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The media loves to sensationalize every single thing that might cut your life short at a moments notice. Over the past few years they’ve run the entire gamut. Off the top of my head there is MSRA (staph infection), bird flu, West Nile virus, terrorism, (normal) flu, Africanized bees, pit bulls, overgrown snakes, and SARS.

So lets take a look at the list -

MSRA - MSNBC ran a piece of schlock detailing how your pets could pass the a staph infection to you. This is exactly what we need, millions of geriatrics living in fear of their lap dogs and armies of cats. I can see it now, millions of old people across America are screaming at Fluffy to get away from them. Blue haired and bald people will grab their walkers and canes and rush out the door without remembering to put their teeth in. Old and unable to see over the wheel they take out 3 cars on the way to the pharmacy. Once inside they yell at the top of their lungs for all of the disinfectant, breathing masks, and latex gloves they can find. They aren’t yelling because they need help - they’re yelling because their hearing aids have long since working. The other alternative is that they are yelling because the volume is cranked so high the unit is causing feedback on itself - the poor attendant can only try to understand them as he grits his teeth from the high pitch squelch.

Bird flu - Despite the days spent covering this story only a handful of people have actually contracted this illness. The only one that sticks to the top of my mind is that of a young girl who contracted the disease IN 2006 and later died. It later came out that she was so sad about the death of her favorite chicken that she drug the dead body around and would kiss it. Its no wonder she got the disease - she had no concept of how diseases travel - she couldn’t have known. Her parents should have but not all of us live in a 1st world country - well, we can’t call all of the US a first world country. Trailer parks exist in the southern US (think Florida) where inbreeding and stupidity have risen to epic levels. Three legged troglodyte children run around and eat whatever vermin they can find while yelling that the south will rise again - this rhetoric has been pounded into their heads by the overweight, heavily tattooed, parents who live solely on welfare because the “mexicans” are stealing their jobs.

West Nile virus Human infection is quite rare - in fact the odds of you even catching this disease in 2005 was 1/72,000. The mortality rate was far less - 1/1,724,000. I really done think we have anything to worry about here.

Terrorism - we could go on for DAYS about this one. As Bush says - something something something “or the terrorists will win”. It really doesn’t matter what comes first - it could be something as mundane as “you need to brush your teeth twice a day or the terrorists will win.” It really doesn’t matter - unless you are on patrols in Iraq the odds of the average American dying from a terrorist attack is infinitesimally small. Well, its not really that small but there hasn’t been a major terrorist attack in the US since 9/11 - the odds get smaller with each passing year.

The Flu - Every year millions of young and old are warned about the shortage of the flu vaccine. Every year people flip the hell out. You will probably be fine unless you have an abnormally weak immune system. If the medical system in your country would be ill equipped for an outbreak - say like China - they may shut down your schools if a few children become ill. Yes, the flu is bad this year but its BAD EVERY YEAR!

Africanized bees - this one is seldom talked about because there are very few cases. There was a case in the past week where a mans dog was stung to death. I have a feeling the dog got too close to the bee hive and caused them to react defensively. People shouldn’t go running around in abject terror whenever they see a bee. I’m sure there is someone that put plastic tape over all of their doors and windows when they heard about this threat. I also have a feeling that this person defecates into glass jars and keeps them in their house cuz, ya know, you just might need that jar of urine.

Pit bulls - People train dogs to be aggressive - this breed, in particular, has an extremely strong bite, large size, and is owned by idiots that treat their dogs like hell (Michael Vick?). Any dog can be aggressive - the most aggressive dog also happens to be one of the smallest. Yes, its yo quiero time - the chihuahua.

Overgrown snakes - Jessica can skip this paragraph - I’ve seen quite a few stories about how large snakes are eating household pets in the southern United States. Yippie dogs and cats are the prime targets - meh - let the snakes eat them. It could be that we are destroying their habitat and their food chain forcing them to move. Alternatively, pets could be a far easier prey that have few ingrained fight or flight characteristics and are far better targets. I don’t think we have anything to worry about - unless we get on a plane because there might just be snakes on that plane… yep… snakes on a plane.

SARS - SARS goes hand in hand with the flu - don’t spend your nights treading the carpet bare while worrying about contracting this version of the flu virus. The mortality rate is high - but - a flu epedemic is bound to happen once in a while. Further scientific research will allow us to counter each strain - of course - the SUPERBUG is still out there - we can’t stop that one.

*runs off to build a clean room*

Why would the media make such a big deal out of this stuff? They’ve got 24 hours of programming to fill - and you can only have so many public interest stories… wait… never mind.

You can split it 80/10/9/1
80% sensationalization
10% over analysis
9% public interest
1% real honest to god news

Airborne - how many times have I been told about the wonders of this supplement? People have a manic obsession with it because they believe that it will strengthen their immune system and prevent colds. It is often taken before a trip as a stressful time that is sleep deprived is more likely to bring on a cold as your immune systems weaken.

I’ve always hated holistic cures that have no scientific merit. Sure, this stuff has a bunch of vitamin C but so do oranges. We have not found a cure for the cold and we do not know how to prevent it - all that we do know is that if we wear our immune system down through stress/lack of sleep/change of environment we are more likely to catch a cold.

Well - if you thought airborne was the cure - you were wrong. Turns out there was a class action lawsuit because they’ve been selling a PLACEBO. I think its hilarious - and this is just another time where you were wrong.

Ok - now that you’ve regained your composure and have figured out that I’m messing with you its time for some links.

This guy has zero tact but still tells it like it is. In fact, I would almost wager that he is anti-tact. His best article is where he dissects womens clothing options. Brilliant work (warning: just a bit profane)

This website gives determines your personality based upon the photos you choose. Based on my selections, I have been dubbed a “go getter”

I wrote about my last experience with Nextel thinking that it couldn’t get much worse. Boy - was I wrong!

I called Nextel again and asked to speak to the government account services. I was transfered to customer service elevator music waiting line - I spent 23 minutes on hold before I was disconnected.

I called again and asked for the government account services - the agent on the other end of the line inquired why and I told him that I planned to cancel my account. He immediately retorted that “you’ll be charged with a $200 cancellation fee because your account is valid till Jan 08″ and I explained that I was in the military and that I would be canceling my account in accordance with the military clause. He was disappointed that he couldn’t use fear to make me continue using their service. He was summarily rude from that point on and he placed me on hold for 32 minutes while I waited to be transfered. He came back once or twice, probably hoping that I had hung up the phone in disgust. I was not going to give up on this one - no way in hell.

Eventually I was connected to the correct department and I explained the situation and told her that I had reference numbers for my previous conversations. She wasn’t interested and told me that she would have to look up my account history. It was at this point that she began to lie to me. I wanted to scream “LIAR!” at the top of my lungs but knew that it would do me little good. She told me that they had never received a copy of my orders (even though three agents had previously seen that they had) and that I would have to fax them in. I spoke in a low, clear, tone - much like you would use to explain to a child that their course of action is going to get them into trouble - and told her that faxing another copy was not an option. First, I had previously faxed a copy of the orders. Second, no fax machine is available in this country so I had no method of delivery. I knew this would have been a foolish choice as I would have been forced to fax it, call back and confirm it was received, and then call to cancel on yet another day. They were trying to delay the inevitable. Third, I told her that previous agents had confirmed the receipt of the original fax and that there was no possible way I would resend the information. Four, I had far better things to do than to waste my valuable phone time talking to customer service on an issue I had already called about 7 times.

She placed me on hold.

She came back 10 minutes later and asked if I would like to transfer the line to another family member. I declined.

She asked if I would like to suspend the service in lieu of cancellation. I declined.

She placed me on hold for another 5 minutes.

When she returned she sounded as if she had beaten, she told me that she would cancel the line without a termination fee and that I would owe no more to the company.

She asked if there was anything else she could do. Instead of really laying into the lady for blatantly lying to me I decided to take the high road - she wasn’t prepared for what was about to ensue - it would have been ugly. So, I declined.

I have never had great experience with cell phone contracts - each time I’ve tried to discontinue a service it felt like pulling teeth. Even though I pay more up front to start service without a contract, I think it may be the best option in the future.

I will NEVER use Nextel or Sprint again. Their horrendous customer service practices sour their otherwise adequate cell phone service.

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.
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I live inside of a fenced and concrete walled compound. Blast walls and revetments surround every building on base. Sand bags can be found everywhere - they surround most of the buildings. Construction crews, scurrying around the base like ants, build new walls daily further fortifying the nearly impenetrable fortress. Larger buildings are fitted with a secondary roof to deflect the blast of an indirect round. Arrays of sensors scan the perimeter of the base for incoming rounds and intruders - nothing will get past our defensive nets.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only type of barrier that I deal with on a daily basis. I spend a few hours every day browsing the internet for the latest and greatest - well, everything. Downtime at work is inevitable - the unofficial Air Force motto is “Hurry up and wait.” At the moment, we are spending most of our time waiting for something to happen. When it does happen, we all jump at the chance to do some work. In fact, we often fight over who gets to do the work yes, we are that bored. I tend to stay in the news/science/technology vein but I do like to have a good laugh once in a while. Many of the most popular sites on the internet are available for me to browse at my free will - many other sites are blocked by a demon known as BlueCoat.

BlueCoat is a content firewall that classifies websites based upon perceived and real content. If the algorithm determines that a website contains profanity, the filter will label the website accordingly and block the domain from being accessed. The filter is designed to restrict content so that it falls within acceptable use guidelines for military networks and it also restricts content to preserve bandwidth. We are given the luxury of being able to surf the internet to improve morale - often we do not have this luxury.

My gripe with BlueCoat is that it does a crappy job of filtering - instead of using a M82 sniper rifle and popping the target square between the eyes the algorithm tends to grab an AK47 with a spray and pray method. The filter, from what I can ascertain, blocks all pages with the word “blog” in them. These pages are classified “personal” and are subject to being blocked. Instead of looking at the content of the website - the filter looks for one single word and instantly adds it to the ban list. My website is blocked and I am unable to access it from work - not a huge deal but it means I have to type this article, email it to myself, check my email at the cyber cafe, and post it there at a later point in time. Some websites - like the NY Times - use a sub domain “blog” for articles written by members of their journalistic staff that appear on a re-occurring basis. Other websites use the loosely defined definition of the word blog in their meta name (tags used to help a search engine better classify a website) and are banned from access.

The definition blog - Short for “Web log,” a specialized site that allows an individual or group of individuals to share a running log of events

They have a log of events - written by an individual or a group. So, we can have logs written by groups or individuals but we cannot call them blogs? We cannot view any website written by an individual that is not part of a corporation or larger entity?

I am at the mercy of a poorly written web filter - where is a good coder when you need him?

Hmm… I wonder if I can get a local cleric to issue a fatwa against it?

I woke yesterday and found not blue skies as I was used to but something much more sinister and disgusting. It was like the whole world was in a sepia filter and it had a strange color wash - we were in a brown world. The sky was being choked out by the dust in the air and I could stare directly at the sun at 4PM without it hurting my eyes - well, I could have stared at it if I could have found it. I took a few photos of the day and put them all together - notice how everything blends?

(you can click on the image for the high quality version)

The sky blends into the dirt, into the concrete, into my boots, into the buildings. The item that was the least brown was my shirt which is supposedly “sand” colored. Sand isn’t a color, brown is - you’re authorized to call things light brown and dark brown but there is no sand. If the color isn’t one of the 16 in the crayon box it doesn’t exist - its only a variation of a real color. Somebody had fun making up stupid names.

Its now the next day and I am still coughing and wheezing because lungs don’t react well to dust in that concentration. Why the hell would anyone want to live in Iraq when its such a brown place? The ground has got to be green where I live and the sky needs to be blue.

The military has a zero tolerance policy to discrimination based on sex, religion, race, or creed. The civilian world has no such policy.

We live in a world where we see should no longer be looking at the race of an individual - we should view each person on their merits. Lines dividing us based upon sex, religion, race, and creed should blur more with each passing day. Unfortunately, there are some out there that try to separate and segregate us based upon these categories.

The United States has an African American man and a Caucasian female running for office. There are some out there that use racist and derogatory terms to identify these people. I have to wonder why they do it. I know that these two individuals, as all others, are equal to me in every way. They share the same blood as I do and they live and die as I do. They are no more superior to me than I to them. We all stand on the same playing field as humans - some of us rise higher than the rest but it has nothing to do with our backgrounds. Everything should be based upon our merits.

I have a few family members that make racist comments - they think that its an acceptable practice. I think they are ignorant fools. I have a few friends that think that an African American should never run for office of president because he is a “insert racial epithet here.” I think they are ignorant fools.

What kind of individual judges people based upon their skin? Should I treat the ignorant as my equals? Should any of us? I would rather hold an individual of a different race that hates me based upon my merits higher than a friend that likes me but hates others based upon their race.

Some people need to grow up - we are living in a world where lines of race are blending with each passing day. Areas that used to be dominated by one race are seeing many cultures prosper. Should we shun these newcomers? - absolutely not. We should embrace them and all they have to offer. We should meld their culture into ours and learn about their history. These people are our long lost cousins. They are family to us - we’ve just been apart for generations.

Racism should stop - unfortunately, as long as the ignorant live we may never see the end of it.

Ok, so I still haven’t done what I set out to do on my day off but I’m getting closer to it with each passing week. I have extremely little free time on a daily basis as I have scheduled only enough time to plow through my routine. There is no extra time for anything else unless I want to cut into my sleep schedule. I do well on 6 hours of sleep but 7 is better. Unfortunately, I don’t move fast enough when I wake up and that extra hour is imperative. Jessica, on the other hand, wants 10 hours of sleep a night. I have no idea how she sleeps that much and still has enough time to do everything. Even when I am bored and have little to do sleep is always a last option for me - she is down for a nap at almost anytime of the day. Often she insists that I join her - (more…)

I love thunderstorms - I love seeing the rain come down in torrents - I love seeing the sky flash with lighting and hearing the wind whip through the trees. I love hearing the crack of thunder that reverberates across the countryside. I don’t mind the aftermath because I got a great show. I love falling asleep to thunder - some find it frightening but I always sleep better during a good storm.

I hate drizzling crap rain. It rained a few days ago and I spoke of my great dislike for the mud. I thought that the worst of the crap was over and that the ground was going to finally dry up. I was looking forward to wearing one pair of shoes instead of carrying a second pair around with me. I was looking forward to not worrying about the mud that gets tracked everywhere. I was looking forward to my roommates no longer tracking in the mud - they aren’t considerate enough to take off their boots at the door. England is notorious for drizzling crap and the pacific northwest is notorious for drizzling crap. I didn’t expect to find that particular brand of rain out here.

I woke this morning to a drizzle that brought down the temperature 10 degrees and that covered every surface with a thin sheen of mud. There is no clean place left on this base. Indoors and out we live in world of slime, a world of filth, a world of muck. I say boo the mud - boo the rain. I don’t want scorching heat but I’d take it over drizzle any day. So, bring on the pain - bring on the heat.