Staghounds

Look, Generals and Commander in Chief, you need to retake Defeat 101.

Major Loser has, all by himself, inflicted a significant defeat on the Great Satan generally and its Army particularly.

First, he destroyed a platoon (officer heavy) all by himself. Roughly ten million dollars in direct pension and medical treatment and pension costs.

Next, once we put thousands of metal detectors at military hospitals, millions of dollars in security theatre equipment and hundreds of thousands of hour of security theater wasted time.

24/7/365, FOREVER. Figure what, two thouand full time dedicated kabuki security? Times three shifts?

He's cost the U. S. military establishment what, a brigade? Two brigades?

Granted, our level of self damaging overreaction will be grossly out of proportion to what this traitor actually did. But the overreaction is predictable.

Good work, General Cone. Enjoy your promotion and pension, General Fredendall got them too.

Another win for our enemies, courtesy of our own lack of seriousness.

Labels: Not a lot of laughs, Our Doofus Masters

So, it was time for me to get a haircut before going away- but things intervened and I went still shaggy. While walking in Taunton I passed Affinity For Hair at 44 Bridge Street, among all the charity shops.

(Sciencegirl is right, I ought to just travel with nothing and stock up here. At least on coats!)

So I had my hair cut by Laura, and it was a real pleasure. I told her how I like having my hair cut, the touching and being fiddled with. She said she didn’t like having hers done, which struck me as odd so I asked why.

"Because I know I can do it better. If I could take my head off and cut my own hair I would.”

I said THAT, I understood, it was an artist speaking. No one who loves doing something and is good at is can easily watch another perform. I suspect that holds true with any artist, racing drivers probably can barely endure a taxi ride.

But it was a real pleasure to feel her interest and effort come through in what some people would consider a prosaic or at least repetitive task. I admit that’s
powerful for me, and awesome to be around.

(No, I’m not about to have the Heather Blake experience again, once is enough.)


So if you need a snip in Taunton, give Laura a try!

As a bonus, someone in the shop heard me saying I was from away on holiday, and she told me she was not local either, but from Much Bigger City, and was establishing herself here as (NOT) a car mechanic. I asked her how she came to be here, and it was because it was her Beau’s home. Turns out she met him while on holiday in a third place, took a real liking to him but didn’t exchange digits.

The next week, she was at work in MBC, and thought she saw him walk past the garage.

“Don’t tell me, he went to MBC and looked in every garage until he saw you.”

No- a little later a friend of his came in to the garage and asked if she knew Beau from the holiday, because Beau said he thought he saw her in the garage.

Just coincidence- Beau and friend were there on some work related errand.

And the rest is history.

Of course, HE told it was coincidence. I like to think that he indeed did block the day out, and went to MBC to look into every garage to find his vacation crush.

Just took friend along to provide VTAOBAUN, and to insulate Beau from the shootdown he might have feared.

So, that was a day at the hairdressers. Hunting (within the law) tomorrow!

Labels: Quirky does not begin to describe this blog

Do it yourself, I'm travelling.

I love all the "motive is unclear" stuff from the people giving this trash traitor and maker of orphans MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF PUBLICITY.

Hey, he's a psychiatrist. His actions make perfect sense!

It's not as though he knew what to say to game the system and avoid being deployed.

Or could prescribe himself drugs, either.

Face it- shooting up a base full of soldiers is the PERFECT way to avoid the three worst things about deployment- uncertainty, risk of injury, and a dramatic decline in personal living conditions.

Yep, he did it because he didn't want to be deployed. Its the only POSSIBLE explanation.

Labels: Mass Killing Rewrites

In England at last, out with the Exmoor tomorrow. Always a happy/sad experience that I wouldn't give up and wish I could.

Strange. Narcissists and sociopaths have it easy.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has awarded a Research Grant worth just under £500,000 to Dr Adrian Bell of the ICMA Centre and Professor Anne Curry of the University of Southampton to challenge assumptions about the emergence of professional soldiery between 1369 and 1453.

Which includes something interesting. There are six people in Manhattan with my good old English last name.

And there are four here.

Yes, I know it's their slogan, but...



Yes-

Authorities say the men's plans — in which they used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps — were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said.

I read the press release.

It's the prize for making the United States...


wait for it...




I wonder if the notes from the deliberations had a bunch of interlocked hearts, and Cupids, and "Mrs. Nobel Peace Prize Committee Obama" drawn all over them?


(Kristin Chenoweth STILL should have won the Tony.)

I love me some Wicked- here's some Brian May productions thereof!

A planned community with Old World architectural detailing designed to resemble a Lord of the Rings hobbit village...

Woo HOO!

Decent day Saturday, including being in exactly the right place to stop hounds off as they tried to cross a dangerous boundary- and NOT in response to a radio call!

Meantime...

The August 2005 passage of the African American HIV/AIDS Response Fund law, which Howard co-sponsored, laid the groundwork...

The Chicago not-for-profit organization -- founded by state Rep. Connie Howard (D-Chicago) -- went on to get $1.2 million in taxpayer money from that program...

Among the expenses in question are $5,607 for tickets and a skybox for the September 2007 Chicago Football Classic...

records show Kelly, Estes and another Let's Talk, Let's Test employee have made a total of $3,273 in campaign contributions to Howard since 2004. In addition, the foundation paid Howard $5,500 to rent office space in her campaign office in 2004.

"When people write a check to me, that is a personal check from them," Howard says. "That's their business. It has nothing to do with the organization."

But wait, you also get:

Besides getting $1.2 million in state health department money for HIV and AIDS prevention, the Let's Talk, Let's Test Foundation has also gotten $500,000 from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to buy and rehabilitate a nine-unit apartment building on the South Side.

Let's Talk, Let's Test paid $379,000 in July 2007 to buy the building at 7948 S. Evans.

The foundation had planned to use the remaining money from the commerce department for renovations so it could then rent out the building and use the income for future HIV-testing and AIDS-awareness activities.

But the rehab project cost more than planned, and the foundation ran out of money to finish it, according to Lloyd Kelly, the foundation's executive director.

So, more than two years after the foundation bought the building, it remains vacant. In July, city building inspectors declared it "vacant and open," which could lead to demolition proceedings.

But Kelly says the foundation is still hoping to find a way to finish the project.

"The concept is a good one. It would be a travesty" if it fails, he says.

The headline on that last story is "$500,000 for building rehab, and nothing to show for it".

I'll bet there isn't "nothing" to show for it. Who sold it? Who got commissions? Who got $121,000 to not renovate it?

Remember, it's NEVER "wasted". Some cui, somewhere, bonos.