Surf’s Up: Video of Huge Waves in Hawaii For “The Eddie”; Spanish American War vs. Iraq War December 11, 2009

Click Image for 6 minutes of amateur raw video of giant waves

Eddie Aikau was a famous surfer and life guard in Hawaii.  In his honor, they hold a surfing contest.  But, it’s only held under extreme wave conditions so, when organizers decided to have the contest in the last few days, it was the first time since 2004 and only the 8th time in the past 25 years that it was held.  The Quicksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Surf Contest has been held in honor of Aikau who died when his traditional Hawaiian voyaging canoe capsized as he attempted to travel to Tahiti from Hawaii.  The contest is now referred to as “The Eddie” and it was held this week following conditions that produced waves of 40 to 50 feet. 

The competition drew 28 of the world’s greatest surfers and 9-time world champion Kelly Slater took and early lead but eventually was overtaken by first time competitor, Greg Long.   The 24-year-old Long took home $55,000 for his efforts.  Conditions were described as “unbelievably dangrous” but only one competitor, Australian Tom Carroll, was injured.  Here’s the AP video of the giant waves.  Pretty incredible.  Click image above for about 6 minutes of amateur video.

US soldiers in trench near Manilla

 

US troops crossing Rio Grande River in Philippines

On This Date In History:  When the Treaty of Paris on this date in 1898, was signed ending the Spanish-American War. As part of the spoils the US got Guam and Puerto Rico and Cuba became a US Protectorate. The Philippines were acquired for $20 million. Now, this is where it gets interesting. Filipino insurgents who had fought against Spanish rule suddenly turned their guns on the US troops. The US then became occupiers who promised to leave the country….and the US finally did some time after WWII but we had a Naval Base at Subic Bay until Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the 1990′s and hastened the Americans’ exit. But for years afterward, the insurgents fought the Americans. Thousands of Americans were killed…some estimates say 10 times as many soldiers died fighting the insurgents than died defeating the Spanish. While Teddy Roosevelt is remembered as a “Rough Rider” in Cuba during the conflict, history has forgotten the drubbing he took in the press for not bringing home the troops in what was seen as a Civil War halfway around the world. Sound familiar? But, he persisted and the Philippines became a independent democracy and US Allie. In my view, the conflict in Iraq had much more in common with the aftermath of the Spanish American War than much in the Vietnam War. Its just that in school we tend to not be taught much about the turn of the century while Vietnam gets much more attention and there are people still alive who remember Vietnam. But….again in my view….the Vietnam comparisons are generally too simplistic and tenuous while a study of the Philippines draws much more remarkable comparisons.

Weather Bottom Line:  Really nothing new in the forecast.  Warmer but not warm.  After a morning start in the teens, we move to the upper 30′s on Friday.  Clouds will increase on Saturday but we get to the low 40′s and then after that there is a chance for rain on Sunday and Monday and possibly into early Tuesday.  The jetstream lifts slightly north so we don’t get back below freezing until a frontal systems sneaks through and Tuesday night we fall to the mid 20′s.  Next couple of days after that we have colder than average highs in the mid to upper 30′s and lows in the 20′s.

Nixon Calls The Play-Bombs For Christmas! Snow? December 18, 2008

Bomb-Em Into the Stone Age Until they Negotiate!

 

for weather stuff….look at the bottom for the “weather bottom line.”

On This Date in History: President Richard Nixon was an avid sports fan, particularly football.  On December 26,

'Skins Number 1 Fan

1972 the Washington Redskins lost a playoff game to the San Francisco Forty-Niners 24-20.  If I recall, the ‘skins were led by the tandem old fat guys Sonny Jurgensen and Billy Kilmer while the Niners were led by John Brodie.  I think the Redskins had Larry Brown as the running back and the 49ers had Vic Washington with Gene Washington at receiver.  In November, Nixon showed up at a Redskins’ practice to give the team a “pep-talk.”  Anyway, The Redskins lost 13 yards on a play that Washington Head Coach George Allen said that the President had designed.  Later, it is found that the statement was false; it is an effort on Allen’s part to inspire the team, which I don’t get because the game was already over, unless he told them at halftime.  If that was the case, then it seems like it would be demoralizing to find that the coach is calling plays sent in by a fan at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Allen, however, told the team that Nixon designed the play only after getting the President’s approval.  After the game, Nixon called Allen and tells him that the entire city is proud of the team since it was the first post-season appearance by the Redskins since 1945.

Bomb Prepared for "Christmas Bombing"

With all of this in mind…and perhaps football was on the mind of the President in 1972…one might consider what was going on in Vietnam at the time.  Nixon had campaigned  in 1968 that he would bring the war to a close with his “secret plan.”  It was so secret that he never told anyone what it was.  He won the 1972 election in a landslide but really wanted to end the war…”peace with honor” is what  he called for.  Well, peace talks were ongoing in Paris and had been for sometime when, on December 13, 1972 the representatives of North Vietnam walked out of the negotiations.  Nixon warned them to return to the table within 72 hours, “or else.”  They did not do so and on this date in 1972, President Nixon put into effect his “Operation Linebacker II” which was an all-out aerial bombardment of areas

MiG21 not as effective as SAMs

around Hanoi.  (Operation Linebacker was an aerial interdiction mission to disrupt supplies from May to Oct. 1972)  Over 700 B-52 sorties and 1000 fighter bomber sorties were flown over an 11 day period in which 20,000 tons of bombs were dropped. The anti-war crowd called it the “Christmas Bombing” but, as is often the case, naysayers fail to look at things beyond the surface.  Nixon’s plan seemed to be effective…more effective than the play he “called” for George Allen.  He had told the North Vietnamese that the bombing would stop when they returned to the peace talks and released all prisoners of war.  He got the first half of the demand, the bombing stopped and less than a month later, the Vietnam War was over for the Americans.  Of course, what is often left out of the story is that after the Americans left, the South fell quickly and millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia were slaughtered by the communist regimes.  Over 1300 Vietnamese civilians were killed in the bombing with 15 B-52′s shot down along with 11 other US aircraft.  Most were downed by surface to air missles but 3 B-52′s were shot down by MiG fighters.  Nevertheless, “Linebacker II” is seen by most reasonable observers as a success.

It’s also interesting to note that two MiG fighters were shot down by B-52 bombers.   Yes…B-52′s.  The B-52 doesn’t

Jurgensen Not As Accurate As Tailgunners?

have a lot in the way of defenses, certainly not like the World War II bombers that bristled with guns.  But, it did have a tailgunner.  Two MiG’s were shot down during the Vietnam War by tailgunners in B-52′s and both occured during Operation Linebacker II. Staff Sgt. Samuel O. Turner and Airman First Class Albert E. Moore both knocked down MiG-21′s with a blast from their rear mounted .50 caliber machine guns.  If Jurgenson and Kilmer had that kind of accuracy instead of the wounded ducks that they tended to throw, perhaps the Redskins would have been more successful. 

GFS Snow Through Mon Midday (probably a little aggressive)

Weather Bottom Line: Look for us to start a bit of a warm up for the next few days before the bottom falls out again.  A warm front will approach late Thursday bringing a chance for showers by Thursday afternoon and then when the warm front passes, we jump to perhaps the upper 50′s on Friday…just in time for another cold front.  That front will make us cool but not too terribly cold on Saturday after some rain with perhaps some rumbles of thunder late Friday.  Then we get a low swinging by early Sunday.  All indications are at this time that we get some rain prior to temperatures falling sharply by midday Sunday.  We’ll probably be below freezing from at least midday Sunday through Tuesday with Monday night being pretty doggone cold.  But, at this point it appears there may be some nuisance snow on Sunday at best and that’s probably a generous assessment, though the GFS is trying to be a little more bullish than that for the northern counties Sunday into Monday.  Now, the GFS shows another system lifting up late Tuesday, warming us a bit on Christmas Eve providing rain before maybe a little snow Wednesday night but nothing overly significant.  This makes sense.  But, it should be noted that the Canadian model wants to keep the cold air in place and swing the low around without drawing up much warmer air; hence, it advertises snow Tuesday into Wednesday.  I’m not buying it at this point and think the prospects for a White Christmas around here are minimal though it should be chilly.  But, the Canadian is out there with its solution…again…doesn’t make much sense to me at this time.