Category: 40yrs

It’s Official, We Need to Abolish the Air Force

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Or, as David Axe, of War is Boring puts it, Reason #817 Why the Air Force Sucks.

This a real quote from the real Air Combat Command chief Ronald Keys, “The hardest wars we fight are not on the battlefield, but the wars we fight in the halls of Congress. They are fought in the Pentagon, they are fought in these programs, to make sure the money is paid and eventually the program is operating.”

That’s our problem. The air force is not a bunch of soldiers, it’s a bunch of f&^%ing K-street lobbiests.

Go read Axe’s stuff…It has the some quotes from Air Force’s counter-insurgency manual that are so stupid, you would think that Alberto Gonzalez would remember them.

One quote from Axe:

The Air Force bailed out of the potentially revolutionary UCAS killer drone program in order to buy a big new fleet of big new manned bombers for much more money. The service wants to prepare for an imaginary high-tech air war with China instead of fighting the dirty, low-tech wars we’re actually in. Why? Because high-tech superpower showdowns are what the Air Force knows. They’re easy. The low-tech approach to warfare, by contrast, requires patience and smarts, two things today’s Air Force lacks.

The independent air force was a bad idea.

Ironically, I considered joining the USAF, despite my myopia after I left high school.

Natalie’s First Day of School

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My mother-in-law visited this weekend, and my Wife* had to drop her off at the train station this morning. She took Charlie with them, since his school does not start for a week, and I had to get Natalie on the bus to school.

She was hard to get started in the morning, and when the bus was a bit late (about 15 minutes), she got a bit weepy about the prospect of being late for school on her first day, but once the bus showed up, she was all smiles, though she had a legitimate complaint about the weight of her knapsack.

I was never that eager to go to school, nor that concerned about being on time.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

D’Oh!!!!! Remember Homer Simpson is a Cartoon!

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And here we have a future Darwin award winner. The 14 year old who had overheating problems with his XBox*, and decided to cool it in a bowl of water.

He did survive, but was taken to the hospital with burns.

I might suggest that this kid not be given another video game console, and that perhaps he be sent outside to play.

*This is not a unique problem. The XBox has a reputation for thermal problems.

Deep Thought

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In the midst of a post about real estate crashing and foreclosures, Rich Toscano mentions his, “Partner in dim sum consumption crime and occasional Econo-Almanac guest contributor Ramsey Su.”

My first thought was OH MY GOD!!!!! What restaurant, I have to know. Real estate is ephemeral, but the love of a Jew for Chinese food, that’s forever.

The weird thing is, Toscano is in San Diego, and I’ve never been there, and I have no urge to go there…well maybe…if there is some really good Chinese food.

OH MY GOD! We Must Stop Bush and His Evil Minions™ NOW!!!!

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Marty Kaplan of the Huffington Post is right. This is all about the Bush and His Evil Minions™ attempting to revisit, and relitigate, the 1970s.

There’s no longer any doubt about the master narrative of the Bush Administration. Their purpose is to re-litigate the 1970s. Nixon’s downfall, let alone all that followed, clearly has stuck in Cheney’s craw. All his New American Centurions were so scarred by the fall of Saigon and the Church Committee reforms that even Morning in the Gipper’s America didn’t do enough to restore the imperial executive and the American imperium. So now we watch as FISA and FOIA are dismantled, checks and balances are declared Congressional overreaching, and the bully pulpit is being used like Stalin’s commissars used scissors and a paste-pot to purge and doctor the historical record.

So what’s next? No doubt some reactionaries are drooling to undo Nixon’s putting the coffin-nail in the gold standard. Perhaps others want to retake the Panama Canal which, after all, we stole fair and square. The Supreme Court’s already doing a decent job rolling back civil rights and civil liberties from the 60s; surely overturning Buckley v Valleo’s campaign contribution limits is next in line.

I’m putting my money on an attempt by GOP culture warriors to expunge disco from the national memory. Don’t you have a feeling that this crowd is still in a world o’ hurt from humiliations they suffered beneath a twirling mirrored ball yea many generations ago?

He’s wrong, and they must be stopped. They will be trying to bring disco back.

The horror….the horror….

The Judge Gave You 500 Quid for What???

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It appears that a man held up a bookie with pretending that a “rabbit” vibrator was a handgun.

One of the bookie’s customers (they are legal in the UK), Wayne Vakani, followed the man out, and managed to secure enough information, a hat from which the police drew DNA evidence, that the police were able to nab the perp.

The judge awarded Mr. Vakani £500 for his bravery.

I do understand that his actions were actually brave, he didn’t know it was not a gun, but I can imagine the ribbing that he is going to get from his buddies, something like, “Drinks on you mate, you’ve got the cash after standing up to a phony pickle wielding maniac.”

He’ll never hear the end of it.

Anyone Got a Spare Flux Capacitor?

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It appears that the car made famous in back to the future, the De Lorean, is re-entering production next year, albeit in a hand built form. At $58K, it’s pretty cheap for a handbuild (and cheaper than the original adjusting for inflation), and it might actually succeed, if just because they are shooting for lower numbers (about 2/month) for success than the original, which was intended for mass production.

The company that’s doing this, which sells refurbed De Loreans right now, has about 200 of the original engines on hand, though one hopes that they can coercesome more horsepower out of it.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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OK…That’s odd, it appears that
a motorcyclist failed to notice that he had lost his leg below the knee: “Company worker Kazuo Osada, 54, was on a jaunt with 10 other bikers yesterday when he failed to negotiate a bend. However, he was ‘unaware his right leg had been severed below the knee apparently because his attention was focused on the strong pain he felt from the crash’, according to police.”

‘Tis but a scratch

The Communist Party is Alive and Well in Kansas

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Kansas????

Yes, Kansas. The State GOP there has formed loyalty committee.

TOPEKA – The state Republican Party is forming a loyalty committee so that it can punish officers who endorse or contribute to Democrats.

…

The state committee’s actions struck a sour note for some Republicans, particularly moderates on issues such as abortion. Bob Beatty, a Washburn University political scientist, suggested the loyalty committee could prove a “public relations disaster.”

“Ironically, it smacks most of the Communist Party,” Beatty said Monday. “That’s the kind of public irony that most parties try to avoid — the party of freedom telling people they have no freedom.”

Gee. You think????? Josef Stalin is laughing in hell.

And, Kobach said, the grounds for removing someone from office are fairly narrow: They must publicly endorse or contribute to a non-Republican running in Kansas.

“This rule will operate primarily as a deterrent,” Kobach said. “My anticipation is that once the rule is in effect, you won’t see too many elected party leaders engaging in this kind of behavior.”

Vee must all Goose schtep in unison.*

But Andy Wollen, president of the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority, a moderate group, mused about the GOP creating a “grand high inquisitor.”

“When you hear the term loyalty committee, what runs through your mind?” he said. “Joseph McCarthy. George Orwell.”

Cloud supports the loyalty committee, even though he has run afoul of conservatives who dominate the party leadership.

He earned their public criticism for signing a fundraising letter for Wollen’s group in March, criticizing the party’s leadership and suggesting people give to the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority.

You know, in America, people are supposed to have the right to call their party leaders right wing nutcase wackjobs, particularly when they are right wing nutcase wackjobs.

If they could hook a dynamo to George Orwell’s grave, we’d power all of California.

*Yes, I know, mixing Nazis and Communist is a very mixed metaphor thing.

There is a 175 Foot 6 Year Old Who is Looking for His Toys

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These numbers are preliminary off the cuff calculations based on the size of the Giant Lego man found floating in the ocean off the Dutch coast.

When lifetime rolls around, there will be a critical shortage of both peanut butter and jelly throughout Holland.

The question is whether this was somehow a lost promotional display, or a wickedly funny practical joke.

My guess is the first, but I’m wishing for the 2nd.

Still a Few Bugs in Consumer GPS Systems

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The directions they give may be no better than those of Cletus B. Hounddog, so take their advice with a grain of salt. Case in point, a woman, and her £96,000 Mercedes River Sence in Sheepy Magna*, Leicestershire.

Of course, someone who is willing to pay £96K ($US 195K) for a car, probably has more money than brains.

*Sheepy Magna????? Now that is a screwy name. A quick Google finds this:

Sheepy, (from the old english sceap + eg meaning ‘island or dry ground in the marsh where the sheep graze’), straddles the River Sence from Fieldon Bridge, the boundary with Atherstone and also the county boundary with Warwickshire. Sheepy is divided into two parts Great Sheepy or Sheepy Magna and Little Sheepy or Sheepy Parva, each with it’s own ancient manor. Sheepy Magna also includes the Hamlets of The Mythe and Pinwall, The Mythe may well have had it’s own manor but Pinwall was a Grange of Merevale Abbey. Newhouse Grange was also part of the Merevale estate and remained annexed to the parish of Merevale until 1885.
…..

Guys Night Out

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My daughter had a concert this evening at her very frum1 summer camp.

It’s a girls only camp, and a female only concert, because it’s not tznius2 for women to sing for men not their relatives3.

This meant that it was guys night out for Charlie and me. So we got Pizza, and since the local Kosher place (there are at least 2 Kosher pizzerias in Ballmur4.

As luck would have it, they have introduced a Sicilian5 pizza, so Charlie and I shared one, half extra cheese, and half had mushroom and felafel6. It was his first exposture to deep dish pizza. I had to explain to him that its shape was because it was baked in a (square) pan.

We hung out, and chatted about this and that…The sort of things that an 8 year olds mind turns to…like microbiology7.

After gorging ourselves, we went to the bookstore and he looked at the fiction (didn’t find anything), and I looked at the aircraft magazines (I didn’t find anything either).

1 Meaning very old school Orthodox Jewish

2 Meaning modest

3 In fact, you could call it medieval with no objection from me.

4 Baltimore Maryland, hon.

5 Deep Dish pizza to the uniniated.

6 A poor substitute for sausage, but it’s what is available at a Kosher place, and corrupting my son would upset my beloved.
7Really…He’s discovered Giant Microbes dot com, so we were talking about things like the difference between Salmonella and Typhoid fever, the origins of Mitochondria, Organelles in the cells, the role of Adenosine-triphosphate and RNA in cellular function, etc. He’s scary smart. He used the word metaphor in proper context when he was 5.

Small F#$%ing World, But I’d Hate to Paint It.

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I was in the lunch line today, waiting to wrap my food, and the guy ahead of me was having problem with cling wrap. (have to wrap the food if you leave the cafeteria)

I made a comment about the stuff being the bane of everyone’s life, and he looks up, and goes “Matthew Saroff!!!“

It was Scott Campanella, who ran member services for ages at Arisia*. He’s also at BD, but he works at a different building in the industrial park.

Small bloody world.

I think that we’ve both picked up a bit of weight (I KNOW I have), and he’s gotten all the hair that I’ve lost (that picture in the profile is 28 years old).

On a note of meta, I’ll be changing the blog address today, to something a bit more mnemonically friendly (i.e. NOT misspelling the word “forty” ). I’ve already figured out how to autoforward from this addy.

I’m working on this, so posting will be light.

*Arisia is a science fiction convention in Boston that I founded in the early 1990s, I ran the first two.