I wish I could say I've never seen anything like this before.



...blue jeans. You know, I could learn to hate those goddamned things.

Oscar. Mike. Golf. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Bravo. Bravo. Quebec.

This came around the office email again (every four months, without fail, somebody else discovers it). I'm pretty sure it's an abbreviation/evolution of this classic piece of useful internet wisdom, adjusted for law enforcement use. (The bit about yelling "Fire!" is great advice. An appeal to the hearer's self-preservation instinct is never a bad thing.)


Handy things to know in a firefight.

1. In a combat situation, you are never adequately armed or adequately defended.
2. Or smart enough, or quick enough, or lucky enough.
3. You also never have enough ammunition.
4. Almost only counts with horseshoes, hand-grenades, and H-bombs.
5. Hesitation kills.
6. Making sure of your target is not hesitation.
7. If your shooting stance is good, you're not moving fast enough or using cover correctly.
8. Nothing is bulletproof. However, hard cover is better than soft cover, and any cover is better than no cover at all.
9. Bring a friend. Bring two, if you have them. Dead men ditch their backup.
10. Communicate.
11. Move. Specifically, move away. Erratically. If you can get behind the other guy, you've already won. But remember, he knows that too.
12. Your accuracy will suffer under stress.
13. After the second shot, you will lose count. Have another magazine handy.
14. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
15. Cheat to win. There are no rules.
16. Have a plan, and decide now that you have the gonads to go through with it--or to discard it when it fails.
17. Plans are cheap. Have two.
18. Practice in suboptimal conditions, one-handed, off-handed, in the dark and the rain. Be sure of your equipment. However, when you are actually involved in a gunfight, use both hands.
19. Forget everything you have seen on TV.
20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.
21. It is better to be remorseful than to be room temperature.
22. You have nothing to prove. Spilled pride cleans up easier than spilled blood.

"Call on God, but row away from the rocks. "
--Hunter S. Thompson

Tell me something good.

Me: 56
Them: 0

I'm thankful for you.

--same as the old boss.

You know, I keep waiting for my cynicism to be rewarded, here, and it's just not happening.

I voted.

Hah. Maybe I'll go do this when I retire. 

They take ex-cops.

I bet Dobro knows those guys.

And you know, I kind of miss the city.

Dear Baby Boomers:

I realize that you built your whole generational identity on our relationship, which is why it pains me so greatly to say this, but the fact is, you've gotten old and selfish and mean, and you're more interested in money than all the wild things we used to do together.

I can't stand living in a relationship that's past its glory days. I need a future different than the past.

Sure, there are still things I love about you, and always will. But I just can't date anybody who would drive a Lincoln Navigator and lie to get us into wars.

---

Dear GenX:

We had so much potential, you and me. And here we are, fifteen years later, and what's happened to you? Wii, television shows on DVD, apathy. You've let yourself go, sweetie. You just don't care anymore.

Where's the fire in the belly? Where's the satire? Where's the outrage?

I don't find you attractive anymore.

It's just not working out.

---

Dear Sen. McCain:

When your partisans call your colleague in the Senate a bitch, the appropriate response is not "I like that."

Shame on you.

---

Dear Fiscal Conservatives:

How many times do I have to spell this out for you in short words? The Republican Party is lying to you. They'll say anything to get what they want. Anything.

My God. They've already started to hit you, haven't they?

---

Dear Internet:

God, you have the attention span of a gnat. Look at me when I'm talking to you.

It's over. KTHXBAI.

---

Dear Sen. Clinton & Sen. Obama:

How about you two kids play nice, or I'm giving you both a time out?

Sen. Clinton, please look up the definition of the word "Plagiarism." Sen. Obama, please keep your dog on a leash.

---

Dear American Voters:

The fact that gender bias is even more ingrained in our culture than racial bias does not make it somehow more acceptable.

---

Dear Teens and Twentysomethings:

Hey baby. Wanna party?

I'll just start to drink and spend all your money, and leave you in a ditch by the side of US Route 1 in the rain in November, with one shoe off and one shoe on. Embittered, you'll become a stockbroker and blame it all on the Mexicans.

But in the meantime, won't we have fun?

---

Dear Bobbie Zimmerman:

A Broadway musical?!

How could you?

---

---Love,

     Social Revolution