Letters
01/28/2010
Finding relief
Re: “Saving Haiti,” Jan. 21.
This is what happens when you have Washington-approved and -installed dictators (i.e. Papa Doc, Baby Doc) looting your nation for a couple of decades. Now that the despots have finally been moved out by their co-sponsoring First-World masters (their ill-gotten loot secretly warehoused in the Caymans and Switzerland), the US-directed International Monetary Fund will perpetuate that impoverished nation’s desperate way of life by demanding that they continue repaying all the international loans that had been taken out in their name by their US-sponsored leaders.
Ultimately, until those obscenely burdensome loans are paid back, the IMF will impose torturously severe “austerity” measures against Haiti — as it would any other targeted Third-World nation that has been chosen for continued devastation by the Western banking industry’s massive weapons of economic warfare (which has, time and again, been backed up by American Weapons of Mass Destruction).
Most of Haiti’s building infrastructure was quite literally terminally below modern-world earthquake standards. That’s mostly because that gathering of the African race in that island nation undeniably was never allowed any opportunities to afford any significant amount of building materials that could survive this large an earthquake.
For the last decade at least, it’s been projected that Haiti has buried beneath its realm potentially as much oil as possessed by Venezuela, a next-door neighbor that has been lusted after by both BP and Standard Oil. In the meantime, you still think that those 20,000-plus American military personnel that have only just invaded that country are there strictly for “humanitarian” relief?
If history teaches us any lessons, the only thing that Haitians are going to be relieved of in both the short- and long-term is their potentially poverty-relieving petroleum reserve.
~DAN DAUGHERTY, PASADENA
FROM THE WEB:
Re: “Trouble above,” Dec. 17
I have lived in Pasadena for over 40 years and yes, I also find the nightly noise from the Police helicopters annoying (my son calls them Ghetto Birds).
I remember many years ago when the Pasadena PD flew Enstroms (many old-timers will remember they were bright red — I think the city still has one or two.).
While those were also loud, they didn’t fly nearly the number of hours that the current OH-58 ships do.
The above article mentions that PPD will be purchasing an MD-500E in the near future. It also mentions that it will be quieter due to its four-blade tail rotor design (this is called the “Quiet Knight” option in aviation circles). It will still be comparatively loud.
How do I know? Well, if you live in the Northwest Pasadena area, you’ve already heard something even quieter. Let me explain some things the article fails to mention:
Pasadena PD, Glendale PD, and Burbank PD have been sharing air support duties for at least the last year now. Glendale and Burbank combined their air operations a couple of years ago. To save costs, Pasadena PD’s main ship has been down for a couple of evenings a week while Glendale/Burbank provides our air support. Pasadena PD provides air support to those cities a few nights a week in return.
For more information, see .burbankleader.com/articles/2009/02/09/publicsafety/blr-choppers11.art.txt.
The Glendale/Burbank ships are the MD-520Ns with NO tail rotors. Yup, it’s a NOTAR design and that particular model is considered the quietest certified helicopter in the world. The military version is the OH-06A.
For more on the MD-520N, see airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.
main?id=114.
So airships that are even quieter than the one Pasadena PD will be purchasing have already been flying over the city a few nights a week. Keep an ear out for them — they do have a different sound.
One of the more annoying things the Pasadena airships will do is if they are at point A and leave for another call several miles away at point B, they will fly with the Night Sun light turned on and pointed down for the entire time, basically “sweeping” the neighborhood with light.
It reminds me of the “in the future” scenes in the Terminator movies where the airships are sweeping the landscape with light looking for the rebellion. Why does this light need to be left on when traveling? If it can’t be switched off, what about tilting it up so it doesn’t shine through hundreds of residential windows when traveling?
What’s the solution to all of this?
I honestly don’t know. Admittedly, it’s easy to complain here on the forum, but more difficult to come
up with solutions.
I think a good start would be to develop a policy where the airship isn’t over the Northwest between certain hours unless it is RESPONDING to an urgent call for service (i.e. not proactive patrolling).
The air support units DO provide a valuable service, but reducing the number of flight hours would go a long way to abating the noise (and closing the city’s budget gap).
Do the math: Above article states the Air Operations budget is $3.3 million per year. That’s over $9,000 per day in costs the city. If you cut that in half and save $4,500 per day, that’s $1.6 million a year saved. How many officers could be put on the street (a majority of them deployed to the NW) with that money?
Probably about 20 to 25. Better yet, divert the money into long-term solutions that creates jobs and educate youth.
Does this affect property values in the Northwest? That’s hard to quantify, but I can tell you that there was a house for sale two doors south of me (Yes, I live in the NW). A couple that was looking to purchase the home did a few things I found surprising.
They knocked on several doors in the neighborhood to introduce themselves and meet their potential new neighbors. I only spoke with them for five minutes or so, but they explained that they wanted to know a little more about the people they would be living next to for the next 20 years.
We talked about the area and how this particular “pocket” of the NW was not a bad area at all. In the end, they decided not to move here. I ran into the Realtor a couple of weeks later and he remembered the couple. He explained that they requested to spend one night (on sleeping bags!) in the home before purchase. The current owner agreed to their request. The couple said it “sounded like a war zone” overnight and that’s why they didn’t purchase the house. It’s been three months, and that home is still for sale.
Thoughts?
— Posted by xilix
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