READ THIS AN THEN GO TO MY SPACE.COM

By Troy Patterson
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2008, at 4:58 PM ET
I suppose that we'll have to talk about The Early Show, a program entirely lacking in tonal coherence. Co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez looked awfully lonely by herself in the studio on Monday, and she led with either the polygamist story or more pope pap; who can remember? Her partner, Harry Smith, was in Pennsylvania. "Coming up," he said, "we're going to explain why Pennsylvania is such an amazing state." This was about 7:30 a.m. The commercial break included a promo for CSI: Miami that featured one close-up of a corpse and, for variety, one medium shot of a corpse. When we came back, it turned out that what's great about Pennsylvania are such things as Utz pretzels, Heinz ketchup, Rolling Rock beer, Pittsburgh's Andrew Warhola. There were visual aids, in case you couldn't quite put your finger on what a ketchup bottle looks like. Smith: "It's a pretty cool state, I should say." I have two nephews in elementary school in Philadelphia, and I think their parents would be troubled if ketchup and beer were the best that they could come up with for an oral report on this topic.
The Early Show gave us some more polygamy coverage; then, at 8:02 a.m., ran a promo for Moonlight in which the camera lavished Bruce Weber-style attention on its hero's bare torso; then went back to Pennsylvania to play a sample of Billy Joel's "Allentown." At 8:55 a.m., Today aired a live performance by Alicia Keys, and Good Morning America hosted the country act Ashton Shepherd. The Early Show, eager to get in on the musical fun, ran a montage of pope moments set to tinkling sap.
A brief word about CBS Sunday Morning: While it is obvious that this network's coverage and presentation of current events is geared toward old people, the target audience of Charles Osgood's show seems to be already dead—peacefully so. There was, last time around, some tranquil nature footage. Also, a profile of crooner Michael Bublé that refused to stint on clichés. ("The other thing Bublé won't change, he says, is being himself, outspoken and open.") Ben Stein, the actor and economist, came on to do a commentary on the mortgage crisis in which he argued that federal funds should be devoted to aiding the dogs and cats disadvantaged by the fallout. Either this was exquisitely subtle satire, or everyone involved with the segment has lost his mind.
We're supposed to have some respect for 60 Minutes, and I'm not entirely sure why that is. The most recent episode began with a Lara Logan piece on a Special Forces unit in Afghanistan. It was teased as a tale of valor that would also expose why we are losing in Afghanistan. In reality, it only addressed one of these topics. Guess which! Recounting a battle between the Green Berets and the Taliban, Logan—whose hair was mussed, which I take to be a considered choice—gave us a boys' adventure story of the old school. It takes nothing away from the courage and sacrifice of these soldiers to say that the segment was an encyclopedia of war-story treacle: "I thought, 'If I'm going down, I'm taking them with me,' " and so on.
Next, Leslie Stahl did a number on the side effects of gastric bypass surgery. Some studies suggest that it has substantial benefits for diabetes patients. On the down side, it may make you more likely to kill yourself. Why were we talking about this? Next, the dapper veteran Morley Safer reported on a lost mural of da Vinci's. This segment was fine, despite mostly delivering the impression that it was a shrewd way for Safer to take a trip to Florence, where I do hope he had some shoes made. In our few minutes with Andy Rooney—now in his 30th year on the show and in his 29th as a cranky old punch line—Andy inveighed passionately against the airline industry. "I like to get up and walk around when I fly, but they don't make the aisles as wide as they used to. ..." He proposed we should boycott the airline industry for a week.
Taking a cue, I propose that it is time for CBS News to be put down, in the Old Yeller sense of the phrase. It's time to turn out the lights and just start airing Hollywood gossip at 6:30 p.m. The network could follow Schieffer's lead and simply dissolve the thing after the inauguration, maybe keeping 60 Minutes around, either as a commercial-free public service program (because what exec doesn't love a prestige-hogging loss leader?) or under the auspices of CBS' entertainment division (because why keep pretending?). The farewell would be handled with dignified pomp—tributes to Murrow and Severeid and so forth. And if Walter Cronkite is in good health, he could do the honors with a final sign off. I'm serious. That's how bad things are, and that's the way it is.
FOR A FOLLOWUP ABOUT WHY THE NEWS IS SO BAD SEE www.myspace.com/justminabender, second utube video with NOAM CHOMSKY

HAS OBAMA FINALLY MET HIS MATCH IN HILLARY?

No, Obama is not dropping out of anything. He is ahead in every count that matters and his Super Delegate count is growing at a rate that is literally 16 to 1 versus Hillary.

His lead as far as the Democratic Nomination is insurmountable. Hillary is mounting a campaign based on changing the rules in the middle of the game.(or should I say END of the game) Her tactics will not work. Every body knows it, they have said it publicly, and her own camp is slowly but surely defecting because of it. She also lost another two Super delegates just today.


NOW! I will tell you this; Beating John McCain in November will be a daunting task. He is seen as a hero because of his military service. He is also a continuance of the same conservative views of Bush. Views that I have termed "Profits Before People" and whether you admit it or not, are pretty popular here in the US. So, by Obama being as liberal as he is on certain issues, ie.. guns and immigration, it will again be one hell of a task to beat McCain.

If I had but one recommendation to help Obama win in Nov., it would be to scoot a little closer to the middle on those issues. Gun control [or lack of] is a huge issue here in the US. Being a proud gun owner myself, even I take issue with Obama's gun voting record. They won't admit it, but Obama was ABSOLUTELY correct in saying that people cling to guns and religion! The problem is, they're too stupid to admit it! Don't believe me? Then why in a country that says separate church and state, does the whole damn country stop and take note when some little old white man called the pope comes to town? Really??

If he's wrong, then why is the NRA (Natl. Rifle Assoc.) one of the strongest organizations in Washington? Why? Because people cling to guns and religion! THAT'S WHY! But, Obama should also be smart enough to know that if you attack or appear to trivialize those two subjects, you will have issues. Oh well....

Also his stance on immigration is a bit too liberal for me. If he wants to appeal to more than just the free thinking and educated liberals or impressionable college students, then he must get tough on immigration. Not so tough as to become a racist POS like Bush/McCain, but tough enough to make it clear that he loves this country and anyone that comes here illegally should not be allowed to sponge off the hard working people of all races that live here.

So, in a nutshell; Hillary is dead,(she's just too stupid to quit!) and McCain will be a tough fight.

WILL THE REAL D.B. PLEASE PHONE HOME

A recent article about the discovery of a parachute found in a field in southwestern Washington state has given rise to reviving the "D.B.Cooper" cold case. For those of you who have no idea of whom I am talking about you'll have to "Google" to read the original tale of a plane hijacking some 36 years ago over Oregon/Washington in the Northwest Pacific, by the man named D.B. Cooper.

So who is this infamous, "Robin Hood" hero, whom, to this day, people still spin tales of his successful escapade. Well I guess its time for me to add my "not so silent thoughts" about the subject.

Being a former combat soldier, paratrooper, ranger, path finder and green beret, trained and qualified in all of them I do have an opinion. First off let me put to rest what I believe is pure hoke.

Over the years the FBI, has floated theories and then debunked those same theories, based on proven facts, or not so proven analysis of the potential numerical's for some of their original theories to be right or wrong.

What does this all mean ? It means that as time goes by, whoever is in lead chair of the FBI investigation has the say so to put forth an OPINION as to why something can or cannot not be considered right any longer.

Here is one for example.
D.B. Cooper or Dan Cooper as he actually registered his name for the hijacked flight was at one time originally thought to have skydiving experience. Good theory !

Its not everyday that Joe the couch potato truck driver, watching re-runs of the Dukes of Hazard,(oh scuuqqzz me in 1971, they wouldn't have been reruns), decides that he is going to buy him a new double wide so's he can park his big rig behind it, goes out hijacks an airliner, puts on a parachute with no experience, and actually jumps in the middle of a rain storm at 200 miles an hour over a heavily wooded remote forest area.

So what are we left with?
This guy did have experience, and lots of it. The FBI's opinionated analysis that an experienced skydiver wouldn't have attempted to jump into a stormy dark night, over mountainous terrain, with no lighting, and no real knowledge of where he was going to land is hogwash.

That is exactly why D.B. would have jumped on a night like he did. By the very essence of the weather conditions his exact location on landing was ubiquitous for the FBI as far as where to begin to look .

Only an experienced jumper, very experienced, would have attempted to and successfully completed a jump like that. Now lets look a little closer.

Not only would he have to be expertly experienced as a jumper but most probably a HALO experienced jumper. Halo is an acronym for high altitude low opening ,a specialized type of jump.

Once he was on the ground or for that matter in the trees or river, he would have to know how ex filtrate from whatever remote location he had the misfortune or as it may be fortune to land in.

Ranger school encompassed the training of navigating difficult terrain in many different scenarios, so does Special Forces. Lets go one step further.

What would assure the training specialty to be able to be in whatever location, under whatever circumstances and have the capacity to start from square one, work your way to an objective by land navigation, using nothing more than a Linsatic compass and a profound knowledge of terrain and surroundings? Path Finder training!

This overly cordial and polite Mr. Cooper, who smoked cigarettes and drank bourbon, who had a quiet calm demeanor was SF and Pathfinder qualified. Not only was he qualified he had experience in his MOS or job title as the lay person calls it.

So where did he get his experience.in what epoc ?
Special Forces operatives were in Southeast Asia dealing with the beginning communist insurgency known as the Viet-Minh as early as the mid nineteen fifties but even more prominent in the early sixties. This was before Lyndon B. Johnson boosted the American troop presence, by hundreds of thousands.

The areas such as Laos, Northern Thailand, parts of Burma, south mainland China, and North Vietnam were AO's for the spook types recruited from those Special Forces teams with specific specialties like Coopers. It appears he may have been ideal for this selection which by the way was strictly volunteer.

Specialty Pathfinders were used to set up and map future LZ's (helicopter landing zones)that were to be utilized later on during the escalating war in Southeast Asia to accommodate Strike Force infiltration and MAACV SOG teams, originating from within South Vietnam.

Sometimes these PF spooks would be dropped as small one or two man teams, entering at night by HALO from C-130 Hercules aircraft. Infiltrations were made in whatever type of weather that might be encountered, the worse the better for non detection.

The likelihood of being dropped from a 727 type plane used in Cooper's hijacking would have been rare to none. However, the experience of exiting from a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, at the early to mid part of 1965 was very likely. Especially over areas like North Vietnam or Southern China where it would be plausible to be mistaken for a commercial airliner drifting off course, and would appear on radar as as perhaps a passenger 707.


We could go even one better and speculate that maybe D.B. had experience from cold war jumping in the European theater, nto what used to known as the former Soviet Union. Cold war jumpers who are never talked about outside of the 10th Special Forces Group stationed back then in Badtolz Germany know all about this bad weather jumping and have told some harrowing tales.

There is one last location that this type of jump would have been used rarely, but perhaps, and those who know about these operations would be extremely limited. Those people who to this day still remain in the shadows. That place would have been North Korea. Yes I said North Korea.

Did the U.S. dispatch these type of teams or individuals on these type of missions ? Absolutely. They would have been recruited from S.F. and working under what is commonly called a "black ops" "spook unit" of the American C.I.A.commonly called "Sneaky Petes". Yes they really did/do exist. How do I know? Well if I told you that I might have to kill you. All in all however these type of folks all came from the same mold U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets with Path Finder training).

So the rational the FBI used when stating that an experienced parachutist would not have jumped on a night like the one of November 24th, 1971 may be a rational for a NORMAL person but not a spook.

Lets look closer some more. It is also very likely that D.B. was from the earlier part of his life raised in the rural south. Why you ask ? Answer, he liked bourbon and he knew the woods.

Northerners and Easterners like scotch whiskey, rye whiskey, Johnny Walker, Black Label, Canadian Club, Four Roses , not so much bourbon as a first choice alchoholic beverage. Now not all Northerner's fit that stereo type but it is more common for a Yankee to take a preference for the former and not the latter unless the taste was acquired through perhaps a mingling experience with some southern influence, such as the military.


Northerners also are not exactly tuned into the woods anymore, unless they were perhaps a boy scout at one time or another. Due to population overcrowding of the
50's and 60's in the north my money is on a southern background.

Noted as well is his polite accommodating manner with the stewardess and the crew. Not something you find too darn often from a typical northern or eastern upbringing. Hospitality and good manners has its roots in the south.

This guy was a southern country boy who joined the military to get out of poverty and be patriotic. He came from a very rural background and perhaps once invested he decided to make a career of soldiering

The knowledge of a plane suitable for his purposes would not be hard to obtain either. What he would have needed to find was an airplane that was used commercially but yet still had a capacity to perform similiear to one that he had previously jumped, similar to those in the military for parachuting.

Maybe by chance he had read an article in Time or Newsweek and read about the debut of the 727. Or maybe when traveling through the many airports in military inter station commutes he merely noticed a 727, with its rear disembark down, parked in an terminal unloading passengers.

In any case I believe his decision to jump from a commercial airliner had not been planned much earlier than just after Cooper had left his military carrier.

Another thing while in flight he used a working knowledge to instruct the pilot to angle the planes wing flaps at a 45* during and leave the landing gear down to create a drag, guaranteeing the plane would fly slower. Again this type of knowledge comes from jump experience.

There are other indicators, small things, that lead me to believe that I am right too.

The simple act of burying his chute once he landed. That was always part of an operation. It might be expected that an enemy search party for a jumper would be boots on the ground very soon after determining an approximate landing area.

By burying ones chute it would throw off immediate location detection and other apparent assumptions. Like in what direction the jumper had headed, where or whom he belonged too, and other things of this nature. That is not to say, the most recent discovery of a chute buried in southern Washington is D.B. Cooper's.

One of the the more sticking throw offs was Cooper's attire. Here he shows up in a suit and tie, with a trench coat on. He then appears to have jumped into the night in the same get up leaving behind only his thin black tie and tie clasp. Man if this is not cloak and dagger I don't know what is.

So why take off your tie to jump and exit in a suit and trench coat? First off there is more to it.

Actually I believe it is his signature suit,yes a signature. It is his way of letting his comrades in arms know it was him. And a tight knit bunch of comrades they must be, non of them ever came forward to acknowledge who done it. Not even one highly official high level spook. The tie and clasp is like a marker for someone all too well known with a penchant for dress up, to an elite club.

Like someone making love with sock supporters on, or taking the time to fold his pants over a hanger, before jumping into bed during an all too hot sexual encounter. This guy has a story about dress up embedded in his backround.

Only this signature signoff was exclusively meant to say hello to a very specific and very tight bunch of cohorts of past exploits. A James Bond type salute.

Remember, it was the 70's and Sean Connery was still very popular. This D.B. has a very dry sense of humor.

So did he really jump in just his formal jacket and trench coat?

Well no one was able to actually see the final moments of his exit. It is my guess he donned a jumpsuit which could have been folded up within his brief case or strapped very nicely along his back, inside the trench coat all along. This would seem more likely.

Jumping into a 200mph jet thrust would have almost surely ripped at least some of his attireoff to be left to the wind then possibly retrieved later on by a search party. A one piece jump suit would have been much more protection and kept things together.Seeing as no clothing of any sort was ever recovered I believe I am right.

Head protection is the only major concern I can find as a flaw with this plan of D.B. Cooper's.That still bothers me. Myself, I have lost my military steel pot when exiting a plane on occasion, and had to land without it not incurring any injury, but that was during a rare jump experience.

It is a concern, but again not impossible to jump without head gear. An old “leather head pilot type cap would probably have been enough if he had it. Or for that matter a neoprene diving suit cap with goggles. Again these could easily have been concealed until needed.

Nothing was ever mentioned about Cooper's shoe's. Perhaps it was questioned and written in a report somewhere but nothing has ever been revealed about his shoes. There are maybe two reasons for this.

One is, no one ever noticed clearly or at all, what Cooper had on for shoes that fate full day nor described their appearance, or they were very very significant and the authorities considered this a tell,so perhaps withheld this info as a point of confirmation when dealing with leads.

The old saying that shoes make the man is very true. Especially when it comes to jumping. If anything shoes would have a good chance of coming off during such a daring jump if they were the low cut types. Back then Wing tips or businessman Cardigans would have been the norm.

Cooper could have easily worn a pair of un-bloused jump boots like Cochran makes, or similar non military type civilian jumpers, and they would have gone pretty much unnoticed. These however would surely have been a “tell” for the authorities who were investigating. This could also have led to several other unmentioned conclusions by these same investigators.

The investigators could have received this information and left it out of the press in order to track down obvious clues like those I have just mentioned, while not giving away the direction of the investigation.

They could have narrowed down the type of individual I have described, seeing as this field of expertise during the 70's would have been a very small and exclusive club of individuals.

It is highly possible that during their investigation if my conclusions are correct, the investigators were thwarted at some point and could not proceed to final discovery. The FBI would have been the lead investigating authority of this incident.

During that era the cold war and because of the many spook operations that were being conducted world wide by other outside government agencies, not much inter agency information sharing was going on . One might say as a matter of fact, non was being shared.

J. Edgar Hoover was still around and running the FBI back then and in many circles involving spooks he was not well received. That is especially true because of JFK,the awarder of the Green Beret, and of course others like Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and some others not too often mentioned.

My guess is that there were people in higher speciality government projects back then who unequivocally knew who D.B.Cooper really was the moment that the news broke about the hijacking and they have chosen never to speak out.

Why did he do it? Well there may be several reasons why someone of that caliber would do such a thing. The main one though would be because he could.

Not many if anyone else had even attempted to do such a thing until origianl his feat. Afterward there were several rapid fire copy cats.

One very similar to Coopers escapade that after an untimely and violent death the purpertrator has been accused of being the real Cooper. That was Richard Floyd McCoy Jr.. His story makes good copy but he is not or I should say was not D.B. Cooper, however that story is for some other day.

Another and more plausible reason is the Cooper had reached a peak in his life commonly called mid life crisis in men. I would speculate that Cooper had done his twenty or finished out his military carrier and found himself in an outside world that was entirely alien to him.

Left with little else than a modest military retirement to tide him over, and a severe disillusionment that he might have felt put out to pasture from the spook world, he struck his final blow with a two fold purpose.

An additional reason being he had not saved any significant money during his military life to buy him his castle in the sky. This type of spook wouldn't feel all that comfortable settling down anywhere else in the world where they don't speak English.

In 1971 $200,000 could buy quite a bit of castle. Especially if you weren't looking to move into Beverley Hills but more appropriately Hillbilly Hills, like perhaps back in the Blue Ridge area of the country.

Don't get me wrong many many black ops types settle in very exotic and remote regions of the world in similar or the same areas that they may have operated in.

Not however the real dark loner types. These men are even more exclusively tied to the soil of their homeland. It is one of the driving forces for their deeply ingrained patriotism. They choose to die for what they fought for, and they choose to die there on it when they can. It gives them purpose.

A final reason is ... His last great act of defiance. These behind the shadows types house an indelible imprint of anti establishment-ism . This again is one of the driving forces that gives them the where -with -all to be able to break all of the dogmatic rules of traditional politico's and and laws to succeed at what they set out to do.

In pulling off a feat such as was accomplished by D.B. it was a signatory exit, a last hurrah! Not purposely directed at his handlers with whom he had years of intimate interaction but first and foremost directed at himself. A “I knew I could do it one last time, a closure of a chapter, a self salute”, with a collateral effect of “so there”, indirectly meant for his former employers.

Did he actually have a bomb in the brief case? Highly unlikely. Demolitions was not his forte.
That is why he took it with him the ultimate bluff. This man knew how to play poker.

Infiltration was his expertize and I believe assassination. Was he familiar with human behavior? To a tee he was very close to human life and death.

So where is this elusive character from the saga of D.B. Cooper today?

Well if he is still alive, which he may or may not be,but not as a result of his jump.

My guess is that he is enjoying the coming of spring on the cool cloudy mountain tops of Appalachia as you read this.

Perhaps sitting in a wooden boat, on a small lily pad infested pond, adjacent to his property, rod in hand waiting for the first bite of the day.