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Weather Conditions, Wish we were there... Odd things and such things, as I feel appropriate, possibly relating to the war. Email me at jll3a@hotmail.com. Look below for links to good sites, ebooks and such. Jerry Lawson, Proprietor Check out my other two blogs at: Meatblog- fighting fat with fat OilBlog- it ain't dinosaur puree after all
Other Odd LinksGetHighTech.Com - Palm & Handspring Parts & Accessories. Books Worth Paying For    Free E-Books Project Gutenberg eBooks.com Fictionwise Baen Free Library BlackMask Memoware Non-Free E-Books Palm Digital Media Fictionwise Baen Books ElectricStory.com Reader Software Mobipocket.com - Reader & Books for Palm/Handspring ISILO Document reader Good Links Spiced Sass EJECT! EJECT! EJECT! Jake Arnsperger's Log A Small Victory The Famous Instapundit The Dreaded Purple Master Lilek's Daily Bleat Ye Olde Blogge Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing U.S.S. Clueless Daimnation! Travelling Shoes DailyPundit Cranky Professor Comics Gene Catlow Freefall 1/0 - has ended, dang it.. Sandwich World Archives My Popdex Game Profile Popdex Metapop 
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Comments by: YACCS
Monday, December 29
If you try to contact me via any of the Hotmail accounts I've got - you're not going to get me. I'm letting them expire, since I can access the Milblog account from work and the Hotmail accounts were getting SERIOUSLY choked with spam. So - you can get me at jll3 at milblog.org, if you want to e-mail me. Hey, free hosting AND e-mail. What more could you want? J. Saturday, November 29
You may have noticed there's not been much new put up here - the action's over on Milblog.Org now. Come on over and visit! Wednesday, November 19
Okay - we're getting things set up over on the new site (www.milblog.org) - so I'll be moving things in for a bit. Come on over, take a look! Tuesday, November 18
JTA NEWS: "Ford announces new funding guidelines as it admits to aiding anti-Israel groups By Edwin Black WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (JTA) — In a stunning reversal, the Ford Foundation has admitted it erred in funding anti-Israeli Palestinian groups and has vowed to establish tough new guidelines to stop its funds from being used for anti-Semitic activities anywhere in the world.Damn. What's happened, has the clue-truck dropped off a fresh load or something? J. Well, the file's there, but I can't import it without it looking... Bad. So, I'll fiddle with things a bit, see if I can get things in. J. Well, that was relatively painless.... Let me go back to massaging things, and we'll see what we get. US will use nukes in Korea if needed "We understand that weakness can be provocative, that weakness can invite people into doing things that they otherwise might not even consider," Mr. Rumsfeld told a joint news conference with South Korean Defense Minister Cho Young-kil.Better not tell the idiots over on Indymedia. They're firmly convinced that the only way to avoid any sort of conflict in the world is to be completely defenseless. Which is fine, until someone picks up a rock. North Korea's in kind of a bad place right now. Kim's screwed, he knows it, but he has to maintain a fiction of strength even as his people starve. To admit he's fallible, indeed, to bend at all in his stances, would lead to an uprising. As it is - his people starve while he threatens South Korea. Such are the glories and triumphs of communism. J. The Rich ARE different from the rest of us. Their stupidity is MUCH more visible. 
LOS ANGELES — Paris Hilton says she never thought the sex video she made with her ex-boyfriend ever would become public.Yeah, but I'll bet you'll never have to worry about getting a date again. Just make sure the next guy keeps the cameras out of the bedroom, hmmm? Use what's between your ears as something more than filler to keep your skull from collapsing. Maybe this'll be a wakeup call to you - not everyone who praises you is a friend, and not everyone you date will have your interests in mind. You may be rich, but that doesn't preclude you having to think before you act. And being drunk or high makes it a LOT harder to think. J. Still trying to get MT up and running on the new site, over at milblog.org. Got it running once, then like an idiot I deleted the admin user account I logged in on, and am trying to reinstall. Well, it beats staring at the TV. At least I feel like I'm getting SOMETHING accomplished. I'm learning something new, anyway! By the way, I've got a question for you. And it's going to require just a bit of thinking outside the box, because it's one that's going to be VERY important in the next few year. The premise is this.... 1. In the United States, we have a government which is supposed to be tolerant of all religions. 2. If a minority religion is established, it's beliefs are tolerated by the government. 3. If the minority religion is fundamentally non-tolerant of other religions, up to and including condoning actively hostile acts against members and facilities of other religions - the question is - Does the US have any right to interfere with the proponents of the minority religion who are practicing their faith in the manner they think they must? Discuss.. Sunday, November 16
USS Clueless: "If Falwell and Robertson are fundamentalist zealots, our enemies are much worse. Prayers and sermons delivered in the great mosques all over the middle east routinely include pleas to God to destroy the Jews and Americans. (They're published, and MEMRI has translated many of them into English.) Followers of some Islamic sects believe that they are quite literally soldiers of God, engaged in a Crusade on His behalf. And so they too face that same problem: if they're God's chosen, God's soldiers trying to spread His word, why have they been losing? Why do the Godless sinners in the west, particularly in America, seem to win?Read the whole thing. It's long, but worthwhile (As Mr. DenBeste's items are.) J. FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Intelligence Report Links Saddam, Usama: "Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (search) gave terror lord Usama bin Laden's thugs financial and logistical support, offering Al Qaeda (search) money, training and haven for more than a decade, it was reported yesterday.Think this'll make any different to the folks screaming we should have left Saddam alone to kill his own people? Me neither. J. Saturday, November 15
Wow again. The e-mail with the login info came about ten minutes later. I've logged on, ordered a domain name (Milblog.org, of course) and set up an e-mail account under that domain, and am downloading the suite of tools they provide. So far, I'm impressed. (It did cost me $6 for the domain name. But heck, that's less than the price of a paperback these days.) We'll see what the tools are like. I'm wondering - how am I going to transfer this over there? Can I? Should I? Decisions, decisions. BTW, the downloads are FAST from this place.... J. Wow. You note that little reference to 1and1.com web hosting a post or two back? Well, I just activated. It's a 4 step process, you've got to indicate your interest, they'll send you an e-mail with a link to a page where you put in your phone number (and they allow one setup per phone number) then an automated system calls you with your pin number, and you put that in on another page - then they e-mail you your login info. I put in my home phone, and hit enter. I clicked over to check another web page, and before the page finished loading, the phone rang. We're talking maybe 5 seconds here. Impressive. I'll keep you posted on this. J. Baghdadee: "To have the opportunity to hear from those who witness what is going on inside IraqAnother Iraqi blog, in English and Arabic. Welcome to the world, friends! Tell your stories loud and long - because for far too long you've had others telling lies for you. J. Campfire Song Book : The coming of the frogs : words and midi file: "Mine eyes have seen the horror of the coming of the frogs,Heh. Enjoy! J. Friday, November 14
Free Web hosting for three years? | Metafilter "United Internet is launching its public hosting service with a special promotion: a full 500 meg hosting account free for three years. Includes email hosting, FTP and shell access, 5 gigs of transfers, Perl, Python, PHP and MySQL... plus $25 worth of Google AdWords. Sounds fishy to me, but they never asked for my credit card when I signed up."They're a European company, and their site's at 1and1.com. Free web hosting. I may check it out - 5 GB/month transfer... hmmm. Free. I LIKE free! (Grin) J. THE MESOPOTAMIAN: "But this is an ordinary mother, a citizen, and she is actually talking about her sons. She doesn’t have to say what she says. She is a free American lady and does not have to say anything she doesn’t sincerely believe and feel. I don’t know if you have kids. But we fathers and mothers can understand. Kissing this hand is no act servility. The hand that raised, fed, changed nappies, sweated and toiled for years. The mother that watched her babies grow from infants to toddlers to little lovely boys stammering with their first words, and then they grew and went to school and were teenagers and finally men tall and handsome. Do you know what it means for a mother to see her children in mortal danger? Do you? And yet and despite of the danger of the ultimate sacrifice she does not want to walk away and leave our country in chaos . This is not some general abstract and theoretical or ideological position, this is a mother with her son actually on the ground thousands of miles away. She is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of a people far away that most likely she has never known or seen. Believe me this is a position even superior to that of ours. I mean we are in this boat and we have to fight for our freedom and life. But Doreen is living out there in prosperity and safety and she can just shrug her shoulders and stand by preferring the safety of her children, and no one can blame her for that. How big is this heart that feels for others just as it feels for one’s own offspring !I will likely never meet this man, but my respect for him grows daily. He handles trolls much better than I would in the same situation. But his words reminded me of a day Aaron and I went out to the base, and mixed in with what I've seen on the anti-war sites and places like IndyMedia - and I came up with this... Some proclaim they know the way that all of us should live. 'Think not of others who might need the hand that they could give.' When they see slaves they first think it does not concern them, yet they see not that in their hearts their turn as slaves begins. Far better to die that others may be stricken free of their chains, than live and turn your head away and bind your heart and brain. The slavemaster loves the chains, though he would wear them not, and rejoices when he sees some then put chains on in their thoughts. The chains on thoughts get bound so tightly to the thought that when freedom is seen by the slave that freedom is often fought. And so the happy slavemaster gets the slaves he wants they cost him nothing at all to keep for they're kept by their own thoughts. So when you see somebody say the slave is happier not free A slave and master reside within thoughts twisted in dark glee. My son is young, he is but 5, but one day he said to me when he grows up and is a man a Marine he wants to be. I asked him why and his reply just rocked me to my core "There's bad guys out there, Daddy, and if I don't stop them, there'll be more." I could not speak, but thought a bit, what really could I say? I'd done my part, with all my heart, over 24 years and several days... I enlisted when it looked so like that we and the USSR would war But though we bluffed and blustered, the missiles never roared. Is this how my own parents felt, when I decided it was time? When I enlisted so long ago, making that decision which was mine? Sometimes it takes a child's eyes, and a child's enormous heart to show you just what the right thing is though it could tear you just apart. Look at the very young child's heros, who are they and what do they do? They are the protectors, the helpers, what they'd like to be and do. So I looked at my little boy, at his face shining up at me - "I'll be proud of you, my little Boo, if that's what you decide to be." J. Thursday, November 13
THE MESOPOTAMIAN: "Greetings,Thank you. To the Italians, to the brave souls blogging from Iraq, to all who are helping that country shake off the diseases and sicknesses of the past. But to those who would encourage the madness, may you die alone and unmourned, wishing desperately for water in the desert. J. al.com: Special Report - Alabama chief justice removed from office: "MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from office Thursday for refusing to obey a federal court order to move his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state courthouse.I've been kind of curious to see how this would play out. I'm not sure that this is the correct decision. I'm no religious zealot, and I guess I'm not liberal enough, but I can't see how having the 10 Commandments displayed is establishing one religion over another. If it was a necessity to profess adherence to a particular religion before one could be defended in our legal system, I could see where the separation of church and state would be a good thing. But this? The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." I don't see this as being a justification for the total elimination of everything resembling religion from any government office. Is it a case where if ANYONE is offended by 'something', then all instances of that 'something' must be banned? Then what we end up with is a tyranny of the minority. I'm not sure I like that idea at all. It could well open up a whole new can of worms. But the question arises - if a Muslim complained that, for example, he WANTED a copy of the Koran on display, would it be okay to set aside the rights of the Christian majority and put it up? J. Wednesday, November 12
FOXNews.com - Operation Iron Hammer: "BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. forces in Iraq on Wednesday launched a planned and coordinated operation codenamed Iron Hammer that targeted pro-Saddam loyalists, a senior military source told Fox News.Way to go, Army! Thanks, guys, and keep it up! And on the Saudi Arabia front - there's signs that the Islamic militants are getting meaner. And they don't care who they target. Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "Paper says militants rigged Koran with explosivesYou know, I'm really beginning to have doubts about this whole 'religion of peace' thing. There's just too many indications that things within that religion are nowhere near as peaceful as they seem. J. Tuesday, November 11
Sorry for the lack of posting the last few days. Bronchitis, a sinus infection, and conjuntivitis have left me feeling rather puny. That, and a Myriad deadline coming up doesn't help my writing here. Sigh. So much to do, so little time - but sleep's gonna have to win out until I'm better. (Oh, BTW, I think I've got a worm, too. Got something that keeps interrogating out on port 13, apparently running through IP addresses at random. I'm trying to find it with a firewall. Wish me luck.) J. Sunday, November 9
Iraq at a glance: "On September 2, both the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs started giving their endorsed certifications and documents to the students who have graduated.It's really great to see how the Iraqi people are taking to their new freedoms. Keep on talking, guys! You've waited WAY too long for your freedoms. J. FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Deadly Explosions Rock Saudi Capital: "RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — At least 17 people are dead and 122 wounded after blasts ripped through a residential compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (search), in what the desert kingdom's government called a homicide car bombing carried out by Al Qaeda.You feed them, you clothe them, you put them through (terrorist) school, and then they turn on you, the ungrateful bastards. Congratulations. Your metaphorical children are all grown up now, and they don't need you any more. Only they're not just going to move to another city to get away from your control - they've decided they need to kill you. You guys have earned it. When you want some help, let us know. It'll be a blow to your Islamic egos, but you've spent a lot of time creating these guys to take on the West, and what they learned for export can be used as well to unseat you. You just might want to consider reforming your society - but it may be too late for that. You've been feeding the tiger, and prodding it to a snarling fury. Now he's loose. And he doesn't care WHO he shreds. J. New York Daily News - Daily Dish & Gossip - Lloyd Grove's Lowdown: An underground success: "Q: And what is Clark's reaction to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's pandering comment that that he, Dean, wants the votes of Southerners, i.e. 'guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks'?Ya know, we dumbasses here in the south know one thing more than Clark do. We know when you dig a hole for yourself (or your Party does) sometimes ya gotta shut up to keep from diggin' it deeper. Obviously this guy never went out with Bertha Lou and was asked the question "Do I look fatter in my jeans or in that red dress you got me?" Silence IS your friend, Ex-General Clark. Remember that. J. Saturday, November 8
Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | 300,000 Iraqis May Be in Mass Graves: "BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - As many as 300,000 Iraqis killed during Saddam Hussein's 23-year dictatorship are believed to be buried in more than 250 mass graves found so far around the country, the top human rights official in the U.S.-led civilian administration said Saturday.Okay... now contrast that with this... Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Survivors of Bosnia Massacre to Sue: "SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Families of those killed in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II will sue the United Nations and the Dutch government for failing to protect the victims, a lawyer said Saturday.... and tell me just how (and especially, WHY) the UN was supposed to have control in Iraq. I don't even want to think what would have happened if that had been the case. One thing about acting in a unilateral fashion, you can take action without having to have a quorum agree that you SHOULD take action. Or get them to sign off on every aspect of the job. Yes, we did the right thing not waiting for the UN to align with us. J. Friday, November 7
President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East: "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo. "President Bush has a lot of detractors in the political arena - he's got a lot of people who'd be against him even if it was in their best interests to be for him, simply because they hate him. But here, he's at his best. Speaking eloquently, simply, he lays out a case for what we're doing in Iraq. And, by extension, the rest of the region, because a free Iraq is going to be intolerable to the rest of the dictatorships in the region. Which is why you see jihadis streaming into Iraq to do what damage they can. They don't care about Iraq being thrown into a civil war if we leave, they don't care about anarchy, they don't care about anything but making sure that IRAQ is NOT able to determine it's future freely. There's too many power groups that don't want that at all. J. THE MESSOPOTAMIAN: "We the Iraqis, find ourselves in the midst of a great turning point in human history. This is no dramatisation, no exaggeration. But if you make even a cursory perusal of the 6000 years or so history of Messopotamia, you will find that this, strangely, is the fate of this particular spot on the earth. Let us not get bogged in the confusing and painful details at this particular time and look at the essence of the matter.Read the whole thing. Another eloquent voice from the darkness. To those who think we should pack up and leave - consider what hell you'd be consigning Iraq to. Have you thought things through? Do you REALLY understand what would happen? You'd be looking at a civil war, at the very least, as the remnants of Saddam's regime and every freedom-hating jihadi from the surrounding countries would flock to try to re-establish control over the people. And the people, having been freed, would be VERY resistant to that. But then - body count over there doesn't matter, as long as it's not AMERICAN bodies, right? Who cares if they kill themselves? Slap a "It's not OUR problem" sticker on it, and go on ignoring the actuality while you use our 'failures' there for political posturing. Because it's not really about Iraq, is it? It's about Bush. It's about getting control of the White House, Congress, and the Senate. That has precedence over EVERYTHING else, right? Wrong. Bush is doing the right thing in Iraq. We have ONE chance to really nip terrorism in the bud, and we're in the middle of the process. If we FAIL in this - you can expect more terrorism worldwide, and more attempts for a score like 9/11, and that the terrorist groups will CONTINE to try. Oh, it'll be hard for them to come up with a big score, but they'll keep trying. You don't like our body count in Iraq? It's nothing compared to what the body count could be in the US if we pull out. If it hasn't become clear yet, I'll restate the obvious. For the last 60+ years, we've been appeasing dictatorships that showed the least sign of going along with what we wanted geopolitically. A lot of that was good money thrown after bad - and we rarely got the results we wanted. But money was cheaper than lives - so we spent freely the one and reluctantly the other. Now it's time to clean up the messes that have developed over the last 60 years. Either grab a mop, grab a broom, grab a shovel, or get out of the damn way. It's gonna be messy to clean up, because we didn't realize how big a mess we were making. And don't add to the mess - it's big enough already. J. Thursday, November 6
Flying Saucer Innards - Part 4 Okay - we've gone through the construction of the saucer (if unobtainium isn't available, use Handi-Foam and foamboard) and the lighting and electrification thereof (I swear, next one I get I'm gonna rig up a couple of bus wires instead of having wires clipped all over the place) and the moving parts thereof (tinkertoys are great for mocking stuff up, but they'll mock you when it goes into production) so all that remains is... Audio. Let's face it - a flying saucer has to make noise. And not a "whinnnnneee-clunk" sound either. You need a good thrumming sound, preferably with alien voices. Fortunately, you can find a WHOLE lot of audio on the Internet. But how are you going to mangle, I mean MANAGE it? Well, I don't know how you'd do it in the Apple world, but under Windows\Accessories\Entertainment you've got something called 'Sound Recorder". In the XP version, you can take a sound sample, (a good single thrummm, perhaps) and cut and paste it until you've got about 5 minutes of good background sound. Then you can mix in radar pings, missile firings, alien voices, odd sound effects - whatever you like. Remember when you're working with it to save early and save often - because it's really easy to 'insert' a file instead of 'mix' in the file, which will cause a break in the background thrumm. As far as outputting the sound goes - Laptop to powered speakers with subwoofer. Set it to play back in a loop, and there ya go. This concludes the "Flying Saucer Innards" series. We hope you've enjoyed the programs as much as we've enjoyed bringing them to you. J. FCC Orders Anti-Piracy Tech for TVs: “Without it, high quality programming will migrate off of free television,” said Edward O. Fritts, president of the National Association of Broadcasters.Seems to me like the high-quality programming is already migrating. Or are they referring to the current and proposed crop of reality shows? Somehow, I just don't think that 20 years from now they're going to be selling DVD sets (or whatever video media is current) of "Survivor - Australia" at B&N - but I could be wrong. J. Wednesday, November 5
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Saudis 'fear sand shortage': "Saudi Arabia has reportedly imposed strict border checks to enforce a ban on the export of sand. "Who'd have thunk it? You'd almost think they had a shortage already. Wonder what this will do to the sand markets worldwide? Will they be able to charge a premium for washed Saudi sand? The mind boggles. J. Healing Iraq: "You see a handful of teenagers dancing in front of the camera celebrating dead Americans, and you judge an entire people, you start whining about pulling the troops out of Iraq and giving the Iraqis what they deserve. Are you people really so close-minded? It is the fault of your news agencies that show you what they want, its certainly not ours. If you want us to go out and cry for your dead soldiers and wave American flags, then don't count on it either. We are losing way too many innocent Iraqis daily to be grieving over dead soldiers who have actually made a decision to come here. What about the thousands of dead Iraqis who were not as lucky to have a choice? Did you cry for them?A VERY interesting blog - and one to read if you're the sort who think Iraq was a paradise before we kicked Saddam out. J. Flying Saucer Innards, Part 3 As far as lighting your saucer goes - you need something... different. Back in '72 or so, I applied at a Texas Instruments office in a local office park for a part-time job. I remember being impressed by a display of red calculator LEDs - they were so SMALL! No bulbs, no heat... I will admit to a great fascination when it comes to high-tech lighting. Halogens? Eh. Halogen bulbs for flashlight? That's a bit better, but still, eh. Give me an LED flashlight, however... and that's NEAT! Yeah, I'm a sucker for things like that. Neon. Neon's cool too, but a bit cumbersome. However, as described in part 2, I had 4 neon lights (two rings and two rods) and a controller that would power EITHER two rings, or two rods - but not a rod and a ring. Oh, well. I was going to use the light rods as guns on the flying saucer (And thank you, Karen T. for your donation!) and I ended up getting a short neon rod for use inside the saucer, as an internal light. But looking at things in the dark, it was pretty clear that something needed to be done as far as the OUTLINE of the saucer went. And I thought of electroluminescent wire which (oddly enough) could also be bought at Wal-Mart. 
(Along with some 6 volt batteries. I think I've got one of the few flying saucers in the state that run on 12VDC.) Use two 4 ft. kits and some hot glue - and we've got a saucer that glows in the dark. But what about sound? Oh, that was the EASIEST part of all. And I'll detail THAT in the next installment. The Sect of Homokaasu - The Gematriculator: "  "
Hmmm. Isn't that interesting? Wait till you see the criteria involved... J. Monday, November 3
TIME.com: Where Things Stand -- Nov. 10, 2003: "Hillal and Rath are aware of the violence in Baghdad but insist there are no such crises in Kut. The main problem locally, they say, is the huge postwar increase in weddings, which has led to a rise in accidental shootings caused by celebratory gunfire. A third man, Hashem Ali, a former security official, joins them, and suddenly an argument breaks out. 'Iraqis should be proud of the attacks in Fallujah,' says the newcomer, adding that security was much better under Saddam. 'Yes, in the mass graves security was perfect,' says Hillal, to which Ali has no answer."Interesting look at what's going RIGHT in Iraq. Perhaps it isn't a country devolving into a 'Road Warrior' anarchism model after all - which must be horribly disappointing to some in the Left. For all the insistence by the left that the US military is completely unsuited to nation-building, that the military is too stupid to be able to salvage Iraq... it looks like they're wrong. Some 70 miles to the southwest, Nasiriyah General Hospital strains to keep up with demand. The city's other hospital—used as a base by Iraqi militiamen during the fighting—is in ruins. Still, Hassan Mahmoud, father of a 9-year-old boy who suffered head injuries from a fall from a second-floor window, is grateful for one thing. In the past, he says, one had to bribe doctors, nurses and administrators to get hospital care. "Now you don't need money to get a doctor. Now the doctors are honest," he says.Imagine a hospital in the US where you'd have to bribe someone to get care in an emergency room. People get care - even if they can't pay. Now, you don't need to bribe anyone to get care in Iraq. Guess we're doing a piss-poor job of reconstruction, eh? But the thing is, they might have been correct - at one time. In the late '70s, it would have been pretty tough to do what we've done in Iraq. We were pretty concentrated on a "USSR/NATO" scenario, with massive setpiece tank battles in the Fulda Gap. We really didn't think we had the equipment to do much more than slow down a Soviet advance while the diplomats tried to avoid a nuclear exchange, which would have been pretty darn likely if some Kremlin hothead had decided to take the chance of expanding the Motherland. Then the USSR swung down into Afghanistan, and that mistake started them on the road to dissolution. Could we have done a Gulf War 1 then? Maybe - but we'd have had a whole heck of a lot more casualties than we saw with GW1, much less GW2. In the 80s we rearmed, and we needed it badly. But with that rearming, you can be sure that the military examined a LOT of what they had planned, and did a lot of research to see if things WOULD have gone as planned. When it didn't look like it would have - they changed their plans. And they were VERY honest about it. Fiction aside, you've got to understand that there's pretty much NO nepotism in the military, and just because someone high-up thinks up a stupid plan doesn't mean that plan will be enshrined forever in the 'playbooks' of military tactics if it doesn't work. There's a lot of study of military history in our military today - and they LEARN from the mistakes of others. Which is why essentially the first folks on the ground in GW1 were the logistics squadrons and batallions - but that's another topic. The point is - the leftist thinking of the military as being a bunch of uneducated thugs is intellectually dishonest, and in the futur will prove to be a great embarassment to them. The military KNOWS it can't afford to reinvent the wheel in either strategy or tactics, and as far as logistics goes - Napoleon was right. An army marches on it's stomach - you don't have beans and bullets and blankets, you're not going to have an army for long. J. Flying Saucer Innards, Part 2 What motivates YOUR Alien? What moves him, what grooves him, what makes him dance the fandango on a Friday night? In this case, it was a 12 volt motor with attached gear train, with a wooden dowel attached. I wanted an up-and-down movement, but somehow the idea of sticking a, um... stick up Stitch's backside didn't really appeal. Sure, I could do an up&down using a CD as a cam, rig up a pivot point on it and have a stick shove Stitch up and down - but I wanted Stitch to "Pop" up into the cockpit bowl, not slowly rise up and down. So I came up with a lever & counterweight solution. The motor would push up the lever, which would drop Stitch. When a certain point was reached, the lever would start to drop quickly, popping Stitch back up into the bowl. There was a minor problem, however. (Naturally.) CDs are pretty tough - but when you drill into one, you seriously compromise it's integrity. (Much like any politician - you poke a hole in their rhetoric and their whole platform gets shakey.) It needed to be stiffened... so I figured the quickest solution would be to reinforce the disk with whatever was to hand. And, oddly enough, that turned out to be hot glue and a CD that was snapped in two. The two combined with hot glue was able to flex a bit to absorb the strain of meeting the lever, but not so much I'd worry about it snapping. Hot glue - it's GREAT stuff. So, we've got 1 12 volt motor. Next, we need to come up with lights. A friend at work told me about some speaker neon light rings for sale at WalMart. $5 - for 2 10" rings and a controller. Talk about a deal - I grabbed that quickly. Another friend told me she had two purple neon under-car rods that she'd taken off her car when the controller burned out, and she was willing to donate them to the cause. Turned out that the $5 controller would power them just fine, thank you! They may not be as bright as they'd have been with their original controller, but that wasn't really a concern (as you'll see later on.) Next - it's long. It's flexible. It's about 1/16th inch in diameter. AND it lights up. What is it? Stay tuned for our next installment of Flying Saucer Innards! Sunday, November 2
Flying Saucer Innards, Part 1 When designing a flying saucer, you've got to figure out what you're intending the thing to do. Do you want it to fly? Good luck there - if you've got a handy skyhook or a Dean Drive that works, you're in luck. However, for Halloween purposes, being on the ground was good enough. At a minimum, the thing needed to light up. This was easy. It'd be nice to have movement inside it. That... wasn't so easy, but doable, given the resources available at American Science Surplus if you're looking for bits, pieces, motors, gears, lights, this, that, and other stuff... well, I owe them a lot. (Well, I did - fortunately, the credit card bill wasn't high at all..) Got the gear train and motor assembly and a lot of costume parts, as well as a bunch of transformers of various voltages. And you've got to have some sort of Alien popping up. Ended up choosing one of the least offensive Aliens you could get - Stitch. Okay, if getting a fearsome alien from a Disney Store remainder bin ain't your cup of tea, choose your own. I won't be offended in the slightest. I rigged up a simple teeter-totter out of Aaron's Tinkertoys to test the concept - but if there's one thing that Tinkertoys lack, it's rigidity. Couldn't get a working lever, and I didn't want to superglue things together, so I sliced out a piece of 1x1 to serve as the lever arm and used the tinkertoy hubs to support an axel. So, we had a lever that was about 20 inches long - I rigged up a counterweight and positioned the motor and got everything balanced so Stitch would pop up in the front window of the flying saucer cockpit. And to do that, I needed two CDs. Why? I'll tell you in the next installment... Saturday, November 1
Making the Flying Saucer To all wondering about this stuff... For Halloween we had two flying saucers in the front yard. One had 'crashed' with a fog machine behind it and one of those fabric&light firery cauldron - the other one was the one that shot it down with neon tubes, internal neon, and Stitch popping up and down inside it. That was a lot of fun to rig up, with a teeter-totter arrangement to pop him up and down. It was a lot of work for just a few hours on a Friday night. I started this back around May - and did a lot of trial and error attempting to get a smooth surface on the foam I was trying to use. One problem was that the foam wasn't what I'd call 'dimensionally stable' - it expanded and contracted quite a bit. Ended up trashing the top piece - I just couldn't get it to stay in one shape. Edges would curl, the whole thing warped - I ended up using it for raw materials elsewhere. The bottom, made of more layers, warped some but nowhere near as much. I ended up doing the top out of different kinds of foamboard. But still there was the problem of getting a smooth surface on the whole thing, because the foam wasn't cutting it. I ened up slathering the thing over with black construction paper and 3M spray adhesive, type 77. Then, using aluminum foil, I got an interesting textured finish by rubbing it down with a foam block. It took quite a bit of paper and adhesive, and then there was the top to do. And the electricals - but that's something else to write about later. Thursday, October 30
FINISHED! Damn! It's about TIME! Oh, wait - I've gotta wire ANOTHER one? Damn. One more night. Two, three more hours. Then a test run. Then we've got to move it all. Damn. Aardvark Work business is never done. J. Well, YOU try to reconstruct Iraq The Onion's a satrical site - yet THIS one is spot on target, and hardly satirical. J. Wednesday, October 29
Sorry for the light blogging - something ... interesting ... is in the works. Couple more days, and I'll have more, but it's taking a lot of free time right now. J. Monday, October 27
FT.com Home US: "Bill Gates on Monday offered the first public look at Longhorn, the next generation of the Windows PC operating system that he said would be Microsoft's 'biggest release of this decade and the biggest since Windows 95.'"Aw, CRAP! We haven't even gotten XP rolled out, and he's talking about a new OS? Come on, Bill, give us a friggin' break here. On the good side - if we posulate that this new thing will come out in '07 (targeted for '06, but it's gonna slip, you know it...) and they roll it out at the plant 3 years later, that'll be 2010 - 7 years before I'm going to have to seriously worry about it. J. Saturday, October 25
Some Democratic Hopefuls Question Value of Debates: "WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — Their nearly weekly debates have been the biggest events of the season for the Democratic presidential candidates. They build their travel schedules around the televised encounters. Their aides devote hours to coming up with catchy retorts. And the forums draw more press coverage than anything else the candidates do.Then again, they might have learned something from Al Gore's performance. 3 televised debates, 3 different 'personas' - each one tuned to try for a different audience. And each one confusing the audience of the other two. So - no debate? That way, they can hide. What don't they want us to see? J. FOXNews.com - Views - ifeminists - Killing the Good Samaritan "... With no religious implication, I say: a devil is at large. He tells us that acts of kindness and common decency do not exist; the worst possible interpretation should be placed on acts that appear to embody those values. Individuals do not exist; only categories.The gentleman in question was under investigation for a heinous crime. What hideous offense did he commit? You will shudder when you read it.. and realize that if you're male it could all too easily happen to you. On a recent Thursday, two police officers appeared at Michael's house, apparently to investigate his stalking of a female OU student. Stalking is a serious crime, which is defined as "the willful, malicious and repeated following and harassing of another person." It can place a young man on a registry of sex offenders that could haunt his future and limit his options in life. Indeed, Oklahoma is a state in which convicted sex offenders must register his/her address, which is made available to the public. No wonder Michael suffered "a great deal of nerve-wracking anxiety" before being exonerated.It could happen to you. Find a purse and call the owner? You're a stalker. Find an ID card, and attempt to return it? Get a visit from the police and a record. And note - this woman didn't even give the guy a chance to return it - she immediately ASSUMED he was a stalker and called the police. Guilty until proven innocent. Isn't modern education wonderful? J. Thursday, October 23
OPERATION GIVE - Sending Smiles to IRAQ One Package at a Time This was started by Chief Wiggles. The main thrust, to send toys to Iraqi children. As the left would say, "it's for the children". This time - it really is. J. Wednesday, October 22
Few Viewers and Network Executives Scratch Their Heads: "AS the ratings have rolled in for the first three weeks of the new television season, one question has dominated the conversations inside the industry's executive suites: what the heck is going on?Seems simple to me. People will watch stuff that's entertaining, that's novel, or that's challenging. They'll watch programs that have characters they care about. They'll watch things like 'Who'd Like To Be A Millionaire?' because it's challenging. They'll watch stuff like reality TV, because it's different - at least for a while. The problem is, the networks tend to take stuff that's new and entertaining and xerox it out like crazy until the market is saturated. The viewer gets saturated - and the viewer finds something else to do. You'd think they'd realize that by now. J. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia in secret nuke pact "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have concluded a secret agreement on "nuclear cooperation" that will provide the Saudis with nuclear-weapons technology in exchange for cheap oil, according to a ranking Pakistani insider.See fan. See fecal material. See fecal material hit rotating fan... Many things come to mind when I see this - starting with a whole lot of verbalized obscenities (of which George Carlin's 7 words are on the extremely mild end...) and continuing onward into speculations that are NOT good at all. What happens when a theocracy that can EASILY justify killing unbelivers gets nukes? Which is willing to take massive losses to strike at the unbeliever? Are they going to try a 'You WILL convert or die' ultimatum? Will we lose Paris or LA, when they try to prove they're 'serious', and get embroiled in a religious war that will end up making the Crusades look like a Sunday picnic? This, if true, is a shitload of trouble coming at us. Let's hope it's... 1) Not true. 2) If true, that there's SERIOUS control of the warheads. 3) If no stringent control, that the leaders of whatever sect gets them realizes that to use one will insure a religious war that Islam has NO chance of winning. Because it doesn't, if the world gets cranked up and realizes that Islamic fundamentalists would willingly destroy the world if they don't get their way. You thought WW2 was something? That was 60 years ago. They may persuade themselves that they can win - but Saddam thought he could stop the US and he was the best prepared of any ME dictatorship to go toe-to-toe with the free world. And all his forces ended up as were speed bumps for our troops. God, I hope this is false. J. Tuesday, October 21
Cuba - Worker's Paradise or Hitchhiker Hell?: "When the Soviet Union stopped being able to support its client states, most of them abandoned socialism. Cuba didn't. One of the most obvious signs of this is on the roads: Cuba has become a nation of hitch-hikers.Worker's Paradise? Sure it is. Triumphant example of socialism? Uh huh. You know, somehow this doesn't make me think Marx or Lenin thought their ideas through to anything other than the conclusion THEY wanted. From what I've read, they did NOT think beyond a mythical future where everyone was happy under the socialist banner and gave no thought to any problems that might arise in their implementation of it. Thankfully, their ideas have been pretty well proven unworkable at this point. Like it or not, capitalism does work - and it's the wave of the future. J. Sunday, October 19
Political commentary morning... It's Sunday, and after reviewing the usual suspects - (Metafilter, Indymedia, DU (Democratic Underground - denser than depleted uranium but nowhere near so useful...) and others) - I'm really rather amazed. Amazed that for all the evil that the US does, for all the stifling of dissent Ashcroft's jackbooted thugs do, for all the heinous imprisonment and tortures that the Gubbermint does to anyone who dissents from Fuhrer Bush's 'Mien Kampf'-ish vision of American hegemony and absolute domination of the world (which includes, but is not necessarily limited to stealing all the oil in Iraq and all the chocolate in Switzerland, not to mention all the salt in the seas and almost all the oxygen in the air worldwide, leaving the poor heathens in other countries to gasp along at oxygen partial pressure levels equivalent to the top of Mount Everest) that they're still able to get on the Internet and publish without any sort of censorship or restrictions (because since the Internet grew from the DARPA it must actually be governmentally controlled, a plot to get the dissidents to expose themselves so they can be located easier...) and despite the fact that Bush has centuries of historical example of repressive governments to choose from (Hitler's Germany, Saddam's Iraq, the USSR, China under various leaders up to and including Mao, Japan pre WW2, and dozens of others) that Bush, who is at the same time the most stupid President we've ever had (Ignoring Warren G. Harding, I guess, he of the Teapot Dome scandal) and the most cunning who can wrap the UN around his little finger, (who started the Iraq war simply so his friends at Haliburton could profit - and somehow managed to get the UN to sign off on resolution #17 against the Iraqis) just can't seem to find the stones to collect up all the on-line traitors and ship them off to the concentration camps that have been built to house dissidents in the US. (It was on the Internet, so it must be so.) In other words, the stuff that's being spouted is the same as last week, the week before, and the week before. I wouldn't mind it if there were something new, but there isn't. Just frothing and seething and a selective disconnection from reality. Oh, one NEW bit of stuff.... Schwarzenegger's father was a Nazi. (Austria was taken over by Germany, as you may recall...) Bush's grandfather had Nazi ties, through a bank he was working at . Or, as found at... Documents show Bush had Nazi links : HTTabloid.com: "President George W Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.Now - what's interesting here is the following chain of associations. Thyssen belived that the Nazis were preferable to the Communists. Bush was one of 7 directors of a bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family. That bank apparently provided money to an industrialist who supported Hitler. Therefore, Bush's grandpa was a Nazi. Perfectly obvious, isn't it? Never mind that if you look at news back in the '30s, before Hitler started his aggressions, he wasn't seen as being terrible for Germany. And apparently, Naziism is hereditary. If it's something your parents or grandparents either did or financed (however indirectly) then YOU are a Nazi, too. Man, I gotta get a new hobby. J. California's Democratic Attorney General Admits He Voted for Republican Schwarzenegger - from Tampa Bay Online: "BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Attorney General Bill Lockyer, often mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for California governor in 2006, said Saturday he voted for Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in this month's recall election.Isn't that an interesting money quote? "'What Arnold Schwarzenegger represented for me was hope, optimism and change, and I want that.'"... Think about what that implies, coming from a Democratic attourney general, being groomed for governorship. He's basically screwed as far as the Dems are concerned - he's basically labeled the party as being without hope, stagnant, and pessimistic. Could be a lot of other Dems are seeing their 'party' the same way, which is why Schearzenegger got in with such a plurality. As far as it goes, it's really pretty clear that the Democrat party isn't 'progressive' any more, it's stopped being 'progressive' a long time ago. There's no new ideas, no political 'killer app' that'll suck folks back into the party, and it appears any new ideas are resisted. (At least, I haven't heard of anything new except a proposal to RAISE taxes, which looks to be a non-starter." Instead they want a static political electorate, one that follows blindly when the Democratic party platform changes direction. They're not looking for change, they're looking to be against any Republican initiatives or proposals, and they'll try hard to tear down or denigrate any progress the Repubs make. How long until people get disillusioned with that? Or, to be more precise, how long until ENOUGH people are sufficiently disillusioned that they bail? Guess California is finding out.... J. Friday, October 17
CBC News: Physicists smash internet speed record: "The land record was set on Oct. 1 by transferring 1.1 terabytes of data over a 7,000-kilometre link in less than 30 minutes, the team said.Now, when they get that for wifi, I'll be REAL impressed. Wonder what that'd be called - 802.11X? Thursday, October 16
Bush's foreign policy "not good for the world": Madeleine Albright: "In an interview with the Europe 1 station Albright heavily criticised the actions of the Republican leadership that replaced the Democratic administration she worked for, and notably the 'chaos' that reigns in Iraq.Oooh. She spoke French in France. How impressive. (And yes, I'm monolingual. Unless you count being able to converse intelligibly with aerospace engineers and computer folk, AND secretaries.) So - how much chaos was in Iraq before we took over? The Marsh Arabs had undergone an ecological catastrophe, at Saddam's hands. His people were starving, they were terrorised, but we shouldn't have done anything while we were in the area, right? On Iraq, Albright said "I fear that there really is chaos there. We don't know what's going to happen. One or two Americans a day are killed."With all due respect, I think this woman's kind of out of the loop. "I don't understand why the war happened now"? Where was she on 9/11? Overseas somewhere apologizing for America's existence? Perhaps, just perhaps, she doesn't know as much as she thinks she does about the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, if she goes by media reports she's going to think it's a quagmire. One or two Americans a day dead? Terrorists flocking to Iraq to kill Americans? Slavering to kill US soldiers? Well, they're doing a damn poor job of it. As far as the flocking goes - this woman's old enough to know about flypaper. *Sigh* The folks who were in Clinton's administration aren't showing themselves to be the brightest stars in the firmnament, are they? J. Sometimes, things make no darn sense to me at all. No, I'm not talking about world politics, or the California Elections. Both of those are scrutable - in one case you've got fanatical hatreds coming out with chances to backstab, in the other it's just the folks who hate the US doing the same thing their California brethren are doing. SSDD, and I'm not referring to single-sided, double density disks, either. I'm talkin' wireless networks here. I'm puzzled by a problem I ran into. When we got OfficeMax for Aaron, I figured the easiest (and cheapest) way to attach it to the Internet with a wireless hub/router. Linksys was selling an 802.11b router about $100 at Circuit City, so I picked one up and brought it home, along with a wireless PCI card for Max. I could string cable, drill through walls and all that - but I'm looking to get the job done as easily as possible - and going through crawlspaces doesn't fit that criteria. Wireless did. I'm lazy, given two solutions that cost an equivalent amount I'll go for the easier of the two. That easier in this case mean even more options was gravy. When John Bouler brought over Delila (A Dell Laptop) it only made sense to get a wireless card for it. Woo, wireless surfing! We be in the tall cotton now! Except... my preferred laptop couch potato spot seems to be sufficiently 'shielded' by the rest of the house that the router signal is greatly attenuated. This wasn't much of a problem, really, until I started doing some work in the garage and wanted internet music off the laptop - and I got cutouts like crazy. So, to recap... the following Linksys parts were in the existing network. Wireless router - BEFW11S4 Wireless PCMCIA card - WPC11 - in Delila. Wireless PCI Card - WMP11 - in Max. Each respective item installed slicker than vaseline on a doorknob. No problems, zip ping bang and there's IE saying the Internet was accessable. So everything worked, pretty much, except for some severe range issues on the laptop. But hey, looking at it in a linear fashion there's about two, three solid feet of wood, plasterboard and various items between the router and my preferred potato spot. So - something had to give. Browsing on the Linksys site, I found reference to a WSB24 signal booster. Easy install, just plug in a couple of cables, move some antennas around, and Bing! You've got bandwidth! (Got any hints as to what's about to happen? Thought so...) Got the booster. Set it up. And BING! I've got bandwidth and to spare on Delila. Signal? Signal?! More signal than you knew what to DO with! It was great.... Then Max went deaf as a damn post. No signal, not a single glimmer that there was a router trying to talk to it. Took off WEP, same problem. Removed the booster - and it was fine. Put the booster back on, and it was 'You talkin' to ME?' time again. But Delila, the little tramp, was chattering away like crazy. I surfed, trying to find a clue. Redid my WEP settings, no joy. Reloaded drivers - ditto. With the booster in, Max was deaf. Without - he was fine. WEP? No problem. IPConfig release & renew? Yep. No problem, so long as nobody was 'shouting' at him. Acting on bits, hints and odd references I was able to find, I changed the channel the router was using from the default 6 to 8 - with no joy. Actually, the symptoms changed a bit - from no connection to a 1 mbit connection with intermittent disconnects. So, still surfing, I spotted a reference to changing the channel from 6 to 1 or 11 in cases like this. Something was yammering in the 2.4 ghz channel 6-8 spectrum, and Max was offended enough to shut his 'ears' off. (And no, it wasn't Delila - even when she was off, the problem persisted.) So I set the channel to 11, off of 8. And it worked WELL. I set up WEP, got connected, and it ran without a hitch. Surfin'g faster than ever - and the couch spot went from 13-20% to 60+. I'm happy about that, but I'm a bit steamed about the hardware issues. 3 hours spent trying to install a LITERALLY plug and play device, a simple add-in, where my initial router setup took less than fifteen minutes. And that included stripping off the shrinkwrap. Why would boosting a signal cause a problem like that? Anyone got any ideas? J. Tuesday, October 14
LindaY asked - "What's Pal Mickey?" Well, here's a bit of info on him... Pal Mickey And a bit of discussion on him >here< It's actually a neat little device - apparently the nose is an IR receiver (possibly wi-fi, since the little stinker vibrated a number of times when I couldn't spot anything resembling a transmitter head), and a computer inside it tells jokes, plays games, and gives hints, tips, and info. I'm not sure it's worth the money, but what the heck - isn't vacation time for spending money like water on stuff you normally wouldn't think of getting? (You should see my pin trading lanyard! AAGH!) Gizmodo Link This Disney Web Site link suggests it's a wireless critter, not IR. Hmm. Wonder if I can get it on the lan? (grin) You ask, I try to answer! J. Sunday, October 12
We went down to Disney - but where did we stay? The Port Orleans Riverside resort. An aerial view of it is here... Port Orleans Resort And this one's approximately centered on the pool that Aaron liked ... Pool Shot - Right side of Island Our room was to the north-northwest of that island with the pool, and the food court/lobby was to the SW, just across the bridge from the island. Yep, it was a ways to the food court. One odd thing I noticed was a section that looked a lot like an airstrip. I even commented to Sue on it. Later on, I found out that Walt Disney used to have his personal plane land there. Racetrack-road-airstrip There's the racetrack (where folks can live out their racing fantasies, notice the 'natural' lake in the middle of it...) then the main road to the Disney Parking Lot (and boy, I'll bet THAT thing creates thermals in the middle of the summer) then the airstrip. No hangar or support facilities evident - I'd guess that any plane was actually based elsewhere. Of course, they could have been removed... If you pan up a bit further, you'll see a lot more of the Magic Kingdom from the air... J. Disney hints.... It's difficult to find inexpensive Internet access while on the property. There's terminals in various locations - but you'll have to stand while using them. As far as food and other tips goes... 1. If you’re staying at a resort for four days or more, definitely get a set of mugs at the food court. Drinks are a minimum of $1.89+ no matter where you are, you’re going to amortize it out really fast if you’re eating in the food court for breakfast or lunch, and getting a daily drink for a snack. If you eat two meals a day in the food court (as we did on some days, plus drinks when we were at the central pool) it's surprising how fast they'll pay for themselves. Food’s costly anywhere on the property in DW, so find the ‘cheap’ food where you can. It helps if you look on the food courts as fueling stations, instead of gourmet dining. Figure a minimum of $10/person/meal – excluding snacks. This figures drinks into the cost, BTW – our first dinner in the food court cost about $60, but we got three mugs. The omelette breakfasts are good-sized, but slow. As far as I’m concerned the most cost-effective meal at the resort food courts is breakfast. $6 for scrambled eggs, potatoes, and sausage may sound high, but it’s a good-sized meal and should last you till mid-afternoon. (At least, it did for me.) Think slightly more expensive Waffle House. If you’re of a mind to go the really cheap route, you can get a side of grits and a side of oatmeal for breakfast – that’ll probably last you till dinner and it’ll be less than $4. Dinners aren’t bad – the POR had a blackened prime rib sandwich that was kind of costly, but it was a large piece of meat about 3/8ths inch thick. Very tasty, and filling with the accessories. Also tried the spagetti and meatballs – I liked the sauce a lot, it didn’t have an overly sweet taste like many commercial sauces do. Popcorn’s relatively cheap ($2.80 a box, $3.20 a bucket) and cheaper than at the movies. That, and a drink, and you’ll be full till dinner. Plus, the bucket makes a good Pal Mickey coffin. (See below.) 2. The Disney Transportation System is pretty effective. Don’t expect to-the-minute precision, you won’t get it – but they’ll get you to and from the parks if you’re at a resort. 3. The lifeguards don’t get to the central pools much before 10 AM, so don’t expect the fun stuff like the water slides to be operating before then. 4. REST! Take a daytime break, go back to the room and rest up. You may begrudge the time, but you’ll be REAL glad you did. 5. Lower your expectations. If you’re traveling with a 5 year old, intending to give him/her the experience of a lifetime, you’re going to be disappointed. The parks aren’t really for them, much as you’d like to think otherwise. It’ll be hot, it’ll be uncomfortable, and the kid’s not going to see much except the backsides of the people in line in front of him. You’ll be cranky, because your normally well-behaved darling is cranky as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. See #4 above – if you’re pushing things to do as much as possible, it’s time to step back and figure out if you’ll have more fun in the park, cranky and miserable, or back at a pool playing in a water slide. 6. In fact, it’s hard to figure out who the parks are FOR – my little boy had more fun in the fountain in Downtown Disney and the central pool with a slide than he really did in the parks – though he DID like Test Track. We went through that three times. So perhaps it’s geared for teens – there certainly were enough of them. But kids? Babies? Ect? Nah. No way. Also, if you’re thinking about using a stroller – go right ahead. Watch out for ankles, okay? And keep the blasted thing out of the area between “It’s a Small World” and “Peter Pan” okay? There they had the things six deep on the Small World side, three deep on the Peter Pan side – so there was maybe a 10-15 feet wide corridor everyone funnels through. This can get really frustrating, real fast. This is not fun. 7. The FastPass system WORKS! Use it early, use it often. Sometimes there’s an opportunity to get FastPasses from a guy who is taking care of a malfunctioning FastPass machine – the passes you’ll get from him aren’t against your ticket, and you can get others immediately. There’s no such thing as a FastPass for the Fantasmic show at MGM – but the next best thing is to get one of the ‘Fantasmic’ dinner specials which you can find referenced at Intercot. Eat at Hollywood and Vine, or the Brown Derby, and you can get preferred seating. This is a Very Good Thing. There’s no bad seats in the stadium seating for Fantasmic – but some are better than others. Sit approximately in the middle of a section, the special effects work best there. 8. Sometimes you’ll get a “Surprise” Fastpass for another attraction, along with the pass you’re requesting. The time we got it, there was a 15 minute window, which we missed. And depending on your timing, sometimes you won’t need a FastPass at all. Mickey’s PhilHarmagic is darn near empty the first time or three after Fantasyland reopens after the nightly fireworks display. Other rides at park closing are likely to be almost empty, too – as people try to get out before the rush. Good thing to do, if you can manage it. See #4 above - take a nap for energy! BTW, Fantasyland WILL be cleared for ‘Wishes’ – because they’ve apparently got to wash it down afterward. We got there about ten minutes or so after the end of ‘Wishes’ on 9 October, and the streets were wet. Be prepared to be shoved out gently. 9. The SchoolBread in the Norwegian bakery in Epcot is a real bargain – it may look like a cocoanut covered bagel, but it’s filled with sweet cream and is well worth the price. The cloudberry-cream filled horns, however, aren’t worth the money – at least for us. The sweet pretzels, however – yum! Get several, carry them away, snack on them later. 10. Pal Mickey – eh. Some folks swear by them, some folks swear at them on Intercot – I wish we’d rented one instead of buying it. Aaron wasn’t impressed enough with it to carry it around, though he did find it interesting while waiting in lines. Maybe if he were 4, it would have been different. However – what is, is. I found it useful a couple of times, and when we come back I’ll drag the little rodent along. (Plus, he fits nicely inside a popcorn bucket along with spare change and other misc stuff when packing up to go home.) 11. Get a belt pouch with a transparent window on it – it’s useful for ID. I've got what we call a FOD pouch that's Lockheed issue, don't have a source for outside purchase yet. I'll see if I can find one. 12. If you’ve got a digital camera, take extra batteries. Lithium batteries weren’t available except for high priced ones. Nobody will object if you bring your own batteries – and you can get them significantly cheaper than Disney will sell them to you. All in all, it was a great trip. More later! Saturday, October 4
Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage - Polish Troops Find New French Missiles in Iraq : "WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish troops in Iraq have found four French-built advanced anti-aircraft missiles which were built this year, a Polish Defense Ministry spokesman told Reuters Friday.And we wondered why France was so... adamant that we not go to war. Hmmm. J. Thursday, October 2
Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage : U.S. Report Fails to Link Gun Laws to Violent Crime : "ATLANTA (Reuters) - A report published by the Centers for Disease Control on Thursday found no conclusive evidence that gun control laws help to prevent violent crime, suicides and accidental injuries in the United States. Critics of U.S. firearms laws, which are considered lax in comparison with most other Western nations, have long contended that easy access to guns helped to fuel comparatively high U.S. rates of murder and other violent crimes." Wonder how long it'll be until HCI denounces the CDC? J. Wednesday, October 1
Eject! Eject! Eject! - POWER: "I must say that for a racist, mass-murdering nation of Nazis bent on terrorizing poor brown people by blowing as many of them to bits as possible, this is rather an anemic effort. How many American and British lives were lost in Iraq due to our self-imposed reluctance to level, at the merest lift of a finger, the building of city block from which our troops were taking fire? How bitterly disappointed must be the barking moonbats of the lunatic left, that we who had the power to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians to limit our own losses saw fit to stay our own hand? Unilaterally, without prior UN approval. There was not a solitary Belgian in sight to instruct us in morality.Bill Whittle's latest is up. And he's got some INTERESTING things to say. The above paragraph? Not even close to the top of the list... J. Why not just genetically engineer women for milk? | News and Events - Mothers against genetic engineering New Zealand Ummm... NSFW. Fior the Indymedia crowd - a song. Sung by the Wicked Witch of the West in the movie "The Wiz": (BTW, read "bad" news as being anything positive about the country, the world economy, the war on terror, the situation in Afghanistan, the situation in Iraq, starving people in Africa where GM foods have been banned, progress in the Israeli-Palestinian mess, indications that global warming isn't as bad as it has been thought, indications that global cooling isn't as cold as it should be, that the ozone hole in the Antarctic isn't growing, OR news about rapes by Muslims in Scandinavia rising. The preceeding list is not all inclusive - anything that might be construed as good for the status quo or the vast majority of people in the world is automatically 'bad' news, and will be ignored accordingily.) Charlie Smalls Lyrics - Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News (Sung by Mabel King & The Winkies) Lyrics. the Wiz Soundtrack Lyrics: " Artist: Charlie Smalls Lyrics Song: Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News (Sung by Mabel King & The Winkies) Lyrics When I wake up in the afternoon Which it pleases me to do Don't nobody bring me no bad news 'Cause I wake up already negative And I've wired up my fuse So don't nobody bring me no bad news If we're going to be buddies Better bone up on the rules 'Cause don't nobody bring me no bad news You can be my best of friends As opposed to payin' dues But don't nobody bring me no bad news No bad news No bad news Don't you ever bring me no bad news 'Cause I'll make you an offer, child That you cannot refuse So don't nobody bring me no bad news When you're talking to me Don't be cryin' the blues 'Cause don't nobody bring me no bad news You can verbalize and vocalize But just bring me the clues But don't nobody bring me no bad news Bring some message in your head Or in something you can't lose But don't you ever bring me no bad news If you're gonna bring me something Bring me, something I can use But don't you bring me no bad news" More good news from Iraq. Why We Are Winning in Iraq And it's rather strange how some folks (specifically Indymedia types) not only don't want to see stuff like this posted on their sites (Independent media? Right...) but will savagely denounce it as pro-war propaganda. Hey, it's their priveledge, but it strikes me that they're fooling themselves with this stuff. I like to think of myself as being reasonably rational. I can look at an issue, find out enough information on it to make a decision, and then go ahead and act on the results of that decision. If there isn't sufficient information, I'll delay making a decision. If the information I've got is suspect, then I'll delay making a decision until I can verifty it. I'll try like hell not to make a decision based on emotion, because when I've done that in the past, it's come back to bite me bigtime. Indymedia seems to run primarily on emotion, not rational thought. Was the war justifiable? To me, the answer is yes - we acted on information that was good enough for Clinton, we waited 12 years for Saddam to comply with the UN, we were getting stories out of Iraq showing that country was a hellhole for anyone even SUSPECTED of being disloyal to Saddam (and since verified by a whole lot of folks in Iraq who finally felt free to talk about what was happening) and what you heard from the Indymedia Peace At Any Price crowd was that none of this was worth going to war over. Separately, no. Combined - yes. But after having invested so much emotional energy into showing how bad the US was for beating up on poor innocent Saddam (pardon, I mean Iraq) you'd think they'd be looking at what the Iraqis have to say and LISTENING to them... But they aren't. Their current news page and hidden news pages show what they'd prefer be seen. And their comments on the "Well, maybe Iraq isn't a quagmire after all, and things ARE getting better" posts... oil theif GW Bush... are telling. One of the things about growing up (as opposed to growing old) is that at some point you're going to start questioning your own infallability and knowledge. To me, the hallmark of adulthood is being able to go "Okay, what I am certain of may be wrong, and I need to get more information and rethink this." Based on that criteria, there's not a lot of adults commenting over at Indymedia. J. Tuesday, September 30
Johann Hari - Archive - The Iraqi Homecoming My Iraqi exile friends return to their country. : "There has been a boom industry in Iraq of videos showing real footage of Saddam's crimes. They include horrifying scenes of his acts of torture. 'People watch it compulsively because they feel they need to know what happened,' Sama told me. 'Here in Britain, people know more about what happened during the Saddam years than Iraqis do, because they had no way of finding out the truth.'Yet some say we should have left Saddam alone... Read the whole thing. It's optimistic, it's hopeful, and that's something you won't see on the news at all. J. Monday, September 29
Viewers aren’t rushing back to shows: "NEW YORK, Sept. 29 — Television viewers didn’t exactly rush to their sets to catch up on old favorites during the first week of the new season. The audience for NBC’s “Friends” season premiere was down by 28 percent from last year’s season opener. For CBS’ “CSI: Miami,” it was down 25 percent. “Frasier”: down 31 percent. “NYPD Blue”: down 22 percent. “ER”: down 13 percent."Gee. Wonder why? Couldn't have been because it's the same old pap warmed over and stuffed back into the glass teat, could it? Or that viewers are tired of the stuff they've been seeing the last decade or so? The tired formulas, the lame jokes, the eternal sameness? Heck, even Enterprise and the Star Trek world is having problems. Time for something new, something intriguing. Good luck in finding it... J. The Truth Laid Bear: The New Weblog Showcase: "1063) MilBlog 11 visits/day (2408)" Woo-HOO! I AM somebody! I EXIST! People READ me! Whee! Hey, you find your excitement where you can... J. McGraw-Hill Construction | ENR - Reconstruction in Iraq If you're looking to see what's really going on with the rebuilding of Iraq, you could do a lot worse than look at this site. Enjoy. J. I may have been career Air Force, but that doesn't mean I can't laugh at another service's jokes! Military Jokes - Military Humor - Military Satire - Military Witticisms: Murphy’s Laws of Armor 1. Just after you report “Redcon 1” (Readiness Condition 1 - ready to move out right "now") for your qualification run, you will realize that you desperately need to take a leak. 2. The fuel truck will run out of fuel just before he gets to your tank. 2a. You will run out of fuel before he returns. 3. Tanks don’t float. 4. If a supply sergeant is given a choice between death and going to the field with his unit, he will ask for a few minutes to “Think it over.” 5. Attempting to help recover a mired tank will only result in your tank becoming mired also. 6. The primary purpose of an operations order is to ensure that all blame falls on the line units. 6a. For this reason, the staff will not publish an operations order until after the exercise is completed. 7. Night vision devices will only fail at night. 7a. They will function perfectly once the sun rises. 8. The dirtier and more tired you are, the less appreciative you become of “constructive criticism” from somebody in a pristine uniform. 9. The heater on your tank will fail in October. The part to repair it will arrive in April. 10. No matter how minor the ailment, a visit to the medics will result in an I.V. 10a. Arguing with the medics about this will result in your being evacuated in a neck brace and back board (in addition to the I.V.). 11. When loading the main gun, remember: “pointy end first.” 12. The only times you will throw a track (that flexible band of metal and rubber the tank travels on) are: a. At night, b. in the rain, c. during the movement back to garrison, or d. one hour after you installed the new ones. 13. Your vehicle will go NMC (Not Mission Capable - deadlined ) right after the contact team leaves the AO (Area of Operations). 14. All infantry fighting vehicles don’t look alike. 15. Shaking trees to your front mean that you are being hunted by helicopters. 16. When you are told your engineer support was needed elsewhere, the bridge will be out. 17. The exercise will finish and you’ll get back to garrison just after the wash rack (where tanks are cleaned) closes. 18. If all else fails, shoot at the muzzle flashes — the larger ones are the dangerous ones, the smaller ones are infantry. 18a. The infantry muzzle flashes you ignore are covering an anti-tank team setting up. 19. “Rebel yells” are not proper FM radio procedure after a successful Table VIII (The tank crew qualification test a 10 engagement run on a tank range which tank crews must successfully complete in order to be a qualified crew. Like going to the rifle range for a qualification of expert) shoot. 20. XO math: 3 pacs on the ground + no fueler + 2 deadlines = 100% FMC (Fully Mission Capable). 21. Close air support is safest from far away. 22. Proving that three feet of frontal armor protection will defend against any threat is probably best demonstrated on someone else’s track. 23. Hearing an “Aw, shit” soon after an “on-the-waaay!” means you’re probably not getting that promotion. 24. Tanks are very easy to see unless you’re dismounted and they’re backing up. 25. The one time you skip the firing circuit test is when you have the misfire. 26. “GUNNER, SABOT, SNIPER” (firing an anti-tank shell at a sniper) is not an appropriate use of ammunition. 27. It is cruel to tell NBC types “Damn, that Fox (NATO chemical/biological/nuclear weapons detection vehicle) looks like a BMP (Russian made armored vehicle used by many countries, like Iraq)!” — particularly when live rounds are being issued. 28. Blackout drive + autobahn + 0345 = polizei. 29. Unsecured turrets will only swing freely mid-way through a rail tunnel. 30. When doing a gunnery, the tank is always operational until you get to the ready line. 31. If you are promised “downtime,” what they really mean is: You will be breaking track. 32. First sergeant math: Buy Gatorade for $1.49 each and sell for $1.00 each — with the profits going to the unit fund. |
