fortsanders.net

See also this video, wherein a North Dakota sheriff's deputy attempts to explain those damn kids today. Oh, the miserable pain!

The Nation:

Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town's neck and his ears stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness, memory failure and depression. By September 2006 he and the Army agreed he was no longer combat-ready.

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder." Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.

So, I got this jury summons (civil court) a few weeks ago, and this Monday was my first day of service. Since I've actually been staying busy with school related work lately, I was not too thrilled about having to spend any number of days in court only to have to get all my own shit done at night. Then at Monday's juror orientation, I learned that my fellow summoned citizens and I were extremely lucky to have been assigned to a rare one-week session instead of the usual two. Not only that, but the court officer and the judge both dropped some major hints at the week's light case load, mentioning several times that civil cases are often settled before reaching court. Yippee! Could I really be so fortunate? Why yes, I can. I just called the juror info line and found out that I don't have to report tomorrow for my final day of service. Many potential days of mindnumbingly boring civic duty were reduced to two hours of mindnumbingly boring civic duty!

My point, I suppose, is that I am awesome and this is freaking sweet.

It was probably the Russian hackers:

Pieces of space junk from a Russian satellite coming out of orbit narrowly missed hitting a jetliner over the Pacific Ocean overnight.

The pilot of a Lan Chile Airbus A340, which was travelling between Santiago, Chile, and Auckland, New Zealand, notified air traffic controllers at Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane about 10pm last night.

I've really been digging Ninja Warrior since bartley mentioned that it started airing on G4 recently. (It's much better than that MXC shit. In fact, there's really no comparison.) The guy in the above video was, I believe, one of the first people to actually complete the entire course. If you have 9 minutes, you should watch the whole thing. It will blow your fucking mind.

Also, this gives me just cause to link to a good ol' fashioned wtf japanese video. That's Nakayama Kinnikun, a supposedly famous TV comic. He's also pretty good at finishing stage 1 of Ninja Warrior, but nothing after that.

Starring Mr. Sulu and... Mr. Sulu

Chad Warren explains why the PS3 is better than the Wii and 360 and don't forget Chad Warren don't give a shit about hundeds, baby.

There is just so much good music in these PT threads.

Researchers have created genetically modified mosquitoes that are resistant to malaria.

See here and here.

California Rep. Pete Stark has recently been identified as the highest ranking elected official to come out of the atheist closet. Somehow, it doesn't seem to have hurt his popularity in his district.

Not only is p2p a threat to national security and starving artists, it's also putting professional pirates out of business.