"A new military parachute system which fits wings on soldiers could enable them to travel to 200 kilometres (124 miles) after jumping, Jane's Defence Weekly defence magazine said Friday."
Most readers know by now that I work on contract for the DOD. For the last three years, I've been working on a contract that has operated on "extensions" from the original contract, which ended (I gather) three years ago. The military decided not to renew it at that time, but rather to do a full competition process for a five-year contract. That was, as I mentioned, three years ago.
Since then, we've operated on one last-minute extension after another. This is because "the contract" was always coming through -- just two more weeks, DOD says. Ok, we need another month. Well, the holidays are coming up -- we'll make this one a two-month extension. Actually, we've decided to rethink who will be in front of this process -- six months. We've made the decisions, but we just couldn't get the paperwork done. Thirty days. Ok, another thirty. Maybe we should rethink the RFP -- let's give you another six months.
Etc.
Today, at midnight, it will be six months from the last six month extension. I am told that the contract is "almost finished!", but in fact not finished; so, to make sure this work doesn't go on hold, they wanted to give us a twenty-day extension.
As of close of business, they... er... hadn't finished the paperwork. But it's no problem, almost done, we'll surely get it tomorrow.
I love the military.
Anyway, I'm unemployed as of Midnight Romeo. Talking about government efficiency, by the way -- another government agency, which shall remain unnamed but with which I work through the military contract, cut off my access to their computer systems yesterday at midnight. No problem if y'all can't read a calendar: just remember that childhood ditty, "Thirty days hath May." Right.
So, I'm going on a brief vacation -- first one I've had in quite a little while. I've seasoned my camp dutch oven and grill, packed up my kit, and off I go for a few days on the Blue Ridge Parkway and the mountains thereby. Be back online by Sunday, or thereabouts, when I'll be blogging from the Great State of Georgia. I'd say, "I should be under contract again by then," but we'll just have to see.
Gentleman co-bloggers (and Cassidy, if she's a mind), feel free to entertain yourselves. You have the run of the hall.
John Derbyshire wrote, a while ago now:
The Santorum business brought to the fore an outfit called "The Human Rights Campaign." You would never know from its name that this is a homosexualist lobbying organization. I have no problem with HRC's existence — homosexuals have as much right to organize and lobby as the rest of us — but I do have a problem with that name — viz., it's dishonest. The name of an organization ought to give some clue as to what the organization is for. Why don't they call themselves "The Homosexual Rights Campaign," or "The Campaign for Tolerance of Alternative Sexuality," or something like that? If they want to be a little more in-your-face, they could go for something with a defiant or humorous twist: "The Sodomite Sodality," perhaps. Don't they understand that this straining at bland respectability just makes them look shifty?As to which, Southern Appeal kindly points us to this story:
Readers, I have decided to launch a movement for the legalization of dog meat as a marketable foodstuff. My movement will be named: "The Campaign for Truth, Justice, Harmony and Peace." Everyone OK with that?
Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.I'd lampoon it, but it's been done three years in advance. Thanks, Derb.
The Charity, Freedom and Diversity party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!"
That's the lesson I'm forced to draw from Doc Russia's first post since becoming a doctor. It's a list of twenty-one lessons (or twenty-two) that he got in Med School which were the same as the lessons he learned in the Corps.
Number three is my favorite.
I want to wish everyone a fine, reflective Memorial Day. I encourage you to visit MilBlogs and BlackFive to enjoy the tributes there.
As for me -- I'm working today. :) So, my Memorial Day tribute will be to do my duty as a contractor, in service to the men in the field. My respects to them all, and those who have gone before.
Deuddersun came by in the comments below to warn us about an anti-Marine Corps site, posing as a tribute. Be warned.
Grim,Be warned. I suspect that the Marines will be the subject of more such in the near future. We should be on guard.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news on Memorial Day, but so be it. I recently visited my blog and while checking out my referrers (from my counter) I came across a url that begins with http://blog.myspace.com/index.cf...g.view&friend...
Following that link led me to a blog on mypace that appears to be a tribute to the Marine Corps. Every sentence or gif is linked to a site involved with, in some way, the Corps, whether they be Left or Right. Each link refers to one of our sites, yours, mine, Mike the Marines, fox news, even the Corps own official site. Each link also contains a nasty virus or worm. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent cleaning my machine. I notified myspace asap and threeatened legal action if they didn't remove the blog immediately. The sick bastard who built that site is neither Left nor Right, he/she just hates Marines. I suggest you check your own list of referrers, but DO NOT click on any link starting with the url I posted above. Just going to the site releases a nasty worm called Byte-Verify/execute. I don't know what else to do, but I do know that anyone visiting this site will be directed to ours and susequently infected. I have notified the Corps and sent them the entire url with a warning not to open it unless they can handle the havoc it unleashes. Likewise I will notify Mike the Marine.
It turns my stomach that some piece of shit would do this on Memorial Day. If you or any of your readers know of any other way to deal with this, please let me know. I'm not blogging much these days, too busy working, but my email works and comments can be left at my site under my last post.
I am sorry to have to make you aware of this on Memorial Day.
Best to you and yours. As always, I remain
Semper Fidelis
Always Faithfull
d.
There is something deeper, though. I think we resent the all-volunteer military. It is a constant rebuke to those of us who might have done more for our country, but decided not to. When the heroes are draftees, we can honor them for having risen above the misfortune of their low draft number. They lost the lottery, and still they thrived. The draftee is not different from us in the choices he made, he simply made the most of his bad fortune. We imagine we might have risen to the same challenge.
When our soldiers are volunteers, however, many of us are both mystified by the decision that they made and embarrassed that we did not make the same decision. We are ashamed by their heroism, because it reminds us of our own self-indulgence. We then compound the insult by not recognizing our own weakness and honoring the heroes in spite of it.
The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.
Soldier's Dad at MilBlogs has a short but outstanding post on what things were like in what are now the world's trouble spots when he was a soldier.
We are all confident that America's fighting forces are good, and on balance bring good to wherever they go. I've rarely seen it so concisely demonstrated, however. There is a chain of events in the region starting with the collapse of the USSR and leading through the Gulf War, 9/11, and our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A great deal of the extraordinary positive change has been brought about by US involvement. It's easy, in the daily noise of our enemies and the negative press, to forget just how far we have come in a generation.
Purely a link for nature-lovers. My mother, believe it or not, sends. ("Why even Father Lonergan had a mother." "What'd you expect?!?")
Birth of a hummingbird. Be sure to click "Next Page" as you watch it.
I'll buy some of these, too. What a disgrace. Is there a good way to turn out every single member of Congress, without electing anyone else to take their place?
I talked to Sovay a bit ago. She was complaining about James Dobson (sp?), whom she says is among the most important people in America.
"He said he had a dachshund pup who was sleeping by a warm radiator," she told me, "and he'd told the dog to move. But it was 'defiant,' so he picked up a switch and whipped it for an hour."
I'm not sure who this Dobson fellow is, but I hope he never comes down Georgia way if that story is true. Doing violence to a dog where I come from is the sort of offense that will get you in serious trouble.
Sovay was telling me about going to the dog park -- this is a nifty idea they have in Maryland that we should do more in various places, where you have in a public park a fenced-off section where the community's dogs can get together and run and play -- and a guy thought his dog was being knocked around by another. So he walked up to the other fellow's dog, picked it up, and threw it through the air.
"We all just left," she said. "He hasn't been back. Nobody was willing to deal with him after that."
I told her that, where I came from, if you picked up a man's dog and threw him through the air, you'd probably get yourself shot.
Sovay said she wouldn't murder anyone over such a thing.
"Not murder," I replied. "Where I come from, dogs are a part of the family."
Well, I suppose what matters in the end is that you achieve a common peace. If people understand the rules and abide by them, most of the time, I guess you've got what counts out of civilization.
All the same, I like our way better. You pick my dog or my child and throw him through the air, you'd best have your insurance paid.
But that's probably just me. I still think we should re-legalize duels.
We'd be better off if more folks thought like this:
Arriving early for my flight, I found myself grumpily grumbling about the hassle of airline security and as I struggled to get my metal-studded western belt back through those damned harder-to-reach loops and pull my boots back on, the thought blossomed in my brain momentarily, that given the opportunity, I would gladly don the uniform once again and join the mission to seek out and take out some of the terrorist bastards who were causing me this too early-in-the-day aggravation. As I proceeded down the concourse, I indulged myself with the thought of laying the sight blade of an automatic weapon on some Muj and sending his raggedy butt smoking off to Paradise for causing me to be sent through all this airport security: not exactly a balanced trade-off, I know, but hey, they started it.In response to Steve Schippert's excellent piece on fighting and politics, "Clint" wrote in to say:
While you may believe that the country has changed, the truth is that as the world becomes smaller, our perspective has become more broad. No longer are we restricted to the one-sided, self-preservating view of the world that you seem to admire.Damn right I admire it. The alternative to the 'self-preservating' view used to be called "suicide."
It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront.Every man is born to a flag. He ought to defend it, if it is a good flag; or destroy it, if it is a bad one. This business that 'we must understand that our flag isn't better than any other' is nonsense. It is our business to make it better than any other, or to rend it out of the world. That is the heroic life.
Blackfive, reaching out to try and understand a troubled young man.
Perhaps our Eric Blair can help us sort out the puzzle that Mark Steyn lays before us:
Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, in a quintessentially McCainiac contribution to the debate, angrily denied the Senate legislation was an "amnesty." ... He has a point. Technically, an "amnesty" only involves pardoning a person for a crime rather than, as this moderate compromise legislation does, pardoning him for a crime and also giving him a cash bonus for committing it. In fact, having skimmed my Webster's, I can't seem to find a word that does cover what the Senate is proposing, it having never previously occurred to any other society in the course of human history.I think it occurred to Vortigern. I'm not sure, however, just what he called his policy of providing bonuses to Saxons who would "do the work Britons do not wish to do."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says to make sure your will is up to date. On the other hand, Doc Russia says it's just a good time to check your emergency supplies. Both -- as of this weekend -- are medical doctors (Congrats, Doc!).
By coincidence, Kim du Toit has reposted his grab-and-go bag advice. And here's Doc's, on a first aid kit for lifesaving.
I am, myself, unconcerned with such things as living and dying. I have a son -- so long as he lives on after me, good enough. Still, I supply this information as a service to the readers.
There is, in retrospect, way too much to talk about with this movie. Anything you folks want to discuss, I'll be more than happy.
I'm just going to go into one aspect of the film: the way that the prophecy comes to pass, and what it says about the film's ideas on sin and virtue.
This is a question worth considering, because the film is steeped to a surprising degree in Christian ethics. It assumes an audience -- 1968 was almost the last time you could assume it -- that is equally familiar with the details of Christian ethics, and that will share the farmer wife's shock at the idea of a woman having a husband whose name she did not share. In addition, at the end the film resolves all the moral issues it raises in favor of the accepted mainstream Christian ethics of the day. In other words, it's not poking fun at Christianity. It's taking it quite seriously. Christianity isn't the joke: Christianity is the context that makes all the movie's jokes funny.
No-Name City's doom is foretold by the Parson, shortly after his arrival. He sees all the departures from mainstream Christian virtue (to name a few: polyandry, drunkeness in the streets, prostitution, gambling, Sabbath-breaking, etc). He arrives on the veranda of Ezra Atwell's hotel and gives his prophecy:
No-Name City!That is, of course, precisely what happens.
No-Name City!
The Lord don't like it here!No-Name City!
No-Name City!
You're reckoning day is near!No-Name City!
No-Name City!
Here's what he's gonna do:Swallow up this town,
And gobble it down,
And good-bye to you!
From Chinese Aggression Watch:
China has no covert agents in the United States trying to buy military gear on its behalf, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.Oh, that's beautiful! I'm wiping the free-running tears from my eyes, I'm laughing so hard. Outstanding joke! Well done!
"The so-called allegations that China is conducting intelligence collection on military or science and technology in the United States are purely fictitious," spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular news conference.
