ARMY GOES ATHLETE

Indeed. There is a great deal of difference between static strength (as exemplified by things like push-ups) and flexible, capable, athletic capabilities as evidenced by the ability to climb, jump, pull, push, roll, etc.

The ability to climb, roll, carry, climb, hoist, and so forth are far more important capabilities to a soldier (or anyone in an occupation requiring both physical fitness and adaptable capability) than is an ability to complete a specific number of sit-ups.

I for one am very glad to see the physical emphasis shifting towards active physical capabilities in testing.

Army's Big PT Test Changes

by Christian Lowe

 

For the first time in more than 20 years, the Army is gearing up to change its fitness test for every Soldier.

Gone is the simple pushup, sit up, and run routine, and in its place comes a battery of sprints, jumps and rows.

And the service is also introducing a grueling series of slalom runs, balance beam walks, casualty drags, and ammo carries it calls the Army Combat Readiness Test -- a totally new evaluation that simulates the kind of body crush Joes experience on deployment.

"The key difference is between 'readiness' and fitness," said Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, the Army's deputy commanding general for initial training. "It's one thing to be fit it's quite another thing to be ready for the things we are being asked to do. And in our case, it's becoming a 'tactical athlete.' "

For the next six months, the Army will be administering the new Army Physical Readiness Test and the ACRT to almost 10,000 Soldiers at nearly 10 Army commands, including Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; Fort Benning, Ga., and Fort Sill, Okla. Soldiers there will help Army fitness experts determine how best to structure the tests and how often to do them.

Army officials are also looking into how to grade the new tests, with a simple "excellent," "good" or "poor" potentially replacing a pass-fail or a point score...

Tome and Tomb

Humours of Idleness - Tome and Tomb

Tome and Tomb

I have a Blog on Gaming which I have been writing for awhile.

Now that I have sufficient material up for reading I'm linking it to this blog in the case any of my readers are interested in gaming matters. Visit it and let me know what you think. It's called Tome and Tomb.

Jack.

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An Assassin of Time

The Exchange - An Assassin of Time


An Assassin of Time: What I’ve Been Doing Lately and What the Internet Really Means –

Recently I’ve been taking a Sabbatical of sorts from the Internet in general and blogging in particular. This is for personal, professional, and religious reasons. And I’ve come to several conclusions because of this.

1. I can’t live on the Internet. Nor do I have any reason to do so. Or any desire to do so. For most of the previous six or seven months on this blog, and elsewhere on my other sites, I’ve tried to maintain an almost daily presence which has from time to time brought a number of readers here. But I’ve really no desire to maintain a daily presence on this blog merely to obtain a high number of readers. I simply don’t care either about that fact (number of readers), or enough about the Internet in general to give a flying crap about maintaining a daily presence. Readership as a motivation of publishing on the Internet is highly suspect to me anyway. I was talked into blogging by friends of mine who suggested I would make a good blogger and that my blog would be of interest. That may or may not be true, and I am grateful and flattered by their support, but over these months I’ve come to realize some far more important things than the fact that I may be a good blogger:

A. The Public Internet is simply not that big a deal. (When I use the term Internet below I mean to refer to the Public Internet.) Nor is it usually profitable either as a means of expressing general ideas and matters of public or private interest for me to devote that much time to it. As a business method it is sometimes superb, as a communications means it is at times extremely interesting, as a research tool it can be useful, as a method of transmitting covert information it is unique and even highly successful if approached in the right way, but generally speaking it is nothing more than one billion people (seemingly anyway) regurgitating their particular interpretation or opinion of the same events and ideas everyone else has already previously debated in an almost endless fashion. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself, as opinions can sometimes even be valuable, or in far rarer instances even worth hearing. But the Internet is simply not important enough for me to care to devote large blocs of my personal and professional time to it. I recently ran a calculation and discovered that if I spent one hour per day on the Internet that hour would be approximately worth three hours of normal work (if focused) and lost project productivity. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that the time I devote to the internet is primarily a drag on my productivity and to ventures, experiments, projects, cases, work, and writings that could be far more profitably pursued in the real world. Oh, and in case anyone bothers to investigate the matter the Internet is not the Real World, theoretical speculation to the contrary.

B. I must budget my time to the Internet as I would any other venture and consider the risk to reward and work to gain ratios. In that respect the Internet sucks as a return on time invested. It always has sucked in that respect and I expect that to continue indefinitely. Now occasionally it is profitable as a means for pursuing business and other ventures that do lead to reward of some kind, or maybe even some kind of profit in particular, but this is not normally the case, and certainly not the case with a personal or personal interest blog. In that respect it is nothing more, or less, than a message board, a form of entertainment and diversion. An enjoyable pass-time if you have the time to pass. Most of the time I do not and am engaged in far more important things than to either desire or feel the need to spend the primary focus of my time and efforts on the internet. My advice to myself is stop being here unless I have the time to kill, have some real objective to achieve, or can budget the spare time, and instead spend every other moment in the real world and accomplish real objectives, do not kill your time in a Virtual World achieving Virtual Objectives which even if achieved tend to be meaningless and pointless anyway. No one ever became famous, much less achieved anything worthwhile, based on the amount of time devoted to the Internet. There is no Shakespeare of the Internet, no Einstein of the Internet, no Da Vinci of the Internet, and no Apostles of the Internet. Well, I’m sure there are Apostles of the Internet but not the kind that ever amount to much, historically speaking. If something is to be achieved and recorded for history as having any real importance at all then it must be really important, meaning it must be real. My advice to the person reading this is exactly the same. Get off this damned network, go into the real world, and do something real, and therefore possibly even really important. The Internet is not really important in most respects, nor is it really producing anything substantially important, or vital. It is a technological version (95% of it is anyway) of an old fashioned Party-Line. It is a barbershop yak-fest and a gossip parlor, and an opinion salon, but very little more. It could be much more and may one day be much more but for now it is simply a virtual substitute for life and an excuse to not-live in a real way.


What therefore will I be doing about this having realized these things over the past few months?

1. I have rearranged my schedule to allow me to blog and use the Internet for research with a modest use of time during the week. Other than that I won’t be using the Internet except for communications or to assist with business ventures, personal or professional projects, experiments, and for work and networking. I won’t be blogging or using the Internet just to hear myself talk or just to blog for the sake of blogging or to kill time.
2. The content I put on this site, or on any of my other sites must be of as high a quality as I can create or I won’t bother. Won’t even feel slightly motivated. I won’t do it if I don’t care, or don’t find it enjoyable, important, or beneficially experimental in some way.
3. The Internet will not become another form of work for me. It is profitless in that respect and not very important anyway. My real work (not to mention the other things I do in life) is far too important for the Internet to become some kind of substitute work bleeding off time and resources I could employ in another and far more productive and profitable way. The Internet will assist me with my work or objectives, but it is not important enough to be work or valuable enough to be an objective in and of itself. The Internet should be a Map of Human Achievement, and not merely a Forum of Endless Speech about nothing much at all.
4. The Internet will not become a substitute personal friendship network for me. Yes, I am the first to admit that the internet is a very useful technological tool for allowing me to communicate with and keep in touch with family, with friends (both old and new) in distant corners of the world, deployed friends, foreign friends, and others with whom I could not communicate easily or often. The Internet also allows me to communicate with individuals I often find interesting and stimulating, or even to communicate with potential new clients, associates, informants and even old comrades with whom I have shared danger, adventure and history. But it is no substitute at all for real friends, or personal networks, or real people. No part of any artificially virtual life is in any way a substitute for, or nearly as productive as, a real life. I have come to realize that the internet, as a social and personal network is really little more than a talk center for young people who have no real responsibilities and no real work to do to speak of and therefore it is simply a technological version of the shopping mall and local meeting place. It’s not always that way of course, but usually that’s about the size of it.


The Internet therefore is really a sort of modern and on occasion even a sort of mortal (in the true sense of the word) danger. It deludes people into thinking that they have achieved something of value by the simple fact of employing it, just as some people are deluded into the fact that just by watching television they have been profitably entertained.

It is a danger I have recognized for what it is, and so I intend in the future to make use of it much as I would a rattlesnake. I’m not gonna spend a whole lot of my time poking around with it just for the sake of curiosity, when I do use it I’ll milk her for all she is worth, but I won’t in any way confuse the poison I pull out of her fangs for cream with which to flavor my coffee.

Like all modern technologies the Internet can be used for good, or ill, but if used to excess, and most people who use her do use her to excess, then her assets become merely new liabilities and very quickly you come to realize that she is exactly what she most appears to be - an assassin of time.

Now if you ladies and germs will excuse me I’m gonna go grab a beer, and then I have better things to do with my time.


© JWG, Jr. 2007



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The New, the Brave, and the Old

The Exchange - The New, the Brave, and the Old

First of all let me apologize, but I haven't had much time to blog lately.
I'll explain that in a minute.

Let me also take this opportunity to introduce Alang, one of my new contributors and correspondents. Alang is in Asia and I'll let him introduce himself more fully later, but he is the first of what I hope to be many International Contributors and Correspondents for the Missal. So that the Missal can become not just a National, but an International and Global Network and PIIN as well.

Alang is an artist and writer and I know him through another site. I think he is a very good artist and some of his sites are here: Old Elfwood, Narazura Studios, Friends of the Corrupt Kingdom.

It is certainly worth a visit and I hope that Alang and I can work on some art and graphic novel projects in the future, hopefully this year.

Welcome aboard Alang and I look forward to your posts.

I'm also working with another International Correspondent, Agam. Agam has already introduced himself so there is no need for me to do that once again. Given what I know about Agam and his site he should provide some very interesting posts about his part of the world. Welcome aboard as well Agam.

I'll be helping Michael of Stingray (for which I also contribute on occasion) get set up to contribute to the Missal once I get his formal site invitation out today or this afternoon. Michael has a good twist on many of his posts and I look forward to his contributions as well. And last but not least I've gotten some more military correspondents, most of whom want to post anonymously through me, due to personal and career factors. (Many of you might be aware of the current Milblog situation.) So you may soon see some posts which were obviously created in the field but which I will explain were not written by me, but will nevertheless be posted by me. I won't use the real name of the writer or contributor in these cases but maybe they will take pen-names, pseudonyms, or code names. We'll work it out however they want to approach it, and we may follow the same or a similar technique for the B-Reader. Speaking of new contributors I have a friend who is planning an upcoming trip to Rome and if that all works out as expected then hopefully he will be blogging his trip and making posts here as well, and submitting pictures of what he discovers while abroad. As far as that goes I encourage all of my new contributors to posts pictures, artworks, graphics, links to their other sites, ideas, papers, etc here as well as the normal posts they make. Anything they wish and which they think might be interesting. We'll make this place as interesting for our readers as possible, and feel free to use this site to network and make contacts as well. I don't intend this to be just another blog, but instead intend it to be a Global Network, a business, idea, and art exchange, a place to gather interesting news and intelligence on events around the world, a forum for discussing religious, political, cultural, scientific, technological, criminal, security, and military issues, and a place for debate. In addition the Missal will soon begin to partake in and even host some Carnivals. If either my readers or contributors have any suggestions about which carnivals they'd like to participate in then just let me know. We're moving into the eight month since the creation of the Missal and it will keep growing over time.

With the building up of these new correspondents and contributors, with my efforts to publicize and expand and market this blog, and with other developments I have underway I have big plans for the Missal. Hope you as readers will come along for the ride because I think it will be very interesting.

Now that I also have a couple of international correspondents and contributors I would like you to know that I eventually intend to have international correspondents and contributors in Central and South America, Africa, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, in various parts of Asia, in the Middle East, in Israel, in Australia, and hopefully a couple in Russia and China as well. So that my readers can keep up with events throughout the world from the point of view of people living and working in those parts of the world. This should also give my readers, both American and foreign a different perspective on events in other parts of the world from a point of view not seen in the mainstream media or form other sources. If you are currently a reader and feel that you would be a good candidate for being either an international or American contributor to the Missal then just let me know by contacting me.

As for me, recently I have been under a very heavy workload, have been out of town some, the wife and girls have been sick so I've been taking care of them, my bitch littered and so I've been tending her and the puppies, and finally I've also been spending time with old friends and military officers who are getting ready to be redeployed (not in the now current politically-correct use of the term, but the real definition) for another tour of duty to a combat theater.

As a matter of fact on Monday I spent a good part of the day at the house of my best friend's father. My friend's father has recently retired and has bought an extremely nice house on a golf course, but set back at one of the far holes along a very reclusive and quiet line of trees. It's almost like being in a rural and sylvan area and it is very quiet and relaxing. It's not as far out in the country as my home, but it almost feels like it.

The house itself is very, very nice, cathedral ceilings (a favorite home architectural design of mine), it's almost brand new, roomy, very nicely and tastefully decorated, clean, and I like the overall internal architecture and use of space throughout the house. It has an attached garage but also a stand alone garage with a studio room built over that, similar to another old friend's family home. My friend had invited me over after he got back in town from a training exercise before being redeployed to a combat theatre. So we had a lot to catch up on and discuss. He's like a brother to me, no, strike that, he is a brother to me, just not blood related. But we grew up together and we've known each other since Middle School. We've never quit being friends and we never will quit being friends. As a matter of fact I'm good friends with his younger brother as well, and I consider their entire family and extended family like a secondary family to my own.

I went over and we talked and rode around, got the lay of the new neighborhood, and his father prepared us lunch from what his wife had already previously cooked. She is an excellent cook and so the lunch was really good, and the company was enjoyable. After that my friend asked me if I'd like to try out his father's new hot tub, and although it was sort of drizzly and cold, I was all up for that. Personally I love going from a cold pool to a hot tub, or steam room, and then a sauna, then doing that all over again. It makes my body feel both really relaxed, and terrifically healthy and vital to go from cold water to hot water and then to steamroom and sauna. In this particular case the cold was provided by the environment and the drizzle, and the hot water by the hot tub which was 101 degrees. We sat out in the hot tub and talked for a long time. We talked out our adventures as kids, what we've done over the years, our families, the future and what he wants to do after he retries, the War on Terror, crime, Intel, Afghanistan, Iraq, what he'll be doing on last mission assignment, America and the culture and society, foreign cultures, our kids and so forth. It was an excellent afternoon. Before either of us had much realized it we had spent nearly an hour in the tub and we were both pretty pruney and starting to feel the heat and exhaustion. I was a little dizzy later on to tell you the truth.

We dried off and went back inside, got dressed and watched a show on "What Rome has Done for Us" (I think it was called) on one of the educational channels, and that was relaxing and nice as well. After an hour or so more I said my farewells to my friend and his father, got some water, and left. All in all it was a fantastically, terrific time (I'm making fun of the Rome show host) and I'm very glad I got the chance to do it. Few things in life are as good as spending time with old friends and just relaxing, which I don't get a chance to do much anymore. It's been a hard past six months or so for me personally and so I was doubly glad to have a day, or most of it anyway, where I could do little but enjoy myself.

But now I'm back at it.

In the near future I'll be writing some reviews because I've been reading some interesting books lately and I've even had time to see a couple of good films and listen to some nice music.
I'll get back on schedule starting today with the MCWS Briefing and catch up as I can.

See ya later,

Jack



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New International Contributors

Pesharim - New International Contributors

I have initiated the process of adding new International Writers and Contributors to the Missal.

I am excited about the people and contributors I have invited and if it works out as I hope it will then the Missal should soon have a pool of international talent from which to draw.

More on this later as things develop.



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Improvements to the Missal

Pesharim – Improvements to the Missal

I am making several changes and improvements to the site.

First of all as some of you already know I am adding new writers and contributors to the Missal. More will be joining shortly once the details can be arranged. For now the list of writers includes: Steve, Andy, K, and me. Also there will be occasional guest posts by writers and contributors like Del, as can be seen by his first article on Analyzing Terrorism which has already been published on the Missal. Let me take this opportunity at the beginning of the New Year to welcome aboard all of the new writers and contributors. I appreciate your contributions. More about the new writers and their contributions later in future posts.

I am changing the MCW Briefing on every Thursday to the MCWS, meaning it will now be the Military, Crime, Warfare, and Security Briefing. I have expanded the emphasis on the Thursday Briefing to include a new focus on a wide range of security threats, from physical threats to terrorism to personal security and criminal threats to electronic, computing, communication, data, machine, sabotage, and Internet threats.

Mondays will now be devoted to both Political and Business matters and so the Monday Segment will become the Monday Political and Business Appraisal.

Otherwise the schedule will remain the same, making it under normal circumstances as follows:

Monday Political and Business Appraisal
Tuesday Science and Technology Abstract
Wednesday Religious Assessment
Thursday Military/Crime/Warfare and Security Briefing
Friday Cultural Calculation
Saturday Arts and Avocation Inventory
Sunday Summary


Of course I will be making other posts as local, state, national, and international events warrant. Also I intend two to five original articles, papers, theory papers, political pieces, journalism pieces, analyses, reports, or essays per week, as time and work allow. This does not include what my contributors post, and they are free to post on any matter they wish, at any time they wish. I am also temporarily allowing others to be considered as contributors, so if you feel that you would like to contribute to the Missal, feel that you are an interesting writer or poster, and feel that you would be a good match for the Missal then please feel free to contact me by email. My address can be found here: Jack.

I have also been invited to write for other blogs, such as Stingray, and I have been posting to Stingray now for about two months or so. This year I intend several unique articles devoted entirely to that site which will be linked to, but not posted to, the Missal. Other blogs have invited me to write and post guest pieces and articles for their sites and I intend to follow up upon these invitations as soon as my schedule allows.

I have added a Web 2.0 Chat Function, called Geesee Chat to the Missal, you cay find a link to it in the right hand Sidebar, near the top of the page. This should allow my readers and some of my contributors to chat directly with one another in an unrestricted manner, whenever they visit the site. Immediately below Geesee Chat you can find a variety of other Web 2.0 functions, which I am making available to my readers and contributors, and some of those Web 2.0 services I will be directly integrating into the site, just as I did with the Chat function. I will be continuing to add Web 2.0 functionality and services in the future, making such additions an ongoing effort.

I will be making posting improvements so that readers can link posts directly to their favorite Social or Media or Internet Network.

I will be adding video and video posting functionality.

I am seeking to add a number of foreign correspondents and contributors to the site so that they may post and report about events in their corner of the world.

I will continue in my efforts to build and develop a Global Network of international contacts to provide real time information to my readers and contributors. I also intend to use this Global Network to help develop the Missal's own Intelligence and Investigative Network.

I will be seeking to better integrate and cross link the Missal with my other blogs, newsletters, and websites, as well as establish better links with a variety of the blogs and websites of others in order to better cover Business, Political, Religious, Cultural, Social, Scientific, Technological, Military, Criminal, War, and Security matters.

I will be building and directly linking the B-Reader to the Missal. Design is already completed on the B-Reader but some technical details need to be worked out before I can post the first article. The B-Reader once fully established will be a group blog consisting of both professional and amateur contributors.

I am working on a number of book and article projects, extracts of the initial drafts of which I will occasionally post to the Missal for reader feedback and analysis.

I will also be making any future technological improvements to the site that I feel may be of value to my readers and my contributors. If you have any suggestions to make concerning improvements you'd like to see made to the Missal then you may leave a comment on site or send me an email discussing your ideas.

Thanks, and Happy and Productive New Year,

Jack.




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Tuesday Science and Technology Abstract 12/19/06

Tuesday Science and Technology Abstract

Hawking

Tomb Raider TV and Film

The Human Dog - I find this particularly fascinating, but as to implications regarding my theory of Parallel Intelligence and to the ideas of developing human tracking capabilities and mechanical/machine trackers in order to ferret out things like corpses at crimes scenes, etc.

Eye of the Leopard - Fascinating, if true

Whittingham Hospital

The Death of Blogging

The Space Marines

52 New Species

COROT Launch

Alcohol in the Head

Global Network IV

The Exchange - A Global Network IV

After going over recent traffic stats, and the traffic here at the Missal has been steadily growing lately, I've revisited my Global Network.

It turns out that now my traffic comes mostly first and foremost from North America, as has always been the case, then Europe, then Oceania. Previously the third most popular bit of Continental Traffic had been from Asia.


As for countries the first slot goes to the US of course, but then Canada, followed by Australia, and the UK seems to have practically disappeared as a traffic factor for now. I am very pleased however with the amount of traffic I'm getting from Eastern Europe and Asia.


I intend to be increasing content soon because I have invited some rather talented new writers and contributors to join me at the Missal, and as soon as I can get it up and running, at the B-Reader. I'll be discussing this more in future posts and soon I hope you will be seeing writings and posts form some of our new writers.

I also hope to appeal to a new audience of conservatives throughout Europe and Asia because I have invited some European conservatives and Libertarians to write for the Missal. I'm looking for good, conservative Asian and South American writers as well. If that all works out then I hope to bring on board European and Asian writers who can use the Missal to discuss conservative political, social, moral, and religious matters in their parts of the world.

To make the Missal an even bigger and more effective Global Network.

A Bit of News

Pesharim - A Bit of News

I've been invited to enter into a cooperative writing/blogging arrangement with Stingray (Michael McCullough's blog), which I intend to accept.
Actually I applied to an online invitation and was graciously accepted. Therefore I intend to make this my public declaration of acceptance. I am grateful to Michael for the invitation and appreciate the new opportunity. I feel that we have much in common personally and as he says we share an interest in mystical matters as well, so I'm looking forward to this relationship.

I've been visiting Stingray since I discovered it, enjoy it, and will gladly contribute articles and even act as a guest writer there on occasion if and when Michael needs me to do so. I am also adding Stingray to my list of Endorsements, to my Blogroll and it will be my featured Recommendation for this month.

So on Wednesdays when I normally blog on Religious matters I will be cross linking some of my Original and Personal Writings to Stingray, maybe some of my Wednesday Religious Assessment Research (I'll have to discuss that with him first), and maybe a few other related posts.

In addition I plan on Wednesdays to cross-link some of Michael's Posts on Stingray to the Missal.

I have also joined Christian Bloggers on a similar invitation and will be posting some of my articles there on Wednesdays as well as cross-linking interesting articles from that site here on the Missal.

I will continue to blog on my other subject matters of interest on the appropriate days, unless something particularly important takes precedence. I also intend to eventually accept initiations from other blog writers and blogsites (I've received a couple already) to contribute to Defense and Military and Law Enforcement blogs, and possibly to occasionally contribute to Political and Science/Technology blogs and sites as well, in addition to my normal freelance writing schedule, time and work permitting of course.

Now that I have about four to five months experience as a blogger I am coming more and more to understand the process and how best to work as a blogger. In addition as I learn more about the process of successful blogging I am making changes to my site to make it a better experience for my readers and hopefully far more useful to them as a location they might like to visit. I am also learning how to adjust my normal freelance writing style to better fit formats that are easier and more convenient for the blog reader to use and digest.

I still expect a steep learning curve over the next year or so, and I still have a lot of research to do on all aspects of blogging, but I expect to continue to improve with experience.

If any of my readers have any suggestions as to how to improve the site then of course I'll be happy to entertain your suggestions. Leave the suggestions here on site or email me as many of you normally do.


Now for something completely different. Moving into the Christmas season this is the time of year I normally rearrange things like my Goals and Objectives for the upcoming year, make resolutions, and change my prayer targets for the New Year as well. Last Sunday afternoon I had a little spare time so I went ahead and completed my Prayer Target list for 2007.

As some of you know my last grandmother died a few months back and the she is off my normal list and has instead been added to my Prayer List for Souls of the Dead, though I suspect given her life she needs my prayers for her about as much as she needs a suntan right now. Truth is, it's the other way around that would have the most beneficial effect. Still, it is my duty to her and she was my grandmother and a great woman. She doesn't need them but I owe her.

I've also added the following individuals to my personal prayer list: Michael, Drew, Bradley Stalker, Steve, Kevin (actually he's been on it awhile), Captain Thompson, Major Egland, Craig, Abby, and Cheri and her family. And Pope Benedict.

I'll also be praying for the following nations and peoples:

For the full liberty of, and for an end to oppression, war, and murder in: Iraq, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, India, China, Eastern Europe, and Russia.

For these nations to proper and be secure: Colombia (I have a foster son there), England, Italy, Germany, Canada, Kenya, and Australia.

For the United States to prosper and to be a beacon of Liberty, Virtue, Greatness, Heroism, Sacrifice, Success, Honor, Justice and Brotherhood to the rest of the world.

For my own state to proper, and for my city to continue to enjoy success and to be free of crime, corruption, and violence.


That's it for now,

Jack.

Where We Go

Pesharim - Where We Go

I visit various blogs, message boards, and websites.

I go to each one for different reasons. I have a lot of different interests. I go to Milblogs to get the war, defense, counterterrorism, and military scoop. I visit blogs run by former Intel officers (or they say they are, one never really knows with Spooks as people remind me all of the time, since some call me a Spook of sorts, and I guess I am sortta but I'm also not, so there you go, that's the way that kind of thing works doesn't it?) to catch a drift or two about espionage and cryptology, I visit religious blogs and missionary blogs cause I love some of those and missionary blogs are great sources of religious, cultural, and societal Intel. I visit cop and detective blogs, for obvious reasons. I visit science and technology blogs. I visit governmental project blogs. I visit Research and Development blogs, academic blogs, university and student blogs, criminology blogs, art blogs, the blogs of buddies, foreign blogs, analytical blogs, political blogs, the blogs of freelance journalists, a few blog communities.

I also visit all kinds of websites, of the same types as the types of blogs I detailed above, as well as medical sites and Deep Web sites and business and corporate sites and blah, blah, blah. I visit nerd sites and parody sites and vaddign sites and sports and athletic sites and message boards and so forth. You get the picture.

But why?

I guess what I'm driving at is not only why do I visit the types of blogs and websites I visit but why do I visit the particular blogs and websites I visit?

I've never really thought about it much, in a systematic or analytical fashion, being new to blogging myself but I am certain that the types of places you visit in cyberspace must say something about your psychespace.

I really personally enjoy some locales, others I visit because they intrigue me, some places I visit because they are excellent sources of data, information, or even Intel, some because they are interesting, some because they are useful, some because they amuse me, some because I like commenting there, and some because well, hell, I couldn't really tell you.

As a matter of fact in some sense I couldn't really tell you why I visit any of the particular sites and blogs I do other than to tell you that I like them. For instance two different guys might run two different blogs which are immensely similar in content, maybe even in arrangement and outlook, yet one will appeal to me and the other will not. One may be popular and well trafficked by any standard as well as being appealing to me, the other might be hardly touched by anyone else and yet I like going there. Why?

I couldn't tell you.

There are reasons, obviously, having to do with my nature and the nature of the other person or persons on site (though I'm not one of those people who are naive enough or deluded enough to believe you can ever really "know" someone based on what they post to the Internet, that's like saying you can know a man from his scats and tracks - you can know some of his on-line attributes, assuming he is not disguising them, you cannot though really "know him through technology") as well as unknown factors and quanta.

But why this and not that?

There's a paper in here somewhere dealing with mass personality as expressed through abstract communication modes, as well as several empirical experiments, and maybe even the framework of a few inventions regarding personality and technological applications. I'm sure in some way this relates to God Technology. But I don't have time to screw with all of the possibilities right now.

Nevertheless, now that I have begun ruminating on the subject, it sure is interesting to think about.
I guess I'll come back to this later, just as I'll continue to revisit old sites and blogs I haunt.

I'll come and I'll go and so will you, and one day maybe I'll investigate thoroughly enough to firmly suspect why.

But I guess it's kinda like a good Cold Case.
You'll never really know for sure why it happened until it's solved, and then you'll say to yourself, "Well, hell, I knew that all along, there just wasn't enough evidence yet to pin it down"

Republicans Outnumber Democrats Online

The Glair - Republicans Outnumber Democrats Online

I'm tempted to file this under, "I know what you mean and it's kinda self-evident, but what are you really trying to say anyway?"

I assume the same holds true for nearly all aspects of Internet use; blogging, email, media consumption, general surfing, commerce, communications, technological savvy and usage of technology, writing (as a function of many of the types of usage), etc. Which could explain why Republicans tend to be much better campaigners generally, better fund raisers, and better communicators.

Still, this hasta be cold comfort for Michael Moore.
He's lost another "Big One."

And this time it's really a Big One.

Milblogs II

Signal, Sygnet and Sigil - Milblogs II

I sent the link regarding the Milblogs discussion on Blackfive to an old friend of mine who is an Intel officer, and he asked me to post his response. He wishes to remain anonymous and I have paraphrased his comments.


His response is below:


"Having been both an Intel Office and a Combat Officer I know that the issue of milblogs is a complex one. On the one hand they are an excellent propaganda tool and a method of distributing information to the public, which often has the information it does receive through the media heavily filtered or altered for effect. Yes, milblogs are an important source of real information on the war to millions of Americans. I would not want to shut one down unless absolutely necessary. However, there is one factor you gentlemen have not touched on. That factor is manpower: reviewing of milblogs is a Battalion and Brigade S2 function, and you all know that Battalion and Brigade S2s just don't have enough people assigned to do all the other Intel tasks. Telling us to review all Soldier blogs before they're posted in order to ensure OPSEC is giving tactical S2s a time consuming and realistically impossible task. Some S2s just say no, some don't bother to check, and most of us just do the best with what we've got, which ain't nearly enough. I enjoyed reading the other posts on this issue on Blackfive by the way and thought most of the comments informative and well thought out. Thanks."



Personally, I think that a lot of these problems could be solved as an IT matter simply by developing an application which filters content searching for OPSEC data and either places that data on hold for later inspection (thereby saving officers the need to read posted blogs - they could simply scan content extractions which showed as questionable. Then if the data contains nothing harmful it could allow the full posting to show later (after approval) or it could simply extract or excise harmful data contained in the original post. This seems to me far more easily solved as a technological problem than a political or military one, or even a legal one.

Besides since Milblogs are technological conduits it seems only appropriate that such problems could be rectified not by placing blame upon the soldier or increasing officer workload but simply by having the military tech officers devise an appropriate and effective filtering system and software. You would of course face hacker and security threats at the filtering point but milblogs and other military information systems already face such threats. That's life.


Jack

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/6477601

The BBC and You: Why We Slight

The Glair - The BBC and You: Why We Slight

I thought this was an excellent send up of the BBC on Michelle Malkin's blog.


British Broadcasting Disservice

Milblogs

Signal, Sygnet and Sigil - Milblogs


This is an excellent page on Blackfive regarding a series of comments concerning Milblogs and Milblogging.

I highly recommend this read.


Blackfive and Milblogs

The Exchange - Side Links and Other Sites

The Exchange - Side Links and Other Sites

I'm going to be extremely busy with my other websites, my newsletters, and my portfolios (especially my portfolios) for the next few weeks. As a result I won't be able to make updated and current posts here as often as I'd like (I'll be instead working on the sites listed in the Links in the sidebar), but I will still try to post here. What I've decided to do in the interval is to post things I've written in the past, sometimes for the amusement of friends, but have never posted to this blog (or any blog for that matter). I'm also gonna be posting some pictures I have been taking lately, and scenes from my various Vadding and Rudding expeditions. I thought that for some of my buddies currently still stationed overseas these photos and pics and retellings of old Vadding expeditions might remind them a bit of home.

I'm also gonna be converting my gaming sites to either Wiki websites or blogs and removing them from their third party positions. But that could take some time as well.


In other news today I was notified that my Writing Portfolio is now up on a writing site. My own writing portfolio, the Grapharium (which I'm gonna have to be updating with writing samples from both previously published works and with new works) has already been redesigned and is already up (though incomplete) but this is the first time I have ever posted my portfolio to a third party site. However this site was recommended to me as a site clients frequent in order to secure Freelance Journalistic and Writing talent for contracted assignment. Therefore I'm trying it as a marketing tool, to see how effective, or ineffective it might be, and whether such sites are really capable of delivering new and interesting clients and assignments. Only time will tell and I'll let you know as the experiment proceeds.

The other thing I should mention is that I had a bit of a computing and application disaster the other day. For several days every I connected to the internet my and stayed on awhile my computer would shut down and then reboot, meaning all data for that session and all running files were lost. More inconveniently and perhaps disastrously I was left with a large collection of lost clusters and chains every this happened. My immediate suspicion was that it was my OS since it was a Microsoft product. (And who running Microsoft does not immediately suspect Microsoft when their computer software malfunctions? Truth be told I would be running some version of Linux were it not for incompatibility issues with so many of my clients. Though truth also be told I don't really like any current OS and think them all extremely primitive, inefficient, lacking in capabilities, and just plain useless compared to what should exist as an OS in this time and era. But that's a story for another day.) After about the fifth reboot in a week I got really worried and employed system Restore to a restore point at which I knew the problem was not appearing. But that had no effect. So finally I let Microsoft report the problem and they actually suggested a solution. (I couldn't believe it; they suggested a solution not created another problem.) Anyhwo I was running System Mechanic Pro 5 as a utility suite and it was causing the problem so I downloaded the fix and that took care of the errant rebooting. But the next time I went to open my RSS Reader all of my carefully collected RSS links, and their folders were... gone, gone, gone!!!

I tried searching for deleted files, scanning the registry, used every tracking tool I had but to no avail. I lost over three hundred syndications of websites and blogs that I reread once a week or so through my reader. Gawl dangit I was upset. Now I've had to wipe out my RSS Reader (Sharpreader) altogether because although I in no way blame Sharpreader for the problem, and I'm sure it was a result of the SM5 bug and malfunction, I just can't take the chance of it occurring again and losing all of that data and links. The really frustrating thing is that this weekend I had already planned to do an entire system backup of data including those files but lost them right before that could occur. I have some older backups of many of the links but all of the links I had stored for the past three months or so are now gone along with the new category folders. Wiped out due to a buggy app. Very disgusting. See what I mean about modern computing? Imagine a biological mind where neural networked connections of image or thought clusters could be wiped out merely by another cluster of thoughts malfunctioning, or let's say imagine every scientific idea you had being wiped out or altered every time you tired to have a thought about literature. That kind of thing, where one app endangers or alters or disrupts another unrelated app is simply ridiculous, both from an end-user utilitarian point of view and from a design/engineering point of view. And since most programs function without the need to access anything other than a few simple shared files and by occasionally accessing the OS shell it is even more ridiculous because important data could be protected simply by secreting access from other apps, including utilities (short of anti-viral and spyware utilities of course). You could blanket, shield, or enwrap alterable and important data with internal program data-walls (as I like to call them) and protect them from malfunctions in other apps. By devising such data walls you could also greatly limit spyware intrusions, repress viral infection and vectoring routes, and achieve a whole host of other worthwhile security capabilities. It would be an internal program method of data firewalling and access encryption that would protect run over from the OS, from other apps, and from intruders. And that's hardly the only solution an engineer could devise. But don't get me started on modern OSs, software, and computing, cause the whole structure is as primitive as a kid's walkie-talkie set and I want to put my fist through my monitor whenever I stop to think about the damned situation.

Anyway now I'm using Snarfer and RSS Bandit, both of which I like alot (but RSS Bandit the better) and will be creating duplicate files for each program of all syndication links. In that way if I lose one program and even my back-up files then I'll still have a redundant program as secured back-up. You'd think though that by 2006 this kinda totally stupid and unnecessary computing problem could be avoided by OS makers and by app and utility engineers. But no.

Pesharim - An Update on Operations

Pesharim - An Update on Operations

First of all I would like to express my gratitude to some of those friends, among others, who encouraged me to start blogging; mousestealth, the Brothers Aggresso (both the Major and the birdman), K, and the goddess, to mention a few. I'd also like to thank my wife who encouraged me to seek greater exposure and a larger audience for my writings and other works. Let me also not forget to mention those people, like Big Al, who gave me technical advice and assisted me with research in redesigning my websites and it getting started as a blogger. Your advice and expertise was most appreciated. And lastly I'd like to thank all of those other people who shall remain anonymous because they wish to remain so who have nevertheless encouraged me to put my work and writings on the web. I have come to realize in the past couple of months that not only has blogging been of immense value to my various business projects and endeavors, it has also assisted me with personal projects, current operations, experiments and exposure for my public writings. Of course my private writings will necessarily remain uncirculated except by those who need to see them but otherwise blogging has proven itself to me as a very valuable medium in less than three months time. Combined with my other communications experiments I suspect that blogging will continue to grow as an informational tool for me. I don't know why I didn't start earlier as has been suggested to me numerous times by numerous people, but I guess in the press of other work, and I guess because of my own fears of being unable to control my products I suspected that the effort would lead nowhere good. But I am coming to realize that I was very wrong in my previous assumptions and prejudices.

Secondly I'd like to thank those people who are now reading my various public works on the web with some regularity. My readership is growing, slowly but steadily, and I appreciate it. There would be little to no purpose in presenting and posting my writings and other work without readers. So I appreciate the fact that you are there, visit and view my pages, even when you make no comment. I hope I have put some interesting stuff up so far and hope to greatly increase the variety of interesting material I present as I become more fluent with this method of presentation. I also appreciate those readers who come to my various sites and blogs with the intention of gathering information but have no intention of commenting. To me you are equally important as an invisible and unspoken audience.

Nevertheless I invite any reader to visit this or any of my other sites as they wish, comment on anything they wish if they feel like doing so and feel free to contact me regarding any current, future, or past project which might be of personal interest. Also feel free to link to any of my sites anytime you wish and if you want then send me some information about your site and if you wish I'll be glad to add your link to my List of Other Blogs which appears in the sidebar of nearly all of my blogs and websites.

In the sidebar of all of my sites you will now see that all of my sites, blogs, portfolios, and newsletters are now cross linked. All of the links should be in working order and will navigate you to any place you choose. Email and disseminated newsletters will be similarly cross-linked.

I have developed a modus operandi of how I intend to blog and operate on the web. This method will work in the following way. My on-line portfolios and business sites will be updated when new information is available or as necessary due to on-going projects. Newsletter sites will be updated every time they are published and disseminated in original form, or as corrections or additions are needed. My three newsletters are published ordinarily once a month or so, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, depending upon what is needed and necessary. My writing sites will be updated as soon as new material becomes available and can be presented in a form I feel is edited properly and refined enough for posting. Overall few of my sites and blogs are completed or in anything like a final form I am satisfied with so I will be working as quickly and as hard as possible to put them in a form with which I am satisfied. Also I will be adding new content as soon as possible and other work and circumstances permit.

However this site, The Missal, will be updated two to four times a week or more as time and work permits. Also whenever I update my other sites or run across something of real interest it will be posted here first. So, in effect, the Missal will be the Gateway through which my other sites and work pass in order to become public.

I am therefore looking to blogging as being very helpful in several different but interrelated ways.

It will be helpful with:

Information and Intelligence Gathering
Contacts and Networking: in establishing new contacts, in forming new networks, and in maintaining my old contacts and networks
Business Projects
Personal Projects and Experiments, as well as Political Projects
Gaining Exposure for my Public Writings.

There will be other unmentioned benefits too I suspect. But we'll see how that goes as time passes.

In the near future I plan on finishing some of the posts I've already started here, the multi-part ones, that I have yet to complete.

Also I plan on posting writings on the following subjects:

The Duties and Education of the Renaissance Man - probably to be posted as a multi-part essay in the Opus Magnus.
The Human Suit - probably to be posted as a theory paper in the Opus Magnus.
Individual Education Accounts - to be posted on the Renaissance Academy
Grand Political Strategy - undecided as to where I will post this

I will also be posting some accounts of various criminal cases I have worked in the past and am currently working. But since these will not be modified fictional accounts I will probably just be posting synopses minus real names and place details.

I also intend, now that I'm up and going with this site in posting summaries of some of my Vadding and Rudding Expeditions. (For those of you who do not know, Vadding is a very old hacking term for physical hacking, or what is nowadays termed Urban Exploration. Rudding is a term for Rural Hacking/Exploration. By hacking of course I do not mean cracking.)

I may also establish a public blog whose purpose is to act as a Contact and Information Gateway for people on the internet who would like to establish electronic communications with people in different parts of the world in a more detailed fashion. When I was a teenager I had pen-pals from many different parts of the world, Asia, the Soviet Union, China, Europe, South and Central America, Australia, South Africa, and other parts of Africa. I found these contacts immensely helpful and interesting in many different ways. So if I establish this site it will allow people to establish in-depth communications with people throughout the world, but it will especially be targeted in assisting young people, military personnel, and missionaries in establishing communications, contacts and friends throughout the world. I don't know, I'm gonna have to research this project a little bit and see if such a site is really needed and if so how I might structure and operate it.


In other news I saw JC today at church. He was back from his latest duty station in the Air Force. I got to meet his wife today too, and she is pretty and very nice. JC did well for himself and I'm glad to see he prospers.

My nephew Sean has also finished his Air Force tech training and has shipped out to his tour of duty in Asia. He married before shipping out and I like his wife. She seems like a fine young woman. Sean looks like he is doing very well indeed though I think he lost way too much weight in basic. He was able to attend my grandmother's (his great-grandmother) funeral before shipping out. He and Bear were both pall bearers at the funeral and personally I greatly appreciated this. He was supposed to drop by before bugging out but either he cut out without the drop by or I missed him. But I guess with the packing and everything that has been going on I can't blame him for shipping before seeing me. Anyway because of his duties prayers for his service and safety are greatly appreciated.

One last thing I'd like to mention. Rhys from New Zealand listed some of my blogs in his sidebar section of Friends of a World of Bloggers. I returned the favor by listing his blog in my Links to Other Blogs. His blog is a very interesting site with a very unusual project underway. I think he has one of the more interesting blogging projects on the web along with the Bestest Blog site. Rhys site is called A World of Bloggers. The link is: http://aworldofbloggers.blogspot.com/

As I sit here writing this I'm listening to Handel's Messiah. The music matches my elevated mood at this moment, of how I feel about these recent developments.

So I guess I'm gonna knock off while I'm at the top of my game and go watch The Wild with my daughters. They both swear it's funny.

Links to Other Blogs

LINKS TO OTHER BLOGS

http://americandigest.org/index.php
http://www.globalterroralert.com/
http://gojackarmy.blogspot.com/
http://guardian.blogdrive.com/
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/
http://michellemalkin.com/
http://patriotpostblog.com/
http://cruelkev2.blogspot.com/
http://www.theadventuresofchester.com/
http://beirutspring.blogspot.com/
http://counterterrorismblog.org/
http://thecraic1970unitedstates.spaces.msn.com/blog/
http://billroggio.com/
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/
http://www.windsofchange.net/
http://www.steveambrose.net/woodshed/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.blackfive.net/
http://euphoricreality.com/
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/milblogs/
http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/
http://ace.mu.nu/
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
http://theshapeofdays.com/
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/
http://www.riehlworldview.com/
http://art2day.com.sapo.pt/
http://thinkingaboutart.blogs.com/
http://blogs.chronwatch.com/
http://www.townhall.com/
http://junkyardblog.net/
http://www.op-for.com/
http://www.coxandforkum.com/
http://www.neologies.blogspot.com/
http://theubucon.blogspot.com/
http://the522.blogspot.com/
http://hackosphere.blogspot.com/
http://bestestblogofalltime.blogspot.com/
http://bible1.wordpress.com/
http://aworldofbloggers.blogspot.com/
http://critiquemyblog.blogspot.com/
http://theunitedstatesofbloggers.blogspot.com/
http://stupidcriminalfile.blogspot.com/
http://frombehindbars.blogspot.com/
http://crimesucks.blogspot.com/
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/
http://www.coppersblog.blogspot.com/
http://parkingattendant.blogspot.com/
http://364days.blogspot.com/
http://nateisablog.blogspot.com/
http://richardnshirley.blogspot.com/
http://inanafricanminute.blogspot.com/
http://chrisuggen.blogspot.com/
http://digitalartphotographyfordummies.blogspot.com/
http://www.dcconspiracy.com/
http://daveslongbox.blogspot.com/
http://intangent.blogspot.com/
http://blogoftheday.org/
http://enchiladasblog.blogspot.com/

Publication Schedule

Pesharim - Publication Schedule

In order to better address the various subject matters I write about I have developed a Publication Schedule.

This Publication Schedule will be subject to modification of course if important events intervene. If for instance a truly important public event occurred, or some significantly important personal matter arose then I would modify this publication schedule. Otherwise, I will attempt to follow this schedule of subject matter for posting:


PUBLICATION SCHEDULE

Monday - Politics, Legislative Matters
Tuesday - Science/Technology/Research and Development/Experimentation/Inventions, Judicial Matters
Wednesday - Religion, National Affairs, International Affairs
Thursday - Military and Intelligence Matters/Law Enforcement and Criminal Affairs, War on Terrorism, Executive Matters
Friday - Culture and Popular Culture, Personal Hobbies
Saturday - Art, Science, Religion, Medicine, Vadding and Rudding (Urban and Rural Exploration)
Sunday - Religious and Artistic Matters

Monday Political Appraisal
Tuesday Science and Technology Abstract
Wednesday Religious Assessment
Thursday MCW Briefing (Military/Crime/War)
Friday Cultural Calculation
Saturday A&A Inventory (Artistic and Avocational)
Sunday Summary

DISCUSSION BOARD

Posts, Papers, and Articles involving Humor, Opinions and Editorials, Theory Pieces, Reviews, Criticisms, Business and Economics, Work and Professional Matters will be open to be discussed anytime or as needed.

Sunday is my Sabbath so ordinarily I do not intend to blog or publish on Sundays unless it is really important to do so, but if I do so it will usually be on Religious or Artistic subjects.