Berkely to treat Military recruitment stations like Porn establishments

Apparently with no other pressing concerns one of the initiatives that will be on the ballot this fall in Berkeley is requiring public hearings and special licenses in order for recruitment stations to be set up, and certain criteria(distance to public places, schools, churches) must be met.

One of the city council members commented that she would support action to remove the existing recruitment station in Berkeley.

No word yet as to what the Status of the National Guard would be in the event of a massive Earthquake.

More Metro rants

As someone who takes the entirety of the Orange line (from the Vienna stop to the New Carrolton stop) to work each day, I have a love-hate relationship with the DC Metro Rail. Love because it's better than traffic, and cheaper when gas is factored in(I'd rather put a bullet in my head then try to drive to work in Maryland everyday).

Hate because, well, the people.

90% of the folks on the train are well behaved and courteous, it's the 10% that are problematic. The 10% that stop and stand still on the left side of escalators despite that everyone else before her(and it seems to always be a her, or an old man) were using the left hand lane as the PASSING lane.

The 10% that are from some craptastic town in PG County, are 12 years old, and seem to think that the appropriate behavior is to screen and yell like retards. Fortunately, they don't stay on long in the afternoon.

And finally, the assholes who decide to YELL INTO THEIR FUCKING PHONES while on the train. Maybe Verizon shouldn't have installed those repeaters.

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Having said all that, Metro is great, which is why I looked forward to the proposed expansion all the way past Reston to the Dulles airport. Frankly, we need more rail in this area, not less. And then the FTA went and threw a wrench in it. Hopefully the FTA gets off their ass and helps provides the funds, becuade if they think only Virginians are going to be using the expansion, they are smoking some serious crack.

Rootin' for a U.S.S. Robert Anson Heinlein

For those of you who don't know who Robert Heinlein is, go ahead and walk off and read Starship Troopers. No, don't watch the movie, damnit(although it did have it's pluses), the book. It's pretty short, you should get it done in no time. If you want to read something bigger I can also recommend Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

You back? Good. As far as Sci-fi authors go, Heinlein was one of the best. Certainly, he almost singlehandedly popularized the idea of "Power Armor" in the future military, and we're definately heading in that direction. He was also a Navy vet and, like myself, somewhere between a socialist and arch-conservative.

The Navy is in the process of ordering a new series of destroyers that are pushing the limits on current technology. Railguns and direct energy weapons are being seriously commented as future upgrades/included components for later ships of the class. Truly, it is the surface combatant of the future. And who better than Heinlein for a name of one of these fine vessels? The man who described HUDs, high speed computers, and a drift towards overwhelming quality of troops instead of quanity in the '50s deserves a badass ship named after him. So far the only ship named after him anywhere was in Star Trek and those communist pussies are undeserving of being even remotely associated with his name. Makes me want to throw chunks of the Moon down at Starfleet Headquarters in SF.

Some of that Old Time religion

A man strangled his daughter to death in Canada recently, because she was into dancing and not into wearing the Hijab. Sounds like the logical resolution to a family dispute.

I wonder what the thought process is for someone who travels from one craphole of a country to a civilized one, and then assumes he can rigorously apply his dark-ages beliefs in the country he as emigrated to. For that matter, it must have crossed his mind at some point that his kids were going to be infected by The Infidels(tm), so why the Hell didn't he pack up and go home? Not that killing your daughter would be just as acceptable to me if it happened in Derka Derkastan, just trying to follow the logic train. Hopefully they withhold bail on the turd(and his turdling of a son for obstruction of justice).

On a somewhat more petty note, I recently patched CoD4...and the patch nuked the program, and I appear to be far from the only one to have that problem, if the Infinity Ward forums are anything to go by. At least they didn't do what the EVE Online guys did, and overwrite Boot.ini.

lol soldiers are idiots lol

Ted Rall recently made a cartoon basically implying that the only reason people sign up for the military is (1) to go to Iraq and (2)for the recruitment bonus that they will get "if they live". Therefore, because of those reasons, soldiers(and by extension Marines, Sailors, and Airman) are idiots. And because they are idiots the United States as a whole is better off with them dead because it boosts the average IQ.

There are many reasons why people sign up. Money could be one. Maybe you want to get out of the little town in the middle of nowhere, or the ghetto in an urban area. Maybe your family all did so you did too. Maybe it's patriotism. Maybe you just didn't have any better idea as to what to do with your life(which I suspect is the vast majority). Down on the bottom of the list, however, is "let's go to Iraq and kill kill kill!"

Idiots? Well, the United States Military is better educated than the general population. Almost all the enlisted personnel have a diploma, and once they are through with technical training they are often considered equal to a journeyman in that trade to the DOL. In addition, it's increasingly a requirement for some kind of higher education in order to to get senior enlisted ranks. Hmm. Doesn't sound very idiotic to me. Officers? Much the same, except replace "diploma" with "Bachelors" and "Higher education" with "Masters or PhD."

But remember, to most civilians there is something wrong with folks who sign up for the military. They must be stupid, or foolish, or ignorant. Even with Bushie supporters who want to continue the war, when challenged to join the military if they support the war so much, mumble "I'm more important to the war effort in the private sector". Maybe they really are. Or maybe they are just cowards.

How much would you spend on your pet?

Last Thursday I noticed that one of my two cats, Mary, was acting in an unusual manner. She was following me around, meowing like she was in distress, and vigorously scratching her left ear. To the point of her cutting herself and getting a healthy bleed on. I got her to stop scratching, but her leg kept on twitching, and in the end she just yowled in distress more.

I set an appointment for the next day with the vet, went in...and found that it was a damn earwax build up. All told the trip cost me 120 clams, but I was instructed to bring the cat back next week. It seems that since she hadn't had a vet visit in who knows how long, she was due for a couple of vaccinations according to the Commonwealth of Virginia. One week later I am informed that she needs ear ointment(because the ear medicine I was giving seems to have irritated her ear, go fig) as well as two vaccines. That was another 130 clams.

Now, if she needed a $1,000 dollar operation, or more, I probably would have still came up with the money. It just perturbs me that I'm getting hammered on what I suspect was a simple problem and solution. The cat is back to her normal, anti-social self, at least.

Georgian Nazis!

So apparently immigration found themselves a former concentration camp guard in Georgia(the state, not the country). The fine outstanding gentleman volunteered for the Waffen SS in 1941, which instantly dashed any potential sympathy I might have had for him. For some reason the idea of volunteering to be part of the armed Nazi Party Apparatus strikes me as more than a little worse than being conscripted into the Heer. This hasn't stopped some of the Jackholes at some of the message boards I hang out though. One of them even said that "With such viral bias[against the SS], you're opinion is thus rendered useless." to me because I said "The only appropriate place for a SS volunteer is at the end of a noose." As it stands, the Nazi in question is going to be deported.

Speaking of killing Nazis, the expansion for Company of Heroes is out, and I'm enjoying the gameplay quite a bit. Relic really outdid themselves with the "How often can we make you punch in a registration key" mission right when you run the game for the first time. The rest is gravy.