this is a list of visits to my site and their respective regions...i found this information extremely exciting....Luxembourg in the house?!? 1. US Commercial 609 28.19 % 2. Network 357 16.53 % 3. US Educational 87 4.03 % 4. Canada 50 2.31 % 5. United Kingdom 35 1.62 % 6. United States 24 1.11 % 7. Australia 21 0.97 % 8. Non-Profit Organization 18 0.83 % 9. Netherlands 16 0.74 % 10. Germany 13 0.6 % 11. US Government 12 0.56 % 12. Sweden 12 0.56 % 13. France 12 0.56 % 14. US Military 10 0.46 % 15. New Zealand (Aotearoa) 7 0.32 % 16. Norway 7 0.32 % 17. Italy 6 0.28 % 18. Spain 6 0.28 % 19. Singapore 5 0.23 % 20. Belgium 5 0.23 % 21. Finland 4 0.19 % 22. Saudi Arabia 4 0.19 % 23. Malaysia 3 0.14 % 24. South Africa 3 0.14 % 25. Romania 2 0.09 % 26. Denmark 2 0.09 % 27. Switzerland 2 0.09 % 28. Argentina 2 0.09 % 29. Russian Federation 2 0.09 % 30. Austria 1 0.05 % 31. Chile 1 0.05 % 32. Philippines 1 0.05 % 33. Greece 1 0.05 % 34. Latvia 1 0.05 % 35. Iceland 1 0.05 % 36. Luxembourg 1 0.05 % 37. Korea (South) 1 0.05 % 38. Poland 1 0.05 % 39. Croatia (Hrvatska) 1 0.05 % Unknown 814 37.69 %

that's wonderful (nurse! up the lithium!)

I am disappointed not to see Liechtenstein. And don't kid yourself, "Unknown" is a cover for Vatican City.

lithium? try a morphine drip...that seems to hold on longer

i'm amazed there was a seperate category for new zealand and australia.... YAY

US Military is not me. I haven't gone to your site from work.

i get paranoid when i see US military or gov't

don't. they're just there to ogle your wife. it's US Educational and Non-Profit you should worry about.

she was raised in Fayetteville NC, home of fort bragg 81st airborne. she got cat calls from GIs as early as 12 years old, the sick pigs...i am not surprised by that mister droopy there is also a lot of nazi's in that town too...avoid that place at all costs

Some of those gov't hits are me on lunch.

you work for the gov't of which you are so critical of or did i miss something? thanks for stopping by though! :->

I work several steps removed indirectly for the gov't. And it's something I approve of.

my wroking fo rthe govt is a temp deal, but iget to actually have federal holidays off, which is pretty weird. Being immersed at times with GI's, there's a lot I don't approve of, but there's also a lot I admire as well. Those guys really get things done when they need to. And it's given a sense of purpose to folks who would've drifted otherwise (like my best friend from HS). On the other hand, the attitudes about homosexuals and women suck, and the whoel duality between civilian/military is sort of frightening, even more so when you find out that it's the same mentality cops have.

I think that the military should be subject to state and federal laws and not internal prosecution. That shit is scary.

i was reading an article in Penthouse with some former general about the lack of readiness in our army. when it comes to defense spending the guys at the navy and air force are more likely to get more dollars for the simple fact that they can baboozle and enchant them with high tech jets and so on. it's easier for them to justify 1 billion for 10 jets for the airforce where the airforce can hide costs in a supersonic jet, whereas it's difficult for the army to hide costs in a $20,000 hum-v but yet they need thousands of them. Also the large contracters such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Pratt-Wittney line the pockets of defense officials and congress. Where as smith and wesson or who ever it is that manuf. the armies thousands of m-16s may not be able to line them as deep. in short the army is falling behind, the attitudes since vietnam, the lack of acceptance of causualties by the american publicm the pussiness of bill clinton has overall weakend our armed forces, the army taking the biggest brunt. we have deduced our military spending by 30% in ten years where as china,israel n. korea, india have increased theirs by 70% all in the last 10 years. this guy also advocated the peacetime draft, and especially for women too. He also said we should nto be spednign our respources as peackeepers, we should let countries like Germany, France, Australia and other smaller forces hadble that shit because it drains our supplies. he said if we had gone into Kosovo full force with 100,000 troops, literally blown the top of them, then it would have neded alot quickler and Milosivic would have given head way a lot quicker and peace keepers would be suchb an essential item i dunno, this guy had a lot to say and it makles sense but only in a world i want nothing to do with fuel for the consiprators

The US is spending too goddamn much on the military. Readiness for what? We're militarily the most powerful nation in the world and half of the planet is essentially US colonies. Nobody is going to fuck with this country. If this country were invaded, I would enlist in a heartbeat, but that's bullshit. There are people starving in this country, not to mention countries in which we have fucked up the infrastructure/government so badly that the conditions are atrocious (the US has its fingers in all sorts of ugly shit in the third world... for more, read "The Umbrella of US Power" by Noam Chomsky). I think we should be more worried about feeding the people who ARE dying (many of whom are probably dying because of the insatiable cash demands of the US military-industrial complex) than about an invasion that will never happen. (Woo-hoo... I'm probably going to get flamed by my own boyfriend for this one. Don't worry, Lather, I'll still love you, but that doesn't mean I'll go any easier on you)

yeah yeah yeah lucy, we all know this......BUT there has been flirting of an alliance between India, China and Russia, NOW YES we are still the super power, but these countries have nothing to loose, if we were to go to war with any three of these countries at one OR seperately, it wouldn't be as easy as you think. Look how long they had to bomb Yugoslavia and even NATO now admits they only like 30-40% of their targets. They ran out of supplies, never used the million dollar apaches they sent over there. We are not as ready as you think. An invasion on US soil is unlikely, but what is more fearful is the possibility that the US throws itself into a war abroad that upsets China, Russia or anyone else like that. Now again, all of this is in a context I do not readily recognize to begin with, so god love chomsky, i don't disagree with any of those philosophies, but just play devils advocate for a minute, it's kinda fun....

"We're militarily the most powerful nation in the world " not for long. france is technically superior to the US. they might not have the numbers, but they have the technology. china has the numbers. and all of our technology, apparently. we're on a fragile thread. we'll see the fall of the US soon. and i'll be ready.

i think congress is starting to react, and pretty soon with a new president, military spending will be on the rise. I found it interesting that Israel sold technology to China recently as well. Making them capable of launching air offensives. They basically are getting the technology comparable to our AWACS system. Lucy, you and I know what the right thing to do is, BUT that will not stop American dominance. We now have a position in Russia's back door, Kosovo. I suspect we may go to war over Chechnya and or the Ukrain in the next 20 years. Russia wants their sea ports back and obviously will do anything to get it. However I also think countries like China and Russia stand to loose of lot in terms of economy by attack the US. As I understand things, Russia would starve without US aid and US grains. China stands to prosper too much from trade with America, hence their push for the WTO. I dunno, something is brewing and all of this economic prosperity we have had in the last 8 years will be used to fund the next major "crisis".

As nobody who's posted on this thread has ever been in the military, or apparently been to any of these countries, I'm not even going to get into any kind of discussion about any of the wrongheaded things being bandied about. Except for Kosovo being "in Russia's backdoor." Garcon, map please, with a side of goepolitics.

good for you, What I meant by "backdoor", was aside from Turkey, I don't believe the US military or "NATO" has a foothold in eastern Europe. So yes, Kosovo was important for the US from that standpoint. Other than the Black Sea, nothing seperates that foothold from directly bordering Russia and the it's now independent states. Except Romania, Bulgaria and maybe Poland to the north. Also, given the Orthodox Chrisitian heritage which Serbia aligns itself with Russia, we are mighty close to Russian "territory" as well. The Serbs look to the east while the "ethnic" muslims look west for alignment. So now we have a legitimate reason for have personnel station there, expect us to get a few air strips in return for our assitance and aid. I have never been gay either but I can still talk about it......it's ok though i got some maps and a list of military installations for your reference Russian & Caucasus maps http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/commonwealth/Russian_Env96.jpg military installations worldwide http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/installations/ Kosovo maps http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Kosovo.html

i died in 'nam.

to further gab on the matter (because it's interesting to me) do you think Russia would had been so vehemently opposed to our actions in Kosovo had the exact circumstances been in say.......somewhere in Africa or South America? They may have issued a few press releases stating their opposition to it but that's about it, I think. Do you think when, the agreement was finally reached regarding the admittance of the peacekeepers, that it was a "miscommunication" that Russian troops made a beeline for the airport in Pristina. Of course not, they did that intentionally. They wanted their forces to be the first to be seen after the bombing. It was sort of political and public rally type thing to bolster public support for their presence. The whole Kosovo thing was an indirect stab at Russian integrity as a dying super power. We took one more step towards world dominance in the name of democracy and Russia could do nothing but send envoys, a couple of reconnaissance ships in the Mediterranean Sea and issue statements strongly opposing the actions of NATO. Of course they were opposed to it because "NATO had acted without the UN approval". It certainly wasn't their concern for human rights, as their current actions in Chechnya prove. However they see Chechnya as an internal matter, they do not regard Chechnya as a separate state. Just like Yugoslavia didn't regard Kosovo as a separate state.

i stand behind everything i said about soldiers being horny motherfuckers - i'm the bastard child of a soldier.

visiting my wife's hometown will confirm that.....

i get one guy from fcc.gov and one guy from usda.gov hitting my personal site nearly every single day. also, i've never been in the military, but i live in the biggest military world intersection, if that counts for anything.

Patrick- you've never been gay? *GASP* I thought everyone had been at one time. Markus- Go get em! I'd like a Margarita, Frozen, no-salt, with that side of geopolitics please.

Put it down to surliness and only three minutes left on the library machine. But where I'm coming from is a professional degree in Soviet and East European Studies, services as a US Naval officer, and two and a half years in the former Yugoslavia having every mofo clamoring to sputter his side fo the story to me. There's one hell of a lot of nuanced stuff to be discussed on any of the above topics, but I'm not going to go to the bother of typing any of it in response to stuff dashed off in one of seven dozen forums. I regret being provoked into the one statement that I did make. But since I'm on that ride...."Other than the Black Sea, nothing separates that foothold from directly bordering Russia and it's now independent states. Except Romania, Bulgaria and maybe Poland to the north." Yeah, all those aren't very significant. But when you throw in Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia, Moldova, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Hungary, it's starting to look like perhaps not Russia's back door. (Which would presumably be near Vladivostok, anyway.) One topic briefly mentioned above which concerns me is the civilan/military divide. However, it's not a result of some military plot; conversely, it results from an increasing trend of us and them from the civilian world, dating back to the end of the draft. This growing disconnect bodes ill for a democracy. I agree with some of what the poster formerly known as Waffleboy is saying, as well as others. But some of the rest of it contradicts the other parts. But if you're getting your opinions on defense procurement and readiness from Penthouse, you're not really interested in trying to learn objectively and in depth. Which there's nothing wrong with. I'm the most insatiably curious guy I know of, and there are hundreds of topic about which I couldn't care less, so I don't bother to educate myself regarding them. I just don't tout my opinions on those subjects, as I have none that mean anything.

see, thats what i wanted, lay it on me, i don't claim to know it all but I do juggle to and fro what i read here and there. The interview in Penthouse was with a former Brig General of the Army, I can't find anything online other than smut, I'll get his name to establish a little credability. I wish you would educate us "I just don't tout my opinions on those subjects, as I have none that mean anything." WHO DOES HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY MEANINGFUL AROUND HERE? last i checked it's all selfish mubo jumbo. I hate that you regret posting anything at all. Since you created this place it would be nice if you graced us with your prescence other than odd, random pictures of you sleeping, reading and watching TV. "Bosnia, Croatia, Moldova, Slovenia, Slovakia" With the breakup of Yugoslavia, would you consider these countries, territories, provinces what haveyou, pro west? Do they pose much of a barrier between us and Russia, either literal or figurative? Other than S. Korea and Alaska, we don't really have a welcomed presence closer to Russia. See, i didn't know you were in the Navy, THATS interesting. I don't know why, but as opposed as I am to war in principle, the the machinery of war fascinates me. I was extremely close to going into the air force. i wanted to be pilot, but i think my height and vision would have prevented me from flying anything interesting other than maybe a tanker. i was in the Civil Air Patrol for 6 mos and after learning Air Force customs and regulations, i decided I was to much of an individual to go thru basic training

Dude, I'm not the Creator of this universe. That would be Mark Thomas aka Sorabji, the man behind the curtain. I hope no one else has been laboring under this misapprehension. I'm just something that dragged in the cat.

oh jesus, i am so confused, sorry pal......

I think Mr. Thomas is one who's been slandered here, not me.

no slander, just apologized for the mix up to anyone and all involved.

HHHhhmmmmmmm!!!! Wondering how long it will be before Waffles returns.

heh?

Just figure it is a good idea to have 2 names that you can post under......screw up with one and you can retire it for a while ....or you can be a man like Patrick and recognize his mistake and apologize for it. Nice recovery eh?

how are your leafs doing? They don't have hockey on so much as they do once the playoffs start. The Kings ain't doing so bad. I don't have cable tv, so I can't keep up like i want to. i don't think waffles is coming back

Disappointed to hear about Waffles ...he was a good guy. My Leafs are doing very good this year..... tied for first place overall in the league .... we get to see a game virtually every night. There are 3 networks on regular cable which show games and some nights you get a choice. I could also pay for New England Sports Network and get the Bruins games... every Leaf game (home and away) is televised. Living in Canada has its advantages.

no matter, mapleleaf--half the time, i read your handle as "meatloaf." you have two identities without even trying.

That was rather clever of me....wasn't it?

Well, not unless it was intentional...