Aluminum Overcast at EAA119

B-17 at WVI

The B-17 Aluminum Overcast visited WVI May 3-6. The visit started with a press flight on Monday for the local papers and KION 46 weather reporter Tamara Berg. Click here. The SC Sentinel story is here. Tuesday had the first two flights for paying passengers and a couple of freebies for EAA 119 volunteers. Afterward a lot of visitors came out to the airport to tour through the plane, EAA119 volunteers doing a great job keeping the visitors interested, educated, informed and flowing through the plane. We all learned a lot and I think passed on a lot of information to the community what it was like in that plane. Tony and Thad literally spent hours in the cockpit talking to folks. Tuesday night had the Mexican dinner from Said's Little Tampico and short talk by the B-17 crew that was very well received. A group photo was taken and chapter meeting held afterward. This was very successful. Wednesday was much like Tuesday, two passenger flights, a lot of visitors to 5pm. On Thursday, the flight to Napa was perfect. Chuck, Mike Nelson, Thad, JR, Mike Corder, myself and Dennis Thomas (who just happened to be standing in the right place at the right time) rode to Napa. Takeoff included a pass over the field while we were already walking around the cabin. The view of the coast and Golden Gate was perfect, and in an hour, we landed at Napa. Chris Laws (who rode on Tuesday) picked us up and drove us (after a Jonesy's lunch) home.

The crew several times complimented EAA119 on how well we did hosting the B-17 and said many chapters could learn from us. A lot of that organization and drive came from John Davi, to no surprise to anyone. Thanks John for all the effort to make this the big success it turned out to be!

Tim Minchin - Pope Song (Warning - Offense Probable)

Between the Islamic fear and abuse of women, the Catholic abuse of children, the Jewish abuse of their desert shit hole, and Deepak Chopra's abuse of logic, this song for me could be applied to all of them.

Comment in the YouTube channel:
14534 What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
fly44d @14534 what happened to the innocence of children whose rapists were moved on to other positions to rape again? Besides, this is about the whole Catholic Church, not just the Pope.

Bill Maher slams Islamic extremists

Bill is a kook for some things (like vaccinations) but I like his politics and ridicule for religion.

Free speech is not negotiable.
Separation between church and state is not negotiable.
Women are allowed to work and you can't beat them, not negotiable.

Things are going to get worse

“Things are going to get unimaginably worse, and they are never, ever, going to get better again!”

 

Supposedly by Kurt Vonnegut

Day in the Sky success!

DitS turned out well. I haven't blogged about the hours of frustration, anger, frustration, resignation, frustration and drama this has been since early in March. EAA suddenly decided that the risk to their Young Eagles program was too much and wanted out. DitS organizers couldn't understand the reasoning and was ready to claim discrimination against special needs kids. Most still don't understand the issues. The result was no flying by anyone. But a lot of kids got to hang out around airplanes, we had a bunch opened up for them to sit in, NASA had a cool display with solar telescopes out. It turned out very well. Not a lot of EAA 119 volunteers but that is ok. We got enough Cisco people to help set up. I ended up setting up the entire ramp myself in the morning because I dreamed about it all the night before. I was at the airport before 7am and before the ramp crew, so I just did it. I am paying for it today, I ache everywhere. I took no pictures during the day so these are from Mary and Dean.

Day in the Sky agony

Man, this has been a tough couple of months. EAA calls and says, "don't be part of DitS! YE insurance doesn't cover it!" We ended up calling off the flying part of DitS. I hope the event this weekend goes off ok with only static display planes.

Sunday Sacrilege: That other thing we don't believe in

We do not have immortality, but that also means we can throw away the irrelevant crutches of god-belief. We've walked successfully without them — cast them away, stand as a proud human being and meet fate without the wishful delusions of faith. That's why this thought is a sacrilege — it says that we have no need of priests or gods or persistent ghosthood, ideas that have only hobbled us.

PZ is talking about the rest of what we don't think exists. A soul. Life after death. Forget the god thing, not believing in a soul is much more fundamental in atheism. People believe in reincarnation and ghosts because they think there is a soul that is separate from our bodies and brains. More wishful thinking I believe. But I understand it more, it is hard to see how we can cease to exist when our brains die. What happens to our thoughts. It is hard to think that our thinking self will actually stop.

The meaning of Easter

We don't regard as heroic the soldier who throws the fellow next to him on top of the grenade, and we especially condemn the soldier who first pulled the pin on the grenade, then smothered the explosion with his bunkmates body.

I had never tried to figure out the logic of Easter. Not having really ever been Christian, I've never had to. Jesus being tortured to death for our sins and then going to heaven somehow saves us? Of course only if you accept him as your lord and savior. Or not. Depending on which variety of Christianship being promoted. But to really peel back the layers and examine the logic from PZ's post here, wow. How messed up is this?

1. Eve and Adam screw up in God's eyes. Not in mine, she was curious and wanted knowledge, what is wrong with that?
2. We are all fallen and need to be forgiven for Eve and Adam's sins. Really? How am I at fault? That is some lawyer God has.
3. God sends his son to earth knowing he would be sacrificed. Wow. Daughters, know that I would no do that to you.
4. The son knows he is going to die, but also knows he is going to heaven, no question. Not really that much of a sacrifice. Makes it kind of hollow.
5. Jesus gets tortured to death, sort of, walks away and is never seen again. We are told to accept Jesus as our savior to get the forgiveness for our sins, the original ones being the ones committed by ancient ancestors.

So god gets pissed, throws his son at us to be sacrificed, and we are supposed to praise him and his son who knew it wasn't going to hurt.

Amazing.

"Out of many, one"

I've always hated "In God we Trust" on our money and buildings. It's wrong and wrong. I would like to see it removed from our money, removed from the pledge of allegiance, and buildings.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."

E PLURIBUS UNUM
"Out of many, one"

Science can answer moral questions

Sam Harris talks about how science can answer moral questions.

Another one...

Greetings fly44d,
"...the god theory doesn't make sense." What god theory do you refer to? There are innumerable concepts of "God", not all are equally implausible, however, are you amongst those that presupposes that Islam posits the existence of an anthropomorphic God (ex. an "invisible man up in the sky" or perhaps some large humanistic observer completely separate from the universe?). And you are right, before accepting any way of life, you MUST challenge it sincerely.

Peace

At least he is polite. My reply (I had to go direct to him because the moderator of that video won't allow my comments anymore):

The moderator doesn't like me anymore...

To me, any concept of any god having any control of anything in this universe is the god theory. A theory being an explanation for observed data. At my level, it could be an old caucasian with a white beard, a Palestinian with long dark hair, a wooish wooy woo energy wooism in the 12th dimension, or a small white mouse. Whatever you might think god is, I doubt very much that it exists in any way shape or form. And so far the only evidence presented is scripture and interpretation of it. Meaningless to me.

Celebrating life beyond belief

"I may refrain from publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, but it's because I fear you. Don't for one moment think it's because I respect you."

I wish I could have gone to Australia to this convention, but then I'm sure there will be more in this country since the organizer is American.

Yamani or Your Life

A nasty attempt to coerce Danish newspapers into apologizing for the cartoons of Mohammed.

http://www.slate.com/id/2247256/

"It's not enough that faith claims to be the solution to all problems. It is now demanded that such a preposterous claim be made immune from any inquiry, any critique, and any ridicule."

Free speech is not negotiable as far as I am concerned. I think I'll go find a muslim to argue with on YouTube! :-)

Toot toot my horn...

I’ve been given a 60 day layoff warning and in defense of my position, I wrote the following:

“Mr. Tom Hail is being impacted by Mr. X. While Mr. X is an extremely bright employee it would be impossible for him to assume the duties and responsibilities of Tom Hail with six month’s training. Mr. X’S experience is in software development and project management which is not the position Tom Hail manages. This position is as the YYY spacecraft Certified Principle Engineer (CPE) as well as technical lead for YYY sustainment and reports to manager for 16 engineers. The CPE role itself requires extensive YYY knowledge to be able to assess impacts caused by proposed changes and on-orbit activities. The technical lead role manages the work flow of over 20 engineers in support of YYY sustainment which encompasses calibrations, state of health assessment, performance reporting and 24/7/365 anomaly response/resolution. Tom’s unique skill is his knowledge of the launch operations history, anomaly resolution and on orbit operations of the YYY constellation. Tom has nearly 30 years of geosynchronous spacecraft operations experience building this extensive background and knowledge of the YYY spacecraft. As the constellation ages, his expertise has been called upon more frequently in the resolution of on-orbit issues. The result is that the constellation is still, after over 50 years of combined on-orbit time, 100% mission capable partly due to Tom’s efforts. The launch of the ZZZ spacecraft is going to require this expertise by Tom and his team for sustainment and operations. Success of this planning is crucial for maintenance of the high award fees this contract traditionally garners. With the loss of Tom, the YYY team runs a very real risk of responding incorrectly or unacceptably slowly to anticipated hardware anomalies. Additionally, new, unanticipated anomalies are very likely to take longer for root cause resolution and potentially extended satellite downtime. Mr. X, on the other hand, has no YYY or any other relevant experience in the build, test, launch, or operations of any kind of ---- satellite. He appears to be a highly experienced software development expert which is unsuited for this position.”

Frankly, I haven't begun to try to find another position in LM. If they they do replace me (not likely at this point), I am not interested in working there anymore.