What You Missed If You Didn’t Read Today’s NYTimes

No need to worry about poor and elderly minorities being disenfranchised by new Voter ID laws. They’re disenfranchised by death before it becomes a problem, according to the Bush administration’s civil rights czar.
The Marines get fashion conscious.
The Maine Middle School Contraceptive Controversy: “It brings home the fact […]

Oops:

The Army, Navy and Air Force unwittingly advertised for recruits on a website for gays, who are barred from military service if they are open about their sexual orientation.
When informed Tuesday by USA TODAY that they were advertising on GLEE.com, a networking website for gay professionals, recruiters expressed surprise and said they […]

What you missed if you didn’t read today’s The New York Times:

In a story detailing problems with the Bush administration push for Medicare enrollees to utilize private plans for the new drug benefit comes this nugget:

In March, Sierra Health Services ended drug coverage for more than 2,300 Medicare beneficiaries with H.I.V./AIDS, saying they had not […]

[Hotel Tango: The D-Ring]

When my father, and later I, was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base, C-130s sang me to sleep at night from the runway across from our house (and, later, my dorm).
A new report says it’s “The Best Military Aircraft Ever.” (Warning: PDF)
Which is probably true: It’s a highly versatile aircraft — performing duties as […]

I like McBlogger, but, unfortunately, it’s made itself into one of the many jackasses that have felt it necessary to comment on something it has no knowledge about.
Opinions are one thing. Actually paying close attention and then voicing an opinion is another. Stick to state politics, Mickey B.

But I didn’t get this till today:

Whereas President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 on July 26, 1947, to realign and reorganize the Armed Forces and to create a separate Department of the Air… (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)
HCON 207 EH
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 207

[…]

I completely agree with Abu Muqawama:
Abu Muqawama has always been a big fan of the late French intellectual Raymond Aron. Aron, writing in his newspaper column for Le Figaro, believed it was the responsibility of the public intellectual to make a careful study of the issues at hand — economics, military strategy, etc. — before […]

Ever wonder what being Tasered felt like or sounded like? Check out this video obtained by PETA from the U.S. Air Force showing the effects of Tasers on pigs.
Awful.
[Hotel Tango: Danger Room]

The sounds of these guys (and what I thought were KC-135 medevacs but may have actually been C-9s) on the runway across the street and golf course from my house on Keesler Air Force Base, Miss. sang me to sleep at night:

The Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters are currently deployed to St. Croix in the […]