The Reach of War, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines in Iraq

Go here, click 'Sniper 1'.

You're welcome.

The King of Slack

There have been, I have no doubt, enlisted guys who have cut themselves more slack than Our Hero. Snuffies who have run bigger scams. Our Hero had the sweetest run of slack and scam that it has been my privilege to witness.

Like this: Computer Sciences School (MCCSS) at Quantico was at the time located on the second floor of a specially-built computing facility, far, far from the company office. When an enlisted man assigned to CSS requested leave it was approved by someone at CSS. The clerk would run the paperwork to the company office, where the records were kept, and the clerks there would do their data entry magic.

Our Hero was the clerk for CSS. You are ahead of me, I'm sure. He would request leave for a day here, a few days there. It would be approved. The paperwork, would depart CSS, evaporate on the way to the company office.

He ran this scam for most of a year before EAS. Built up quite a stock of leave time to sell back to the Corps. And while, when actually present for duty, he worked as hard as any clerk ever does, he was remarkably bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a guy who had officially worked 10 hours a day for a year without a break.

Flyers - the tool of every successful personal service business

Columbia County prosecutors say 72-year-old Gerald Hilliker solicited sex at a highway truck stop in the town of Caledonia last July. A criminal complaint said Hilliker distributed a flyer with a list of sex acts to truckers at the Highway 33 rest stop.

People will now say very unkind things about this soon-to-be former icon of the teaching industry. This is un-called for.

Flyers, man: how often do you see that?  Utilizing the skills gleaned from 48 years worth of 'Career Day' events I bet he had hissself a business plan, too.

I, for one, welcome the entrepreneurial spirit of Gerald Hilliker.  We need more of that in this year of Grace 2010.

Afghanistan is somewhere else. Mexico isn’t.

Fred Reed on Mexico, the Drug Wars, going to heck in a handcart.  An excerpt.

It is getting out of hand. The killing of policemen, judges, and mayors is now common. Journalists die in droves. After the murder of another of its reporters, El Diario, the major paper of Ciudad Juarez, published the following editorial, addressed to the drug lords:

“We bring to your attention that we are communicators, not mind-readers. Therefore, as workers in information, we want you to explain to us what you want of us, what you want us to publish or stop publioshing, what we must do for our security.

“These days, you are the de facto authority in the city, because the legally instituted authorities have been able to do nothing to keep our co-workers from continuing to fall, although we have repeatedly asked this of you. Consequently, facing this undeniable fact, we direct ourselves to you, because the last thing we want is that you shoot to death another of our colleagues.”

This is astonishing. It is worse. A blue whale singing Aida would be merely astonishing, but here we have the editors of the major newspaper of a substantial city stating candidly, with perfect clarity, that the narcotraficantes, not the national government, exercise sovereignty over the city. The federal government understandably denounced the editorial. No capital wants to be told that it does not control its territory. But this is exactly what the paper said.

The US had better think about what it wants on its borders. As long as drugs are illegal, they will flow and the gringos will buy and the narcos will roll in dough. Nothing will stop or impede this.

Shanghai Kid

We've acquired [1] a foreign exchange student from Shanghai. Completely nice kid named Evan. Smart as a whip, super friendly and helpful.


Their idea of personal space doesn't leave a lot of room for much space. On a recent trip to the mall we  walked shoulder to shoulder. Which set of my proximity alerts: I am an American, I like my space, man.

After a while it just was not a big thing.  It's Evan: he walks close, is all.



They may have funny notions of what we're up to in America.

"You were Marine?"

Yes.

"America have soldiers all over the world?"

Thinking of Kaplan's Imperial Grunts: Yes.

"America want to rule the world"

Well, golly, no. We don't want to rule the world, we want buy and sell stuff.  Like Baywatch videos.

Then I had to explain Baywatch: my big mouth.

[1] It's a long story. The details are not important.

Tax on Stupid People

You played 1040 games of Mega Millions. It cost $1040. You won $81.

Courtesy of the Incredibly Depressing Mega Millions Lottery Simulator, via SB7.

And it ain't no big payoff neither.  A few bucks here and there: enough for a meal - or part of one - at McDonald's.  Enough to keep the sucker coming back for more.

Like SB7, I've got mixed feelings about government sponsored gambling.

• I ain't gonna stand in the way of a man who wants to gamble: go to Hell in your own way.
• It gives me the willies when The Man is running the house.

That is the point of encryption

From the Terminal Lance forums

My favorite trouble call is still
Her: "Oh HI! This is *the data chief at a unit I don't support, but my predecessor had a bad habit of wanting to help everyone so she keeps fucking calling even though I tell her I won't support her*
Me: "Hey SSgt, what's up?"
Her: "What happens if you forget your password to an encrypted file?"
Me: "You're fucked, SSgt"
Her: "Well, when you burn something, it becomes unencrypted, right?"
Me: "Only if you have the password."
Her: "Oh, well, my computer at home doesn't have GE, so if I take my HD there, the encryption will fall off, right?"
Me: "No."
Her: "What the fuck? Why do they make it so hard?"
Me: "It's kind of the entire point of encryption, SSgt."

Life Goes On

Oh boy does it ever.  I'm going to be a grandfather.[1]  Meet Baby Knoke:





A first name has yet to be chosen.  Minority opinion favors Beowulf. [2]


[1] Hey, mom: you're going to be a great-grandmother.
[2] If one is going to go unconventional, go with a kick-ass name, is my take on it.

My Country My Ass

Got a checkpoint up the road ahead better pull out your ID
And your taxes just went up again gotta cough up some more money
Be careful what you're saying when you're on the phone you never know who might be listening in
They got cameras watching everywhere you go so they know just where you been
You know you better think about the books you read or your name might go on a list
Don't take too many pictures now, or they'll think you're a terrorist
They're watching you every time you turn around and they don't like what they see
You gotta be f*** ing kidding me if you think this country's free

My Country My Ass (YouTube)

Spiders - Mess Duty

Things I was going to write about tonight, but gave it up as a bad job.

Spiders.

Mess duty in the pot shack in Okinawa, Japan.

List of various governments

TM Lutas is looking for a list of the various governments in the United States

50 state governments

3000+ county governments

tens of thousands of municipal governments

intermediate government institutions like Indiana’s township governments.

I have been looking for such a list in the US for some time and have
come up empty. There are a lot of sources that do part of the job but
nobody seems to be doing the full list.

I don't think it can be done.  Compiled, with a lot of work.  You could never be sure you've got everything, unless you've got a staff of drones. Maintaining it would be a bitch.

This would be a list you'd think the Federal government would have.

Back In Time - the public drinking cup

My local paper [1] publishes 'Back In Time'  - local news in the past.  A beer wagon tipping over.  Irish arrested for being drunk [2].  The abolition of the public drinking cup.  The .. what?

1910: The public drinking cup must be abolished in schools of Wisconsin, as well as in parks and on trains.  The order of the state Board of Health, issued last spring, becomes effective soon.  Two years ago, the Legislature enacted a law pronouncing the public drinking cup unsanitary and the Board of Health promises to rigidly enorce the law.  Bubbling fountains [3] will have to be installed at all parks and schools.

At one time progressive-minded municipalities (and railroad companies) supplied a barrel of water and a cup for drinking.

We might conjecture that people thought nothing of drinking from a cup a stranger had just used  Oh, sure, the polite thing, one supposes, was to use one's hanky to wipe off spit after use.  Only an effete would raise a fuss about germs, or drool, or disease.

The past is a strange country, indeed.

[1] News-Record, Neenah Wisconsin
[2] The more things change . . .
[2] Older Wisconsin folk refer to drinking fountains as 'bubblers'.

Low Expectations

(Tea Party Candidates) are often accused of craziness one MSNBC commentator said Angle “sounds like a mental patient.”

Not liking the UN, the DEA, Social Security, pot, and so on and so forth marks one as a loony.

Man, I could care less how Candidate X feels about fluoridation. Is she going to spend money like a drunken sailor in Shanghai?  If 'N' then she's got my vote.

Kind of pathetic that two-hundred and so years of existence we're of necessity reduced to such low expectations for our politicians. But there you go.

Via.

Shave and a haircut

In 1989, I re-enlisted in the Marines.  In exchange for another four years of service, I was guaranteed a lateral MOS from from 0311 to 4063.  One thing I never understood nor got used to was some of my fellow REMFs attitude to being on the range, with guns.

You get out of the office for the day.  You get to make things go bang.  You get paid for it.  How is this not heaven on earth?

Did an M60 range one day.  Nothing ambitious - sit on the line, the gun on it's bipod, everyone sends a belt or three down range at enemy barrals and logs.  We had much ammunition left after everyone did their mandatory course of fire.   Turning in ammo is a pain, can't throw it away: gotta use it up.

The instructor could find only three volunteers to burn up the rest of the ammo - himself, me, a former 0331 turned logistics guy. Had a blast tearing up the targets, playing shave-and-a-haircut, shredding bits of North Carolina scrub.

Everyone else was all 'can't we just go home' and 'waaah it's raining' and 'ew I don't wanna get muddy'.  I never hated my fellow clerks and jerks more than on that day

Attention - whiners, moaners, groaners,

the unhappy, the perpetually miserable, the professional grump, the purposefully unhappy, the folks whose glass is always and forever half-empty.  #1,867 is for you. 

And me.

The word was not granted to us to express our misery, but to transfigure it.

Agile PLM 9301 - Solaris SMF - RBAC - How-To

Agile PLM 9301 - Solaris SMF - RBAC - How-To

How-to use Service Management Facility (SMF), role based access controls (RBAC) to allow root or a service account to launch Agile PLM v 9.3.01.

Feedback welcome.

• WebLogic Server (WLS)
• Dependence on network services.
• This method excludes Tomcat (File Manager) which I have not put under SMF yet.
• The file locations differ from standard for SMF in order to accommodate the way Solaris zones are implemented at my employer.
• Output logged to /var/svc/log/application-agileplm:agileplm.log

Setup

Two script files. We put these in /ops/scripts/agile/exec - where /ops is a symbolic link to an NFS mount on NAS.

• agileplm_node_manager
• agileplm_managed_host

Validate manifest
svccfg validate /ops/scripts/agile/exec/agileplm_miii_$SERVER_TYPE.xml

Import the manifest
something goes here, will add after I wake up

Did it work?
svcs -a | grep agile

Add this line to the bottom of /etc/security/auth_attr
solaris.smf.manage.application/agileplm:::Agile PLM Management ::

Assign authorization to the service account.
usermod -A solaris.smf.manage.application/agileplm srvcagl

Add authorization
svccfg -s agileplm setprop general/action_authorization=astring: 'solaris.smf.manage.application/agileplm'

Assign authorization to the value authorization
svccfg -s agileplm setprop general/value_authorization=astring: 'solaris.smf.manage.application/agileplm'

Did it work?
svcprop -c -p general agileplm

Output should be
general/enabled boolean true
general/entity_stability astring Evolving
general/single_instance boolean true
general/action_authorization astring solaris.smf.manage.application/agileplm

Enable the agileplm service
/usr/sbin/svcadm enable agileplm


Files

Shell script template. Edit and rename where appropriate


#!/sbin/sh
#
# Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
# Use is subject to license terms.
#
# ident "@(#)agileplm 1.0 07/01/2010 SMI"
#
# Agile PLM SMF script. Brian Dunbar for Plexus
# You MUST edit so that local variables are true
# AGILE_TYPE for the server - file_manager, node_manager, managed_server
# AGILE_USER for the local service account
# AGILE_HOME for your path to Agile
# PIDFILE where you want the process ID to be written to.
#
# this is rather more complicated than I would like. Suggestions welcome.

. /lib/svc/share/smf_include.sh

# Here in case we use svcprop more than we do now. See 'man svcprop'.


getproparg() {
val=`svcprop -p $1 $SMF_FMRI`
[ -n "$val" ] && echo $val
}

# if [ -z "$SMF_FMRI" ]; then
# echo "SMF framework variables are not initialized."
# exit $SMF_EXIT_ERR
# fi


AGILE_HOME="/opt/agl/agile93"
APP_SERVER_DIR="$AGILE_HOME"/agileDomain/bin
TOM_SERVER_DIR="$AGILE_HOME"/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/bin/
AGILE_USER="srvcagl"
AGILE_TYPE="node_manager"
# can aslo be file_manager, managed_server. Change for type of host
PIDFILE="/opt/agl/agile93/agileDomain/log/agileplm.pid"


case "$AGILE_TYPE" in
'node_manager')
APP_DIR=$APP_SERVER_DIR
;;
'file_manager')
APP_DIR=$TOM_SERVER_DIR
;;
'managed_server')
APP_DIR=$APP_SERVER_DIR
;;
*)
echo `date +"%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S"` - YOU SHOULD NOT SEE THIS
exit 1
;;
esac

# execute functions
node_manager_start()
{
echo `date +"%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S"` - START $AGILE_TYPE
cd "$APP_DIR"
./startAgile.sh
}

node_manager_stop()
{
echo `date +"%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S"` - STOP $AGILE_TYPE
cd "$APP_DIR"
./stopAgile.sh
}

file_manager_start()
{
echo `date +"%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S"` - START $AGILE_TYPE
cd "$APP_DIR"
./catalina.sh "$cmd"
}

file_manager_stop()
{
echo `date +"%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S"` - STOP $AGILE_TYPE
cd "$APP_DIR"
./catalina.sh "$cmd"
}

managed_server_start()
{
echo `date +"%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S"` - START $AGILE_TYPE
cd "$APP_DIR"
./startAgileCluster.sh
}

managed_server_stop()
{
echo `date +"%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S"` - STOP $AGILE_TYPE
cd "$APP_DIR"
./stopAgile.sh
}



case "$1" in
'start')
/bin/rm -f ${PIDFILE}
cmd="start"
;;
'stop')
cmd="stop"
;;
*)
echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop}"
exit 1
;;
esac


case "$AGILE_TYPE" in
'node_manager')
execute_start="node_manager_start"
execute_stop="node_manager_stop"
;;
'file_manager')
execute_start="file_manager_start"
execute_stop="file_manager_stop"
;;
'managed_server')
execute_start="managed_server_start"
execute_stop="managed_server_stop"
;;
*)
echo $"Usage: $0 {node_manager|file_manager|managed_server}"
exit 1
;;
esac


case "$cmd" in
'start')
"$execute_start"
;;
'stop')
"$execute_stop"
;;
*)
echo $"Usage $0 {start| stop}"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit $SMF_EXIT_OK


Manifest

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1">
<service_bundle type="manifest" name="agileplm">
<service name="application/agileplm" type="service" version="1">
<single_instance/>
<dependency name="network" grouping="require_all" restart_on="none" type="service">
<service_fmri value="svc:/milestone/network:default"/>
</dependency>
<exec_method type="method" name="start" exec="/lib/svc/method/agileplm %m" timeout_seconds="480">
<method_context>
<method_credential user="srvcagl"/>
</method_context>
</exec_method>
<exec_method type="method" name="stop" exec="/lib/svc/method/agileplm %m" timeout_seconds="480">
<method_context>
<method_credential user="srvcagl"/>
</method_context>
</exec_method>
<instance name="agileplm" enabled="false">
<method_context>
<method_credential user="srvcagl" group="plm"/>
</method_context>
<property_group name="agileplm" type="application"/>
<property_group name="startd" type="framework">
<propval name="duration" type="astring" value="child"/>
<propval name="ignore_error" type="astring" value="core,signal"/>
<propval name="utmpx_prefix" type="astring" value="co"/>
</property_group>
</instance>
<stability value="Evolving"/>
<template>
<common_name>
<loctext xml:lang="C">AgilePLM</loctext>
</common_name>
<documentation>
<manpage title="agileplm" section="1"/>
<doc_link name="Agile Product Lifecycle Management Documentation Library v9.3 " uri="http://noc.plexus.com/agile_docs/9.3/docset.html"/>
</documentation>
</template>
</service>
</service_bundle>

Friday Night Lights

Kaukauna over Neenah, 14-7.

The one touchdown we did score was a pleasure to behold: a minute left, receiver broke out, snagged a long pass, darted across the goal neat as you please.

Something about a small town, high school football, a nip in the air, cup of warm coffee in hand: it's just all so right, ya' know?

Takedown

Force Recon style.

They finally cut one last hole, and called in with our loudspeaker that it was safe, the Marines had control of their ship, and to please come out.  The ship’s captain peered hesitatingly from behind a steel bulkhead, still unwilling to come forward.  Sgt Chesmore ripped an American flag patch from his shooter’s kit and held into the room as a final identification.  The captain broke into a huge smile and immediately called his crew from their hiding places.  They ran forward, unlocked the final barricaded door in their “citadel” and were escorted topside.  Excited.  Exhausted.  And happy to have their ship back.

Sometimes, it feels pretty god-damned good to be an American.

Thank you, Captain Martin, 1st Lieutenant Williams, Staff Sergeants Hatrick, Homestead, Holm, Sergeant Chesmore, and the rest of the team.

Burn, Baby, Burn [1]

I do not intend to burn a Koran any more than I would burn one of the vedic collections, or the writings of Zoroaster or a Mithran text, nor do I think that a Florida clergyman will much affect the contest between the West and Islam; but if I have to fight I would rather be fighting for the right of the old guy to burn the book than be trying to arrest him for doing it.

Jerry Pournelle, on 'Burn the Koran Day'

[1] Well, that was a predictable title.

Spirit of the Bayonet

Sergeant Kris Battles had some Marines over to his studio to pose for reference pictures for his Belleau Woods sculpture.

Yeah, yeah: Marines have combat artists and - being Marines - they are very, very, good. So what? So .. this.





Ignore the campy dough-boy helmet.  Look at the size of the friggin' knife on the end the rifle. 

A bayonet like that . . . a man could really reach out and touch someone, ya know what ah mean?

Big * Dumb * Slow

Your taxes are paying for this shit.






Yeah-yeah-yeah. A small blurb runs at the end with some space propaganda. It's educational. The children will be all over this one. It'll go viral and promote the space program among the young and clued-in. [1]

It does not actually cost a lot of money. [2]

So? This is not the kind of foolishness and shenanigans a responsible government should be up to.

It's perfect for the American Federal government, circa 2010.








[1]If you'll buy that, I'll throw the golden gate in free.
[2] Relative to, say, an M1A1 tank, a HMMWV, or lunch for 10 staffers on Capitol Hill.

The greatness of America is the right to protest

Manifesto for Half-Arsed Agile Software Development.


How-To clean baked-in grot inside the microwave. One cup water, 1/4 cup vinegar. Nuke for three minutes. Wipe with a towel.


MongoDB is web scale. HAW! And: NSFW. "You read the latest post on HighScalability.com and think you are a f*cking Google and architect and parrot slogans like Web Scale and Sharding but you have no idea what the f*ck you are talking about."


Never Gonna Stnd For This by Teachenor Clark.

November - it's just a start.

And we all of us still have the ultimate vote: vote with your feet and leave. Just ... go.

All human procreation and farming must cease!

SB7 on the James Lee [1]

This is blissfully contradictory:

9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy.

11. You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing.

Get it? Less economic activity, less production, but more employment and more construction.

Not constructive, productive, solutions, dear SB7.  The solutions for item 11 are alluded to in item 5

All human procreation and farming must cease!

We may discard the first item as impossible: procreation will happen.  Just ... will.

The latter points ... hunter-gatherer societies utterly lack the concept of unemployment.  There is always more to be done than there are hands, what with dingos eating the babies, disease killing the weak and unlucky, the elderly dying at the ripe age of thirty.


[1] For those not following along, a nut who posted a manifesto (now gone from the internets) and went after himself some hope and change at Discovery Channel.

Oh captain, my captain. My sweet, sweet, captain

It's back to school time. That, and this thing, and the other, got me to thinking about the handful of teachers I had in high school who were, I mean, totally, hot.

I'm 43. The youngest of these fine ladies is pushing past 70 now.

Time flies when you're having fun.