totally self-taught intelligence analyst.

Wow. How do you teach yourself that job?

---

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I don't know--that is what really intrigues me. When I first heard it, I was thinking he must have been ex-military before he became a rock guitarist, but apparently not according to his bio.

>Note to El Fuser--I was watching the History Channel to make up for my defective education.

BRAVO my good man!

He is self taght in missile technology.

Not widly known, but in some circles it is: Shortly after 9/11 a grad student got "detained" and had all his thesis material briefly confiscated by the Feds. Reason was that through totally "benign" information online and available to the public he made an authoritative digital mapping of the entire US critical infrastructure (more or less, my details are a little fuzzy, but you get the point). He was quickly released when they realized that he was truly just a guy interested in it all and did it for his thesis and research, I think he then kind of did some consulting type stuff and helped the government out, this was pre-DHS era. I think he was 23 or so at the time, scary.

The amount of common information that is distributed by the government is fairly scary. And then if you go to FAS.org or some of those types of cites you can find classified material (don't get me started on that).

Teaching yourself to be some type of an intel analyst is impressive for sure.

I didn't get to go because of bad weather, but here is a link to the newspaper article about Jeff "Skunk" Baxter's talk:

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/...4-39AAC76FF710.shtml

Note to el fuser--The above link is certified to contain no objectionable material. ;^)

That is bizarre. Going to have to reboot my world-view now that rock guitarists are intelligence analysts. I was in a cover band in college, maybe I could get a job as his administrative assistant?

From an email from a friend:

Something to warm your heart...

It's wonderful when the people that are blessed use their blessings to bless others J

Don't know whether you heard about this but Denzel was visiting Brook Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas (BAMC) the other day. This is where soldiers that have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the States, especially burn victims. They have buildings there called Fisher Houses. The Fisher House is a hotel where soldiers' families can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying in the hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on base but as you can imagine, they are almost completely filled most of the time. While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost to build. He took his check book out and wrote a check for the full amount right there on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.

Just thought it was interesting and probably not well known. The email included some pictures but they aren't on a website anywhere (that I know of) so I can't share. But basically they are a bunch of shots a guy at BAMC took of Denzel.

Always double check with snopes.

http://www.snopes.com/.../military/denzel.asp

• Denzel Washington visited Brooke Army Medical Center and expressed interest in donating to the Fisher House Foundation: True.
  
  
• Denzel Washington whipped out his checkbook and "wrote a check out for the full amount (for a new Fisher House) right there on the spot": False.

I love this part--

"...Baxter read technical and warfare magazines in the 1980s while touring with the Doobie Brothers while his bandmates were on the bus "reading Playboy," ..."