A budget-cutting measure we can believe in

From a (slightly dated) WaPo article:

Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time? Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.

Let's do it, says I.

I really can't speak at all on the caliber of officers produced by ROTC vs academies vs any other route, so I'll withhold judgement there. I know two guys who are enlisted members of the Army and are both extremely nice, intelligent people. I know two officers, one Air Force via the academy, and one Army via going straight to OCS. Both are extremely nice, intelligent people.

I probably shouldn't speak about Ricks's criticism that most West Point professors don't have doctorates, if only because a not-insignificant number of instructors at my school of choice do not hold doctorates. But at my school something is extremely problematic if your instructor is lecturing, because lecturing has no place on the Program. I don't believe that they use the same approach at any of the service academies, and since the entire approach is much more 'traditional' there than at St. John's, then I don't think it's unreasonable to want your educator to have reached the highest level of education in that field.

Proponents of the academies, in my opinion, claim that the students get a top-notch education at no cost, and you want your future military commanders to be well-educated. I absolutely agree that we want them to have solid educational backgrounds, and I think that if we had higher standards for the military overall we'd have far fewer problems with the military doing stupid things. From the little I know about the academies, the education provided is excellent, if not terribly well rounded*. I also think that someone enrolled in an ROTC program - or, for that matter, simply enrolled - at a respectable college or university will also recieve an excellent education.

Proponents of the academies say that the institutions are excellent training programs and instill honor. Is the implication of this that enlisted soldiers and officers via OCS and ROTC aren't well-trained and honorable? If so, perhaps we ought to fix that post-haste. If not, then that argument falls apart. Also, there may be some debate about the honor bit.

Here's the way I see it, as someone who has admittedly a minimal amount of knowledge from a complete outsider's viewpoint: There are three ways to become an officer in the military - academy, OCS, or ROTC. All of them require a 4-year degree. One of those routes incurs no excessive cost: someone joins the military, applies to OCS, goes and gets trained up as an officer. One of them includes the cost of college tuition - ROTC scholarships, if I'm not mistaken, generally pay near the full cost of even a private-school tuition. And the third option costs the equivilant of an expensive four-year education, and an active-duty paycheck. It also needs to be considered that, unlike ROTC scholarships, the DoD isn't just paying for tuition for students; they're shouldering the entire cost associated with running three full-on colleges**.

So we've got three possible options to become an officer in the military, one of which is cheap, one is kinda expensive, and one is mad pricey. There is not, as far as I'm aware, any conclusive evidence that academy grads are somehow more prepared to serve than other officers nor better at their jobs. And we're the only country which has a program remotely like this, where the military will in fact pay you to go and get a four year degree in exchange for a few years of pushing paperwork around a desk. That in and of itself, I think, ought to be a clue.

I don't expect that the system will significantly change anytime soon - even Obama is content to keep letting the DoD take however the hell much money it wants, regardless of what it's used for (hello, our extremely expensive fleet of fighter jets which are awesome for shooting down those damn red soviets. hello, not including WAR in the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE budget.), but it is nice to at least see someone in a mainstream publication pointing out that there may be some ways to cut some costs very significantly.

Also, I find the idea of enmeshing higher education with military indoctrination to be fairly reprehensible. I really don't like the idea of the same organization which says "well, I guess it's okay to be not-heterosexual, if you have to, but we'd prefer you not mention it. ever, to anyone you work with. and if anyone asks you about your personal life, lie I guess. and don't, you know, have sex or kiss or hold hands or anything gross like that. because if you do and we find out about it we'll fire you because gay people are really kinda gross" also saying, "Yes! We will give you a fine, honorable higher-level education and train you to be one of the best leaders in the world!" absolutely, repulsively hypocritcal. You want to talk about honor? Stop making it illegal to be queer, stop torturing people, stop having your recruiters lie, and stop shooting brown people because they like their boomy skyvoice more than your boomy skyvoice, you jackasses.

*Granted, sometime in the past five years I've developed the horrible mindset of seeing any sort of remotely sepecialized education as not well-rounded, so make what you will of that.
**Maybe four? I admit that I don't have a clue who exactly pays for the Coast Guard academy, as they're a military academy but the Coast Guard is recently run by DHS since we decided boats aren't transportation anymore, but I think that a lot of their money comes from the defense budget, so I'm not even going to try to understand. Also the Coast Guard apparently doesn't do ROTC, but really I think that there's like six hundred people in the entire Coast Guard and all they do is change lightbulbs on buoys, so I'm really content to ignore on. I have no grudge with the Coast Guard.

Arlen Specter (D-PA)

Pennsylvania's got itself a new Democrat in the Senate.

Personally I think that if his gripe is that he hasn't been representing the Republican party, as per the article, then he ought to either resign because he's not doing his job, or just drop party affiliation altogether and be an independent. Then again, I personally wouldn't shed at a tear if the entire two-party system we have collapsed into rubble.

If the Dems get Franken in (sidenote: JESUS CHRIST HE WON AND IT'S ALMOST MAY LET IT GO ALREADY), they've got the much-coveted 60-seat majority in Senate, which practically speaking means...well, not a damn thing, since Democrats tend to be spineless cowards who are afraid to actually do anything lately, and really Specter's not going to be much of an asset to those few who are still truly liberals in Congress.

So, interesting, but really doesn't mean much of a change.

(also, countdown until Specter and Lieberman go off and form their own "we're crazy and the worst goddamn democrats in the universe!" party together.)

NYC sees plane, freaks out

It took me forever to get through to the NYTimes website, because today EVERYONE IS INCREDIBLY STUPID.

The Department of Defense decided - I guess because they're being threatened with actually being required to stick to a remotely reasonable budget - decides they need some neat new photographs of their people doing their thing. They do so by taking a 747 and a fighter jet (or two?) out gallivanting above Manhattan. And by 'gallivanting above' I mean '150 feet above the ground'.

Okay, questionable use of government resources but not to stupid. But, um.

Local authorities were told not to disclose information about this morning's flyover, the New York City Police Department said in a statement.

"The flight of a VC-25 aircraft (the military version of the 747) and F-16 fighters this morning was authorized by the FAA for the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it but to direct any inquiries to the FAA Air Traffic Security Coordinator," police said.

...Brilliant idea! Way to prevent panic, because there's no conceivable way that a low-flying plane in New York City could possibly bring up some unpleasant memories of some other low-flying planes.

And so naturally, the population of the metro NY area decided that instead of watching and determining that the plane was not flying into buildings - intentionally or not - and going about their business, they evacuated buildings and, as far as I can gather, freaked the hell out.

Now, I'm not saying that a bit of freaking out was not justified. Low-flying planes in the region have a history of, at best, landing in the middle of a river, and at worst killing a very large number of people. Particularly if I'd been in Manhattan on September 11, 2001, and then I saw a similar plane flying similarly low in the same place, I'd be kind of startled.

I'd say that a more appropriate reaction would have been to call the police, preferably the non-emergency number, and ask what's up with that plane - if you see fighter jets next to it there's a chance someone knows what's going on - but on the other hand, the police apparently were instructed not to say anything, because...well, I'm sure that at some point there was some vaguely rational-seeming reason in someone's mind, but damned if I can find it.

Seriously, this is one of the stupidest damn things I've seen in a long while.

Some good news items

Apparently, someone with lots of money is going around giving huge anonymous donations to universities run by women. Not even the financial people at the chosen schools know who it is, so there's really no reason to doubt that the donor's stated motive of making a difference to the students is phony.

The Phillies have had a not-awful season thus far, and are currently wrapping up a three game series against the Marlins in which they engaged in a bit of a 9th-inning slugfest, in game one turning being down 3-0 into a 7-3 win. As I type this they are finishing up the third game and have decided to stop screwing around with coming from behind, and are up 8-1 in the top of the 8th. I like it when the Phillies get a lead early on and hold onto it.

Argh

From the education section of an online job application: "Please describe your area of specialization or other education details. Please do not exceed 1000 characters."

*sigh*

Attack dog

Today in the cafeteria I saw a Santa Fe police officer, with a police dog.

The dog was a Golden Retriever.

The Santa Fe Police Department has a Golden Retriever. If you were to ask me to pick one breed of full-size dog that is probably most useless in any conceivable police situation, it could well be a Golden.

And no, I have no idea why the cops were in the college cafeteria with their fierce attack Golden.

Just nice

Well, I'm a bit late with it, but there's a video of a 47-year-old Scottish woman who is arguably one of the coolest people in the world. She's auditioning for Britain's Got Talent, which apparently is like American Idol/Pop Idol only marginally less tedious because people do things other than sing.

Ms. Boyle sings, though. I didn't want to watch it at first, because I hate it when they're mean to people, and...well, she's twice the average age on that show, never married, lives alone with her cat, has never performed, is not stylish, etc. She walks out on stage and you just know it's going to be painful.

Here it is.

When she starts (around the 2 minute mark if you want to skip the crap at the beginning), everyone seems to take a moment to go...'oh, hey, hold up.' Because she's good. She's not a perfect singer, she certainly doesn't sound like a pro, but - well, she sure as hell is better than I am, if nothing else.

And then at about the four minute mark, you can absolutely see Simon suddenly realize how much they can market her for, and he just swoons. Literally, he swoons like a lovestruck 16-year-old girl who just got asked to the prom.

Huh

Looks like something kind of questionable is going on at Amazon.

As if it wasn't hellacious enough working customer support for Amazon.com on Easter, the online book store's reps must now explain why gay romances (and other books) are too "adult" to rank.

Straight romance like Jackie Collins and straight porn like this book of Playboy centerfolds is still ranked on Amazon.

But not the homosexul stuff: Gay romance publisher Mark Probst noticed hundreds of such books lost their rankings over the past two days, including Transgressions, about a 17th century liaison between a cavalry trooper and a farmer's son, and False Colors, about a 19th century naval lieutenant attracted to his commanding officer.

Hmm.

Vermont legalizes gay marriage

First Iowa, now Vermont. Hooray!

Hey!

The world delivers a bit of good news on a day when I could really use it!

The Iowa Supreme Court this morning upheld a Polk County judge’s 2007 ruling that marriage should not be limited to one man and one woman.

The ruling, viewed nationally and at home as a victory for the gay rights movement and a setback for social conservatives, means Iowa’s 5,800 gay couples can legally marry in Iowa beginning April 24.

There are no residency rules for marriage in Iowa, so the rule would apply to any couple who wanted to travel to Iowa.

Good job, Iowa!

My thoughts on senior math, condensed

Dearest Lobachevsky,

BITE ME.

Sincerely,

A Student