Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

nones-leonard.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 228 posts

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#211

Post by sgjohnson »

shkkmo wrote: post #166
LarryMullins wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, besides MAD, has prevented Putin from using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine? inb4 "they don't work anymore" , Russia has a mature nuclear industry and huge stockpiles of nuclear material. They're more than capable of making nuclear bombs which work.

The risk of further global isolation and the loss of any military restraint from NATO. I could foresee a wide range of of responses to Russia using a nuke in Ukraine. I highly doubt the US would respond by dropping a nuke on Russia. That just wouldn't accomplish anything useful.

> I highly doubt the US would respond by dropping a nuke on Russia. That just wouldn't accomplish anything useful.

And you’re probably right—it wouldn’t achieve anything useful.

What I’d expect is the first gulf war all over again. Some good 2 months of non-stop relentless air campaign with surgical strikes, and boots on the ground for the final phase. And a dismembered, completely dysfuncional Russia wrapped into endless internal conflicts between the constituent republics at the end.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#212

Post by sgjohnson »

chucksmash wrote: post #41
thepasswordis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The book makes it clear that the Secret Service is constantly underfunded and sorely lacking in modern technology, with agents sometimes having to use their personal car to transport the people they're protecting because their official cars aren't working. Maybe the answer is to cool it with the idea that government officials all need to have large personal protective details. Isn't that the job of the police? And a…

> Maybe the answer is to cool it with the idea that government officials all need to have large personal protective details. Isn't that the job of the police? So like Shinzo Abe? Edit: I picked Shinzo Abe because it was a recent example I felt people would be familiar with, but honestly it seems like any notoriety at all is dangerous. Someone assassinated MLK Jr's mother [1] while she played a church organ. Relying o…

Shinzo Abe is actually a very good example, because his tragic death occured in a country where violent crime basically doesn’t exist and where it’s virtually impossible to acquire any kind of a firearm (I am aware how far 3D printing has come)

This would of course be far worse in a country that’s very familiar with violent crime and where everyone and their dog has at least 1.2 firearms, like the United States.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#213

Post by margalabargala »

mike_d wrote: post #210
thrwwy95fab9d1 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same skeptical reaction to this story. The runways may have changed numbers (I’m not sure how to confirm this), but if they were crossing the river taking off from what is now runway 19, they seriously deviated from their flight plan and deserved the call.

> The runways may have changed numbers (I’m not sure how to confirm this) Runways and named by taking the degrees from magnetic north and dropping the last digit. Parallel runways will be designated (for example) 31L(eft) 31C(enter) 31R(right). You'd need to rotate the runway to rename it.

That's one option. The other one is to move magnetic north.

This story is from the early 80s. The magnetic north pole moves around 40 miles per year. What was once runway 18 at DCA over 40 years ago is now 19.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#214

Post by [deleted] »

judge2020 wrote: post #206
mulmen wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I have more power as a voter and constituent to influence policies that affect me. At a national level I am 1 of 331,900,000. At a state level I am 1 of 7,739,000. At a county level I am one of 2,252,000. At a city level I am one of 733,919. At a neighborhood level I am one of 82,123. I have four orders of magnitude more influence over my city council rep than I do over my president.

> I have four orders of magnitude more influence over my city council rep than I do over my president. And yet you need the federal government to defend your right to select which state to live in if you decide that you want to move https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saenz_v._Roe Believe it or not, the current situation yields tons of power to your state, just not powers that involve anything outside of the state (wars, i…

[deleted]

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#215

Post by DerekL »

thepasswordis wrote: post #23
pivo wrote: post #18

I've just finished reading, "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" by Carol Leonnig [0]. In that book the author describes an incident on September 12, 1994 [1] in which a pilot landed a small plane in front of the white house. Secret Service members she interviewed were dumfounded that they were asked there to run to the white house roof with rifles to protect the building, and that there were no such…

>The book makes it clear that the Secret Service is constantly underfunded and sorely lacking in modern technology, with agents sometimes having to use their personal car to transport the people they're protecting because their official cars aren't working. Maybe the answer is to cool it with the idea that government officials all need to have large personal protective details. Isn't that the job of the police? And a…

> Isn't that the job of the police?

The Secret Service are police (that is, they're a law enforcement agency).

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#216

Post by detaro »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #194
jancsika wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that we continually shift more power from Local / State government, then from Congress to the Executive is the exact reason the president is a "Symbol of Power" This is all rank and dubious speculation wrt your general rule about POTUS needing a dedicated security team. Hell, Duane Johnson needs a dedicated security team. If you are positing a federal government so weak that POTUS is not widely known withi…

Can you name the president of Switzerland? This is the nation that hosts the davos summit, is the hub of FIFA and red cross, plus several other high profile multinationals, NGOs, and wotld bodies, and is also the only core european country not parricipating in thr EU zone agreement. Surely if you know the PM of Spain, Norway or Poland you ought to know switzerland right?

The position of the Swiss president by design (i.e. the Swiss constitution) doesn't hold any special powers. That's quite different than the US president or even European PMs. A Swiss-style executive in the US would be a fascinating scenario, but it's really not how the systems in the US are set up (nor would the non-required aspects of it necessarily form the same way, e.g. the many-party nature is not strictly required and it could devolve into a two-party-system in Switzerland too in theory)

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#217

Post by onetokeoverthe »

aidenn0 wrote: post #66
phpisthebest wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General rule for me is If any person has soooo much power we need a dedicated team of people to protect them continuously, that person has too much power and the solution is not ever-increasing amount of security, but ever decreasing amount of power to that individual

Assassinating the president has little to do with denying him the power of the presidency, and more to do with what he is a symbol of. Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers

[dead]

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#218

Post by throw827474737 »

etothepii wrote: post #101
wolrah wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Washington National has no 18, but only a 19 Depending on how long ago this happened that could be the same runway. There was an article that made the front page here in the last month or so about how the movement of the magnetic poles requires runway names to be adjusted periodically. This isn't that same article, I didn't feel like digging through my history, but it explains the same topic. https://www.ncei.noaa.…

Indeed but CGPGrey explains it in excruciating detail on YouTube. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qD6bPNZRRbQ

Thanks for all and that link, but yeah I was assuming 18==19 already and meant to understand runway numbers, maybe should have left out that detail.

Actual question still sticks: Takeoff on 18 southwards basically makes you follow the river immediately. Where did this guy encounter his left/right decision, to get back towards white house? he must have made almost a uturn then?

And even assuming the article is a bit inaccurate and he took of northwards (thanks for pointing out the patterns pilots have to fly if doing that @ others): I still cannot imagine how that plane flew and where it matches the description of: "When I reached 1500 feet I looked down. I was crossing the river. It went right and left."

???

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#219

Post by dctoedt »

seb1204 wrote: post #204
dctoedt wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because I have more power as a voter and constituent to influence policies that affect me. If only things actually worked that way. The vast majority of voters don't exercise that power. Moreover, state and local governments are more vulnerable to capture by rent-seekers and other special-interest groups bent on shaping public policy to suit their desires.

They should and education and empowering is needed, globally. Democracy in all forms and colours needs participation. The minimum level of participation is to vote in all occasions.

> They should and education and empowering is needed, globally. ... The minimum level of participation is to vote in all occasions.

1. It'd be great to use the Australian system of compulsory voting (and it's kind of a community event, from what I've read). But that's not likely to happen in the U.S., because certain segments of the political spectrum don't want "the wrong sort of people" to vote, and so when they gain power they make it as difficult to vote as they can get away with.

2. "Education and empowerment" has worked so well in other areas of life — among other successes, absolutely no one smokes tobacco anymore; everyone drives carefully and soberly while obeying all posted speed limits; everyone eats healthy foods in moderation to maintain an appropriate weight; etc. (Not.)

And that's why in the tech world, for example, everyone takes the time to properly document their code, thoroughly test every release, refactor when appropriate, and clear away technical debt. (Again, not.)

And in medicine, doctors never misdiagnose illnesses or forget important steps in treatment because they always use authoritative best-practices checklists, which the medical establishment works hard to keep up to date and quickly disseminate to practitioners. (Yep, not.)

Apropos of that last example: Remember the crash of the FAA's Notice to Air Missions [NOTAM] system last week? That's a federal system; 50 state systems would be unworkable.

While we're on the subject of NOTAMs, here's a thought experiment: Imagine that the NOTAM system were somehow to be privatized — investor pressure for growth to boost the stock price would eventually and inevitably lead to dangerous corner-cutting and underinvestment.

3. Bottom line: Every human being is a mixed bag: We're created co-creators helping to build a universe, but we can also be short-sighted and narrowly focused on what we want without regard to how it might hurt others. All this can lead to stupid decisions — or malign ones — which we're great at rationalizing. So: Our political structures and laws need to deal with humans as we are, not as we wish we were.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#220

Post by phpisthebest »

judge2020 wrote: post #205
phpisthebest wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmmm... Following the Constitution is Radical now... The US Navy is the only constitutional branch of the DoD. How is that for being radical.

I don't think they had to defend against threats from the air or space when they drafted the constitution. Nor were spies all that useful outside of wartime.

This "well it is old document" falls on deaf ears with me. The solution on if parts of the constitution are out-dated is to pass amendments to the consititon, which has been done 27 times in our history.

It seems today however we have allowed the federal government to simply ignore it because it is "too hard" to pass an amendment. Sorry if it important enough to expand the power of the federal government is should be important enough to put in the work to amend the constitution, and if you can not pass it then clearly the nation agree's it is not in scope of the federal government.

And by "nation" I do not mean a "democratic vote where by 51% of the population tells the 49% what do to" which seems to be common in the "Protect our democracy" crowd.

Post reply on HN