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May 20, 2011

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Fort Meade.

Here, in honor of TEOTWAWKI, is the answer:

Date: Wednesdak, Februark 17, 1999 9:44 PM

Subject: Y 2 K problem solved!

Our staff has completed the 18 months of work on time and on budget. We have gone through everk line of code in everk program in everk skstem. We have analkzed all databases, all data files, including backups and historic archives, and modified all data to reflect the change.

We are proud to report that we have completed the "Y-to-K" date change mission, and have now implemented all changes to all programs and all data to reflect kour new standards:

Januark, Februark, March, April, Mak, June, Julk, August, September, October, November, December

As well as:

Sundak, Mondak, Tuesdak, Wednesdak, Thursdak, Fridak, Saturdak

I trust that this is satisfactork, because to be honest, none of this Y to K problem has made ank sense to me. But I understand it is a global problem, and our team is glad to help in any wak possible. And what does the kear 2000 have to do with it? Speaking of which, what do kou think we ought to do next kear when the two digit kear rolls over from 99 to 00? We await kour direction.


Ugh: You mean for a possible job? That might be too far south for her, and I don't know how willing she is to work for the military -- she took an excellent history course on "Writing about War", which was just as traumatic as it ought to be.

But I understand it is a global problem, and our team is glad to help in any wak possible.

They missed one, ral.

Fort Meade usually refers to the National Security Agency, not the military. So she'd be spying on, well, in theory, non-US residents mostly. They're the spooks that live north of DC as opposed to the spooks from Langley that live south.

hsh, there's always one more bug. :-)

You mean for a possible job?

Yes, sorry, I know of no such actual job. Just musing that, as Turb notes, the NSA (or CIA) would be interested in someone with linguistic skills (or they should be).

I'll talk to her about it, but I think that the War course only increased her repugnance for REMFs and all their works. In addition to her being a flaming lefty, that is. Who makes chainmail in her spare time ...

Just REMFs?

Them more than any -- the course *started* with learning about PTSD, so she sees everyone who's been in a active war zone (soldier or civilian) as wounded to some degree. But people who enable -- or start -- wars and don't pay, they're lower than the low.

She's also been reading Homer (in the original), where there are no REMFs -- except the gods, and no wonder the Greeks didn't think their gods were perfect.

I'm a big fan of Homer. His contributions to philosophy are underappreciated, in general.

A few lefties in the NSA or CIA might be a good thing for the world.

Damn, I was going to suggest the DIA, CIA or NSA. I've been beaten to it.

"Them more than any -- the course *started* with learning about PTSD, so she sees everyone who's been in a active war zone (soldier or civilian) as wounded to some degree."

Ha! there's that ivort tower lib victim talk again.

Well, if an interesting and important career defending her country is not on her list of priorities, it seems that she is most qualified for alternative careers with a host of employers; McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC to name a few. If she has a good body and a decent face (probably not though, huh?) there's always stripping. Otherwise, I can't imagine what are those liberal arts degrees and lack of life experience gets you.

Indeed! What could someone who speaks haf a dozen languages and can easily learn more possibly do in life besides the military, mcdonalds, or stripping?

What. An. Ass.

Hey, Avedis, it's Friday night - shouldn't you be out pressuring strangers for sex? After all, you fought for their rights, so they owe you, and time for them to pay up, eh? Or maybe you're just an *internet* bully?

When did ObWi begin to tolerate open trolling and plain thuggery?

What chmood said.

where for the MLS? my sprog #3 is at U WA, just finishing the first year of her mostly on-line courses. she has to take at least one on campus every quarter to get her GI bill.
Congrats to you both! and good luck with the job thing.

To register my opinion, avedis, we banned Count-me-in for his comments concerning your daughter until he apologized, so your comments about someone's daughter should require the same banning pending an apology (regardless how you took it, I might add). And while this is my opinion, I am a front pager, so if the other front pagers agree, consider this your warning.

Sydney, Australia, 8.34 pm 21 May 2011. Still here, folks, and no suspicious piles of clothes in the streets. Either all Australians are damned, or nothing's happening.

"Sydney, Australia, 8.34 pm 21 May 2011"

God is certainly on Pacific Standard Time.

do they even let lefties into the NSA ?

@ Emma:

Either all Australians are damned, or nothing's happening.

And you're sure the two conditions are mutually exclusive???? ;-)

And by the by, New York City is still here today as well; with no appreciable diminuition of the population. You would know The Rapture here by the horde of real estate agents it would bring out looking to grab listings for all those newly-empty apartments....

she sees everyone who's been in a active war zone (soldier or civilian) as wounded to some degree."

Ha! there's that ivort tower lib victim talk again.

To register my opinion: QED.

My opinion only, of course.

Regarding LJ's comment, there is this from the posting rules:

Do not consistently abuse or vilify other posters for its own sake.

You appear to have some kind of issue with Doctor Science, specifically. That's fine, everybody's got someone who rubs them the wrong way.

No doubt you play that role for some folks.

Your manner of expressing your general annoyance with what you perceive to be Doc Science's "ivory tower lib victim talk" is pretty freaking hard to distinguish from abuse and vilification for its own sake.

So, FWIW, I second LJ's comment.

It's pretty simple: when you feel the urge to be a jerk, step away from the computer for ten minutes. We'll all be happier for it.

"And by the by, New York City is still here today as well; with no appreciable diminuition of the population. You would know The Rapture here by the horde of real estate agents it would bring out looking to grab listings for all those that newly-empty apartments...."

We are talking about NYC, so I fixed that for you.

Has anyone checked with the Vatican?

Avedis, your comment above is abusive -- and highly offensive -- and falls under the posting rules, in my opinion. I concur with liberal japonicus.

State likes people like that, too. She should take the Foreign Service exam.

I MADE IT! THE WORLD DID NOT END TODAY!

(is that good or bad?)

The thing that always puzzles me when folks predict that the End Of The World And The Consummation Of All Things is coming on a particular day and time is that Jesus himself made this comment about it:

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

That's Mark 13:32.

I'm not interested in getting into a big eschatological discussion. It's just freaking weird that in spite of the fact that the central, most authoritative figure in these folks' personal belief system says "nobody knows this, even I don't know this, and don't believe anyone if they say they do", every few years one of them pops up and claims he or she has figured it all out with his or her sekrit decoder ring.

Anyway, happy Judgement Day y'all. I planted a spruce, a gingko, and a ninebark, mowed fertilized and overseeded the lawn, put some milky spore down for the inevitable grub explosion, pruned the lilacs, went to the dump, and had some ice cream. Bought my wife a lobster roll for lunch.

It was a great day. Hope you all had a good one, too.

Now I'm gonna go put the tools away and have a nice cold drink.

@russell:
Planted a gingko! Now that is faith in the future. Give it a century or two, and it will be a really splendid tree. Meanwhile one can be glad of modern technology which can (so I'm told) protect one from planting a female tree. Assuming one doesn't want the seasonal smell of dog poop.

Was this project for Doomsday a deliberate bow to Martin Luther? His claim that if the world were ending tomorrow, he'd plant a tree today is probably the best thing he said.

BTW Doonesbury did a good job on the Rapture the last two days. First Zonker cites the Matthew version of the same quote; then today BD asks how Zonk happens to know these Bible passages, and he credits Linus in Peanuts. Another nice bit of homage for the day.

Planted a gingko! Now that is faith in the future. Give it a century or two, and it will be a really splendid tree.

It's even worse than that. It's a dwarf gingko (we have a very small lot).

Beautiful little tree, though.

I'm told by reliable sources that it's a male, but how they can tell that is beyond me.

Never plant a female gingko tree unless you want to be perpetually checking the soles of your shoes for dogshite during fruiting season.

Trust me; I'm a Boilermaker. Someone with a horribly mischievous sense of humor planted the entire campus with female gingkos. The smell is just awful.

Oh, also: I concur with fiddler and lj.

I had a lousy day yesterday; it was anything but rapturous.

Today's turning out quite a bit better, though. It ain't heaven, but it's a start.

I'm told by reliable sources that it's a male, but how they can tell that is beyond me.

tree whisperers....

What's this? I go away for a couple days and avedis pees on the rug again? sheesh.

What's boggling to me is that the alternative to Sprog thinking of soldiers as "victims" is thinking of them as (just) murderers and rapists, eagerly complicit in the multi-faceted disaster of warfare. Would avedis prefer that she be taught to spit on veterans? *That*s the other choice -- unvarnished admiration of soldierly heroism is *not* one of the options.

It's hard for me to see how a course with a reading list including: Trauma and Recovery, A History of Warfare, A Woman in Berlin, Dexter Filkins' The Forever War, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, and The Drowned and the Saved counts as "ivory tower abstraction". What it does *not* make possible is thinking of war as "heroic", or to say "it balances out".

But it may merely be that, for avedis, any attempt to have compassion for someone when you could be despising them counts as "making everyone a victim".

I assumed that because avedis, being the strong masculine type who holds so fiercely to notions honor and proper conduct, had not returned with an apology, he must have been raptured. That is the only thing that could keep a person with his sense of right and wrong from posting something, amirite?

Dr. S, your daughter's talents will find a good home somewhere, no doubt, and Avedis' nasty comments are getting the response they fully merit. Still though, I am struggling with this: the alternative to Sprog thinking of soldiers as "victims" is thinking of them as (just) murderers and rapists, eagerly complicit in the multi-faceted disaster of warfare.

My dad was a career naval officer. In WWII, he was the gunnery officer on a destroyer at Normandy and then in the Pacific Theater, where he was wounded by a Kamikaze that struck his ship. As gunnery officer, he gave the command to fire the ship's main guns, making him what, a murderer because he fired against German and Japanese military targets, undoubtedly ending someone's life? And a rapist too?

He didn't have PTSD either. I am not sure your "either/or" fits the service people I've known and respected all of my life. Seems more of an ideological imprint, not unlike the fundamentalism that, in other applications, finds so little favor here and elsewhere on the predominantly left.

I am not sure your "either/or" fits the service people I've known and respected all of my life.

It's an either/or as per the given Sprog characteristics as described above, AFAICT.

Ugh, maybe I'm missing the good Doctor's point.

I think I missed the boat at "Sprog". Rectified.

I think it's just that Sprog is not presently amenable to changing her views of soldiers as victims in any direction other than to "they're all complicit." Thus, the either/or view of soldiers is victims or complicity for Sprog.

Thus, the either/or view of soldiers is victims or complicity for Sprog.

Must have been an interesting course.

No one is a victim to the Ubermensch, rather a being lacking sufficient Will to Power to make his (yes, HIS!) own way, to control his fate, thus, only a failure. War is simply an opportunity for one to demonstrate his Uber-ness, which, if done successfully, is an unalloyed good for the newly confirmed Ubermensch. The alternative to that demonstration is failure, rather than victimhood.

The victim is a character of fiction, created by weak-kneed, liberal elitists to glorify their own lack of Will, you see. Victimhood is an artificial construct designed to prevent mankind from properly culling its own herd, which it can only do by eliminating the weak and preserving the strong (well, they don't really need preserving, because they're so danged strong, but you get the idea).

This Ivory Tower perversion of nature will someday be overcome by the advedises of the world, when mankind becomes Ubermenschkind, Willing itself to Power and ever-increasing Uber-ness, going to war eternally against weakness by inflicting greater and greater cruelty upon itself, thereby becoming ever stronger and harder, until it evolves beyond evolution itself, flexing fate effortlessly like a bulging, veiny biceps muscle fed by a lifetime of protein shakes.

Upward and onward, avedis, mythic and glorious and fit Ubermensch, with your dangerously low and godlike percentage of body fat.

(And all you cyber-wimps be damned, also too!)

Nice channeling of Nietzsche's sister, hsh ;-)

So, Scalia has thrown one of his famous/infamous dissenting fits over the SCOTUS majority decision that the medical care Russian roulette of the California prison system is unconstitutional. His reasoning is that the prison litigation reform statute procedurally bars the suit in question, that the Court has overstepped its judicial power in issuing the injunction requiring release of tens of thousands of inmates, plus scary muscle-bound released prisoners (seriously).

All of which makes me wonder: if the California prison authorities said it was necessary to randomly shoot one out of every hundred prisoners to run their prison system, could the inmates win in Scalia's view?

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