Aircraft Navigation in Five Letters

According to FAA guidelines, a pilot of an aircraft approaching or leaving an airport must use a five-letter heading that designates a particular waypoint.  These designations are assigned more or less at random, but there's nothing that prevents the appropriate official from choosing a particular as-yet-unclaimed set for a particular approach.  For example, pilots flying into or out from the Charles M. Schulz Airport in Sonoma County may do so on SNUPY, LUSEE, PIGPN, or WDSTC.  The list for Portsmouth, NH includes ITAWT, ITAWA, PUDYE, and TTATT.  And those for Kansas City, naturally, include SPICY, BARBQ, SMOKE, and RIBBS.

Executive mail

As a schoolchild, I learned (along with all of my peers) that the government was divided into three branches, to wit:  the Judicial Branch (the courts), the Legislative Branch (the House/Senate), and the Executive Branch (the President).

But of course, the government consists of a great many other groups and organizations-- the FBI, the Army, the EPA, the FDA, and so on.  I never really thought about it (which is why this is a perfect subject for this blog), but if I did I guess I would have assumed that they weren't really part of the tripartite structure.  Maybe the Armed Forces and the Feds were part of the Executive Branch?  That would make sense, since the President is also the Commander in Chief.  But the rest?  Who knows!

It turns out that pretty much all of the random government agencies are also part of the Executive Branch, which technically encompasses the President at the top, the Vice President below him, and then the Cabinet. And through the Cabinet, the 15 Executive Departments-- the Dept. of Defense, for example (Armed Forces), or the Dept. of Agriculture (U.S. Forest Service), etc.

Interestingly, the Postal Service (information about which started this line of thought), while technically a part of the Executive Branch, has a separate life.  The Postmaster General was in fact a member of Cabinet until 1971, at which point the US Postal Service was designated an independent agency of the executive branch.  This also removed the Postmaster from the line of succession.  He and his deputy now serve as part of a Board of Governors, who are otherwise appointed by the President.  They just sort of hang out on the side, doing their own thing, probably wishing they could peek into the Cabinet meetings.

Many outrageous accents

A point of information:

The French Foreign Legion is not a legion of French soldiers that serve or are stationed outside of France.  Instead, it is a legion of foreign nationals that wish to fight on behalf of France (they are in fact headquartered in Algiers, but that's beside the point).  They are technically part of the French Army, and they apparently have a reputation of being guys you really do not want to mess with.

Their marching song is "Le Boudin"-- the blood sausage.

FDA guidelines regarding food labeling

It should come as no surprise that the Food and Drug Administration saves all of the good stuff for itself has very strict guidelines regarding the listing of ingredients on packages.  Manufacturers can't really get away with leaving things off, or even leaving things mysterious.  On the other hand, the government does have a certain amount of respect for food manufacturers that pay them lots of money want to protect the recipes that they've spent so much time and effort developing, so they do allow certain "catchall" categories, such as "flavoring" or "spice."

But, naturally, you can't just throw in any old thing and call it a spice.  You need to check the list first.  http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceManuals/CompliancePolicyGuidanceManual/ucm074468.htm. Now, it should be noted that this list does not constitute "official" definitions.  These are instead only "advisory standards," and are only intended to "provide guidance concerning acceptable names for use in labeling spices and foods in which they are used."  So maybe you can throw in any old thing.

Some examples:  Number 1:  "SPICES - General Definition - Aromatic vegetable substances, in the whole, broken, or ground form, whose significant function in food is seasoning rather than nutrition. They are true to name and from them no portion of any volatile oil or other flavoring principle has been removed."  Anything that meets these criteria can be called "spices" on the ingredients list.  But if you want to be more specific (in order to promote yourself as being more wholesome or whatever), you could for example include "13. CUMIN SEED - The dried seed of Cuminum cyminum L. The yellowish-brown seeds have a strong, distinctive aromatic odor and a warm, aromatic taste. The quality attributes are measured by the volatile oil, total and acid insoluble ash, and moisture," or "35. TARRAGON - The dried leaves and flowering tops of Artemisia dracunculus L. It has a pleasant, anise-like odor and taste."

There are two additional notes on the page-- "1. Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dried or dehydrated onions and garlic are not considered to be spices. When used as an ingredient in foods they should be declared on the label by common or usual names."  Like George, or Billy.  Nothing weird, like Zoltan.  And  "2. Paprika, tumeric and saffron are color as well as spices. When used as ingredients in foods they shall be designated as "spice and coloring," unless each is designated by its specific name, in accordance with 21 CFR 101.22(a)(2)."

So watch it!

More Military

Yesterday, I tried to figure out all the US Army ranks.  I wrote them all down, which always helps to fix something in your memory, but I have to admit that if you ask me in a couple weeks if a Staff Sergeant outranks a Master Sergeant, I'm not sure I'll have better than a 50-50 chance of getting it right.

At any rate, today I'll take a quick visit through the other Armed Forces-- that's right, it's a SEQUEL!  To a blog post!  Aren't you excited?  For obvious reasons, the other branches of the US military are organized in a very similar fashion, so instead of just listing everything, I'm just going to note the differences, which should keep this post shorter*.  That should get you excited, if nothing else.

So, first up, the Marines.  The main differences in the Marine structure seem to be the addition of an extra rank for the enlisted men, called the Lance Corporal, in between the Private First Class and the Corporal.  The ranks of the Sergeants are also slightly different, with a Gunnery Sergeant replacing the Sergeant First Class, and a Master Gunnery Sergeant replacing the Command Sergeant Major only ranking below the Sergeant Major instead of above.  The warrant officers and officer ranks seem to be basically the same, although there is apparently no five-star rank for Marines, so no equivalent of the General of the Army.

Next, the Air Force.  The warrant officers and officers, again, are basically the same, although here there is a five-star General of the Air Force.  For the enlisted men, the main difference is that the ranks of Private are replaced with the equivalent ranks of Airmen.  Again, the Sergeant ranks are slightly shuffled and renamed, but fundamentally the same.

Finally, the Navy, which just has to be different.  For starters, there are no ranks in the US Navy-- they're called "rates" instead.  Second, instead of Privates they have Seamen.  NO JOKES PLEASE.  I'm sure they've heard them all before.  And no Sergeants!  Instead, the Navy has Petty Officers, in the same basic pattern (Chief, Master, etc.).  Warrant Officers, at least, are like all the other branches.  But again, the officers just have to be different.  There's a completely new rank (sorry, rate) of Ensign shoehorned in at the bottom, bumping all of the others up a grade, so that a Navy Lieutenant outranks an Army First Lieutenant (O-3 to O-2).  Instead of Colonels and Lt. Colonels, you have the Commander and Lt. Commander, and then the Captain (O-6 instead of the Army's O-3), and then various Admirals instead of Generals, from Rear up to Fleet (the Navy's 5-star officer).

M*A*S*H helped me remember the Army ranks-- maybe I can rely on Star Trek to help with the Navy?

Maybe?

*Well, it was worth a shot.

A Rank Amateur

I don't really know much about the military.  When it comes to the structure of the US Army, most of what I know comes from half-remembered episodes of M*A*S*H, which means that in my head, the order of prominence goes something like Private (no-name redshirts), Corporal (Klinger), Sergeant (?? There must have been some around, but I can't remember any), Captain (Hawkeye, BJ, Trapper John), Major (Burns, Winchester), Colonel (Potter, Blake), General (Guest Star).  Lieutenant goes in there somewhere, too, but I can never remember where.

Now, of course, I knew there were others.  "Lieutenant" can be combined with some other ranks, right?  And there's the Private First Class, unless that somehow still counts as a Private.  Anyway.  So, as usual, I look it up!

According to http://www.army.mil/symbols/armyranks.html, there are at this point in time at least 26 distinct ranks in the US Army depending on how you count (note-- the other branches have different structures, other nations have different structures, and in the past and probably in the future the US Army had and will have different structures, so if you're somehow reading this from 1883, the information is probably not reliable).

Starting from the bottom with the enlisted men, there are two grades of Private (PVT and PV2), Private First Class, Specialist (where privates go who are not command track), Corporal (where privates headed for NCO go), Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, Master Sergeant, First Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Command Sergeant Major, and Sergeant Major of the Army (only assigned to one person at a time, the highest you can get as a NCO).  I have to wonder if the large number of Sergeant gradations is in some way indicative of their importance in the Army.

Then there are the five grades of Warrant Officers, the Warrant Officer itself and then four different pay grades of Chief Warrant Officer.  These guys are technical experts in some sort of specialized field.  I'm still not sure how they fit into the structure-- technically they fit in between enlisted men and officers, so they probably take orders from officers, but I don't know if they're really allowed to boss sergeants around.

Anyway, finally there is the Officer class-- Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lt. Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier General, Major General (it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Major General), Lt. General, General, and the General of the Army (5-star General; no one currently has this title, but it's still part of the structure, as is the General of the Armies which has almost never been used and is also currently empty).  Then, of course, there's the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief, but those aren't strictly speaking officer positions, although of course the positions might be filled by people who are also officers in other respects.

National Guard-- or is it?

Actually, it sort of isn't.

Disclaimer up front-- I've never served in any sort of armed forces, and I only know a few people who have, so I may get something wrong in here.  If so, it's entirely my fault.

But, as I understand it, after perusing several Wikipedia articles and the official National Guard website, the Guard serves two purposes-- firstly, and most simply, they act as a reserve force for the US Armed Forces, and can be called upon by the federal government to serve in a variety of ways on behalf of the U.S.

Secondly, and (to me at least more confusingly), they are based on state militias.  You don't enroll in the National Guard of the United States-- you enroll in the (for example) Massachusetts National Guard.  Which is what confuses me most, I guess-- it's the state National guard.  Oxymoronically named government agencies always leave me scratching my head.  So you serve the state, providing a variety of security functions at the state level-- again for example, the Massachusetts National Guard provided security for the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004.  You help out in emergencies at the behest of (I believe) the Governor.  But you are always also available should the President need a hand (for a war, or national emergency, or whatever).

For a country that historically (and still sporadically) struggles with state rights issues, that must occasionally put a soldier in a hell of an awkward position.  I seem to recall hearing something at one point where a state law conflicted with a federal law, and the US Marshals and the National Guard were actually sort of working against each other.  Something civil rights related?  I forget.  If you know, please chime in.