Soldiers

A few weeks ago, Brittany Crippen said she tried to enlist in the Army, only to learn that a tattoo of a fish on the back of her neck disqualified her. Determined to join, the 19-year-old college student visited a second recruiting center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and was rejected again.  -  Recruits' Ineligibility Tests the Military - Wall Street Journal

I don't really understand why people get tattoos, and ear gauges are totally alien. Of course, I don't understand why people wear jewelry either. I mean, I guess people have reasons for doing these things, I've just never had the slightest interest.

There was some discussion on an internet forum, and then I come across a post from LineDoggie that had a couple of interesting observations:

... when the 1940 Draft was started very large numbers of potential soldiers were turned away as physically unfit, in most cases having suffered from years of malnutrition during the depression.

 ... if Audie Murphy were an 18 year old today he could not enlist due to only a 4th grade education.

New Math

A friend of mine went to a seminar today where they were presented with the above math problem. I look at this problem and I suspect it's some kind of trick question, that I am missing something, but I can't find anything anything devious in it, so I give my friend my first answer and she tells me I am correct.
     At the seminar people had all kinds of answers: $200, $67.95, $132.05, $100. People had to explain how they arrived at those answers, and some people got a bit rude in asserting that their answer was correct.
     The correct answer is  $100.00  (highlight to read). All the men (at least the ones who were willing to say what their answer was) were correct. All the incorrect answers came from women. I imagine that some women also got the correct answer.
    What does this say about people in general? What kind of response did you have to this story? What does that say about you?

Insane Clown Posse V. the FBI

Insane Clown Posse - Miracles

Not my kind of music and a little too much fowl (heh, heh) language, but the message and the video are fine. Hard to imagine that these guys are inciting their fans to violence, but hey, they're insane, right? I mean it says so right in the name of their band, and you never know what crazy people are gonna do, do you? So the FBI is like totally justified in persecuting this band and their fans, right?

FBI: Insane Clown Posse Has No Standing to Sue Over Juggalo Gang Classification

 

Quote of the Day

"Heart-rending stories are not a sound basis for laws but you'd have to have a heart of stone to read that and feel nothing. " - Roberta X

World War Z

 

ZOMBIE TSUNAMI

I watched part of World War Z this weekend. I gave up about half way through because it was it was getting dumb. Hyperactive zombies are able to sneak up and successfully attack heavily armed men standing on a wide open airfield? If we were talking about two different strains of zombies it might have made sense, but this is just another one of those stupid scenes were the villains sneaks up behind our hapless victim who can't see their stalker because they are not in view of the camera! Bah, double bah, and humbug to boot.
    There was one scene that struck me as especially effective and that was the zombies piling on top of each other to scale the wall surrounding Israel, or maybe it was just Jerusalem (a word I know well but never learned to spell). I saw that and it made me think of nothing so much as the rabid Muslim jihadists who are overrunning the Middle East. It also made me think of lemmings on their quadrennial rush to the sea. 
    Meanwhile, back in the real world, we've got the Sunnis and Shiites and Shais (two of these might be the same, but I really don't care which ones they are) stirring up shit. Iran is sending weapons to Baghdad and the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) is sending weapons to ISIS. (excerpt here).
    Didn't we just spend a trillion dollars to free the oppressed majority in Iraq? And didn't KSA aid and abet this venture? And now they are trying to undo it? Doesn't make much sense, unless they wanted the USA to

1. topple Saddam, which would have been too much work for the Saudi's slave army,
2. invest heavily in Iraq's oil producing infrastructure,
3. put a feeble 'democratic' government in charge, and then
4. leave.

Now Iraq looks like a real plum, and all Saudi Arabia has to do is reach out and pluck it. Of course Iran sees the same thing, and it's their brothers-in-faith who are nominally in charge in Iraq, or were last time I checked, which was a couple of days ago, so it's on, dude.

KSA ranks right down there with Kissinger, that is, near the bottom. Came across a video that purports to show that there might be a little turmoil brewing in the KSA. I only watched the first few minutes of it, it wasn't that entertaining. I have already formed my opinion of Saudi Arabia, I don't really need any more evidence.

Why is Saudi Arabia still counted as our 'friend'? For that matter, how did that slimeball Henry the K. get to be Secretary of State? Could it be that freedom has a price, but being the cheapskates we are, cheap gasoline is more important? Besides,  we don't really care about any of those people on the other side of the ocean.

Bus

Cool bus from Guatemala. Current American buses have all the pizzazz of a washing machine.

"But while looking that up, I found something else: El Metro Transit, the bus system in Laredo, serves 3.2 million passengers a year, in a metropolitan area of a quarter million, more than either Oklahoma City or Tulsa, who have four to five times the population. Each. The only reason I can think of, other than mere ethnicity, is that the Laredo system is privately owned." - Dustbury

That would be Laredo, Texas. I think I was there once. Then again, maybe not.

Streets of Laredo | Girlfriend

I don't know about the tune, I guess it's okay, but the video is moderately amusing, especially just before the two and a half minute mark.