SwitzTrail

SwitzTrail

114p

4,324 comments posted · 4 followers · following 0

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder buzzed by Blac... · 0 replies · +1 points

I served with the Colorado National Guard during the 1976 Big Thompson Flood. At the time, National Guard troops were not highly looked upon with memories of Kent State still fairly fresh and many in the Guard considered draft dodgers, as typically National Guard troops were not sent to Viet Nam, although there were exceptions, including one unit from Colorado. As it was, I enlisted in the Guard right after the government stopped sending draftees into Viet Nam.
In the Thompson Flood, I was in Denver at the time and saw a pitch black cloud to the northeast. I knew it could not be good. I rushed home and gathered my gear and sat by the phone, waiting for the call. It never came. I thought of calling my higher-ups, but did not want to ties up their lines. I found out later that it was National Guard policy to not call members living close to natural disasters, so members do not have the potential to have to choose between their duty and their families. But last September, long after I had been discharged, I had the opportunity to make up for lack of being called thirty seven years earlier helping neighbors and helping set up a helicopter landing zone here.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Transparency and the T... · 0 replies · +5 points

Like NAFTA before it, this trade agreement has not been allowed to see public light for debate by the public before being voted on. Members of congress say, "Trust us," just like they did with NAFTA. And like NAFTA, significant segments of the American economy will be dropped into long term cycles of un- and underemployment, while the multinational corporations reap in the profits. Meanwhile local environmental regulation will be invalidated by by a secret board of 'judges' preselected by industry. And, if foreign countries wish to buy American products, there is nothing stopping them now if that is what they desire.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder councilman wan... · 1 reply · +7 points

How many people live in those high density neighborhoods because that is what they truly want, or live there because that's all they can afford in Boulder's hyped up property market. High density developments make all the land around them more valuable, meaning they are more likely to be turned into high density developments in the future. Older neighborhoods in Boulder, such as Newlands, Whittier, Goss - Grove, North and West downtown, University Hill, used to be mixed use neighborhoods, even though they still had detached houses. But mixed into the neighborhoods were groceries, drug stores, other neighborhood oriented merchants. They didn't have to all piled up in one building. In fact usage and code violations and mini-controversies in mixed use developments have made them less than ideal for businesses, and for residents.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Will Apple\'s digital ... · 0 replies · +1 points

So this is the same company that allowed unauthorized hackers into personal accounts of celebrities because they toned down security so they could deliver more adds. Does this really sound more secure? Like stolen credit cards, this system will make it even more profitable to steal iPhones.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Editorial advisory boa... · 1 reply · +4 points

The biggest problem we have with Iraq, baring the mistakes in history in the wake of WWI in dividing up the middle east, is allowing President al Maliki, in spite of the new constitution, to almost totally exclude Sunnis from his government as he took control. As with President Hussain, one cannot govern a country leaving a large part of the population disenfranchised. Sooner or later those people will rise up.
In spite of the billions of dollars agencies such as NSA have been using on spying on Americans and other non-perpetrators, the United States has been trying to run its intelligence gathering services on the cheap for some time. My brother was in intelligence, both in the military and afterwards in a civilian job. His specialties was dealing with one of the power areas of the middle east. He was providing the one defense against middle eastern extremism far more effective than drone strikes, clear and accurate intelligence. But he said, actually didn't say but implied, there was a big change in the intelligence community, cutting of funds. Projects handled by the military were handed to private contractors, at the direction of congress, then the funding for the bids cut down to where agencies could no longer provide what was needed. Meaning - the U.S. is uncovered in the area where there is the most danger, due mainly to capitol hill politics.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder buzzed by Blac... · 2 replies · +9 points

While evacuated a year ago staying with friends in Boulder, I was walking by a house where on of my teachers used to live, talking with one of the current occupants. While we were talking a helicopter flew over, I can't remember if it was a Chinook or a Blackhawk. "Oh, I just hate that," the person I was talking to stated. "Makes me think we are in a war!" I thought, I must truly be in Boulder. The people here don't have any idea the enormity of what is going on outside of their dear protected neighborhoods, even when the area is being assaulted with a disaster of international proportions. To me, those were some of the most beautiful sounds in the world. Those aircraft flew through quite marginal conditions bringing in food, water, rescue personal, and took out people who medically or psychologically needed to get out, and others that just wanted to, along with all their dogs and cats and birds and whatever. And the crews who flew them as true heroes.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - NTSB: Plane in fatal E... · 1 reply · +1 points

I still find it interesting that witness encounters state the engine was running but, with the landing gear retracted in the pictures, the propeller does not appear to be damaged. If the plane landed wheels up with the engine running, the propeller would be extremely bent and mangled. A conventional wheels up landing does damage to the aircraft, it is generally survivable unless an obstruction is encountered on the ground or the aircraft stalls when still flying.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Daily Camera, Longmont... · 0 replies · +8 points

The late Molly Ivins not too long before she died stated that if newspapers continued to cut costs by cutting the quality of their news gathering departments along with good investigative news and replace hard news with more advertising, and not integrating digital and paper into a single integrated product rather than treating digital as an add on, newspapers would whither into insignificance. She said the mergers and buyouts of publishers would only further weaken the industry and drive out the best and the brightest employees that actually provided what in papers was viable. And, as if she was laying out a flight path, the newspaper industry followed the course to oblivion she laid out. As well, blogs and social media websites are not news media, though occasionally rear news does get out. Blogs and social media sites are more like electronic gossip fences, spreading out information, the more titillating the better, with no real mechanism for verification of the information. In proper journalism, stories must vetted from multiple independent sources and should be written to avoid slant. They don't always succeed of course but that is the goal.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Hal Paris: NFL\'s Ray ... · 0 replies · +1 points

One has to take into consideration that Mr. Rice was caught, even from the first videos, doing severe physical harm to his wife while other players were caught using medical MJ in place of NFL prescribed opium based painkillers and given suspensions much harsher than Mr. Rice. Pro sports, the NFL certainly among them, has a less than stellar reputation of its athletes committing felonies while actively representing a team. Unlike with a private individual committing these crimes, the athlete, in return for the rich salary he receives, represents the team and the league.

9 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder County Commiss... · 1 reply · +3 points

Actually, I make it more like pre-1980.