Time To Order Pizza, Lots Of Them

Let them eat oil, To paraphrase a dead French queen.

You know the men in women in the Armed Forces can't catch a break. On one side you have many of the right-wing middle class offering platitudes of support as they happily send off soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen to fight in conflicts they would never allow their own children to participate. Don't believe me? I sure as Hell didn't see any long World War Two era-like lines of patriotic men rushing to join up as the World Trade Center towers lay in smoky rubble back in 2001. Yeah, going over and killing in some far away land is all fine and dandy as long as Suburban Johnny and Jane lounging next a pool don't have their college plans interrupted.

Now spanning the political spectrum leftward from the basic independent to many on the liberal/progressive side of things there is a cool indifference to outright contempt of the Armed Forces. The attitude that I seen can be boiled down to the belief that those "people" volunteered and after all they are dumb brutes and maybe something far worse. Speaking strictly for myself on the dumb part, I plead guilty as charged but it is pure ignorance to think that of the vast majority of the people in the military.

If just wasn't bad enough that the military has to put up with platitudes, indifference, contempt, multiple combat tours, killer stress, and financial concerns to name a very few now those serving have to play guinea pig so the White House can show people Gulf Coast seafood is safe to eat. I'm down with that, as long as Mrs. Obama and those brave souls polishing seats in Congress load up on the shrimp cocktail as well. As someone who spent years dealing with the nightly mystery meat served up in the mess halls provided by some unknown lowest bidder I can't help but feel this is above and beyond the call of duty.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus wants the Pentagon to buy as much Gulf seafood as possible to help the region's seafood industry recover from the damage of BP's oil spill.
Secretary Mabus reportedly told the Defense Commissary Agency, which operates a worldwide chain of 284 commissaries to provide groceries to military personnel, "that we should be buying Gulf Coast seafood," according to The New Orleans Times-Picayune.
"He expressed what we wanted to hear; he is in favor of the federal government buying seafood from the Gulf," Ewell Smith, executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, said.
Although the federal government has claimed that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is safe to eat, experts told Raw Story they had serious concerns about the long-term effects of consuming Gulf seafood.
Multiple independent lab tests have found high volumes of crude oil and other harmful hydrocarbons in Gulf shrimp.