Ruminations of a Brown Shoe Man

Did I ever tell you how much I hate battleships?

Well, no, "hate" is, I suppose, too strong a word. I don't hate battleships, I guess, but I have pretty much had it with their prima-donna pretentiousness. Realy, now, just what about them is it that justifies their oh-so-high-and-mighty attitude? Not one darn thing, that's what.

Think about them for a minute. Big, slow and ponderous, a battleship is just like that funny old lady down the street who insists on stuffing herself into a dress three sizes too small. Pathetic, right? A battleship is about as sexy as someone wearing blonde pigtails, a helmet with horns stuck on the side, and belting out a Viking aria.

Queens of the battle line? More like hussies of the sea, if you ask me, and just about as attractive. A battleship lacks the graceful elegance of a cruiser, or the lithe, athletic agility of a destroyer. Overweight, overwrought and overhyped, a battleship just sort of plods around like that one kid everybody politely refers to as "special," and with about the same expectation of actually producing any useful results.

And, really, when was the last time a battleship actually ever did anything? Oh, sure, they love to see themselves in the headlines, but all they really do is just sit around eating and getting fat. Not like they couldn't afford to lose a few pounds, but you go and try telling them that. I dare you. They're like an old movie star who just can't give up the limelight gracefully, always going on and on about "Jutland this . . ." and "Surigao that . . ." Bah! Get over yourselves already!

I tell you, there's no sadder sight in the world than a battleship all gussied up like a Times Square harlot. Who do they think they're fooling? You just can't hide poundage like that under a pretty dress and, no matter how much lipstick you slather on a pig, it's still a pig. Watching battleships move is like watching a waltz of the elephants, and just about as graceful, too.

Just a bunch of big talkers with nothing to back it up, that's what battleships are. But if you listen closely to them, you invariably find out that for all their stories, it always comes down to them just sort of hanging around while someone else did all the work. All the battleships do is try and claim the credit afterwards. And is that really something we want to hold up as an example? I think not.

Remember, the best thing you can do when you see a battleship is just ignore it. Don't encourage it, whatever you do. Bad behaviour, after all, should be pitied, not rewarded.

More Meaningless Meanderings

*Sigh* Well, she's at it again. By "she," I mean my friend with the penchant for falling for ponzi schemes, and by "it" I mean the, well, ponzi schemes.

You know, I really feel like I should be doing my best Ted Koppel imitation right now: "Welcome to Nightline and Day 125 of the Iraqi Dinar Crisis . . ." Yeah, my friend brought that one up again, how all her financial dreams will be fulfilled, and that $10 thousand dollars she owes me will be repaid "with interest," just as soon as The Big Move takes place with the Iraqi dinar. They are, you see, going to "revalue" it right after their elections in early March. Oh, yeah, and it seems that Donald Trump just bought $300 million in dinar, so you know it just has to be true.

Pardon me while I vomit. For those of you who may, God knows why, have been paying attention to such things, at the current exchange rate 100,000 Iraqi dinar equates to the whopping total of $83.73. Methinks it's going to take one hell of a "revaluing" to make any money off that cow of a currency. But what do I know? I'm not Donald Trump . . .

Oh, well. I suppose one of these days that pig will just have to fly.

In more amusing news, I read today that the Secretary of Defence has directed the Navy to lift its ban on women serving aboard submarines. What a truly horrible idea.

Look, I have no problem with women serving in the military, nor do I necessarily have a problem with women serving aboard ships (I do have a problem with women serving in certain combat billets, like the Infantry in the Army, but that's got more to do with the physical standards being relaxed than anything else). Women have been serving aboard U.S. warships for quite a while now and, aside from, I'm sure, a purely coincidental rash of pregnancies among the first mixed crews, that has been pretty much a success.

But a surface ship is not a submarine. Crew space is always at a premium on a warship - remember, machinery and weapons come first, people come second - but it is a relatively eas thing to refit an aircraft carrier to accept a mixed crew than it is a submarine. More to the point, it just can't be done with a submarine. Sure, for a boat that hasn't been built yet, you can redo the plans to make that allowance. But in a boat that's already in service? Nope.

Think of a submarine this way: it's a tube, about thirty feet in diameter and three hundred or so feet long. Into that tube go the ballast tanks that make it go up and down, and the pressure hull in which the crew lives and works. Everything from the Reactor Room aft is occupied by the machinery that makes the boat go. Everything forward is full of the machinery and weapons that allow the boat to fight, the batteries, and the air plant that allows them to blow water out of the ballast tanks so the boat can surface. Next comes all the pumps and piping that allows them to fill the ballast tanks, trim the boat, and empty the tanks. Then come the electrical runs, HVAC runs, food storage, weapons storage, generators, etc. and etc. Last of all come accomodations for the crew, which are crammed in wherever they can find room forward of the Reactor and Engineering spaces.

Put another way, the average Los Angeles-class SSN has a crew of 130, and only enough space to put in bunks for about half that. The Navy gets around this problem through the practice of "hot bunking" - three guys share on bunk, on the theory that one of them will always be on watch, one of them will be engaged in ship's work, and the third one gets to sleep. It's called "hot bunking" because when you get in, the bed is still warm from the guy who preceded you.

Even at that, the bunk itself is only the size of an average coffin and, unlike in surface ships that have the room for distinct "bunk rooms," those on a submarine are crammed in wherever they can find the room. Privacy is nil, and there's just no way to create sex-segregated sleeping areas.

So just why in the hell is this a good idea? I'm all for progress, but why when you're trying to force a foot into a shoe that won't fit? Again, I have no problem with women serving on the boats, but I think it would be a much better idea to leave that to the next generation of submarines we build, where the appropriate allowances can be designed in. It just seems to me that by pushing this for the existing generation of boats, we're just trying to prove how progressive and P.C. we are, and to hell with the consequences.

Oh, well. My time in the Navy has been over for a long time, now. I guess I'm just too set in my ways to realize that the military exists solely to be a laboratory for social engineering . . .

P.S. Battleships suck big donkey balls.

Be Careful What You Wish For . . .

Once upon a time, in the Land of Strong, Female Talking Ponies, there lived a strong, female talking pony, who was the Queen of her realm. Coinicidentally enough, among all the other strong, female talking ponies who inhabited the land - of which, really, there weren't that many, since everyone knows what a disaster it is to have that many strong, talking females gathered in one place, especially when they're all wearing the same outfit - she was known as the Strong, Female Talking Pony.

Now, the Land of Strong, Female Talking Ponies was a magical place, full of cotton candy clouds and bubbling brooks of tasty dark chocolate, where the oats for all the talking ponies grew strong and tall under the brilliant sunshine that poured down out of the sky on thousands of Bluebirds of Happiness as they pooped on statues of beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men placed there specifically for that purpose.

The Strong, Female Talking Pony was quite happy with the way in which she had ordered her realm, for she spent her days expounding on her Strong, Female Talking Pony Opinions to her subjects and basking in their adulation, which made her happy. She also spent her days denying tasty bacon treats to her faithful dogs, which made them unhappy, but in the Land of Strong, Female Talking Ponies, no dog should have unhealthy treats, and apple cores are just fine for them, the ungrateful, whining snots.

Then, one day, blatantly ignoring the posted signs saying "NO BOYZ OR OTHER OPINIONS ALLOWED," a group of beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men blundered their way into this magical queendom. Loud, crude, and scratching themselves in delicate places in public, this testosterone-laden invasion greatly distressed the Strong, Female Talking Pony and made her cross to no end. So she set forth from her shining Ivory Tower to overwhelm the beasts with the shining logic of her unassailable secular-humanist opinions.

"What do you want here?" she demanded when she finally confronted the interlopers.

"Oh, we're just looking around," replied the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men. "Nice place you've got here. Could use a big-screen HDTV, though."

"For what? So you can watch sports?" the Strong, Female Talking Pony asked with a sneer.

"Well, yeah. That's kind of the point behind a big-screen HDTV," the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men said. "Oh, and video games, too."

"Never!" the Strong, Female Talking Pony said. "I shall never allow big-screen HDTVs showing beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men bashing each other about in sweaty, pointless juvenile contests with no point to disrupt the peace and harmony of the Land of Strong, Female Talking Ponies!"

"Suit yourself," the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men shrugged. "Er, by the way, who are you?"

"Why, I am the Strong, Female Talking Pony, Queen of this Land of Strong, Talking Female Ponies," the Strong, Talking Female Pony said. "I have many deeply-held opinions which are unquestionably true."

"Oh? Like what?" the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men asked.

"There are so many, but my favourites are the unerring correctness of tax-and-spend policies and the brilliant, unquestionable truths of Keynesian philiosophy," the Strong, Female Talking Pony said. "Oh, and that the word 'he' is designed solely to keep Strong, Female Talking Ponies down."

"Really?" the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men asked. "And if we said that you can't tax your way out of every economic problem, or legislate away peoples' beliefs?"

"I would say that your opinions are not mine, and so can not possibly have any validity," the Strong, Female Talking Pony sniffed with an air of absolute certainty.

"Well, as long as you're being open-minded about it . . ." the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men said.

"You still haven't told me why you are darkening my realm with your absurd conservative theories that can't possibly be true because I don't want them to be," the Strong, Female Talking Pony said.

"Oh, that," the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men said. "We're just here to clear this land for the development of a couple of strip malls, and maybe a subdivision with a golf course."

"What? You can't do that!" the Strong, Female Talking Pony said.

"Of course we can," the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men said. "If it helps, just think of the increased tax base."

And with that, a great hammer descended from the sky and smacked the Strong, Female Talking Pony right between the eyes. As she was being hauled off to the nearest glue factory, the beetle-browed, knuckle-walking gender-threatened men shrugged.

"Oh, well. Guess you can't stand in the way of progress." And then they built a hockey arena.

Fly Me to the Moon . . . Or Not

Okay, I'm confused. Granted, that isn't really a hard thing to accomplish; just ask the dogs I live with, they do that regularly. But I really don't understand how someone can say one thing to one group of people, then turn right around and say something completely different to another group, all without batting an eye. Maybe it's just a continuity error, or maybe I should just remind myself that when dealing with politicians, lying is a way of life.

In case you missed it, last week the President floated a budget plan for NASA that, while increasing spending for that agency by approximately $6 billion dollars, also entailed scrapping the two new boost vehicles (on which we've already spend several billion dollars) and the programme to return a manned mission to the Moon by 2020. In return for, well . . . nothing.

Right, a President can propose any kind of budget he wants. That's not what I have an issue with, although in this case, peremptorily shutting down a return to the Moon is just a stupid idea. But, just in case you missed this one, too, in a monumentally transparent "Pay no attention to what I'm saying" moment, the President spoke to the current crew on the ISS and told them not only how "proud" he was of their efforts, but how "committed" he was to furthering the manned exploration and exploitation of space.

Umm . . . what? It could just be me, but I'm having problems reconciling those two statements. I mean, you can't possibly be committed to the exploration of space when you just got done cancelling . . . the exploration of space.

Somehow, this reminds me of Senator William Proxmire and his "Golden Fleece Awards." For those of you who don't remember, he was the guy who would periodically hold press conferences and hand out these "awards" to individuals and programmes that he viewed as a complete waste of public money. NASA in particular, and the space programme in general, were frequent "winners" and, as far as I can tell, handing out these "Golden Fleece Awards" was about the only thing Proxmire ever accomplished while in the Senate.

It's an easy thing, I suppose, when you don't really know what you're talking about, to look at the money spent on a space programme and blanch. I mean, it really is a pile of cash. But the fact remains that for every dollar spent on the space programme, somewhere between four and five dollars is returned in terms of useful technology.

Don't believe me? Velcro is a product of the old Apollo programme. That cell phone you're talking on? Your microwave? Your PC and laptop? LEDs? The computer chip controlling your car? GPS? Just some of the things derived from the space programme.

And, yes, good old Tang, too. But some returns are more valuable than others.

But that isn't really the point. No, the real point is that, while people here are wringing their hands and worrying over depletion of resources and a resulting fall in standards of living, there's a whole solar system full of resources just waiting to be exploited. All we have to do is have the intestinal fortitude to go out and get them.

Returning to the Moon would be a good way to start, though it seems the President is blithely oblivious to that fact. One would think that, as "green" as he claims himself to be, he would realize that setting up solar-energy collecting "farms" on the Moon would be a great way to help knock us off our oil addiction, but, well . . . he'd first have to realize that we'd have to go back to the Moon to do that.

Of course, there are also all sorts of rare metals on the Moon that might help us out, too. You know, things like chromium and oh, yeah, gold, as just two examples. But move beyond the Moon. Out in the asteroid belt there's iron, nickel, silver, platinum, irridium, just all sorts of goodies. How about going out into the solar system and mining bodies for water ice, so maybe we can truly turn deserts here into green areas? Or, at least, head off some unnecessary tussling over fresh water resources here? The possibilities are pretty much endless.

I can understand, I suppose, a reluctance to rely on government to fund the whole thing. And, in truth, government can't afford to do so. If we are really going to exploit the resources that are present in the solar system, the private sector is going to have to get involved, too. But the private sector isn't going to do that if the government won't do it, either.

Pay attention, Mr. President. At least in the short term, the government is going to have to do the heavy lifting, so to speak. Call it a proof-of-concept. Of course, the government is also going to have to provide the private sector with some sort of incentives to get involved. The cash outlay for the private sector is going to be just as large as it is for the government, so they might like to be assured of making some sort of profit in return for their effort. In other words, you and every other politician out there are going to have to resist the urge to tax the snot out of them just because you can. Besides which, if you get off your rear end and seriously start to get out into the solar system, you're going to wind up rolling around in more revenues than you know what to do with.

But, really, to say that you're committed to exploring space while emasculating the ability to do so? C'mon, now, it isn't April Fool's Day yet.

More Random Musings for No Reason

For those of you who think your local politicians are corrupt, I have but one word: pikers. Give it up now, folks, nothing beats a Chicago politician for plumbing the depths of just how low a so-called "public servant" can sink.

You see, last December, a piece of artwork - a statue, in fact - managed to "disappear" from the grounds of Chicago State University. The piece in question was an ebony sculpture of an African woman, and had been commissioned by CSU as part of gallery on the history of African-Americans in the U.S.

Well, since it isn't every day that pieces of public art just up and disappear, the Chicago Police Department was kind of interested in what had happened to it. Questioning the other statues on the grounds of CSU, however, didn't produce any useable leads, so . . .

The good news in this is that the statue eventually turned up in the Chicago offices of one of our State legislators. Why it turned up there, however, remains something of an unanswered question. It has something to do with the legislator in question claiming that the funds used to pay the sculptor were somehow misappropriated by CSU which, if the money had been granted to pay an artist for a piece of artwork, seems to be something of a non-starter. The only thing that is clear in this whole thing is that the legislator refuses to return the statue to Chicago State University, and it still occupies a back office in her suite.

But think about this for a moment. This woman had to get her staff together, hire a truck and a crane, and have them abscond with this statue in the middle of the night. That's right, folks, only in Chicago would a public servant steal a piece of public art purchased with public funds . . .

And, just to further embarrass the people and State of Illinois, the corrupt Governor we just tossed out of office is going to appear on Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. Can someone just not make Rod Blagoevich go away? Personally, I'm hoping that he and former Governor Ryan can share a cell.

And once again in the Only in Illinois category, we just got done with our Primaries not too long ago. In which, yes, we learned through a campaign commercial that one of our candidates for State Comptroller allegedly had personal ties to such luminaries as Sam Giancanna and Tony "the Big Tuna" Accardo. Before you know it, someone's going to drag Al Capone into it, too . . .

In a recent poll, it seems that while 53% of Illinois voters approve of what the President is doing, the other 47% want to run him up a tree and set fire to it . . . and those numbers are narrowing. Me, I'm still ambivalent in that there are some things the President is doing that I don't like, and some things that I do like. But when your own home State starts to turn on you, it might be time to rethink a few positions.

Lindsey Vonn finally got her Olympic gold medal. Good for her, she deserved it. Flimsy Chokabellis, however, might want to find out who she pissed off before her snowboard run . . .

Note to the figure skating judges: if you want people to stop talking about how corruptible the scoring system is, how about coming up with an open system that people can understand? Just asking.

Once again, to all the brain-dead morons out there: when you see a six-inch-curb with yellow lines painted on either side of it, chances are they don't want you to make a left-hand turn right there.

Peyton Manning crying in his beer; always good for the soul. But I still want to know who the '72 Dolphins paid off to maintain their record for a perfect season.

Did you know that I'm scared all the time? I didn't used to be, but I am now. I'm scared that the rest of my life is going to be just one long procession of visiting different doctors. I'm scared that I'll never marry or have children. There are some nights that I'm scared to go to bed, because of the fear that I might not wake up. Most of all, though, I'm scared that while people are telling me to exercise more because of the arterial blockages in my legs, someone else will amputate my legs because of those blockages . . .

Ah, well, no one listens anyway . . .