The Commandments of Logic...[humor]

I've considered making this required reading in the courses I teach...

USMC Rules for Engagement

1. Bring a weapon. Preferably, bring at least two weapons. In fact, bring all of your friends who have weapons.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Your life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to use in a gunfight, use a long-range weapon.

Love Your Country [humor]

There is a great line in the movie "Harold and Kumary Escape from Guantanamo Bay".
The President, played by James Adomian, says "You don't have to believe in your government to be a good American. You just have to believe in your country."
Okay, maybe this is just a dumb stoner film... but I still like this quote.

Marine Dictionary: Close Combat Support

According Marine Corps' standards, the following qualify as 'close combat support':

1. When TOWs, Dragons, and other rockets are co-located with your position... and there is no 'rear' to point the rocket blast.
2. When the jets return from the mission with pieces of jungle in their fuselage.
3. When the air support and your larger ground vehicles are competing for use of the same air space.
4. When artillary is used as a direct-fire weapon.
5. When the mortars tubes are co-located with your position and appear to be at vertical.
6. When the Ship's Captain issues the orders, 'Prepare to repel boarders' to the ship's crew.
7. When you keep getting knocked down by the air blast from the M1 tank's main gun.
8. When you have to keep your head down so it doesn't get chopped off by the tail rotor of a Cobra AH-1 helo.
9. When the ejected rounds from your M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) are getting 'caught' in the treads of the tank next to you.

How do you decide to who to marry? (written by kids)

How do you decide who to marry?

You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports,she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming. -- Alan, age 10

No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. -- Kristen, age 10

What is the right age to get married?

Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then. -- Camille, age 10

Joke about Military Retirement Bonus [PG]

This joke has been cleaned up a bit from how I originally heard it... but I still wouldn't repeat it in front of my Grandma. Proceed or not as your own tastes dictate. - BL

Headquarters Marine Corps recently decided that it had too many senior NCOs and implemented an incentive program to encourage early retirement. The most novel aspect of the program is that it promised a bonus of $1,000 for every inch measured in a straight line between any two points in his body. The retiring NCO got to choose what those two points would be.

The first to accept asked that he be measured from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He was measured at six feet and walked out with a bonus of $72,000.

The second who accepted was a little more clever and asked to be measured from the tip of his outstretched hands to his toes. He walked out with $96 ,000.

The third was a grizzled old "Top" who had served in Desert Storm, the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and multiple tours to "denied territory" in between. When asked where he would like to be measured he replied, "From my right thumb to my right butt cheek."

It was suggested by the pension man that he might want to reconsider, explaining about the nice big checks the previous two NCOs had received. But the old "Top" insisted and they decided to go along with him providing the measurement was taken by a medical officer. The medical officer arrived and instructed the "Top" to "drop 'em," which he did. The medical officer placed the tape measure on the tip of the Chief's thumb and began to work back...

"Dear Lord!" he suddenly exclaimed, "Where is your right butt cheek?"

The "Top" calmly replied, "Fallujah."

You might be a big system geek if...

Got this from a colleague of mine:

1. Your machine room is naked eye visible from low earth orbit. This is a nod to Mark Seager at Lawrence-Livermore, who wanted a file system visible from space. We have them now, from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
2. Inside, you need binoculars to see the other end of your machine room.
3. You think a $2M cluster is a nice, single user development platform.
4. You order storage systems and analysts issue buy orders for disk stocks.
5. You measure system network connectivity in hundreds of kilometers of cable/fiber.
6. You dream about cooling systems and wonder when fluorinert will make a comeback.
7. You telephone the local nuclear power plant before you boot your system.
8. You’re already thinking about exaflops.

- Brian