Aloha Dump

The Navy Safety Center (NSS) is the gestapo equivalent of safety management. I don't pay much attention to them because the weekly harangue of motorcycle safety enforcement has numbed me to the point of apathy. How many times do I need to hear about wearing a gay refelctive vest while I ride? But I digress. I sent the following letter to NSS and it is self-explanatory as to my intent. ------------------------------------------------------------ Research the people, not their actions. STS1(SS) Greg Smith I am writing in response to the article by Jack Dorsey, Off-Base Crashes Proving A Safety Issue For Sailors (Virginian-Pilot, Oct 18, 2006). After reading the consequences for various vehicular infractions- getting a ticket before a holiday weekend (mandatory prepackaging of personal items to send to next of kin), going 1 mph over the posted speed limit (loss of driving privileges for 45 days), and demotions/fines- and analyzing the current social dynamics of military members, it is...

Beween the innocence of infancy and the recklessness of maturity comes the unique specimen of humanity known as the Submariner. Submariners can be found in bars, in arguments, in bed, in debt and intoxicated. They like receiving mail, mid month paychecks, nude pin ups, sympathy, complaining and beer. A Submariners secret ambition is to change places with the Captain for just one trip, to own a brewery and to be loved by everyone in the world. A Submariner is a Sir Galahad in a Japanese brothel, a psychoanalyst with Readers Digest on the table, Don Quixote with a discharge note, the savior of mankind with his back teeth awash, Valentino with a fiver in his pocket and democracy personified in a Red Chinese prison cell. A Submariner is a provider in war and a parasite in peace. No one is subjected to abuse, wrongly accused, so often misunderstood by so many as a Submariner. He has the patience of Job, the honesty of a fool and the heaven sent ability to laugh at himself. When he returns h...

Ohio State Defeats Michigan 42-39 In Ultimately Meaningless Game November 23, 2006 | Onion Sports COLUMBUS, OH—In what had been touted as a college-football matchup for the ages, the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the No. 2 Michigan Wolverines 42-39 Sunday in a game that, while exciting, ultimately made no real impact on the football landscape and had no significant effect on the national rankings. Ohio State coach Jim Tressel echoed many of Henne's statements in a press conference during which he had obvious problems staying interested. "This was a tough game for us," Tressel said. "By which I mean it was tough to get excited about it. Playing Michigan should be special, but going into this game, we knew that no matter what happened on the field, the BCS polls would have us either first or second. There was really no point in playing this at all." Read the entire story here.

It seems that men in high places still haven't learned to keep their dorks zipped up. Capt. Scott Bawden, Commodore of Submarine Squadron 17 in Bangor, WA, was relieved of commnad after having "lost the confidence" of his boss. If you follow submarine news you will remember that Bawden was the Commodore who axed some of the crew of the USS Columbia after a hazing incident. /hat tip The Stupid Shall be Punished What comes around goes around? It has been quoted by a Chief who knew Bawden that morale will probably get better now that Bawden has been shitcanned. Sounds like a few Commodores I know. But there is more to this story than a guy who perhaps can't do his job anymore. Bawden was busted sleeping with someone elses wife, a Chief's wife, no less, IN HIS OWN command. Will the top brass save a onetime fair-haired boy's career, or will he end up "walking the plank?" What a jackass. It's bad enough that the Officers screw the enlisted, but ...

After playing cat-and-mouse with Russian submarines during the Cold War, it appears that the U.S. will now start playing with China, but in coordinated exercises. How ironic, since a Chinese submarine surfaced near the USS Kitty Hawk last month. Of course it took this long for the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral William Fallon, to confirm it (Navy Times, 11/27/06, p.26). This is a significant event in the world of Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) for a few reasons. First, a submarine surfaced near an aircraft carrier undetected. The carrier is the life blood of the battle group. It must be protected because it has no real defenses of its own to combat an enemy submarine. It does have aircraft that can find them but they are not on the hunt 24/7, only when a suspected threat is imminent. It is up to the ASW capable vessels in the battle group to find enemy submarines and what better tool to use than another submarine. Although the article does not identify what kind of submarine sur...

Playstation 3 Ridiculousness It has been four days since the debut of the Playstation 3 and I am still shaking my head in disgust at the response by the people who bought them- stampedes, robberies, assaults, and shootings. Way to go assholes. I remember a few years ago it was almost the same thing, just short of a soccer induced mob riot. There were plenty of PS3's on eBay all going for over $2000; one console went for $30,000. Yes, you read that right. "Hmmm, do I want a car or a PS3?" Idiots. All of them. I put part of the blame on Sony for only sending out 400,000 of the consoles. No less than 1 million would have been my marketing strategy and my first impulse was to make Sony pay for the damages caused by thier games. Then I reevaluated that rash statement and realized that Sony is just capitalizing on moronic infatuation or greed on a cosmic level. Love that capitalism! Drunk Drivers Beware I remember driving back from the clubs and then realizing I was driving up ...

Videos like this bring out the best and the worst in people. Ironically, it also brings out people who claim to have been stunned, citing a quick Google search on the "effects of stun guns" to back up a claim that you can’t get up after being hit with 40K+ volts. Here is the video via NBC News. The Iranian Truth continues to cover the story here. The ALL CAPS entries on blogs surrounding this event above all point to one particular incident that is supposed to absolve this student- he was heading to the exit. While this might be true he did not cooperate with the rent-a-cops and became belligerent, albeit we only know as much as what the shitty cameraman caught after the incident started. Loud, vocal outbursts of obscenity are enough to give anyone pause as to the intentions of the screamer let alone a peace officer/rent-a-cop/campus security. "Get your hands off me!" doesn't sound like a cooperative person. The police are there to investigate a person who doe...

Anyone who thumbs their nose at the world’s only surviving superpower, openly threatens a powerful neighbor with annihilation, and flaunts his pursuit of nuclear weapons… err, power, has to be a total whack job or an Islamic fanatic, but I repeat myself. Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, despite his good looking exterior, has an inside that burns with the fire of Jihad. It is no secret that he wants Israel to be a memory and it seems that he has been preparing for the final battle with Israel for a long time. Let’s take a stroll down Ahmadinejad’s past, shall we? But first, a little lesson in Islam. From Wikipedia: The Mahdi (مهدي translit: Mahdī, also Mehdi; "Guided One" ), in Islamic eschatology, is the prophesied redeemer of Islam, who will change the world into a perfect Islamic society alongside the Prophet Jesus before Yaum al-Qiyamah (literally "Day of the Resurrection"). The "hdi" of "Mahdi" refers to the Arabic root "هدی" ...

My last class of the semester was an interesting one because the first two hours of the class, Compensation Management (MGT 645), had nothing to do with the topic. As I returned from the bathroom I came in on the professor, who is a lawyer here in Hawaii, on a semi-tirade about our presence in Iraq and how it is a bad thing that we are there. As I looked around the room, observing 6 Army soldiers in uniform and several other armed forces people in this night class, they sat quietly and listened to this guy tell them that he knew 3 years ago it was a bad idea for us to go into Iraq. Maybe he had that gut feeling, as did many anti- war protestors, but I finally had to speak up and tell him that he was right only in hindsight. He asked why we were there and I made the unfortunate mistake of leading off with a mention of oil. He became ecstatic and started, no doubt, a lawyer induced cross examination of me. “So Bush lied! We went there for oil, is that what you’re saying?!” Several studen...

Base jumping, for those of you who aren't familiar with this sport, involves jumping from fixed objects. BASE is an acronym that stands for: B uilding A ntenna- uninhabited tower like a radio mast S pan- bridge, arch, or dome E arth- cliff or natural formation We've seen Bond do it countless times and these BASE jumpers always show up on Extreme sport videos. It is very dangerous but looks like one of the best adrenaline rushes a person could get. They are professionals and I'm sure a lot of training and theory to practice comes into play. You wouldn't want to just jump of a building without checking the wind conditions first. Bungee jumping is almost like BASE jumping (although it has been around longer) but, after experiencing a short free fall, unlike the BASE jumpers the bungee jumper is safely attached to something and then springs back up. I use the word 'safe' in the loosest of forms because there are plenty of stories of bungee mishaps involving miscalcu...

After reviewing the election results for the different issues that were on the ballots this year I have mixed feelings about the outcomes of the initiatives and propositions. For example, Arizona voters elected to make English the official state language. At first I thought, “Good for them” but then as I read how many states have made English as their official state language I realized that it really doesn’t matter. English Only California, believe it or not, made English its official language in 1986 yet still shells out a lot of money for multilingual paper products. Here are some statistics from USEnglish.org : - The cost of multilingual ballots and translations represented one-eighth of Los Angeles County?s $16 million expense in the Nov. 2004 general election. (Source: European Commission) - The City of San Francisco must spend $350,000 for each language that a document is translated into under the city's bilingual government ordinance. (Source: Janet Ng, Asian Week.com, Jun...

I woke up to a Democrat controlled Congress and House, Rumsfeld's resignation, a new Speaker of the House and the blogosphere in a tizzy. Bad day for Republicans, good day for terrorists. The people have spoken and we had a good run Republican's. No matter, the same thing happened to Clinton and Reagan; the only thing left to do is see what happens in 2 years, especially with crazy Pelosi leading the way. I find it unsurprising that the moonbats were donning their tinfoil hats in celebration over their victories, showing just as much poor sportsmanship for their wins today as their losses 2 years ago. At least Arnold won his second term. Gay marriage bans, illegal immigration reform, stem cell research, and marijuana possession- all of which I could give 2 shits for right now- were waving in an ebb and flow last night, some made it and some didn't. Coincidentally, none of these issues were on the ballots here in Hawaii. In fact, some places here were late in opening for the...

"I admit it. I'M AN ASSHOLE!" -Saddam Hussein, former despotic dictator of Iraq who, by the NYT admission, had a "nuclear primer". What a great way to wake up, pumpkin spice coffee brewing, egg-in-a-basket cooking on the stove, and Saddam's death sentence all over the Internet. The only time I have been this happy about the Iraqi dictator and his family was when I heard that his two sons were killed by good old fashioned American bombs, and the fact that one of his sons was still alive long enough to see an American face kneeling over him as he breathed his last. I am sure a quick search will yield more than enough information about this trial nad the verdict but it is worth posting a link to a video of Saddam's reaction, defiant to the end like the crazy asshole he is. Guilty Verdict Video

This story is beyond shocking. The New York Times is complaining that documents released by the Bush organization, under pressure from Congress, via a website contain sensitive information. So now the NYT is worried about leaking sensitive information? Their hatred of Bush must really be blinding if they are allowing themselves to look like 1) Complete hypocrates, or, 1) Complete jackasses. A very interesting sidebar to this story, and one the NYT probably didn't anticipate with this "Bush screwed up again" post, is that the NYT will now have to answer for their "There is no threat in Iraq" position. Whoops. Now they know how John Kerry feels after making a stupid remark. The Captain's Quarters had some damning paragraphs directed at the Times that I also echo: Actually, we have much, much more. All of these documents underscore the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and show that his regime continued their work on banned weapons programs. We have made this case...

Once again the Senator from Massachusetts has made an ass out of himself. Addmittedly, I am blogging about this a little late but it seems Kerry has apologized, sort of, for his remarks and this makes for a good update to a story that has rallied the military against Kerry- once again. But our troops know how to take it all in stride : I won't bother going over the details of his botched joke suffice it to say that it wasn't botched. He said exactly what he meant and it was only after his nervous laughs compensating for an otherwise silent crowd that he realized he slipped. There is a lot of criticism on the blogosphere from Democrats who are chastizing us for our chastizing of Kerry. It seems we are not to make fun of a Democrat's stupid remarks even though the Dems have been doing it with Bush for the last 7 years. But there is a little more in the substance of what Kerry said that differentiates it from Bush's butchering of the English language. Here is part of Kerry...