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Where do we get such men?

This weekend, a hero showed himself.  The pilot of a blimp in Germany told his passengers to jump out of the craft as it crashed and burst into flames, while staying at his station so that they could get out safely.  He died in his aircraft after his passengers were safe and it became completely engulfed.

Imagine puttering around in your blimp, taking a reporter and two other people on a tour, and then realizing that you’re not going to make it home that night.  How many of us would find a way to survive that didn’t guarantee the safety of our passengers?  How few of us would find a way to keep our charges alive while minimizing our own chances of safety?

The word hero gets tossed around a lot nowadays.  I’ve been embarrassed when my nieces and nephews thanked me for being a hero on Memorial or Veteran’s Day and have had to remind them that all I did was put on the uniform for a few years.  It’s good that I can point at people like Mike Nerandzic as an example of a hero. 

by daddybear71 on June 13, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Hero

Posted by daddybear71 on June 13, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/13/where-do-we-get-such-men-2/

Throw the book at him

A Cleveland Ohio man is under arrest because he took the “Get off of my lawn” jokes too seriously.  When a group of children got on his grass and bumped into his car, he opened fire, hitting one.  Thankfully, the little girl is going to be OK, and the moron who allegedly opened fire into a group of LITTLE GIRLS is in police custody.  Hopefully he’s convicted quickly and has a long timeout to think about what he’s done.

I’m absolutely furious with this jerk. First of all, he allegedly shot at a group of pre-teen girls over their presence on his lawn.  Now, I don’t like it when the neighbor kids use our yard as a playground without permission, but I’ve never considered opening a can of whoop-ass on them.  If he didn’t want the kids to be on his lawn or near his car, he should have gone tell them to leave and if they didn’t, go talk to their parents.

Second, it’s incidents like this that feed the anti-gun crowds.  The quickest way for a right to be eroded is for it to be abused and lose support in the general populace.  The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was possible because of all of the inner-city violence that occurred in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.  People stopped seeing AR-15’s and AK-47’s as tools that responsible people used and saw them as the implements of Mookie and his street corner pharmaceutical enterprise.   Same thing goes for the Gun Control Act of 1968.  People saw guns as the tools of political assassins, and supported gun control legislation because they were afraid that Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan were just the tip of the iceberg.  In 1934, violent crime was up due to the economic depression, and anti-gun forces were able to get the National Firearms Act of 1934 through at least partly because of John Dillinger and BabyFace Nelson.

My point is that we are all, as gun owners and users, the public face of our sport, hobby, and civil rights movement.  It only takes one slip or one dim bulb for us to lose a lot of ground, or possibly to push us off the cliff.  I heard someone say recently that all it takes for all of the progress that the SAF has made recently is for one Supreme Court justice to have a heart attack.  We need to stop giving the anti-gun people an excuse to attack our rights, and we need to police ourselves.

Those of you who monitor the anti-gun blogs, websites, and Twitter feeds will probably be hearing a lot about this.

by daddybear71 on June 13, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Guns

Posted by daddybear71 on June 13, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/13/throw-the-book-at-him/

The animals are the smart ones

We took the kids to the zoo this morning.  It was kind of cool when we got there, but by the time we left, it was starting to get hot and muggy.  So of course, it was my turn to be the pack mule.  I swear, I deployed OCONUS with less stuff than we take to the zoo.

The snow leopard and puma, for once, were out and about, and watched every move Boo made.  Either he looked absolutely scrumptious, or they know the danger that is a 3 year old American boy.

The polar and grizzly bears were very active, but their habitats are somewhat cooled.  The favorite snack for the grizzly bears appears to be ice cubes.  They were eating them like grapes.  The polar bear alternated between walking up to the glass and looking at the humans or looking longingly at the sea lions in their pool.

We took Boo into the lorikeet enclosure for the first time today, and I have to say that a true test of strength and agility is holding a plastic shot glass full of sugar water, balancing three lorikeets on an arm, and holding off a 3 year old from grabbing a lorikeet and plucking it because it’s pretty.  All done in such a way that the photos the wife takes don’t make you look like a lunatic.

The smartest animals we saw all day were the wallaroos.  These two guys were sacked out under shade, as was the rest of their group.  They stayed out of the sun and watched us shuffle past.

By the time we left, the crowd was getting big.  It’s good to see that something that’s almost 100% self-supporting gets so much support from the community.

by daddybear71 on June 13, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in kids zoo

Posted by daddybear71 on June 13, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/13/the-animals-are-the-smart-ones/

Zombie Music

While taking a short nap this afternoon, I had the strangest dream.

I was driving cross-country in my mother’s old Ford Grenada.  The AM radio in that 1970’s POS would only pick up one station, and all it played was zombie versions of popular songs.  For example:

Hooked on a Brainstem – Blue Swede
NoBrains – Eric Clapton
Stairway to Barricades – Led Zeppelin
If you like burning zombies (The Molotov Cocktail song) – Rupert Holmes
Shamblin Man – The Allman Brothers
Enter Zombie – Metallica
Bite me Baby, One more Time – Britney Spears
Can’t Bite This – MC Hammer
Shambler’s Paradise – Coolio
Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo, although this one was unchanged.
The Biological Mystery Tour – The Beatles

Luckily, I only took a 30 minute nap, so I was spared the drive across Nebraska listening to this stuff.  I wonder what brought this on?

by daddybear71 on June 12, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on June 12, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/12/zombie-music/

I have found my mid-life crisis

H/T to Tam on this one.  I’m going to go the geek road on the whole motorcycle thing and get one of these:

Looks like a cross between a crotch rocket and a mini-helicopter.  Who needs loud pipes on a Harley when you can swoop in on something that sounds like a small airplane?  All it needs is two holsters for double-barreled shotguns, one on each side for balance, a black leather jacket, and a pair of biker boots, and I’d be all set for that mid-life crisis that’s due any minute now.

Yeah, it’s experimental, and by the time all the bugs are worked out and they make it to market, I’ll be too old.  But a guy can dream, can’t he?

by daddybear71 on June 12, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in oh baby

Posted by daddybear71 on June 12, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/12/i-have-found-my-mid-life-crisis/

Advice to a Wayward Congressman

After admitting that he sent inappropriate messages to multiple women, Representative Anthony Weiner of New York has announced that he will be entering a treatment facility:

Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person….

So, following the new way to get out of something, Congressman Weiner will be entering rehab for a few weeks of ‘counseling’ so he can wait for the next scandal du jure to come out.

In order to save both time and money, I offer the following advice to help this gentleman become ‘a better husband and healthier person’:

  1. Do not show your schwanz to any woman you are not in a romantic relationship with already, or who is not your health care provider. 
  2. If you are caught showing your schwanz to a woman that isn’t your significant other or health care provider, don’t lie or attack those who question the appropriateness of your behavior.
  3. When you really poke the pooch, don’t act like you’ve got some mental health issue and hide in a treatment facility until the heat is off.  Man up, take your lumps, apologize profusely, and just stop showing women your schwanz.
  4. Don’t put any picture on-line that you wouldn’t want your grandmother and kindergarten teacher to see and know it was you.

If the good congressman will just follow these three easy steps, his life will improve.  Of course, I think it’s good advice for any man.

by daddybear71 on June 11, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Politics

Posted by daddybear71 on June 11, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/11/advice-to-a-wayward-congressman/

This is my shocked face

After the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan was a bit butt hurt over not being consulted.   Apparently, in an effort to mend a few fences with our ‘allies’ in Karachi, the U.S. government shared intelligence on a few Taliban/Al Qaeda facilities and personalities with the Pakistani intelligence service.  But when Pakistani troops raided these locations last week, they found them empty.

Now, I’m not saying that the insurgents were tipped off.  I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that between the OBL raid on May 2 and the Pakistani raid that grew out of our shared intelligence on June 4 that the bad guys all decided to move and take their bomb factories with them.  Only a paranoid racist that dislikes both the Pakistanis and President Obama on a personal level would think that someone gave the terrorists a warning.  I’m sure that our allies in the war on terror just cashed the check that came with the intelligence, spent the money on nursery schools and ice cream factories, and were very diligent about their information and operations security.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a Nigerian prince who wants me to send him a check in exchange for the deed to the Brooklyn bridge.  Something tells me I’m more likely to get a profit out of that than to continue our continued flushing of $100 bills in Pakistan.

by daddybear71 on June 11, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in pakistan

Posted by daddybear71 on June 11, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/11/this-is-my-shocked-face/

Good For Him!

An Illinois man noticed a bag of money sitting on the sidewalk and did the right thing.  He went into a nearby bank with it and tried to give it back, but they disavowed any responsibility for it.  Undeterred, the gentleman called the police and turned the money in.  Turns out it was money for an ATM that got misplaced by an armored car company.  No word yet on whether the good Samaritan will be given a reward, but I hope he gets something for his honesty.

It says a lot that something like this surprises me.  A sense of honor and responsibility like this is, regrettably, rare these days.  To be honest, I half expected him to be arrested for something or other over this.

So good for you, Robert Adams.  I like being able to write about something positive for a change.

by daddybear71 on June 11, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in honesty

Posted by daddybear71 on June 11, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/11/good-for-him-2/

Gadget Insecurity

OK, I’m a gadget geek.  I admit it.  Give me a little machine that has blinking lights and beeps, and it will amuse me for hours.  If you really want to get my attention, give it a screen and put a video game on it. I’m weak and immature, but for the most part, it’s harmless.

A few months ago, I bought a Roku media player.  Basically, it’s a teeny little box you connect to your TV and configure on your network.  It pulls down Netflix, Amazon, Pandora, and a whole bunch of other streaming content from the Internet.  Since we got it, we use our cable TV a lot less.  The convenience of being able to just grab what we want is wonderful.

The only drawback to the Roku is the remote.  It’s fully functional, and does everything you need to do on the box, but it’s tiny.  It’s about 1/2 inch by 1 1/4 inches by about 4 inches, about the size of a double-stack 9mm pistol magazine.  It’s in a continual state of ‘lost’.

I mentioned this to a co-worker today at lunch, and he suggested that I download a free app for my phone (gadget geek alert) that emulated the remote.  I wondered how it worked since the iPhone doesn’t have an IR port, but gave it a swing, and it works like a champ.  The app goes out onto the wireless network, finds a Roku to control, and give it commands across the network.  It was easy. I didn’t even have to verify that I was indeed the owner of the box.

While that’s pretty neat, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  One of the hats I have at work is Designated Guilty Bastard for Security, and I just about had a fit over this.  I basically have a little computer on my network that will take commands from anything on my network that knows the correct magic incantation.  While I lock down my wireless network as well as I can, it’s pretty trivial for just about anyone to overcome even the best wireless security and get on a network.  Plus, the express purpose of this device is to go out on the Internet and pull down large amounts of content.  It would be exceedingly easy for someone do a man-in-the-middle attack between my Roku and Netflix and start telling my little box to start doing bad things.

If it’s got a command interface and a network interface, it can be a spambot or worse.

Something tells me this isn’t unique to the Roku.  Most of the new TV’s I lust after at Sam’s Club* come with a network port.  How much do you want to bet they don’t have much security baked into them either?  BlueRay players are the same, and I’ve heard tell that the car manufacturers are putting networked computers into their cars now.  So how long until h4x0rs and organized crime find a way to turn all of these into moneymakers as botnets?  

Excuse me while I go finish putting up that fine copper mesh around the volume of the house.

*Yes, I’m a guy, and I want a TV that I have to step on my tiptoes to look over.

by daddybear71 on June 11, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Security

Posted by daddybear71 on June 11, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/11/gadget-insecurity/

Today’s Earworm

With all of the political news taken up lately by a congressman and his webcam, I thought this was appropriate:
by daddybear71 on June 10, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Earworm

Posted by daddybear71 on June 10, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/06/10/todays-earworm-138/

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