The Big Three: Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney–I’ve Read Them All

I’m 67 years old, and it’s been a real blessing to  have been born American. A big part of that blessing is to live under a freely elected government, elected by free people such as myself. As a consequence I have now lived  under some great men, and some great administrations.

One of the greats of my lifetime as it turns out is the George W. Bush administration, and the three autobiographies recently published give a real insight into those three men who were in the arena during the very tough years following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Those of you who have read my writings know that I have been a supporter of George W. Bush, and finally we get to read history from these three men who were history for so many years.

One of the leadership attributes I’ve admired about Bush was his ability to put good people around himself; people with extensive experience, dedicated to serving the nation in a selfless manner.  Most of all I saw the inherent goodness in these men from which sprung their years of service to the country they loved.

I know I am going against the popular grain here, against the grain that fervently hates these men. Many in their pitched fervor would lynch them, but I prefer to let them speak for themselves and present their life stories and defend their record in their own words. And, I find these stories quite compelling and fascinating.

As the years now unfold under new leadership, we see that the most fervent critics are now standing on the shoulders of what the Bush administration accomplished. I hope the public can soon appreciate what actually happened during the 8 years following 9/11 and give proper due to some very courageous public servants; Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney chief among them. 

In reading the first draft of the history of this era, I choose to read the history through the eyes of those who were in the arena. Other histories  have been and are being written, but so often they are written by professionals with political or journalistic biases looking though glasses tinted one way or another. One day a truly objective accounting will be written, perhaps by someone of the stature of a Jay Winik. I hope I am alive to read such an account.

Decision Points by George W. Bush
Known and Unknown by Donald Rumsfeld
In My Time by Dick Cheney

Me and the Solyndra Flare-out – Part 2

The Top Gun training system with which I was part of for close to 30 years made extensive use of solar panels for our remote tracking sites. In 1980-81 I made a trip to Automatic Power in Houston, the supplier of our solar panels.

While there, the general manager showed us a book containing hundreds of  proposals submitted to the U.S. Government requesting grants or other subsidies to fund the latest ideas in solar panel production. As I recall, the book was on the order of two to three inches thick, and the GM stated that such a book was produced every year. He went on to say that most if not all of these proposals were junk.

The reason they were junk according to the GM, was this: solar panels were/are very expensive to make, requiring much energy to build; so much energy that the payback in energy savings for the end-user was so far into the future as to be totally impractical from a financial point of view. The energy required to produce the panels came from the electric grid, and again the payback was years into the future.  Thus solar panels were relegated to the nitch market for users such as us where conventional power was simply not available; places such as the deserts of California, Nevada and Arizona; and off the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Other nitch users are the Coast Guard in marking shipping panels.

The Solyndra scandal tells me two things: solar panel manufacturing still suffers the same constraints as 30-40 years ago; and someone finally hit the jackpot and suckered someone to buy into their proposals in one of these three-inch books.

Remember this folks; Government stimulus packages that we’ve seen in recent years are little more than very large “Targets of Opportunity” for scoundrels, and can only hurt all of us. When you see them being proposed, be very, very afraid.

The U.S. Walkout on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N.

I don’t know if you saw the mass walkout at the U.N. as protest over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech. Here’s what should be done from now on:

The President, the Mayor of New York City and the Governor of New York should issue the following proclamation  to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But first a review of the Nazi atrosities is in order so you may see what kind of people we are dealing with when it comes to Islam.  http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/album_Auschwitz/mutimedia/index.HTMLhttp://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/album_Auschwitz/mutimedia/index.HTML

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Mr. Ahmadinejad,
You are no longer welcome to set foot on any inch of American soil, nor cross any American airspace. If the U.N. or your beloved Allah can somehow magically transport your miserable body into the U.N. House of Lies, then so be it, as long as you touch no part of our land or airspace.

Your behavior in threatening the slaughter of 6 million Jews in Israel and your preparations for this annihilation in the form of producing nuclear weapons puts you on a par with Adolf Hitler and his extermination camps, and even worse.
You and those of your ilk are emissaries of Satin, there is no other explanation for the filth that lies in your soul and spews from your lips.

Directly from the darkest depths of hell, just as Hitler was, are you.

With all sincerity in this,
President of the United States

Mayor of the City of New York

Governor of the State of New York

 

 

 

Me and the Solyndra Flare-out

I read with some amount of personal interest the Wall Street Journal
editorial “Solar Flare-out” regarding the $535 billion dollar taxpayer funded bankruptcy of  Solyndra, a solar  manufacturing company, and especially the writers characterization of its failure as “politically directed investment”.
I worked as a software developer at the Naval Weapons Center (NWC)  at China Lake, CA in the 1990s, and over a period of three years in the late 90s was an unwilling participant in what I have since labeled “politically directed development”.

Faced with the threat of a brand new replacement system for the “Top
Gun training system” which we supported, management at NWC and Naval Air Systems Command in D.C. decided to carve out the Input/Output segment as the exclusive domain of our NWC lab. This resulted in the development of a very expensive military/industrial style computer system (VME) intended to be the “standard” interface to the new replacement system. These interface computers were complex, expensive to the tune of the high tens of thousands of dollars each along with non recurring costs approaching a million dollars. They were totally
unnecessary, as the alternative solution consisted of cables costing on the order of $20 at Radio Shack, a little bit of software and a specialized PC card
costing several hundred dollars.

I fought this fiasco over the entire three years, and at one point was told to “shut up and sit down, this is a political decision!” The project ultimately failed, and we then developed the cable based system in short order.

This past year in I spoke at the Systems & Software Technology Conference
in Salt Lake City and presented this episode as a case study in failure. Along
with the expose’ I offered a method for mitigating such abuses in the future;
but I have scant hopes of it ever being implemented. You can view the pesentation as follows at SSTC:
* In your web browser go to: http://sstc-online.org
* Click on “PROCEEDINGS” in the menu below the blue
banner.
* Click on “2011: “Syncing-Up With Technology” under
the Proceedings list.
* Log in using Sstc11 as the
password.
* Click on “Technical Tracks”.
* Click on “Monday 16 April 2011”
* Scroll down to Track 5 and click the item “(I) The Problem of Politically Driven System Development
Donald L Johnson, Retired Software
Developer”
* View the presentation by clicking under” View Slides”

But the story does not end there. After leaving the NWC shortly after the
collapse of the misguided Politically Driven miss-adventure, I went back to  the
original developer of the Top Gun system. Several years later, around 2005, the Navy and Air Force again set out to replace the Top Gun system, and Cubic was selected for the project (which has turned out to be successful). However, the NWC lab where I previously worked was inserted into the program as a sort of “technical  liaison”. This gave them a new opportunity to carve out a piece of the action at the expense of the contractor, and also at the expense of system complexity and cost. The new carve out was a significant piece of electronic warfare simulation which had been developed in the mid 1980s and was an integrated part of the software baseline we used in developing the new Top Gun system. There were no compelling technical reasons for this carve out, but there were significant political and economic benefits to the NWC lab.   Again, this carve out resulted in significant cost increases to the program and taxpayer. And note that these costs were not brought about due to contractor action, but rather by the Government.

To make matters worse, another political decision was made to introduce a
significant level of unnecessary interface complexity and cost in the interface
between the simulation package and the main body of the system. This interface.
TENA,  while probably a worthy product in its own right was miss-applied to the new system. The basic interface requirement for these two systems was to pass
pertinent status and control information to one another; the interface was well
established going back to the mid 1980s. The TENA implementation converted this basic data to the the TENA language and transmitted it over a cable to another computer that was a whopping 6 feet away. Then at the receiving end of this cable, another TENA program retranslated the data back to the original format which was originated at the other end of the wire. This is akin to translating a simple English language conversation to Swahili and back to English using two Swahili translators so that the two English speakers can carry on a conversation across a table. The need was to communicate in English, not Swahili. Madness and wrong!
With this sort of “politically directed investment/development” seemingly prevalent at all levels of government, is it any wonder that we have massive debt and deficits?
There are many good and responsible civil servants out there, but it’s time to reform the Civil Service system and require real accountability from those holding the public trust and pocket book. Politicians,Program managers and Systems Engineers at Government  organizations such as the White House, NavAir and NWC  should be held accountable for such corruption, but as far as I can tell are not, resulting in much monetary abuse, the most egregious being programs such as Solyndra.

Sad to say, Solyndra is not alone.

I Woke Up This Morning–Fully Alive and Forever

I didn’t intend to wake up this way, you know — Fully Alive and Forever. But here I am.

The first thing I saw was Truth. Truth all around me bombarding all of my senses: eyes, ears, touch, smell and taste, and yes even my thoughts. There is no escape from the joy of the realization that I am now for the first time blessed with absolute, undeniable, knowable and irrefutable Truth.

Forever I can now Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.
Psalm 106:1

Forever I can now Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8

I see now with absolute clarity that Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever. Psalm 23:6

As time now unfolds I see and feel the very personal truth that I am forever part of the Truth that is all around me. I realize with joy that this embrace is the love of God and is ever growing at the same time I realize that the extent of this Truth is ever unfolding and my embrace of it is ever growing. I will always be a part of it. I rejoice with the realization that this ever unfolding Truth is consistent with an infinite and yet personal God I had embraced before I died.

I reach out to touch it, and with each new reach find it to be ever rewarding and always within easy  reach. I call out to someone, anyone, and find that multitudes are here and know me, love me and are to be my closest companions forever. I am not alone! And I will be in the presence of the Lord God forever – and ever forever.

I can see the beginning, I can see the Truth that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Genesis1:1” and can experience this miracle with all of my being . No thought crosses my mind of billions and billions of years of thrashing around waiting for my puny body to evolve. I can see “the heavens declaring the glory of God. Psalms 19:1” I can hear the Lord gently knocking on the door of my heart, and that same heart rejoicing that now that door is forever open to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; and I will praise Him forever- and ever forever.

Now I know with personal conviction, experience and knowledge  that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life John 3:16” I experience this mercy and grace all the while seeing the beauty of this Savior and Lord.

Oh please!! let those left behind me experience the joy of being surrounded by all Truth.

Oh please!! let death be the doorway of those left behind me to also know and experience the Truth that now surrounds me in every way.

Exposed so totally, helplessly and joyfully to Truth.

I Woke Up This Morning–DEAD

I didn’t intend to wake up this way, you know — DEAD. But here I am.

The first thing I saw was Truth. Truth all around me bombarding all of my senses: eyes, ears, touch, smell and taste, and yes even my thoughts. There is no escape from the realization that I am now for the first time confronted with absolute, undeniable  and irrefutable Truth.

Oh please!!  let death be a lake of fire, a fire that blots out all Truth.

Oh please!! let death be obliteration, obliteration that blots out all Truth.

Anything but this; to be exposed so totally and helplessly to Truth.

As time now unfolds I see and feel the very personal truth that I am separated from the Truth that is all around me. I realize with horror that this separation is ever growing at the same time I realize that the extent of  this Truth is ever unfolding and my separation from it ever growing. I can never be a part of it. I agonize with the realization that this ever unfolding Truth is consistent with an infinite and yet personal God I had rejected before I died.  

I reach out to touch it, but with each new reach find it to be ever beyond reach. I call out to someone, anyone,  only to realize there is no one else here. I am alone! And will be alone forever and ever forever.

I can see the beginning, I can see the Truth that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” but it was too late for me. I can see the Truth that there were no billions and billions of years of thrashing around waiting for my puny body to evolve. I could see “the heavens declaring the glory of God.” I can hear the Lord gently knocking on the door of my heart, and that same heart agonizing that now I would never open that door to let Him in.

By now I’ve heard “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” beyond my capability to count, all the while seeing the beauty of this savior and Lord. But alas, this is for those multitudes I look upon now with infinite regret and envy.

Oh please!! let death be a lake of fire, a fire that blots out all Truth.

Oh please!! let death be obliteration, obliteration that blots out all Truth.

Anything but this; to be exposed so totally and helplessly to Truth.

Rebuilding Ground Zero

As the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on America approaches, we have found some excellent documentaries surrounding that anniversary:

A particularly good series is from the Discovery Channel titled RISING – Rebuilding Ground Zero. The series focuses  for the most part on people; people designing and building the ground zero complex; people who had part in building the original towers, and are now building the new; people who lost loved ones and are now actively building a memorial to those loved ones, many who were never recovered either in part or whole.
The pride and singleness of purpose is so evident in these people, whether it be Larry Silverstein the developer of the project, iron workers working at the top of the tower, plumbers building the memorial waterfalls, concrete workers throughout the project, architects fulfilling their dreams of a lasting memorial to the past and a soaring testament to the hope of the future.

Fox News has also produced a very good documentary The Rise of Freedom.

Then there is the National Geographic documentary George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview,  a very good presentation of the remembrances of President Bush on that September day.

There are others as well, and I hope you can take some time to watch some of these and reflect on the tragedy and gain hope from the stories of rising from that day.

I am fortunate to live a short train ride from lower Manhattan, and on September 11, 2011 I intend to be there; to be New York that day; to be America that day.