You heard it here first.

Remember this little post from last month?

http://elpinchepirata.blogspot.com/2012/09/thats-exactly-type-of-go-getter-we-need.html

Where I said that I had spent at least 75% of my childhood in the trunk of a green Dodge Dart while my mother  (aka "The Source of the Trouble") drove a small battalion of kids thru central Florida with only an old quilt for "safety"?

(I forgot to mention that the other 30% of my time was spent in the dryer.)

And, if you read it, you smiled bemusedly for half a sec, and then thought,

"This EPPdF is a little funny sometimes but kind of obnoxious. 
Who the heck does he think he is anyhow!?!"

"Of course the world is a better place when children wear helmets while riding their bikes and drink more purified water and wear sunscreen at the beach and, 
and,
and, 
and,.......they have to be "SAFE"."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19953716

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(P.S.  Both "El Duecey" and Ms.X called to tell me that my little "Facebook is for little girls and gays" joke yesterday was, indeed, obnoxious.  Even though that line was a setup for making fun of myself in the next sentence.)
(We here at The El Pinche Pirata del Fuego Memorial Blog have come to expect this behaviour from "El Duecey".  He is a lawyer after all.)
(Ms. X is still trying to get me to eat something called "vegetables".)
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I would like to point out that we live in a country at war.
Soldiers in the U.S. Armed Forces are fighting and dying right now.
That is a fact.
If you are 18 years of age or older, you can enlist in the aforementioned U.S. Armed Forces, be trained in the arts of combat, and on occasion, be killed fighting for your country and the rights of it's citizens.

But God forbid you try to light up a smoke on the base where you were trained to fight and possibly die for your country.
THAT would pose a health risk.

Look, here's what I'm saying:

If 20 years ago, I told had you that one day soon, we would live in a world where men in the military, could, at a moments notice be sent to the most remote regions of the world and placed in the most intense combat situations imaginable, where every moment was literally kill or be killed, but they would not be allowed to have a cigarette.
Or a Big Gulp.
Or a bag of Fritos.
You would have said that I was an a@#hole.

(There's still time.)

And those same soldiers, who had fought for their country could be stopped and asked to hand over their toe-nail clippers when they went thru airport security, you would have said that I was being asinine.

(Still hope.)

And those same soldiers, who had fought for their country could be stopped on their way home from the airport and given a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt, you would have said,
"Ok, that's just plain stupid. Knock it off."


Congratulations world.