Women occupy the lowest dreary rung in tortured Afghanistan’s social ladder. But sometimes it’s useful even for a Pashtun lion to shed his inhibitions and cross-dress:
Gunbattles and airstrikes by NATO and Afghan troops killed 53 militants in Afghanistan, including a wanted Taliban commander who tried to hide from soldiers under a woman’s burqa, officials said Saturday.
The U.S. forces targeting the commander surrounded a house Friday in Ghazni province and ordered everyone inside to leave, a military statement said.
Six women and 12 children left the building, but while soldiers were questioning the women they discovered one was actually a man dressed in a burqa, the traditional all-encompassing dress that most Afghan women wear. The man, later identified as the targeted commander Haji Yakub, tried to attack the soldiers and was killed, the military said.
That whole “glory of martyrdom” thing? That’s for labor. Haji Yajub?
Management.
I think he was trolling for the 72 virgin males…
Kind of like (albeit to a far lesser degree) the nearly bankrupt GM’s executives hoping to hide their many mistakes by blaming Labor for their very own (highly-paid) incompetence. Yes?
GM CEO Wagoner is wearing the ‘burqa’ of labor as he tries to slip past criticism.
No, fliterman. Not the same thing.
Sorry Fliterman, but were it entirely exectutive mismanagement wouldn’t that require one executive running the company into the ground? When three, four, five, a half-dozen or the entire board of directors allow it to happen perhaps it points to not a lack of leadership but a business constraint that cannot be overcome?
Fact of the matter is you’re not going to get the talent without the bread, and even very good talent can fail. The money side is just the price of doing business.
Union contracts being one. Soon, perhaps, we’ll apply this same solution to the laws of supply and demand to the health care industry, shipbuilding, energy, you name it. Take the lowest bid or try to weight big vs. resume.
Doesn’t really matter what they were paid, either the CEO or Haji Yakub, fact of the matter is they both failed their mission. They’re gone.
Who’s next up?
– Max
If you’re dispatched to paradise in drag, what happens? Hmmmm…..
Steve…That my friend, is a question for the ages. Although, a very funny one indeed.
*Bends over in great pain from laughter*
psssst… no apostrophe required in “Lions”. Lions is just plural, not possesive.
I wonder how they detected this hero without looking under the ladies’ burquas? “Okay girls – show us some ankle, and you best not be wearing combat boots!!”
ps. “ladies’” above is plural – “ies”, but the apostrophe is there also, to show the possesive – it’s their burquas. Whoops, “it’s” is a contraction of “it is”, so the apostrophe there stands for the missing “i”. Go figure.
Sherlock;
You are so correct. But, so what? This is the new world. In my state, teacher’s “ax” questions. Besides, we all know that Lex just “mis-keyed”.
On another subject altogether, (since so many of Lex’s readers are sailors), how to those Somali pirates get on board a ship three times the length of one of our carriers? Especially, as it’s running at speed in the deep ocean and the deck is maybe 4o feet above the water? And, don’t ships have lookouts? Just wondering…
Me? I blame the vodka martinis. Which let me tell you, are damned hard to come by in certain areas of the DFW metroplex.
Who knew?
Pix… three times the WEIGHT I’d believe. THREE TIMES THE LENGTH…I don’t (that’d be 3000 feet. Wouldn’t even need a catapult for the hot jocks.)
As for getting UP on the deck, one picture I saw showed them climbing the (harbor) pilot’s ladder. I suppose they could just send someone up a short rope to the ladder , then lower either the pilot’s ladder or a rope version down to the remaining members.
Was just in the swirling metropolis of Dallas two weeks ago and did find a liberal supply of vodka…Cheap vodka, but it got the job done.
Pixelkiller,
I believe I read that the tanker is actualy shorter (1090 feet) than a Nimitz class carrier (1092 feet) ; though, three times the tonnage.
Typically, the pirates will pull alongside the target ship and begin firing automatic weapons and RPGs while demanding that the target vessel stop, lest they (the pirates) continue firing. This, no doubt, encourages the target ship to stop in order for the pirates to board her.
I read this somewhere so don’t know how much truth there is to it.
Didn’t see it in time but I guess Joe C beat me to the punch.
Lex .. welcome to the state of split personality. We have moderate schizophrenia over legal beverages. A dry county (like Dallas) requires the “unicard” .. a wink at a restaurant serving your favorite legal beverage being a “private” club. The cities (and counties) LOVE that sales tax that comes with alcohol sales, but still bow to a teetotaler political ancestry. Individual cities within a county could be ‘wet’ and the infamous Dallas county city of Addison was the one wet city in a large area. They have a very small indigenous population, but a very large restaurant business that legally served liquor by the drink (sans unicard). Naturally they sucked up a a vast amount of sales tax to the point they had a hard time spending it. So the city police get new cars every two years. One year they had Volvo’s. A couple years back they were driving Dodge Durangos, last year it was Chevy Tahoes, this year it is Dodge Challengers with the 6.1L hemis.
Ahhh, but politicians are NOT stupid all the time. Avarice and Envy can overcome inertia! So Denton county became ‘wet’ a few years back, and wonders! The number of local restaurants serving liquor by the drink jumped enormously….. all to the detriment of Addison. But don’t cry for Addison, they have struck back with renovations and improvements.
All this commercial competition has benefited the North Dallas area enormously. The depth and breadth of restaurant choices is mind boggling….. let alone shopping in general. If you are in the mood to shop, if you cannot find it here, it probably hasn’t been made yet…. (well, except for George Dickle whiskey. I understand from my beverage provider that they are only shipping now to the 5 surrounding states from Tennessee. But that’s another story.)
So welcome to Texas!
Lex, if there are people of discerning taste (yes, I know, Texas, hard to do that, but) you might ask for a Bombay martini, and enjoy the worlds smoothest hootch. After all, martinis were supposed to be: http://www.bombaysapphire.com/#;market=us;language=en;centralPlanet=309;detail=open;currentPlanet=369
Byron, that Dallas crowd has a “way” about them…
They aren’t from Texas. They are from Dallas…
Lex,
Generally the further south you go from I-20 the easier it is to get a drink (http://www.texasalmanac.com/government/WetDry.pdf). So, as I’ve been saying, the Hill Country is God’s country! And sid…Couldn’t have said it better my self.
Lex … when you get to Houston, [which is further south than Dallas] you can buy any kind of booze, anywhere, by the glass, and we love you for it. Now, finding someone who knows how to properly ‘build’ a Guinness is not quite as easy, but we have them here, too.
Houston used to be a relatively small city when I married Downs, and had some of the same silly rules about liquor by the drink, but when they found out in 1971 that I was marrying distinguished Houston citizen Downs, they passed a law allowing the sale of liquor by the drink, with a subsequent explosion of new restaurants and drink emporia which continues to this day.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Marianne
Sid… and your point is???? heh. Dallas/Houston rivalry is not overblown. But it is funny in a family rivalry kind of way. When I lived in Houston, the saying there was anybody who lived north of Conroe was a yankee… a pointed jab at Dallasites. I think there are some of Dallas who are a bit snobbish at that… I also have met some of the most helpful and kind people here and in Houston…shoot Fort Worth and Austin and San Antonio and Brownsville, most anywhere I have been in Texas has had its share of people on both ends of the spectrum in kindness. And I can’t cast too many stones anyway… My kids and grandkids (Native Houstonians!) live in Houston while I reside in the Dallas area yankeeland.
And I’ll say it one more time: Florida has no state income tax; Florida has sane drinking laws; Florida typically has lower unemployment rates than nationwide percentage; and for your sake, Lex, Florida has a LOT of horses. Most race horses are bred and stabled down Ocala way, AND there is an equestrian exhibition ground here: http://www.jaxevents.com/equestriancenter.php
I believe your young lady would find it to your liking. Plus, if you don’t mind a bit of a ride (no more thant 45 minutes from downtown) you could have enough acreage to put up a barn, paddock, and room for her own horse
Best thing about Dallas is that whole blonde-denim-boots thing…
Dallas has dry counties.
Houston has the world’s biggest liquor store!
Byron,
The actual name for that facility is NAS Cecil Farm.
Byron,
Ah, a man after my own heart. When out and about on a trip I will head off to a suitable establishment and order a Bombay Sapphire Martini, up with a twist.
If business ever brings you up north I highly suggest the Rotunda Bar at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia. Best ones I ever had. Pair that with the “veal 3 ways” from the grill for the perfect refined experience. Just ask them to bring it from the restaurant and serve you at the bar.
The Ritz, whatever the location, is a guilty pleasure I allow myself once every two years or so. Every time has been memorable.
Answer to technical question, how does one board a tanker or ship at sea underway? One throws a grapple hook over the side with an eye at the back through which runs a fairlead which is used to hoist a line that lifts a boarding ladder to the deck’s edge, climbs swiftly and shoots up anybody standing around. I won’t say it’s easy but it is straightforward and works on tankers best since they actually have very low freeboards when loaded. Should you ever see a tanker out of ballast and unladen, you would be amazed at their freeboard. This generally only happens when they are about to enter dry dock.
Apocryphal data I’ve heard is that if a VLCC tanker puts its helm hard over it takes 3 miles for it to have any effect. The advance and transfer for such ships is huge.
Sid…I should be arrested for even LOOKING at that! Whooooo. Where’s my nitroglycerin? (And nothing like a total thread hijack.)
Lex… I hope you find what you’re looking for wherever the job interview takes you. Whether its in the sunny south or remaining out on the left coast. I’ve made good friends and acquaintances wherever I have lived and if you come across in the ‘real’ world as you do here in the fantasy world of the blogosphere…you will do well. Good luck!
Yeah, but, Curtis, the wakes (yes, that’s plural) off of the tanker would roll just about anything smaller than a destroyer. Get one of those critters moving at 25 knots and wake jumping becomes the sport of choice. Try to bring a Boston Whaler alongside at speed, and the whole situation becomes very problematic, if not lethal, for the would-be boarders; requires the utmost in skill and attention.
I still contend that the whole situation was contrived, and that we might have trouble distinguishing between Guest and Host were we to walk into the room unannounced.
Okay, now you guys are onto hootch? Don’t get me started…
Oh wait a minute…a little late for that. Okay. Never mind.
Mongo,
The bow wave and the wake are actually tiny in deep water. The bow wave is just a single slope to get over which is easy enough and the pirates are not operating Boston Whalers. All the one’s I’ve seen are deep V hulls with outboards and would have no difficulty with either the bow wave or wake. One has only to look at the record of piracy in the SOM where the pirates routinely track their targets and then come alongside while the ship is in full cruise mode, board and rob the ship’s safe and crew. I’ll admit, it takes a reckless character to do it routinely but let’s not compare these guys to 50 year old pilots boarding off the pilot boat who have a lot of trouble climbing a Jacob’s ladder. Think of our pirates as more akin physically to our Level III VBSS teams in good physical condition in their early 20s.