Sniping from the wings

Some Americans get in such a hissy fit over almost nothing. The big movie of this week is "American Sniper". Michael Moore got severely criticized for calling snipers cowards. The social media critics went apoplectic.

This is understandable. Moore's uncle, serving in World War II was killed by a sniper. That is an important aspect to consider. Secondly the mindset about the killer craft is different in the modern world than it was 70 years ago in the actual war.

 That aspect comes from my own father who belonged to the Royal Canadian Engineers Regiment. It was shown in training that he was also an exceptional shot. As such, the Canadian Army inflicted a set of  cross rifles on his sleeve. In the Canadian combat units at that time, especially in the engineer units, there weren't that many specialized snipers.

I mean he was a really good shot. He owned a Fabrique Nationale. .270 Win bolt action. Apparently, he went hunting a couple of times, knocking the heads off some partridge. Its way too easy to say than to make that shot.

Normally, when a combat squad went into action if the unit ran into a situation where a good shooter was needed to function as a sniper then the corporal or sargeant would tap the best shot on the shoulder and tell him that he volunteered. Some guys did take to the job. But most riflemen didn't like the job for a couple of reasons, always happy to go back to the regular group.

There were enormous downsides to being the sniper. First, you were out there on the edge with no support if things went wrong. Second, its a lonely job. Third, if caught snipers, despite wearing uniforms, usually suffered swift summary execution as if they were spies.

A prime reason that snipers were killed immediately belied the attitude of the day that these people were evil cowards. Snipers usually weren't prisoners, nor did they take prisoners.

The Old Man did relate an important bit of information not shown in today's cinematic fantasies. During the sniper's course which cross rifles shooters attended the soldier experienced in sniper tactics, revealed one startling fact. Snipers don't normally shoot to kill.

This lecturer  outlined why snipers on both sides weren't encouraged to kill outright. Basically, it had everything to do with the old phrase, "Dead men don't tell tales."

If a sniper killed a target, the man would simply fall down and die, his buddies move in, spend a moment, then move on. One enemy soldier taken from the field. Instead, snipers on both sides preferred to target the bottom of the spine. The result would be a severely wounded screaming man not likely to die anytime soon. Plus the genitals usually were collateral damage. One or two soldiers usually came to attend the casualty. After preliminary first aid by another specialist soldier known usually as a corpsman the casualty, two soldiers carried the moaning human through the positions into the rear area.

So wounding a human took three men out of the field of combat. Plus the tactic worked on the morale of the victim's unit. In addition medical resources would be used on the casualty. This meant that trucks otherwise carrying ammunition wound up carrying noncombat resources. Killing a guy did nothing but provide a momentary sadness. Wounding a guy drains the support resources, wrecks morale and makes problems for the enemy long after the war ends.

Then one can understand why Moore would mention that snipers were cowardly. My father was a designated sniper and he considered it rather a dirty cowardly job. In times since, snipers have been glorified as courageous. A large part of this sea change has been the entertainment and media  fantasies that emerged around this job. Its a very dirty job. Regular soldiers regard snipers, even their own snipers as rather out there.

Keep in mind that Moore grew up within a group of people, at a time when that opinion about snipers existed commonly shared.

Mouthy bugger

A couple of days ago a very smart young lady was frustrated about someone putting words in her mouth. Understandable. Yet, remember one thing about that sort of thing. No one remembers the ventriloquist. People always remember the name of the dummy.

Not for a Lang time

Oh a deviously wicked complicated world we have. The very attractive looking Amanda Lang treads in the water of scandal and conflicts of interest. I gotta try to explain this without meaning to appear condescending. Its a legitimate question. Having lived in western Canada, I appreciate why this is met with the roll of eyes by most average Canadians.
... In Alberta, (with the exception of Calgary) the major economic focus is oil, cattle and grain farming. In Toronto, and lesser so eastern Canada the major economic focus is finance, insurance, legal and banking (wholesale and retail).
... The majority of business writers and journalists outside of Sun Media do try and maintain a distance between themselves and the subjects or topics of that writing. The fuel for the engine of this economic sector is the investor, whether the investor is large or small.
... To make good choices, the investor depends on impartial, factual, complete information and data. It must be furnished with as little bias as possible. There are legitimate sources, Mike Eppel, and Richard Southern of 680 News.
... Despite the fact that they are associated with Sun Media, the Financial Post is a good source. Other long time sources, Globe and Mail, The Star, The National Post, The New York Times, The Financial Times (UK), The Wall Street Journal and the Northern Miner. You will find these publications at every major Canadian Bank, Financial, Insurance, and Law Office at the Senior Executive and Board office podiums every single morning before six AM. And yes, many senior executives will have at least reviewed most of them before the morning meetings at 10:15.
... The Reuters Wire Service, The Washington Post, The Montreal Gazette, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, The Times (London), The India Times, are secondary but valid sources relating to these business aspects. The more information the better. Outside of meetings, executives and lawyers will spend the vast majority of their working hours reading news sources, reports and expertise books. Their whole job is to reach the correct decision. Billions of investors dollars depend on the ability of these people to research, evaluate and choose the future course based on that data.
... On that list, was the CBC which had developed what appeared to be a reliable business discussion program with the cantankerous Kevin O'Leary and Amanda Lang. The former could more than be expected to be full of greedy bias, but the latter was supposed to be an impartial but progressive Lang. It was a popular format. Regrettably, it also depended on the honesty, grounded, factually enriched opinions of Lang.
... The fact that Lang has been shown to be ethically compromised literally destroys the credibility of the program in the investment community. When the credibility of the program or print publication is compromised then they lose advertisers, they lose the value of the ads, they lose faith. And events such as these can, and often to effect the bottom line in television production but also impacts, investments in financial instruments and stock markets.
... Any tremor in the financial markets of Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver can generate a literal tsunami of bad influences across the country effecting every single Canadian. Some Canadians believe things like this doesn't effect them. The Duffy, Wallin senate scandals have nothing or little impact. The Ghomeshi, Cosby scandals have little effect. A scandal or an exposed scandal in the business sector no matter how small effects loan rates, insurance rates, stock values, pension funds, bank fees, bond issues, tax rates and personal fortunes big or small.
... Let's say that Lang committed no crime. But an ethical lapse  of any sort by a business journalist carries far more direct impact on the reader and nonreaders than any other form of journalism. If a media company exists in that environment to survive it depends on the ethical compass of the individual writers in house and free lance to provide impartial, complete and balanced stories. Many people depend on that information to decide where and how much to invest.
... One problem is that a lot of people believe that all reporters and news stories have the same level of ethical behaviour. This is where the everyday reader/viewer sometimes gets turned around. Journalism inwardly has many divisions. Each division is determined by the style of writing, research and educational level. Loosely these divisions are: General, Investigative, Business, Legal, Science, Medical, Arts, Health, Home, Political, Opinion, Sports, Travel and Entertainment.
... You will see that the first five on the list demand total journalist ethics where any collusion, or payment violates a code where any malfeasance brings the immediate occupational punishment of dismissal. There really is no room for a publisher for if the publication or program bias fails to achieve balance and fairness it can mean that the influential reader leaves because the information displays prejudice. This means a departure of advertising, and the downward spiral descent is much quicker than the immense work needed to climb into credibility.
... The final nine sectors are set in rough descending ethical level in regards to the research, data, writing and publications. So the Medical sector remains at the high end of the moral spectrum and would be higher except this sector includes the major drug companies. You will see that the Entertainment is at the bottom of the ethical ladder. The reason is that if a columnist gives a bad review of a movie or television program the Media distributor will threaten and has pulled the advertising. Ever since the days when smoking ads were banned, media dependency on entertainment ad revenue became far more important as a part of the bottom line.
... The effect on Entertainment journalism ethics has been dramatic. Self censorship is onerous especially when it comes to movies. Honesty and integrity have been sacrificed for at least two decades. Witness the number of celebrities. Each celebrity answer the same questions with: He's a great guy/gal. We all had fun. We were a family. (director/actor) was brilliant. I just love visiting (insert name of hometown).
... This set of answers defies the reality of the human experience. But to a media outlet its all about advertising dollars. Why is the entertainment sector ethically expendable compared to the ridged ethical balance needed for business? If you see a bad movie. That's just a bad night and a couple of bucks down the drain. However if you are trying to decide where to put tens of thousand dollars into retirement or future education trusts you the reader/viewer need truthful, accurate, and balanced information. Lives hang on the balance. Business careers hang in the balance.
... A business publication or program can be and has been successfully sued for passing on bad or corrupt information. No publication has been sued for giving a misdirection to a bad movie.
... Different media outlets also have different degrees of honesty, Fox News, and Sun Media are examples of a lack of ethical standard. Your city Sun newspaper in Canada are not actually accredited news outlets. They basically can write anything they want short of slander and libel. The prime example is that total whack job called Ezra Levant. And these publications and television channels are nothing but proselytizing arms of the present Conservative government. They belong to no Press or Media standards accreditation associations.
... The CBC however is a member of media standards associations. Additionally, the CBC is publicly owned. Like it or not, as a corporate entity, they must live to a much higher ethical standard even above its private sector competitors. That's the reader/viewer expectation. In a business program such as the Exchange, the host must be equal to the task. She and/or he gets a good wage, and notoriety for being above the mire. Lang seems to have failed if the allegations stand up.
... Even if you aren't a direct investor, certainly the stock values, of everything could be effected. Lang isn't being sanctioned for public speaking. Its to whom. No one would get their shirts in a knot if the public speaking engagement was at a college or university, a church town hall, a social group. But she took money for speaking engagements at banks and financial institutions. When you look at the wonderful careers of Senators Wallin and Duffy, they were remunerated by the Conservative Party by way of speaking engagements. Then they tried to double down on the Senate expense account. So as a reliable media source she has suddenly, rightly or wrongly become a severe handicap.
... In response Lang has lashed out trying to deflect the blame onto what she calls haters. Yet Tomlinson in the best journalist traditions has brought up points of conflict which are undeniable. She appears to have tried to spike or suppress a story about the RBC use of Temporary Foreign Workers when the bank was definitely under scrutiny for firing their Canadian workers after the latter had trained them to replace them. She had received monies from RBC for "speeches". She dates an RBC Board member. Its emerged that in other speaking fees she gave favorable reviews to those companies that had hired her for those events. All that is on the record.
... Ignoring the ultimate fate of the producers of the "Q" with Ghomeshi, so far the CBC producers are trying to circle the wagons to protect her reputation. But her problem is that the allegations and information is from a trained investigative reporter in her own company. Compare her stubbornness attitude to that of Leslie Roberts who just got tanked from Glow Balls for a comparatively less damaging conflict of interest. Few people were effected adversely. The only damage being the integrity of the broadcasts.
... So it is a very big deal. The commercial sectors of Toronto/Montreal/Calgary/Vancouver are effected. Pensions, stock values, company valuations are effected. Every Canadian is effected. And you are effected.

Its not a good time to be an old boat

During the last few months, members of various shipping groups were agonizing over the surprising number of ships recently sent to the scrap beach. Stumbling across this article might give in part the reason for the sudden spate of lost ships. The actual story is quite long. Here's the precis.
... Its fairly complicated to people outside of the shipping boardrooms but its actually very simple. There is too many ships chasing a limited amount of cargo. In the case of Algoma and CSL you can suddenly see their motives. They don't want to add to shipping capacity but they need new modern vessels in order to keep their competitive advantage.
... It fully explains the major shipper's strategy. They don't want to sell these older vessels because it simply means that the presence of those ships added to the over all competitive capacity on the water. The greater the amount of shipping capacity the lower the revenue on per cubic metre of cargo space. More shipping capacity the lower the freight rates to the customer. Plus there are fewer buyers in a period like this. Owning a ship might sound great to the ego, but there are only limited opportunities for new business.
... It also explains the Algoma purchase of another company's ships. Simply put they needed to get more shipping revenue then they wanted that fleet's capacity in their corporate structure. They also needed to renew their fleet. But when launching a new ship, They had to eliminate the older cargo capacity by scrapping the older ships. Its the harsh economics of modern cargo ship ownership.
... Capacity the one reason that many owners are pressed into scrapping ships. But why the pressure to acquire new modern ships. There is a time factor directing shipping plans. The present time window makes it an unbelievably good time to re-equip fleets. The caveat barrier is capacity. Rebuild and modernize a fleet but don't expand the existing capacity of shipping overall. Why now?
... Three favourable factors contribute to the time pressures on planning shipping businesses. These reasons propel change. One must appreciate the larger business environment. The most obvious condition is financing. All these new vessels must have financing. Contorting the plans of ship owners are very favourable existing interest rates. At historically low levels the interest rates in Canada will remain unbelievably low until at least the next federal election. After that its unlikely another low interest rate financial environment will exist in the next thousand years. Interest rates remain the second parameter pushing the construction of new ships. Its now or never.
... Algoma, a successful shipping company, pursues an aggressive, expensive, risky policy of complete fleet renewal. Many of the ships in its fleet are still very functional vessels. Under the criteria of ship obsolescence previous to 2010, many of these ships should still have decades of usefulness. Algoma isn't the only shipping company facing the future. Canadian Steamship Lines (CSL) has noticeably been aggressive in revitalizing its fleet. At the very least four new CSL and Algoma vessels enter the Great Lakes trade in the 2015 season.

... Efficiencies appear listed as valid reasons for new ships. Efficient propulsion. Efficient use of fuel. Efficient cargo handling. Efficiency in crew numbers. Certainly, that list contains major considerations. Environmental reasons seem to step up onto the list. Facing domestic pressures, governments apply rules to industries that appear polluting. Environmentally speaking, any present ship under any criteria is by far and away cheaper and causes the least environmental damage per mile than any other mode. Ships make favoured targets.

... Given the list of reasons for new ships, they alone would not effect the long term vision for shipping companies. Interest rates, environment, energy are all concerns but doesn't really effect the bottom line competitive environment. Energy environment is number two reason but the third factor is the big one.

.. The monster looming in the mists of the future is the definite influence of new technology. Those who foresee and embrace new technology own companies like Fujii. Those who don't are Kodak shareholders.
... Technology rules. The future world looms. New advanced shipping designs seem to emphasize the no crew or crew-less ships. That evolutionary event will occur in very short order perhaps in as short as ten years. Certainly, by 2025 crew-less ships could ply the ocean trade routes. Inshore, and Seaway routes will have some crew or tug control since navigation is close quarters. Remote control crewless ships crossing the oceans will be boarded by small pilot crews as the new vessels reach the destination harbor or taken control by local tugs.

... The new ships being built now are capable of being converted to remote control crewless vessels fairly easily since control and operational controls are digital. Their systems are or are capable of interfacing with remote control wireless technology. It is why ships like the Quebecois and the Montrealais went on the scrap list. These ships would be costly and nearly impossible to convert since the majority of the technology within their hulls (outside of navigation radar and GPS systems) are analog. More ships are on the way to the scrap dealers because as the companies engage in assessments of each ship and whether the individual ship can be . Some of those ships heading to scrap will be surprises as time goes on. In a different future those ships would have decades of operational ability. In this future vector, they have none.

... The ships of the smaller companies won't face the same technology threat for other reasons. Yet they remain at threat because the larger firms can move material without much labour cost. This means that the smaller shipping companies can't tender the lower cargo rates that the big ship companies are going to offer. While many small companies will survive moving niche or special cargoes like concrete and aggregate in and out of minor ports, their competitive position visa-a-vis large long term bulk contracts becomes nonexistent. If their ownership embraced any smarts they would invest in tugs to service the crewless ships into, out of ports and through canals.
... Technology, finance, fuel saving, environment promotes new ship construction. The need to maintain the same level of capacity means new ships without adding cargo capacity on trade routes. Regardless, it is not a good time to be an old boat.
... On the following link you will be taken to a page which outlines the technology concept of future ships. They are at present only proposed future designs. Yet, they are functional designs well within the reach of present day technologies. Most of the designs involve smaller crew numbers, or no crew ships.

http://www.marineinsight.com/marine/marine-news/headline/10-major-ship-designs-and-concepts-launched-in-2014/