The Most Strategic Resource

If there is a single irreplaceable fuel running the Unites States' war machine, that fuel is coffee. Ewan McGregor's character in Blackhawk Down gripes about it in this clip, but he probably doesn't realize how vital his role is.



Entropic Memes has some fascinating excerpts and commentary on a 1951 DoD report about procurement and consumption of "The Essential Beverage" in the military. Most interesting to me is the military's acknowledgment of coffee's status as the only major military supply which cannot be substituted for, and which the United States is not capable of producing.

I can say from personal experience that an interruption in coffee supplies would be absolutely devastating to productivity and morale both in theater and in garrison. The only real change in this situaion since 1951 is the recent boom in the popularity of caffeinated energy drinks. Coffee is still king on the FOB, but outside the wire our soldiers are being fuelled by Rip-It, an energy drink company that has resurrected a time-honored marketing plan: donate boatloads of your product to the "war effort" in order to gain total saturation of a captive market. Those customers then return home to spread the word; it's viral marketing in the "Spanish influenza" sense of viral.

Hurray for Babies!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I don't know if seeing the title of an upcoming book has ever made me this happy: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, to be released this April. Here's the publisher's blurb:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen's classic novel to new legions of fans.

You have no idea how happy this makes me.

A Terrible Thing To Waste

The indomitable Thomas Sowell is wondering why it is that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress have been in such a goshdarn hurry to pass an emergency stimulus package, the overwhelming majority of which won't be paid out for years. What exactly are they buying?

They are buying what politicians are most interested in—power. In the name of protecting the taxpayers’ investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank, and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.

Like doctors, for example, who could face tax penalties if they insist on offering their patients procedures that haven't yet met the approval of yet another federal medical gatekeeper. Because clearly the problem with American medicine is that the federal government doesn't hold enough sway in your physician's office. For all the talk of helping out Main Street and saving us all from the next Great Depression, let's not forget what Rahm Emmanuel so helpfully reminded us, "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste".

The Future Is Now

I always thought that the whole "high-tech energy-beam weapon requires enormous diamond of mystical properties" trope was just a ridiculous plot device of terrible movies. Apparently not. I know "directed energy weapons" (in other words, rayguns) have been just over the horizon of practicality since the 50's, but it seems like we're actually getting them now. The Active Denial System (the "Pain-Ray") is ready for deployment. Honest-to-goodness laser guns are being demonstrated to shoot down enemy drones and have been suggested as a convenient way to detonate roadside bombs from a safe distance. Soldiers don't think twice about deploying alongside robots.

We're totally living in the future, and it's pretty awesome.

Best Thing Ever (Yet): Best Headline Ever

Scientists Not So Sure 'Doomsday Machine' Won't Destroy World

Obama on Al-Arabiya

The Muslim world's not quite sure yet what to make of President Obama. That's okay, because most of us aren't, either.

''I can't be optimistic until I see something tangible,'' said Hatem al-Kurdi, 35, a Gaza City engineer who saw parts of the interview. ''Anyone can say nice words, but you have to follow with actions.''

''He seems very interested in the Middle East issue but he didn't say exactly what he's going to do about it,'' Kurdi added.

I'm curious myself.

Journalistic Fear-Mongering is Lost on Me

All I got out of this article was a serious craving for doner kebab.

Among the kebabs sampled - without salad or sauces - the average doner contained 98% of an adult's recommended daily salt and 148% of their daily saturated fat allowance... The worst doners inspectors came across contained 1,990 calories before salad and sauces - over 95% of a woman's recommended daily calories, 346% of a woman's saturated fat intake and 277% of an adult's daily salt intake.

Mmmmmmm... kebab.

Cheering For Goliath

Entropic Memes has some interesting commentary on the recent defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, better known simply as the Tamil Tigers:

It’s kind of a shame, really, because I always liked the Tamil Tigers (and, to be honest, have always kind of secretly supported most ethnically-motivated secessions.) Yes, yes, I know they’re considered “terrorists”, and I know that supporting them is frowned upon by the government. And, yes, a lot of their actions (recruiting child soldiers, for a start) were, frankly, reprehensible. Ignore the politics and rhetoric for a moment; the Tigers had style.

I think that at some point in the future, when the whole post-9/11 obsession with “terrorism” fades, people are going to look back at the Tamil Tigers and realize that they were the last great “freedom fighters” on the planet. I mean, come on - a thirty-something year-old insurgency with a quite effective navy and air force? How can you not like that?

On one level, I can understand the admiration. There's that natural affinity for the underdog, especially when the messy details of the conflict are obscured by distance and media indifference. But while I understand the motivations, I can't share the admiration, and it goes far beyond the child recruitment problem — though honestly, that ought to be enough. For one, chalking up the Tigers' designation as terrorists to a "post-9/11 obsession with 'terrorism'" is a bit ironic when they are the group generally credited as having invented the suicide vest and the VBIED and perfected their use over the last 30 years. Tactics aside even, the Tigers have dragged their country through three decades of conflict for the sake of an independent Tamil "homeland", the prospective residents of which have never been shown to support this pipe dream. Not that the Tigers ever cared much what other Tamils wanted; indeed, the worst atrocities of this conflict have been perpetrated by the Tigers against war-weary Tamils denounced as "collaborators". This is one "classic David-vs-Goliath matchup" where I'm happy to see the giant win.

An Interesting Question

What's the right time to panic? Jay Nordlinger brings up this dilemma in today's Impromtus column:

What is the right time to panic? A tricky question. Panic too soon, and you’re just foolish. Panic too late, and—well, it’s too late.

He's right, after all. And when the specific topic of conversation is genocidal pogroms against Jews, which have been a more-or-less centennial event in Europe since, you know, close to forever, it's well worth concerning oneself. If you're a Jew, anyway. If you're a descendant of all those Europeans who have always managed to look the other way, well, I guess you can just keep on keepin' on.

Your Government Cares... How Much You're Costing Them

Whilst commenting on what Nancy Pelosi thinks of you, Fearsome Comrade uses an excellent example to ask why many people trust the government to solve the nation's problems:

Remember: To the government, you are a number in a computer. You think your insurance company doesn't care about you? How about if your insurance company had guns and the means to enforce its will on the population? How much would they care then?

For serious! People gripe about how corporations like banks, HMOs, and particularly insurance companies are so uncaring, impersonal, and exploitative. And it can certainly be true, but at the end of the day that company is still making money off you. You may be nothing more to them than the pasture on which they grow fat, but at least you're that. You're still on the black side of the ledger. To the government, you are a liability, an expense. You're still just a number, but to them that number's in red.

Eeeew

Apparently my visceral dislike for medical facilities isn't entirely unwarranted (HT: The Renaissance Biologist):

Some medical personnel wear the same unlaundered uniforms to work day after day... 65% of medical personnel confess they change their lab coat less than once a week, though they know it's contaminated. Fifteen percent admit they change it less than once a month. Superbugs such as staph can live on these polyester coats for up to 56 days.

Family Tradition

Huh. Of all the things that run in families, I wouldn't have suspected a predilection to presidential assassination, but apparently so. The father of John Wilkes Booth has been shown to be the author of a letter threatening the assassination of Andrew Jackson. Wierd. Eerie.

Also, how does English not have a specific word ending in -cide for the assassination of presidents? C'mon, English. You're better than that.

Doing "Business"

The Fearlesssome Comrade, a blog I just recently discovered, has some words for those industries — specifically journalism and higher education — that hate having to admit to themselves that they are, in fact, industries:

If you rely on people willingly paying you, you're a business. If you rely on people unwillingly paying you, you're either a crime syndicate or the government.

These days, it's getting hard to tell the difference.

UPDATE: It's the Fearsome Comrade, not "fearless" as I originally had it. Apologies. Though I have no doubt he is also fearless.

Hollywood's Pledge

With reference to "the Pledge", Andrew Breitbart has more than a few choice words on the Hollywood Left's newfound love of country. For those of you short on time, his last sentence pretty well sums it all up: "Good luck, President Obama. The rest of you can go to hell."

A Long Time Falling

A few days ago, some of my buddies and I were wondering who holds the record for most jumps by a US paratrooper, and generally, what that record might be. I'm not sure whether he holds the record or not, but CSM Jeffrey Mellinger's over 3,700 jumps has got to be close. 33 cumulative hours spent in freefall. Incidentally, CSM Mellinger is, as far as anyone knows, the last draftee still on active duty in the US military.

Sign Hacking

So I know it would be reckless and illegal to modify one of those flashing LED road signs if it were displaying an important traffic message. Luckily for me, I see blank ones flashing all the time, because I really want to make use of this particular hack:

Bad Bad Bad: 40 Al-Qaeda Members Die of Plague

The UK Telegraph is reporting that 40 members of an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror cell in Algeria have died of the plague. It is not improbable that the living conditions in a terrorist training camp in the Algerian wilds may have led to the disease (plague being endemic in North Africa), but striking 40 at once does seem a bit suspicious. A thought on the supposition that they may have been working with plague as a potential bioweapon: sending infected members to mingle with a target population as "suicide vectors" would be a pretty ineffective dispersal technique, particularly for plague, but it would be chillingly effective as a terror weapon. Remember: actually killing you is just icing on the cake; a terrorist's goal, by definition, is to frighten you into changing your behavior.

Meeting the Press

Well, I guess we knew President Obama would have a very different relationship with the White House press corps than his predecessor did. I wouldn't have suspected he'd start right off the bat scolding journalists for asking substantive questions:

"Ahh, see," he said, "I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here."

The Pledge

Wow. This would be hilarious if it weren't so terrifying.

Are we so deaf to the echoes of history as to let the line "I pledge allegiance to the folk" get past the editors? Seriously?

"I pledge to be a servant to our president, and all mankind." I'm bound by oath to obey the President's orders, and proudly so, all politics aside. But you won't find me pledging to be his servant.