I hope he used sunscreen

An airman at a deployed location saw a picture of a guy marshaling a tanker in his underwear. Gomer decided he could do the guy in his underwear one better.

While white socks can be worn with boots, the pants must be bloused in a manner that conceals the socks. I think this troop might be in trouble.

I like this kid, he's got a sense of humor. Sadly, his commander probably doesn't have a sense of humor. In fact, making the boss look stupid is a surefire recipe for closed-door unpleasantness ending in a reduction in rank.

I happen to think that unit wise guy is right up there with the chaplain in importance. One of the great unit wise guys of all time was Skippy. I heartily recommend Skippy's List to anyone serving in or alongside the Army.

I just knew if I blogged enough...

Kasparov's opposition movement holds anti-Putin rally in Moscow - Los Angeles Times: "MOSCOW -- Chess champion Garry Kasparov and allies in Russia's most vocal opposition movement held their latest showdown today with President Vladimir Putin's government, keeping up their frequent protests with a demonstration in central Moscow."

This is actually the second opposition rally in a row that Putin hasn't broken up. He's on a streak.

While I don't get many hits from Moscow, I'm sure this is because President Putin is reading my blog.

Another possibility is that with his stranglehold on the media and his 81% approval rating, he's stopped caring.

But I think it's this blog that changed his mind. I used to just stand around and scream at street signs, but now that I've got a blog I know I'm making a difference.

A liberal is a conservative who's been booked...

Accused Al Qaeda operative can't be jailed indefinitely, appeals court rules - Los Angeles Times: "WASHINGTON — In a setback for the Bush administration, a federal appeals court ruled Monday that an alleged Al Qaeda operative arrested in the United States and detained in military custody for four years cannot be held as an enemy combatant."

Americans need to get off their butts and start defending their rights while they still have rights to defend.

Make no mistake, this case is going set an important precedent. Al-Marri was arrested in Illinois on credit card fraud, labeled an "enemy combatant", pulled out of the court system and thrown in the brig on Fort Brag, NC.

Al-Marri is most likely a real-live bad guy. He probably did come here with the intent to do evil. But if al-Marri can be labeled an enemy combatant, stripped of his rights and indefinitely confined without due process, then so can you.

The term habeas corpus dates back to the Magna Carta in 1215 CE. It literally means "to have the body." It is a requirement to show cause for confinement. While our Bill of Rights are amendments to the Constitution, habeas corpus is actually written into Article I. It is a basic human right.

A few words on the difference between a right and a privilege. A right is something you have and a privilege is something you're given. Privileges can be taken away and rights cannot. Freedom must not become a privilege.

The title for this entry is from a joke my dad used to tell: "You know what a liberal is? A conservative who's been booked! Know what a conservative is? A liberal who's been mugged!" The issue of perspective is worth considering. If you were wrongly accused of terrorism, how confident would you be that your liberties were protected?

As an aside, the LA Times has one of the worst "free registration" schemes I've ever seen. If they've put the article behind a log-in screen do a Google search. There's lots of content of equal or better quality out there.

So much for my beloved stereotypes...

Cool Reception for Bible Park in Bible Belt - New York Times: "The congregation sometimes assembles here for open-air services, said the pastor, Bryan Brooks, with the trees and pastures across Route 840 for a backdrop. But that view may change, because the land beyond the road has been proposed as the site for a theme park called Bible Park USA on over 100 acres.

The proposal has ignited fierce opposition to the project. The park, which would be in Rutherford County in an area known as Blackman, would be about 35 miles southeast of Nashville."

Well I would have thought that a Bible-based theme park in the heart of the so-called Bible belt would have been a slam dunk. Blackman, TN is about 315 miles south of Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY. The Creation Museum didn't face anything like this kind of local opposition.

Reading the article, it sounds like the locals are going into this with their heads up and their eyes open. It is reassuring to me that even though the developers surrounded themselves with an air of being good Christians, the overwhelmingly Christian population of Blackman saw through the pretense. The project is facing three major hurdles: its 100-acre size, its special tax relief, and its representation of Christianity. The developers are in for a tough fight.

Oh, to feel the wind in your hair...

Truck hits wheelchair, hits road | Chicago Tribune: "PAW PAW, Mich. -- Ben Carpenter is used to being on wheels. Just not in this way.

Carpenter, 21, was taken for a 2-mile ride down a two-lane highway after the handles of his wheelchair got stuck in the grille of a semitrailer truck as he crossed an intersection in Paw Paw."

Ben looks awfully serene in the picture. Maybe he's just patiently waiting for the trucker to get close enough to strangle.

People who didn't listen in school continued...

An Australian TV station constructed a Trojan Horse and attempted to deliver it to various institutions.

It's one of my favorites.

Where do pollsters find these people?

Eppure si muove…or does it? � orgtheory.net: "A case in point is the following. The GSS folk actually made the mistake of asking the following question as part of their science module:

Now, does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth?

Here we go. Now what follows is real social science data folks. No joking around:

Earth around sun 73.6%
Sun around earth 18.3%
Don’t Know 8.0%
Refused 0.1%"

Holy Schnikes. That's 26.3% of the respondents who either thought the sun revolved around the earth or didn't know the answer.

I see a couple of things happening in the near future. I see Galileo getting retried in absentia for heresy and I see physics instructors battling against the effort to get "Intelligent Falling" into their textbooks.

I hope there's some huge flaw in polling methods, that they're surveying people outside a bar at closing time or something.