Larry Dighera wrote:
On 21 Jul 2005 18:33:34 -0700, wrote in
.com::

Larry Dighera wrote:

snip


Congressman John Mica. There are not many guys in Washington who are
more on our side than him.

That's what I thought too.

you failed to address my point: Why isn't his proposed bill balanced?

I don't agree that it's unbalanced. More on this below.



Just how does Representative Mica propose to determine if the
incursion was deliberate or inadvertent? Is he going to go to a
"higher source" like baby Bush did when deciding to invade, er
liberate Iraq?

Why don't you just get a big red marker and write "I AM A CRANK" across
your forehead? At least other people on the Internet wouldn't see it.

I'm disappointed by this response from you, sir. I have read several
of your articles posted to this newsgroup, and found them thoughtful,
informative and a very welcome relief from the creping chit chat often
found here. Your personal attack is beneath you.

Some phrases are markers for things. When I hear someone refer to the
President as "Baby Bush" I can hear the sound of an axe grinding in the
background. It's the same as when people on the right talked about how
Bill Clinton had Vince Foster killed. You're doing your own argument a
disservice by making the statement, doubly so because of how gratuitous
the insult is in this context. AFAICT, GA is totally bipartisan in both
friends and enemies and I doubt the election of John Kerry would have
made one whit of difference in the operation of the DC ADIZ. That's
determined by the professional bureaucrats who really run DC regardless
of which stuffed shirt is sitting in the Oval Office.

Again you fail to answer my question: How will it be determined if the
pilot's action was deliberate or inadvertent?

Throw him or her in the Potomac and see if they float.

The report noted that airspace violations are almost all
inadvertent.

If so, Mica's proposed bill will be virtually meaningless.

Have you considered that might be the point?

Yes. Actually I did. It might be a bone to through the journalists.
But it sends the wrong message in my opinion. Such an anti pilot bill
as proposed by Mica tacitly endorses the DC ADIZ instead of exposing
its utter uselessness in providing security.

Politics, they say, is the art of the possible. The way I see it is
that in this case we have the option of half a loaf in the form of
Mica's somewhat unenforceable bill, or nothing in the form of something
foisted on us by Chuck Schumer et. al. that makes this look like a
holiday in Monaco by comparison.


Wonderful. Another bit of legislation about as appropriate as that
sparked by the Terry Schivo case.

I fail to see what Terri Schiavo has to do with this besides being a
random outburst of your animus toward the right wing, which, I daresay,
does more to discredit your arguments than anything I could say.


The point you failed to address is, Mica's proposed bill fails to
address that other 12%. Is everything about how it looks? What of
substance and balanced legislation?


I failed to address it because it's a red herring. A bill that
addresses 88% of a problem is better than average.

I'm done sympathizing with pilots who get caught in this dragnet. It's
been around for nearly four years now and there's just no excuse to not
be aware of it. With GPS's costing under $500 there's simply no reason
to bumble your way into this.

So you've examined every case and found no circumstances where the
bumbling pilot was not at fault? Come on, you know better than that.

It seems to me that the onus is on you to show that it's not pilots'
fault something like 75% of the time. Even if 30% of total incidents
are due to other causes, that still leaves us on the hook for the
overwhelming majority.

IMHO the best we could hope for would be to reduce the size of the DC
ADIZ

If the purpose of the DC ADIZ is to de clutter the airspace
surrounding the FRZ, it's doubtful its size will be reduced unless
F-16s are in the air 24 hours a day.

Why can't we hope that the ADZ be dispensed with entirely?

Because a half hour ago I got off the subway in Boston and they were
announcing at each stop for people to look around them to see if there
were any unattended packages left behind. In NYC they're doing random
bag checks on people. If they were to drop the ADIZ there would likely
be a huge outcry from the public about the inconveniences being borne
by the common man while rich pilots fly at will with no restrictions.
This isn't a fight we can win right now.

So long as "weekend flyboys" are busting the rules regularly, the
donut-eaters making the rules are going to keep things the way they
are or even tighten the screws more.

Perhaps its time for someone with a bit more intellect to look at the
issue, and propose a security measure that might remotely have some
modicum of achieving its purpose, instead of permitting the
"dough-eaters" to foist their inane restrictions on the liberty of
this nation's citizens.

Like I said, you're simply asking too much of the current environment.
To the extent that any improvement is possible, I would offer that it
depends upon us as pilots demonstrating that we're not bumbling morons,
which is kind of what the current numbers suggest to the people making
the decisions.


In any event, I doubt seriously that a $100,000.00 fine would have
prevented Sheaffer from committing his fiasco.

Well, we do agree on something. It would however be better for us as
regards news coverage and public sentiment, to hear that the potential
peanlty for that kind of screwup is fairly stiff.

Best,
-cwk.