I recall seeing a documentary on TV a year or so ago, in which some Navy petty officer diddled with a female in his command in port and wound up broken in rank or broken in career or just broken or all three. Human nature is what it is.

Two of the 8,697 young blondes who appear on Fox News recently saw no problem with gays in the military. They are young, but also, they belong to a class of people who push words around for a living, whether in writing or speech, and tend to think of people and situations in abstractions, ignoring the concrete. They, as with most people in civilian life, have no idea what it is like to be in continuing, close quarters with others outside their families, every day, at work, at play, at sleep. Or to be young and male and have, as others have written, freely running sap in the springtime of life. Or be a male seeking another male and have more rank or be bigger and stronger. Or be the junior and weaker of the two.

It was written that the only concern that the military gives is all there is: “unit cohesion.”, I do not recall anyone asking what those words mean. Commanders may be as reluctant to describe certain situations as I have been, perhaps fearing an onslaught of objections.

As Steverino pointed out and I had completely ignored, present commanders have fears that may not blind them to reality, but when they issue what I think were called “fitness reports,” fear may command them. How they evaluate certain Others may determine how they in turn are evaluated and whether they will get promotions or stay in rank and directed to seek other opportunities in civilian life. So we get 12 dead soldiers at Fort Hood.

I also forgot an alleged statement by Gen. Peter Pace on homosexuality that may have led to Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommending against his renomination as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Whatever the reason for the SecDef’s decision, whatever the actual language of the statement, whatever its alleged timing and setting, surely many a career officer recalls the situation and has drawn a lesson about being most careful in whatever he or she says or does.

And BABH misunderstood. A Latin expression he or she recalled from memory has to be more correct than a list of Latin expressions on the Web, which offered “nos et” rather than “et nos.” I should have mentioned this bit of Latin: “et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo.” I said those words often enough years ago. They have some relevance to the issue in discussion. One is concerned with temptation and likely actions, not anyone’s nature as a person.

I was actually thinking of Randy, who to be fair, didn’t use the term either. That’s why I put it in quotation marks. It was just shorthand for what he wrote at length.

But from your last few comments, it’s clear you didn’t read what I wrote, either.

Pointing out that the military already deals with problems with heterosexuals doesn’t seem like much of an argument to keep out homosexuals.

Uhh, no, I said the military ISN’T dealing with those problems.

And if you go back and read what I wrote, the problems it is refusing to deal with aren’t all sexually related.

Why didn’t they report their suspicions about the “soldier of Allah?” because they knew their seniors wouldn’t want to hear it. . . . And following his murderous rampage yelling “Allahu Akhbar!” the senior leadership confirmed their suspicions by issuing a report that did not even mention a possible religious motive even once. Because, again, they don’t want to hear it. They’d rather stick their heads in the sand.

The reason why, again, is because these are all political footballs. The military really can’t deal with these because elected officials and appointed officials won’t allow them to do so.

For instance, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if their were mentions of Maj. Hasan’s open embrace of jihad in the draft report, but they were taken out by the principals. One of whom was former Secretary of the Army, Togo West. Who announced that Islam had nothing to do with it.

The facts can not be allowed to interfere with the previously decided outcome.

If you want to read another example of what I’m talking about, go back and read what I wrote about how NOW, via feminist legislators, forced Odierno to rescind a perfectly lawful order his subordinate issued regarding pregnancy in the field.

What never ceases to amaze me is that, in order to avoid hypothetical problems and other problems that are just parallels of heteros-behaving-badly and which might, in fact, involve people the military could well do without, YOU and others are so willing to chuck out other good soldiers who are not problems and never would be.

Now you’re putting words in my mouth. That is exactly opposite from what I said. I said prior to DADT, even when there was an outright ban, neither I nor anyone I knew took any particular interest in throwing out good sailors who did their job and weren’t a problem. Even though we knew they were gay.

But live and let live. They didn’t cause problems, we didn’t care.

Maybe I wasn’t clear. This isn’t about what I like or dislike. I don’t care if there are gays in the military or not. I don’t care if they serve openly. And I also don’t care if NATO countries or Israel allow gays to openly serve.

What I care about is national defense. And Congress, and the senior leadership at the Pentagon, have a lousy track record of dealing with these hot-button issues. The policies are written more to please outside pressure groups than with any eye toward military necessity.

That is not a hypothetical problem; that is an established fact.

If you go back and read, I wasn’t giving examples of “heteros-behaving-badly.” In the Major Hasan instance, I wasn’t giving an example of Muslims-behaving badly (although in Hasan’s case, he was). I was giving examples of not just leadership failures, but institutional failure.

Diversity has become the de facto primary objective, even it becomes suicidal to pursue it.

Whatever replaces DADT will follow the well established pattern. It will be more dysfunctional than the policy it replaces.

That is certain.

Steverino: My other objection is this, and it has nothing to do with your strawman about “homophobes.”

You seem to have me confused with someone else. I didn’t use the word “homophobes” — I very, very rarely do. And I find no strawmen in my comments above.

Steverino: Also there will be more social engineering than you either are willing to admit, or are aware of.

For instance, let’s say that two gay servicemen stationed in a state that allows gay marriage approach their chaplain and ask that he marry them. He’s a Catholic chaplain and says he can’t.

What do you suppose will happen?

There may indeed be problems, though I think the one you suggest is rather unlikely. I suspect the Chaplain corps has some method of dealing with this sort of issue. I doubt many Catholic priests perform Hindu weddings for str8 couples.

What never ceases to amaze me is that, in order to avoid hypothetical problems and other problems that are just parallels of heteros-behaving-badly and which might, in fact, involve people the military could well do without, YOU and others are so willing to chuck out other good soldiers who are not problems and never would be.

Steverino: So, ptt, Alfred has a point when he talks about officers who don’t know or care what it’s like in the ranks. You may not like his examples, but it’s a fact.

Pointing out that the military already deals with problems with heterosexuals doesn’t seem like much of an argument to keep out homosexuals.

My primary objection to lifting DADT is that I don’t expect senior leadership to do the right thing when push comes to shove.

If you want a recent example that has nothing to do with gender or sexual orientation, look at the issues surrounding Major Hassan. He caused great concern among his colleagues because of his fanatical religious beliefs. He even briefed his colleagues on the joys of jihad.

Why didn’t they report their suspicions about the “soldier of Allah?” because they knew their seniors wouldn’t want to hear it.

And following his murderous rampage yelling “Allahu Akhbar!” the senior leadership confirmed their suspicions by issuing a report that did not even mention a possible religious motive even once. Because, again, they don’t want to hear it. They’d rather stick their heads in the sand.

That won’t stop them from placing the blame on those underlings who got their message loud and clear, though.

The problem is, gentlemen, diversity has become the main job of the US military.

It has been since the mid-90s when we lifted the combat exclusion rule preventing women serving in combat roles. I served on ships when they were all male, and when they became mixed gender. There were two entirely different social dynamics. After we integrated women I felt more like a high school hall monitor keeping the boys and girls apart then a member of a professional fighting force.

Earlier, disciplining the troops was straightforward. Later, discipline became a political football.

The Navy actively encouraged false sexual harrassment complaints. To prove a false claim, it was necessary to prove not only was the claim false, but it was filed with malicious intent (unlike sexual harrassment, where intent wasn’t a factor; just the subjective interpretation of the victim). I personally witnessed two women saying they intended to file false claims. And I wasn’t the only witness. One officer who was dissatisfied with an award (she thought she deserved more) who said on her departure that she was “going to throw a grenade through the door on her way out.” Sure enough she filed a false claim. One Petty Officer at a command with which we shared a building twice told her friends (she didn’t know I could hear and see her from my office) to “watch this” as she went to screw with our command. Then she’d walk through our building and deliberately take offense at the first thing someone said that could remotely be construed as offensive.

I told my seniors in all cases; they refused to act on the information. Nobody was punished eventually, but the command made administrative changes over nothing.

I was “highly encouraged” to document unsubstantiated cases, because despite the fact they were unsubstantiated I was told it could add up to a pattern of behavior. (Note: I didn’t do it.)

The reason why? Promoting women and proving you took sexual harrassment VERY seriously was the way to advance your career in the post-tailhook Navy. And more importantly for those in the Pentagon, showing you “get it” is the way to preserve or expand your budget. Justice, along with building a Navy that can sustain combat, took a back seat.

(I think the LCS is a monument to that attitude; a big $700M target that is stealthy when it comes to radar, but will operate in the littoral where you don’t need radar to see it, with a crew too small to give it a meaningful damage control capability. Yeah!)

It isn’t just the Navy. Recently the Army Times had an article that purported to show just how seriously the Army was taking sexual harrassment and assault in the war zone. The case they chose to highlight was one of a female Captain and a male, married Warrant Officer. The Captain admitted that the two had had a consensual affair in the states. But she broke it off just before leaving for Iraq. He pursued her. She filed charges against him. He was court-martialed. In the article, the Captain said she was satisfied with how the Army handled the case.

What’s the problem, boys and girls? A Captain is senior to a WO. The UCMJ is perfectly clear; the senior in such an improper relationship is primarily to blame. Yet she wasn’t court martialed and still serves.

I think the capper is the case of Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo. He issued an general order last November saying that any woman who gets pregnant, or man who impregnates her, will be court martialed.

This is was perfectly within his authority. No one familiar with the UCMJ would dispute that. But it was politically incorrect.

NOW objected. So, four feminist Senators inserted themselves in the situation and demanded he rescind the order. He didn’t, but his senior, Gen. Odierno did.

One more Navy example before I move on to my remaining issue: recently CAPT Holly Graf was relieved of command and went to Admiral’s mast. Where she was administratively convicted of cruelty and conduct unbecoming an officer. What happened to her next? She had already been issued orders to a follow-on tour at the Pentagon. And she went to her next assignment as if nothing had happened.

In my 20 years in the Navy I have never seen that. A CO that is relieved at best may be assigned to a dead-end desk job and allowed to retire. That’s what happened to CDR Kevin Mooney of the USS San Francisco after his sub hit an un-charted seamount. The ADM relieved him, but also praised him at mast as a fine officer who should be allowed to retire. He only had 19 years in, so he went to a desk job until he hit 20.

He was forced out, but an officer who had treated her crew cruelly and acted unprofessionally was retained and given follow-on orders? That is a direct slap in the face to that crew who suffered under her command.

So, ptt, Alfred has a point when he talks about officers who don’t know or care what it’s like in the ranks. You may not like his examples, but it’s a fact.

My other objection is this, and it has nothing to do with your strawman about “homophobes.” It’s going to open up a pandoras box of problems. And no, I’m not saying that because I’m “afraid” of the gay sexual predator. I served prior to DADT when there was just as down-the-line ban on homosexuals, and then after when they could serve as long as they kept there identity secret. And even when there was a ban, we knew who our gay shipmates were. It’s kind of hard not to notice a couple of corpsmen going off on liberty in halter tops and capri pants. It was more of a joke. Especially when they had their gay porn collection confiscated by the British Indian Ocean Territory police in DGAR.

But live and let live. They didn’t cause problems, we didn’t care.

But lift DADT, and when they cause problems, let’s face it. Gay rights groups will weigh in saying they are being persecuted. Congress will weigh in, just as they did when NOW went on the warpath.

And for all I know, ptt, you will be part of it.

Improper relationships will be ignored, just as they are now. Disciplinary problems will be ignored, just as they are now. The UCMJ will be ignored, just as it is now. And when a commanding officer acts well within his lawful authority to enforce good order and discipline, the pressure groups will riot. Just as they have done in the past.

And a Congress or President who are hell bent on pleasing the pressure groups because they value reelection will demand the military stop acting so much like a military. Just as they do now. We have civilian control of he military. There’s now way to push back. So, the senior leadership will do their dancing bear act and give in.

Also there will be more social engineering than you either are willing to admit, or are aware of.

For instance, let’s say that two gay servicemen stationed in a state that allows gay marriage approach their chaplain and ask that he marry them. He’s a Catholic chaplain and says he can’t.

What do you suppose will happen?

In any case, I’m glad I’m retired because I won’t have to deal with a whole new category of sexual harrassment and EO complaints.

I expect a lot of snide remarks from people who don’t know what they’re talking about to say they’re glad I’m retired, too.

Reprocessing is more expensive than our current once through fuel cycle partially because the costs of disposal are passed on directly to the end consumer via a nuclear waste trust fund fee on their electric bill.

Also because 50% of our fuel is coming from dismantled Soviet nukes. Then there’s the fact that it reduces nuclear waste by a factor of about 100, which is just good long-term policy.

Since ‘leading by the example of actually building thousands of nuclear weapons but not reprocessing peaceful fuel’ worked so well to keep any rogue regimes from starting nuclear programs, can’t we declare victory and start reprocessing again like France?

Nope, that will cause Iran to develop weapons.

Any machine needs work occasionally. Ever rebuild the engine on a car with 200,000 miles on it? Change the oil a couple times a year? Get a brake job? Had a recall for a sticky accelerator pedal?

Some of our plants have had major components replaced. Sometimes to increase power output and sometimes because they just needed replacement. When that happens, the costs are treated as capital expenditures and depreciated over 20 years.

Many nuclear plants required renovations costing hundreds of millions of dollars to extend their lives, so it is not just the initial cost.

Is there some other technology i’m not aware of that has plants that run for 50+ years without costs to extend their lives?

Look- WE don’t have to figure out if nuclear power is profitable. The wonderful thing about the market is that if the government and the lawyer and the activists can be made to step aside, businesses can either build the plants or not depending on if they believe they can make money. We don’t need to push phoney baloney numbers back and forth, the guys with their investments on the line have the incentive to figure it out, and if they screw up, they lose, no skin off our nose.

I doubt you can find many republican districts who support nuclear power in general and would support one in their “backyard”. This may be changing recently, but not to a great extent, yet.

Yeah, you’re completely wrong and living in the wrong decade. Nuclear power is extremely popular where there are already plants and the surrounding communities that supply workers. Is their NIMBY? Sure. Is their NIMBY when somebody wants to plant dozens of hundred foot tall spinning rotors across the street? Of course. That’s part of real life. And again- lets let the market decide. If people REALLY don’t want nuclear plants, their local council wont zone for them and that will be the end of it. Why not find out instead of making assumptions about people?

As explained above, this was done to prevent nuclear proliferation. US kept a policy of opposing and discouraging reprocessing even in foreign countries through many administrations, but why let facts get in the way of opinions.

Well thank god that worked so well.

Since ‘leading by the example of actually building thousands of nuclear weapons but not reprocessing peaceful fuel’ worked so well to keep any rogue regimes from starting nuclear programs, can’t we declare victory and start reprocessing again like France?

You’d be among a small minority. Many homeowners would oppose any nuclear plants close to their homes for fear of house price reductions. I doubt you can find many republican districts who support nuclear power in general and would support one in their “backyard”.

You are completly talking out of your ass here and have no real world experience to back up these claims. I grew up near a town that had a nuclear power plant. Even though that town had about 8000 residents, the school district was overflowing with more money than it knew what to do with because of the property taxes paid by the nuclear power plant. Besides the good jobs that the plant provided to the community, the property values in that town were much higher than normal. The high school in that town resembled an Ivy league university, with world-class athletic facilities. Meanwhile, the surrounding towns were poor and distressed, just like that other town would have been if not for the plant. Those surrounding towns would have given anything to have that plant in their town instead.

Alfred J. Lemire: One source transposes the “et nos” to “nos et.”

Thank you for the correction – “nos et” is more elegant. The memory isn’t what it was.

ArthurKirkland: Buying an old barge, packing it with nuclear waste, towing it a few miles off the United States shore, and sinking it would probably be extremely profitable.

Anyone see a role for government in preventing, or at least discouraging, such conduct?

There is a role for government to prevent such a thing.

Who is harmed by waste reprocessing?

Pure baloney. The armed forces of Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and most of the NATO forces in Europe allow gays to serve openly, and nothing of the kind has occurred. Furthermore, the full integration of gays has happened more smoothly than expected, and not a single one of these militaries has suggested that the policy should change due to gays leering at guys.

The US military itself has never said that out gays in the military would cause the problem that you raise; instead, they merely argue that it would affect unit cohesion because the people who dislike gays would be uncomfortable.

I would suggest that instead of relying upon your outdated prejudices about gays as sexual predators, you actually look at the evidence where gays are allowed to be openly gay in a military.

This isn’t a problem of gay or straight, this is a problem of some people engaging in poor conduct, who should be disciplined accordingly.

And BABH’s knowledge of Latin or quotation source is pretty good. One source transposes the “et nos” to “nos et.” My high school Latin tells me BABH is correct.

The point was that young and healthy males have appeal to at least some gay men and the military services are loaded with young, fit, and healthy young men. One does not fish on mountaintops or in parking lots; if one wants to fish, one goes where the fish are, which helps to explain why one continually reads of certain adults involving themselves with youths of special appeal to them.

One appreciates the reference to professionalism, but homosexual (and heterosexual) members of the clergy have been professionals, too. True, not all have caused problems, but many have not been able to resist temptation. As for the performance of their bishops, they acted with good intentions.

Anyway, it appears logical that the President will issue an Executive Order, but not until after he has roasted the military’s leaders on a spit into this summer, and not until after the November elections.

So by your logic, we should also prohibit women from serving openly in the military, due to the significantly higher rate of male-female sexual abuse than male-male sexual abuse in the armed forces. Young men, who we’ve trained with utmost discipline to risk their lives under direct orders, just can’t be trusted. Right?

The UCMJ is perfectly adequate to deal with the very rare instances of homosexual sexual harassment and rape. There are currently over 60,000 gays and lesbians in the uniformed services, and over 1,000,000 gay and lesbian veterans (cite). Yet there is no evidence of rampant homosexual abuse. I myself managed to serve four years in the Infantry – including three combat tours – without once raping a comrade.

tempora mutantur, et nos mutamor in illis. People under 40 (i.e., of military age) just don’t care about a person’s sexual orientation.

Most new applications for nuclear power plants are at existing plant sites. The existing neighbors of nukes show an even higher approval of nuclear power than the general public in polling conducted for the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The years of good neighbor operation, the plant staff living in the communities, and high property tax contributions of the plants are factors. Nuclear power plants are clean, safe, good neighbors.

The limits on new nukes are the political and regulatory risk poised by opponents of ANY new nuclear power who operated at the federal level or any place they can find leverage.

I, for one, would LOVE to have some nuke plants as my neighbors.

You’d be among a small minority. Many homeowners would oppose any nuclear plants close to their homes for fear of house price reductions. I doubt you can find many republican districts who support nuclear power in general and would support one in their “backyard”. This may be changing recently, but not to a great extent, yet. We just had a very strong Republican administration and legislature for a few years and this did not get much attention beyond a few speeches here and there. If there was demand from a large enough Republican district and with Republican in power supporting nuclear energy in principle why didn’t it get done if the only obstacle was liberals etc.

I assume its no more expensive in real dollars to create a nuclear plant today than in the 50s and 60s when we built hundreds, most of which are still running.

We also built many gas and coal powered ones as well. How does your analysis shed light on relative cost of nuclear vs. gas powered? Many nuclear plants required renovations costing hundreds of millions of dollars to extend their lives, so it is not just the initial cost. There is also the waste disposal costs to consider. I read that gas reserves in the US have increased quickly in the last few years thanks to some new finds. This has brought down gas prices, making the cost of electricity from gas powered plants even lower.

Another thing they did was get the federal government, under Jimmy “Killer Rabbit” Carter, to ban reprocessing of “spent” nuclear fuel rods.

As explained above, this was done to prevent nuclear proliferation. US kept a policy of opposing and discouraging reprocessing even in foreign countries through many administrations, but why let facts get in the way of opinions.

Alfred J. Lemire: Perhaps some gay-straight encounters with sexual overtones can occur that are not negative; I know of none.

Oh, come on. That’s just silly.

In your own example, you said a gay man invited you to his home when you were 15. You implied that his motivation was sexual (cuz, geez, why else would a gay man even talk to anyone, right?). You then said you didn’t even know he was gay until years afterward. There’s one example — by your assessment — of a gay-straight encounter with sexual overtones. In what way was it “negative”?

ptt: Speaking of reality, most of the military is no longer segregated by sex. Even in combat zones, there are often quite a few women among the men. Are there problems? Sure. Why are same-sex problems worse than opposite-sex problems? At least we don’t get each other pregnant.

I have tried to keep my comments brief. Ptt raises a point I kept out, the distinction between male-female heterosexual and male homosexual-straight relations. Harms can occur in female-male relations in the miltary, including rape (possibly murder), though rare; I have read of at least one such murder in recent yearsIn other cases, bruised feelings or pregnancies occur. In most negative encounters, harms may be only to a person’s feelings. Sometimes, willingly undertaken relations lead to pregnancies.

Perhaps some gay-straight encounters with sexual overtones can occur that are not negative; I know of none. I suspect the psychic trauma that straights can experience is related to the straight’s age and experience. I know of at least one person who, when young, was forced into an encounter with a gay man; the straight has never really recovered from that mind-scarring experience.

I recall a brief story (I think it had two short paragraphs) that Larry Rohter wrote for The New York Times. It ran in the New England edition on 26 June 1993 and told of the homosexual rapes of sailors by other sailors. Those crimes were being tried in some court in the Jacksonville, Fla. Area. The story did not appear in the newspaper’s microfilmed edition; I never heard of or read any other reference to the trial. The Congress continued the exclusion policy that year. President Clinton established his DODT compromise though Executive Order in December, as a source claims and my memory supports.

One can write much more, but . . . one appreciates the difficulty the topic presents. One does worry about good intentions. In that regard, I also omitted a reference to a recent “60 Minutes” segment on American Samoa, which provided a sad example of how good intentions in the U.S. Congress are impoverishing Samoans by leading their sole employers to leave the islands.

These companies are in it to turn a profit. If direct disposal is cheaper than reprocessing, then that is what they will do.

Buying an old barge, packing it with nuclear waste, towing it a few miles off the United States shore, and sinking it would probably be extremely profitable.

Anyone see a role for government in preventing, or at least discouraging, such conduct?

ChrisTS:
Do you prefer your drinking water with feces or with dioxin?

Liberals… (sigh), always with the rationing. Why can’t I have both?

The other reason is that yellowcake is really cheap relative to its energy content. The managers of our operating nukes will naturally chose the lower cost option available to them.

The US was on course to use reprocessing but Jimmy Carter shut down that option by executive order. Billions of private investment was wasted.

Until Obama, the big reason that I saw for reprocessing was that Yucca Mountain was a very expensive “government outhouse” at a projected cost of $100 billion while we could build the reprocesing infrastructure for a fraction of the cost. Reprocessing with “actinide burners” would also reduce the long-lived radioisotopes in spent fuel that drove the costs of Yucca Mountain through the roof.

Here’s my detailed analysis.

ChrisTS: Do you prefer your drinking water with feces or with dioxin?

There is no better way to discredit a campaign that to to turn it into an -ism.

AlanW: Conservatives’ passion for reprocessing is just as weird as their affection for nuclear power. I’m not opposed in principle to reprocessing, but it’s not the panacea you think it is. Here’s a study.

If it was so bad, why is it necessary to ban it?

These companies are in it to turn a profit. If direct disposal is cheaper than reprocessing, then that is what they will do.

First, the loan guarantees against licensing risk (only) will not be confirmed until an application has been been approved by the NRC. That means that an organization has to sink over a billion in early investment before they know whether or not they can get market financing.

Secondly, the White House just cut out almost all the nuclear R&D budget at the Department of Energy.

We can argue about how useful DoE R&D might be but this looks like an unfriendly action to me.

So actions speak louder than words and in this case, Obama’s seem incongruent with the facts on the ground.

As to reprocessing, here’s my analysis.

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1108

Someone remind me for what environmentalists are good?

Do you prefer your drinking water with feces or with dioxin?

It’s like liberals who think recycling is always a virtue, when with many materials it’s cheaper and more energy-efficient to start from scratch.

I can’t find a study on it, but I believe conservatives are also overestimating the cost of lawsuits on plant construction. Lawsuits certainly delay things, but with something as expensive as a nuclear plant, they’re not driving the costs, unless you include all the design improvements added either directly because of, or in fear of, lawsuits. Which seems both unfair and shortsighted.