================================
Two kinds of power plants, base load and peaker.
Natural gas used in a combined cycle plant effectively acts like solar, a base load plant.
Gas turbines are also used in the speculation market (peak/emergency) use. Power has to get pretty expensive to justify running a gas turbine to get it. As I recall, about $70.00 per Megawatt.
Here in the midwest, most of our power plants are currently idled as we have decided to stop manufacturing stuff and just sit around and watch CNN all day.
=================================
=================================
F@15
Thanks for explaining the “escape clauses.”
I realize that the “identities” of the passengers may be sacrosanct under FOIA and will be redacted from any released manifest. However, what we need to know is HOW MANY CIVILIANS were aboard AF0ne (and if possible, their purpose for being there), no? So, how do we craft the FOIA to learn these facts?
I found a photo online identified as “USAF F-16C block 30 #87-0217 from the 160th FS is seen wearing special tail markings for the Alabama ANG commemorating the reactivating of the 100th FS Tuskegee airmen, formats with a P-51 Mustang in Tuskegee markings on September 12th, 2007.”