Alien Invasions: An Objective Analysis

I recently saw "Battle: Los Angeles" (which is pure military porn and I love it), and one aspect of the movie struck me as odd: Why the fuck would aliens (B:LA ones referred to as "ants" hereinafter), who've traversed probably millions of light years, who can drop out of lightspeed on command, and can drop on any general gridsquare wanna invade LA via Santa Monica?

Damn good reason to invade California, though. Hehe..."invade".

So, being the well-adjusted, mild-mannered adult I am, I fired up Google Earth and Wikipedia and went to town on the Battle of Los Angeles (the fictional one). After some researching and analysis, I have to give it to the ants: Santa Monica is the PERFECT place to establish a good beachhead: To the north is Topanga State Park (including several smaller ones) and just to the south of Santa Monica is LAX (a flat piece of land with little cover outside of the terminals). This gives them the cover of environment to the north and a nice flat nothing to the south. To demonstrate:

Good thing they didn't try to come in through Compton or Oakland...

As anyone who's ever read about or studied warfare will tell you, the most important aspect of an amphibious invasion such as this is establishing a beachhead. That means getting a hold of land to get resupplied, reinforced and to push further inland. A real-life example is the Normandy beach landings: without those beaches, there wouldn't had been an Allied advance, period.

Another aspect of the movie that seemed to bother a lot of people was, "Why is it so important to hold Los Angeles?" This ties into what I said before, the need to establish a beachhead. The marines were trying to stall the ants long enough so that Santa Monica could be leveled by the airforce, thereby rendering that particular invasion void. 

Though, for the sake of "the hell of it", let's look at another alien invasion: Independence Day!

This man stopped an alien invasion, with a Macbook...and he punched the president in the face...

This invasion was largely dependent on air superiority, as the aliens ("husks" hereinafter") never set foot on Earth themselves, it was all done with giant city-ships, each with a contingent of a gazillion fighters and frigates (all operated by a ship the size of a small planet). While it sounds good in theory, it's an awful freaking idea: namely because you can blast the everloving shit out the surface, but people find a way to hide and mess shit up when you're not looking.

Not to mention their rather idiotic target selection strategy. I mean...why would you blow up the White House? It holds no strategic value (militarily), as the president could be replaced by the veep who'll be in his own jet, ready to command troops if necessary (to learn more, wiki "Nightwatch"). A more sensible target would be Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility (that's a mouthful, innit?), or Langley Air Force Base...seeing as it has, oh, I dunno...planes that make shit go "boom".

B61 tactical nuclear bombs tend to fuck up people's days.

This post is getting rather lengthy and I'm only two fictional alien invasions in! Therefore, I'll be splitting this into several segments. Some candidates are: The Combine from Half-Life 2, the tripods from The War of the Worlds,and the Covenant from the Halo series. If anyone has any suggestions for an alien invasion to be analysed, drop me a line in the comments! Only thing is that it HAS to be an invasion (not an infiltration), and it CAN'T be Battlefield: Earth. Please...don't do that to me.

- Cee

Higher Learning and Higher Spending

Lately, there has been a severe increase in the number of people I know, whom are pursuing Masters degrees, and a few have graduated. Many are making a big fuss about it, that they need to get the Masters to make more money or because they need it as an accomplishment in their lives. Fine.


They have my condolences.


Well, allow me to clarify...you see, I have nothing against higher learning. I believe that if someone is within the means of it and has the gumption for it, go forth and edjumacate yourself! However, some of these people took out a loan just for their Bachelor's, which added with the probable loan taken out to pay for their Masters...they're looking at decades of paying that shit off. Oh, sure: one could argue that people with Masters degrees earn more, as it's been plastered all over the media and universities, and in certain cases, this is actually true! However, what they fail to acknowledge is that not all degrees are quite worth the effort as all degrees are equal, but some are more equal than others (literary references are awesome).


Take, for example, two people: One is a mechanical engineer and the other is an Asian studies graduate. They both decide to go for their respective graduate advancement programs, they graduate and then begin their careers. It's a no-brainer who's gonna be making the serious bucks and who's gonna be paying back a loan for the next 34 years (assuming they get a decent enough job related to their field). Hell, if you take into account interest rates for loans, income and adjust for inflation/cost of living, there's a good chance that even the engineer won't see net profit unless he/she makes closer to 200-300k a year and pays more than the minimum for their loan.


It almost seems like some of these people fail to realize several factors working hard against their ideas, namely:


1) Employers look more for experience, rather than education. Someone with 2-years work experience has more chance than someone with just a Bachelors. The same could be said about 4-years work experience and a Masters.


2) Generally Masters are sought after once you've been in the workforce after some time. This whole 'get a Masters right after a Bachelors' is kind of a novelty, which stems from universities wanting more cash. If you rolled your eyes and scoffed at that last sentence, remember that universities are more like businesses: they care less about your education and more about making cash.


3) Living is fucking expensive. No, seriously; eating, going out, car maintenance, house/apartment maintenance, bills, repairs, miscellaneous expenses...there's a reason why debt runs rampant around the world.


4) Unless they're making over 60k a year, or have a veritable shitton of scholarships/grants/savings, they're simply not making enough cash. 


5) "Learning" has become easier, in that classes are significantly easier to accomplish than they used to be. This sounds like a positive thing, except that because of that, a Masters will soon start losing its appeal and soon employers will want people with fucking PhDs. There's a reason why nowadays a "Bachelors is good to wipe your ass with, and you need a Masters" (at least, according to schools and/or the media).


In essence, they're screwing themselves up by bending over and letting banks and schools ram loans up their asses, and they don't see it coming. [I seriously didn't plan for that pun, honest.]


So, please, if you know someone that is wanting to pursue a graduate program and fit the aforementioned bill of not having enough money/taking out loans/is inexperienced: tell them to get their heads out their asses, 'cause the lack of oxygen is preventing them from using their fucking brains. 


"El costo de la vida sube otra vez..."
- Cee


PS - If you've the means to do it, however, I thoroughly recommend attaining a better degree, preferably an MBA.


Further reading:


http://www.thewisdomjournal.com/Blog/is-a-masters-degree-really-worth-it/
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/
http://money.msn.com/college-savings/is-a-college-degree-worthless-smartmoney.aspx
Or type "Is a Masters degree worth it?" into Google. Derp.