Expense + Maintenance + Unmanageable spam + No Time to write = Moving to a much more simple blog/photoblog.

There really hasn’t been much going on here since I deployed. I have basically lost all my viewership because of that, and its becoming outrageously expensive to maintain private domains and webspace. So I have decided to go cheaper and easier. I am already experimenting with alternatives, and if you are a regular follower, etc just let me know and I can point you in the right direction(s).

Most likely this site will disappear with the need to renew the domain, or will eventually point to something else. Most likely this won’t happen until after I get home though.

The Management….

A long time ago, I entered a contest to get a free version of a new CMS called Expression Engine. I won and promptly switched from MoveableType.  For those that have been around that long, this was during the controversy over SixApart starting to charge those who donated to MT for the new MT. Anyway, long story short I jumped in head first and built everything here around EE.

I wasn’t in Alaska a lot, but I followed her on the campaign and just liked the way she did business.  She seemed to be a pretty straight shooter and a real person, not a puppet in a suit. Even this whole quitting thing hasn’t really changed my opinion of her personally too much.  I don’t now how I feel about her professionally anymore, but time will see where all this latest controversy is headed.

Anyway, she gave her farewell speech and in true Palin fashion, she left quite a few good quotes for the media. For instance:

Our new governor has a very nice family, too. So leave his kids alone!

A little something for all the Dustoffers out there that might be reading care of www.army.mil:

Soldiers unpack a new UH-72A Lakota at Cairns Army Airfield on Fort Rucker, Ala., July 8. “Flatiron,” Fort Rucker’s Air Ambulance Detachment, aids not only the post but also local communities during emergency medical situations. This Lakota is the first of three to arrive here.
Photo credit Emily Brainard

Personally after working on BO-105s for a short period, I am no fan of rear loading clamshells.  However, the Lakota seems to be a bit bigger than the BO-105.  From the article I gathered these will be used only for the MAST mission at Ft. Rucker and not for deployments.  The rest of us are still stuck in the the old standby UH-60 variants or, if you are CONUS only and not lucky enough to be at the U.S. Army Aviation Center, even older UH-1 variants.

The remainder of the article is here.

As you have no doubt heard by now, the Dems have done their usual and cut defense spending into nothing.  Many of the future warfighter programs that the military has been developing for years are now dead, leaving us – the men on the ground, without new equipment to keep us safe and alive. Such things as the F-22, the C-37, the DLOS Cannon, naval ships, and all that “Ghost Recon” stuff.  All the current equipment is starting to show its years, and you can only modify an M-16 so much.

Anyway, while they are busy cutting the floor out from under our defense, we are busy giving millions of our tax dollars to Darpa.  To do what you ask?  How about develop telepathy. Yep. Telepathy.  While it sounds cool and all, I can think of much better ways to spend the money.  How about we give it to PEO Soldier to develop a fleece that CSM’s will actually let us wear in public!

At least, that’s the hope of researchers at the Pentagon’s mad-science division Darpa. The agency’s budget for the next fiscal year includes $4 million to start up a program called Silent Talk. The goal is to “allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals.” That’s on top of the $4 million the Army handed out last year to the University of California to investigate the potential for computer-mediated telepathy.

[...]

The military has been funding a handful of mind-tapping technology recently, and already have monkeys capable of telepathic limb control. Telepathy may also have advantages beyond covert battlefield chatter. Last year, the National Research Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency released a report suggesting that neuroscience might also be useful to “make the enemy obey our commands.” The first step, though, may be getting a grunt to obey his officer’s remotely-transmitted thoughts.
Wired

It took 9 years to figure this out? Really?  Sometimes I have to wonder about the think-tankers out there.

Army requires different leaders to fight irregular wars, general says

The Army will require a different type of leader in the fight against terrorism and other kinds of irregular warfare, the Army’s top troop trainer said here today.

[...]

With the advent of terrorism and other types of irregular warfare, he said, the U.S. military now “must develop leaders who are effective in the context of ill-defined problems against an enemy likely to migrate among operational themes.”

- www.army.mil

So after 9 years of lengthy combat against insurgent/terrorist forces, they finally decided that barreling over them in tanks is not such a good idea. Oh, and then there was a little conflict that taught us these lessons about, oh, 35 years ago.  They called it Vietnam, but I guess we kinda forgot about those lessons.  I have gotten a bit jaded I guess.

I heard this on the radio a little bit ago and verified it on the FDA website.  Fourteen different hydroxycut products have been pulled for serious liver problems ranging from enzyme elevation to death. 

I thought this was really important to get out in the milblogosphere because of the sheer number of soldiers I know who use hydroxycut products.  I know people use these products for weight loss, “cutting up”, staying awake on patrol, and a wide variety of other uses – recommended and otherwise.  I have even used the product in the past, although I can’t now because of flight status.  I have said it before, and now more than ever it holds true,  we don’t know what the long range effects of these “natural supplements” is.  They are not regulated by the FDA, no long term studies have been done, and the individual dosing varies based on several factors. They are rough on the kidneys and liver, as well as shifting the homeostasis of the body in order to increase metabolism, etc.  I don’t care if its Hydroxycut, NitRX, or any of the other slew of body building, weight loss, or metabolic supplements, you just can’t be 100% sure of their safety so use them with caution.  Being on dialysis at 45 or 50 because your kidneys shut down is not fun.  Hydroxcut was considered “perfectly safe” until today.

I don’t often do this, but since I have a small readership, Please pass this on to the blogs, twitter streams, etc of soldiers and people you know.

Anyway, off my soap box and onto the quotes:

I just discovered this tonight.  Geoff Tate, singer and songwriter, created an album that has come from his experiences interviewing soldiers from WWII through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  According to his posts, he was talking with his father about what it meant to “Support the Troops” and discovered something much deeper.  He ended up taping the conversations and showing them to his family.  His wife told him he should write a song, but his own journey led him to write an entire album based on interviews with many veterans and soldiers.

Although I have never been big on what I consider “Hair Band” type music, the song that was on the website sounded pretty good.  I have to applaud Geoff Tate and Queensryche for attempting to convey such heavy subjects through music.  I couldn’t find anything about whether or not any proceeds would go to help soldiers or veterans though.  At any rate, it surprised me to see not just a whole song, but an entire album dedicated to soldiers.  The site has some more information and the album is due out at the end of March.

Here is the Amazon link, and I’ll put some bullets after the break for those whose ADD might preclude them from searching through the site themselves..

So I guess this bat wanted to be a part of the space program so badly that he was willing to do anything.

Picked this up off of Jems and thought it was interesting.  However, I don’t think its the “Pentagon” honoring combat medics, just this particular doctor.

Well, if they do decide to set up a memorial to combat medics, corpsman, and the like, I would encourage everyone to support it.