Pray for Norway

May God have mercy on the people of Norway.

I Guess He Had Permission

NBC has made final role call.

Back From the Dead to Dance on his Grave

I just heard the greatest news I could expect to hear with the current POTUS.

OBL has assumed room temperature.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-laden-killed/story?id=13505703

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704569404576297941397558496.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/bin-laden-is-dead-u-s-official-says/

http://news.google.com/news/more?q=osama+bin+laden&hl=en&prmd=ivnsub&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dijBbD9vqxRLPxMpqXPPoQlMhzfoM&ei=RyG-TZ3IDqL50gH97KnEBQ&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQqgIwAA

I gotta hand it to the current administration, they have completed something that G.W. left hanging, but not in the same way as Saddam...lols

I am going to beat Glenn Reynolds to the punch....

The Republicans told me that if I voted for them the government would chase Bin Laden to hell or Pakistan to get him... and they were right!

I have been feeling better, for all three people out there that care. But until tonight, I haven't quite felt 100%. Now I can say that this little gem really put me over the top.

So, THANK YOU, United States Air Force or United States SPECOPS Command. You have made this Bureaucrat's decade.

-and hey, what a way to start the new decade.

---Update, +5 min.

10:35: POTUS is speaking....

10:37: he is speaking from a teleprompter; he just flubbed a word. -1 it's not more because it is what we expect.

10:38: POTUS is taking full credit for the kill (away from Bush that is) -4, it's what we expect, but its still a dick-head move. I mean, it's his job to hunt down that demon.

10:39: POTUS personally authorized the mission. That is a +5 to his Presidency

10:42: POTUS thanked the trigger pullers after he made sure everyone knows he told them to do it. -5, because having been the blood, sweat, and tears I know that DC is far removed from the pointy end of the spear.

10:44: POTUS said under God. I will give another +1 for that.

Total: -4... that's not bad for a short Presidential speech...but this should have been a simple:

we kick ass and take names.

don't fuck with the USA

way to go team.

Good night America.

Not a free campaign ad. But hey, thats just my opinion.

--Update 2.

They said if I voted for a Republican we would be executing non-US citizens with out a trial, in foreign countries... and they were right!

-Sorry Prof. Reynolds, I did it again.

Spinal Headache

Look it up.

They suck...

I wish I were dead...

Well 24 hours ago I did.

Now go away, I am busy waiting to die or feel better.

Modern Hippy

HH-6 and I were discussing over the past week about how much the world has changed.

Take for instance the latest war... er... military action. Finally, wars for oil are now in style. I guess that means that W. was a trend setter, which you know is cool.

Of course large cars are going out of style... because POTUS said so, so that pretty much proves that .

HH-6 balked at the idea that we can now call ourselves hippies, but then we began to bat the idea back and forth and we came up with the following list as evidence

1. We believe the words "I'm from the government and I'm here to help," are cause for alarm
2. We share a goal of one day being able to grow, grind, and bake into bread our own wheat at home.
3. We think that living a sustainable life involves our community working together, not the government telling us what to do
4. We named one of our children after a flower
5. We are leaning towards homeschooling our children
6. We believe in making things from scratch at home that most people buy at the store
   
7. We believe that material possessions will not bring you happiness
   

However, as far as I can tell that's where the similarities end.
I began to realize that although we may have a few ideas in common with the liberal oxygen thief's that emerged in the 60's, our view of the world around us is radically different.

Conservatives; not to be confused with Republicans, think that are world is what we make of it.
Not, that our world is what we make others do for us.

and I think that this post is too long already to expand past that.

It is Truly Historic Times We Live In

For years the democrats have been playing up the divide between two camps in the republican party; the "mainstream" camp that supports Bush, Next, Huckabee, and the other mainstream candidates and the Palin camp and her fringe mama-grizzly's. But now we see very public cracks in the edifice of
the democrat party!

I am putting my money on the "Clinton" (which is the people that support the Clinton's) camp pushing a candidate against the "hopey-changey" Obama campaign. It will be interesting to see the Clinton's hang the first (and only hopefully) term of POTUS around his neck, denying him the ability to use platitudes and slogans to campaign. He can say he supports liberty around the world and the Clinton's will point to Libya and say "don't think so." He can try to say that he is a person of the people and we will all be able to point to the TEA party, polls, and the state of
the world to refute his statements of love and adoration.

It is one thing for a tin-pot dictator to make such claims while standing simultaneously on the throats of the press and the lively hood population. The mainstream media can see the writing on the wall. The Obama ship is sinking, the Kennedy sedan has sunk, the unions are headed over the waterfall in a barrel made of ridiculous contracts, Soros is being exposed as the brigand he is, and the only liberal vessel that even looks sea worthy is the Clintons.

The next 6 months will determine the face of the Democrat party for the 2012 campaign.

Updated: Training log Week 1

So, I started my training this past Sunday:

Sunday; walked 1 mile in 19min 50sec

Monday; walked 1 mile in 16min 21sec

Tuesday; walked 1 mile in 18min 36sec

Update: Wednesday; walked 1 mile in 14min 10sec, Like I said this is boring and tedious, but it is helping me be accountable.

Not bad for a guy with 60lbs too much and having knee surgery next month.

Although having Chuck Norris' second cousin threatening that he will "hold me down and tattoo "Blue Falcon" backwards across my forehead so every time I look in the mirror I will remember my shame" that is if I don't start working out.

I am in Shape and Improving it daily.

It just so happens that that shape is round.

A friend of mine recently went through a bout with cancer. Less than a year ago he found out he had cancer, went through the most awful tortu...err treatment known to man (suffice it to say that his new nickname is NBC) and won.

Or maybe I should say that he kicked that cancer’s ass so bad his doctor's wanted to extract his essence and feed it to other cancer patients, preliminary analysis show him as a second cousin to Chuck Norris!

Before the big C NBC would run marathons backwards while dressed in drag (poorly...I knew it was him all along) just to piss off the other competitors.

Just kidding, he didn't run them backwards.

NBC he is a prime example of why the USMC has yet to be bested in open combat. Even a grunt like me is capable of learning to recognize the subtle differences between squids and Leather Necks.

So now NBC has taken it upon himself to help an overweight broke-dick train up and tackle one of the greatest examples of why soldiers shouldn’t be left with spare time on their hands.

Ladies and gentleman I present to you Tough Mudder!

The proceeds go to a great cause and any reason to get out of the city and learn to love dirt again sounds like a vacation to me.

I will keep you all... okay, no one reads this blog.

I will use the blog to keep my own training log.

Even a Army puke knows the meaning of Seper Fi.

The Government as a Business

Keeping with the theme of my earlier post I discussed how the government could and in my opinion should be viewed as a business.

So, I figured that in a series of posts I could expand on that idea and discuss the merits of the current budget fight.

First, I admit, that the government is not a traditional business, it doesn't sell goods or services to customers for revenue. However as you will see you is a business none the less.

For ease, I will use GE as a standard corporate type business for comparison.

In this first post, I will use some common business terms to define the government and illustrate how it is and is not like a business.

So, here we go.

Shareholder: In a traditional business the term shareholder specifically identifies an entity that owns stock, however with the US government the Constitution gave each American citizen one share of stock. Those people who were born here didn't have to buy it, it was already paid for.

With GE stock is openly traded on the NYSE.

Common between the two is the ability to vote on leaderships and important issues.

Differences include how easily ownership is transferred.

Stakeholder: When looking at our government, it's difficult to define who the stakeholders are. Many people disagree about how much impact the USA has on the world abroad, but I think we can leave it at potentially every man, woman, and child in the world. Of course, that is not a big help in the discussion of politics and budgets, so for each topic a set of stakeholders should be defined.

Stakeholder is a term that can be applied equally to business and governments, so the same process described above should be applied to GE as well.

Product: Here is where is starts to get tough. with GE you can pick up a catalog and see exactly what products GE offers. With the government many products are intangible and hard to measure. A couple of examples include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, one key difference between business' and the government is the motivation for creating these products.

The government provides some products due to laws (such as social security), political preference (such as bridges to nowhere), and by necessity (we'll call it fertilizer).

GE creates widgets of all shapes, sizes, and purposes to sell them for more than they cost to make; i.e. a profit motive..

Next we will discuss revenue and how each entity can move costs.

The issue of moving costs is essential to understanding how each entity works.

I have been reading the headlines and listening to the news tonight and noticed two important headlines:

First from Sky News,

Libya Tanks Move In To Crush Rebel Stronghold

Second from NewsDay.com

Obama and his team mull responses on Libya

This should work out great for POTUS, the corpse's of the rebels in Lybia will be eaten by wild dogs before the Obama team determine which course of action is the least, but can still be touted as an impressive response defended or forgotten by the media.

Sorta brings to mind how we had to wait and wait and wait on his decision on the Afghanistan plan

Well he also has the fall back of blaming Bush

Work Work Work

Today was a long day at work. I got a lot done, but didn't have much to show for it. I spent a bunch of time chasing rabbits down rabbit holes and ghost into alley ways. But, thats how you learn. Now I wont make as many mistakes and I will be more efficient. I am just glad that we don't have Drill Instructors for Supervisors.

I will always remember what one of the drills said to us.

He said, "I am not yelling at you Private," he said "I am merely correcting you loud enough for the rest of the platoon to learn as well"

Yeah, after you have been in the Army and been exposed to that kind of verbal, physical, and mental abuse an office job seems a little to easy.

Of course we could Terry Tate to come visit, that would get things moving.

Why I support the Westboro Baptist Retards

Yesterday the SCOTUS reaffirmed the fact that we still live in one of the free-est countries in the world.

The court stood up for one of the most vile, inflammatory, and malicious groups in the country... well at least their right to make asses of themselves in public.

I am glad to see that the court upheld everyones right to dissent, even if it does give the phelp's clan another chance to be on the national stage. Hopefully, this new development will motivate work to isolate and relegate this cult to the waste bin of history.

So, how can we do this?

First, support the Patriot Guard Riders.

This group was formed in part to form a barrier between the families of heroes and protectors that cannot hide there animosity for the American spirit.

Second, don't pay attention to them, after all bad publicity is good publicity, just ask Charlie Sheen.

Third, if you can't ignore them, fight them. Not physically, that's is what they want. But, you can take a tip from the good people of Charleston, W. Va.

Just don't feed the animals.

Continuing Resolutions and the Government Workforce

a first-person View

Believe if or not this blog has not been abandoned... permanently.

As I noted before I am a federal employee and I am facing the prospect of a furlough. Two things:
1. Nothing I do will change anything, so I might as well not let it get to me.
2. As a taxpayer I would prefer that congress gets a full year budget passed (with those spending cuts) instead of the continuing resolution.

I don't see why it is so outrageous that the government, like any other business, can shut down.
Maybe the problem is that most people do not view the government as a business, well it is.
It has revenue and expenses. It creates products and has customers. Shoot, it even has stock holders, bond holders, creditors, and employees.

The risk of going to work for any business that is failing is that you could be out of a job.

Not only that, what in the budget is so sacred that it can’t handle downsizing? I think DoD comes closest to that.

In the end, I would rather lose pay than continue to sink further into debt.