Afghan air guitar

Some good air guitar in this video, along with great editing. Soliders haming it up has been a great way to burn off the stress and build good memories.

Office of the Tooth Fairy

So my oldest lost one of her baby teeth the other day, she put it under her pillow, but wanted to write the tooth fairy a note, so with my wife’s help she wrote a note that told the tooth fairy that she had purposely put the tooth at the edge of the pillow so it was easier to find and she wanted to thank them for all their hard work gathering these teeth. She was also curious as to what they did with them.
Next morning the tooth and note were gone and money was in their place instead. She was disappointed that there was no note from the tooth fairy. However next day an official looking letter arrived in the mail and here is the contents:



Office of the Chief Fairy Godmother

From: Faylinn, Chief Tooth fairy Coordinator, Northern Division
Fairyland, far, far away
PO bx 002340000

To: XXXX
Re: Your note left with tooth

Dear XXXX
Thank you for your note that our agent, Senior Field Tooth Fairy Latanya discovered with your tooth. We do appreciate the efforts you took to assist us in collecting your tooth and hope you find the compensation adequate. As a department we would like to thank you for your kind words about our service, which rarely gets the credit it deserves. To this end we will post your letter into the lunch room so all the Fairies can see it.

Normally we do not discuss the end use of the teeth we collect, however I placed a call with Santa Clause Foundation and a check of their records indicate that you are indeed a good girl and worthy of our time.

Our dedicated team of tooth fairies collect children’s first set of teeth that are placed under pillows, these teeth are collected from around the world. As children are generally kind, innocent and sweet, their teeth absorbs all these qualities and therefore have powerful magical properties. The teeth are ground into a powder that is mixed with other secret ingredients to produce fairy dust. No doubt a bright young lady like yourself is likely aware that we need this dust to fly and carry out our other good works.

Our records show that this is the 2nd tooth that we have collected and we look forward to collecting more of your wonderful teeth as your new set comes in. On another matter we understand that your father has recently had a tooth extracted. While you might think that adult teeth would be even better for our purposes, we find they are generally large, heavy and with minimal magical properties. However if your father was to send the tooth postage paid to the address on the letterhead, we will accept and find a use for it.

Yours Forever and day
Faylinn


P.S. Keep brushing those teeth!!!

Right Interviews - Lawyer Edward Burlew Discusses Gun Issues

Be prepared to be outraged, it’s an incredible story, it is 11 minutes long and there is strong language in the surveillance tapes that is not work or child safe.

Attack of the killer eggs

Apparently the latest threat to US security is Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs. A lady from Winnipeg bringing some over the border found out she was “smuggling contraband” She was nearly fined $300, but let off with a warning. Now she has received a 7 page letter advising her of the seizure and that she can challenge it. It would be interesting to see how far the US government would go to defend their seizure of a $2 chocolate egg that is apparently is a major threat to children who might choke on the toy. Based on this logic, bringing a portable swimming pool across the border must be a Capital offence.

CBC article here

Free divers

Free diving is a sport where one dives with no equipment other than a bodysuit, monofin and determination. As a scuba diver, I have a fair amount of respect for these people and what they can achieve and have had a close friend involved for a number of years in the sport. I do have some serious concerns about the implications of the effects of competition will have on peoples judgment. To be fair to the sport organizers, they will disqualify people who show effects after a competitive dive, which helps to limit the long term damage that could be done.
I do think that any serious scuba diver can learn useful stuff from free divers and the sports can compliment each other. Here is a read on a local girl who is seriously into the sport.

Politics and the Schizophrenic’s Language

I was going to do a post on the nutbar that shot Congresswoman Giffords, but this blogger summed it up better than I could.

It’s now a major secondary story in the Giffords shooting: who or what’s to blame for the carnage? It began almost as soon as the story broke, when fingers were pointed quite prominently even before anything was known about the shooter except that he was a young man, and that he had been taken into custody.

The anti-gun contingent sprang to action almost immediately, as did the anti-Palin faction and a particular loud-mouthed Democratic sheriff, in marked contrast to the pleas from the MSM and the left for verbal restraint in speculating about the motives of the Fort Hood killer.

Almost all the blaming in the Giffords shooting comes from the left against the right. And this despite the fact that Giffords, a Blue Dog Democrat, could just as likely have been a political target of either side, since she stands roughly in the middle.

It would be easier to judge the finger-pointers as impartial if they were equally incensed against rhetoric and images from the left as from the right. A display of evenhandedness would at least serve to establish some sort of arguable sincerity. For example, when campaigner Obama advised supporters to bring a gun to the fight if the opposition brought a knife, wouldn’t he have been to blame, too, for upping the ante?

Or do mere words lack the power to ignite acts such as Saturday’s shooting? (If one is to believe a friend of Loughner’s, the killer himself thought that “words mean nothing.”) And if mere words have no such power, what does?

Read the rest here

Road work Afghan style

Never a dull day being a Combat Engineer in Afghanistan. It’s tedious and demanding work. The Engineers have to be right every time, the Taliban only have to be right once to succeed.

via Castle Arrggh