I can just see how it's going to happen.  I'm finally going to get my unicorn and it will be this one:He'll see my long hair and mistake me for being a hippie and I'll be impaled. I can only hope that the Avenging Narwhal will defend me...

Yeah, comments are broken. I'm torn between putting Blogger comments back on for the duration of the "outage" and just ignoring it.

If I go through the trouble of enabling Blogger comments again, I'm sure comments will come back to life about five minues after I finish.

If I don't, I'm going to kick myself if it winds up being like some other external software that used to be in use on this blog that went offline for a few months...

Technology and I are not really getting along all that well tonight. I tried to make a poll but even that broke. I think I need to find a Slinky and play with that for a while. Hopefully I won't break it or hurt myself...

-Code Monkey

UPDATE: Yeah, they're working on it. Meanwhile, I'll be over here: http://www.etchy.org/

Found this on Joe Huffman's site, The view from North Central Idaho,, a great place to find all manner of things re: your rights.

Adam Smith, the father of economics, captured the essence of this wonderful human cooperation when he said, "He (the businessman) generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. ... He intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain." Adam Smith continues, "He is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. ... By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." And later he adds, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Robert Morris University officials announced Thursday they are launching the RMU
Military Service Award, which will pay the difference between its
tuition and the subsidy for qualified veterans under the post-9/11 GI
Bill.

"I really like that they're reaching out to veterans and picking up the
tab," said Shawna Wilson, an inactive member of the Air Force Reserve.

Wilson, 23, of Oakdale is a junior majoring in finance at Robert Morris.
She said she was thinking of transferring to a public university because
of the cost, but now plans to finish at RMU.

The new GI Bill, which takes effect this fall, offers the Yellow Ribbon
GI Education Enhancement Program. Participating schools will pay half of
the difference between their tuition and the highest tuition at any
public institution in the state, and the federal government will pay the
other half.

Full-time graduate and undergraduate students are covered. The
undergraduate tuition at Robert Morris is $19,190 a year while Penn
State's tuition is $13,014 a year for freshmen and sophomores on the
main campus.

Robert Morris President Greg Dell'Omo estimated the university would pay
about $3,000 a year for a veteran working on a bachelor's degree. Robert
Morris has 130 veterans enrolled.

"We look at probably doubling that number to 260 students," Dell'Omo
said during a news conference at the Senator John Heinz History Center
in the Strip District.

State Sen. John Pippy, R-Moon, said other students will benefit from the
experiences veterans bring to campus.

"You'll make it a better education experience at Robert Morris," said
Pippy, a major in the Pennsylvania National Guard who served in
Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Dell'Omo also announced the start of a Veterans Education and Training
Services Center on campus that will register veterans and provide
counseling.

"We will help not only the veterans, but also the families," said Dan
Rota, director of the center and a retired brigadier general in the Air
National Guard.

Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828.

Iraqi school girls sing a song in Arabic to thank the Iraqi and U.S. forces for their gifts of school supplies to the Al Kays and Al Yasameen elementary school, Oubaidy, Iraq, Feb. 19, 2009. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Alex Licea

Read the story

Can anyone tell my why online newspapers decided they had to start allowing comments on news articles?  Of the local news sites, I like the way KTAR does it best.  You have to click on a button to see the comments on a separate page.   AZCentral, on the other hand, puts them right at the bottom of the article.  It's like when there's an accident at the side of the road.  You look, even though you know you may see something you don't want to see.

There's a short article today about how the 363rd Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company of the Arizona Army National Guard is deploying to Iraq.  Sometimes they don't allow comments on articles about controversial subjects, but they left this one open.  And it doesn't take long for the tin foil brigade to show up:

"Aren't there enough people over there already..." It amazes me how many people don't seem to realize that when one group deploys, it's usually to replace one that's coming home, at least now that the surge is over.

And as for "I mean if their [SIC] that evil and bad over there.... let them clean up the mess". Yup, let the bad guys police themselves. If we just leave them alone, they'll become nice. Really. Maybe we should ask Mexico to try that with the drug cartels.

Helen? Helen Thomas, is that you?

From the Mayo Clinic:

Signs and symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia may include:

Auditory hallucinations, such as hearing voices
Delusions, such as believing a co-worker wants to poison you
Anxiety
Anger
Aloofness
Violence
Verbal confrontations
Patronizing manner
Suicidal thoughts and behavior

Oh, and while I wrote this post, both comments got a "thumbs up" vote.

Labels: Asshats and Douchebags

I SO want this guy in my unit. We see 100% eye to eye.

Coincidentally, this is prettymuch the exact same speech that Major Kareem, my Iraqi Army Counterpart, would give the Iraqi police commanders in my sector.

COIN, and Hearts and Minds, isn't always about handouts and Unicorns. Shame is a HUGELY effective motivational tool. It's why I had women ni my Iraqi Army company. It shamed any male who wouldn't fight, or lead an assault, because the females would, and then bust their balls later. I even told some of the IPs that I was going to make them start wearing Burkhas if they didn't man up.

Warning, NSFW (language) and may cause you to start pounding the desk and screaming "HELL YEAH!"

--Chuck

//update//
All better now.

Surgery #37 today. 6etting a trigger finger released. Minor outpatient surgery, nothing to worry about.

--Chuck

Over at mudville gazette, Robert Stokely writes a piece about the media asking for access to Dover AFB to film returning warriors, to illustrate the "true" cost of war. Not the triumphant parade of soldiers and marines who should be lauded with flowers and ticker-tape, but rather the solemn ranks of flag-draped caskets. To the news media, anything they can't get access to begins a tantrum of "we (or the people) have a right to know!!!" (Which, oh by the way, is not a right enumerated in the constitution.) When their cries are ignored, they switch tactics, like their recent ploy:

Ed Henry with CNN, who asked the President whether he thought the arrival of American coffins at Dover should be accessible to the media to "show America the real cost of the war...." and would he reconsider the policy of not allowing the media in.

First, any American who doesn't understand that people die in war, isn't going to understand what a flag-draped casket coming off of a C-17 means.

Second, and more importantly, any journalist who thinks that this is "news," that a deployed soldiers' family wants to be reminded of the risks involved this on the nightly news, that the family of a a service member who has given his last full measure wants to see this, is sadly, sadly, mistaken.

Third, Ed Henry, and his editors who encourage this line of thought, are jerks
.
(This may seem a bit harsh, but I just learned yesterday that a friend and mentor of young 2LT Ziegenfuss, was killed in Iraq.)

LTC Gary R. Derby, Commander of 3/8 Cavalry, was killed in Mosul. He is survived by a spouse and three children, and an Army of young leaders who he inspired.

This brings to six the number of personal friends that I've lost in this war. Men I served with, laughed with, shared hardships and spilled blood with. Men who've place their lives in my hands and in whose hands I've placed mine. I don't have to see their caskets to miss them, or to know "the cost of war."

I am honored, truly honored, to wear the same uniform as they, to be counted amongst their ranks. When people see the uniform, they see a soldier. A random they. I see the faces of these men and many others with whom I've served. I see their families, their kids and their spouses. I know their sacrifices. I know that none of them would trade places with anyone else if given the option, each of them would gladly give their lives to save anyone else the pain their families suffer through their loss. Can you imagine? Knowing how badly your family will suffer without you being around? A daughter who will soon graduate from high school, whose father will be absent from her graduation? A son who will never be able to show his dad he figured out how to assemble his pinewood derby car by himself? A lonely bride at her father/daughter dance, walked down the aisle by her Uncle?

When the trumpets fade and the family now enters the "civilian" world, they are pitied, seen as lacking or unfortunate by their neighbors, when in reality they have given more for their country than their neighbors could ever understand. And the thing they will never understand the most:

Every one of these men went willingly, knowing the risks, and their families know the risks, and not one of them would dream of letting the "other guy" take his place.

We've lost thousands of men just like this, while our nation focused on so much trivial bullshit over the last eight years. The cost of the war can't be measured in Billions or Trillions of dollars, it can't be measured by any tangible rationale. The loss of these men, and men like them is the true cost of any war. If you show that cost as flag draped coffins, you still don't show the cost. Parading a flag-draped coffin as the cost of war compresses everything these men have stood and sacrificed for, everything their families have lost, everything that they've ever done, into a seven foot aluminum box. It disgraces their memory to show their sacrifice this way, to claim that as the cost of war.

The cost of war is the loss of these men and women, their contributions to our nation and the legacy they've left behind. The cost cannot be measured, because their future has ended, their ability to serve is gone. All we have left is their memory, and we remember the best of them, and try to carry on the lessons learned from them, but will never be able to replace them.

That is the cost of war. If CNN or any other journalist can't understand that, then they can go fuck themselves.

--Chuck



Edit - Contact info added below the fold
-Code Monkey

Pentagon Switchboard

703-545-6700

SCTY Defense Robert Gates:

Dr. Robert M. Gates
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen:

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
9999 Joint Staff Pentagon
Washington, DC 20318-9999

General James E. Cartwright:

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
9999 Joint Staff Pentagon
Washington, DC 20318-9999

General George W. Casey, Jr.:

Army Chief of Staff
200 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-0200

Admiral Gary Roughead:

Chief of Naval Operations
2000 Navy Pentagon
Washington, DC 20350-2000

General Norton A. Schwartz:

Air Force Chief of Staff
1670 Air Force Pentagon
Washington, DC 20330-1670

General James T. Conway:

Commandant of the Marine Corps
Headquarters USMC
2 Navy Annex (CMC)
Washington, DC 20380-1775

Senator John Kerry:

http://kerry.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm


218 Russell Bldg.
Second Floor
Washington D.C. 20510
202-224-2742 - Phone
202-224-8525 - Fax


Boston
One Bowdoin Square
Tenth Floor
Boston, MA 02114
617-565-8519 - Phone
617-248-3870 - Fax


Springfield
Springfield Federal Building
1550 Main Street
Suite 304
Springfield, MA 01101
413-785-4610 - Phone
413-736-1049 - Fax


Fall River
222 Milliken Place
Suite 312
Fall River, Ma 02721
508-677-0522 - Phone
508-677-0275 - Fax

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg:

http://lautenberg.senate.gov/contact/index1.cfm


Newark Office
One Gateway Center
Twenty-Third Floor
Newark, NJ 07102
Phone: 973-639-8700
Toll Free: 1-888-398-1642
Fax: 973-639-8723


Camden Office
One Port Center
Suite 505, Fifth Floor
2 Riverside Drive
Camden, NJ 08101
Phone: 856-338-8922
Fax: 856-338-8936


Washington, DC
Hart Senate Office Building
Suite 324
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3224
TTY: 202-224-2087
Fax: 202-228-4054

The White House

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/


The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500


Phone Numbers
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461


TTY/TDD
Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

Find your Senator / Congressman

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd

"Oh, and for good measure, give Biden something to do."

I couldn't find a contact page for him. I imagine snail mail to the White House in his name would be the best route.

Please let me know if I broke anything in formatting or got any of the names wrong.

Labels: Support the troops and their mission

Joe Huffman asks the question: (Okay, Mark Philip Alger asks the question and Joe posted it as a quote of the day, I answered at Joe's place.) When is it proper, for example, to use force to stop a legislator engaged in unconstitutional actions? Indeed, when is it required of those who have sworn oaths to... protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic...?

I answer this question, one that I've pondered on more than one occasion, and come up with an answer that incorporates Lawyers, Beer, Whiskey, Prohibition, Slavery, Suffrage and Guns. Quoth the Zevon, "send lawyers guns and money, the shit has hit the fan."

(Editors note, the following is the result of a combination of Pain, Zoloft, Methodone, Celebrex, Gabitril, Lyrica and Ambien, and I still couldn't sleep...)

I've also asked myself that question, as one bound by that oath.

Herein lies the problem. Our legislature can see fit to change the constitution seemingly at will. An amendment, or worse, striking down an amendment, is well within their purview, and the constitution is what gives them the power to do just that. So if, by some act, they struck down the first ten amendments, or even just the second, and that act was either agreed to by the Him, or his veto overriden, and then the new amendment ratified, and cleared by review of the SCOTUS, I would be honor and duty bound to fully support that constitution.

It's a function of the truest weakness of our constitution, that it can be changed, often enough by the fancies and socio-political whims of the day--take prohibition for example. We had the whiskey rebellion over the gummint's designs on taxing whiskey. A hundred and fifty-odd years later, we criminalized liquor altogether, based on a popular notion of alcohol as the root of all societies ills.

Now, we see guns as the new booze.

In criminalizing private ownership of guns, there is a completely legal means of doing it, the same reason that there are currently lines of our constitution that are struck through--bits about 3/5 of a person, women's suffrage, etc. Sometimes, we see the changes as good for the overall whole, ssometimes we see them as bad, and we reert back to common sense--i.e. prohibition, but the effect on the gun industry would be far worse than the effect on the booze industry.

Prior to prohibition, almost every town in America had its own brand of beer. Microbreweries weren't kitchy, they were de rigeur. Every town brewed beer, often with recipes coming from the old country, and often with more regionally available ingredients. We had a great many different beers, of different style and character. Following prohibition, there were only a very few breweries remaining, they had either the resources to mothball their operation or produce non-alcoholic beverages during the interim. When they restarted operations, they saw that the best way to get back into business full swing was to produce a beer that would either appeal to all people, or at the very least, be bland enough to not make them stay sober altogether. The result is the "American" style of lager. Almost completely devoid of flavor, mildly hopped, barely bitter. The most common thing it has to its ancestors is bubbles.

So, since we're starting with a relatively small number of companies producing guns, a prohibition of any length in the civilian market would result, if that prohibition was ever listed, with new guns sharing the characteristic of appealing to the most people. I shudder to think what commonality they would have with American beer.

But to answer the original question, when does our armed forces raise up against a tyrannical government that i our own? Unfortunately, although we swear protection against foreign and domestic enemies, there is no set, formalized, even legal trigger for that action. No legal line in the sand. I think it is kind of like pornography--it can't be defined, but you know it when you see it. Fortunately, I think things will have to get worse, much worse, before we see tanks rolling through the mall. Americans should never count on their military to fight their revolution for them, if that is what it takes. It should be a revolution of, by, and for the people, a popular movement, not one that can or should be fought by professional soldiers. If we host a revolution, it's a coup, and the most common result is a dictatorship.

Just my $.02 (which in terms of US currency and exchange, is worth slightly less than a zimbabwean nickel.)

--Chuck

'HOPE' Artist Arrested

BOSTON -- Shepard Fairey, the artist who created a popular 'HOPE' poster during President Obama's campaign, was arrested on outstanding warrants last night in Boston.

I sure hope they get his mug shot over at The Smoking Gun. For now, this will have to do.

The U.S. Army is once again sending me to fabulous Fort Lewis, Washington for a week of high adventure and hijinks during the Warrior Forge Planning Conference 2009.

I am attending as the Operations Officer of last-year's Patrolling committee, who will give advice and augment the continuity books for this years' Tactics Committee Operations Officer. This year's OPS Officer was my Intel Officer last year, and we worked all of six feet apart.

Hey, it's five days of TDY, meals and per diem, lodging at the almost two full star King Oscar Motel and convention center (where my room was burgled last year and my meds were stolen.) But best off all, it's the meetings! We are going to spend the better part of four days discussing last year, this year, and what we will do the same, but different!

The end product I have to produce is... wait for it... nothing! As a "former" I am simply in an advisory role. (Honestly, that's the best part of the trip.)

Hey, there's folks out there who'll claim this is unnecessary travel and a waste of Army money. Sorry bout that, but the best way to make any system better is to review what worked and what didn't, and go from there. Having the formers and the currents all in one place at one time actually does help, especially since we come from all over the country and execute with very little lead time once we are on the ground.

Get mad that 535 members of our congress and one executive haven't figured out that giving billions of dollars away to ACORN, NASA, DHS, and a bunch of other agencies under a "stimulus" bill is going to do zilch to help the economy.

Wanna make the economy rebound REALLY fast? Have the Federal government operate within budget. "You have X dollars as of 1 OCT. when X=0, you have no more money for anything, including your own salaries, until the following October. The lights and heat are going to be turned off in fifteen minutes, you'll have to pay for your own ride to the airport and your own airfare home. Your secret service details will not be accompanying you either, because their salaries are also halted. You spent it on the National Endowment For the Arts. Please feel free to grab a replica of Serrano's "Piss Christ" to use for cover on your way out of town. The good news, however, is that you won't have any problems at the airport, as TSA has no more funds to operate with. Enjoy yuor Break, see you in October!"

I'm sure it's only a brief moment in time where a survey on a page like azcentral.com has less than 10 total votes or the respondents have so far only chosen two of the three choices.

But if you put up the following survey:

What does President Obama's performance so far tell you about his leadership?

1. He's a good decision-maker.
2. His actions are divorced from his campaign rhetoric.
3. I'm still withholding judgment.

and seven people have responded, four voting for answer #2, three voting for answer #3, can you explain to me why there is any blue result bar at all for answer #1?

Of course, if you go to the site to find the poll, someone has since actually selected answer #1, so it's not looking like that anymore.

I don't blame bias, I blame crappy software.

But then, I blame nearly everything on crappy software. Well, everything that's not Karl Rove's fault.

-Code Monkey

This award is given each year to a military father who goes above and beyond his duties - both as a serviceman and as a dad! - to make sure he and his family stay connected throughout the stresses of military life.

The awardee is chosen from a pool of nominations by moms, wives, kids, friends, and others from across the country and around the world! This year's awardee will be brought to Washington D.C. with his family and will be recognized at a special ceremony on June 9, 2009.

You can get more information and nominate a father you know at http://www.fatherhood.org/Gala/MilitaryAward/
Please note - nominations are only accepted until February 27th!

Okay, I'm not asking you all to submit a nomination for me. But, I do think I fit the criteria, and if you do too, please nominate me (or someone else you know who may fit the bill.)

--Chuck

• If you're at work and the network's broken, do not offer unsolicited advice to the resident IT person if you were the person who caused the last network outage and laughed about it when busted.  Taking an entire office offline because you are a moron is never a laughing matter.  You will never be forgiven and your IT people don't want anything from you except for you to go far, far away.
• The "invisible rope stretched across the road" trick may look funny on YouTube.  Doing it to real people at night is a true sign that you are nothing more than a worthless asshat.   I hope all the women you ever hit on have incurable STD's or turn out to actually be men.

-Code Monkey

This t-rex is in the pittsburgh airport, near the Franco Harris/immaculate reception statue.

We are a weird bunch.

The trip is coming to an end. A hop to philly, a 2.5 hour layover and then home. I'm emotionally and physically bankrup

--
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