a pin in the map

From this comment by andyheninger, we get the Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve [map]. On my way to/from work, but probably not feasible as a lunch trip.

Coincidence? You decide:

Y'know, I probably shouldn't post these two headlines together, but I couldn't resist.

6 Die From Brain-Eating Amoeba in Lakes

It sounds like science fiction but it's true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.

Night of the Living Vista

Today, I think of Vista as the zombie operating system. It stumbles around, and from a distance you might think it's alive, but close up it's the walking dead.

What's the matter with kids these days?

OMG! Navy Calls MySpace Kids "Alien Life Force" (And They Hate the War, Too)

The MySpace generation is a "somewhat alien life force," a Navy recruiting presentation contends -- with a language and lifestyle that's almost unrecognizable to adults. And because the kids are such "coddled," "narcissistic praise junkies," they'll be beyond tough to bring into the military. Propensity to join the armed forces among these so-called "millennials" has dropped to as little as 3%; that's down from 26% in 2001.

Entropic Memes uncovered the bleak, often unintentionally hilarious report from the Annual Navy Workforce Research and Analysis Conference, which also glumly notes that the Iraq war has brutalized recruiting efforts. Up to two-thirds of millennials are "less likely to join the military" because of the war, according to the presentation.

(From BoingBoing.)

To answer the question in my title, "not much." The Iraq war means that the military can no longer pretend to be merely a place to work with good pay, on-the-job training, and benefits. The GI Bill, that put my Dad through grad school at Columbia, has been gutted to the point where it can hardly pay for four years at a state college. And you might actually be shipped off to someplace unpleasant for an interminable war that was started under false pretenses by Bush and his gang of greedy, cynical sycophants handlers puppet masters.

I could say something about the Vietnam here, but I think I'll pass except to say that they'll probably have to bring back the draft if they want to get us into another war any time soon.