Wherein I Become a Nattering Nabob of Negativity…

Well. I went to sleep right after eating dinner this evening... around 1900 hrs, with all-too-predictable results. Like: here it is, 0230 hrs. and I’m wide-a-frickin’-wake. Might as well put the time to good bad use.

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Roadmap to Third World Status…

… beginning on January 20, 2009 at a Superpower near you. If, of course, that guy in the video means what he says. I know he’s a politician, and politicians will emphatically assert the sun rises in the West if it suits their objectives. But I’m just naïve enough to take people at their word from time to time…and I believe the good senator from Illinois will actually try and accomplish everything he said in that video. I dunno about you, Gentle Reader, but that scares the Holy Hell out of me.

h/t: Bookworm, who is just as strident about the dangers of The Messiah as I am… perhaps more so. We’re kindred spirits in our shared low opinion of The Obamanon, at any rate. Check out her post about Senator Obama’s anti-American upbringing. And no, I’m NOT being hyperbolic. Not in the least. Do you remember what Mom used to say? That thing about the acorn not falling far from the tree? Think about it…

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Well, now. This just pisses me right the Hell off: “Air Force Blocks Access to Many Blogs.” Quote:

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."

Until recently, each major command of the Air Force had some control over what sites their troops could visit, the Air Force Times reports. Then the Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service's new "Cyber Command," took over.

{…}

"A couple of years back, I fought this issue concerning the Counterterrorism Blog," one Air Force officer tells Danger Room. "An AF [Air Force] professional education course website recommended it as a great source for daily worldwide CT [counterterrorism] news. However it had been banned, because it called itself a blog. And as we all know, all blogs are bad!"

He's joking, of course. … Now there's the Air Force's argument, that blogs aren't legitimate media outlets -- and therefore, shouldn't be read at work.

{…}

But this view isn't universally held in the military. Many believe blogs to be a valuable source of information -- and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, at home and abroad. Gen. David Petraeus, who heads the U.S. effort in Iraq, has commended military bloggers. Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who replaced Petraeus as the head of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, recently wrote (in a blog post, no less) that soldiers should be encouraged to "get onto blogs and [s]end their YouTube videos to their friends and family."

Within the Air Force, there's also a strong contingent that wants to see open access to the sites -- and is mortified by the AFNOC's restrictions. "When I hear stuff this utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.... Piles of torn out hair are accumulating around my desk as we speak," one senior Air Force official writes in an e-mail. "I'm certain that by blocking blogs for official use, our airmen will never, ever be able to read them on their own home computers, so we have indeed saved them from a contaminating influence. Sorry, didn't mean to drip sarcasm on your rug."

Well… if those airmen happen to live in the barracks they won’t be able to read blogs from “home” now, will they? This policy is incredibly short-sighted and I think…personally…that it will be reversed in the very near future. OTOH, the Air Force seems to be doing an incredible amount of “less than inspired” things of late. And for me, personally, this means neither of my adult sons will be able to read EIP during an idle moment at work. SN2, even though he’s Navy, is stationed at USSTRATCOM… located on Offut AFB.

Generals LeMay, Twining, Doolittle and Vandenberg are rolling in their graves. The service they built would be unrecognizable to them today.

(Pssst: “less than inspired” is code for frickin’ dumb. Stupid. Twisted. Boop-shooby.)

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I’ve been meaning to rant about this subject for at least two weeks now, or since the first time I saw the incredulous claims made for this product on my teevee. I finally went to their web site to gather fodder for this post and was amazed and mystified, as I’m sure you will be, too. Sample:

Why use Kinoki Detox Foot Pads?

Formulated in Japan using all-natural tree extracts and powerful negative ions Kinoki Foot Pads help capture toxins your body eliminates. Kinoki Foot Pads cleanse and detoxify, safely and effectively.

How Kinoki Detox Foot Pads® Work

Your body naturally eliminates metabolic waste and toxins through your skin. Using the natural cleansing power of double distilled bamboo vinegar, Kinoki captures toxins eliminated by your body, cleansing and detoxifying your skin’s outer layers. You’ll see results right away!

Kinoki is a natural way to assist your body in the removal of:

• Heavy metals
• Metabolic wastes
• Chemicals
• Toxins
AND MUCH MORE!!!

Now let me get this straight…and I might need your help, Gentle Reader. If your body “naturally eliminates metabolic wastes and toxins” why would you want to capture them? Isn’t that what the sewer system or your septic tank is for? And really… my kidneys, bladder, large intestine, other organs and the associated plumbing for removing “metabolic wastes” function just fine. No assistance required, actually.

But back to capturing those toxins. I suppose the accumulated toxins might be useful for poisoning small animals or maybe your mother-in-law, if you have a problem of sorts with her. Maybe you could brew a toxic tea with old used Kinoki pads. But if you save the old pads for the purpose of poisoning pests (of any sort), do you have to notify the EPA? Do you need a license to accumulate and store heavy metals and toxins? And if you just throw ‘em in the trash, are you adding heavy metals and metabolic wastes to our landfills, thereby “becoming part of the problem,” which none of us want to do? Come to think on it, are the used pads safe to handle without a hazmat suit? The list of undesirable things the used pads contain is quite scary when you think about it. I mean…chemicals! Dang!

Another question comes to mind… is double distilled bamboo vinegar (?) twice as powerful as bamboo vinegar that’s distilled just once? Why don’t I see bamboo vinegar on the shelves with the rest of the quack herbal remedies at my local health emporium?

What about these “powerful negative ions?” How do I know these ions are really negative? Isn’t negativity generally bad? Are they Democrat ions? Why not good ol’ positive Republican ions? If I lay out good money for ions, I want ‘em to be in general agreement with my basic philosophy, yanno? Coz I’m generally a positive kinda guy. (This rant aside, of course.)

Finally… I was disappointed that the web site doesn’t have any of the nifty “before and after” tables and graphs one sees in the teevee ads… the ones showing the “scientific proof” that Kinoki pads reduce heavy metals and toxins after just 30 days of use. Why, I wonder? Enquiring Minds^© wanna know… Enquiring Minds wanna know where the Hell the Food and Drug Administration is, too. I thought there was some sort of law concerning false advertising in this country. I guess Dubya killed that, too.

Judging from the ads I’ve seen on my teevee, you should just wash your feet before retiring at night and save yourself $19.95. That will also keep your sheets a lot cleaner, too.

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And finally…

NOTHING…not even Kinoki… makes me dive for the remote faster than this frickin’ ad, and all the others like ‘em. Yet another business I plan to visit when I become a midnight fire-bomber.

They’ve got it coming.

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Was it good for you, Gentle Reader? It sure was for me. Let’s have a smoke and then take a short nap… Oh, wait. I said I couldn’t sleep now, didn’t I? Clean the bathroom? Re-alphabetize the CDs? What?