On the move!
Agh! You’re still here? My new site and weblog, ianking.ca is now up and running; new posts are building up over there, never to be mirrored here. Go! What are you waiting for? All the stuff worth keeping has been migrated over to the new server, and I don’t anticipate making any more posts here.
Bloggers and webmasters: Update your links! Simply replace vancouverscrum.blogspot.com with www.ianking.ca in your blogrolls or bookmarks to point to the new site. Old posts will remain on this server for as long as the people at Blogger/Google allow them to remain; unfortunately, I’m not going to bother to come up with any way of converting permalinks on this blog to their corresponding posts on the new site. Yes, I plead laziness. I also realize the irony of switching away from Blogger just it starts to add features that the demanding blog nerds insist upon.
Thanks for reading and linking, and see you over at ianking.ca!
—Ian King, December 13, 2004
Friday, August 02, 2002
Saw a story in the Toronto Star describing howU.S. pilots were using 'uppers' to combat fatigue during missions in Afghanistan.
Well, big freakin' deal.
Hopping up the troops is a great old military tradition, indeed. The Japanese used methamphetamine in World War II. The story in the Star describes how the Americans also used Dexedrine in the Gulf War. Unlike recreational drug users, at least the troops have doctors to make sure that the chemical boost is at least supervised and somewhat controlled.
Whether you approve of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan or not, I think that the precautions that they use when it comes to giving their troops a chemical boost are a far sight better than the truckers that are often ripped out of their skulls on uppers. Besides, if you read the article by William Walker, you'll notice that they were giving the pilots a mere ten milligrams of Dexedrine. From personal experience, that's not the sort of dose that will cause the feeling that one's head is exploding.
Those who pooh-pooh the campaign in Afghanistan will point to this as the reason for the "friendly fire" incidents. That's a stretch. For all I know, bad communcation, or just plain error not attributable to the drugs may be the main reason for the incidents. I have no ideas (and it's not in this report, either) just how many pilots have been using amphetamines, and I also don't know how often they are.
I just think that we should keep an open mind on this one.
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