Dan pointed out a particularly absurd quote regarding our state’s constitution (click the link to read it), but I think I can top it.  From AL.com:

A freight train carrying segments of the solid rocket booster segments for the space shuttle derailed Wednesday after a bridge collapsed, authorities said. Six people were reported injured.

The solid rocket booster and its reusable motor are NASA projects managed by Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Marshall spokesman Dom Amatore said a team of investigators from NASA and the solid rocket booster contractor ATK Inc. were sent to the train accident site to inspect the booster segments for damage.

Eight booster segments for two different boosters were on the train, Amatore said.

“The pieces are inert. They don’t pose a danger because the igniter fuel is put in place” at Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, Amatore said.

First of all, unless they were shipping empty cases - which they wouldn’t because the solid propellant grain is loaded in Utah - the motors WERE NOT INERT.  Amatore’s assertion is patently false.  Each four segment motor contains roughly 1.1 million pounds of AP/PBAN/AL composite solid propellant.  The propellant can and will ignite when exposed to a sufficient heat source.  For the NASA spokesman at Marshall to make such a technically inaccurate statement is (biting my virtual tongue) unfortunate.

And while I have my rocket scientist hat on, “igniter fuel” is not put in at the Cape.  Yes, motors are typically shipped sans igniters (the components that “light” the motor).  But, the phrase “igniter fuel” is inaccurate.  The igniter material is a typical solid propellant that contains both fuel and an oxidizer.  To say “igniter fuel” betrays a fundamental lack of understanding about the motor and is a phrase I would expect to hear from a non-technical individual, but not a NASA spokesman.

I’m in a blustery mood tonight, so here’s another rant.

I’m sick of people, primarily the media, using hindsight to reach absurd conclusions about how people should have acted.  This issue set me off after the Enterprise tornado when some people suggested that the school should have let kids go home earlier.  It’s easy for a reporter from New York or LA who isn’t familiar with frequent tornado producing storms to make such a statement.  But this is Alabama, a tornado prone state.  If schools throughout the South and Midwest did a knee jerk dismissal and sent kids to their (usually less structurally sound) homes then they might never finish the school year.  When storms are predicted sometimes you have to wait and see how the storm progresses before you release the kids.

Think of it this way, how many times have schools not promptly released kids in the face of a dangerous storm that eventually doesn’t produce a tornado?  Certainly there are no hard figures, but I would hazard a guess that it is a fairly frequent occurrence.  No one ever complains.  But in the extremely rare instance when a tornado does hit a school some fault the administration for a decision that would not have garnered a single critical observation otherwise.

As for the shooting at VaTech and the now infamous two hour gap between the first shooting and the second, much larger scale shooting…

Think about this alternate scenario.  Supposedly the campus police were under the impression that the shooter in the dorm attack was a former boyfriend.  Typically in murders (we see enough reports of them on the news to make an educated guess) the assailant leaves the scene of the crime and tries to maintain a low profile or flees in order to avoid capture.  It is rare to hear about further violence hours later after an apparent crime of passion.  So given that scenario, what if the university had used their severe weather sirens to transmit voice notification that a gunman was on the loose?  Would that have caused mass hysteria?  I can see the headlines now if that happened and a couple of students were stampeded to death in a mass rush of people and then it turned out that the first murder was in fact an isolated crime of passion, posing no threat to the campus at large.  The media would excoriate the administration for their rash warning.

The impetus for issuing a prompt, sweeping warning after the first crime isn’t clear to me.  VaTech is home to over 26,000 students and faculty, which makes it larger in population than my hometown of Enterprise, AL.  Although murders were rare in Enterprise I don’t recall any hysterical warnings to the public immediately after a homicide.  Ironically no one complained about the lack of instant notification after subsequent shootings didn’t occur.

It’s natural to want to know why tragedies happen and it is productive to explore ways to better react.  But, far too many people use the enhanced hindsight we enjoy today through greater information access to assume that these tragedies were preventable.

Two of the most divisive issues in modern politics are both on the front burner right now: abortion and gun control.  To be honest, abortion is near the bottom of my personal agenda.  I know that sounds like an Alabama resident saying they don’t care who wins the Iron Bowl, but that is how I feel.  I only feel slightly more passionate about gun control.  I don’t currently own a gun and I don’t hunt.  At least the right to bear arms is explicitly defined in the Constitution and is therefore worth fighting to preserve.

In my opinion there are much greater issues that should be tackled than abortion and gun control, but both are frequent centerpieces of various politicians’ platforms.  I suggest the unrealistic compromise outlined below so that both sides can focus on more substantive issues.

First, I’ll set the stage for why both of these issues are in the news today.  We all know by now of the massacre at Virginia Tech that has gun control advocates up in arms (pun intended).  Abortion reared its head via today’s Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial birth abortions.  An excerpt of their decision follows:

Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Act) to proscribe a particular method of ending fetal life in the later stages of pregnancy.  The Act does not regulate the most common abortion procedures used in the first trimester of pregnancy, when the vast majority of abortions take place. In the usual second-trimester procedure, “dilation and evacuation” (D&E), the doctor dilates the cervix and then inserts surgical instruments into the uterus and maneuvers them to grab the fetus and pull it back through the cervix and vagina. The fetus is usually ripped apart as it is removed, and the doctor may take 10 to15 passes to remove it in its entirety. The procedure that prompted the federal Act and various state statutes, including Nebraska’s, is a variation of the standard D&E, and is herein referred to as “intact D&E.” The main difference between the two procedures is that in intact D&E a doctor extracts the fetus intact or largely intact with only a few passes, pulling out its entire body instead of ripping it apart.  In order to allow the head to pass through the cervix, the doctor typically pierces or crushes the skull.

The bill as passed can be found here.  Here is how the crux of the bill reads:

Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial -birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. This subsection does not apply to a partial -birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.

Major political candidates responded predictably based on party affiliation (There are primaries to consider!).  Hillary’s response was practically a blatant lie.

Today’s decision blatantly defies the Court’s recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother.

Crosswalk her statement against the text of the bill above and it is clear that it doesn’t hold water.  Giuliani, who has supported late term abortions in the past, offered a tepid, “I agree with it.”

Now for the compromise.  Abortion first.  Allow abortions with few, but specific restrictions during the first trimester.  After that you’re gonna be a mom (exception for health of mother).  During the first trimester there should be stringent parental notification laws.  Our government schools won’t let a kid go on a field trip to a museum, they shouldn’t allow kids to have a potentially dangerous medical procedure without parental notice AND consent.  The father of the child must also consent (exceptions for rape and incest).  If the father cannot be located then the potential mother must sign an affidavit stating as much and be held criminally liable for lying.

The right likes to talk about exercising personal responsibility in sexual relationships, but lets face the facts.  People have sex and many do not take appropriate precautions.  Let’s lower the responsibility burden to only forcing sexually active women who do not want to have a baby by only “forcing” (not literally) them to take a pregnancy test every three months.  Remember, you have exactly one trimester to make your decision about whether or not you carry your child to term.

And now for the guns.  The events at VaTech illustrate why crazy people don’t need weapons of any type.  To purchase a gun of any type - from any source - you have to not only pass a criminal background test, but also furnish a certificate of competency from an approved physician (at your expense).  The penalty for physicians who act as certificate mills should be steep.  You must recertify your competence periodically (every two years?), again at your own expense.  Individuals who own firearms must take extreme care to safeguard their weapons.  If you have children or unstable people in your house then you should keep the gun and ammo locked up separately - and don’t put both keys on the same key chain.  This would be enforced through stiff penalties for the gun owner when his/her firearm is taken and used in the commission of a crime or suicide (exception for guns stolen - and reported as such - in a robbery).

After the compromise maybe we can focus on issues that actually affect everyone instead of the tiny minorities of people who choose to have an abortion or are victims of gun related violence.

The state trooper who was driving New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine’s SUV when it crashed was going 91 miles per hour according to the crash data recorder.  He told investigators that he “did not know how fast he was traveling.”  Just think about that.  If you or I drive 91 mph down the interstate and get pulled over by a trooper how well do you think the “I didn’t know” excuse is going to work.

On the Imus face controversy:

Everyone is ignoring the major point of the story.  Just why in the hell was Don Imus even watching women’s basketball in the first place?

On the Duke lacrosse players’ exoneration:

As former Labor Secretary Ray Donovan once asked, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”

Children are 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than a gun accident.  Keep that in mind the next time someone wants to abridge our 2nd Amendment Right and claims it has something to do with protecting kids.

Let me point you to this comment left by a person who goes by the name “COMMON WISDOM.”  It is the ultimate ad hominem attack.

Mr. (or Ms., I’ll assume Mr. for the sake of simplicity) WISDOM took the time to do some Google searches on my name and found out that there are numerous LeComptes (circa 1860 and before) who owned slaves and killed Native Americans.  Mr. WISDOM, who also refers to me being a native of south Alabama concludes that I must hold deep prejudices.  Personally, I think Mr. Wisdom holds some deep prejudices against Alabama for assuming that any native of this state is predisposed to bigotry.

One of the policies on my blog is that I do not blog anonymously.  I do so because I think that people say things under the cloak of anonymity that they wouldn’t say in person or when they real name was known.  It keeps me honest.  I do not, however, impose this on my commenters.

Mr. WISDOM’s attack is similar to the one recently aimed at prospective Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.  It was “revealed” that his great grandfather had five wives.  “So what?” I said.  Does that make the Romney in question any less faithful to his wife of 37 years?

I’ve never owned a slave and Mr. WISDOM (I assume) has never been a slave.  I can’t help what any of my ancestors may or may not have done just as no one can change anything about their ancestry.  All I can do is take care of is myself.

I will admit that Mr. WISDOM’s prejudice against Alabama isn’t entirely without merit, although I can say from experience that the southeast isn’t the only part of the country to harbor such feelings.  Bigotry can be a siren song to young, impressionable or older, disenfranchised people regardless of location.  Much like how the Jews were condemned during the Holocaust, it is easier to blame others for your own plight than to blame the real cause: yourself.  It is also easy to assume the worst about a group of people you’ve never had contact (or only limited contact) with.

I was able to break free of such prejudices that may exist in Alabama through experience and a love of the free market.  I’ve worked for and with (and done business with) just about any minority group you can name: all races, genders, religions, and sexual orientations.  That experience has shown me that despite innate or chosen differences any and all people have the same capacity to work hard, be honest, and attain great things.  Furthermore, my love of the free market compels me to not turn down anyone for employment or as a customer based on some non-factor like race.  To put it simply, I don’t care if you are white, brown, yellow, or pink as long as your money is green.

The specific post I made that drew out Mr. WISDOM’s ire was one about a man in Oakland who is trying to make an exclusively black “cultural district.”  Those types of districts in the past have formed naturally or through unfortunate government intervention.  For the developer to artificially create his race specific district he will have to exclude people who don’t fit his racial desires.  I oppose that on principle.  I don’t think that NPR (where I heard of the story) would have done such a fawning piece about a white individual who had the same plans.  My fairness rule of thumb for all issues is, “How would this look if the roles were reversed?”

When I was an undergrad at Auburn I had the legendary Dr. Glennon Maples for Thermodynamics.  Dr. Maples was (and may still be) something of an institution within the College of Engineering because he was a very demanding, and often quite surly, professor.  His class was considered a weeder course because of the rigor involved.  He was rumored to have handed out transfer slips to the College of Business to students who performed poorly on the first exam.

Dr. Maples had a phrase that he liked to use that went something like this, “10% of you will go on to become engineers and 90% of you will become monkeys.”  The obvious implication is that many of the people who manage to pass the requisite courses to earn an engineering degree will not have the skills to really apply what they learned in the real world.  Any fool can solve equations, but it takes an engineer to know how to set up and/or derive the appropriate equations to solve a problem.  Sometimes it’s easy to spot who the monkeys are.  If you can’t identify any then you may be a monkey yourself.

I only write this because today I found a monkey in training.  I work part time on my masters degree at UAH.  I, like most other part time students who work 40+ hr/wk jobs, take advantage of the distance learning (DL) option that allows us to watch classes on DVD or streaming on the internet when our employment demands preclude us from attending class.  Today I was in class and the professor handed out the assignment for the major class project.

Everyone reviewed the project before the prof had a chance to explain it and one young man took umbrage with the team assignments.  His teammate was a DL student whom I happen to know.  He got the professor’s attention and began to whine about being teamed with a DL student.  He said that in class, full time students shouldn’t have to team with DL students because they (the in class folks) “make the sacrifice to come to class.”  He failed to mention that he was at least ten minutes late to the last two classes, but we all have limits to our sacrifices I suppose.

This young man’s intentions were thinly veiled.  His goal was to be able to team with one or more of the four people who he exclusively hangs out with in the class.  I’m not a terribly shy person and I’m not afraid of confrontation so I interrupted him.  I told him what I thought and that he was lucky to have the teammate he was assigned.

I stewed over the young man’s comments as I drove back to the office.  I would like to see how his perspective changes about sacrifice when (if) he tries to earn an advanced degree while working a full time job and tending to a family (and even keeping up a blog!).  His dad is probably still giving him beer money.  Working in the real world often means working with people who you might not initially know or may not even like.  Sometimes those people are smarter than you and sometimes they are not.  I tend to look down on shirkers who whine to professors about the complexity of an assignment to begin with, but I took considerable exception with him whining to be placed on a team with his friends.  It shows a complete lack of what it will take to succeed in the real world.  He will eventually be a monkey.

The chic thing to do these days for politicians and rich people is to purchase carbon offsets to counterbalance their shame for engaging in the very activities that they claim are harmful to the environment.  That action seems a lot like what people do when they order a rich piece of chocolate cake with their dinner - despite espousing their desire to lose weight - and justify it by saying, “It’s OK, I’m drinking a Diet Coke.”

This lady represents what I most abhor about American politics: blind loyalty to a political party.

With the midmorning light pouring through the window above her, the 106-year-old woman lies in the front bedroom with a red, white and blue afghan draped over her.

The colors are appropriate. She is perhaps the only woman in middle Tennessee or North Alabama who has voted in every local election since 1921, the year after the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote.

Pearl Weaver and her family also believe that she’s the eldest resident of the area, maybe the state.

“Tell them who you vote for,” says the woman leaning over her bed. “Tell them you’re a Democrat.”

The woman is one of her two caregivers. The other is Shirley Curtis, the owner of the frame house on Third Avenue in downtown Winchester.

“Yeah, I’m a Democrat,” Weaver says.

“Tell them when you first voted,” the caregiver says.

“When I was 21,” Weaver says. “I’ve voted since I was 21.”

Given her age and her politics, her roster of presidential candidates has ranged from James W. Davis, the Democratic nominee in the 1924 presidential election, to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the New Dealer, to John Kerry.

She also has voted in 17 gubernatorial elections and more than 30 U.S. Senate elections. She still remembers the first time she voted - at a school in Marble Plains, just west of Winchester.

“One of her favorite stories is about her being the first woman in Franklin County to vote,” says Jack Hice, the preacher at the Baptist church in Marble Plains, where Weaver was born and lived for most of her life.

Weaver is unable to remember whom she voted for in 1921 - only that she voted for a Democrat.

“When I asked why she voted that way, she said it was because her daddy told her to,” Hice says. “She said, ‘He told me the Democrats were for the poor, and the Republicans were for the rich.’ ”

Even now, she still votes.

“My neighbors brought me” a ballot, she says. “I voted this year, too.”

But in 86 years of voting, she has never voted for a Republican.

“Not that I know of,” she says. “I always thought the Democrats were for everybody.”

I’m certainly impressed by Ms. Weaver’s longevity, but I am wholly unimpressed by her admitted lack of educated voting.  She started off her civic life by voting for whom she was told to vote for and never turned back.  That is not a trait to be admired.  This isn’t a Democrat or Republican thing.  Its people like her that keep crooked politicians ensconced in their positions.

Once, a man was encouraging my dad to run for an elected county office.  My dad said that he had thought about it, but if he did he was going to run as a Republican (he said that because he knew his friend was an ardent Democrat).  His friend - the man who just moments before had been encouraging him to run - said, “Well, I can’t vote for you then.”  It is refreshing to see people thinking for themselves!