Heavy Metals
Parliament
Fleet Annex
Epsilon Auriga
April 10, 2681
Ellis Dutton, Chief of the Parliament Office of Galaxy Minerals, looked at the official Request for Proposal that his office had received earlier that day. If he could secure a fraction of the order, his five percent commission would make him rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
He looked at the list and he looked at Captain Osborne of the Fleet Procurement Office and said,
Innovation
System: Sol
Saturn's moon Titan
Barlow Heavy Industries
April 10, 2681
As the Grayhound class executive transport jumped into the Titan system, Commander Rutledge felt a bit of regret. It wasn't often that he got to travel in such luxery. Grayhound series ships usually shuttled Admirals around to useless meetings but today it was taking his team to do something useful.
Rutledge and his team of five naval archictects and engineers were members of the Fleet's Design Bu
The Galaxy Today- Your Source for Alliance News You Can Use
Perry Grant, Political Desk
April 8, 2681
Alliance Senate Takes Up a Massive Series of Bills
Conservatives optimistic, Labor Jubulent, Greens Furious and commentators bewildered
After a series of mysterious closed committe meetings earlier this week, the Alliance Senate has taken up an unprecidented series of bills.
Lead by an unlikely coalition of Senate Conservatives and Labor, a bi-partisan working group has bega
Politics
Closed Session of the Alliance Senate Armed Services Committee
Galactic Alliance Parliament
0830 April 5, 2681
The thirty-two Senators of the Alliance Senate Armed Services Committee gathered in the chamber. Some looked bored, a few looked anxious but most were blank and unreadable.
As soon as all the Senators were seated the chairman, Senator Franco Ortega of the New Columbia colony, pounded his gavel and called the meeting to order. "On this date, April 5, 2681 at 0830 G
Ironman Stirs
In 2660 Dr. Dylan Yarlburo published a 15,000 page volume with the ponderous title Ironman: A Survey of 100 Years of Study. It was met in the academic world with deafening silence. Ironman had become junk science. Its study had occupied many careers and had banished many promising scientests to obscurity.
Ironman simply defied the best minds in in the Galactic Aliiance. Even after 100 years of constant surveillance with the best technology the dark hulk was as big a myst
Ironman
In 2531 the galactic survey cruiser Cabot entered CYG 035-4122 on a routine mapping mission. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about the system. CYG 035-4122 was ordinary in all respects with a dwarf star and an average planetary system. It was merely one of thousands charted during the First Galactic Survey. What the Cabot found there would have profound implications for humanity.
The Cabot entered the system and began a routine scan of the single class K4 dwarf s
Part 2 - The Lessons of Sheba
As I spent more and more time with Sheba, I was amazed at how smart she was. While some people think that cats are dumb, Sheba possessed a great wealth of what most of us consider common sense. The more time you spend around people, you quickly discover how uncommon this virtue really is.
Sheba's lessons were easy, they always made sense and they have served me well when I was smart to apply them. To this very day they are relevant and keep me grounded.
Part 1 - Sheba
When I was almost six I wanted a dog. I didn't want just any dog. I wanted a big fraggin' dog. Big enough to eat bad kids and ride to school.
On my sixth birthday I got a surprise. It wasn't a dog. It was a cute little black kitten with a fuzzy tail. I didn't really want a fuzzy tailed kitten but this one kinda grew on me. And climbed on me. And ambushed my ankles. Stood on her back feet with paws extened like a boxer to challenge me. It didn't take long for her to wi
You probably won't believe this but it's true.
A few weeks ago, I started noticing that my otherwise fearless Black tomcat Fast Eddie and his mate Sweetie were hiding in the garage. Not only were they hiding, they were a mess: Fast Eddie had notches in his ears and poor Sweetie was missing a big tuft of furr out of her tail.
It's unusual for Fast Eddie to lose a fight. He's a huge Tomcat that could easily be mistaken for a panther.
Over the next few days I noticed:
piles of bird fe
That's not much these days since everything sucks and the world is circling the bowl.
My library is bad assed. It gives me something that I can get lost in for days.
There's a web site called Library Thing that lets you build a a online database of your books cross linked to user reviews.
You can gaze upon my library in all its glory and despair here.
Everyone should have a database of the contents of their library. It's good to have over and above the insurance purposes. It's i
Thanksgiving to New Years sucks.
It's the time of year for drooling sentimentality that makes me want to slap the shit out of low brow yokels humming Jingle-bells.
I want to murder those bell ringing f**kers at the mall and set them on fire.
Why do I hate the holidays? It's the time of year when your're supposed to get together with old friends. Have a drink or ten, party, make a jackass of yourself- all the stuff I used to be so good at and enjoyed immensly.
What if all your old
It'll get better..
Oh really? How is that supposed to happen? When you've seen dream after dream go up in smoke. Everything you care about is gone. Everyone you care about is dead. How is it f-ing supposed to get any better.
Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem...
A temporary problem? I've had to fight every f-ing day of my whole life for the right to exist. How is that a temporary problem.
You've got so much to live for..
You can f-ing have it.
Life is
Why fight it.
I'm evil. I'm a bastard. Your suffering makes me laugh.
I stomp the brains out of puppies and kittens. I push old ladies into traffic.
I think starvation in Eithopia is a hoot because there is no food there and the f-ing idiots hang around waiting for it to show up.
I like wars because they test my latest technologies and the lame f-kers don' survive.
I say nuke the f-ing whales. What did they ever do for anybody?
I eat beef and punch vegatarians because th
Most of you were children when Clinton ran the country with trial balloons and focus groups.
You probably remember Bill Clinton as a guy who played the sax on MTV, liked to get hummers from interns, got in trouble for getting spoo on a blue dress and was married to that horrible b*tch senator from New York. The same one who was just thrown under the democratic primary bus by the failed President Elect Barry O'bumble.
You are probably too young to remember how Clinton betrayed gay voters
Yep. That's right. You are going to miss him.
Fat chance.
You will miss him. Just give it time.
I sincerely doubt it but you are welcome to try to defend King George.
Oh no- I'm not going to try to defend him. In many ways his generally incoherent style of public speaking made him one of the most ineffective presidents in living memory because he simply failed to explain his policies.
Don't you mean the worst in history?
No. I'm older than most of you and re
S S N "Martin Greenberg, Tom Clancy" Action 0425173534 2000
The Gulf (Dan Lenson Novels) David Poyer Action 0312050968 1990
Clear and Present Danger Tom Clancy Action 0399134409 1989
Debt of Honor (Jack Ryan Novels) Tom Clancy Action 0425147584 1995
Executive Orders Tom Clancy Action 0399142185 1996
Red Storm Rising Tom Clancy Action 0399131493 1986
The Bear and the Dragon Tom Clancy Action 2000
The Teeth Of The Tiger (Jack Ryan Novels) Tom Clancy Action 0425197409 2004
Without Remorse
Years ago when I first started to paid with real money (not the monopoly money I had been getting), I discovered that I owed Uncle Sam $1100 on tax day.
My boss was being a raging bitch.
Three printers and the main router decided to go tits up all at once.
My order for laser printer toner cartridges came back, again, because it wasn't formatted properly.
I had 10 minutes to deal with my bank to get the money for Uncle Sam. It took 40 minutes. Bankers are like that.
About 3:30
Busy, busy, busy
A few weeks ago I got a call from a headhunter who was looking for field engineers in my area for a big project.
Well I did one site which turned out to be an audition and was offered a contract.
Long story short- I got a contract with a major national bank to do network upgrades for Mississippi branches and it looks like I'm going to be super busy at least through November.
I won't be around as much as I usually am and some of my projects are going to have to wa
Screen Passes The idea behind the screen pass is to make the play look like the pass is going long but to make a short pass to a runner with blocker in front of him.
Screen passes put the defense out of position to make the play. Linebackers blitz or fall back to cover a zone and safeties and corners cover deep.
In our example, the QB drops back and rolls a bit to the right. The linemen on the left side make an initial block and then slide off while the FB protects the QB. The halfback
Running backs have become important receivers in todays high powered offenses. Once they have made the catch, running backs can often turn on their speed and make a long gain out of a short pass.
Running backs often serve as check off receivers when other receivers are covered.
RBs typically make a block, release from the block and run a short pattern into the flats, the sidelines or circle across the middle.
Flankers
Flankers are an interesting receiver in that lining up off the line, they can go in motion. This allows the offense to change its look on the fly and hopefully confuse assignments in the defensive secondary.
Of course- lining up behind the line makes it difficult to go deep but their speed can put them in interesting and useful places. Their routes are usually in the short to middle ranges.
Flankers are often called possession receivers because they are key go to guys on 3r
Before we get into the various pass patterns, lets have a look at the way defenses see the field.
There are two basic pass defenses- man to man and the zone.
Man to Man is difficult to pull off. If you have a personnel mismatch, which the offense will exploit, you'll get burned all day long.
In order to cover as much of the field as possible and give support to defensive backs who are covering speed burners, the Zone defense was developed.
There are many versions of the zone and
In general there are three different types of defensive players: linemen, linebackers and backs.
Defensive Linemen are big, strong and quick capable of stopping the run and pressuring the quarterback. Typical D-linemen are called Tackles, Nose Guard or Ends.
Linebacker is the single most athletically versatile position in football. Linebackers must read the offense and respond instantly to what it is doing. On any given play and defensive scheme, a linebackers may be asked to stop the ru
Power-I
All modern pro, college and even high school teams have special sets for special situations. One of the most common of those special situations is short yardage. Sometimes the short yards are hardest to get in goal line and 3rd and short situations. The defense, specifically in goal line situations have less depth to defend. They can ignore medium and long passes and usually add defensive linemen and/or linebackers to beef up their run defense.
This specific short yardage package
