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Friday, April 29, 2011
MIlblog 2011
I won't be at the Milblog conference this year, duty called, and I has it.  However, if you are like me and too critical to the functioning of the entire US military to take a long weekend, or had other reasons for not attending (like you are in Sri Lanka covering the wars in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan with your merry band of mouth-breathing sycophants dip into their piggy banks to pay you to republish old photographs) then you can join me in watching the conference with the live feed provided by YouServed (Thanks Marcus!)

For what it's worth, the best part of the conferences is what you don't see--the after parties, the camaraderie, the making fun of the guys from This Ain't Hell, Marcus shaving his head and  the, well, you'll just have to go next year.


Watch live streaming video from youserved at livestream.com
Written at 4/29/2011 08:10:00 AM by Chuck.
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Did you vote yet?
Every month this year, ThinkGeek, the most awesome online store for geeks and everyone else, is giving $1000 to charity.

Cooking With the Troops is one of the finalists for May!


If you're not familiar with Cooking With the Troops, this is their mission:
Provide aid, comfort, and support to US and Allied military troops and families by: 

1. Providing a culinary change of pace for U.S. and Allied military personnel -- particularly the wounded, injured, and ill -- and medical caregivers

2. Providing educational resources, opportunities and transition assistance into food and beverage careers for those who serve

3. Gathering and sharing knowledge with and for troops on the front line and supporting same

4. Providing other direct and indirect assistance to support the care and well-being of U.S. and Allied military personnel and their families.

If they win this, the money will fund an event at Walter Reed for our troops.

To vote, go here.  You don't have to sign up/register/give blood, but if you leave your email address you could win a $50 gift certificate to Thinkgeek.com.  We only have until April 30th, so please take a few minutes and show your support for this wonderful charity.

~~Code Monkey
Written at 4/27/2011 04:31:00 PM by Code Monkey.
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Japan dog crisis!
Just saw a piece on AC360 about all the dogs in Japan who were left behind in the radiation zone.

1.  The journalists decided to enter the evacuation zone.  I hope they feel these dogs were worth the cancer.
2.  Dogs, all dogs, all pets--no matter how anthropomorphism we throw at them, are just animals.  When the choice comes down to get out of dodge, or gather the pets, you get out of dodge.  In a radiological situation, you get out of dodge in your skivvies, if that's what you have on.
3.  Journalist fed his lunch to one of the dogs.  Bet there's a Human in Japan whou would've liked a meal.
4.  Despite how sad this is, these dogs have now been in the radiation zone for weeks, have absorbed god knows how many Rems.  I can't imagine any rescue for them other than euthanization, and even then, I can't imagine sending a human being into a radiation zone to be humane to dogs.  There are people who will do it, but I'm not one of them.  

Next was a bit about a dog "trapped" on the debris floating in the ocean.  Japan sent its Coast Guard out to rescue the dog.  Rescuers went out in a boat, jumped in the water, scaled the debris, and rescued the dog.

1.  Floating debris pile means there's plenty of boat-killing debris under the water too.
2.  See above re: boats about jumping in debris filled water.  Nothing like getting snagged and pulled under by debris.
3.  They do know dogs can swim, right?  Like to the boat?
4.  Seems like a lot of effort, and risk to human life, for a dog.

Good to see AC360 is keeping up the hard-hitting journalism.  Up next, latest news on Snookie... seriously.

On the other side of the Sea of Japan, North Korea is facing a famine.  I see a moneymaking opportunity here...

--Chuck
Written at 4/12/2011 08:07:00 PM by Chuck.
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Friday, April 08, 2011
An open letter to the US Congress and Executive Office
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Senators and representatives, if you ever read this, thank you for your time.  I know your time is important as you look toward reelection/the Masters/railroad building.

Mr. President, during your campaign, you and Mr. Biden frequently used the expression “That’s not change, that’s more of the same!”  Now, faced with an imminent government shutdown because the 111th congress, one led by your party, failed to pass a budget at the beginning of the fiscal year (1 October, in case some of you were unaware) the Congress of the United States has passed several Continuing Resolutions to “keep the ship afloat” as it were.  That too, is not change, it’s more of the same.  

I know the legislature is busy.  I can see from the Congressional calendar, that since starting the 112th Congress on the 5th of January, that Congress was hard at work for a total of 37 days.  (Personally, I reached that mark by February 24th.)  Those are the days when both houses are in session—days a bill can pass quickly.  There were the odd weeks that one house or another is not in session, and you both recess on the third week of every month, so time is definitely short for you to accomplish things.  I cannot tell you how glad I am when I hear that you are investigating steroid use in MLB, or reviewing the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” or determining if we should switch to compact fluorescent lights, or whatever else you do in committee, instead of working on the Federal budget.  I cannot tell you how much it bolsters my confidence that my elected officials are so busy rearranging the deck chairs so they will look pretty when the U.S.S. Titanic “wins the future” on the bottom of the Atlantic.  I cannot tell you how pleased I am with you, because I have no faith that any of you really are actively looking out for the best interests of America.

Mr. President, you too, share blame for this.  I’ve not seen you standing on your bully pulpit, listening to both sides, and submitting a recommended budget for approval that does anything to address the biggest concerns little peons like me have; namely, will my kids have a future not crushed by federal debt?  Will my country have a strong military, armed, equipped and trained to protect our real national interests?  Will the economy ever recover; will my house ever have the value I paid for it?  Will my neighbors keep their homes, or at least, their jobs?  I have not seen you on that bully pulpit much, now that I think of it.  I have seen you dancing to concerts in the White House, surrounded by the sycophantic harpies on “the View,” playing games with kids in Brazil, touring Europe, making tee times, eating shave-ice in Haleiwa, resting with your feet on the Resolute desk, bicycling with the kids, bowing to…everyone, and now that I think of it, doing everything except leading.  You should be at the helm of this great nation, moving the debate forward—demanding a budget that is sustainable and does not lead us further into debt.  You should be standing in the White House Briefing room demanding the congress work 20 hours a day to pass a budget that actually spends less than it takes in, and puts the remainder toward paying our debt down.  You should be pointing out every program that is wasteful, every program with no return on investment, every appropriation and dollar spent  not directly related to the authority granted congress, by We, the people, and specified in the US Constitution, and demanding that those extraneous things be cut, even if it means eviscerating the federal welfare state.  You should be using that pulpit to shame every last rider and piece of pork in the budget—and their authors, regardless of party but you chose not to.  You failed.

Mister Speaker, and Senator Reid, the Senate Majority leader, and you Mister Biden, as the President of the Senate, you should hang your heads in shame for this.  Mr. Biden, you sat idle in the Senate all last year while the congress failed to pass a budget.  That’s not change, Mr. Biden, that’s more of the same.  It is not like Ms. Pelosi’s house was very big on reading bills anyway—as we saw with their excremental socialized medicine plan.  You, Mr. Biden,  sat right there in the big chair behind the Speaker, and I never once saw you step up and preside—and tell those people in the big room that it was time to pull up their big-girl panties and fight for a responsible government.  You failed.

Mister Speaker, you are supposed to lead those 435 members of the house—solve problems, not play political games when our very government hangs in the balance.  You know that, as you have spent the last 18 years in congress, since 1991, and even been through a government shutdown before.  Yes, your party sent a bill for continuation of defense authorizations to avoid defaulting on military pay—and it included an abortion rider.  Are you serious?  Do you really care, or were y’all just trying to make the DNC-controlled Senate either a) approve federally funded abortion or b) give them a political turd to shine by not passing it?  I actually applaud the left for having the testicular fortitude to choose the hard-but-right over the easy-but-wrong.  Your side of the isle may want to consider trying doing the hard-but-right, because we, the people, are watching.  You failed.

Mister Reid, I will not spare you either.  I feel that you, as the leader of the majority party in the Senate, and someone who was in the US Senate since before U2 released “Joshua Tree” and Jim Bakker was caught shtupping Jessica Hahn, should have been able to negotiate a workable budget that both sides could agree on, but you failed.

People are now applauding your eleventh-hour agreement to kick this can down the road for a few days.  Don’t start popping the champagne yet.  You have done nothing more than hock the car on a payday loan, with me, the taxpayer, on the hook if you do not make your payments, and we lose the car that we could’ve sold under “cash for clunkers.”  You, the collective you, all 535 +2 of you, have had this paper due since 1 October 2010—to put it into terms a professor of constitutional law should understand—and you’ve been granting yourselves extensions and expecting a solid “B” for your work.   Your work has earned an “F.”  (That means Failed.)

It does NOT begin with “us.”  It begins with you—each of you—determining that your country is more important than your egos, that our fiscal future is more important than your reelection, and that  your job, at its very core, is to come together to solve problems that face the nation.  Your failure to act hurt all of us.  Do you understand that?  Marriages fail over financial problems more than anything else (unless you are a plastic-haired ambulance-chasing former presidential candidate with a wife dying of cancer.)  Do you realize the stresses you are adding to families with this can-kicking?  You may think you dodged a bullet by passing a resolution for a few days.  I see it as moving from one fighting position backwards to an alternate position.  You cannot win a war playing defense, and you can’t run a country a week at a time.  Would any of you want to rent your home to someone who could only pay a week at a time, and was never sure they would have the rent every Friday?  Why would you expect my landlord to be happy with that?  Why do you think I will be happy if you pay me, but leave the rest of my country hanging?  My entire adult life has been in the service to this nation—not a political position, but actually sacrificing, risking my life, for this great nation.  None of you has ever been in that position, not one of you four truly understands what freedom means—as you have never risked anything for it.  Your failure to make those hard choices and see that there are things that our government must do, things it should do, and things it can do, and that these things are not always the same thing and are not always mutually exclusive.  What it boils down to now is what our government must do if we are to survive as a nation—now and in the future.  Take the budget and look at it from those terms.  Think of it like grocery shopping—you have X dollars to feed your family.  You can buy beans and rice and eat for a week, or you can buy some candy.  Everyone loves candy.  Give candy to your friends and they’ll like you even more.  Eventually, everyone will have a tummy ache, there is no money for food, and there is not any candy left over.  As a provider, you failed.

I’ve gone on for almost 1500 words to tell you this one thing:  I am supposed to trust my government to not sell my life cheaply, to guide this grand idea that is the light of freedom in the world, and there isn’t any single one of you that I would trust with my checkbook.  When the balance is zero and the ink is red, you stop spending.  Before you get to that point, you buy what you need to survive.  After that, you choose between paying off debts, luxury and convenience items, and saving money for later.  Get it?  None of you seems to understand that, as you bicker over other shape of the tables at the peace talks, but do little, if anything, to end the stalemate.  I’d bet Admiral Joy would gladly spend time dithering in Panmunjom than spend it watching you all fight over your sacred cows while the herd dies.  You have to earn trust; you failed.

I noticed some of you were volunteering to donate your pay to charity, or return it to the government if you failed to pass a budget.  First, you have yet to pass a budget.  Second, while $14,500 would be a nice tidy monthly salary for most of us, it given that many, if in fact most, of your members have net a net worth in the tens of millions, your “generous” donation of $14,500 is about as “generous” as someone making minimum wage donating 1/100th of a cent (think coupon—wait, sorry.  A coupon is like a voucher that people collect and use when purchasing items to help defray the cost of real goods, offered by a manufacturer to encourage sales.  Coupons usually have a cash value listed as 1/100th of a cent, which in effect makes them worthless as a real form of currency—like our dollar.  Usually offered in terms of “cents off” (cents are what you have when you have less than a dollar—the metal things bums keep in their cups, or you may see people tossing into fountains when the wish for a job or a financial future.)  I do not think most of you have any idea what coupons are, or understand the concept of saving, so I felt had to explain that.

Ladies, Gentlemen, and Ms. Pelosi, do this one thing, please.  Remember back on January 5th when you read the constitution at the opening of the 112th congress?  Please go re-read this part:  Article 1, section 8, and if the things you want to add to the budget are not specifically listed there, and by specifically, do not say “well ‘X’ belongs in there under this clause because….”  It says it or it does not say it.  I think if you did that you would be very surprised at just how much money you DON’T have to spend.

Finally, I leave you with this.  Regardless of when (if!) you pass a budget, I will never, regardless of where I live, or what office you seek, vote for any one of you 535+2 jackanapes ever again.  You were all hired for this job—and you have not only failed, miserably, but just when I think you’ve reach rock bottom and can’t fail any more, you get out the drills and the ANFO and blast to new depths of failure.  You’ve lost my vote, you’ve lost my confidence, and I’ve never fully trusted any politician with a pulse, or you either, Mr. Reid.  I will vote for whoever else shares my values, but not you.  I vote in primaries, but if my choice is between any member of the current legislative or executive branch for *any* office, or for the guy at the bus stop who wets himself and keeps his lunch in his shoe, then I suppose Speaker Peepants will take the gavel.

Now get your asses back to work.


--A dissatisfied customer
Written at 4/08/2011 10:23:00 PM by Chuck.
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Saturday, April 02, 2011
Just who is responsible?
I want to make a comparison, because I thing it's apt. Bear with me.

A young woman decides to go to a party.  At that party, she has a bit too much to drink and passes out in a bedroom.  A young man takes this as an indication of her willingness to have sex, so he rapes her.  Is the rape her fault, for not knowing her limit?  Is it her fault for going to the party alone, or passing out in a bedroom?  Or is the rape, a crime of violence, not sex, the sole fault of the young man?

Different woman gets dressed for a night on the town.  She's meeting friends, and they are going clubbing.  She dresses to show off her figure, and parks near the club where she will meet her friends.  As she walks the short distance to the club, she is pulled into an alley and raped.  Is the rape her fault, for dressing provocatively, or for walking past an alley, or for any other reason, or is the rape solely the fault of the rapist?

In either case, in any case, does a woman (or a man) DESERVE to be raped?  Or is rape, of any kind, the fault of the rapist?

Let's apply our framework here to Terry Jones burning a Koran.

A pastor in Florida burns a Koran.  Mohammetans in Afghanistan cry "Infidel!  I Keel You!" and march downtown, protest at the UN headquarters in Mazir-e--Sherif, murder 20 UN workers, and burn a bunch of buildings.  Are Pastor Jones' actions the cause of the protest?  Did he incite the riot?  Encourage the mahommetans to murder?  Or was his action completely separate from them?  Or does the responsibility to live peacefully in a society, to not murder, to not burn and destroy,  rest on the shoulders of the people who live in that society?

Who is responsible for the rioting, murdering, and arson?  The people who committed it.  Who is responsible for inciting them to riot?  THEIR leaders.

When, in November 1979, Iranians stormed our embassy in Terran, and took our diplomats hostage, did Americans race to their embassy in DC, storm the gates, and take their diplomats hostage?  Or did we try diplomatic means to free them, and when that failed and we shuttered the Iranian embassy in April 1980, did we respect the diplomats' right to immunity and allow them to leave? 

The UN's response to attacks like these, in any country, should be to immediately pull ALL support, ALL personnel and missions, out, permanently.  Same applies for US missions and embassies.  Attack our embassies, attack our diplomats, and we're gone, and diplomatic ties (including our foreign aid) are severed.  Even if the rioting is done by "troublemakers," the country remains responsible for enforcing laws and lawful actions.  If a nation cannot control its own people--allowing peaceful protest, but controlling rioting, then the US has no business being there.   When the government can take responsibility, and actually enforce its laws, we might consider returning.

The responsible thing for that government to do is to round up 20 of the identified protesters, find their imams, find their "leaders" and chain all of them to the fence at the UN compound (what's left of it) and give them Soweto Necklaces.  Pour encourager les autres.

Let them hate us, as long as the fear us.


--Chuck
Written at 4/02/2011 12:10:00 PM by Chuck.
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Friday, April 01, 2011
A Good Neighbor
There are some stories that I just can't come up with words that do tribute. This is one.

Good Samaritan Helps 91-year Old WW II Vet Living in Mold : MyFoxPHOENIX.com


~~Code Monkey
Written at 4/01/2011 05:38:00 PM by Code Monkey.
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