I thought readers would appreciate this. Perhaps we could create a similar list from environmental equipment and service manuals or instructions.

WISDOM FROM MILITARY MANUALS

'If the enemy is in range, so are you.' - Infantry Journal-

'It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.' -
US.Air Force Manual -

'Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword, obviously never encountered automatic weapons.' - General MacArthur -

'You, you, and you ... Panic. The rest of you, come with me.' - Infantry Sgt.-

'Tracers work both ways.' – Army Ordnance Manual-

'Five second fuses last about three seconds.' -Infantry Journal -

The three most useless things in aviation are: Fuel in the bowser (mobile fuel tank on the runway); Runway behind you; and Air above you. –Basic Flight Training Manual-

'Any ship can be a minesweeper. Once.' - Naval Ops Manual -

'Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.' - Unknown Infantry Recruit-

'If you see a bomb technician running, try to keep up to him.' -Infantry Journal-

'Yea, Though I Fly Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I Shall Fear No Evil. For I am at 50,000 Feet and Climbing.' - Sign over SR71 Wing Ops-

'You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3.' -Paul F. Crickmore (SR71 test pilot)-

'The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.' -Unknown Author-

'If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage it has to be a helicopter -- and therefore, unsafe.' – Fixed Wing Pilot-

'When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane, you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash.' -Multi-Engine Training Manual-

'Without ammunition, the Air Force is just an expensive flying club.' -Unknown Author-

'If you hear me yell;"Eject, Eject, Eject!", the last two will be echos.' If you stop to ask "Why?", you'll be talking to yourself, because by then you'll be the pilot.' -Pre-flight
Briefing from a Canadian F104 Pilot-

'What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; but if ATC screws up, .... the pilot dies.' -Sign over Control Tower Door-

'Never trade luck for skill.' -Author Unknown-

The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in military aviation are:
'Didyou feel that?' 'What's that noise?' and 'OhS...!' -Authors Unknown-

'Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight.' -Basic Flight Training Manual-

'Mankind has a perfect record in aviation - we have never left one up there!' - Unknown Author -

'Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.' - Emergency Checklist-

'The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you.' - Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot) -

'There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime.' -Sign over Squadron Ops Desk at Davis-Montham AFB, AZ-

'If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to.'- Sign over Carrier Group Operations Desk-

'You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal.' - Lead-in Fighter Training Manual -

As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives. The rescuer sees the bloodied pilot and asks,' What happened?' The pilot's reply: 'I don't know, I just got here myself!'

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 10:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This is a very interesting article about how the Google search engine allegedly censors news, including information from unpopular climate change skeptics.

Better off with Bing
Lawrence Solomon
16 Jan 2010
Financial Post

Googlegate: The search engine may be standing up to Chinese censors. What about Google’s own censors?

This week, Google announced an end to its long-standing collaboration with the Chinese Communists — it will no longer censor users inside China.

That’s good of it. Maybe Google will now also stop using its search engine to censor the rest of us, in the Western countries.

Search for “Googlegate” on Google and you’ll get a paltry result (my result yesterday was 29,300). Search for “Googlegate” on Bing, Microsoft’s search engine competitor, and the result numbers an eye-popping 72.4 million. If you’re a regular Google user, as opposed to a Bing user, you might not even know that “Googlegate” has been a hot topic for years in the blogosphere — that’s the power that comes of being able to control information.

Despite Google’s motto of “Do No Evil,” it has long been controversial and suspected of evil-doing — and not just in its cooperation with China, or in protecting itself by hiding criticism of itself from unsuspecting Google users. In recent months, most of the evil-doing has focused on the Climategate scandal, the startling emails from the Climate Research Unit in the UK that show climate change scientists to be cooking the books.

For many weeks now, readers have been sending me emails describing how Google has been doing its best to hide information relating to Climategate, which has been the single biggest story on the Internet since the Climategate emails came to light on November 19. By Nov. 26, the term had gone viral and Google returned more results for “climategate” (10.4 million) than for “global warming” (10.1 million). As the Climate Scandal exploded, and increasing numbers of blog sites covered it, the number of web pages with Climategate continued to climb. On Dec. 7, Google’s search engine found 31.6 million hits for people who searched for “Climategate.”

Sometime around then, in early December, Google began to minimize the Climategate scandal by hiding Climategate pages from its users. By Dec. 17, the number of climategate pages that a Google search found dropped by almost 10 million, to 22.2 million. One day later Google dropped its find by another 8 million pages, to 14.1 million. By Dec. 23, Google could find only 7.5 million hits and on Dec. 24 just 6 million. And yesterday, when I checked, Google reported a mere 1.8 million climategate pages.

Bing, in contrast, didn’t make climategate pages disappear. As you’d expect from a search engine that wasn’t manipulating data, search results on Bing climbed steadily until they peaked at around 51 million, where they have remained since.

Starting in late November, Google has been keeping the public in the dark about Climategate in other ways, too. Ordinarily, when people begin keying in their search terms, Google helpfully suggests the balance of their text, through an automatic feature it calls Google Suggests.

At the very beginning of the Climategate scandal, before it became huge, Google Suggests worked as advertised. If someone typed in c-l-i-, Google would have shown them “climategate” on a list of options. Many people, in fact, learned about Climategate this very way, because most major media outlets had not yet picked up on the scandal. As Climategate rose in intensity, the term also rose in prominence on the Google Suggest list — anyone keying in c-l-i would see “climategate” at the top of the list.

But suddenly in late November, for reasons known only to Google, Google often would not suggest “climategate” to those who keyed in c-l-i. Even c-l-i-m-a or c-l-i-m-a-t-e-g-a-t weren’t enough to solicit a suggestion. Bing, in contrast, did not and does not steer users away from climategate — it has consistently suggested “climategate” to those who keyed in c-l-i or even c-l.

For those whom Google can’t steer away from “climategate,” and who key in all 11 letters to learn about the eye-opening emails, Google goes the extra yard in keeping people in the dark — it dishes up a page that trivializes the scientific significance of climategate. Those who click on Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” after asking for “climategate” find themselves on a Wikipedia page entitled “Climatic Research Unit hacking incident” that downplays the content of the emails and focuses on the “unauthorised release of thousands of emails and other documents obtained through the hacking of a server,” the “illegal taking of data,” the “Law enforcement agencies [that] are investigating the matter as a crime,” and “the death threats that were subsequently made against climate scientists named in the emails.”

For those who don’t use Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” feature, Google presents them with this one-sided Wikipedia page as the first item in its search results. Wikipedia actually has a page called “Climategate” that contains damning information about the scientists caught up in the scandal but its own censors won’t let the public see it — anyone who tries to key in “Climategate” on the Wikipedia site will be instantly redirected to the Wikipedia-approved version of climategate, where the scandal is described as nothing more than “a smear campaign.”

Why would Google want to tamp down interest in climategate? Money and power could have something to do with it. Search for Google and its founders and you’ll see that they have made big financial bets on global warming through investments in renewable and other green technologies; that they have a close relationship with Al Gore, that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is close to Barack Obama.

But search for Googlegate and you’ll also see that more than money is at stake. The accusations against Google of censorship are wide-spread, involving schemes to elect Barack Obama, attacks on Christianity (key in “Christianity is” and Google will suggest unflattering completions to the phrase), and political correctness (key in “Islam is” and nothing negative is suggested).

The bottom line? Google is as inscrutable as the Chinese, and perhaps no less corrupt. For safe searches, you’re best off with Bing.

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 7:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I thought I'd share this editorial from Jerry Powell of the respected US trade magazine Resource Recycling. Canada's EPR programs are starting to get attention south of the border.

Do Americans need to look north?

Jerry Powell
Resource Recycling
December 2009
Editorial Perspective

As a magazine editor for nearly 30 years, I am continually intrigued with what are recycling’s hottest topics at any given point. On far too many occasions, what intrigues me doesn’t seem to resonate as strongly with others in the industry.

The most recent example is a brand new term in municipal recycling collection and processing: full EPR. Let me explain on this page what this is and why it should be among recycling’s hottest issues.

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a management system for obsolete, recoverable products. In this scheme, the makers of these products have a financial and managerial responsibility to get the used items collected, processed and recycled. EPR is typically put into place through legislation.

The most widely known EPR systems are those now approved in about 20 states, and nearly every Canadian province, for the recycling of selected electronics, such as computers, televisions and monitors.

Over half of Americans (55.1 percent) now live in states that have adopted the EPR approach for electronics. In this programs, such producers as Dell, Hewlett Packard, Sony and Panasonic must establish and maintain a recovery system in the state or province.
EPR is an approach that is being expanded quickly to other materials as well. For example, my home state of Oregon is the first state to use this concept for the recovery of post-consumer architectural paint.

Even with the rising interest, EPR has been limited to fairly small portions of the waste stream, and often to those portions that are hard to handle and recover (e.g., pharmaceuticals, paint, light bulbs, carpet, etc.). EPR in the U.S. doesn’t target common residential recyclables, such as paper, metals and plastics. Can it?

The answer is yes, given the experience in several Canadian provinces, where the makers of the things that end up in the residential recycling stream (think Coke, Heinz, Procter & Gamble, etc.) must pay a portion of the local-government costs of collecting and processing these materials.
For example, half the cost of the massive residential recycling system in Ontario is funded by these companies. In addition, these producers – called stewards – have put up $40 million ($Cn) to fund local recovery system improvements, so that residents are provided cost- effective and efficient recycling service. I happen to sit on an advisory body that develops policies for the distribution of those funds.

And now, the Ontario Minister of the Environment has decreed that the stewards will soon be required to fund all of the costs of curbside recycling. Yes, all. In a few years, local governments will be reimbursed for the costs of collecting and handling recyclables.

One of municipal recycling’s greatest barriers is that it costs money. City and county leaders are reluctant to spend more on recycling when they are being pressured to buy new fire trucks, repair school buildings, fix roads and aid the poor. Full EPR, as it’s called in Ontario, provides a way to address this funding problem. And, I’m surprised that full EPR for residential recycling has not received more attention among recycling’s most fervent advocates. You would think that governmental recycling officials would be very interested in taking a long, hard look at this option.

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 8:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)