South Park Monday

Forgot about one of the best Thanksgiving clips of all...



And here's one for the upcoming Christmas season...

FOAD

Stupid UAW:

WASHINGTON – The head of the United Auto Workers made a public plea Sunday for government help for U.S. carmakers as the Big Three put the final touches on stabilization plans to submit to Congress.

"We cannot afford to see these companies fail," said Ron Gettelfinger, the UAW chief, calling on Congress to approve the aid during a special session the week of Dec. 8.

Gettelfinger said a $25 billion rescue plan for the carmakers is "not a bailout, this is a loan — a bridge loan — that will get us through until we can take a longer-term look at exactly what needs to be done in the industry."'

Of all the people responsible for this mess, the head of the UAW should be the last one to be saying anything.

The more things change...

SJS has a pretty cool photo essay making use of the recently released LIFE photo archives. Given my future career field of munitions, I figured that would be as good of place as any to start (click on all for higher-res):
Is that a uniform? Looks almost like he's wearing the same overalls as a civilian mechanic. Between that and all the B-18s in the background, good statement on America's pre-war readiness.


That's more like it.
Something makes me think these guys have never heard of ORM.

I've always thought this was a pretty cool picture.
I think we're soon going to see this kind of effort and readiness in the nuclear field again...Gen. LeMay can quit rolling over in his grave.
Bombing Saddam......and doing the same 13 years later. (Last picture taken from af.mil).

Valour-IT

By now anyone who reads this blog should know what Valour-IT is. If you don't, check this out. This is a subject near and dear to my heart because if I somehow lost the use of my hands, being able to operate a computer would be at the top of the list of things I would be wanting to do but unable. The program has expanded to include Wii game systems for use in physical therapy sessions and GPS devices for use in compensating for short term memory loss and organizational challenges in those who have suffered TBI or have severe PTSD. The TBI aspect was brought into sharp relief the other day when I found out that a guy I know from grade school and junior high who is a Marine currently deployed to Afghanistan took a grenade to the face. He's fine, just some superficial damage from the fragments, but the concussion hit him hard enough to knock him out, putting him at risk for TBI.

I'm not going to blow a lot of smoke, because in the words of Sgt. Drucker, this kind of shit here sells itself. Either you are or you aren't willing to donate to a cause like this, and I don't think there's much I can say that will sway your opinion one way or the other. However, I will point out two things of note: First, Chris over at The AnarchAngel is auctioning off a Sig P6/P225 handgun. The gun, two mags, a holster, and some nice looking wood grips can all be yours if you are the top contributor. Second, SJS has brought back his annual challenge. While I'm a little under the weather and still too swamped at the moment to think of any clever return fire, I'll just steal something from Buck and point out that the all Bug airwing can really do a lot with its organic tanker support. Oh wait...

Our tankers might be ancient, but at least we still HAVE tankers.



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South Park Monday, Thanksgiving Edition

So when in the hell did it snow?

Seriously, when did it snow today? I went to bed last night around 0200, no snow. I wake up today around 1330, but have my blinds drawn so I can't see outside. When I finally head out of the apartment around 1800 to grab some food, there's about half an inch of snow on the ground. Given that I do not yet have sandbags in the bed of my RWD only truck, this was a bit of an unpleasant surprise.

Pic o' the day

Mid Late Week Rock Music, Shatner Edition

Rad Dudes

These are some pretty freakin' rad dudes.

I think my favorite so far has been the monorail dudes. If you build a fully functioning monorail in your backyard, I think that qualifies as seriously rad.

h/t: Chap

South Park Monday

Easily my favorite two moments of the episode.

Busy

How to tell you are a little too busy: you forget your own birthday, only reminded by a) a friend randomly asking the night before (prompted by a text from a classmate who barely qualifies as an acquaintance) b) a text from your sister and c) a message from the Facebook Team.

Oops.

Mid Week Rock

As stated previously, if you don't like Johnny Cash you can go to hell:

The 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month...

h/t: Lex



I've always liked this speech, especially for Veterans' Day. It's important to make a distinction between Memorial Day and Veterans' Day and I think the German officer's speech really implicitly gets at that distinction.

Change summed up in one paragraph

"These tickets are given for free to people. This is a major civic event of the time, and no one pays for their tickets, and we believe no one should be required to pay for their tickets," Feinstein said in an interview. (Italics mine.)

From this story about making scalping inauguration tickets a federal crime. Don't these people ever get tired of writing laws?

On another note, this story (yet again) points out the absurdity of outlawing ticket scalping. Fact of life: If there is a demand, people will supply it. Why, it oughta be a law...

Pure Evil

In case you thought it didn't exist, here's a little reminder:

An said he served as a guard and driver at four camps before defecting in 1994. If a female inmate got pregnant, he said, she and her lover would be shot to death publicly. Then, An said, prison guards would cut open her womb, remove the fetus and bury it or feed it to guard dogs.

Forced abortions are common, and if babies are born, many are killed, sometimes before the mother's eyes, defectors say. Grandparents also may be punished since whole families are imprisoned.

"We were repeatedly taught they were the national traitors and we have to eradicate three generations of their families," he said.

I'll be the first one to admit that the U.S. has several faults. But we don't do that. No one in the civilized world does. It's pure unadulterated evil.

South Park Monday

Ceeeeeeelebrate good Obama, come on!

Anyone wanna buy a TV?

What won't happen

There won't be rioting in the streets, there won't be endless lawsuits, and there will be an orderly transition of power.

Far be it from me to suggest that certain elements of our society may be predisposed toward these actions (it was, after all, a Republican who sued in 2000), but it would behoove all of us to remember and be thankful of these facts.

And while you're at it, help certain fellow citizens off their knees; it's been a long campaign and I think they need a break before the inauguration.

Mid Week Rock

Again, only one choice for today's. Worth noting that I made this post long before today; it applies equally regardless of who won yesterday. Also worth noting that I find the use of this song by the more "revolutionary" elements in our society highly ironic, given that the story of the song is a revolution whose leaders turn out to be no better than the ones they overthrew. No matter how much change, hope, or maverick-ness your candidate supposedly embodies, nothing will ever really change.

/takes off disgruntled libertarian hat.

link (sorry, no embedded video for this one; there was only one video with good original Who live footage.)

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

The race thing

I've been seeing a fair amount of FOD about the transcendent moment in American politics that occurred tonight, how we have moved beyond race. Some of it is even from people whose opinions I respect a great deal.

However, I must respectfully disagree. President-elect Obama shares absolutely none of the heritage of racial repression that has darkened this country's history. A man who has formative ties to Kansas, Hawaii, Kenya, and Indonesia does not know what it is like to have a father who can remember being fire-hosed and attacked with dogs while marching for civil rights. A man who attended Harvard does not know what it is like to work a job while attending night classes to become the first college graduate in his family.

The day we elect a person who grew up in a small town in Mississippi (or Alabama, or Louisiana, or Georgia), who attended a small state college, and who can trace their lineage back to a sharecropper and, before that, a slave, THAT will be a historic day for America.

This one? Not so much.

3, 2, 1...

Start the disillusionment clock. I'm guessing that it goes off sometime between May and June, maybe before if there's a foreign confrontation that, horror of horrors, the President chooses to respond militarily to.

Or, as Brad over at The Liberty Papers put it far more eloquently,

"Just one more day, and the government can go back to screwing us quietly instead of auditioning for the job of screwing us."

Open Questions

Anyone, feel free to answer.

How is it that three of my friends were able to vote without showing any sort of photo ID or in any other way proving a) who they were and b) they lived where they said they lived? This includes one that did same-day registration. Putting it mildly, I have no doubt that I could've easily committed voter fraud numerous times over and gotten away with it.

How is an Obama campaigner able to get away with openly committing fraud (on university property, no less) by printing off fake leases to let students claim Iowa residency?

How is it that some of the major networks were calling Iowa for Obama THREE FUCKING MINUTES after the polls closed and with less than 1% of the precincts reporting? I mean, if they've got a future telling machine, I would be interested in getting my hands on it. And if they don't, exit polls are no way to predict an election.

For the record, I don't have a dog in this fight, as I voted for Barr and I think both of the major candidates are equally repulsive. However, this behavior by the media isn't conducive to a healthy democracy. If they'd like, they can have my handkerchief to wipe some of that white sticky stuff off their chin.

Your non election news of the day

Japanese people are fucking weird. Or blame gay marriage. I'm going with option #1.

Seen in a Pol S 301 Paper

And offered entirely without comment:

"It could be that someone did not receive a degree because they detonated themselves before graduation."

Awesome

I think it would be hard to be more awesome than this guy. I dunno if it's even possible:

South Park Monday

Only one choice for today's...

Heard in the Armory

From some presumably design students:

*BANG* *CLANG* *CRASH*

AIIIIIIEEEEE SHIT!

So you think you can shoot?

Try an unmodified M1D Garand at 1000 yards.

I swear to God...

...if I get one more Obama campaign email at my @iastate.edu address I'm going to go postal. I don't care how legitimately they "obtained" (read: bought) the permission to spam my inbox with political bullshit for a candidate I don't agree with, the perception is that Iowa State University is aiding and abetting a political campaign, and that's really not cool. To give you an idea of the scope of the issue, in the past week I've (no exaggeration) gotten 10+ Obama campaign spam emails.

I mean, not that it's surprising, seeing as how the VP for Student Affairs (among others in power on campus) is a tool for the Obama campaign, but you would think as a supposed institution of higher learning they would at least attempt to maintain a veneer of impartiality.

Senator Supreme Beloved Leader President-elect Defender of the Homeland Provider for the Poor President Obama, I don't want to give you any money, seeing as how you'll be taking enough of it from me at gunpoint in a few months.