Defiantone.com

This story pissed me off

Iraqi police officers voluntarily turned over their weapons to members of al-Sadr’s representatives in the Madhi Army.

If you were to surrender like this in the US military and were later caught they would probably charge you with treason. They would court martial you and shoot you. I’ve read quite a few stories about Iraqis taking more of a lead and asking for less help. In the past they would often run at the first sign of danger and leave it all to the coalition forces to do the dirty work. Lately, they’ve been able to do much more with less of our help. They are constrained by supply problems and a lack of air support - if we could get them more of what they needed and provide them with on time air support until their military is able to take over it would help them out quite a bit. When police officers surrender like this it absolutely pisses me off. Why the hell am I in your country when you don’t even want to fight?

This is a bunch of shenanigans and its got to stop.

Ok, I had some free time on my hands after watching the Drake Bulldogs getting beat at the buzzer - by a three pointer no less - so I let my imagination run wild for a few minutes. Eventually, I needed to call in reinforcements to reel it back in but I had traveled down an interesting bunny trail. Oil prices are high and gas prices are the highest I’ve ever seen them. What can we do to lower oil prices in the short term while looking for a long term energy solution?

If you’ve read Atlas Shrugged you’ll know that you can’t always win when trying to do something for the “public good.” In the book, the government decided to nationalize D’Anconia Copper and found, much to their dismay, that it had already been dismantled and that nothing was left. They got too greedy for their own good and took everything away from those who worked for it in pursuit of a socialist state. A few revolted and set up a unique society where each earned his own - and charity was never given. We could find that if we take over the oil industry that there may be nothing left - we could have already reached Hubbert’s Peak - the point in which oil production will only decrease because we have used 50% of the available reserves.

My thought was what would happen if we nationalized the US oil industry? There isn’t much precedent for the nationalization of an industry in the United States and through my research I only found two examples. During WWI we nationalized the rail industry but promptly privatized it following the end of the war. The other example is of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Following the 9-11 attacks in NY City, the private run airport security industry was transferred to government control. Both were done in due to a national interest and only one of the two returned to private control. Venezuela recently privatized Exxon and took control of the production facilities within its border. While they only control a fraction of the market for oil they have leveraged it to create more strain on the system - thus raising prices.

Can we nationalize an industry in America by force? No - we’ve got to provide adequate compensation for the industry in accordance with UN Laws

In 1962, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1803, “Permanent Sovereignty over National Resources,” which states that in the event of nationalization, the owner “shall be paid appropriate compensation in accordance with international law.” In doing so, the UN rejected both the traditional Calvo-doctrinist view and the Communist view. The term “appropriate compensation” represents a compromise between the traditional views, taking into account the need of developing countries to pursue reform even without the ability to pay full compensation, and the Western concern for protection of private property.

Occasionally, the nationalization of an industry does not work to the advantage of the public as it can lead to corruption and the downfall of the industry. Mexico nationalized Pemex and it has been a failure ever since. Since the government took over they have not explored for more sites or increased production on existing sites. In fact, the company is now 42 billion dollars in debt in an age of ever increasing oil prices. Bad management? Possibly - but there is much more to the equation - and I’m not going to dig into it.

Arguments for the corruption of the oil industry run rampant. I found an interesting take on rising oil prices at Seeking Alpha

- the author is talking about how the futures market creates some interesting questions - here is an excerpt

So what did happen? Well the traitors cancelled 117,558,000 barrels of oil, that’s 29M barrels A WEEK from October delivery in order for the weather girl on CNBC to be able to tell you every Wednesday at 10:30 how tight supplies are. And what did they do with those barrels? The same thing they do every month, they “roll” the contracts into the forward months, creating a false demand there for oil they never intend to accept delivery of and they have done it EVERY SINGLE MONTH FOR THE PAST 2 YEARS!
But, they are not done…

Were the traitors traders to accept delivery of the 171,442,000 barrels of oil that are still open today, BARRELS THAT THEY HAVE ALREADY BILLED YOU FOR, it would create the biggest glut of oil in US history and crash the oil markets. So these traitors traders will, in the next 4 days, CANCEL ANOTHER 130M BARRELS OF CRUDE and slip the majority of them into the next 3 months in order to create the perception that there is, simultaneously, a record demand and a tight current supply

Responses were varied but few agreed with him

The author, who seems to be totally unfamiliar with the workings of futures markets, is welcome to his misconceptions, but does not deserve space in this forum.

Wow - what’s next? Black helicopters?

Hillary has either made a flub or a direct statement that she supports the nationalization of the oil industry - your interpretation will determine your opinion. I’ve highlighted and italicized the important tidbit

The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will actually begin to move us in the direction of independence

Obviously your interpretation of her “taking those profits” means quite a bit in this situation. I don’t really agree with her thought of directly taking the profits but profiteering is killing us all. Taking over an US owned industry would be monumental and could have epic repercussions.

I found a few links to others making arguments for the nationalization of the oil industry - you can check out the arguments at the Huffington Post and at Pww.org

Ok - the bottom line - should we? No - we couldn’t afford to give them adequate compensation. What we should do is to stop all tax subsidies for the oil industry despite the fact that it could cause a short term increase in the price we pay at the pump. We should make a concentrated effort to expand research into alternative energy as we made a national effort to get to the moon in the mid-twentieth century.

Chuck Norris - the man - the myth - the guy that kills with a roundhouse kick to the face is quite popular among members of the armed services. A few years ago somebody came up with a bunch of Chuck Norris “facts” that turned out to be quite hilarious. They spread like a virus across the internet and many people have read them and took the time to create their own facts.

They aren’t real facts but they are funny - for example

Chuck Norris doesn’t teabag the ladies, he potato sacks them.
If you have five dollars and Chuck Norris has five dollars, Chuck Norris has more money than you.
There is no ‘ctrl’ button on Chuck Norris’s computer. Chuck Norris is always in control.
Apple pays Chuck Norris 99 cents every time he listens to a song.
Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open.
Chuck Norris can eat just one Lay’s potato chip.
Chuck Norris is suing Myspace for taking the name of what he calls everything around you.
Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.
Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

The soldiers at LSA Anaconda/Balad decided to hold a birthday party in his honor with a special “Chuck Norris” menu.

Items served included

sidekick swiss steak
drop-kicked noodles
furious fried fish
sneaky rice
Green Beret beans
roundhouse carrots
Delta Force Gravy
Walker Texas Toast

Check out the scanned article (click to enlarge).

I went to the doc - something that I loathe doing - so that I could get on the road to recovery.

His assessment - wow, your muscles are really tight. If it’s still bad in a week come back and I’ll try to stretch it out. Take some anti inflammatory meds for the next few days and see what it does.

He tried to stretch it today but was unable - it was beyond stretching. He asked how I was doing with the pain and in my typical macho/stubborn/stupid way I responded “I’ll manage”. I somehow see my grandpa King answering a question like that in the same way. When asked if he wanted some dessert his typical answer was “I suppose.” I’ll manage doesn’t seem like it would have been that far of a stretch.

Its rare that we see a new vehicle in my career field because we drive the heck out of them. While the mileage is never high, the vehicles have seen many hours of use.

When I was in Korea we had an ‘85 Chevy truck with 140k miles. Black smoke poured from the exhaust, the battery wouldn’t hold enough charge to run the 4 ways for more than three minutes, the heaters didn’t work, and it was beaten to living hell. We drove that truck everywhere because it was the only one we had. After we had sent it to motor pool for the 20th time to get fixed, they finally decided to replace it. They gave us a brand new truck - I never thought we would ever have a new truck - and I was right. By the end of the day the commander caught wind of it and took our truck and gave us his old model. We ended up ahead in the end but I thought it was a bit messed up that he did that…. Trizinsky was his name. Anyhow… two weeks later we saw the truck that we thought had gone to the scrap yard - and it was being driven by Civil Engineering. I guess they upgraded too - I don’t want to know what they had.

Our current shop truck is a ‘98 Chevy with 99k miles on it. The drive to work is only 4 miles so we aren’t going far in it but we are making quite a few trips ~13000 or so. I’m guessing that most of us don’t take any of our vehicles on that many trips regardless of how many miles we put on it because we tend to go longer distances. This truck has been beaten to living hell. In fact, we drove it till the doors fell off - literally. Since I’ve been here we’ve had problems with the doors. At first, we the latch broke off the inside of one of the doors. Soon after, the mechanism in two of the other doors broke leaving us with one working door. Sure, we could get out of the drivers door and open the rest from the exterior but in an emergency would we really want to do that? We turned it in for repair and two weeks later it came back with 3/4 working doors. Oh well, at least it was an improvement. Most of the doors shut poorly - probably due to wear and tear. Yesterday the door did finally did tear - off its hinges.

Would anyone in the civilian sector think of driving a vehicle as beaten as this? Probably not - it still serves its purpose when the doors are attached and we’ll probably drive it until the engine seizes - I give it another year or two. I’m glad we have a truck - it could be worse - we could be stuck with nothing to drive but buses and forklifts.

I’ve been crashing the last few days for some unexplained reason. I’m not driving vehicles into solid objects but rather experiencing my body deplete its energy reserves. Last night, about an hour before chow I noticed that I was having an extremely hard time concentrating. Little bits of time were disappearing and I was wearing down quickly. I knew that I needed to eat soon but I don’t have the ability to speed up time.

We got on the bus to the chow hall and I promptly passed out and woke when we reached the parking lot. I entered, ate my food in 5 minutes, and returned to the bus to sleep for the next 40 minutes. When we got back to work I attempted to check my email and I found that I was falling asleep between messages. I knew that we would be returning to work in 40 minutes and that we would take the bus so I went back outside and passed out.

When we arrived I was a little groggy until we started working. At that point, my body found its energy and I was fine for the rest of the night. I fell asleep, at the normal time, with relative ease.

I woke up two hours early today and I haven’t been able to get back to sleep. I decided to eat something - I am never awake for what the day walkers call “lunch”. I’m not sure how this is going to affect me later. Only time will tell.

My only guess to the cause of the crashes is that is related to my diet. I am not eating enough whole grain foods (that break down slower and provide longer lasting energy) so I’m going to tweak things a bit. We’ll see how it goes.

Throughout the years many people have sported a lip caterpillar - I’ve collected a few photos of some of notable stache bearers - enjoi!

Though deceased, this crooner spotted a wicked entertainer stache sure to help swoon the ladies

Will Ferrell threw back to the 70’s with this stache he sported in the movie Anchorman - what a beautiful thing

(more…)

Tags: gallery, images, March Mustache Madness, mustache

The back story: I called Nextel before I deployed in order to cancel my service - things didn’t go as planned even though they assured me that everything was fine. Jessica notified me that Nextel had sent me a bill in February - I was obviously annoyed so I sent them an email - they ignored my email so I was forced to call them. I called them and things didn’t go as I hoped - read on -

I called Nextel while I was at work today in an effort to get rid of the erroneous charge and cancel my line. I talked to a gentleman in customer service who looked up my account and saw the previous phone conversations where I had requested cancellation of the service, discussed faxing a copy of my orders, called to verify that they had received all of the information required, and checked up to make sure that it was everything was going to be processed. He asked for a phone number so he could call back should we be disconnected - I told him that I was in Iraq - he was instantly nicer to me. He told me that he would see what he could do and asked to place me on hold - I obliged his request. A few minutes later, he told me that he had canceled the charge. He was unsure as to why there was a disconnect within his system because the account SHOULD have been canceled on the billing cycle ending in January. The customer service representative was helpful and polite throughout our conversation - all phone calls to customer service should be modeled on our interaction. Unfortunately, my interaction with Nextel was about to careen of a steep cliff - he told me that I would have to talk to cancellations yet again.
(more…)

I received some amazing pictures of a MRAP that got hit by an IED. The truck hit a 500 pound explosive device - all occupants were able to walk away from the truck. The only injury to the occupants was to the driver who broke a few ribs on the steering wheel. The truck was thrown into the air and rotated 180 degrees by the explosive device

The engineering on the MRAP is cool as hell and it did exactly what it was supposed to - it saved the lives of US soldiers.

Check out these amazing photos

Edit - found out this happened last year and that it has been previously posted on I guess I was a little behind on this one - oh well

My workout routine is always up for a revision and and I always try to do something a little different to keep my body guessing. The one thing that doesn’t change is that on days where I don’t lift, I do cardio. I loathe cardio but its a necessary evil so I must do it. My normal routine consists of using the cross trainer for 25 minutes followed by a gut busting “gut day.” My ankle has prevented me from using the cross trainer so my only option was to get on the bike. I was aiming for 30 minutes of high intensity biking - to me - high intensity is to keep the rpm above 100 for as long as possible. In an attempt to increase my motivation, I make sure that my mp3 player is loaded with intense music - there are no ballads and the temp is always cranked.

So, to begin my arduous bike workout, I set the level to 8 (of 20) and started to bike away - I biked to 5 miles, then 10 miles and before I knew it I was already at 35 minutes of elapsed time. I felt like I was in the groove so I aimed for another 5 miles before I got off the bike without dropping my intensity - I wanted to make up some time and get the next 5 miles done in under 10 minutes. It was a lofty goal but I know how to push myself past the breaking point when needed.

I selected an Ill Nino song and went to town - at 135rpm. Sweat that was on my brow began to come down in a torrent that obscured my vision - the searing pain in my legs caused tears to form in my eyes - I wasn’t going to be defeated. I was not going to surrender to the pain. Nobody could tell that my eyes were watering because my entire body was soaked - it appeared as if I had jumped in front of a fire hose. I kept on pumping my legs as hard as I could until I reached 15 miles - at that point I looked at the clock - 44:58 - I had done it.

I really couldn’t believe that I could push myself that hard - I’m completely worn out at the moment but I know that there has got to be some sort of energy reserve left. I tried to do the “gut buster” workout but my body was shot - I guess it will wait till tomorrow.

FYI - gut buster is comprised of no less than 6 gut exercises - I am for 200-300 total reps. The pain is quite intense - but - I’ve got free time and I’m still young. I often wonder how much further I can push myself - I guess I’ll just have to find out for next time.

On a side note, I try to title all of the blog posts in a creative manner - some titles don’t make the stringent selection process

Todays rejected post titles include

1. Push it, push it real good Salt-N-Pepa wrote as song called Push it - and push it I did

2. Bike it out, bike it out - my take on Walk it Out

3. My humps, my humps, my lovely lady humps. - this in an homage to Will Ferrel in Blades of Glory as he was on his bike cranking out some cardio - well, he really wasn’t cranking much. There was discussion about what this song meant and nobody really knew - they just knew that it was promiscuous.