n2doc
n2doc's Journal
U.S. General Says Soldiers Who Commit Suicide Are 'Selfish'
After 10 years at war, American soldiers are showing severe signs of wear. Not only have 126,000 troops returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injuries since the start of the wars, another 70,000 of them have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. According to Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli, the majority of soldiers disqualified from service due to injury have either TBI or PTSD.
As you might imagine, all that mental turmoil has resulted in erratic behavior in the military's ranks. Hundreds of American veterans and enlisted people still commit suicide every year, and for a couple years more soldiers were killing themselves than were dying on the battlefield. Crime is regular enough amongst the veteran community that special "veterans courts" have begun popping up around the United States.
War demands that people kill men, women, and children, and watch their friends get killed in return—probably the most mentally taxing experience the world has ever known. Of course our soldiers come back in agony, and of course that agony sometimes leads to suicide. But to at least one American general, all this complaining about soldiers killing themselves is "selfish."
"I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act," wrote Major General Dana Pittard, who commands Fort Bliss, one of the nation's largest military bases, in an official blog post. "I am personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess." Pittard added that any soldier thinking of committing suicide should "be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us."
more
http://www.good.is/post/u-s-general-says-soldiers-who-commit-suicide-are-selfish/
Safeway exec's disgusting Obama joke backfires, brings apology
Andrew S. Ross
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Safeway has enough on its plate - market share under siege, tough union negotiations, rumors of a takeover - without a senior executive putting his foot halfway down his throat, at its annual shareholders' meeting no less.
Vice President and General Counsel Robert Gordon thought he was cracking wise with a lame joke involving the Secret Service, President Obama and two Arkansas razorback hogs deemed an "excellent trade" for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. You can hear the joke here.
Among the less-than-laugh-out-loud-responses was a letter from members of the Bay Area congressional delegation, led by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, whose district includes the Pleasanton company. It demanded an apology to Pelosi and Clinton, among other "corrective steps," for the "shocking lack of respect, not only for two of the most important and respected people in our country but for all women."
As of Monday, one week after the shareholders' meeting, the only corrective action was a brief statement from Gordon "sincerely apologiz(ing) if the opening comments I made at the recent annual stockholders meeting offended anyone."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/22/BUIB1OLP5E.DTL
Ah, the usual non-appology. Guy needs to be fired.
On edit: Safeway CEO apologizes (see downthread) to Pelosi and HRC
Led Zeppelin II dies
By Rob Manker, Chicago Tribune reporter
9:54 a.m. CDT, May 23, 2012
Led Zeppelin II has died.
Not the album ... the man.
Zeppelin, of downstate Bethalto, near St. Louis, was known most of his life as George Blackburn before officially changing his name last fall.
"He and Mom got divorced and he wanted to start his life over, like a new chapter," said his daughter Mindy Baker of Seattle, adding that her father had seen Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's English band probably about 20 times in its heyday of the late 1960s and early '70s. "He had always liked Led Zeppelin since they came out, and it was just time to do it.
"My mom says that he talked about it for probably five years before the divorce."
more
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-talk-led-zeppelin-ii-dies-0524-20120523,0,1108232.story
Man uses Buddha to smash windshield
Published: May 22, 2012 at 12:37 PM
OAKLAND PARK, Fla., May 22 (UPI) -- Police in Florida said they arrested a man accused of using a statue of Buddha to smash his roommate's windshield during an argument.
The Broward Sheriff's Office said Alexander Galarza, 27, of Oakland Park argued with the victim, Todd Wilsey, and Wilsey's sister shortly before 7:30 a.m. Sunday before smashing Wilsey's computer and knocking over his sister's dresser, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported Tuesday.
Wilsey said Galarza struck him in the chest then threw the Buddha sculpture through the windshield of his Volkswagen, which was parked in the driveway.
Deputies estimated the damage at $300.
Galarza was arrested and charged with battery and criminal mischief.
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2012/05/22/Man-uses-Buddha-to-smash-windshield/UPI-55021337704659/
Robot Boats Survive Epic Voyage Across the Pacific — So Far
By Brian Lam
Twenty-two feet below the surface, the robot glider towed me slowly through clear Hawaiian seas. The day before, a similar glider named Benjamin had arrived in these same waters. Benjamin and three companion gliders had traveled all the way from San Francisco — more than 3,000 miles — powered by only the motion of ocean waves.
Before they left California, Liquid Robotics VP of Operations Graham Hine blessed the gliders by smashing a bottle of champagne on one of their frames, asking nature for assistance: “Neptune, god of the seas, and Aeolus, god of the winds, we ask for your blessings upon these vessels that are going to transit from here to parts formerly unexplored by this kind of robot.”
The gliders had endured an epic journey from California to Hawaii, but they were on a mere layover — they’re in the middle of an attempt to cross the entire Pacific. There’s a world record for “greatest distance by an autonomous wave-powered vehicle” at stake, and on Monday four of the gliders left Hawaii to resume their quest to cross the world’s largest body of water on mostly wave power. The next leg of their trip will take them some 5,000 more nautical miles to the coasts of Australia and Japan.
The Wave Gliders’ journey is more than just a title grab for a machine that was first created as a modest tool to track whale songs. And the journey is more than just an endurance test for the machines, which are capable swimmers.
For Liquid Robotics, the gliders’ long-term mission is to get as much data from the ocean as possible.
more
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/wave-glider-crosses-pacific/
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayMember since: Tue Feb 10, 2004, 01:08 PM
Number of posts: 47,953
