What separates the clueless con-man from the professional

Note to those who aspire to professional con-man status:

If you're going to hack together a smoking-gun memo backdated before about 1990, use the Courier font. It probably monospaces and it does not kern or ligate.

Ligate, you ask? Quick and dirty: typesetting allows the joining of an "f" and an "i" for example. Another thing typewriters can't do. I don't have the time to scan all of the subject forgeries for ligatures (I have a day job, dammit) but it's another thing to look for, y'all.

Further: Hugh Hewitt's drive-time show last Friday night reminded me of what the cost was, to Michael Gartner, when the NBC fraud of exploding gas tanks in pickup trucks was discovered. Mr Gartner had to find a new job---not in internet time, of course, but the internet didn't move as fast then as it does now. The 48-hour estimate from Instapundit reader John Steele sounds sluggish in comparison.

What we celebrate defines us

In my mailbox this morning:

CES is tasked with 5 personnel for
Saturday's Patriot Day Observance.

Somebody has taken to calling 11 September Patriot Day. This is wrong, folks. "Patriot Day" or "Patriot's Day" is taken. It's 19 April.

Y'know, shot heard 'round the world and all that? Battle of Lexington and Concord, Paul Revere's midnight ride? Or maybe that has become politically incorrect, and now we are directed to celebrate victimhood, to commemorate the times we get struck, instead of celebrating a moment when we fought back.

Quick hits

I'm not done exercising, by a long way. Next week will be hell, but I'll sleep in my own bed. I can see the cardboard sign: "Will do ATP-45(b) plots and VLSTRACK 3.1 fans for food."

Toad has a date for surgery, to knit the roof of his mouth together. He can propel himself toward the cat food bowl.

Mlle Sklodovska is making progress with physical therapy to improve her balance and posture. But she's not getting what she needs in the G&T department. Barbaloot checked out some books on how we need to handle her, and I'm reading the best she found.

Boy is calming down a bit, but Mlle Sklodovska's occupational therapist suggests we'll be sending him to her too.

Firstborn is, as Professor Henry Jones puts it, "becoming interesting."

Several friends from my days in the cable industry have surfaced again, wondering what I've been up to. I tell them I'm staying out. This is probably permanent. The package is going in for 179 days for next fiscal year, and Prairie AFB is asking me to transfer to AF Reserve and serve them as an Individual Mobilization Augmentee. As long as it remains more of a challenge than drudgery.

I'm in love I'm in love I'm in love with a . . .

The market is way ahead of me, or perhaps I'm waaay behind it. Since I no longer subscribe to Shotgun News, I wouldn't have known that a domestic manufacturer is assembling Galil clones. TCM and I took a road trip to an out-of-the-way dealer who had a V73-110 in the rack. Love at first sight, but love that must remain unfulfilled until I win either the race for the US Senate, or the Powerball.

Vulcan must chamber one in 6.5mm Grendel.

Things they need to add to MREs

Single-serving packets of Nutella.

Instead of the pitiful little index-card-sized alcohol towelette, how about a full-sized baby wipe?

Please add your own.

Quote for the day

Richard Posner guesting at Lessig Blog:

And of course once we decide that the way to prevent terrorism is to change our way of life, we create new incentives for people who want us to change our way of life to resort to terrorism.

I used to think, like many Libertarians, that if America behaved differently in the rest of the world, we would inspire no animus against us.

I thought that, in one version or another, with one or more qualifications, right up until shortly after I began this weblog.

No more.

Blogging will be light

Another TDY, this one to 17TWG territory on MGRS grid. Back next week.

Quote for the day

. . . in my mind, there was no failure, OK? I knew exactly upon 9/11 that there would be smoking memoranda found within weeks and that there would be somebody within the intelligence community who had been screaming their head off in the days and weeks and months up to that point.

Thomas P.M. Barnett, in interview by Brian Lamb of C-SPAN, airdate 30 May 2004. Transcript here.

I'll bite

At the request of Backcountry Conservative:

Fûz, Pennsylvania Air National Guard, 1981 to 1999; Wyoming Air National Guard 1999 to 2001; US Air Force October 2001 to present. Non-commissioned officer, NBC Defense.

Quote for the day

Can the people who destroyed the Alien franchise be trusted with the [Alien versus Predator] concept?

In a word: no.

Pool of Thought

I'm tired from wearing MOPP gear for the last two days, I've been drinking, I'm on a 33k6 connection, and I'm tired, but this fact shines through: this guy is good.

Product review as it were

Uncle Sugar owed me a few $$$ since my last TDY and I've been lusting in my heart for a hard-drive based MP3 player for some time. It was fate---kismet . . . .

The iRiver IHP120 was available at a nearby Best Buy (Aurora at Mississippi and Abilene), and the good Geek behind the counter saw me salivating over the display model and discreetly told me of an open-box special. The previous owner had graciously charged it up for me and left me with a few audio files of him muttering "hudda budda" into the microphone for many seconds, and depreciated ten percent from their list price. Done deal.

Now that I've figured out how to get this device to shuffle-play among multiple albums, I can fall asleep to more than one artist. The device has both line-in and microphone inputs (microphone included) so I can import files or record in analog from all of the valuable vinyl albums I still have. I would have bought the iPod but the iRiver has encoding on-board and supports all audio formats I know of so far.

The drawbacks arise from the user interface. I have used only the Rio R30S before this so I am not the conclusive expert on MP3 player user interfaces, but maybe the clumsy user interface is the reason the previous owner turned this thing back in and I got the open-box discount.

So badly Palm needs to license their OS and interface to these devices.

Overall 3 out of five stars, 4-plus of 5 for value for the money, 1 of 5 for user interface, 4 of 5 for feature-to-weight ratio. It's scarcely more discommodating than the 64MB Rio.

For a ride on a C-130, you need noise-cancelling headphones. I'll be using the IHP120 as a USB hard drive too, loading it up with NIMA map files (CADRG, DTED, ArcView).

Warning: read the fscking manual on how to load it with music and navigate the drive. Before you plug it in, I mean.

somebody bought me 2 martinis

so I'll be somewhat stream-of-consciousness. It's definitely autumn in southern Wisconsin, I smell of tobacco, and, well, there were those Tanqueray martinis.

Am preparing a product review of the iRiver IHP120 MP3 player-aka-20GB USB hard drive. Meanwhile, a good friend of mine, with whom I've been out of contact, has been on my mind because his last contact with me was one of those questions about "what is in your CD player RIGHT NOW?" and the answer is, well, a bit of everything I've loaded into the new gizmodified MP3 player so far.

That would be Reverend Horton Heat's Space Heater, two NIN's, two Devo's, an Acoustic Alchemy, a Billy Idol, a Fountains of Wayne, and so forth.

The good friend was my Best Man at my wedding. Since then, his marriage has gone south and he's not sure what to do. Please send him love.

I'm embarking on a change, though one not as heavy with consequence as his. I'm saying goodbye to a Wing full of people I've served well and proudly for five years plus; he's losing a wife. No comparison.

So answer me these questions three:

• what music are you hearing now?
  
• choose the name of the best friend you have now, excepting people you've married or people of your own blood. What is that person's first name?
  
• who's the last person you've said "goodbye" to?
  
• is that "goodbye" for the better or for the worse?
  

Post 'em in the comments. It's a Friday night. Or a Saturday morning. Whatever.

OPSEC observed here

I've been observing OPSEC at WUTT! since before the beginning. I think I've adhered to the rules as set down here, and continue to do so, because I might yet go back downrange.

Tip of the K-pot to Lt Smash:

1. Don't violate OPSEC. Never name your unit, be vague about your location and mission, and don't use anyone's real name.

2. Be careful what you say about your seniors. Don't write anything about a superior in your blog that you wouldn't want that person to read back to you.

which would it be?

If you could instantly acquire skill in one but only one musical instrument,
which would it be?

Forgive me Father . . .

. . . for it has been months without number since I've plugged the Carnival of the Vanities. Hosted at Smallest Minority. Please visit.

Another quote for the day

there is no evidence that plentiful networked information can replace killing power and inherent survivability, especially in close combat. Timely and useful information is critical, but it cannot substitute for firepower, mobility and armored protection.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, PhD, USA (ret.), testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on July 15, 2004. Hat tip: LANDPOWERTRANSFORMATION@yahoogroups.com, August 2004

Quote for the day

Having the the FCC and Congress as foster-parents is at best like being a child-star and at worst like being raised by alcoholics. Either way, stunted growth is a likely outcome.

Tim Wu regarding the regulation of VoIP in its infancy. HT: BoingBoing

Just one more flavor of Kool-Aid to drink

WUTT! today officially endorses the FairTax.

We have in the past proposed many schemes that amount to tinkering with the income tax code. Guilty as charged---with half my tongue firmly in cheek and the other half counting on the building popular exasperation with the complexity and the social engineering aspects of the tax code, which
would eventually spill over into support of some other method of taxation.

From time to time I have doubted that the exasperation would build to the point that the taxed masses would seek redress or revolt, indeed that it was building at all. Such doubts are more pertinent in time of armed conflict.

We will still (flippantly at times) propose income-tax tinkering in these pages, if only to point out how divisive our current system can be, and how serious I am about throwing it aside.

Drink the Kool-Aid, noble Readers.

XM8 on FoxNews

FoxNews Channel just showed off the XM8 and a glimpse of the M307.

Is this the beginning of a press build for seeking funding?

AWB sunset countdown continues

"It's an uphill battle," Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun-
control advocates, said in a telephone interview last week. "Our
streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis" unless Congress
extends the ban, she said.

So if I see a Bulgarian AK just laying there in the street on the 14th, I can just keep it?

Cool. I'll pass on the Uzi.