Signs of the times

Remember that show from the 70's 80's, V?

Based on the shambling zombie of an old scifi cliche, bipedal evil lizardpeople disguised as human beings (cloaked in clever Hollywood latex no doubt) come to Earth in giant flying saucers. Their world was dying due to - wait for it - lack of water. So they invaded Earth to steal ours. Using giant vacuum cleaners they sucked all the water up to their spaceships in order to transport it a gazillion billion miles back to lizardworld - presumably to fill swimming pools and keep their golf courses green.

Even as a kid I knew just how utterly stupid this concept was. No matter what technology they possessed, it would have been impossible for the aliens to move the sheer volume of water necessary to refresh their world. And more to the point, if the lizard civilization commanded the fantastically enormous resources and energy implicit their plan, they'd have been far better served to bend that technology towards finding, or creating, the resources they needed closer to home. Instead, they embarked on an ill-fated long range military conquest in order to maintain their flawed and failing lifestyle. Stupid, idiotic, and inevitably doomed to failure.

Thirty years later I wonder if the producers of that ridiculous show aren't slapping each other on the back for their foresight and prophetic vision. Because we're living that scenario right now - only we are the stupid lizard people.

Oil prices have hit record highs every morning for the last month, continuing a dizzying climb that's been going on for over two years. There are many causes for this. Increasing desperation and panic, war and conflict, uncontrolled population growth, short-sighted and self-serving leadership, idiotic energy policies, Gordian-knot regulations and taxation that continues to drive up energy costs without paying any tangibles dividends, the uncontrolled greed and avarice of those who control the assets - both those who produce energy and the parasites who trade it on the open market, an entrenched technology and industrial complex that smothers innovation and steadfastly refuses to invest in real alternatives in any significant way, our throwaway economy, and our own arrogant refusal to economize or demand a change in our infrastructure. Ultimately though, it comes down to one thing and one thing only - simple supply and demand.

Demand exceeds supply, it's really just that simple. There are too many thirsty lizards in the pond. Either we need a bigger pond, or we need less lizards or we need to get off our scaly asses and find a better way to do business.

There isn't enough oil. Oh sure, there's enough in the ground - for the moment. But it's getting harder and harder to get it out, it's either in war zones or unfriendly countries, or it's in remote and difficult to reach terrain and unless we find vast and heretofore unknown reserves beneath our oil refineries that isn't going to change. Despite advances in technology, it's getting harder to get the oil out of the ground in sufficient quantities. It's getting harder to move oil in high enough volume to where it can be refined. It's getting harder to process it in sufficient bulk to meet demand and in sufficient diversity to meet hundreds of self-serving federal, state, and local blend requirements. And it's getting harder to move the final product to where it can be used. And the end user, far from reducing need, continues to demand greater and greater volume in order to support some idealized wish fulfillment fantasy of the American Dream. Every single step of the process contributes to increasing scarcity and cost. Every single step.

As a result it costs more, a lot more. And it's only going to get worse. There may be brief respites from increasing energy costs, but unless significant changes are made, those respites are going to be further apart and fewer in number and increasingly less significant. Eventually, we will reach a point of no return - the point where we simply do not have the resources and innovation to do something about it, even if it means the demise of our civilization. History is rife with such examples, from Rome to the British Empire to the Soviet Union.

The signs have been all around us for over forty years, but up until recently we've had enough reserve in our economy to allow most Americans to go blithely on fiddling while the city burns. But oil powers everything in our economy, everything, and the cracks are getting wider, and no amount of patching is going to cover them up.

In addition to the obvious things such as the gleeful pronouncement by the news organizations every morning of record prices, and the blustering and grandstanding of the politicians, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth by my fellow citizens, some significant indicators I've noticed are:

- Car companies are starting to promote smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles. TV advertisements are shifting away from the monster SUV's. However, if you look a bit deeper, you'll see that this situation is merely clever marketing. American car companies haven't stopped building monster SUV's and not one has committed to building strictly fuel efficient or alternative fuel vehicles. GM has a test Hybrid pickup available only in California, and only because it was mandated by law, they're not making it available elsewhere and neither are other manufacturers. They don't want you to buy it. The reason for this is that manufactures are betting that the current oil situation is only temporary, and as soon as the storm passes they'll go right back to the massive eight cylinder, 350 cubic inch, four-barreled, Hemi-carbureted, Viagra induced wet-dream they've been promoting for the last two decades. Is this their fault? Not entirely. While they may have put the idea in our heads, we bought it. And continue to buy it and refuse to demand a change.

- Truckers are up in arms. They've marched, er driven, on Washington to demand relief from impossible fuels costs. They haven't yet marched on Peterbilt, Ford, or Volvo to demand development of more efficient or alternative fueled tractors though, and they haven't removed those giant king-sized sleeper cabs that add tons weight to a significant number of long haul rigs. There is little innovation in the shipping industry and every year sees an increase in the volume of long haul over-road transportation, rather than a shift to more efficient container-based rail transportation between regional distribution hubs. And before anybody gets up in arms over my apparent targeting of the heroic truckers, you should know that I have a commercial driver's license and extensive experience driving tractor/trailer rigs for the military, and my wife works in the shipping industry - I'm familiar with the process, thanks.

- The collapse of the home mortgage industry, which was driven directly by a slowing economy and inflation, caused by soaring oil prices. All the little things are adding up, and increasingly people simply can't meet their monthly payments. This hasn't stopped them from taking out loans with insanely compounding interest rates however. And once you have the house, you have to have the boat to put in the driveway, and the monster truck to pull it. Americans still live with the idea that it just can't happen to them, but it does and is and it's happening more and more frequently now.

- As a direct result of the mortgage collapse, the homeless population is reaching new highs. In addition to the drunks and the addicts and the mentally ill, it's becoming a way of life for a significant number of the middle class here in America and there's not much sympathy, or aid, to go around. Cities, such as Santa Barbara, California have given up trying and have simply resigned themselves to the fact.

- The number of gas station drive-offs is up geometrically. There is some indication that thieves are stealing credit cards and license plates specifically to facilitate drive-off theft; it's becoming an sub-industry of the criminal underworld. In some cases, thieves will jack a large truck or SUV, fill the tank at a local station and drive off without paying, siphon out the gas and sell it - and abandon the worthless vehicle. Police increasingly are not following up on reported drive-offs, even if the perpetrator is caught on camera, because the shear volume of gasoline thefts is overwhelming their available manpower. There has been a significant increase in outright volume theft, i.e. thieves forcing the locks on storage tanks at gas stations, school bus depots, and other such storage facilities and taking hundreds of gallons. Gas stations and bulk storage facilities are having to implement round the clock security, driving costs up even higher. Additionally, gasoline theft from parked vehicles, both private vehicles and agricultural and commercial equipment, has doubled or even tripled in some areas. Exact figures vary depending on source and region, and not not every supplier is willing to provide precise data, fearing that it will make them an easier target - i.e. some franchise gas stations are not allowed by their parent companies to implement a pre-pay option, because the company does not want to invest in the equipment necessary. The sale of locking gas caps is up significantly.

- I've noticed that people are driving a bit slower on the highways. I've always driven the speed limit and I notice lately that others are too. There's been no real talk of returning to the widely unpopular, and widely flouted, 55mph national speed limit imposed by Nixon during the OPEC embargo of the 70's, but then again it's an election year.

- I've notice that there are less folks in the grocery store and a lot more in the bulk food stores.

- The cost of a 12-pack of Killian's Irish Red has gone from $10.95 to $18.59 in less than a year. People are switching to cheaper beer.

- A new form of energy related spam has appeared in my inbox. While the government and industry may be mired in their ways, grifters and scam artists are nothing if not innovative. Lately I've gotten daily messages advertising suppressed technology that purports to turn water into gasoline - a reemergence of the old Brown's Gas (Oxyhydrogen and/or Aquagas) scam from the 70's. I get spam for 'magnetic molecular fuel alignment systems' (magnetism, is there nothing it can't do?) and Tesla technology that will give me 100 plus miles per gallon, or even free me completely from oil's greasy shackles. I've seen ads in recent additions of reputable magazines for bio-diesel reactors and a home ethanol distiller that purports to make all your gasoline from sugar and grass clippings. Somebody is buying this crap. And the scams come in all sizes from the small to the large, from the single slick con artist selling magic herbal fuel additives to an entire bogus medicine show that is doing its level best to sell us rubes on the idiotic assumption that converting highly efficient food producing cropland into inefficient ethanol snake oil is a really, really good idea.

I could go on, the signs are all around us, but I won't. Should we be afraid? Yes. Should we be pissed? Yes. Should we be depressed? No. We have the technology, the resources, and the innovation to do something about it. We're not lizards, we don't have to go the way of the dinosaurs. Far from spelling our doom, this crisis can lead to real innovation and force a change to our civilization that is long, long overdue.

It's an opportunity, and the time to take advantage of it is now, while we still can.

Cool new gadget, continued

We took the new Delorme GPS unit out for a test drive this weekend.

My son was over at a friend's house for the day, so my wife and I got a rare afternoon of hiking and exploring by ourselves. We went down to the Matanuska River and spent a couple of hours - and it was nice to be able to poke along the water without having to constantly keep an eye on the kid.

We left the truck at the Palmer River Park, and followed the trails through the campground down to the river bed, just above the bridge on the Old Glenn Highway.

It was sunny and warm in the valley and we wandered along the river plain looking for cool rocks and driftwood as is our habit. And as always in Alaska, even the mundane scenery was fantastic.

I have high resolution topographic maps of the entire region loaded in the PN-20, and before we left home I downloaded a bunch of geocache locations into it from the links on Google Earth. While my wife hunted for interesting rocks for the rock polisher, I wandered up and down the river bank playing with the GPS unit. It worked better than advertised and I was routinely locking onto a minimum of ten satellites and getting position fixes good to within a couple of feet.

We walked a couple of miles up the river before getting to the first cache - which we couldn't find. Someone has either taken it, or its hiding place was too obscure for us. But the second one was right where the Delorme said it should be, and after a second or two of poking around my wife found it under a log. We noted our find in the log, took nothing and left nothing, and went inland following a trail. The path was a little, uh, damp in places from the spring runoff. Note: if you go hiking in Alaska, you're going to want good, waterproof hiking boots, just saying.

We somehow ended up behind the Palmer Municipal ball park, where a bunch of kids were playing Saturday afternoon little league. While working our way back down the hill, following the GPS back towards where we'd left the truck, I came across an old cottonwood tree stump. It's hard to tell from the picture, but that burl is about 6 feet in diameter. If only there had been some way for me to cut it off and haul all two tons of it back to the truck, imagine the bowls it would make.

All in all we walked about four miles and explored parts of our neighborhood that we hadn't seen before. It was a pretty good day.

Now, in the old days, especially back when I used wet-film cameras, I kept a notebook in my pocket and wrote down where and when I took each picture, but the Delorme PN-20 and TopoUSA 7.0 software package has a unique feature which I wanted to take advantage of. First I needed to make sure the camera's clock was set to the correct time and date in order to ensure the time stamp on each picture was correct. I normally use a Sony professional model D770, but for this hike I didn't want to lug it along and instead used my little Pentax Optio S4. The clock was way off, so I synced it to the GPS before taking any pictures. After the hike I downloaded the GPS track data to the TopoUSA software and then downloaded the Pentax's SD chip to the computer using the Vista media downloader. Then, using the GeoTagger function in TopoUSA, I synced the pictures to our recorded route on the map. Since the GPS unit records our position about once a second, it is easy for the software to determine exactly where I was standing when each picture was taken (providing that both the GPS and camera clocks are synced, hence the need for setting the camera's clock correctly. The GPS unit syncs its clock automatically to the global standard via the satellites). TopoUSA will then insert a thumbnail, an icon, or a hyperlink to the picture file at the correct position on the map. I tried it all three ways, and decided that I like the icon option best.

In the screenshot, the red track on the map is our route, and each camera icon is where I took a picture. Clicking on the icon opens the picture in the default viewer. Additionally, you can add notes to each picture on the map or in the picture's data file, or both. Since both my Pentax and the Sony record detailed information about each picture (e.g. the camera settings at the time of capture), I get far more information about each picture than I ever did with the old method of recording each photo by hand in a log book. Additionally, since I use Corel Photo Paint X2, if the pictures are photoshopped X2 will record any changes and stamp the photo with its version and program information - allowing me to look back years later and determine if any changes were made to the photo and be able to reconstruct the original exposure if necessary.

This is an extremely cool ability. A couple of years ago, I scanned into digital format hundreds of old Ektachrome slides and negatives from the 40's, 50's, and 60's that my mom had. After thousands of hours of photoshopping to correct for redshift, scratches, and general damage to the film, my mom spent hours trying to remember where and when each picture was taken, and who exactly those funny looking people were. With this system, I have all that data recorded almost automatically and a hundred years from now, or a thousand, somebody will be able to reconstruct exactly where and when my pictures were taken. Will anybody give a damn? I don't know, but it's there if they want it.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a hundred uses for this capability (I sure wish that I had it when I was on scouting missions in Iraq). As I said elsewhere, if you're looking for a really cool gadget, or you're a photographer, or you just want to be able to remember where the hell you were when you snapped those pictures on that family vacation, or you're engaged in an occupation that requires you to record details of a specific location and then be able to find it later (Nathan, I'm talking to you here), you couldn't ask for a better tool than the Delorme PN-20 and TopoUSA 7.0.

Hoary Old SciFi Tropes...

 

...are the best tropes.  Iron Sky:

 

                                                   

 

 

I love the concept behind this, both the hoary old 50's scifi trope of Nazi's escaping to the moon at the end of WWII and the independent, studio-free movie making idea.  Sure, this kind of thing leads to a lot of crap let loose in the world, but it also leads to the creation of some truly cool things that no studio in their right mind would touch.

 

And I love both of those banners, I do.

Free Friday

I wanted to talk about the California Supreme Court's decision yesterday striking down two state laws and paving the way for life, liberty, and happiness for all of its citizens.  And I probably will sometime this weekend, but it's sunny and warm out for the first time in a long while. 

 

There's still snow on the mountains and Pioneer Peak looks fantastic out my sunroom window:

It's just an absolute beautiful day here in the Matanuska Susitna Valley and I've managed to knock out all of my production work for the next two weeks. I've finished a chapter of Iyes of the Dead and reviewed the two previous chapters and I'm extremely happy with it.

And I actually feel good this morning, nothing hurts, and that's just so unusual for me that I'm not going to waste it sitting in front of the computer.

As such, I'm taking the day off and going out to the shop to turn bowls, play with my dog, swat at mosquitos and generally enjoy the sun. Later I may run the tractor around the yard and sweep up the winter's debris, just because I can.

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Something of note: Yesterday Stonekettle Station pulled in just over 1100 visitors.  The vast majority surfed in to read this post due to links in a number of backpacking and GPS related forums.  As the regular readers know, I don't give much thought to stats, but seriously, wow! For those of you who arrived here via that route, thanks for coming by, I hope you enjoyed the article.  Feel free to stick around. You can expect a number of hiking and geocaching posts from the wilds of Alaska this summer - and if the weather holds, this weekend.

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Now, I'm going out to do what I enjoy most, and I hope you all do too. 

Various and Sundry

- Off to Anchorage today, have to deliver a load of finished work to a customer and drop by the VA.

- Gas prices here are well over $4.00 per gallon and likely to stay that way.  I'm going to have to raise my prices for bowls and woodwork to compensate.  It costs me significantly more to harvest the wood because I need gas for the chainsaws and ATV's.  And unless I want to lug several tons of green wood a couple of miles out of the swamp on foot, I don't really have another option than the ATV's - the 700 Polaris in 4x4 mode, loaded down in low gear drinks a lot of gas.  And stock from the local saw mills is up significantly, because their saws run on diesel - and it costs me more to go get it, and to deliver products. Congress of course is looking into the matter - led by Arlen Spector who seems to feel that a congressional investigation into professional football is the answer.

- The polar bear is officially an endangered species. Don't expect drilling ANWR or point Thompson any time soon.  I actually don't know if this is a good thing or not, and I doubt it will have any affect whatsoever on polar bear decline or climate change.  I find both sides of the larger argument on climate change idiotic.

- Reader Sheila called my attention to this site: Subscriptions for Service Members, and a related site: Subscriptions for Soldiers.  I did some checking around, Better Business Bureau and Charity Watch wise and found both operations have good reputations - in fact, a BBB site in Kentucky has a link to both on its webpage and a favorable recommendation.  This is a good thing, there's not much you can do to make life in the meatgrinder a joy, but the little things like magazines from home really, really help.  I'm not asking anyone to donate, but should you feel the urge to make a small gesture of support, this would be money much better spent than buying one of those stupid yellow ribbon magnets.  If you do or don't, I don't want to know. I'm just putting it out there. Thanks, Sheila.

Now I have to go load up the truck, and replace a burned out brake light. Then I'm off to Anchorage, see you later.

Cool New Gadget (updated)

(updates at the end of the post)

I like to know where I'm at, especially when I'm hiking in the wilds of Alaska.

I've got an extremely well developed sense of direction. My dad taught me how to use a map and compass at a young age, and I've been an expert at orienteering for most of my life. The Navy taught me stellar navigation and I'm fairly good at it; I even own a decent sextant. Given rise and set tables, compass, sextant, and a decent chronometer I can usually plot a fix and chart a course home without too much sweat. Hell, I can even build a reasonably accurate solar compass in the field, if it really becomes necessary.

But, I'm also a gadget freak. Can't help it, I love technology.

So, for me there's nothing cooler than the US GPS satellite navigation system. I've been using GPS since since the first satellites went up - first in the military, and later when civilian receivers became available to the general public. Naturally, a number of years ago we got into geocaching, which combines our love of hiking and the out of doors with treasure hunting, puzzles, and land navigation. Geocaching, for those of you not familiar with the game, is based on the century-old European sport of letterbox treasure hunting. Basically the way it works is that geocachers hide small treasure 'caches' in interesting places, the caches (usually an ammo can or other such durable weatherproof container) are usually filled with interesting items, some have themes such as a dog friendly trove or child related items, and some are just collections of random stuff. Some are large and some are tiny. All caches contain a log book. Some are placed in easy locations, such as city parks or even sidewalk planters. And some caches are placed in remote and difficult to reach locations. All are well hidden and not apparent unless you are looking specifically for them. There are literally millions of such caches hidden on all seven continents all around the world. Once hidden, the location is recorded using a GPS unit and then posted on Geocaching.com, each post contains the coordinates, a description of the cache, it's difficulty, it's type (the are several types of caches), a map, and clues. Additionally, each post contains comments from those who went seeking the cache). A geocacher logs into the site and searches the database for caches in his or her area, loads the coordinates into their GPS, and goes treasure hunting. When you find a cache, you sign the log book, take one item, and put something back of equal or higher value. It's fun for the whole family and it has taken us to many strange and interesting places that we would never have visited otherwise. I'm a paid member of the game, though you don't have to be. There are advantages to a paid subscription, including special caches and a secret handshake. Being me, I also have a paid Google Earth Plus account, and the Geocaching plugin which allows me to plot caches onto Google Earth - Yeah, I was one of those kids who poured over maps and national geographic for hours on end. For me Google Earth is like heroin.

Anyway, like I said above I've owned GPS units for a long time, starting with one of the very first models, the Motorola TRAXAR, an enormous beast of hideously expensive 80's technology. It took 6 AA batteries and sucked the life out of them in about two hours. It weighed a ton and was like lugging around a brick. It had six receiver channels and took about an hour to plot a position when cold - and it was accurate within, oh, about 300 yards on a good day.

In the early 90's I bought a Magellan GPS350. Much smaller and lighter. It ran on a pair of AA's and lasted about 6 hours or so, depending on a number of factors. It had eight receiver channels (more channels = faster and more accurate fix) and a whole megabyte of RAM. It cost in the hundreds, vice the thousands, of dollars and was reasonably accurate, down to a hundred yards usually. In those days, the Pentagon was afraid the Evil Empire would use our GPS to fly cruise missiles through the windows of the White House and so they implemented something called 'selective availability,' basically a wobble in the satellite timing pulses which induced a margin of error into a receiver's fix datum - therefore the best you could do with a civilian receiver was about a hundred yards, and your fixes tended to move around a bit as the elements of the GPS constellation rose and set. Still that was good enough for geocaching, and the sport was born around that time. The military, or course, had encrypted receivers which filtered out the SA error and were accurate to a gnat's ass.

Somewhere along the line, a couple of smart guys - geophysicists building instruments to measure the slip of tectonic plates - wrote a simple software program to average out the errors induced by SA, and published it to the web. They didn't know that the position errors they were seeing in their receivers were there on purpose, they assumed that the folks in charge of the GPS system were just lousy engineers. They published their program as freeware, and from then on anybody with a laptop and a crappy Garmin receiver could plot fixes accurate within a few feet. It took a couple years, but eventually the Pentagon figured out there wasn't much point in SA anymore, so they turned it off. Along with the lofting of the new WAAS satellites (which broadcast a special signal to WAAS enabled receivers to correct for the natural attenuation and signal bias inherent in atmospheric transmission) this ushered in a whole new era of GPS usage. Cheap, reliable, and very, very accurate receivers became widely available. As such I upgraded to the Magellan Sporttrak Pro around 2001. WAAS capable, water proof, small and light, it was extremely accurate - and it included maps! It had a whole eight megabytes of Ram and could interface with my PC via serial cable and download maps and track data. Very, very cool and I used it not only for geocaching, but for just about every other navigation chore as well. It could find street addresses, show roads, map the boundaries of my property - hell it could even find where I'd left the car in the Disney parking lot in Anaheim.

Last week, though, it crapped out. It's tiny little electronic brain frizzed and the display died a pixilated death. I nearly panicked - not because I'm afraid of getting lost, but because I've gotten so dependent on GPS that I don't want to be without it. So I immediately looked to see what Magellan had to offer in their latest product line - and was seriously disappointed. The company has, uh, declined. They are no longer innovators, and seem to be mired in the past. Here's the thing though, there are two major manufacturers of civilian GPS units in North America, Magellan and Garmin. And for those of us who are GPS nuts, it's a lot like the difference between Macs and PC's. I've always used Magellan and I was seriously reluctant to go over to the dark side of Garmin - yeah, that moral dilemma lasted just long enough for me to read through the abysmal product reviews of Magellan's latest Triton line. So, I headed up to Sportsman's Warehouse to look at Garmin units. I knew exactly how much I wanted to spend and exactly what features I wanted - and unfortunately couldn't find that in any of Garmin's products.

Then I spotted something I'd never heard of - the Delorme Earthmate PN-20. I'm familiar with Delorme, they make some of the best Topographic maps in the world, but I didn't know they'd branched out into GPS. The unit looked like everything I wanted, and then some. I went home and did some research online, and immediately went back and bought it.

I've been playing with it for a week and I've come to the following conclusion: It rocks. Seriously.

It's small and lightweight, water proof and it floats. The case is high visibility yellow (don't think that's important? Try dropping your black Sporttrak in thick Alaskan brush sometime), it runs on a pair of AA's and has very good battery life, and you can use Li-Ion rechargables which the unit will charge from the USB cable or optional power cord. It's got 75MB's of internal memory and takes 2gig SD chips in an integrated card slot located in the battery compartment. It has a high-resolution color display and extremely simple controls and intuitive system navigation. Like most high end modern GPS units, it has an integrated electronic compass, sun and moon tables, fishing and hunting predictors, and can store far more waypoints, routes, and POI's than you'll ever use. And it does something I've never seen in any handheld GPS unit, military or civilian, in addition to detailed topographic and street maps, it can also download and display satellite imagery of the ground you're walking over. That is just so cool, that I can hardly contain myself. But wait there's more - Delorme has included one of the absolute best software mapping packages I've ever seen, and I'm including military software here. Delorme Topo USA 7.0 is PC based (I don't know if they are planning a Mac version or not) and is worth the price of admission all by itself - hell, If I was a Mac user, I'd buy a PC just to run this software. It's a professional level package, not one of those cheap atlas program you can buy at Wal-Mart, or view on the net. When Delorme transferred their high resolution topo maps to electronic format, they lost nothing in detail and not only can you display the maps in normal flat 2D mode, you can also show them in 3D mapping mode with realtime control. In fact you can split the screen and show both displays at the same time. You can add layers to the maps, adding your own information and points of interest. You can upload data recorded in the Earthmate via the included USB cable or the Bluetooth add-on, and plot it in layers over the topo maps. If you load the software on a laptop, you can plug the Earthmate into it and track your GPS position on Topo USA in realtime - this is a powerful tool for people on the road or on the water, for surveyors, for property managers, and the like. The software has a significant learning curve, but there is extensive help both integrated and online, and Delorme includes a tutorial DVD in the package. Overall I've got no complaints about either the software or the hardware. This is an excellent unit at an extremely reasonable price - the nearest comparable Garmin unit is about $300USD more, and doesn't include mapping software, that's a separate purchase. Magellan doesn't have anything to compare and I suspect they'll be out of business sooner or later. The Earthmate retails for around $419, but you can usually find it for about $350. For the next month Delorme is offering an interesting rebate. If you purchase the package for over $299 (up to $420), they'll send you a rebate check for the difference - making the purchase price $299. Period. That's an exceptionally good deal.

From the left: Mid-80's Motorola Traxar, early 90's Magellan GPS350, early oo's Magellan Sporttrak Pro, and finally the Delorme Earthmate PN-20. On the computer screen is the split-display 2D/3D Topo USA 7.0 topographic map display showing the Government Peak area of Hatcher Pass, Alaska.

So, bottom line: If you're looking for a really cool gadget or you need a dependable, affordable, and exceptionally advanced handheld navigation system - you're not going to do much better than the Delorne Earthmate PN-20, in any price range.

Get one, and give geocaching a try.

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- I mentioned above that the Delorme PN-20 took 2Gig SD chips. And it does - as shipped. However, I neglected to mention that Delorme pushes out regular firmware updates and that if you update the PN-20, the 2Gig limitation is no longer an issue. An updated PN-20 will take all capacity SD cards on up to the new 32Gig SDHC chips. This update massively increases the PN-20's capability to download and store highly detailed regional maps and satellite imagery. There's a couple of ways to do this, if you've got several hours you can download large files via the USB connection, or a much faster method is to plug the SD card into the computer and download directly to that. One minor issue - not all computers, especially older models, can read high-capacity SD cards. You might need to update a driver or two. Just saying.

- Several GPS and outdoor forums and websites linked to this post. For those of you surfing from those links, Howdy and thanks for coming by. So far today there's been almost 600 of you. Feel free to comment. A poster on one forum mentioned that he thought my dating on the beginning of Geocaching was a little off - i.e. he thought that caching began after Selective Availability was turned off. He's right, sort of. Geocaching was around during the SA period, however it was not nearly the phenomenon it is nowadays. Both the world wide web and civilian use of GPS were in their infancy - a bunch of us goofy bastards used to email around caching info, or post it on BBS's such as CompuServe (remember them?). Caching was a whole lot more primitive and had a variety of names and methods back there in the dark ages. GPS would maybe get you within 100 yards of the cache, on a really good day, then you'd have to follow clues in the post to zero in on the treasure. Eventually both the web and the technology improved, SA was turned off, and things merged and formalized and evolved into the sport you see today. And it's still evolving - which is cool. Really, try it, you'll like it.

- Some folks have complained about the PN-20's battery life. I don't know about them, but I've been running this unit on and off since last Sunday, I just drove into Anchorage and back running the unit the whole time - about 4 hours. Figure so far I've got roughly 12 hours on the original Duracell Copper Tops and I'm still showing 1/4 charge left - this is equivalent to what I was getting with the Sporttrak Pro. Battery life though is highly variable, depending on usage. Running the backlit screen all the time will suck significantly more amps than unlit usage.

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Follow-up Post: Delorme Test Drive and syncing pictures to Topo USA 7.0.

You've got to be kidding me

Aaagh! Aagh! Head. Full of teh stupids. Feels. Like. My. Eyes. Are. Bulging. Out. Of. My. Head! Must not make fist of death.


Every single time I think that the leader of the free world can't possibly say anything more idiotic, more puerile, more revolting, or more deluded - he goes right ahead and says something so profoundly stupid that I think my head will explode. I swear to God, this guy is a complete and total fucking moron.

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

Honestly I thought this was a joke, I had to look and see if I was reading The Onion by accident. No, he meant it, every word. Seriously, this guy needs a handler - or a muzzle and a padded room.

Why McCain is not getting my vote (updated x2)

Two and half decades ago I joined the US Navy as a Seaman Recruit, the lowest of the low.

My story was fairly typical for those who joined in the early '80's, the economy sucked in western Michigan and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life working in some factory or some restaurant. I had taken a few classes at the local community college, but couldn't decide what I really wanted to do with my life, and I couldn't afford to go to a real college - even if I had had the grades or the inclination to go. I wanted adventure and to see the world, so I joined the Navy.

I liked it, a lot, loved it in point of fact. Over the years I worked my way up through the ranks. My career path was not exactly normal or recommended, but eventually I made it just about as far as it's possible to go and retired as a commissioned officer. I owe a lot to those senior experienced folks who went before me, those that helped me along the way (even when I neither recognized their help nor wanted it). When I put on the anchors of a Chief Petty Officer, I was strongly admonished to never forget where I had come from; it was pounded into my head by the Chief's Mess to always, always, help and look out for the Sailors below me, to help them exactly as I had been helped, to always pay it forward to the next generation - even if it meant putting my own career on the line. That lesson was driven home repeatedly and forcefully. Years later, when I put on the blue and gold bars of a Chief Warrant Officer, the lessons of the Chief's Mess were so deeply ingrained that they had become habit and I found myself teaching those same principles of honor, courage, duty, humility, and concern for the welfare of my people on a daily basis, in every action and word.

Today, that lesson remains a core part of my makeup: You never forget where you come from, You look out for your shipmates and you do it no matter the cost.

Which brings me to another Naval Officer, retired Captain and presidential candidate John McCain. On the face of things, McCain appears to be an admirable man, a graduate of the US Naval Academy, a POW who spent five and half years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton enduring severe torture and refusing release if those captured with him were not also repatriated. When he went into politics he quickly earned a reputation for his passion, temper and, outspokenness, characteristics he and I share - and I admire. He headed the investigation into the public perception of POW/MIAs remaining in Southeast Asia and despite popular belief and popular media (Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone not withstanding) he found there was no credibility to those rumors. He earned widespread derision from Vietnam veterans for his conclusions but held firm to his conviction and pushed for normalization of relations with our former enemies - something that has benefited both nations. He appears to be a man of courage and honor and strength of character. In the 2000 presidential elections, when I was still a registered Republican, I preferred him far more than his rival, George W.Bush. Today, on the face of things, McCain would appear to be the ideal candidate for a veteran like me.

Not so.

As I said above, those of us who served as Navy Chiefs and Mustang officers (former Chiefs, commissioned to LDO or Warrant) are taught to never forget our origins in the lower ranks. And while McCain was never a Mustang, it is apparent to me that he also was taught this lesson somewhere along the line, unfortunately for McCain it means something entirely different. See, McCain is, at his core, the son of wealth and privilege. Both his father and grandfather were 4-star admirals, senior Naval officers, and as such McCain was given an appointment to the Naval Academy. He did well there, and was obviously worthy of the appointment, and later his naval commission. It is certainly true that he endured unfathomable hardship as a POW, and when he first appeared on the political stage I admit that I admired him for his in-your-face reminder of that fact. I deeply appreciated his slap-down of a reporter who in 1982 accused him of being a carpetbagger in the Arizona elections, to which McCain responded, "Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi." It sounded good at the time, and it still does, but over the years I began to realize that McCain regards his status as a former POW as the ultimate trump card. His origins are anything but humble, and he consistently throws his weight behind power, privilege, and wealth using that trump card to give his actions weight and leverage. From his involvement in the Keating Five scandal to his whole hearted support of the Patriot Act and his stanch support of the current fiasco of a war, his actions consistently show a disregard for those less privileged.

But for me, the final nail in the coffin is his opposition to an updated and expanded GI bill. McCain never had to pay for his education - it was his birthright and entitlement.

He had no problem accepting a full-ride education paid for with tax dollars, but as for the rest of us in uniform - well, we're not worthy of such expense, no matter what our service or sacrifice - because see, John McCain was a POW in the Hanoi Hilton and the son of admirals and the rest of us, well, emphatically are not.

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Update: something I want to point out here, McCain's very expensive education was granted before he ever served one day on active duty. He was given his education without proving his worth in any way - simply because his father and grandfather were admirals and he had the ear of his congressman. Those of us who would benefit from the expanded GI bill, have already proven our worth, we've already paid the bill. I myself served for over 20 years, I served in two wars, on six continents, and was decorated 13 times. I wrote US Navy warfighting doctrine that is still in use today, and has demonstratively saved lives and tax dollars. But, according to McCain, I and my shipmates are not worthy of the same education he was.

And McCain was, and is, no exception - many, not all but many, of those who 'win' appointments to the service academies are those who have similar backgrounds to John McCain, i.e. those who could have paid their own way through college without hardship, and don't.

Don't get me wrong here - some of the finest officers I have ever known are graduates of the US Naval academy, and McCain himself served admirably and honorably, but he could have afforded his own education. Sadly he seems to think that the rest of us can too.

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McCain's chief beef seems to be that that the proposed GI Bill will cost, a lot. $25 billion over the next ten years. Let's put that in perspective, shall we? That's about $2.5 billion a year, or the cost of one, one, B-2 Spirit bomber - a super-dooper secret invisible stealth bomber designed to penetrate deep into the Soviet Union in the event that the Cold War ever returns. Unless the clock magically rolls back to the Reagan years, those planes have absolutely no purpose in the modern world (and yes, I am aware that they were used in Iraq, flying 36 hour long, round trip missions from the central United States because they are too highly sensitive to be based anywhere else. We used them because the Air Force thought they were really cool, not because we actually had a compelling need for them. By the time they showed up, Saddam's air defense grid was a smoking ruin and a grandmother in a Piper Cub could have made it to Baghdad and back. They had zero impact on our operations, other than to divert funds and resources that could have been better used elsewhere). But if you really want to put $2.5 billion a year in perspective, take a look at oil company subsidies. Between low to no cost leasing of public lands (which basically pays the public nothing for the loss of natural assets); to direct funding for exploration, extraction, and production (think you're only paying $4 per gallon? Think again); to the indirect subsidies for research, health, and transportation - and we're looking at federal layout of anywhere between $600 Billion and nearly $2 trillion per year (depending on who's figures you go with and what you categorize as a subsidy). Want to guess which way McCain voted on oil leasing reform or reduction of subsidies?

Quick question? What's going to pay a better return in the long run? Bombers with no missions and oil company subsidies? Or advanced education for a large segment of our population, who will then be able to get better jobs, earn higher wages, and pay more back in taxes? What will serve our country better? Padding the expense accounts of Exxon executives or creating a new generation educated veterans?

McCain is also concerned that if the GI Bill passes, well, military folks might actually, you know, take advantage of it. They might only do a single enlistment, then get out to pursue an education. McCain is afraid that retention will suffer as a result. Strangely though, he spent 22 years on active duty - after he got his taxpayer funded education. I paid for my education out my own pocket, but I stayed on active duty for a full decade after earning my degree and I can name hundreds of others who have done the same thing. But here's my question - say people do join up, serve the minimum time required and then get out to take advantage of the GI Bill, so what? Where's the downside of this? They did their time, the public got its pound of flesh out of them (and nowadays, likely a whole lot more). Look, hundreds of thousands of returning vets took advantage of the GI bill when they returned from WWII, and in those days it paid for nearly their whole education, and we call them 'The Greatest Generation.' They became doctors, and lawyers and teachers and scientists and engineers and they went on to much better lives than their parents. That's the beauty of education, it almost always pays far greater returns than the original investment. Education increases wealth, not decreases it. Education might end wars, or at least reduce them, instead of keeping us in Iraq for the next hundred years.

No, McCain has not forgotten where he came from. He remembers it every day. And he wants to make dammed sure those vets who weren't born into an academy education remember where they came from too - and he want's to make sure they stay there.

No John McCain will not be getting my vote.

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Update x2: Guess who wasn't present for the Strategic Oil Reserve vote today?

Busy today

No posts this morning. So sorry.

Because I spent Saturday hiking, and yesterday fooling around with my new GPS unit and doing various and sundry other things, I'm behind in the shop. I've got a large order due on Wednesday and I've got to get cracking this morning.

Depending on my progress in the shop today, I may get around to posting why I will not be voting for John 'Two-Face' McCain under any circumstances later today. Really, if both Clinton and Obama get hit by a campaign bus and drop out - I'll do a write in vote for Cannibal Hitler's Head In a Jar before I vote for this asshole. Seriously.

More, maybe, later.

Lazy Mountain

We had intended to go geocaching, yesterday - but it would appear that my Magellan Sporttrak Pro GPS unit has gone to electronic heaven. It worked just fine last week, but yesterday the display turned to vertical lines and little squares - this pisses me off, as the Sporttrak is an expensive unit and I expect better quality and longevity out of Magellan. I don't know why, the company has been going downhill for a number years, making one bone-headed decision after another, (example: their PC interfaces are still based on a serial cable), their website stinks, and their customer service is practically non-existent.

I'll be looking at Garmin units today.

Anyway, since we were geared up, we went hiking anyway. Up Lazy Mountain outside of Palmer.

The trail was a little muddy in spots.

It's pretty much straight up, and we're seriously out of shape after a long winter. Well, I'm out of shape anyway, Becky and Jimmy were doing fine and had to keep stopping to wait for me and the dog.

The view was spectacular. That's the MatSu Valley and our little town of Palmer below. You're looking down on some of the original colonial farms and the Matanuska River. Those are the Chugach mountains across the valley, Mount Eklutna is dead ahead, and Pioneer Peak is to the left just out of frame.

The mosquitos pretty much left us alone and it was sunny and warm. So despite the GPS unit failure we had a good day.

What did you do with your weekend? I hope you didn't waste it.

Another Note on Procedure

Attention news people:

Wrong, wrong, wrong: "Tornado's wrath caught on tape."
Correct: "Tornado's [pick one: power, force, might, energy, intensity, etc] caught on tape."

Tornados and other natural events are not capable of wrath. Your job is journalism, try to do it professionally, please.

The Romance of War

Long ago armies were personal things, the private tools of the rich and powerful.

During the Dark Ages in Europe, dukes, barons, earls, and other various lords and highborns would dip into their coffers and raise an army composed of their own sworn men, knights errant (kind of the medieval version of Blackwater Security), and the general peasantry. Then they'd march off in search of conquest or the throne or the holy land. War was the purview of nobles, and all real lords embarked on such endeavors in the name of God, or chivalry, or boredom. When it was over, they'd come home and hang their swords above the mantel in the Great Hall and drink and boast and tell tales of honor and glory. And things would be good for a while, not just because they'd come home with loot to refill their treasuries, but because a lot of the knights errant and a rather large number of the peasantry were left behind on battlefields of England and France or along the pilgrim trail to Jerusalem, rotting in the sun, and no longer a burden on the local economy. And while tragic to the common man, the nobility viewed these things as romantic. The peasantry was exactly that, and not worth a second thought - they were simply pawns in a lord's quest for glory.

As time passed and the world changed, standing armies became the domain of nations and not highborn men. Though the custom of personal armies did linger on for many years. And up until very recently it was common, both in Europe and here in the United States, for the rich and powerful to buy their way into military service. During the US civil war, a rather large number of Colonels and Generals (both North and South) bought their ranks and uniforms, or they bought their sons a lieutenancy. For the rich and powerful, military service was not viewed as a duty, but rather a romantic privilege of the highborn - just as it had been among the lords of medieval Europe. Some of these men were notably less successful with their commissions than others, many came home after the war shattered and disillusioned - but some were successful, and they came home in triumph and built empires of commerce and industry. Successful or not, many, like the lords before them, viewed themselves as better than those of the lower classes. Born into power and wealth, they returned to it, hung their swords above the mantel, comforted themselves with the smug belief that they were superior to those they'd left rotting on the battlefield. They came down from their lofty perches only to go on safari, or travel Europe, or cross the oceans in first class luxury. They smoked cigars and drank fine port wine and told tales around the Gentleman's Club of honor and glory and perpetuated the idealized myth of the romance of war.

There were exceptions along the way, during the Spanish American war, the young scion of a powerful family, one Theodore Roosevelt, gave up his job as deputy secretary of the Navy and used his connections and wealth to obtain a LtCol commission in the US Volunteer Calvary. Roosevelt had a highly idealized vision of manhood and war, but his inspired leadership and personal heroism at San Juan and Kettle Hills on the island of Cuba was the stuff of epic legends, as was his honest concern for his men. When it was over, Roosevelt returned to a lifetime of public service and he never forgot those men, or they him. War shaped him and changed him and far from feeling superior, he wrote that he often felt humbled by the experience, and humbled by the courage and determination of the common men around him on the battlefield. Roosevelt spent the rest of his amazing life speaking about duty and service, and though he lived a life of adventure (he and his son nearly died in a year long expedition to the jungles of the Amazon - after his presidency), he never glorified war or romanticized military service. When he wrote his autobiography, he gave only a few bare lines to his time in the USV, and only a single paragraph to the epic battle of San Juan hill - and said almost nothing of his part in it. Roosevelt understood the myth of the romance of war, and he knew from personal experience that it was only that, a myth.

Today, in America, that time is past. Members of the military, both officer and enlisted, are professionals. They join for many reasons, but never for the illusion of glory. Now that the draft is thirty years behind us, the rich and powerful can no longer buy their way into or out of the military. They have to settle for getting their sons and daughters an appointment to VMI, or one of the service academies - and those kids get treated exactly the same as everybody else, and they have to start at the bottom.

America has moved on.

Most of it, anyway.

Among the rich and powerful, the myth of the romance of war still lingers.

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said, in response to complains from troops in Afghanistan. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed... It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history..."

We began the last century with a president who was a true hero, in every sense of the word. An admirable man of courage, vision, and honor. A man who went when called by his country, who personally led his men into battle and who truly understood war in all of its horrifying reality.

We began this century with George W. Bush.

Some things change, but many stay exactly the same.

Jerkoff of the Week - Paul Broun

You know what chaps my ass?

Well, yeah, a lot of things actually.

But today it's certain Conservative members of Congress who seem to think the Second Coming would be facilitated if only all the rest of us baby killing, illegal immigrant smuggling, gay loving, family value haytin', Jeebus rejecting, Constitution thumping, science believing, bunny squeezin', immoral, unethical, liberal leaning, non-English speaking offspring of the devil would just jolly well fuck right off to Canada.

Meet Paul Broun, US Congressional Representative from Georgia's 10th District. Former Marine, Navy Medical Officer, doctor, and epitome of everything I detest about the current batch of jackasses who hijacked the GOP when the rest of us weren't looking.

A couple of quotes from from his website:

As a young man, I had a strong desire to serve in the military. The day that I became a U.S. Marine was one of the proudest days of my life. Later, I also served as a Navy medical officer. As a Marine, I took an oath to defend the United States. Keeping that oath is a sacred obligation (Note: Apparently, he didn't take the same oath when he became a Naval officer). This particular statement says a lot about Broun and his selective use of facts and his perception of history. See, as a Marine and as a Naval Officer, his job was to defend the United States - but his oath was to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Notice how that little distinction seems to have slipped his mind?

I work overtime in Congress to make sure that we honor our covenant with those who have served in the Armed Forces. As your Congressman, I work to make sure that veterans and their families receive every benefit that has been promised. Strangely, however, a check of the congressional record shows that he has almost no voting record regarding any bill before the house involving the military or veterans or their families - well other than to vote 'no' on mortgage relief, 'yes' on continuing the war ad infinitum, and 'yes' towards requiring a permanent law diverting a minimum of 4% of GDP to defense. As to working overtime, well, the record shows he's big on voting for early adjournment of the meetings.

...I pledged that the very first legislation that I would author and introduce would define life as beginning at fertilization. I kept that pledge with HR 4157, The Sanctity of Human Life Act. He did introduce HR4157, the bill is in the House Judiciary committee at the moment. This also an insight into the mind of Broun, he intends to legislate the definition of human life. Once he's got that defined as at conception, ... well you can figure out the rest for yourself.

All of our rights come from God, not from government. Our Founding Fathers understood this. They understood that the role of government, is to recognize and preserve our God-given, inalienable rights. Therefore, they wrote the Second Amendment. Uh? I'm not even going to touch this one.

America was founded upon the Christian principles contained in the Word of God. We must stop radical judges from legislating from the bench, destroying revered American religious traditions and religious symbols. Getting some insight into Mr. Brown yet? And apparently the fact that in addition to Christian texts, Jefferson and the framers of the Constitution also referred to the Koran and a vast number of secular works is something that Broun just completely missed.

And my personal favorite: Behind every good man is a strong woman. Ah ha, ah hahaha! Ha! That's right, bitch, God says get your barefooted ass behind me. (Question: does this mean behind every bad man there's a weak woman? Bitches, been causin' problems for men since those shenanigans in the garden with that apple).

Broun is one of those people who thinks that everybody should share his vision of white English speaking conservative Christian America - you know the neat little Southern town where the doctors make house calls, men toil in righteous defense of the country, housewives trade recipes over white picket fences and have dinner on the table when their weary husbands come home. There's a Baptist church on every corner and all the funny looking people either live in California or sing hymns contentedly while picking the fucking cotton.

Now normally I'd just ignore this idiot, the world is full of them, but Broun is also one of those people who, when they can't bend America as a whole to their version of morality and good Christian White People Ethics, looks around for a captive population to force into their pinched little worldview.

And true to form, he's settled on the military.

"Allowing the sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by: escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes; feeding a base addiction; eroding the family as the primary building block of society; and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad," so says Representative Broun. He has therefore introduced legislation that would close a loophole in the current law that allows the sale of some sexually explicit material on military bases by lowering the threshold required to deem material "sexually explicit."

Now before anybody gets spun up over where I'm going with this and my apparent defense of pornography, let me say personally, Meh, I don't much care. It's out there, it's always been out there, and it's always going to be out there. Romans painted porn on their walls 2500 years ago, I've seen it on a wall in a Pompeii villa - and it was porn, not art, believe me. Asian cultures have a long, long tradition of pornographic media. So have Americans, it's been around since before George Eastman and his band of chemists came up with self-developing film. And with the advent of the Internet and digital photography - well, let's just say that porn is here to stay. I personally don't have much use for it, and I do my best to protect my kid from it. I think that we need to make dammed sure those engaged in it's making are there of their own free will and are of legal age. And I think we need to hunt down and prosecute those who engage in the creation of illicit material such as kiddie porn. But, if you're an adult and you want to look at legally produced pictures of air-brushed, botoxed, silicone injected Barbie and Ken dolls frolicking around the Playboy mansion, be my guest. If you subscribe to the 900-series channels from your local cable provider, fine by me (though I really wish GCI would sanitize the titles of those channels on their menu - I really would rather not have my eleven year old son see Big Butt College Girls Take IT in the Pooper when he's flipping through the menu looking for The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, I don't subscribe and I wish it wouldn't appear on my menu. Just Saying).

Back to Broun. Now see, the bill he's introduced would classify not only magazines with pictures of nekkid people as pornography, but anything Broun considers racy. Magazines like, oh, Maxim and FHM. I've read a few Maxims out there at sea, and while I consider the content a bit puerile, I really can't see how they are pornography. Sure, there's 'sex tips' for men in each issue, that's true. Ever read the cover of a Cosmo, or Women's Health while standing in line at the Commissary or Base Exchange? But I guess if it's 10 tips for 'Satisfying Your Man' it's not porn as far as Broun is concerned (and now you know why Broun likes a good woman behind him, eh heh heh).

And as far as Penthouse and Playboy are concerned. Please. There are Gap advertisements in the Christian Science Monitor that are more provocative. Seriously, carry this far enough and Broun and his idiot supporters will have every DVD rated higher than PG-13 removed from the exchanges too. How far does this go? Are we going ban tobacco sales and alcohol? Thong underwear? Makeup (If I remember correctly, in biblical times only whores wore lipstick - as an advertisement of their particular specialty). Really, where does this end?

Here's an idea, let's say that if you are old enough to swear your oath, put on a uniform, and be deployed to Green Zone for 18 months we'll just assume that you're an adult and therefore have the same rights and access to public media as every other citizen in the United States. And while we're at it, let's also say that if a member of the US Government says in public: "...the sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes; feeding a base addiction; eroding the family as the primary building block of society; and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad, he'll have to prove it. Conclusively prove - using independently verified data compiled using solid statistical science and validated data collection methods - that members of the military have been harmed, that the sale of Maxim and FHM have directly caused the escalation of violent sexual crimes, that members of the military are suffering from a 'base addiction,' and that the families as a fundamental unit of society at large have been demonstratively 'eroded.' And I'd like a specific set of metrics that precisely define 'harmed,' 'base addiction,' and 'eroded' in the context of the statement. Thanks.

As to denigrating the moral standing of our troops, well, I'm not sure I understand exactly what that means. Seriously, in all candor, we kill people for a living. If we're not killing people, we're training to kill people. We train to kill other people by stabbing, shooting, bludgeoning, fire and blast and by choking the life out of them with our bare hands. We blow shit up, whole countries sometimes. If we're not blowing shit up, we're training to blow shit up. We sit in holes in the ground or in the water, on top of weapons of unimaginable power, prepared to vaporize ten billion people and lay waste to entire continents. That's war, and that's what we do and what we are trained for. Every day we slog through ruined cities and burned out buildings, we step over corpses of dead women and bloated children and brush futilely at the flies and the stink of putrefaction rotting in the jungle damp or the desert sun. We're not the Boy Scouts or the Peace Corps. We drink and swear and smoke and sometimes look at dirty pictures and you wouldn't want us around your dinner parties. We raise hell and live our lives, because tomorrow we're going back out into the meat grinder again, and some of us aren't coming home. Is that moral? Would the people we're killing respect us more if we hadn't read a copy of Penthouse last night? I don't know and I don't much care, but it's a fact and a reality and either you find rough and tough shitkickers to defend you, or you better starting teaching your kids the enemy's language and customs.

Frankly, I'm more than a little leery of accepting a Congressmen's definition of morality here. Really, Broun is a good smug self-righteous Christian, he really ought to read that bit in the bible about the mote, eyes, and the beam and then take a good look around Capital Hill at his fellow Republicans. I'd suggest he start with Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Dennis Hastert, and well, he could probably just pick republicans at random. He's worried about morals in America? He might start with his friends.

Truly, Paul Broun, you are indeed a complete jerkoff.

(Final Note: from examination of my statistics page, I find that 99% of Google and Yahoo search engine hits for the word 'jerkoff' contain additional terms which indicate the searches are for gay porn. The fact that Representative Paul Broun will now appear in those searches as a result of this post gives me more than a touch of evil glee. Thank you, and good night).

What the Hell?

Went to Anchorage, just got back.

Somewhere in the four hours I was gone, a "rating" gadget appeared on the bottom of my blog posts. I didn't add that. Blogger is adding options automatically.

Hmmm, I don't know how I feel about that.

I really don't give a crap about ratings, farks, and etc. I write what I write because that's what I feel like writing right at that particular moment, all right? If people like it, fine. If they don't like it, fine. Ratings? Meh.

I'll leave it alone for a while and see what happens.

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Update: aaaand the rating gadget has now disappeared. Just a little midweek randomness, I guess. Bye bye rating gadget, we barely knew ye.

Genes and Discrimination

Congress sent President Bush a bill Thursday forbidding employers and insurance companies from using genetic tests showing people are at risk of developing cancer, heart disease or other ailments to reject their job applications, promotions or health care coverage, or in setting premiums.

The Senate passed the bill unanimously, 95-0, and the House passed the bill 414-1, with the only dissenting vote by Ron Paul, R-TX.

Cool, right?

Don't get me wrong I'm all about non-discrimination and I think this is a good thing. But, I have a couple of observations here:

1) Does this mean that we're finally going to stop gouging the parents of teenaged male drivers? I mean, it seems to me that the supposedly statistically higher risk of boys being predisposed to more reckless behavior behind the wheel than girls is based pretty much on genetics.  So, does this bill, should it become law, mean that insurance companies will no longer be able to legally use statistical bullshit and stereotyping to penalize males drivers - since their maleness is derived entirely from their genetic makeup?  Hmmm, how much you want to bet there's a loophole?

2)  I find it interesting that Congress can vote overwhelmingly to end discrimination based on genetics, but can't seem to muster the wherewithal to end the widespread discrimination against gay marriage, non-Christians, and etc.  Just so I'm clear on this, it's OK to discriminate against gays in something as important and personal as a long term stable partnership and all that entails, but it's not OK to discriminate against somebody who might be genetically predisposed to certain disorders?  I guess the bible doesn't have anything to say about the Human Genome Project.

I could go on here, but I won't.  I'm busy today and have to leave for Anchorage in a couple of minutes.

Again, I think this is a good law, I just don't think it goes nearly far enough. How about a law that says discrimination, based on race, creed, color, religion or lack thereof, sex, sexual orientation, statistics, or any other damn fool thing is illegal and contrary to the ideals of the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States?

Probably too much to expect.

What the Internet needs

A search engine where you can hum a few bars into your computer's microphone and it'll figure out the name of that dammed instrumental song that's been trapped in your brain for the last four friggin' hours going round and round like a coked-up hamster on a squeaky exercise wheel. And the search engine should be able to figure it out no matter how tone deaf you are or badly you can't carry a tune. The nerd wizard engineers at Google want to impress me, they'd come up with that.

Is it just me?

Laura Bush on TV condemning Myanmar's military dictatorship for not allowing US hurricane relief: "We know already that they are very inept," she said. Yeah, thanks for the piercing insight, Laura. Though, to be fair, she may have been talking about Texas cheer-leading or the Lady Rotarian Bake Sale.

Several things struck me here:

1) The invisible First Lady: Really, who the hell is Laura Bush? It's been eight years now and frankly other than a couple of publicity photos of her wan, powdered, blow-dried ass reading a book to a couple of third graders or a quick clip of her pants suited backside on the way to Marine One clinging in true subservient fashion to her husband's sleeve like a good little republican housefrau , what have we seen of this woman? And now she's an expert on Myanmar's political situation, disaster relief, and foreign policy? Color me a little skeptical on this one, but then again how much worse than our current State Department could she be?

2) The naming of things: She kept referring to Myanmar as Burma, as does the rest of the Bush Administration. Burma. What's next? Maybe she'll give us an update on human rights abuses in Peking. Or the revolution in Ceylon. Of course, what do you expect from a White House that keeps building 2 billion dollar Spirit bombers, 120 million dollar F-22 Raptors, and 3 billion dollar CX Cruisers to fight the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? When you've got those kind of toys, I guess you can't afford to reprint the maps.

3) Pot, Kettle, and Blackness: 22,500 dead by the latest count this morning. Don't these people have enough problems already without adding FEMA to the mix? Seriously, can anybody blame Myanmar's Junta for being reluctant to accept 'aid' from the same folks who brought us the Katrina response? What's the plan here? Send them Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco and some New Orleans PD to restore order and get the whore houses and bars up and running again? Or are we going to ship over a couple boatloads of FEMA trailers and some Haliburton contracts?


Understand, I have no love, respect, admiration, pity, or support for the despots running Myanmar at the moment. I am appalled that they can't put aside their own power mad selfishness for a moment and take help for what's left of their desperate population. But, seriously, Laura Bush calling somebody else's response to a hurricane disaster of unprecedented proportions 'inept?'

Yeah, it's just me.

In all candor, Laura, please go back to the country club or your charity for the underprivileged children of Exxon executives and leave the citizens of Maynmar, and the rest of us, the hell alone. No, really, we've got enough problems.

Totally More Smarterer

Thanks, John





I don't know what sucked my score down by 2%, unless it was whole part where you have to solve for the Special Theory of Einstein's Relatives using nothing but sea cucumbers and an electric train, or something. Actually, I may not be remembering that question correctly.



Update:
And just because I can't resist certain types of online tests:

I think I know that Cat

Saw this, couldn't stop laughing.

 

Busy this morning, replacing the valve cover gaskets on my wife's Mustang and finishing some production work.  More later, possibly even some new bowl pictures.

A note on procedure

OK, look if you're a spokesman or a news reporter for something, then just say it please. No embellishment, no extra words - just feakin' say it.

Example:

Wrong: "... the facility appears to have sustained undetermined damage from a suspected small explosive device."
Correct: "A bomb damaged the building."

Thank you.

From the WTF File

Food Fight, "an abridged history of American-centric war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smörgåsbord of aggression."

Who's Who Cheat Sheet here.



Ummm, yeah.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm hungry. I think I'll go have breakfast. I'm thinking a couple of pacifist boiled eggs and some conscientious objector hash-browns - I'm not big on fighting with my food. The coffee has already surrendered - it's a french roast.

Argh! Too. Much. Stupid.

I just walked from the shop.

I left the TV on. I really need to stop doing that.


Glenn Beck interviewing Ben Stein on CNN.


It was like staring into the depths of a galactic-mass black hole of teh stupids, from somewhere near the Schartzchild radius. The only thing that could possibly have made it worse would be if they were broadcasting from The Creation Museum.

I couldn't listen. No, not even for snarky blogging material. I turned it off. And now I must go pour bleach in my eyes. Excuse me.

Curious George Goes to Washington

The Oval Office:

GWB: Gosh darn it! (Shakes the newspaper, sticks out bottom lip)

Dick: What is it, George? (not looking up)

GWB: I told you, I want to be called The Decider! (sticks lip out further)

Dick: Riiiight. What's up? Hillary still in the race? (glancing up) And don't pout like that, it makes you look like a monkey, little Curious George.

GWB: Curious George! I love those books. Did you ever read the one where George goes up into space? That was sooo cool! And he got a medal! (purses his lips to make a monkey face, makes circles with his thumbs and forefingers, then puts them over his eyes like a pair of simian space goggles). How about the one where George tries to do the laundry and the whole house is filled up with soap suds?! (giggles)

Dick: Uh, no.

GWB: You never read Curious George? The words are really easy and there are lots of pictures!

Dick: No, I was more of a Guns & Ammo kid. Anyway, what's the problem?

GWB: Kid? No, I read them now. They're inspirationalating. I like the man in the yellow hat. He's so smart and good at fixing problems, I wonder if he's available? He could help me the way he helps Curious George.

Dick: (sighs, puts down the TOP SECRET folder he's holding, reaches behind his chair and pulls out a large yellow pith helmet, puts it on) Look here, George. It's time I told you a secret. I'm really the man in the yellow hat. You're really Curious George. I found you in Maine, when you were a baby, and brought you home to Texas. Those books are about us.

Curious George: No way!

Dick in the yellow hat: Way.

Curious George: I knew it. I did!

Dick in the yellow hat: Yeah, wow. Look it's a secret so you can't tell anybody. Now, what's the problem? Tell me, and I'll fix it.

Curious George: Nobody likes me! See? (he throws the paper across the office. It lands at Dick's feet. It's USA today. On the front page is a picture)

Dick in the yellow hat: Oh, that. (frowns disapprovingly) Look here, George, I've told you about this before. You need to work on remembering things I teach you. Newspapers sometimes make mistakes.

Curious George: They do?

Dick in the yellow hat: Yes, just like you.

Curious George: But not you?

Dick in the yellow hat: No, of course not. Now, in this case they've obviously printed the graph upside down. See? (turns the paper over and holds it up for Curious George to see). That's so people in China will see it correctly and know how popular you are! Then they won't fuck with us.

Curious George: Ooooh!

Dick in the yellow hat: There's a good little fellow. See you're quite the popular President.

Curious George: I am! I am! (claps hands together)

Dick in the yellow hat: Good, glad we cleared that up (glances towards the folder of 'Interrogation' porn fresh from Gitmo) The man in the yellow hat needs a little quiet time with his pith helmet, George. Why don't you scamper off and play with supreme court appointments or stem cell policy for a while?

Curious George: (still looking at the graph), Uh, how come the numbers are all upside down?

Dick in the yellow hat: (sighs) Look, George, how many times do we have to go over this. You have a funny disease called dyslexia. It's because you have a little monkey brain and sometimes it mixes things up.

Curious George: Oh yeah. I rememberate now.

Dick in the yellow hat: See, this is just like the time you got all upset over the economy. You thought is was going backwards, but...

Curious George: It was really going forward! Just like when I thought people told me there were no weapons of mass demonstrations in Iraqiland! But there are some there, right? Lot's of them! (claps his hands)

Dick in the yellow hat: Right, exactly. See sometimes you get things backwards, or upside down. It's because you did cocaine and jello shooters when you were little. And that's why you have to listen to me and don't make any decisions or speeches without my approval.

Curious George: OK, I'll try to rememberate. Just so I'm clear on this - people really like me?

Dick in the yellow hat: You're as popular as President Truman.

Curious George: Wow! Truman got to vaporate funny looking people. Do you think I'll get to nukeelarate something? I think that would make me really popular, people like fireworks! How about Irania?

Dick in the yellow hat: Hey! Quit fiddling with that. I've told you before, nobody pushes the big red button unless I say so.

But is was too late, George being a curious little monkey had pushed the big red button!

Curious George: Uh Oh! (scampers under his desk)

Next: Curious George and the endless Nukelear Winter!

Jerkoff of the Week - A Failure of Leadership

The Secretary of the Army said Wednesday the Barracks Video of Korean War-era barracks at Fort Bragg is unacceptable.

Unacceptable? Personally, I think unacceptable is the understatement of the century.

Surprised? Personally, I'm not surprised in the least.

Over the two decades I spent in the military, I've spent a lot of time in barracks all over the world. Most were fairly decent, but a few such as the Transient Barracks at a Naval Air Station in Maine - with broken toilets and dirty sheets and human blood smeared on the walls of the shower - were every bit as bad as the conditions at Fort Bragg.

The recent press coverage of the barracks at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington DC were just as bad - with the added bonus of rats.

The conditions in the Infantry Barracks at Fort Bragg are far more than merely unacceptable, they are disgusting, revolting, and dishonorable in the extreme. The deplorable living conditions do far more than simply embarrass the Army, they speak directly and pointedly of a chronic, endemic, and pervasive failure of leadership across the board over a long, long period of time. Decades in fact.

Whose responsibility is this?

Well, a lot of folks actually - but ultimately what we're looking at here is an utter, abject failure of leadership at at all levels of the chain of command, from the Non Commission Officer to the Commander in Chief.

It's the NCO fault: No real NCO would have allowed his men to move into this shithole. Period. He'd have pitched tents on the parade ground, dug latrines in the Commanding General's front yard, and had his men raze those crackhouse quarters to the ground. A real NCO should have gathered his fellow Sergeants and taken the Company Commander, by force if necessary, through that cesspool in nitpicking detail. A real NCO would have taken a squad and kicked in the door of the base Supply Office, gotten the material necessary, organized his men and made those barracks livable - or found quarters that were up to proper standards and moved his men in there, even if they happened to be Senior Enlisted or Officer quarters. Fuck the regulations, a real NCO would have made it happen. I can not imagine a Navy Chief who would have tolerated this situation. When I was a senior NCO I would have inspected those barracks prior to allowing a single man to move in, and if I had found the conditions, or even far less, evident in the video above I would have been in front of the Commanding Officer ten minutes later demanding proper housing for my troops. And I wouldn't have taken no for an answer. Period, end of story. I would have moved my entire team into hotels off-base and billed the fucking White House if necessary. I simply cannot fathom an NCO who does not place the welfare of his troops above his own personal career. I. Cannot. Fathom. It. But, that's the difference between an initiated Chief Petty Officer and an E7, who wears the rank and collects the paycheck and little else.

It's the Company Commander and his officers' fault: Any officer who would allow this situation is completely and totally derelict in his duty, period, and should be immediately cashiered. When I was a commissioned officer, there is no way I would have allowed my troops to move into a barracks without inspecting the facility first. And I not only expected my NCO's to raise hell, I demanded it. The NCO's failure to address the situation forcefully is a personal leadership failure on the part of the Company Commander and his officers. The officers who allowed their men to move into this shithole aren't worthy of the uniforms they wear, and you can damn well bet if they were assigned to similar quarters they'd have been raising bloody hell, I guarantee it. Every single one of these self-serving assholes should be held accountable for this situation to the full extent of the Uniform Code of Military Justice under Sub-Chapter 10, Article 892 Failure to Obey an Order or Regulation (specifically US Army regulations regarding housing standards for enlisted forces outside the combat zone), Article 983 Cruelty and Maltreatment (if 3" of raw sewage on the floor, sewage in the sinks, lead paint, and etc isn't maltreatment, I don't know what is), Article 933 Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer, and Article 934 General Article for Dereliction of Duty and conduct contrary to good order and discipline and that which brings discredit upon the Armed Forces of the United States. This needs to happen loudly and publicly as a message to every other commissioned officer that such disregard for the forces under their command will not be tolerated. Any officer who fails to take care of his troops will get shitcanned, publicly and without mercy. Troops come first, period.

It is the Fort Bragg Facility Officer's fault: This shitsucking, bottom feeding non-combatant should have made damned sure those facilities were ready for occupation and up to basic military standards. I don't care how, a real officer would have made it happen. He's responsible for the upkeep of those facilities, he is responsible by his assignment and by the oath he swore, and I will bet you anything you like that he made sure the base commanding general and the colonels all had pretty new carpet in their offices and conference rooms, and that the flower gardens in front of their on-base mansions were all kept neat and tidy. This Officer is guilty of dereliction of duty for failure to maintain those barracks to minimum military standards, which is his primary responsibility. Not only are these facilities supposed to house returning combat troops, they are the property of the tax paying citizens of the United States - and if they are not condemned and scheduled for destruction, they are to be maintained as property of the United States by law and regulation. This Officer needs to be made an example of, immediately and forcefully.

It is the Commanding Officer's fault: Commanding Officers are required by law and regulation for the forces, facilities, and materials under their command. They are personally responsible. They are personably and absolutely accountable for the actions of their forces, material condition of their command, and every penny spent on their watch. All Commanding Officers are required, again by law and regulation, to periodically inspect every inch of their command. In a Navy facility, actual implementation of this responsibility is often delegated to the Executive Officer. When I was assigned to USS Valley Forge, the XO used to inspect the entire ship daily and by God if your divisional areas weren't up to standards, you could damned well expect to be standing tall in the XO's stateroom directly. Once a week every Officer and Chief (the senior NCO's) were assigned Zone Inspection duties, given a list of standards, lectured at length by the XO as to what, exactly, he expected, and sent to examine every single nook and cranny of the Command. If you returned for the debriefing without finding any 'hits,' it was very likely that the XO would accompany you on a reinspection immediately following the briefing - and if he found something that you missed, your ass would be in the ringer. Good Navy XO's are widely feared and respected, and for good reason - they are the ramrod and directly responsible to the CO for the material condition of the facility or vessel. The conditions at Fort Bragg clearly and unequivocally indicate a failure of leadership and responsibility at the highest levels. There is no excuse whatsoever for the condition of those barracks. None. Not money, manpower, time, or any other dammed excuse. It's obvious that the CO and XO never inspected those facilities in accordance with regulation and their personal responsibilities. The Commanding Officer is indisputably derelict in his duties and should face a Court Martial immediately - and the XO with him.

It is the Regional Commander's fault: Just as with the Commanding Officer, the Regional Commander, a General, is responsible by law for the forces, facilities, materials, and funds under his command. He is required to conduct unannounced surprise inspections and it's obvious that in this case the general spent more time inspecting the golf course and the Officer's Club than the housing facilities of his troops.

It is the General of the Army's fault: Conditions at Fort Bragg are not an isolated incident, they are nearly exactly the same as the Transient Barracks identified and hushed up at Walter Reed. I've done a hell of a lot of inspections in my time and I will bet you, again anything you like, that I can find similar conditions on bases across the country. It is the General of the Army's fault, because instead of conducting an immediate and thorough inspection of every living facility under his command in order to ascertain ground truth after the conditions at Walter Reed came to light, he decided it was an 'isolated incident' and didn't bother to look any further. He should have ordered an immediate and complete inspection of every facility under his command, to be conducted personally by regional commanders and each individual commanding officer. He didn't. And he didn't because he knew what he'd find - and he didn't want to deal with it. Instead he let his forces stew in sewage. If he had one shred of honor, he'd take off that fucking gold ring and resign his commission.

It is the civilian leadership's fault: The Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of Defense, Congress, and the President himself. For twenty years I've watched these pompous windbags come and go, from Reagan to Bush the Decider and their associated ass-kissing toadies. They're all the same, full of wind, shit, and excitement. They breeze onto base with their entourage, go where the CO points them, shake a few hands, make a long and boring speech full of praise for the heroic troops, smile for the cameras, have lunch at the Officer's Club and blow out of town, never to be seen again. Not once, in my experience, has any one of them said - "Hey! I'm going to take a look around, let's start over there with that barracks." Fuck them and the limo they rode in on.

Generals, Admirals, Secretaries, Congressmen, and Presidents will wax self-righteous, thump their manly chests, and speak of the heroic troops. They will gush endlessly poetic over how troops come first - and they will always, inevitably, and relentlessly divert funds and energy into golf courses, new carpet, decorative planters, flower beds, and big mahogany desks. They'll spend millions on a static display of a tank or a landing craft or a fighter jet on a stick in a flower bed in the middle of the base. They'll spend millions on hydraulic pop up barriers and super-duper electronic security countermeasures at the front gate, when a couple of cheap concrete barricades would do the exact same job. They'll spend millions on electronic vap boards and video teleconferencing equipment for their conference rooms, and shiny flat panel monitors, and the latest version of Microsoft Office Enterprise for every computer in the military and yet use, oh, about a hundredth of it's capability. They'll spend money to make sure every Staff Officer has a personalized parking spot in front of the shiny new HQ. They'll spend billions building new F-22 stealth Raptors, that have no conceivable purpose in the post-cold war world, and billions more for new hangers to put them in - because God forbid those new airplanes should have to be housed in perfectly good facilities we built for the last bunch of new airplanes. They'll spend millions on airshows and parades and speeches and photo-ops and press conferences and yellow fucking ribbons. But they won't spend money for paint, or working plumbing, or drinking fountains, or clean sheets, or... well, you get the idea. Actions always speak louder than words. It's one thing to claim people are our number one asset, that we respect the troops who keep us safe, that we honor their service and admire them for their sacrifice - it's a wholly different thing to live up to those words.

This failure is not an isolated incident, it's another sign of a deeper rot - the same putrescent failure of leadership that got us into the current mess, the same failure of leadership that sent troops to war without armor and equipment, the same failure of leadership that brought them home to peeling lead paint and raw sewage.

And ultimately it's the fault of each and every American: If you don't vote, it's your fault. If you vote for political parties instead of people with integrity and honor and a sense of duty, it's your fault. If you allow your leaders unfettered reign without accountability, it's your fault. If you keep electing the same old bastards because you think it's funny to have a 96 year Senator in Office, it's your fault. If you can name the last ten Heismen Trophy winners or Britney's bra size, but have never read the Constitution, it's your fault. And it's long past time for Americans to stand the hell up and demand an accounting from the leadership of this country.

Will it happen?

I'm not holding my breath.