The Liquor Talking

Yesterday, we did a short piece on the upcoming SOPA legislation.

Since initially announcing its support for SOPA, domain registrar and hosting provider GoDaddy has become the official whipping boy for the issue. Some pretty big names have jumped ship to include IcanHasCheezburger (home of one of my favorite sites: FailBlog), Imgur.com, reddit.com and even Wikipedia. The latest numbers indicate that more than 72,000 domains have been pulled from GoDaddy in the last week.

Kind of a drop in the bucket for an outfit that manages about 45 million domains, but the point was taken and GoDaddy not only has dropped its support of the bill, but now claims to oppose it.

Still, a Google search for “dump godaddy” yields about 170,000 results.

It’s gonna get real interesting to see how many congresscritters run away from this thing. It’ll be interesting to see if angering The Internet is worth a few hundred million in PAC money.

In other news, it has come to my attention that some bozo is using my nom de guerre in reddit, Facebook and Google+. Some have asked if this is some evil twin, troll-posting sub-personality of mine.

It’s not me.

I’m pretty sure I know who it is and I suppose I should annoyed, but I’m the original Elim Tevir and I put it down to imitation being the most sincere form of flattery.

You’ll never be me, Jonesy.

About two years into my second tour at Malmstrom, we had yet another crew shake-up and being the junior-most crew chief, I was again bestowed with the very dregs of the crew. So it was that I posted out with 5 new (new to me) crew members and an exhortation to “square them away.”

I had just spent the past 8 or so months “squaring away” another crew of n’er do wells and just when I had them all doing what they were supposed to do and (more importantly) NOT doing what they weren’t supposed to, the other crew chiefs ganged up on me. They managed to convince our flight chief that I and I alone was capable of turning their dumbasses into capable airmen. So, each one got to trade one of my “refurbished” guys for one of their boneheads.

Our first tour together was uneventful. I’d gained something of a reputation for performing what was then known as “wall-to-wall counseling” (known today as “assaulting a subordinate”) so they were on their best behavior.

After our return to base, during debrief, it was noted that a once off-limits bar (I think it was called “TJ’s” or something) was no longer off-limits. Being payday and a Friday, this news sent my spider sense into overdrive. I gathered my little numbskulls together in a vacant office and told them in no uncertain terms that I relish not being called in on my break to deal with idiocy conducted on break by my troops.

Doing something stupid out in the field was one thing and I didn’t much begrudge “standing tall before the man” for dumb things that happened afield. Mostly because I could tell “the man” that I had already taken care of the situation and that a repeat was highly unlikely. More often than not, the offending airman stood tall, sporting sundry abrasions and contusions. Only a couple of commanders inquired about the injuries, only to be told “I fell down, sir,”

But for stuff that happened on break, there wasn’t time to apply the disciplinary actions necessary to assure the commander that I had taken care of things and that this particular thing wouldn’t happen again.

So I made it clear that I did not want to see, hear or even know about them for the duration of our break and that I especially did not want to spend any of my break wearing my Sunday, go to meeting uniform in the commander’s office.

Dismissed.

As you can guess, my phone started ringing at 0330, That’s 3:30 in the *@$&) morning to you.

Seems my boys had decided to check out the bar.

This was well before the first Iraq war and not everyone in Great Falls loved US servicemen. The reason that TJ’s was put off-limits in the first place was due to the bunch of redneck, biker assholes who lived there, hated “jetters” and would beat the crap out of any who dared venture into the pace. The new owners of the joint managed to convince the base commander that these people no longer frequented the place and that jetters Air Force personnel were now welcome.

Turns out that the base commander did not get a more clear definition of “welcome.” Jetters were in fact welcome, but only to provide people for the redneck, biker assholes to pick fights with besides each other.

So it was that come 0700, I was in my commander’s office, accompanied by my flight chief and FSO (roughly equivalent to a shift commander) to explain why four members of my crew were cooling their heals in the county joint and why there was a pile of motorcycles in the middle of 3rd Street NW.

Basically, they went to the bar around 10 PM. Shortly after arriving, several redneck assholes decided that they wanted the bar to remain off-limits to military personnel and picked a fight with our young he-rows. They prevailed for a short while, but were soon overwhelmed, enthusiastically beaten and unceremoniously tossed into the parking lot.

They went away, licked their wounds and came up with a plan that demonstrated cunning, stealth and teamwork, the likes of which should make any commander proud, had the plan not resulted in criminal charges.

Seems they returned to the bar a few hours later and parked at the end of a line of motorcycles. They then took a length of sturdy rope and threaded it through the handle bars of the bikes, tying one end off to the end-most bike and the other to the trailer hitch of the truck. They then loaded up and took off.

Sparks flying, they dragged their newly acquired collection of motorcycles from the parking lot. About a quarter of a mile from the bar, they passed a Great Falls cop who was well trained in such things and able to identify a breach of the peace when he spotted one and pulled them over.

For the next few months, this went back and forth between the city cops, the bar owner, the motorcycle owners and the base commander’s office. By the time it was all settled, my airmen wound up with $500 fines and twenty days of “extra duty.” The bar was naturally again placed off-limits.

About 8 months later, we had another crew shake-up and I was again in charge of a new batch of dipshits to bend to my will.

I would like to note that one of the troops involved in the incident went on to complete a 24 year career and retired at the rank of Chief Master Sergeant, the highest enlisted grade. Another was accepted into officer training and recently retired as a Major.

Not sure which scares me the most.