The Right State

This is the time of year when I really enjoy flying.  There is nothing like taking your wife in a Cessna 152 or taking a couple of friends with you in a Cessna 172 and taking a trip to…anywhere.  My most enjoyable flight was when my wife and I took a couple of friends from College Station, Texas down to the beach in Galveston.  We usually call it: going for a $100 hamburger.  There is nothing like it.

The only problem is there are not enough people wanting to learn to fly.  As a pilot I can tell you there is true joy in being free of the congested roads below.  I know a lot of people think that learning to fly costs too much or takes too long to learn, or believe they can not learn , or they are too old to learn to fly.  I learned to fly in a year going off and on between 0 and twice a week, flying as much as my business would allow.  The cost was about $3500 including the cost of the plane and instructor.  Most people pay as they fly.  And lastly, if you can drive a car, you can fly.  I personally know an 81 year old doctor who still enjoys flying.  All it takes is a good instructor and a little patience on your part.  It is well worth the effort, the cost, and the time.  Although I love to fly, I do not get to fly as often as I want.  Hopefully the coming summer will allow me to go up more often.

This is coming from a guy who likes to share his love of flying with others.  BTW, AOPA has a first flying lesson that costs only something like $45-55, or something like that.  I highly recommend it if you are even thinking about flying.

Tags: Culture, Politics by Chuck
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If you needed any proof that Amnesty International is a group searching for relevance in the post 9/11 world, just look at their latest attack against the United States covered in this article from CNN.  Apparently AI has a whole laundry list of activities the US is involved in from secret prisons abroad to holding detainees at Gitmo and yet they offer not one shred of evidence anything was done wrong.  It seems to me their problem with this country is that we have detainees in the first place.

“Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody,” Amnesty said in its 47-page report.

In Amnesty International’s own website they cite the pictures of the pyramid of naked men, the naked man with the dog collar, and the others as showing a continuation of ‘torture’ in the US.

Two years ago the release of photographs showing detainees being tortured and ill-treated by US military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked and horrified the world.

If those pictures depicted torture, what would AI call what Saddam Hussein did to people in his own people in Iraq?  Of course nothing was said about him.  But if your departure point is that the United States is an evil country, you will find abuses where there are none. AI lists as its proof of abuse by quoting one man who was supposedly beaten, stripped of his clothes, and tortured.  Then this one little innocuous statement is added which causes me some pause.

Abdel-Jabbar Al-Azzawi, who reportedly suffers physical and physicological disorders that allegedly developed during his detention, has not received any compensation from the US authorities.

So this charge in reality is about money, not justice, not an apology, but money.  To me this one little sentence does more to undermine his charge than anything else.  It is all a sham. AI, since they more than detest the United States, is a willing participant.
In the article CNN is more than willing to believe anything especially when that someone says the US is not a very nice nation.

The U.S. human rights image has taken a battering abroad over a string of scandals involving the sexual and physical abuse of detainees held by American forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

Of course they leave out the fact that in almost every case of ‘torture’ or ‘abuse’ US soldiers were absolved.  It is another chance to attack America for the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and by extension, the chance to attack George Bush for leading the country into war.  In reality, Amnesty International is more anti-US than they are anti-torture.  When Amnesty International refuses to question real torture, especially from these Middle Eastern countries, they have no relevance.  And they will continue to be a laughing stock to the rest of the world.