Euro-English

One of my friends emailed me this.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the forth yer peple wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Horse Quote

Saw this horse quote on the Internet today:

"Riding is the art of keeping a horse between you and the ground."

Ain't that the truth.

Horsefeathers

There is something in the genetic makeup of a horse that makes it a raving lunatic, out to either destroy itself or the people around it. I don't know what it is, or why it is, but I'm absolutely convinced that it's genetic.

On Sunday, I was planning to ride Biscuit after plucking all those thistles from his mane and tail, and getting all the dried-on mud off the rest of the horse. I've found that a simple shedding blade makes mud removal quick and easy, and that a dog's undercoat rake is an excellent tool for pulling thistles, although using a metal comb on a horse's tail goes against everything I have been taught. (I come from the German school of riding where new riders spend many hours mucking stalls and grooming horses before ever being allowed to be on a horse.)

After grooming, I brought the saddle, saddle pad, and bridle outside and tacked up. Mary had warned me that Biscuit tends to get a little bit cinchy when he is saddled, but didn't specify exactly as to how that shows itself. The last cinchy horse I rode, Ariel, would turn her head and attempt to bite me during saddling, and I was expecting similar behavior from Biscuit. Apparently, his preferred method of acting out when being saddled is to stand stock still, then suddenly jump forward. Which was surprising but I guess it beats getting bitten.

I cinched the girth up slowly, walked Biscuit around the round pen a bit, cinched it some more, and repeated the whole ordeal about five times until the girth was tight and Biscuit was relaxed. Then I ever-so-gracefully put my foot in the stirrup and mounted. Biscuit stood perfectly still.

At just about the time I had placed my right foot in the stirrup and taken up the rains, he must have decided that standing still was not what he wanted to do, but neither was going forward. I suddenly found myself atop a horse that was going very quickly backward, which has never happened to me before. My first (and only) thought was, "Oh, good, he's going to back right into the side of the round pen, freak out, and buck me off in the process." Fortunately, at some point another part of his brain must have kicked in, because he stopped short of hitting the side and spun around sideways, lining himself up with the side of the ring. Amazingly, I managed to hang on, but I would have preferred to simply skip the whole intro and go right to the part where I ride smoothly.

Yesterday, I took the day off work, and since I was home I headed out to the pasture to catch both Tyson and Biscuit and groom them, since I didn't have a chance to groom Tyson on Sunday and Biscuit has already picked up a few thistles in his tail again, though not nearly as bad as they had been. Catching them is easy because they know I have treats and will gladly come to me. I put the halter on Tyson and took him into the round pen to groom, which is really the only place I can groom because it's the only place I can tie him with the lead rope.

I tied the lead rope with the usual quick-release slip knot, and Tyson was actually quite well-behaved while I plucked thistles from his mane, got all the mud off him, and started on his tail. Then, of course, he somehow managed to get his head underneath the lead rope. How he did this, I have no idea, because I make it a point to tie with a relatively short rope, but he managed all the same.

Having the rope over his head, of course, freaked him out because he now couldn't raise his head, and, needless to say, it was going to eat him! So here is the big idiot, pulling back, rearing up, and pulling the entire side of the round pen with him, with me making a desperate attempt to reach the slip knot so I could release it, and unable to reach it for fear of getting trampled, knocked down by the fence (which is moving toward me at an alarming rate), or squished between freaked-out horse and fence.

At about the same time as me finally reaching the rope, he managed to pull his head out of the halter, and trotted to the other side of the round pen, as if nothing had happened. I spent the next half hour putting the panels back into their original positions, then caught him and released him back into the pasture. Grooming was definitely done for the day.

It's just not a good day unless a horse tries to kill you. Or himself.

Random Idiocy

President Obama believes that Americans who chose not to purchase health insurance after he has pushed through his health care reform plan, should be punished, either by fines or other penalties. The Congressional Budget Office actually estimates that, in the ten years after introducing the health care reform, approximately $167 billion will be collected in fines.

Which brings up two thoughts:

One, people who chose not to get health care usually do so because of the cost. They figure that the money is better used on things they need to keep their head above the water, such as heat in the house and food on the table. Fining them for not having health insurance will do ... what, exactly? Put them deeper into the hole than they already are? Force them to chose between health insurance premiums or sending their kids to bed hungry?

And two, if it's so very likely that people would pay fines rather than elect to purchase the health care plan, what exactly is wrong with the health care plan?

...

Marko has an excellent post about Californian Steve Burton, who thought it would impress his former high school classmates if he turned up at the reunion wearing a Marine Corps officer's uniform with a fancy assortment of ribbons.

Marko's post expresses my thoughts on the situation quite well, so I won't comment on it myself, but the article to which he links brings up this quality piece of reporting:

However, an Internet search showed several medals -- or possibly replicas -- for sale online, despite a law banning their advertisement or sale. Even if a medal is a replica, wearing it still violates federal law, Akrotirianakis told CNN.

CNN, and many others who like to cite the Stolen Valor Act, may want to read it a little more thoroughly and actually understand it prior to commenting, because the Stolen Valor Act does not actually forbid the advertising or sale of military medals online or offline, nor does it forbid the possession of military medals by collectors or family members of deceased servicemen.

As Senator Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, explains:

Although the new law modifies title 18 USC, section 704, it does not impact the legitimate purchase, sale, or possession of medals. The key part of this passage is the phrase, "except when authorized under regulations made pursuant to law." That exception refers to 32 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), section 507. I believe the concerns raised by collectors and dealers of military medals and memorabilia may stem from lack of familiarity with the CFR and its relationship to statutory law. The CFR is the regulation that implements and administers statutory provisions, in this case, the provisions of 18 USC section 704 as amended by the Stolen Valor Act.

There are some exceptions, most obviously the Medal of Honor, which may not be manufactured by anyone other than the US Government, nor may it be sold by anyone or worn by anyone who was not awarded it. Although it is certainly possible for military museums to get one for display purposes - we've got one at Magrath Gym on base, named after Medal of Honor recipient PFC Charles D. Magrath.

So, yes, an Internet search for military medals would turn up a lot of websites that sell them, quite legally, as they can legally be sold and purchased. How does CNN imagine soldiers build their ribbon racks for their dress uniforms? Most soldiers order them online, from sites such as Medals of America, as they come pre-assembled, ready to wear, and, on the whole, a hell of a lot cheaper than purchasing them at the AAFES-run clothing sales on base. (Don't get me started on AAFES. For the Soldiers, my ass!)

Veterans Day

I didn't get a chance blogging on Veteran's Day, as I normally do every year, because I was working at the museum yesterday. While most people enjoyed their day off, we were here, ready to walk visitors through the history of the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum.

It was a beautiful day, too - sunny and, for the tome of year, even relatively warm.

The only thing that kind of put a dent into my day was the fact that, as soon as we entered the base, we started being followed by a military police vehicle. I would change lanes, he would change lanes. I would turn, he would turn. After about five miles, that got to be just a little bit annoying, especially since he made no effort whatsoever to pull me over, and, to the best of my knowledge, I wasn't doing anything wrong.

As it turns out, the gate guard had sent them after us once we'd passed the gate, believing that we were terrorists who were trying to "pass our vehicle off as a military vehicle" and telling them that it has signs claiming it was an official Fort Drum vehicle. Really? Do they hire blind gate guards now? Because that would be the only way someone might mistake an electric lime green 2005 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited for a "military vehicle" of any kind, particularly considering it has Virginia license plates, a current inspection sticker and a base sticker on it. Just saying.

The MPs thanked us for being "good sports" about being followed and asked about the vehicle, told us they thought it was nonsense, especially after running the plates, and wondered aloud what in the heck the gate guard had been thinking. But I'm annoyed all the same. We've gone to a point where nobody will say anything when an American-born Muslim can make outlandish statements (and even threats) in front of his colleagues, because that would be racist, but they'll have an MP vehicle follow us because some moron thinks it "looks like a military vehicle."

Go figure.

It was actually pretty fun at the museum yesterday, though, once the MP's left and we actually got inside the building. We didn't have a whole lot of visitors, although we did break forty (a good number, considering our average daily visitor count), and we even got a couple of people to write notes to deployed soldiers, which was our Veteran's Day project.

For the past week, we've had a table set up at the front of the museum, providing free cards, stationery and pens, even drawing paper and crayons for the kids, for people to write messages to "Any Soldier" deployed overseas. Tomorrow evening, we'll collect all of these and then they'll hit the mail Saturday.

The problem with this was that people, apparently, can't be bothered to write something as simple as "Thank you" on a free post card, and after having the table up for a week, we'd gotten five cards, four of which were from our staff. It was very disappointing, to say the least. This week, we decided to try and step it up a little by posting to our museum's Facebook, inviting people to leave a message there, and we'd copy it to a card and post it. I received one response to that on my Facebook and none on the museum's Facebook, so I eventually posted it to the dog forums I go to as well, where people were a little more responsive and we did manage to fill out a couple of cards with the comments and words of support that were left.

The overall response, however, was very disappointing.