Category: Dumbass Bullshit

Our buddy, Blanka, sends us a link to an LA Times article which reports that researchers think that we can catch the PTSD from our televisions. They surveyed 4,675 residents of New York City and Boston right after the Boston Marathon Bombing and found that nearly 5% of them had “high acute stress”;

After the researchers adjusted for the effects of direct exposure to a trauma and for exposure to past community trauma, they found that respondents with a prior history of mental health problems and those who had watched six or more hours of daily media coverage of the events surrounding the bombings were most likely to report high acute-stress symptoms.

Direct exposure to the bombings — having been there or being in a close relationship with someone who was affected — was a strong predictor of ongoing stress reactions. Another strong predictor was direct exposure to the events of Sept. 11 or the Dec. 14, 201,2 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. (but not to Superstorm Sandy, which devastated the New Jersey coast in October 2012).

But the single factor that most strongly predicted high stress reactions was having watched six or more hours a day of media coverage of the bombings and their aftermath.

Yeah, well, they can turn the TV off, ya know and that would substantially reduce their exposure to the whole thing. We’ve heard it all here at TAH when members of the Iraq Veterans Against the war have claimed that they caught the PTS from

NOT

deploying, another claimed that he caught the PTS on 9-11-2001 because he could see the smoke from the Pentagon that was ten miles from him at the time, and yet another who caught the PTS from hearing war stories. It sounds to me like mental health professionals are just drumming up business, either that or we’re all born with PTS, because it sounds to me as if everything causes it.

The most plausible interpretation of the study’s findings, say the authors, is that media coverage can be an unhelpful factor for those predisposed to PTSD in the first place.

“People who are most distressed in the aftermath of such an event are probably more likely to engage media coverage as a way of coping with the experience,” they wrote. “Although this may be beneficial initially, over time the repeated media-based reexposures may contribute to a self-perpetuating cycle of distress.”

Like I said, turn off the TV and the bad images can’t get you.

Fox News reports that Dayna Morales, the waitress who lied about being stiffed on a tip because she was a lesbian, who also lied about being in an IED attack in which she was the sole survivor, who also lied about being a cancer survivor, and ultimately lied about turning over the proceeds from telling the first lie to Wounded Warrior Project has been fired by her employer.

The restaurant announced on its Facebook page Saturday that it had conducted its own internal investigation, and although it was “inconclusive,” the eatery said it had come to a mutual agreement with Morales that she no longer work there.

“In light of the investigation and recent events, both Ms. Morales and Gallop Asian Bistro have made a joint decision that Ms. Morales will no longer continue her employment at our restaurant,” said the Facebook post, which did not specify the conditions under which she left. “We wish her well in the future.”

Yeah, well, it’s great that they reached a mutual decision, but given the negative attention that she brought to her employer, I’m afraid that I would have made a unilateral decision, if it was my business.

There’s enough information there that she might become a top seed in our next Stolen Valor tournament.

Fox News reports that 85-year-old Korean War veteran Merrill Newman is headed home after a month in the hermit kingdom of NDtBF;

North Korean state media said Saturday that 85-year-old Merrill Newman was released because he had apologized for his alleged crimes during the Korean War and because of his age and medical condition.

It was not clear if his confession was coerced. He was taken off a plane Oct. 26 by North Korean authorities while preparing to leave the country after a 10-day tour.

“I’m very glad to be on my way home,” Newman told Japanese media at Beijing airport, Reuters reported. “I feel good, I feel good. I want to go home to see my wife.”

I’m thinking that they released Newman because the US threatened to send Joe Bite Me there to bore them to death.

Mandy sends us a link to the UK’s Daily Mail with the story of millionaire ne’er-do-well Dan Bilzerian, who claims that he went 99% of the way though BUD/S until he called someone a bad word and they booted him from the course;

The gun-rights advocate then joined the military and made it 99 per cent through Navy SEAL training, he said. But two days before graduation he was thrown out for calling an officer a ‘p****.’

‘When he did my peer eval, (the officer) said I was only out for myself,’ he said.

Yeah, well, peer evaluations aren’t done by instructors, they’re written by, um….peers….hence the name. Don Shipley told us that if that did happen, it’s because the instructors were just looking for an excuse to boot his ass;

“I was thrown out two days before graduation,” is not uncommon and it happened to an Officer in my Class, my Boat crew Leader. Stuck on San Clemente Island for the final two months of training there are a few guys they’ve (Instructors/Staff) have been patiently waiting on to “Screw Up” so they can get rid of them. They’ve been waiting since day one of BUD/S but there is ‘nothing’ major they can point to, they just won’t make good SEALs personality or leadership wise.

After leaving the Island and returning to Coronado they finally just say “Thanks for coming,” and they are tossed out.

His excuse of cursing an Officer is a lame one. They just didn’t like him and by his current lifestyle and arrogance I guess anyone can see why…

I’m thinking “almost a SEAL” is going to be popular, since Chief Shipley is on the ass of anyone claiming to be a SEAL.

Tman sends us a link to the news that Dayna Morales, the waitress in New Jersey who lied about the anti-gay note on her bill to customers, was discharged from the Marine Corps Reserves for missing drills.

NBC 4 New York learned Wednesday from a Pentagon source that Morales was dismissed from the Marine Reserve Corps in May because she wasn’t attending drills. It wasn’t immediately clear how often those drills were held, and Morales did not respond to a request for comment.

Morales was formally discharged, or released from the Marines, under conditions that were other than honorable, according to the source.

She was stationed in Newburgh, N.Y., and began serving in July 2009, military sources said.

Further, she may be looking for another job after the restaurant where she worked during the incident suspended her;

“Ms. Morales is currently not on our employee schedule while we are still working to complete our investigation,” the restaurant wrote on its Facebook page.

She has a rather long history of making shit up, like deployments and hospital stays that she went on, yet people are still making excuses for her. On the Facebook entry, some dumbass is making it seem as if she was set up. Folks are saying she has mental problems – yeah, she’s a product of our society where making yourself a victim makes you some money. All she had to do in the USMC Reserves was show up and she couldn’t do that much. My gay friends on Facebook made a big deal out of this story when it first came to light, but they’re strangely silent now.

At the last big anti-war protest, I sat for five or ten minutes sitting on a curb in front of the White House and chatting with Dana Milbank, a columnist from the Washington Post. I found him to be an affable fellow, although I almost never agree with him. Today, he writes a column that advocates for a return to the draft; Save America: Restore the draft. Although he makes some good points, I still can’t agree with him. Basically, he says that returning to the draft would help cure our problems in Washington;

Because so few serving in politics have worn their country’s uniform, they have collectively forgotten how to put country before party and self-interest. They have forgotten a “cause greater than self,” and they have lost the knowledge of how to make compromises for the good of the country. Without a history of sacrifice and service, they’ve turned politics into war.

Well, you know, Dana, there’s already a Federal program that is supposed to train the youth of our country to be good citizens, that is the program that has failed the country – our school system. Teachers in the public school system already pass on their academic failures to the college system, where most freshman classes are enrolled in remedial English and math classes, now you expect them to pass along their failure to make good American citizens to mandatory military service?

Milbanks, like Thomas Ricks, another advocate for the return of the draft, hasn’t served himself. I’m constantly amazed how all of these social engineers who want to go back to the draft, haven’t served in the military and are well-beyond the age that would require their own service.

I was lucky enough to have served while their was no draft – all of my troops volunteered, and they were still hard to manage. I can’t imagine what my predecessors experienced with people who were forced to be in uniform. We have become the most lethal military force in the world with only volunteers, why does everyone want to change that – well, except for the fact that a draft force could be paid less and treated poorly.

Milbanks continues;

The costs would be huge. But so would the benefits: overcoming growing social inequality without redistributing wealth; making future leaders, unlike today’s “chicken hawks,” disinclined to send troops into combat without good reason; putting young Americans to work and giving them job and technology skills; and, above all, giving these young Americans a shared sense of patriotism and service to the country.

Yeah, you’d get social equity and make future leaders if we spent more time fixing what’s wrong with our schools instead of expecting the professional military leaders to do that which they are not equipped or inclined to fix. The military is not some giant social program – it kills our enemies and breaks their stuff. The school system is a giant social program that is broken.

I’m just going to leave this right here;