Archive for March, 2008

• The end of March Mustache Madness

  Date: 2008.03.31 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 1

  Well, it’s finally over and its been one heck of a month. I’ve seen my fair share of horrendous mustaches but they were all grown for the cause. They spread a new sense of hope and understanding as more people across the world were aware of the plight of those afflicted by a mustache. While walking across the base every day I saw all variety of mustaches from the well trimmed to the unruly and barely grown (mine).

  At one time this month I was accosted by the mustache mafia – an incident that nary a man survives.
  I was sitting at the chow hall minding my own business as I was watching sports center when they began to descend on me. The table, of which I was previously the sole occupant, was quickly filled with men all sporting mustaches. They quickly crammed around me and acted as if I wasn’t there. They knew that their mustaches were far superior to mine and they were trying to force me out of the feeding grounds. I wasn’t going to take any of their crap – well, I would if they had asked because they were all pilots. Its an odd thing – the two groups most likely to grow a mustache are pilots and cops… how odd. Eventually they saw that their superior display of mustache growing skills was not going to scare me but they decided to give it one more shot. They tried on yet another day to try and cram around me but I was still undeterred – I was not moving until I was finished. They realized that I was not going to be pushed out. Soon after, they retreated to the picnic tables outside of the building and never crossed my path again. In defiance of the odds, I had vanquished my vastly superior foes.

  So, hats off to all those that joined the cause. I salute you. I would look forward to next year but I don’t think Jessica is going to let me participate. She will probably threaten me with physical harm and I don’t know if I can put up with a months worth of being beaten around the head and shoulders.

• WordPress 2.5

  Date: 2008.03.30 | Category: Series of tubes | Response: 0

  I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, my blogging software. If you find anything that doesn’t work as it should please leave me a comment and I’ll try to figure out what is wrong.

  Thanks!

• Giving up? What the hell?

  Date: 2008.03.30 | Category: ahh the news, desert, rants | Response: 1

  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.

• The joys of consuming

  Date: 2008.03.30 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 2

  The American dream is to consume and we do it better than almost any other nation. Lately, prices have risen sharply on an item we all use – oil. We are consuming oil at an alarming rate and despite legislation to increase the gas mileage on cars we are pushing record levels of consumption. As a result of the spike and the lack of new refinery construction we have seen prices at the pump rise to record highs. We have sought ways to make ourselves more energy dependent and one of those ways is through biofuels. The most popular biofuel is ethanol – a product that is grown and produced in my alma mater, Iowa.

  So – you’re probably wondering – what the heck is my problem with energy independence? Nothing. I believe that if we reduce our dependence on foreign oil our economic and political decisions will be based more on our needs than those of an other nation. Its a good thing for national security and stability to control our energy prices.

  So – you’re probably still wondering – whats my problem with biofuels? That answer is slightly more involved. In order to offset the carbon needed to produce ethanol we are actually polluting more than we are saving by growing the fuel and converting it. Growing cellulose based fuel isn’t as efficient as other types of ethanol (ethyl-alcohol). If we had the appropriate climate, we should be growing as much sugar cane as we possibly can – and I say this with a caveat – we don’t want to do this and negatively impact the environment or food prices as we are currently seeing with traditional ethanol production. Why sugar cane? – it provides larger quantities of fuel while using fewer acres of land and resources to grow. I read an interesting piece at Time magazine and found the following excerpt.

  Why is so much money still being poured into such a misguided enterprise? Like the scientists and environmentalists, many politicians genuinely believe biofuels can help decrease global warming. It makes intuitive sense: cars emit carbon no matter what fuel they burn, but the process of growing plants for fuel sucks some of that carbon out of the atmosphere. For years, the big question was whether those reductions from carbon sequestration outweighed the “life cycle” of carbon emissions from farming, converting the crops to fuel and transporting the fuel to market. Researchers eventually concluded that yes, biofuels were greener than gasoline. The improvements were only about 20% for corn ethanol because tractors, petroleum-based fertilizers and distilleries emitted lots of carbon. But the gains approached 90% for more efficient fuels, and advocates were confident that technology would progressively increase benefits.

  What should we do with ethanol production in the future – spend more money on research. Food prices have risen sharply and we have seen the start of a global food shortage. Many countries, that depend on our surplus food, have seen prices rise sharply as more of our output was diverted to fuel production. Hopefully, these countries will quickly increase their agriculture production and avert a crisis. They might do as some farmers in Brazil have done and grow food for fuel – thus compounding the problem. You can read a further detailed explanation of the issues at Time magazine.

• Frustration

  Date: 2008.03.29 | Category: Life as we know it, rants | Response: 1

  At the end of a deployment the will of the masses dwindles and more mistakes are made. I have been a scapegoat as of late so I am trying to stay out of everything. I’m sure that in a day or two I’ll be blamed for not being a scapegoat because somebody else did something wrong and it wasn’t me. It really doesn’t matter – I just want to get out of here. I only have a problem with one or two people on my shift and its not a personality conflict but a conflict of interest. I have lots of problems with the people on day shift because they are gunning for me. When you’re in charge of the overwhelming majority of operations (80-90%) most of the mistakes – although minor – happen when you’re in charge. I’m not even sure if mistakes are being made but they’re blaming me. I don’t like to make mistakes and I take it personal – so – I’ve been quite paranoid as of late. I don’t even talk to ANYONE on day shift for fear of spawning further hate and scapegoatism -

  This paranoia takes a lot out of me and I haven’t been sleeping well – hopefully it will pass – or maybe I’ll just go home.

  Fuck ‘em I say. Let them be assholes – I just won’t deal with them anymore.

• Hillary just won’t quit!

  Date: 2008.03.27 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 0

  Hillary won’t quit even though she can’t win – ever. She should throw in the towel because its only hurting her party as a whole. I like John McCain and I also like Obama but I’d rather have a fair fight. Why won’t she quit?

  The better answer is that Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.

  For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn’t know, the hundreds of thousands times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

  No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic. The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.

  If she does the former, she would surprise everybody with a display of self-sacrifice. Her campaign would cruise along at a lower register until North Carolina, then use that as an occasion to withdraw. If she does not, she would soldier on doggedly, taking down as many allies as necessary.

  You can read the rest at the NY Times.

• Numbers

  Date: 2008.03.27 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 1

  Numbers can be used to describe and pretty measure everything. Today I’ve got a few numbers of note -

  365 – Its been an entire year since I started dating Jessica and it’s been the best year that I can remember. We’ve had the luck of finding each other and it’s been an absolute blast. This is the first time that she has ever made it to a year while dating another person and it is one heck of a milestone.

  21 – Jessica is going to have a birthday next month and its the last major birthday milestone in a young adults life – well, there is the 25th birthday and that only comes with lower insurance rates but we’re not going to include that one. She might want to include it because she is bleeding her parents dry in insurance rates – she’s had a few “incidents.” She is headed to Vegas to celebrate the birthday with her family and one of her friends from school. I’m sure most of it is going to be a giant haze (as it should be) but I know that they are going to take care of her.

  25 – I’ve been going to the gym religiously and I’ve been working on dropping off weight that I’m tired of carrying. To this date, I’ve lost a total of 25 pounds. I started at a slightly unhealthy 195 – a weight where I saw some of my clothes fit poorly and where I found my energy sapped. I feel so much better physically and I feel so much better about myself. I’m hoping to drop another 5 pounds before I leave and get back to a healthy fighting weight. No, I don’t want to fight but its a healthy weight and I think I have learned how to successfully maintain it without going crazy. The last time I deployed to the sandbox I changed my diet but I found that only an insane person with no taste buds could maintain it. This diet seems to work and it allows me to eat what I want – as long as I moderate my consumption.

  42 – The current estimate of how many days I have left in Iraq. No one is more excited about leaving than Jessica – I’m excited but I think she takes it to an almost fanatical level. I’m really looking forward to getting home and returning to a little variety. I’ll actually be able to look back at my week and count of the things that I’ve done rather than having it all blur into one giant haze of groundhog day.

• Debt

  Date: 2008.03.24 | Category: Life as we know it, ahh the news, links! | Response: 0

  I’ve been struggling with debt for quite a while but I’ve made significant headway in the past few months. I took a look at my spending trends and found that within the last few years I’ve “supplemented” my income to quite a large extent with credit. I won’t provide you with a dollar figure but it’s shockingly high – I really didn’t know how bad it was until I looked at the math. I had a little help with a website called Mint.

  The website uses your login credentials and checks account status. The website is highly secure and has won a number of awards – the service is free – provided that they have “offers” to help you out. The offers are provided by other lenders who hope to get you to transfer your debt or savings into their care. They are unobtrusive and don’t bother me at all.

  A variety of charts are available to help you budget your money and see exactly where it goes. For some, it’s a little easier to see it in a graphical format instead of raw figures. It won’t calculate everything but it is a start. You SHOULD NOT use it as a way to track your spending – continue to track your balances through your accounts.

  I am not the only person that is supplementing their income with credit – it appears that America as a whole has done the same thing. We are no longer saving our income for larger purchases, we are relying on our credit to borrow as much as we can. There is an interesting article at the Huffington Post complete with statistics and graphs that explains it in further detail.

• Nationalize the oil industry?

  Date: 2008.03.23 | Category: Life as we know it, ahh the news, desert, rants | Response: 0

  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.

• The Madness continues

  Date: 2008.03.22 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 0

  Well, it’s near the end of the month and many have failed to partake in the madness. I am one of the few left and its probably the most hideous abomination of a mustache on earth. Its so grotesque that I feared breaking my camera. I know that some of you are screaming at the monitor right now in hate because you wanted to end your life but I couldn’t allow something so disgustingly awful to get out. It would be like putting a loaded gun in the hand of every suicidal maniac – its just not worth it. You can rest easy now – there will be no photos of this atrocious beastie – I’ll keep it under wraps for your mental health and wellbeing.

  If there was a contest for the ugliest stache I would probably win – thank god they don’t have one – you’ll sleep easier at night.