View From the Bushes

I heard something very funny on the radio this morning just as I was pulling into the parking lot. It was right about 8:00 and Steve Inskeep (at least I think that's who it was) was giving the teaser for what was going to be coming up on Morning Edition after the newsbreak. One of the stories was about the Islamic "Cartoon Controversy," and he said something like, "Muslims, upset about editorial cartoons protraying Mohammed as violent..." And at this point there was just the tiniest crack in his voice -- I'm not sure if he was about to lose it and start laughing or if he was merely cracking a smile, or if the irony had just struck him, but after the briefest of pauses he continued, "...burned the Danish Embassy and ransacked a Christian neighborhood." I guess it's the old, "We'll show you we're not violent, with... a... demonstration.. of.. violence... yeah that will show them!"

It actually was a pretty good weekend for blog material, particularly material I already covered. You may remember me mentioning 12dailypro, that miraculous system which pays 44% every 12 days. Well the bottom has finally started falling out and I was lucky enough (much like the Minutemen at Concord) to have a front row seat. The reason I say that is because it was a local Utah news station which fired the first shot and apparently the second and third as well. Of course, 12 Daily is claiming that business couldn't be better, that it's the payment service that is on the verge of collapse, and it's all their fault. It is unfortunate that it couldn't die cleanly and without leaving people feeling like they need an autopsy in order to figure out what the hell happened, but criminals rarely die of old age.

On the 9/11 front, my friend, while still keeping up with one front via private e-mail, has basically said that I am too obstinate to continue the fight in the public forum. I'm inclined to call that a win, but it's probably a Phyrric Victory if it is. The only thing I have to add is this excerpt from the website of Controlled Demolition, Inc. It's a description of the largest controlled demolition ever (though still of a building at less than half the size of one of the World Trade Centers). Rather than redact the page myself I'm going to use the redaction and commentary on the Wikipedia discussion page:

the J.L. Hudson Department Store is "At 439 ft. tall Hudson’s is the tallest building & the tallest structural steel building ever imploded. At 2.2 million square feet, Hudson's is the largest single building ever imploded."...the article goes on to state that, " Under CDI direction, Homrich/NASDI’s 21 man crew needed three months to investigate the complex and four months to complete preparations for CDI’s implosion design," and also discusses that they had to torch many steel columns to weaken them and, "CDI’s 12 person loading crew took twenty four days to place 4,118 separate charges in 1,100 locations on columns on nine levels of the complex. Over 36,000 ft of detonating cord and 4,512 non-electric delay elements were installed in CDI’s implosion initiation system, some to create the 36 primary implosion sequence and another 216 micro-delays to keep down the detonation overpressure from the 2,728 lb of explosives which would be detonated during the demolition."...now that sounds like a lot of work to implode one building less than half the size of either one of the WTC...and this company is the foremost one in the world in controlled demolition. There is no theory about controlled demolition that will explain how a project this massive would have gone undetected.

Preach on Brother!
Ross