perfidy

Bigelow Aerospace is launching a 1/3 scale prototype of its inflatable space habitat late next week, and will launch a second in September. Bigelow hopes that this technology will end up drastically lowering the cost of space travel by spurring the development of new space vehicles, while simultaneously making trillions as the first real estate developer in space. Hopefully, we will get habitats on a more human scale by decade’s end.

Bigelow, btw, is the same guy behind the next big space prize – the $50 meelion dollar giveaway for the first people to orbit the earth without spending government money.

You're up in orbit, crashing out in your inflatable zero-g lovenest. But there's this kickin party over in Lunar orbit. What do you do on the way out? Stop at a space gas station of course, and tank up on cryogenic fuels and beef jerky.

I promised Johno I wouldn't do it, but at least this time it's not the title of the post: the Chinkonauts are getting uppity

The faithful, Christians and others, are parodied as mouth-breathing lunatics in some quarters. One reason, I'm afraid, might be that too much attention is paid to stories like this: Lioness in zoo kills man who invoked God

Witness the story of this former genius/stupid loser:

KIEV (Reuters) - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.

"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."
...

Granted, some might consider this story proof that there is no God. Consider the possibility, however, that God does exist but just thought the man from Kiev was a faithless schmuck who deserved to die. Or had made a promise to the lioness. Whatever. Because lions are people too, ya know.

Plus, whatever that thing was that Ross did, just below.

We'd like to thank our readers for any patience they might have expended waiting for our inevitable but delayed return to the Innerweb. Also, many thanks to Minister Ross, without whom we'd still be suffering from the malaise of our surprise server upgrade.

[wik] Hey, did someone say "malaise"? And did someone else say "worst president ever"? Well, yes, they did, though the connection between the two seems a bit fuzzy right now.

JUST. SHUT. UP. You pathetic piece of crap. Hey, aren't those aliens behind you!!! Everybody down!!! GAY ISLAMIC TERRORIST ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE GETTING MARRIED! RIGHT OVER THERE! ANYBODY? Anybody? anybody? any...?

Worst President in history, hands-down. 6 years in office, and not a single policy accomplishment. The President's low-fact diet is finally yielding...zero results. Brain liposuction may help.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/washington/04radio.html

Just because this hasn't, yet, been roundhouse kicked to death:

If Chuck Norris ever actually submitted a fact on this site it would be the last thing you ever read, because it would literally come through the screen and snap your neck.

Those adjectives frame Ruth Elkins’ picture of the Germanoman.

In her article in Der Spiegel, Ms. Elkins discusses the 7 types of Germanic maleness. Aside from a couple who may, with proper tutelage, approach something like an assertive American man, most are satisfied to roll with the punches- and they’ll get plenty, with that attitude- and never strive to dominate their environment.

And that almost squares with my impression of Germans. Loyal readers know that I lived amongst the Bavarians for 2 years as a drone in the USAREUR hive. Yes I spent most of the time in the field, but I did get to witness some fundamental differences between Them and Us. One glaring difference was how the German men fought, vs how GIs fought.

When soldiers fought, it brought broken bottles, broken furniture, broken hands, broken wrists, ears bitten off; back-to-the-wall fights for survival yielding destruction on bodies and barrooms hugely disproportionate to the issue that started the fight in the first place, which was, 100% of the time, trivial.

Once I saw German guys fight, and it was, to be honest, kinda funny. They circled each other about 12 ft apart. One guy ran up and sort of slapped the other, then ran away, then the second man did something similar. It was a sort of sissy fight, or perhaps ritualistic in some way. They just never really got down into it and got it done.

OK, sure it’s not a fair comparison; I saw A LOT of Joes scrap and only that one time saw the ‘Rads go at it, in their way. Oh, and one time in Munich I saw a guy wandering the city by himself at oh-dark-thirty, drunk as a Stinktiere, with a bloody nose and having trouble fathoming why anyone would have done such a thing to him. But interactions with regular German men at all sorts of non-combat activities: restaurants, Volksmarches, music shops, taxis stands, even just walking the streets, pretty definitively caused me to rule that they were nearly exclusively a live-and-let-live bunch. Even if they were getting punched in the face.

The exception that proves the rule of course were the Polizei.
The Polizei had a reputation for…shall we say, enthusiastically…breaking up brawling soldiers. It was ingrained early on in my initial country training not to trifle with the Polizei. My first night downrange old timers made sure I understood not to trifle with the Polizei- if something happened, they said, stay out of it as best you can and, if the law got into it, try to surrender to the MPs if at all possible as they won’t likely bust your head open. One night, seconds after I walked past a bus stop, uniformed and plainclothes police agents swooped in from everywhere and took down some grubby looking dude who was waiting for a bus. Quite energetically. Which reinforced the message- don’t trifle with the Polizei. And I never saw or worked with GSG-9 but no one can say they’re sissies, either.

So Ms. Elkins might have overlooked an 8th type of Germanoman:

Professional Authoritarian German Male

He’s dangerous looking, with his thick truncheon and tailored uniform. He walks stiffly with his leather belt and boots. No, he’s not a character in some sick German BDSM flick-not to my mind, anyway- but an actual German man who, through his strength of character and will, backed by the power of the State, sees to it that none trod grass where it is clearly marked “verboten”.

Distinguishing marks: The shoulder patch that says “Polizei”. It may read “ieziloP”, due to you being on the ground looking up at it through rapidly swelling eyes and the stream of blood coming off your head.

Habitat: Everywhere GIs need to be curtailed, tickets need to be written, order needs to be maintained, or jaywalkers need to be yelled at. Or ticketed.

Favorite Activities: Maintaining order. Secretly wishing there was more disorder so he might have more order to maintain.

The Pros: Courteous and professional to a fault. Spiffy uniforms. Appreciates superior German weaponry...

The Catch: ...and clubbing you with it. Awfully effective with a truncheon.

If all the tongues that were scalded by chicken soup in a single week were laid end to end, they would stretch from Montpelier, Vermont to the outskirts of Hibbing, Minnesota.

In the comments to this post, we find this delightful gem, which has already made a deep and lasting, not to say scarring, impact on my internal monologue:

I'm so sick of hearing about G--gle that I silently refer to it in triplicate using Jan Brady's irritable "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" voice.

Thanks to Dogette for the amusing, yet painful, new mental furniture.

The hiatus will take a brief hiatus, before resuming its hiatusing. The wedding was cool. The burn was brief, lacking in sleep, and left me with a hangover. It got real hot. Then, today, I started work at my new yob, and they decided to throw me into the deep end of the pool. I can't speak for the rest of the Ministry, but look for semi-regular posting to resume tomorrow. Since linking him seems the only way to stop him from complaining even for a little bit, go read some of Murdoc's fine posts.

[wik] Actually, really read the first and last of those. The pics of the sunken Oriskany are a trip, and I approve of if not often emulate the practice of linking to brickmuppet's fine blog. Looks like Murdoc is trying to off-shore the battleship debate that has raged on his site for months.

I will shortly be making the grueling overland trek from our nation's capital to our first nation's capital, Philadelphia. One of my dearest and oldest friends (well, he's not any older than I am, but we've known each other for 33 of our 36 years) is finally getting married. So I'll be gone through Saturday for that, and then I'll be dropping in on the local mini-burning man for the last day of those festivities.

Everyone have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and stop and take a moment to remember why we have a Memorial Day weekend. I feel confident that many of our fine milbloggers will be offering up some reflections as the weekend progresses. So make the time if you can to check out Blackfive, Murdoc and all the rest.