Target Centermass

Day: July 20, 2005

  • Farewell, James Montgomery Doohan


    Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott
    3 March 1920 – 20 July 2005

    Mr. Doohan lived a long life, far longer than your typical Federation redshirt. I grew up watching him on Star Trek, but I did not realize until today the amazing story of the man. Canadian artillery officer, storming the beach on D-Day, wounded in action including four shots in the leg, a lost finger and a nearly fatal shot stopped by a cigarette case, air force pilot, and arguably the best damned engineer to ever serve on a starship.

    IMDB.com has some interesting tidbits in its bio.

    The only two episodes of “Star Trek” (1966) in which one can see that his middle finger is missing are “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “Cats Paw”. Also in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), when Scotty is handing McCoy the parts from the Trans-Warp Drive, as well as in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) when Scotty is holding a plastic bag dinner given to him by Uhura.

    According to the Director’s Edition DVD of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), the Klingon language first introduced in that movie and later featured in many later Trek movies and TV episodes was initially devised by Doohan. His original sounds were later expanded upon and refined by others, ultimately resulting in Shakespeare plays and The Bible being translated into Klingon years later. Ironically, his character, Scotty, complains of difficulty reading Klingon at the start of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).

    […]

    During his early stage work, he demonstrated a remarkable gift for foreign accents. He tried several During his audition for “Star Trek” (1966), and Gene Roddenberry was immediately taken by his Scottish brogue. Roddenberry cast him as the (previously-unnamed) ship’s engineer character, and they improvised the name Montgomery Scott (‘Scott’ for the accent, and ‘Montgomery’ for Doohan’s middle name).

    John has an excellent tribute to Mr. Doohan over at Argghhh!, including appropriate music.

    Meanwhile, Ace of Ace of Spades HQ fame waxes poetic in honor of Mr. Scott, as only Ace can.

  • Survey: 25K Civilians Killed in Iraq War

    A recent study has set a new guidepost for anti-war arguments — the death of 25,000 innocent Iraqis.

    Nearly 25,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the Iraq war, according to a group that tracks the civilian death toll from the conflict.

    The Iraq Body Count — a London-based group comprising academics and human rights and anti-war activists — said on Tuesday that 24,865 civilians had died between March 20, 2003 and March 19, 2005 [Jeez, London-based? I’d have waited a wee bit longer if I were them].

    The group said 42,500 injuries were recorded as well.

    Actually, as cold as it may sound, those figures don’t sound unreasonable, given an entire country being militarily defeated and then subjected to two-plus years of ongoing terrorist activity, the burden of which has been cowardly projected upon the civilian populace by our enemies. Compare these numbers to the approximately 43,000 killed in the London Blitz by one side. Oh yeah, throw on over 139,000 Brits wounded for a twisted topping and the cruel but unfortunate numbers may come into perspective.

    The report also said that “U.S.-led forces were sole killers of 37 percent of civilian victims” and that “anti-occupation forces were sole killers of 9 percent of civilian victims.” It added that “criminals killed 36 percent of all civilians.”

    I’ll buy the 25K, but I’ll need to see a bit more substantiation for this distribution of blame. They seem a little light on the “anti-occupation” category, given the wealth of recent terrorist bloodbaths. As a little side note, please realize that “anti-occupation” is the latest buzzword from al Jazeera, where even the terrorists comprising Hezbollah are glorified as anti-occupation fighters.

    Still, this 25K figure is far more reasonable than the previous 100,000 that has been so flaunted by the leftists, defeatists and pacifists.