August 2011 - Argghhh!

Is he about to lay an egg? Boq

Boq

Welllll, okay, not exactly on *us*, per se -- it's upon Deployed Denizenne (and Soon-To-Be-Addressed-As-Sergeant) Saker!And she's already received a nice present -- home on leave for her birthday. Which means there's very little possibility of a camel spider popping out of her birthday cake and pole-dancing on the dining room table...No matter -- commence gifting!And I already beat everybody to this one......

Most of us, when life gives us a lemon, make a sour face and move on, or, in another venue, try to sue the car dealership. This Marine took a different tack - he made a 55 gallon drum of lemonade, or, if you prefer, built himself a custom street rod... regardless, ya gotta respect the 'tude!

...today with a surprising amount of cat hair for scale! Awfully nice of me to do that, considering that... scale isn't an issue in this Whatziss. The pic will embiggen if you wave your wand over it] This might be the tipping point for some of you.

As mentioned in the post below this one, we lost one of our flagpoles in a storm last week - I was flying a cotton US flag and didn't get it down in time (i.e., before the lightning started lighting the place up) and a wet cotton flag on a 20-foot pole in a 60mph wind... well, the wind won that fight. The nylon Castle flag did just fine. I took the opportunity to get a new, stouter pole and some new bunting, too. Currently aloft with the Castle flag is the Civil War-through-Indian War era swallow...

Lies, damned lies, and statistics version. Building on the topic I introduced yesterday , let's take a look at a very recent example of what appears to be either a badly done, or agenda-driven, use of statistics to push a desired policy goal - in this case, revising the military retirement system. Bottom line up front - every military retiree I've talked to - including the gentleman who analyzed the Defense Business Board presentation - are amenable to changing the military retirement system...