You Just Can’t Make This Up

More observations from the Land of the Absurd . . .

Hugo Chavez is, apparently, very proud of himself because he just bought a whole bunch of combat aircraft from Russia . . . including all the "weapons and pilots." Really? He bought the pilots from Russia, too? And here I thought the only human beings Russia trafficked in were women for the sex trade . . .

By the way, Hugo, there's no such thing as "Sukhoi missiles." So, when you threaten to sink U.S. ships using your "Sukhoi missiles" . . . you just make yourself look like a bigger ass than you already are.

Oh, and have fun storming Guyana. I really can't wait to see how Sean Penn is going to explain that one away for you.

Not that I believe it's the only answer, but can we all please get off this idea that drilling for more oil wouldn't have any effect on the price-per-barrel? Of course it would. The price of oil is decided by the futures markets and, for as long as demand remains where it is and supply remains where it is, the price is going to remain high. Once you start adding to the supply by finding and exploiting new sources, the price is going to drop. Even just announcing that you are going to do that - as long as you then follow-through - is going to produce a price drop.

While we're at it, the idea that if every American kept the tires on their car properly inflated, it would make a dent in oil prices, is perhaps the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said.

Despite what you may think, Senator Obama is not the Second Coming. Nor is Senator McCain "too old." Would either one of them be the best choice for President? Probably not.

News flash for the Europeans: I don't particularly give a damn what you happen to think our national policies should be. Clean up your own houses first, or at least do us the courtesy of also insisting that we should be able to tell you how your nations should be run. I might feel differently about this had any of you bothered to lift a finger to stop the fun-and-games that went on in the former Yugoslavia, but you didn't. So shut the fuck up.

News flash for the Democrats: Bush is neither that dumb nor is he the Antichrist.

News flash for the Republicans: he isn't that smart, either.

News flash for George Soros and MoveOn.org: you all need to shut the fuck up, too.

Just so we're clear on this. Iran is sitting on one of the world's largest reserves of untapped oil. So just why do you think they're developing a nuclear programme?

Go ahead, keep jaywalking in front of me. As far as I'm concerned, you're just points.

Oh, and Brett Favre needs to shut the fuck up, too.

I'll probably remind you of this again next winter, but to the next idiot who decides to park halfway into the Handicapped spot because they don't want to trudge their way through the slush . . . I'm not going to say anything anymore, I'm just going to beat you.

To those of you who seem to believe that every Muslim, everywhere, is part of some great Islamic conspiracy to "overthrow" us: lose the tin-foil hats and move out of the basement. All you're doing is diverting attention away from those radicalized elements within that belief system that are a threat.

To the former Apollo astronaut who knows that aliens are on Earth and that the Government is covering that up: remind me again how successful your ESP experiments on the way to the Moon were?

Dear Treasury Department: no, really, I mean it. Stop fucking with the money.

Dear Department of Defence: once you've totally reconfigured yourself to prosecute asymmetric warfare, what are you going to do when someone like, say, China decides to make trouble? You do remember, right, that the "ten year plan" didn't work for the British in the 1930s?

Uncle Sam’s Used Ships Emporium

Okay, let's see if I've got this right.

The Navy has pretty much ended their much-touted Littoral Combat Ship programme at two hulls, because Congress blanched at the massive cost overruns for the ostensibly "cheap" ship . . . not to mention that the platform, as designed, was incapable of meeting its minimum endurance requirements. Just recently, the Navy also announced, before Congress, that it was terminating the DD(X) programme at just two hulls - Zumwalt and her sister - citing ballooning costs in the programme and "emerging threats," which they conveniently don't expound upon. Hmm. The very same programme that originally called for thirty-two hulls, which was subsequently cut to seven hulls because of rising costs, and which has now been cut to just two hulls . . . because of costs. I seem to remember writing something about this a while ago . . . damn, I'm good.

Now, if the $3.2 billion dollar DD(X) is dead in the water, so to speak, I'm guessing that we can assume CG(X) is likewise dead, since that platform is only a larger and hideously more expensive DD(X). Which means that we now have no follow-on destroyer or cruiser design. But what the hell, we don't have any follow-ons to the various frigate classes we've already retired, and the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates we're already well into retiring. And the SSN community has already been decimated. Pretty soon, all we'll have left are the CVNs, the Burke-class DDGs, and a handful of Virginia-class SSNs, what with the Los Angeles-class SSNs leaving that community.

On the bright side, however, the Navy is going to take the funds already procured for the DD(X) programme and reopen production for the Burkes. Great, they killed the $3.2 billion dollar ship so they could buy a few more $3 billion dollar ships. The very same ships they claimed needed to be replaced because they were "1980s" technology rapidly being overtaken by emerging technologies and threats.

Anyone else see the contradiction there?

Look, I've always said that DD(X) was too expensive to procure in the numbers needed to adequately replace retiring platforms and keep the Fleet at a strength where it can do all the things we expect it to do. But cost wasn't the only thing that killed that programme. Unproven propulsion and machinery concepts, an inherently unstable and inefficient hull design that was abandoned prior to the First World War, and the blind insistence that the very latest, bleeding-edge electronics technology - technology that obsolesces itself every 18 months, by the way - is what really killed that programme.

Also, one can't help wondering just what these "emerging threats" are that so suddenly rendered DD(X) and, by implication, CG(X), an untenable proposition. Remember, folks, DD(X) was trumpeted as the do-all ship for any combat environment, faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall waves at a single bound . . .

There's an implication in there, too, which is that the senior leadership in DoD, both uniformed and civilian, have lost focus on just what it is they're supposed to be doing. What we need are ships that are capable of executing their missions and controlling the seas; what we don't need are horrifically expensive technology demonstrators.

But comfort yourselves with this fact: CVN-21 is still steaming full speed ahead and, by the time the first hull of that $8.2 billion dollar ship hits the outfitting pier, I'm quite confident that the end-cost will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $12 billion dollars, if not more.

Not so important, I guess, save for the fact that we still seem to be rushing headlong down the path to where the Navy, because of costs and a blind belief that new technology can solve all our problems, will rapidly devolve into a force incapable of even basic coastal defence. We're already well on the way to that.

We're a maritime nation, folks. The economy and the way you live depend, to a not insignificant degree, on the Navy's ability to control the seas and keep them open for commerce - a mission it performs not just for us, but for everybody who conducts trade using the sea.

As one of my least favourite Congressmen used to say, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money," this is your money that's getting tossed around here like so many Monopoly bills, people. Do something about it.

Men Are From Mars, Women . . . Are Just Screwy

Do you know what I really love about women? Aside, I mean, from all the soft, curvy bits they have, which are pretty much guaranteed to turn my higher-level brain functions off and send my IQ plummeting to some number smaller than my shoe size . . . I tell you, a nice brunette in a black dress, with a sultry look in her eye that could set a room on fire, and I'm putty in her hands. Throw in a nice Southern accent, even just the hint of one, and it's game over, she'll have me doing whatever she wants me to do . . .

But I digress from the question, the answer to which may not be as obvious as it would seem. What I really love about women is that they are always right. It's true. Just ask them.

No, really, I mean it. Guys, ask yourself this question: have you ever won an argument with a woman? Of course you haven't, because even when you're right, you're wrong, and you wind up losing anyway. Think about it.

Yet there is another level to that, one that we of the male half of the species rarely consider, generally because we're spending so much time sleeping on the couch and wondering what went wrong. Not only are women always right, they also control everything. Granted, that might not be too terribly difficult to accomplish, seeing as how God was kind enough to provide men with two heads but only enough blood to use one of them at a time, but it doesn't change that simple fact.

What I mean by all this is that women have managed to quite effectively gain control of and rewrite the rules of behaviour in our society. I remember, for instance, a time when holding a door open for a woman and allowing her to precede you was considered an act of social grace. Now, however, it seems that nine out of ten times I hold that same door open for a woman, I am somehow signalling my belief that she is incapable of caring for herself and denying her dignity and self-worth as a human being by trumpeting a belief that I am superior because I have a penis. Um . . . what?

Men are told that women should not be objectified, and that they are more than just a walking womb. Well, of course they are. But then those same women walk around in Summer wearing tank tops with no bras, and little tight shorts with cutesy messages printed across their bottoms . . . and then get upset when we look. Let's not even discuss swimsuits . . . Yep, men are pigs, it seems.

I really just can't help but chuckle over our - meaning us guys - incurable sexism. Something, it seems, which is hard-wired into us, despite the female half of the race's attempts to enlighten us and cure us. But consider this scenario. It is apparently perfectly acceptable for female office workers to gather around and discuss how cute the UPS guy is and what a great set of buns - woman-speak for ass - he has. Yet when you reverse the genders of everyone involved in that situation, all of a sudden you've got an HR emergency and, at the very least, a session with the "sensitivity trainer" in your future.

Curious, that. But I have it on reliable authority from the females I know that I just don't get it. And you know what? They're right. Of course.