blech the Irish....This place smells worse than Boston!

Now girls, where do you think the drone strikes should take place?

Of course....but they wont.  And that will anger some people.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), arguing in favor of US involvement in Syria, says U.S. has "never stood by and seen innocent people slaughtered" as in Syria....

Yeah... Then why does our nation continue to arm and finance dictatorships all over the globe?

Well, to be fair, it's not as world wide as it used to be.  Mostly just one little corner of the world.

I very rarely watch the NBA (or basketball in general), but I happened to catch most of the OT tonight at work.  Wow....NBA games are like opebo posts, when I happen to occasionally check one out it ALWAYS reminds me why I have it on ignore.  Never fails.

But the Surge guys, the Surge worked.

It did, then we left.  Just like everybody wanted.

Staying would have helped sort out this problem in the long term how, exactly? I'm genuinely curious. Even if a good argument can be made I still doubt it'd've been worth it.

It most certainly would not have been worth it.

link

Women may be able to start training as Army Rangers by mid-2015 and as Navy SEALs a year later under plans set to be announced by the Pentagon that would slowly bring women into thousands of combat jobs, including those in elite special operations forces.
Details of the plans were obtained by The Associated Press. They call for requiring women and men to meet the same physical and mental standards to qualify for certain infantry, armor, commando and other front-line positions across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reviewed the plans and has ordered the services to move ahead.

<snip>

Under the schedules military leaders delivered to Hagel, the Army will develop standards by July 2015 to allow women to train and potentially serve as Rangers, and qualified women could begin training as Navy SEALS by March 2016 if senior leaders agree. Military leaders have suggested bringing senior women from the officer and enlisted ranks into special forces units first to ensure that younger, lower-ranking women have a support system to help them get through the transition.

The Navy intends to open up its Riverine force and begin training women next month, with the goal of assigning women to the units by October. While not part of the special operations forces, the coastal Riverine squadrons do close combat and security operations in small boats. The Navy plans to have studies finished by July 2014 on allowing women to serve as SEALs, and has set October 2015 as the date when women could begin Navy boot camp with the expressed intention of becoming SEALs eventually.
U.S. Special Operations Command is coordinating the matter of what commando jobs could be opened to women, what exceptions might be requested and when the transition would take place.
The proposals leave the door open for continued exclusion of women from some jobs, if research and testing find that women could not be successful in sufficient numbers, but the services would have to defend such decisions to top Pentagon leaders.

<snip>

Good, I suppose.  But I think we're going to run into the same problems we ran into with the Marine Corps. Officers Infantry School in that very very few (if any) women are going to be able to make the cut physically.

Turkish government says it may use army to end protests

Turkey's government has said it could use the military to end nearly three weeks of unrest by protesters in Istanbul and other cities.

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told A Haber TV that the state would use "all its powers" and the armed forces if necessary to "establish peace".

<snip>

In an interview with A Haber, a Turkish news channel, Mr Arinc insisted that "the innocent demonstrations that began 20 days ago" had "completely ended".

Any further demonstrations would be "immediately suppressed", he added.

"Our police, our security forces are doing their jobs," he said. "If it's not enough then the gendarmes will do their jobs. If that's not enough... we could even use elements of the Turkish armed forces."

The deployment of gendarmes - a military unit under control of the interior ministry in peacetime - shocked some protesters in Istanbul this weekend.

Mr Arinc later wrote to the BBC to complain that the TV interview had been "taken out of context" and "created the misperception that the Turkish government might use its army and all its forces to suppress the protests".

<snip>

...but perhaps it's just because of the weekend

We should get her a job at Amy's Baking Company and watch the show.

GENIUS!

Depends on the country, but ideally a military should be fully professional except in a real national emergency- say the World Wars. So meh.

Yes/My mom is.

3 is my vote, but yes, of course.  To not do so would be sexist.

Indeed, that seems like the stupidest of plans.

Iran to send 4000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria-link goes to Google search

The Independent on Sunday has learned that a military decision has been taken in Iran – even before last week’s presidential election – to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years.  Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime, according to pro-Iranian sources which have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic’s security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new ‘Syrian’ front on the Golan Heights against Israel.

I love it when assholes ruin their own lives.

link

They blew up a bus killing 14 female university students, then attacked a hospital with suicide bombers.  It's like they looked up "how to be cartoonishly evil" on Google.  I hope they spend eternity being raped by Jewish bears.

The problem is, everybody in the house is getting to spend more time with him than I do.  Taking a month off work to bond with your new puppy makes sense doesn't it?

I have an odd sleep schedule.  I basically just sleep when I'm tired.  It's a nice system.

I'm the same way. It works well so long as I don't have to adjust to someone else's sleep schedule (i.e. having to get up earlier than usual to go out or something). I try my best to keep it somewhat in check.

I have to be at work and awake at 11pm and 7am and the hour either side of both times.  But unless there is work to do at work or at home, I can pretty much sleep when I want....and I do.    Some days I take two two hour naps and a 5 hour sleep.  Other days, I only get one of those naps.  Some days I'm up for more than 24 hours straight.  I can be awake whenever work or the wife need me to be, but they both have to accept that I'm going to take some naps.  I'm just glad neither requires all that much of me

I think I've settled on Sagan (as in Carl).  He probably looks more like a Cosmos (or a Friar Tuck for that matter), but Cosmos would naturally shorten to Cosmo, and that makes me think of Kramer and I'd rather not have my dog meltdown on stage.

Friar Tuck is too long, would probably morph into us calling him Tuck and that's just a silly name.

Would we count Anglos that hate Wops?  Germanic types that hate the Irish?

On average, at least before they joined, they were better than non-vets.  And no, it has nothing to do with the act of enlisting.

Only old people sleep at night.

I have an odd sleep schedule.  I basically just sleep when I'm tired.  It's a nice system.

Must be weird being a 13 year old in a middle aged man's body.

Weird? nah.  Totally awesome?  youbetcha!

Ethiopia ratifies new Nile water pact

Ethiopia’s parliament on Thursday ratified an accord that replaces colonial-era deals that awarded Egypt and Sudan the majority of the world’s longest river.

<snip>

A 10-person Egypt-Sudan-Ethiopia experts panel concluded that the dam will not “significantly affect” water flow to Egypt and Sudan, according to Ethiopian officials. Sudan said it accepts the outcome of the finding and this week announced that it supports Ethiopia’s project.

<snip>

The new cooperative agreement — signed by Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Burundi — aims to establish a commission to oversee Nile projects. Congo and South Sudan, which succeeded from Sudan in 2011, have announced plans to join the new pact. Eritrea is participating as an observer in the 10-nation Nile Basin Initiative.

Egypt has previously said that it accepts most of the new agreement. But it opposes a clause saying member countries would work to ensure “not to significantly affect the water security of any other Nile Basin State.” Egypt wanted the clause to say countries would not “adversely affect the water security and current uses and rights of any other Nile” states.

Ethiopian Minister of Water and Energy Alemayehu Tegenu told parliament that Ethiopia made two bold decisions concerning the dam. The first, he said, was to postpone ratification of the agreement by a year to accommodate Egypt’s request for time until an elected government was in place.

“The second one was to let experts, including from Egypt and Sudan, inspect our Renaissance Dam,” he said. “No other country does this but we did it in cooperation and friendly spirit. But we are seeing how our good intentions are being responded to. We can no longer wait. We need to go ahead with the ratification.”

<snip>

Border Collie, male.  I'll post pics when he stops moving for more than half a second.  Just as cute as you would imagine.  Mostly black except for his head, feet and tip of tail...and a black spot right in the middle of his head.

No name yet.  The youngest boy is calling him Fat Mike (the puppy isn't fat), the wife wants to name him Archer.  I haven't decided yet.



edit-pics from the ad we got him from (he's the bottom one)

When I was a kid working in a grocery store I had to be....it sucked.