Friday, March 24, 2017

RyanCare fails

As Ace puts it:  Shit Sandwich.

Not only was RyanCare a shit sandwich, the bill's roll-out shows a complete and total lack of any real leadership on the part of Paul Ryan and whoever else decided to throw this shit sandwich together.  What a joke.  What a pathetic, sad joke.

But Dave, drug use is a victimless crime!

Uh, nope.  There's always a victim.  Take this story about a 19 year old Alabama girl getting arrested for having sex with a 14 year old boy.

The girl’s grandmother, Peggy Thompson, told the press (via Toronto Sun) that Mekenzie had lived through a difficult childhood, moving from “flea bag motels” to at least one mobile home with parents who abused drugs and who abandoned her to raise her younger brother on her own. Things were looking up when the kids finally went to live with their grandparents. 
Thompson said that Mekenzie got a job at a rug plant after graduating high school, but fell apart after her grandfather died. Unable to work due to an injury, Mekenzie sought companionship and fell in love with a “boy who looked a lot older than 14.” 
The police chief said it was no excuse for what she did, and that she showed no remorse for her actions.
The reason this girl has such a twisted, poor view of relationships is that during her formative years, she didn't have any examples of a good relationship.  This poor kid was set up to fail from the get-go, by parents who abused drugs.

So who's the victim here?  The girl, obviously.  Her brother as well.  The grandparents, although they might be culpable if they're the reason the parents were abusing drugs in the first place.  Sometimes it's a pattern, sometimes it's not.

Who else - the boy?  Meh.  When I was 14, if I had a chance to bang a hot 19 year old I would have jumped on it, both literally and figuratively.

How about the public who now has to support a girl in jail, a child who's mother is in jail (Lord, just how messed up is THAT kid going to be?) and the family of a 14 year old boy who are now grandparents much earlier than they wanted to be?

There are lots of victims from drug use.  You can find them littered all over America.  This is just one example.

The other half

After my little mini-rant the other day, I realized that I made a few of my co-workers look pretty bad. And some of them deserve it.  But there's another side of the spectrum:  the grizzled old coots just hanging on till retirement.

One of the gents who pops in to my office and snags chocolate out of my candy bowl is a LTC with lots of chest salad.  The guy's been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  He uses a standing desk because years of going there and doing that has jacked his back up pretty badly.  He's got about a year left, and then he's happily going out the door and heading to the house.  This guy will never be the "been there for three decades and holding on with his fingernails because he can't do anything else" that you too often see in a USAR unit.  He's got it set up so that when it's his time to go, he's gone.  Riding a motorcycle.  A very nice Dyna-Glide with lots of custom work on it.  I've seen it.  It's shiny.

The point is that there are still some folks sitting in a TDA unit because they have deployed.  Lots.  And while they could deploy again if needed, they're sitting at the end of their careers, hoping to not do any more damage to themselves before they hit their 20.

The reason military folks can retire at 20 years Active Federal Service is that there are a lot of troops who can't make it past that.

So while it doesn't make up for the oxygen-stealing Turd, I at least have some good folks that I work with.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

HOLY CRAP FLASHBACK!

For when you were headbanging as you blew the shit out of commies.




I'm not shocked. Not at all

American men are weaker than ever.

A new study in press at the Journal of Hand Therapy (yes, a real thing) finds that millennial men may have significantly weaker hands and arms than men the same age did 30 years ago. 
Researchers measured the grip strength (how strongly you can squeeze something) and pinch strength (how strongly you can pinch something between two fingers) of 237 healthy full-time students aged 20 to 34 at universities in North Carolina. And especially among males, the reduction in strength compared to 30 years ago was striking.

They study did find that men and women are now about the same, grip-strength wise.  This doesn't shock me at all.  You want to know what didn't exist in huge quantities thirty years ago?  Computers. Video game consoles in every home at every TV.  Boys didn't just sit around and stare at a screen while twiddling their fingers over buttons and toggles and switches.  They went outside.  The rode bikes.  They played stickball.  They ran.  They swung on bars and jungle gyms and they climbed trees.  They made up games and competed in them.

That era is pretty much over, except for those few parents who refuse to allow the electronic games to dominate the day.  But those are as rare as those parents who refuse to give their kids a smart phone, aka a crack toy.

And so we're raising up a generation of girly-men, who are just as likely as their wives to need help opening jars and fixing something around the house.

Rather sad, I think

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

I'm Knackered

Although it looks like I might be getting some new certifications in the up coming months that make me happy - motorcycle stuff.

Getting paid to be around motorcycles is always a good thing in my book.

I see that the Donks are doing their best to paint Judge Gorsuch as a wild-eyed monster.  And failing. Mua-hah.

That's all I got today, folks.  I'm busy at work with multiple projects that take up most of my time and energy.  Not to mention that this particular Command seems to have the largest collection of non-functioning yet still getting paid shitweasels I've seen in a while.

OK, little side rant here.

For those who don't know, not all soldiers get deployed.  If you're in an MTOE unit (look it up if you must, it's most of the Army units) you can get deployed.  But if you're in a TDA unit, you won't.  The Command I'm in, and the downtrace units, are all TDA units.

Now, we've done our level best to recruit people who have already been deployed.  Lots of our folks are instructors, and Soldiers take instruction best from people who have actually been there, done that.  But keep in mind that these are all reserve units.  So much of the people who run the admin/planning/ops side of the house have been there for years.  Decades.  And there are multiple people who have managed to sit in these units and not do a damn thing.  It still amazes me when I see a senior officer or NCO who hasn't been anywhere or done anything.  Even if you haven't been over to the current theater of operations, if you've been in the Army for three decades you should have been SOMEWHERE.  Bosnia.  Panama.  Grenada.  Hell, Operation Brightstar.  We have operations going on all over the globe.  Africa.  Europe somewhere.  Something.

Nope.  I'm dealing with one oxygen thief who literally has not been a single place or done a single thing in their entire Army career.  They're about to hit their mandatory retirement date.  That's age 60, folks.  They're MY RANK.  And have been for almost as long as I've been in the Army.

Not surprisingly, this particular turd is also a huge problem with their inactivity.  Entire programs have gone neglected while they have sat on their ass and cashed their paychecks.  I would say that about half my energy is going into fixing all the shit that's been screwed up because this loser was put in charge.

Let me give you an example.  One of my people at the lower units was having difficulty with units above them.  They couldn't get a response from any level.  I was still new in my position, and I'm in their technical chain if not their actual chain of command, so I help them out as much as I can, but ask them "Why didn't you ask so-and-so at your higher unit?"

They didn't even know the Turd existed.  The Turd has occupied that position for six years, and the people the Turd is responsible for didn't even know they were there.

Folks, when I get into a new position, the first thing I do is find out where my people are and make damn sure they know who the hell I am.  This Turd didn't even bother contacting their personnel in SIX FUCKING YEARS.

I can't get into too many details, for obvious reasons.  But I'm working my hardest to get them moved out of their position.  Thing is, I don't have any direct authority over their position, otherwise they would have been gone six months ago.  So I have to do dope deals, work the networks, etc.  When they finally sail off into the sunset, I'll be a happy man.

Anyways, off to bed.

Monday, March 20, 2017

Sunday, March 19, 2017

I have triggered the Twitter hate mob

And it makes me giggle.

Also, calling a Leftist a #FakeAmerican on twitter will result in full melt-downs.  So it is written, and so have I seen.