From the Boston Herald via Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun:

My Hero

“CJCS” is an acronym for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is “by law the highest ranking military officer in the United States armed forces, and the principal military adviser to the President of the United States, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense” (Wikipedia). As the senior member of the uniformed military services, it is safe to say the professional opinion of the CJCS carries a great deal of weight within a presidential administration.

The current CJCS is Admiral Mike Mullen of the United States Navy.

Many senior military members, past and present, are not enthusiastic supporters of homosexuals serving in the military, often citing the possible negative impacts to morale and unit teamwork caused by gays who choose to (forgive the cliche) “emerge from the foxhole.” Former CJCS’s have been among the detractors.

Mark Knoller of CBS News pointed his Twitter followers to a Department of Defense (DoD) press release from last February where the DoD promises to perform a “broad review” of the DoD’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prohibits openly gay members from serving in the armed forces. For all intents and purposes, this is the beginning of the end of the ban.

Buried in the article is this statement from Admiral Mullen:

“My personal belief is that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be the right thing to do. I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”

In a time when liars and cheaters rule the headlines, Admiral Mullen clearly states that character and integrity are still important, and that they are personality traits found and treasured in all of our best young men and women, both gay and straight.

Thank you, Admiral. Bravo Zulu.

(This is kind of gross for the non-Whedon-initiated. You’ve been warned.)

Two things:
1. Firefly is not coming back. Ever. Move on with your lives.
2. This is why. Courtesy of io9.com.

As long-time readers know (i.e.: both of you), The Bride witters away her days at the Nevada State Library and Archives. She has access to a host of Old Nevada photos but, sadly, many are provided by state agencies who don’t date or describe their pictures. Such is the case for these photographs from the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDoT). There’s a few dozen in their folder, mostly pictures of staff members, but here’s some gems.

The Mexican Dam on the Carson River from way back when. If you go out there today, you’ll see that almost nothing has changed aside from the volume of water. Compare it to a picture I took from last November from the other side of the dam.

Here is the Nevada/California state border at South Lake Tahoe. None of the buildings in the background survive to this day.

An aerial photo detailing the two possible routes of Interstate 80 around Elko, Nevada. They decided on the Red Line.

Finally, a University of Nevada campus devoid of trees and familiar landscaping. At this time of this picture, Clark Administration on the front left was the university library (I worked in the basement for a few weeks). To the north is Frandsen Humanities, home to the English Department where my grandfather taught for many decades. Lincoln Hall is in the background and Manzanita Lake is barely noticeable to the left of Clark.

Edit: Yeah, I’m wrong. That’s Frandsen dominating the center (Clark doesn’t have pillars like Frandsen has on the east face) and that Thompson to the north. Clark is to the south of Frandsen.

As always, please credit the Nevada State Library and Archives when using these pictures (and I wouldn’t mind a shout-out, either). And Around Carson does a far superior job of posting pictures like these and I recommend Scott’s site to anyone interested in delving into Nevada’s photographic past.

Via Roger Ebert on Twitter (which exists solely to serve Roger), here’s a great local commercial. Play it twice to hear about his wife’s boyfriend: