OK, I’m childish, but like most other guys, I like a well tailored low cut blouse on a woman.   Or a nice pair of well fitting jeans on a lady who has nice, shall we say, assets.

Recently, some asshat in Iran stated that the earthquakes and other catastrophes in the recent past are caused by women who show too much skin in public. 

Some wonderful woman decided that today would be a good day to test that theory by having all women who wanted to dress provocatively and see if any earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, or plagues of locusts descended on the world.  Apparently the idea has taken off.

I think this needs to be a long-term study, and I would be more than happy to pay a .5% increase in my sales tax to pay for it.

So, all of you ladies who are so inclined, please feel free to let it all hang out, so to speak.  I won’t complain, and I may lay a beating on any male who does.

Joe over at Viking Preparedness has an interesting thought about buying silver or gold bullion for use as a hedge against inflation of more common currency.  His basic conclusion is that it’s OK to have some, but don’t use anything other than extra money to buy bullion.  If you don’t have your basic needs provided for, such as food, water, security, etc., then don’t spend good money on silver and gold for trading.

My take on it is that if the economy gets so bad that the local farmer or mechanic doesn’t want to take greenbacks for food or skilled labor, they’re probably not going to be interested in gold or silver.  If we get to that point, then trading useful goods or labor will be more likely.  Why trade for bullion when .22 cartridges will be more useful?  A farmer is more likely to trade a few days labor in the harvest for some bags of potatoes or some grain than a couple silver dollars.   A mechanic will probably get more use out of a bag of coffee or fresh vegetables than a gold coin in exchange for fixing some piece of machinery.

Just prior to Y2K, a co-worker who had lived through the inflation of the ’60’s and ’70’s decided to take all of his money, including retirement, and buy gold bullion.  He figured that after the world came to a stop because the mainframes locked up, he’d be sitting pretty.  On January 2, 2000, he watched all of that wealth become pretty much useless as the price of gold dropped.  For his sake, I hope he held onto it until now so that he didn’t take it as a total loss.  I’ve tried not to follow his bad example as we do our preparations for bad times.

So, Irish Woman and I take care of our basic needs, make sure we have enough food and then some, and don’t spend money on bullion.  In the event of the world coming to an end, I’d rather depend on trading and working to get what I can’t grow or make than the hope that someone will place value in precious metals.

NATO has given Bosnia a “preliminary” membership nod, with further consideration for full membership to follow.

As those of you who were’t living under a rock in the ’90’s remember, Bosnia-Herzegovina was the setting for a protracted, brutal civil war.  NATO spent over 10 years patrolling the small country so that the parties involved wouldn’t continue to target each other and all civilians within reach. 

Now, even though tensions in Bosnia are still very high, one of the three ethno-political entities that run the counry refuses to give up its stocks of weapons, and anyone who really things about it knows that at best we’re a decade or so of the fighting starting back up, we’re allowing them into our mutual defense pact.

So what will NATO do when the Bosnian Serbs get support from Serbia proper and start raping and killing their way across the countryside again?  Of if the Croats decide they’d rather take what they’ve got and merge with Croatia?

NATO was constructed to provide a united front against possible Soviet aggression.  It’s reason for being is gone, and has been for almost two decades.  Why does our government continue to be a part of this group that is now reaching out to new countries that will drag the alliance, including the U.S., into civil wars?  Why don’t we just take our tanks, planes, and troops, and go home?

Andrzej Dereszowski, a security consultant, has demonstrated that it’s possible to reverse engineer some malware used in targeted attacks against a company or organization and then use that information to fight back.  


And here I was putting together a protocol for our company that involved helicopters, commandos, and nuking from orbit.  Guess his method would be effective, but not much more legal.  Although finding, fixing, defenestrating, and putting their heads on pikes to be hung from an overpass in their hometowns would be more gratifying on a gut level.

Irish Woman – “And over there, we’ll put the gate.  I don’t want it too wide, just wide enough to get the mower through.”
DaddyBear – “Yes Dear”
Irish Woman – And I want the fence to come out to here around the tree, but not too far.”
DaddyBear – “Yes Dear”
Irish Woman – “I think we’ll stain the fence instead of painting it.”
DaddyBear – “Yes Dear”
Irish Woman – “Please stop saying ‘Yes Dear’ to everything I say.”
DaddyBear – “Yes, oh shining Goddess of my Life, without whom I would have no reason to go on.”
Irish Woman – “Are you looking for an ass kicking?”

Started off the day by sleeping in until 8, then had a leisurely breakfast with BooBoo and Irish Woman.  Junior Bear left early to go to Thunder over Louisville with friends.

After breakfast, went to Home Depot and Lowe’s to price fencing material for the back yard. BooBoo is getting adventurous, and it’s easier to corral him than chase him.  While we were there, we picked up some plants for an early season garden. Irish Woman picked up onions, cauliflower, and broccoli.  I got some sage and thyme to add to my herb garden.  BooBoo picked up some marigold and sunflower seeds, which we will plant tomorrow.

This afternoon, we planted the herbs and vegetables, and did some clean-up in the yard.  I trimmed back some of the bushes, and got the dead pine tree out of the yard.  We’ll put it all out for pickup this week.  BooBoo worked on his putting with the toy golf clubs he got for his birthday.

Dinner was a wonderful grilled chicken salad with a cold beer.  For dessert, BooBoo will be having a cookie, and I will be having a nice glass of cold limoncello.  Irish Woman is off to meet an old college buddy for a drink and conversation.

The weather was beautiful, the work was rewarding, and the food and drink were delicious.  Can’t ask for much more in a day.

President Obama has canceled his trip to Poland to attend the funeral of Polish President Kaczynski.

Since most of the airports in Europe are Tango Uniform at the moment due to volcanic ash, the only alternative for Obama to get there would be to fly where he could safely land, then take land transportation to the funeral and back.  The time to do this and the disruption of life for everyone along the route because of security make this idea a non-starter.

So I won’t criticize the President on this one.  Hopefully once air travel returns to normal in Poland, he will take an opportunity to mend fences with a staunch ally and go to Poland to pay his respects.

Imagine you’re a young man or woman, and your country is at war.  You want to serve, so you sign up for the service of your choice.

Upon entering the service, you are trained in a job that is almost exclusively way outside of direct combat.  When combat oriented training occurs, you zone out because, hey man you just signed up for the college money and you’re in no danger of being shot at or captured.

One night, the world falls in.  Either you mess up something terrible or you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, but you end up captured by the enemy. You’re low ranking, don’t know anything useful, and to be honest, you’re not worth much to the enemy except as a propaganda tool.

They start to question you.  Do you stick to half-remembered lessons about how to act as a POW and find a way to keep from answering their interrogation, or do you curl up into a ball, suck your thumb, and spill what little you do know?

If you’re Seaman Doug Hegdahl, you act as stupid as you can, make yourself seem even less useful for information and propaganda, and continue the fight against the enemy even when you’re in a prison camp.  You learn a new system of memorization, and use that skill to learn the name and identifying information for 256 fellow prisoners, a lot of which haven’t been declared as captured. 

Check out OldNFO‘s post about Hegdahl and everything he went through and did after being captured by the North Vietnamese.

When I was an MI soldier, we learned about such heroes as Mr. Hegdahl.  You see, a lot of the things we were told about MI was similar to what he believed about his duty.  Yes, we were in the Army, but we were strategic assets and would probably never hear a shot fired in anger, much less run the risk of being captured. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, our senior NCO’s realized how much BS that was and started working to give us the skills to survive if we were ever sent into a fight. That included the Code of Conduct, which is a list of the things that an American Soldier demands of himself in the event of capture.  Hegdahl, along with others from Vietnam, Korea, and World War II, was used as an object lesson.

My thanks always go out to such men and women as Seaman Hegdahl.  They are an example of how to conduct yourself in the worst of times.

A volcano in Iceland is spewing an ash plume all over Europe.  This is, of course, disrupting that most modern form of travel, aviation.  Having volcanic ash, which is really a microscopic shard of rock, sucked into your engine will really ruin your day.  Of course, you’ll get a few seconds of glider time to add to your flight log, but it’s unplanned.

The powers that be in Europe have prudently shut down their air travel network for the most part.  Thousands are stranded at airports and are scrambling for alternate means of transportation.  In Europe, that usually means the train.  Rail travel in Europe works very well, and to be honest is probably not much slower than flying once you take into account the amount of time it takes to go through security at an airport.

But what do you do if you’re stranded at an airport in the US, where long-distance travel is usually either done by car or plane?  Amtrak isn’t really an alternative. 

Let’s say you’re flying from Los Angeles to New York, with a layover in Denver.  That’s probably the longest journey you will make in the continental United States.  You get to Denver, and a blizzard and ice storm comes in, stopping all air travel for the foreseeable future in Denver and the surrounding states. 

You aren’t in LA, where you could just go home.  You’re not in New York, where hopefully you’d have some people to assist you, either in business or personal life.  You’re stranded in the middle of the continent with no real way of going forward or back. 

Best case scenario is you have friends or family in the Denver area who can take you in until you can get your travel mess straightened out.

If you’re lucky and have the cash, you get to the rental car counter before the rest of the Golden Horde and get yourself a go-go mobile to get you back to LA.

If you can’t do that, then if you have the money and you at least have some luck, you get into a motel to ride out the storm until transportation can be found.

But let’s look at worst case scenario.  No friends or family.  The rental car counters are all closed because they’re out of cars.  The hotels are all full to the brim. 

So you’re stuck in the airport for the foreseeable future.  You have with you the clothes on your back, unless you can convince someone to get your bags out of the checked luggage area.  You may have some food and drink with you if you thought to bring some for the trip.  You may have some cash or a credit card to buy food at the airport, but that can run out fast.  Everyone and their brother who’s stuck in the same predicament is at this very moment rushing through the food court and convenience stores to get what they can.  Maybe you have a book, or a laptop, or an iPod to keep you from going insane.  Hopefully, you packed a toothbrush and the small pack of toiletries the TSA will let you take on-board.  Did you put your necessary medication in your check baggage?

Can you go for 3 or 4 days on what you have in your carry on? 

Here’s what I always pack in my carry-on no matter what when I travel by air:

1. Blanket – either a small thermal blanket or one of those space blankets
2. Water – After I get through security, I always buy two of the biggest bottles of water available.  TSA doesn’t allow bottles of liquid through their checkpoints, so I’m forced to grin and bear it on the price of water.
3. Food – I always pack some snacky smores for munching, but I also pack two or three energy bars for emergencies.  You can stretch this out for a day or two.
4. Communications – Always have a cell phone with you, even if you have to buy one of those disposable pay-as-you-go phones at Best Buy.   If you’ve got a laptop and can get access to a power outlet, you can use wireless Internet connections to stay in contact with home.
5. Entertainment – You’ll always find two or three books in my carry-on.  A book of puzzles like crosswords and a pencil or two will give your mind something to do.  My iPhone is with me, of course, but I always make sure I have the 110 to USB adaptor for it too, along with a charging cable.  If you’ve got a laptop, you can get absorbed in a video game to wile away the hours.
6. Toiletries – At the very least, I have my toothbrush, a small tube of toothpaste, and some baby wipes. You’d be surprised how good it feels to brush your teeth and wash your face.  Even if you can’t get a shower or shave, little things like that can make you feel human again.
7. Medication – I always hand carry my meds.  In addition to my normal daily medication, I make sure I take along some extra Benadryl, Immodium, and Pepto-Bismol in case I get sick during a trip.  Nothing worse than trying to find a drug store when you’ve got a raging case of Montezuma’s Revenge.

As for what you do when you’re stranded, I suggest finding a place where you can see all around you to camp out.  Hopefully the airport has TV monitors so at least you can see CNN or whatever they’re piping in.  Don’t go off somewhere quiet to try to get some sleep.  Being alone makes you an easier target, no matter if you’re a 6’4″ lumberjack or a 4’10” housewife.  Stay with the crowd, and try to group up with people you can spend extended time with.

And until you find a way to either continue your journey or go home, try to keep a good attitude.  Every jerk in the airport is going to be harassing the staff either for information on when they can get out or for help in getting the things they need but didn’t think to bring along.  Being polite to those around you, especially airport staff, will go a long way to keeping everyone from turning into wolves.

A few weeks ago, I wondered if the use of dueling would do anything to bring down the level of stupid in our society.

Well, Cracked has taken up that meme and done a pretty good job of explaining why dueling would be a good alternative to our kinder, gentler way of resolving minor conflicts:

Go and read the entire article.  It’s good for a chuckle and to make you think.