Help Me! - I Can't Walk & Text at the Same Time

It used to be that the standard for being able to do two things at once was if someone could walk and chew gum at the same time (this having replaced the eon long practice of patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time.)

These days, there's a new emerging standard - can you walk and send text messages from your phone at the same time. (If that last sentence was not quite clear, then you can probably continue using the chewing gum standard.)

Reports from London show that a staggering one out of ten people have hurt themselves while sending text messages.

I'll say it again. 10% of the population has injured themselves while texting (this can also allow for chatting, but... most likely texting.)

In the United States, this would extrapolate to approximately 30 million injuries.

What steps are being taken to address this scandalous uptick in cellphone injuries? Maybe commercials by cute, fuzzy animals singing songs to us about how to be aware of the rest of the world?

Nope.

London is trying padded lampposts.

(I'll give you a second...)

They are putting padding around lampposts for those folks who are so busy texting that they're not watching where they are walking and BAM! walk headlong into an innocent lamppost.

What does this say for society at large? We have to protect the populace from lampposts placed recklessly in the paths of people who have forgotten how to look UP while walking (anyone else secretly terrified about how these walking maladies might be driving?).

What's next? Pad the trees? Sides of buildings? Perhaps we can turn all of our cities into giant padded rooms.

Because, if we're truly going to ascribe to the theory that the best way to address people too dumb to look up is to pad the obstacles in front of them, then a padded room is what we'll need.

A Pet Peeve

I don't like smokers. Not for the usual, popular reasons. I truly don't care if someone smokes or not. It's their choice.

What else is their choice is how to dispose of their cigarette butts when they're finished smoking. Look at the picture above. This could be a road... anywhere.

Look more closely.



There are thousands of butts there. No one thinks for a second about quickly rolling their window down and tossing the butt out the window. Sometimes, I've had a still lit, smoldering butt hit my windshield. And let's not even discuss the times I was driving in a convertible with the top down and had a butt land inside my vehicle. I still remember the cigarette burn on the seat... and thankful that it didn't land on ME.

Why can't smokers keep their butts with them until they get to a trash can? Why is the outside world their ashtray?

It's so frustrating to see this... and worse, it's accepted. We've become desensitized. Sure, we'll pick up trash, but the millions and millions of butts out there... are just part of the scenery now.

And it's disgusting.

Peace Was Our Profession

Once upon a time, the United States Air Force was simply and clearly delineated into three major commands - MAC, TAC, and SAC (Military Airlift Command, Tactical Air Command, and Strategic Air Command, obviously respectively.)

That all changed in 1992, when the Cold War having been declared won by default, it was felt that a reorganization was needed.

Why?

Various reasons were given, cost-savings of course being one of them, however sometimes organizations reorganize for the sake of reorganizing.

The USAF changed to AMC (Air Mobility Command, to replace the more pronounceable MAC, though not sure why), ACC (Air Combat Command, combining assets from TAC and SAC, and providing another unpronounceable acronym), and to further complicate matters, the nuclear assets of ACC, formerly of SAC, would also report to USSTRATCOM (US Strategic Command). Confused?

Yeah. (First rule of thumb of military acronyms - the military SPEAKS in acronyms, so they should at least be pronounceable.)

We went from having one command managing ALL of the assets needed for nuclear response via air and space (the Navy handling the submarines, logically enough) to spreading the wealth.

The result?

A "Lack of Focus" according to the report recently issued by a panel chaired by retired USAF General Larry Welch.

After the Cold War, the once-vaunted Strategic Air Command, which controlled all Air Force nuclear weapons, was dismantled. The military's nuclear missiles were assigned to a division responsible for operations in space, and its nuclear bombers were moved to Air Combat Command, which also includes nonnuclear fighters and reconnaissance aircraft.

Although the internal Air Force review has not been made public, a copy of its executive summary obtained by The Times asserts that the split organization has led to fragmentation of policies and accountability, without a single commander responsible for nuclear missions.

These are nuclear weapons, folks. Our government agonizes about the potential loss of control of nuclear weapons in other nations, e.g. Pakistan, Russia, and the development of weapons in countries such as Iraq and Iran. Yet, we've managed to instituionalize the loss of control in a formal manner within our own nuclear forces.

An interesting quote from the article:

"We can't go back to where we were in 1991," Peyer said. "We don't live in the same world. It's not the same environment."

(Note: Major General Polly Peyer conducted an internal United States Air Force review.)

The general is correct. Until 1991, we faced primarily ONE nuclear enemy - the Soviet Union (I know, I know, the Soviets had disbanded, but I'm trying to keep this simple). Now? Who knows. Literally. Russia hasn't had the tightest control of its nuclear assets, and those potentially lost nukes could be anywhere. Iran is trying to gain nuclear assets, North Korea does have nuclear assets, and let's not forget our friends, the terrorists.

This is a time when we need ABSOLUTE control over our nuclear forces with a clear, simple chain of command. Anything else is foolish and inviting trouble.

The Week In News

With nary a peep from some of the usual channels, I'd like to recommend that you take a look at this blog here. I was laughing uncontrollably. I've also added the embed below so you can view it here...

(H/T to Michelle Malkin.)

Government Health Care

Talk to anyone who is a vict..., er um... user, of the government's free health care, be it VA, military, local clinic... what have you.

You'll hear all kinds of stories - usually about how long the wait is, or you can't get seen, or you have schedule appointments months later just to be seen (frequent occurance to me).

And it occurs to me.

All Pro-Life advocates (aka, anti-abortion) should immediately contact their representatives to enact national socialized medicine.

Why?

Because, in that world, the waiting list for an abortion will be at least 10-12 months.

Passing thought.

Social Commentary by SGT Hub

SGT Hub has an interesting piece of social commentary.

I won't add much except to say that I hope I can raise our little rays of sunshine to do better.