This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Ex-PH2

  • Pentagon Restricts Use of GPS Trackers to Find Yef

    The Pentagon is restricting troops’ use of electronic fitness trackers and other electronic tracking devices.

    There is a security problem that apparently did not occur to the Eager Beavers who think there are no Bad People in the world who want to find you and kill you. Perhaps they need to be put into a war zone with a GPS microchip embedded in their posteriors, just like in those Bond movies.

    Per this AP article:  https://apnews.com/d29c724e1d72460fbf7c2e999992d258  military personnel and other defense personnel (an undefined term) deployed to sensitive bases or high risk areas will not be allowed to use electronic fitness trackers or cell phone applications (“apps” to you gadgeteers) that can/will/are likely to reveal their whereabouts.

    No…. Really??? That thought didn’t occur to anyone at the 5-sided parking garage on the Potomac? And these people get a paycheck?

    ‘The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, stops short of banning the fitness trackers or other electronic devices, which are often linked to cellphone applications or smart watches and can provide the users’ GPS and exercise details to social media. It says the applications on personal or government-issued devices present a “significant risk” to military personnel, so those capabilities must be turned off in certain operational areas.

    ‘Under the new order, military leaders will be able to determine whether troops under their command can use the GPS function on their devices, based on the security threat in that area or on that base.  (Okay, but what if you don’t want to use one at all? Are you going to get spanked for not being socially electronic? Is your paycheck going to be fined?)

    “These geolocation capabilities can expose personal information, locations, routines, and numbers of DOD personnel, and potentially create unintended security consequences and increased risk to the joint force and mission,” the memo said.” – AP article quote.

    This comes from the revelation in January that an online tracking map titled Global Heat Map, created by Strava, a GPS tracking company, was pinpointing the locations of subscribers through satellite uplinks to Strava’s fitness service.

    This means that we can no longer track whether or not Yef is in the hallway running the floor buffer or trekking across the grinder to get ice cream.

    The other side of this coin is this questionable need to be electronically connected to everything in the world. My phone annoys me enough when it rings and doesn’t tell me who is robocalling me. Is it really, truly necessary to be so digitized that you can be followed by a satellite uplink whether you like it or not?

    Like I said above, what if you just don’t want the damned thing in the first place?

  • A Slight Rise in Price

    LONDON (Reuters) – Oil rose on Monday (Aug. 6) after Saudi crude production unexpectedly fell in July and U.S. drilling appeared to slow, although the price is still almost 10 percent below its 2018 high of more than $80 a barrel.

    Here’s the link to the entire article:  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil/oil-gains-after-monthly-saudi-output-unexpectedly-drops-idUSKBN1KR039

    How this will affect the CPI calculations remains to be seen, but the price of gas at the pump has been slowly rising since April.  While the price of food at the checkout stand appears to be relatively stable, it will be affected by a rise in the CPI, as well. I did notice a slight rise in the price of chocolate ice cream and sweet corn in July, as well as a rise strawberry prices. A rise in the cost of fuel for deliveries can also affect the cost of your ammo at the gun shop counter.

    You can find local gas prices by going to Gas Buddy or one of those other consumer-reported price indexes. The price of oil at the commodities market does have an effect on a lot of consumer items, including gas at the pump, delivery costs for consumer products such as groceries and plastic straws. The article does not go into that, but the effect is there. California is now banning straws, which may also have a small ripple effect on the price of straws everywhere.

    Pres. Trump wants to roll back the fuel economy rules put on automobile manufacturers by the Obama administration. While the engineering to make current vehicles more fuel-savvy and fuel-saving, the price of gas at the pump has risen in concert with those economies of style. Removing those restrictions from vehicles won’t roll the price of gas at the pump back to the level of 2001, when I could get gas for $1.119/gal or 1974, when Nixon’s ineptitude made the price jump from $.259/gal to $.509/gal overnight and the talk was that there might be a rise to (gasp!) $1.009/gal. The horror!

    My guess about this “drop” in production at the well heads is that the Saudis cut production to bump up the price of crude at the markets, and nothing more complicated than that.  As long as it doesn’t go back to that ridiculous $140/barrel price some years ago, which was the original cause of the overthrow of Venezuela’s government, it’s fine with me.

    The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the determining factor in COLA increases (or lack thereof) in government-directed programs such as SSRI and whatever title welfare goes by now, and it is based on the price of commodities such as oil at the markets and gas at the pump. The CPI for July will be announced on Aug. 10. Any COLA increases will be announced in October, as usual.

    Now may be the time to stock the ammo supply, the pantry shelves and the freezer.  They can just try to keep me from getting my hands on chocolate ice cream or radishes.

  • Goodbye, My Old Friend

     

    Goodbye, my Old Friend.

    We’ve had some really good times together.

    You helped me paint the shed with white stripes and a green door, so that it looked more like a barn than a giant piece of metal junk. The shed was so happy that violets now grow next to it.

    You took the pain of color spray-and-pray out of the use of the can for me, any time I asked. A noble cause if there ever was one.  You even aimed true at a wasp for me one day. There is nothing as confused or ridiculous as a wasp painted white… or green. I could not have done a better job with a brush.

    Good times.

    But no good thing goes untouched by bad people, does it? The word in the ‘hood is that the twerps who spoil it for the rest of us got the word about you and your kind, and made war on walls and parked cars and even poor, innocent Divvy bikes and someone’s darling, precious Harley. There is no good thing that can’t be turned sour or misused, is there?

    Those spray cans have now been changed. The nozzles are no longer amenable to your attachment to them. The marriage of your kind to the spray can may have been a match made in heaven for people with itty-bitty hands like mine, or arthritis, like the retired bus driver up the street.

    I can’t go to the hardware store with you in my purse and ask if there are any spray cans that will fit you, because now, everything has changed. The spray nozzle is different and the colors are new. Rust-Oleum has a spray gun grip that fits the new spray nozzle. And besides that, the new one from Krylon has a red plastic lever and you don’t.

    So that leaves me with no alternative but to put your plastic help aside and say good-bye.

    Good-bye, Old Friend. I’ll miss you. (Sniffle.)

    WAIT!!! Maybe I could attach you to a can of Bull Shit Repellent!

    Now, there’s a thought.

  • Knock Yourselves Out

     

    Here’s a little-known fact: This Ain’t Hell is put together by a live, online bunch of veterans, active duty peeps, and civilians.

    It was one of those places everybody went to.

    The people were familiar. You didn’t have to say a word. You could just sit there and take it in or go shoot pool, or hit on that silly WAVE sitting up there at the bar, trying to make notes on sea stories.

    It was the “EM” club or the “O” club or whatever watering hole there was close by, on or off base, or on some street in Boston or North Chicago or San Diego or Pensacola or Rantoul or Rosie’s in Subic Bay or Tommy’s Bar on Tu Do Street in Saigon.

    It’s still there. You’re still sitting there, taking it in. You can pipe up, or sit back and absorb the clatter of conversation around you. The pool table may be in the basement. The drinks may come out of your fridge or your coffeemaker. The chitchat may be by osmosis or online, but you still want to go there… because everybody knows your name… and someone will always listen to you.

    The bar stays open until further notice.

    Sea stories or war stories or just ‘No, shit, I was there’ stories all belong here. The bumpers on the pool table were just repadded and those cracked cue balls replaced, along with the cue sticks I broke when I dropped one – er, two of them.

    You may notice a new screen here and there. Just a tad’s worth of remodeling. It’s probably why 2/17 Air Cav said the place doesn’t look quite the same as it did. Well, it’s still the same old place, but with small changes. Now, we did take out the padded booths and put in a few more tables, plus some new pictures, but it’s still the place where everybody knows your name.

    You can sit at a table and shoot the bull with a couple of deck apes or sit at the bar and rag on about last week and those practice jumps and how your pack was overstuffed, or the shortage of staples and paper clips had everybody up in arms, never mind the lack of coffee grounds. And there is always someone who just has to be a horse’s butt.

    The bar stays open. Someone is always listening.

    Thanks for listening, SFC Jonn Lilyea.

     

    The clip from “Cheers” is the opener from the 1982 episode with the late Tip O’Neill, in person. Paramount Studios production.

  • Two Villains As Yet Unhung

    Last week, a 58-year-old man in Lake Villa was beaten to death in an alley behind Walgreen’s on his way home from a purchase at a local store.

    https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180723/two-charged-with-murder-of-lake-villa-man

    Authorities have charged Lake Villa Township residents Jordan L. Toney, 19, of the 39000 block North Poplar Street, and Buddy W. Johnson, 20, of the 21600 block of West Birch Street, with three counts of first-degree murder. They are held in Lake County jail on $5 million bail, authorities said.

    Authorities say they have now identified the 58-year-old man who was the victim of a fatal beating and robbery Saturday in an alley near downtown Lake Villa.

    Preliminary autopsy results indicate Jerry Griffith of Lake Villa died from multiple traumatic injuries after the attack near the 300 block of Grand Avenue, Lake County Coroner Dr. Howard Cooper said Wednesday.

    https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180725/authorities-identify-victim-of-fatal-beating-in-lake-villa-alley

    These two geniuses decided that they would find a victim in someone who was least likely to be able to resist them. Like any other predators, they waited for the right moment and beat Mr. Griffith to death when he was on his way home from a local store, robbed him, and dropped a 40 lb. sandbag on his head before they left him there.

    The mug shots in the articles show us what charming fellows they must be.

    Lake Villa is a sleepy, quiet suburban bedroom community which used to have a low crime rate. That has changed lately. Unfortunately, the element of surprise was at work here.

    If you think a gun might have stopped this, I would say it’s rather doubtful in this case. It’s more likely that they’d have stolen the gun along with Mr. Griffith’s wallet and keys.  He certainly did not deserve what they did to him.

  • Transitions

    There is a symbolism in the dragonfly in various cultures: to the Japanese, it symbolizes summer and autumn and is admired and respected all over, so much so that the Samurai use it as a symbol of power, agility and best of all, victory. In China, people associate the dragonfly with prosperity, harmony and as a good luck charm.

    The dragonfly is sometimes seen as a symbol of transformation and starting over. They are always around. They may remind us how transient life can be, how quickly things can change with no warning, and how easy it is for us to take the status quo for granted.

    I posted three photos of dragonflies, because the common green darner, the red calliope pennant, and the common blue dasher represent the three primary colors in photography that are the basis for all the other hues and color tones.

    All the colors mean transformation and change, so much so that the seeming fragility of this beautiful insect hides a strength of purpose that carries it along from the nymph stage to its appearance as a mature dragonfly in the late Spring, to its disappearance in the Fall.

    While you’re thinking about a recent and unexpected loss, remember that death is simply a transition and a resting place.

    Love and caring never die. They just go on, to eternity.

  • Weekend Open Thread

     

    Weekend Open Thread has commenced!  The photo is a finely rolled cigar resting comfortably above its natural habitat.  The Tones of amber and wisps of oak remind us that we should all take time to enjoy life and celebrate friendships.  May your weekend be filled with those you love.

  • A Potential Solution to the Problem of the Badge

    Having reviewed all the complaints and angst-ridden responses to the possibilities of having to change the EIB/CIB designations from Infantryman to something else, it is safe to say that there is a solution to this problem.

    Instead of the term “Infantryman” being changed to “Infantryperson” or “Infantrytroop”, or some such other birdbrained, braindead, confoundedly idiotic notions, to make it equally applicable to all participants who qualify, the suffix –man can be changed to hominid.

    To use this term requires nothing but a slight understanding of science.

    While modern humans are, indeed, referred to as Humans, the correct scientific name is Homo sapiens. However, in today’s insufferable, smothering, and painfully politically correct environment of spoken and written terms, one cannot use the scientifically correct term ‘Homo’ as it may be mistakenly misconstrued to be an insult to gay people and those occupying all those extra sexes.

    Therefore, the term Infantryhomo could definitely draw ire and noisily angry rebuttal from both sides of the Fence of Sexuality. And of course, one cannot use Infantryhetero because it indicates that the badge earned is only applicable to those not involved in or occupying the LGBTGSGQXRT hemisphere.

    I gave this problem a good deal of consideration and thought over a PB&J sandwich last night, while my cat was begging me for some bacon crumbles after a prolonged stalk and mousekil,l and came up with a possible solution.

    The simplest and most direct way to solve this problem is presented by Science, through the application of –hominid to Infantry, resulting in Infantryhominid.

    I believe that this is completely neutral terminology.

    Now, mind you, this will be sufficient as long as we consider ourselves to be alone in the Universe. However, when we find other species who want to join with us Earthpeople in chasing down and eliminating the Bad Guys, we may have to revise that suffix again to accommodate the needs and desires of those other alien species.

    If they’re essentially Hominid in type, which is to say bipedal, upright, and manually ambidexterous, then it’s not an issue and won’t require another change of vocabulary for a while.

    But if we discover some 6-limbed, 4-legged cavalry types (centaurs) who can gallop, leap an obstacle with ease, carry a rider with a weapon, and also carry a weapon and shoot the Enemy, are we going to exclude them from the Infantry application of the badge? I think not. On the other hand, they might prefer a Cav/Infantry or Heavy Horse specialty designation, plus a personal groom.

    Will it matter if they walk, slide or ooze, as long as they can hold, aim and shoot a weapon? It should not.

    After all, if you were a sentient slime mold that can absorb and dispose of an entire platoon of the Bad Guys and still manifest good table manners in the mess hall while you’re at it, wouldn’t you want to have that acknowledged by your wearing of the Infantry badge?

    I believe that the term Infantry, which is plainly a specialty in warfare now, has been so well into the distant past, and will be so for centuries to come, should continue to have a specialty designation, regardless of the species, physical structure, or personal orientation of the Troop who is wearing it.

    Hence the suggestion of the use of Infantryhominid .

    That oughta make the snot-nosed little SJWs writhe in agony.