D-Day

Today is the 63^rd anniversary of D-Day. The folks at Real Clear Politics have published Ronald Reagan’s speech “The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc,” delivered on June 6, 1984 in Normandy, in its entirety. If you’ve never seen, heard, or read the address I recommend you do so now. And remember those heroes from so long ago. Too few of them are left, and those that are left are leaving us at a rapid rate. We owe them so much…

Via blog-buddy Morgan…How NOT to Use Powerpoint. Lord, how I wish this video had been around back in my day! Anyone and everyone who’s in management, be it civilian or military (and I hear the military is QUITE bad, in this respect) has been there and done that…sitting through an interminable PowerPoint presentation where some dolt literally READS all his slides to you, cheerfully ignoring the fact that his audience can read quite well on their own, thankyouverymuch. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure you’ll relate, Gentle Reader…

More Politically Correct BS…this time it’s the British Ministry of Defense and the RAF, banning nose art.

In killer heels and little else, they have a definite deadly charm.

But the risque images of women that have decorated warplanes since the First World War have been scrubbed out.

The Ministry of Defence has decreed they could offend the RAF's female personnel.

Officials admitted they had no record of any complaints from the 5,400 women in the RAF.

[…]

Nose art enjoyed another surge in popularity during the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars, when risque images appeared on many British warplanes.

The decision to ban the images followed a visit by glamour models to southern Afghanistan before Christmas. During the trip they signed paintings of themselves on RAF aircraft.

Commanders decided the images were sexist and insisted there was no place for them in the modern armed forces.

There was also concern that they could cause offence in a muslim country where until 2001 all women were forced to wear the head-to-toe burkha in public.

Glamour model Lucy Pinder, 23, who visited the RAF detachment at Kandahar last November and signed a painting of herself on a Harrier jet, said such images were only "harmless fun".

No complaints from RAF women, you’ll note… but a fear of offending muslims.

Good grief.

Network issues… You may recall, Gentle Reader, that stopping by Yucca Telecom to get the story on the long-anticipated but yet to be delivered fiber connection was one of the tasks I was going to address yesterday. I got part of the story, which is the fiber still hasn’t been turned up in my part of P-Town. Less clear was why my on-premise equipment hasn’t been installed. I was promised a call-back with an explanation but have yet to receive it.

Coincidentally, my network speed dropped off to dial-up rates last evening and then disappeared altogether this morning after a period of steady degradation. I was dead in the water from about 0700 until 0845 hrs, but the service is still painfully slow. I am NOT a Happy Camper today!

Today’s Pic(s): Are you tired of Arches yet? No? Well…here’s two more…

The first pic was taken at the first viewpoint on the park road, overlooking the Visitors Center (which isn’t visible in this pic). I shot the picture for a couple of reasons; firstly to illustrate the nature of the road, which is wonderfully curvy as it climbs about a thousand feet in a mile or three; and secondly because of the colors in the rocks juxtaposed against the brilliant blue of the sky. Oh yeah, and to get the ‘Zuki in the picture, too.

The second pic is taken from the same vantage point but one can see the Visitors Center far below, as well as the highway leading into Moab. The highway, by the way, runs right on top of the Moab Fault.

As always, click the pics for the larger versions...which are actually 50% of the originals.