[Update — 1408, 3 April — Via Daily Dish comes these two links to more indepth information on the Hoot torpedo/missile, including video and data on the Russian connection.]

I spent the waning months of 1979 sailing in the Gulf of Oman on board the U.S.S. Bainbridge, CGN-25. We feared the Iranians would hit us with one of the air-launched Harpoon missiles we’d sold the Shaw. We came within 30-seconds of taking out an Iranian P3-Orion (which we’d also sold to them) that we suspected of carrying such a missile.

Now a generation, and two more Gulf wars, later the Iranians are claiming a new naval threat: the Hoot (Farsi for whale) underwater missile. The Iranians claim that the missile has a phenomenal underwater speed of 224 miles per hour. If such a missle were fired from the Iranian coast it would take it only 5.65 minutes seconds to cross the 21-mile wide Strait of Hormuz that the Bainbridge had been guarding.

Given any target would most likely be somewhere in the middle of the strait, you can cut that to 2.82 minutes from launch to impact. If the people in the sonar room heard the launch of such a missile the potential moment of contact would be less than the three-minute standard for a warship to get to battle stations. Even in a wartime steaming condition, the crew would be cutting it close.

Couple that with the fact that approximately 25 percent of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and you can safely, I believe, assume that the the Iranians will never be allowed to manufacture, let alone deploy such a missile. And Iran knows that.

Which leads me to believe that today’s announcements are the Iranian equivalent of North Korea’s own saber rattling; a further desperate attempt to stave off a regime-ending invasion by the United States.

Most Americans are unaware of how close Iran came to being hammered under the full might of the United States during Gulf Wars, Part I (1979-80). Then President Jimmy Carter had made it clear to those in power in Iran that if a single embassy hostage was killed, there would be no quarter given. The United States would descend upon and crush the Iranian military and government with overwhelming force akin to the actions in Gulf Wars, Part II (1990-91) and Part III (2003-?).

Anyone who thinks that we’re too stretched to take on such an invasion isn’t paying attention. Invasions are easy. Occupations are hard. We don’t need to occupy Iran to emiliminate its war making capabilities.

And President George Bush still has three years left.

My Soundtrack: Why Not Nothing by Richard Ashcroft on WOXY.

I had a girlfriend in the ’70s who mixed milk and coke 50/50. I always thought it was a little disguting but hey, there were benefits. That is mild, however, compared to the roll out today of Coke-and-coffee drink: Coca-Cola Blāk. Why the company is calling it blake, as in Robert, is beyond me. I’d think the name association would be a killer.

Could your community use a brandnew $10 million health clinic? That’s the going price for building them in Iraq. Parsons Inc. got $200 million to build 142 health clinics, but now, says the U.S. Corps of Engineers, it looks like the company is only going to deliver 20 clinics for that price. That’s a 614 percent cost overrun. Did you get your kiss?

Perhaps the single most important voice for the Shoah belongs to Elie Wiesel. For more than 50 years he has devoted his life to ensuring that the more than 11 million deaths in the Nazi camps are not forgotten and that those who would emulate the everyday men and women who found themselves capable on monstrous acts, are opposed.

He had this to say recently:

Dear Friend,

I am haunted by what I know of Darfur.

In Darfur, humankind”s center of suffering today, men, women and children are uprooted, starved, tortured, mutilated, humiliated and massacred — and the whole civilized world knows it. And little or nothing, nothing significant, is being done to stop these massive violations of human rights.

Who is guilty? Those who commit these crimes. But to the question, “Who is responsible?” we are compelled to say: “Aren’t we all?”

We can no longer stand idly by.

As a Jew, and a survivor, I do not compare any events to the horrors of the Holocaust. Yet how can anyone, anywhere who sees the loss of life in Darfur, the systematic deportation, the killing of a people, not feel outraged? How can anyone who remembers other genocides — Cambodia, Rwanda, the Holocaust, the former Yugoslavia — remain silent?

If we neglect the suffering victims of Darfur, their plight will be our fault — and, perhaps, our guilt.

That is why we must act today.

Won’t you make your voice heard?

All are entitled to live with dignity and hope. All are entitled to live without fear and pain.

For the victims of Darfur, we must intervene.

Thank you,

Elie Wiesel

My Soundtrack: Human Mind Tap by Midnight Movies on WOXY.

Convicted and sentenced lobbyist Jack Abramoff still has friends in places (don’t ask me where, rocks, gutters, who knows?) According to the Washington Post, some 262 individuals sent character references to Judge Paul C. Huck who sentenced Abramoff to the minimum sentence possible: five years and 10 months.

I’m undecided if Drivetime is cool or lame but the execution is fascinating. If I were a budding comedian I would be doing this at least once a week and if I really wanted to show my chops, I’d do it every day. I think the same thing would work if I were back in school and wanted to be a broadcast journalist; I’d do my own nightly news.

One of Coventry’s treasures is Suzanne at Mac’s Backs. The shop is everything a book store should be and much much more. It’s the only place I do my holiday shopping. In addition to books and magazines, there is a regular rotation of fascinating people.

It’s the place where I recorded the Sherry And Ernie Roadshow, and every month there are new events.

Which events are you interested in?

My Soundtrack: Even If You Don’t by Ween on WOXY.

I discovered the writings of Marge Piercy when I took Women’s Studies 101 for all the wrong reasons back in 1983. I devoured all her novels in a weekend. The books of poetry took a little longer. I once remarked after reading one of her books that I wanted to have her children. Today is the 70th anniversary of her birth.

If it were not for her politics and her themes, I think everyone would agree with me that she is the finest writer of the 20th century.

She has written 14 volumes of poetry, 15 novels, one memoir. and several other works of non-fiction.

Tonight I shall light candles, drink tequilla and lose myself in her poetry.

My Soundtrack: Black & White New York by Tommy Keene on WOXY.

I would like to propose an operating rule for everyone in Northeast Ohio: Thall Shall Not Spam. Local Spam burns me more than the national/international kind because local businesses ought to know better. If you want a a newspaper editor or broadcast director’s attention you don’t send dear occupant messages.

But some around here think it’s just fine to do so with at least one blogger: me.

A few months ago I set up a Yahoo account for Have Coffee Will Write so that the occassional reader could instant message me. And it’s worked very nicely for that purpose, thank you Yahoo. Then this morning I got this email on the account:

Cleveland World wrote:

My name’s Rodney Burutsa and I’m the owner of http://www.ClevelandWorld.com, Cleveland’s premier Internet portal and online community. Features include chat, forums, blogs, events calendar, shopping, and a search engine style Web directory. ClevelandWorld.com is proud to announce that GMail will now be available to Clevelanders using the username@clevelandworld.com domain. 70 GMail accounts with 2 GB (2,048 MB) of space (that’s twice the size of Yahoo! Mail accounts) will be given out on a first come first serve basis.

See the Cleveland World forums at http://www.clevelandworld.com/index.php?showtopic=36 for more info. Feel free to contact me at marketing@clevelandworld.com or 216-240-3865.

Thanks,

Rodney Burutsa
http://www.ClevelandWorld.com

Normally I just delete Spam, but Rodney is local, so I figured a few words were in order. I replied:

Shalom Rodney,

Without a doubt the very worst way to make a favorable impression on anyone on the net in general and to a blogger who owns his own domain in particular is to Spam his email account with a message from anyone whose email address begins with “marketing.”

B’shalom,

Jeff Hess

And guess what? Cleveland’s premier Internet portal and online community bounced my email reply. Twice.

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.

I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses.

This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.

: 66.118.138.197 does not like recipient.

Remote host said: 550-web37312.mail.mud.yahoo.com [209.191.87.50]:29480 is currently not 550-permitted to relay through this server.

Rodney. Maybe you should make sure your premeir service is working before you start spamming people about using it.

My Soundtrack: Blood Brothers by The Tyde on WOXY.

[Update — 0907 — From my Dad, An Old Story:

A politician came to the Indian reservation to give a speech. After each statement the tribe called out Oompah, Oompah, The politician was pleased at the response. After the speech, the Chief offered to show the visitor his prize bull. Before entering the pen the Chief warned, do not step in oompah.]

I know how to curse like, well, a sailor. But I don’t do it that often. Foul language quickly loses its power when you use it to make mundane speech seem spicy or edgy. But sometimes that bit of profanity is the only thing that works. Jeff Jarvis feels the same way in the wake of the latest idiocy from the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC has outlawed the single most essential word in political discourse and protest: bullshit.

[snip]

But bullshit is political speech. It is our single most precious means of expressing displeasure with the political and the powerful.

Without the word bullshit, we are left with far less satisfactory means of debate. Now don”t feed me the mothers” bromide about curse words indicating a limited vocabulary. Bullshit is the most expressive word we have in this context. In his delightful treatise On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt finds the most equivalent word to be humbug and he acknowledges, It is more polite, as well as less intense, to say Humbug! than to say Bullshit! Humbug”s synonyms, which he lists, are similarly unsatisfying: balderdash, claptrap, hokum, drivel, buncombe, impostuer, and quackery.

So now imagine a protestor at a televised rally against the war railing that this war is humbug! Doesn”t cut it. If, instead, she said that Bush”s war is bullshit and that were broadcast across the country, every station that carried it and the speaker herself could be fined per utterance, even into bankruptcy. If, fearing this, she censored herself, that is evidence of the chill the FCC has imposed on free political speech. If, because of that chill, a station decided to time-delay the news – a journalistically and constitutionally offensive but pragmatic necessity of the age – it could dump her words: Bush”s war is bleep. But unquestionably, that detracts from the power of her statement and that is done only because the FCC threatens fines, presumptively, for the use of the word.

People who live by generating bullshit and lies don’t like it when the gloves come off. When the spade gets tagged, it becomes more difficult to dodge and weave as General Douglas MacArthur learned following his Old-Soldiers-Never-Die speech. President Give’m Hell Harry Truman was succinct and to the point on his feeling concerning the speech. It was, he said, nothing but a damn bunch of bullshit.

If it’s good enough for Harry, it’s good enough for me. (And it seems that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia thinks so too.)

Who would you like to call bullshit on?

My Soundtrack: Apply Some Pressure by Maximo Park on WOXY.

Yesterday, the needle
It isn’t a needle dear, it’s a catheter
Yesterday, the catheter felt wrong wrong.
I said, Harriet
I’m Madeline dear
I said Madeline, my arm hurts, aches so she slowed the drip down.
You’re such a slow drip, a dragger
Why can’t you handle you’re sauce
I apologized, closed my eyes. The friend who drove me,
she wanted to play rummy, she said she was bored.
I hate rummy so I told Madeline to speed the drip up again.

From 2000 Milligrams of Solumedrol by molly katherine danzinger.

I have several reasons to not shop at Borders or Waldenbooks. But until now those reasons were all socio-economic. Now they shown themselves to be bad Americans. When bookstore chains in the nation where Free Speech is not just a phrase do this, they deserve to be condemed in the strongest language possible.

Our president encouraged us to not give into to the terrorists. But the word must have missed these two boardrooms.

From the Associated Press:

Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

What magazine will be next?

My Soundtrack: Passed For Promotion by Midstates on WOXY.

Remember all those Red State/Blue State maps last November? Well, here’s one that shows USA Poll results on President George Bush’s popularity. Over all, of late, he’s been in the mid to high thirties and falling. The state-by-state breakdown is even better. Only in Utah, Wyoming and Alabama is he above 50 percent.

When I was in the Navy, one of the things I did to pass the hours was to play SPI/Avalon Hill wargames and Dungeons & Dragons. A big part of the latter was the creation of your world. I drew maps and floor plans that filled notebook after notebook. But in my wildest fantasies I never imagined going as far as Gilles Trehin.

Yeah. This is silly and shameless, but sometimes it’s fun to just do something flat out stupid. You remember stupid don’t you? (I sure do, I think my last stupid moment was about 35 minutes ago.) None of us should take ourselves all that seriously. So, just click through and look for a familiar face.

Diane Rehm’s guests this morning were Markos Moulitsa and Jerome Armstrong. They were plugging their book Crashing The Gate. Sherrod Brown’s campaign came up and Diane, a flawless radio host asked about her campaign. Neither Makos nor Jerome corrected Diane on Sherrod’s gender. Do you suppose they know something we don’t?

[Update — 0801, 27 March — It appears that Purple Ocean and the SEIU are only interested in one-way communications, at least as far as the Internet is concerned. My email to them got bounced:

The following message to was undeliverable. The reason for the problem:
5.1.2 – Bad destination host “DNS_Hard_Error: (‘mail.purpleocean.org’, ‘A’, (3, ‘NXDomain’))”

I checked the website for an alternative email address and there is none. One of my rules is that if you’re going to send me email then you need to be prepared to accept email from me. Consequently I’ve unsubscribed from the SEIU newsletter.

It’s all about the conversation. ]

One of the regular email updates I get comes from Purple Ocean, a membership organization of the Service Employees International Union. Of late the emails have had to do with the minimum wage. I’ve worked for minimum wage. It sucks. But raising the minimum wage is a non-starter. It’s a false target.

I was finally pissed off enough to reply to the latest email, reproduced below.

Dear Jeff,

Everyone in America who works hard should be able to earn a paycheck that supports a family. Unfortunately, for the millions of workers earning the minimum wage, this is simply not true.

For the past decade, the minimum wage has remained stagnant at $5.15 per hour while prices at the supermarket and the gas pump have steadily increased, utility costs have soared – and politicians in Washington have given themselves eight pay raises.

It”s time for Congress to stand up for hardworking Americans who are struggling to make ends meet on the minimum wage.

You can help by signing the petition below and joining thousands of community activists and workers nationwide who are calling on Congress to increase the minimum wage.

In Solidarity,

Purple Ocean

Here’s what I said in reply:

Shalom Y”all,

The minimum wage is a bad issue that distracts those who wish to see political and social change.

It”s bad for two reasons:

First, prices reflect costs. Any increase in costs – including the cost of labor – must be covered either in an increase in retail prices; or a reduction in profits. Since labor is the single largest cost of doing business for the vast majority of businesses, the margin of profit/workerhour is no where near great enough to absorb in this manner. Thus, the end result is inevitably an increase in prices and those on the bottom end of the wage scale are kept in the same position they were before.

Second, because many worker contracts, including those of federal government workers, are indexed to the minimum wage, the real effect of any increase in the minimum wage is to give a raise to people who aren”t working even close to the poverty line.

And, as an aside, the constant restatement that you can”t support a family of three on minimum wage is just silly. Anyone trying to do that is not living in the real world. And it is also a continuing example of why Union leadership is seen as clueless, lacking in ideas and not worthy of support.

If we want to see real-world change in the distribution of wealth and the creation of an equity-driven World economy, then we need to do what those before us did in the 19th and early 20th centuries did: organize. The federal government is not the answer. Workers performing valuable services deserve a fair day”s pay for a fair day”s work. And if the threat of business closings and outsoucing labor scares you then it”s time to put the International back in the International Labor Movement.

As a nation we can no longer hide our heads in the sand and hope that labor competition from China and India will go away. It”s not going to. Capitalists are fond of the “rising tides raise all boats” cliché. Well, it”s time to get all labor into the same boats and open the flood gates. Labor cannot afford to allow management to play the woman in Bangladesh against the woman in South Carolina.

Government is not the problem. Management is not the problem. Foreign labor is not the problem.

The leadership vacuum is the problem.

B”shalom

Jeff Hess

How best do we get our house in order?

My Soundtrack: Labyrinth by The Cure on WOXY.

OK. So here’s the deal. You’re the Newspaper Advertising Association and you’re feeling the pinch from the Internet. You really, really need to convince advertisers that not only is the dead-tree media a real bargain for their dollars, but that they’d be flat out stupid to put their dollars anywhere else. You hire the hottest young Turks who sell you this.