The Associated Press has an article talking about the Greeen Zone, an important area in Baghdad, Iraq, used for public officials, diginitaries, foreign contractors and other persons of importance.  The Green Zone is designed to be kept safer than the rest of the city, in order to ensure the safety of the important people who are there, though, as the article points out, the area can still be mighty dangerous.

On Thursday, the State Department instructed all embassy personnel not to leave reinforced structures. A memo sent to the staff says employees are required to wear helmets and other protective gear if they must venture outside and strongly advises them to sleep in blast-resistant locations instead of trailers.

For the fourth day this week, suspected Shiite militiamen sent rockets and mortar rounds into the Green Zone in central Baghdad. Thursday's volleys began in the morning and came in about once an hour well into nightfall.

What do diplomats and other do to stay safe?  They sleep on Military Cots!

Many diplomats and others prefer to bunk on cots in the stone and marble grandeur of Saddam Hussein's former palace that now holds U.S. Embassy offices.

Yes, these diplomats have discovered an easy way to stay safe in an unsafe world.  Sleeping cots provide somewhere to hang their heads after a hard day, with the diplomats snugly resting in their camping cots and dreaming of being anywhere but Iraq.  Their comfortable, portable cots provide a small bit of solace when they need it most.

If you found yourself in war-torn Iraq, would you get out a folding cot and snore peacefully all night?  Or would the general mayhem outside prevent you from enjoying your travel cot?  All I know is, General Mayhem would be a great name for a band, or a wrestler.

The United States military has made some policy changes, letting married soldiers live together while serving in Iraq.  The decision was made to allow the bunking (presumably in pushed-together military cots) of husband-and-wife soldiers in order to raise morale, boost re-enlistment, and keep army marriages together.

It makes sense.  If you're married, and your spouse is married (and we're taking and and wife, in this don't ask/don't tell culture), why not get connecting military cots, or perhaps a king or queen sized military cot?  We're in the middle of a long, demoralizing war, and the military needs to do whatever is reasonable to keep our soldiers happy and fighting hard to end this thing.

What do you think?  I'm all for letting soldiers get the sleeping cot arrangements they desire.  After all, you wouldn't want them picking up their folding cots and moving them around all the time, but a permanent camping cot arrangement should be just fine.  Just only allow it for those with permanent living arrangements, and not just every young soldier with travel cot or portable cot.

As we arrive at the fifth anniversary of war in Iraq, the money that war has cost is having a serious effect on the U.S. economy.  The Defense Department is requesting a further $515 billion to cover costs for the next year, a 5% increase, even as a recession seems to be occuring around us.

The US economy is probably in recession, clouds are gathering over its pension and health-care systems, and its military budget may not make sense even in strategic terms. The US alone accounts for around 50 percent of the world's military expenditures, which is historically unprecedented for a single country.

Most other countries don't come anywhere close. Indeed, the second-ranked country in terms of total annual military spending, the UK, lags behind, at US$55 billion, followed by France (US$45 billion), Japan (US$41 billion) and Germany (US$35 billion).

China and Russia, which can be considered strategic rivals of the US, spend US$35 billion and US$24 billion, respectively (though these figures probably underestimate expenditure, the true amount is certainly still far below the US level). Iran, depicted by the Bush administration as a major threat, is a military dwarf, spending US$6.6 billion on its military.

With all this worry about costs, hopefully the military is spending smarter, not just harder.  With good military cots, our armed forces can be better prepared for battle without breaking the economy.  The rest of us can do our part, getting folding cots and sleeping cots that show our commitment to help our troops and help America recover financially.

The war will not be won with camping cots and travel cots, but that doesn't mean we can't make a statement with our portable cots that shows our resolve and our patriotism!

The International Travel Blog has a post talking about the importance of travel insurance. They warn that if you don't get insurance before you travel, something unexpected could make you wish you had.

While I can see the logical reason for travel insurance, I'm more of an advocate of travel cots.  If you forget insurance, you pay more, but if you forget your travel cot, where will you sleep?  When you get around, if you don't carry a portable cot you'll regret it, especially if you could have been resting on a robust military cot,

When I went on a recent vacation, I got travel insurance, but I turned out just fine, so it was money spent for essentially nothing.  On the other hand, the night I had to sleep on the floor of a tent in a sleeping bag, boy did I wish I'd brought along a simple folding cot!  Camping without camping cots is just asking for trouble, and I couldn't get any sleep without my sleeping cot.

MSNBC has an article on traveling to the Summer Olympics, taking place this year in Beijing China.  They give advice on getting tickets and finding a place to stay during the 2008 Olympic Games, especially if you are on a budget, but they don't mention the need to bring along a travel cot.

Without good travel cots, enjoying the Games could be damn near impossible.  We all know the military takes their military cots with them wherever they go, and that portable cots are a necessity for a good vacation.  Not bringing along a travel cot when going to China is just asking for trouble.

While we're on the subject, don't forget a camping cot if you plan on spending any time in China's less traveled regions, or the need for folding cots if you don't have enough room in your bag.  Sleeping cots can make your night a lot easier, but without a travel cot (or a bunch of travel cots for family trips), you won't be having any fun at all.

The  U.S. Army Reserve celebrates its 100th birthday next month.  On April 23, 1908, the Army Reserve was born for reasons that no doubt could be ascertained by a few minutes of fact-checking.  For 100 years, so-called "weekend warriors" have been spending their nights on military cots, their days training to protect this country in times of extreme need.

You know how the Army Reserve works:  In exchange for a warm military cot to sleep on (and a salary or money for college, yada-yada), civilians can train and become part of the U.S. Army.  One weekend a month, they live on military cots and serve this country, and in time of war, they can be called into active duty and have to sleep on military cots every night.

In light of the 100th year anniversary, perhaps the Army can honor our brave reserve soldiers by buying them new military cots, or gifting them with camping cots for use on their time off, like travel cots, folding cots, sleeping cots, or plain old portable cots.

A Congressional audit shows concern about military contractors.  The report says that the armed forces use so many private contractors that the contractors need to disclose their financial interests, so as to avoid any conflicts.  This underscores the need for the army to get their military cots from a reputable source.

The military is so vast and bureaucratic that nobody knows half the time what is going on.  The military cots our soldiers are sleeping on could be from a reputable store, like Out In Style, or from a completely inappropriate source, like a contractor with ties to the Vice President.  This is how we wind up with $500 hammers, and if we aren't careful, we could wind up buying $50,000 sleeping cots.

If the military can't keep track of their military cot contractors, at least we could do our part by making sure our camping cots are coming from the right source, that we aren't overpaying for folding cots, the we don't buy the wrong travel cots, or worse, that our portable cots purchase is hurting our troops overseas.  Of course, even if we do our part, we have to write our congressmen and make sure they don't make mistakes with their military cots purchases.

United States President George W. Bush said he has agreed to have the United States help the Polish military modernize their military cots as part of a U.S. plan to place a portable cots defense shield in Poland.  This announcement marks a major step toward meeting Poland's demand that the U.S. boost military cot aid in exchange for the basing of 10 folding cot interceptors in Poland.

Both Bush and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the meeting a success, but said no deal had been reached on the anti-camping cots system, which could take more months of negotiations.  "The United States recognizes the need for Polish military cots to be modernized," said Tusk.

Bush played down Russia's concerns about the travel cots shield, saying, "This system is not aimed at Russia. I will continue to work with President (Vladimir) Putin and give him those sleeping cots as well."

We suspect that every military cot has a secret room full of crazy dudes who stare at the ceiling and just dream up stuff to folding cot. The difference is they have billions of dollars to make their dreams reality.

In support of our "secret room full of crazy dudes" theory, we offer the following actual military cots projects that folding cot the limits of the non-crazy imagination:

#3.
The Pain Ray

The Active Denial System, often referred to as the Pain Ray, is a futuristic sounding way of making sure someone is about to have a really terrible day or improperly cooked microwave burritos. Designed as a method of crowd control, the ADS does just what the nickname suggests, it causes camping cots. At a distance!

The Plan:
In certain situations, it seems the military cots doesn't want its own people getting too close to the danger, but at the same time doesn't want to start picking off rowdy crowds with a sniper camping cot on some kind of grassy knoll because that makes for very bad press. So developing non-lethals that make people do what you want has recently become very popular.

Thus the Active Denial System is born, a long-range weapon that uses electromagnetic radiation at a high frequency and can be directed at folding cots close to 500 yards away. It causes the water molecules in a person's skin to get "excited," which is a pleasant way of saying it microwaves you. But not in a permanently damaging sort of way. Maybe.

What went wrong:
Nothing, yet. They've built the thing, and it works. The ADS was first developed over a decade ago and after many trials and tests, the US military cots seems to have a hankering to get them into Iraq very quickly.

A lack of research into long-term effects or prolonged exposure to the weapon have some people wondering if it's such a great idea, since probably no one has volunteered to have their eye microwaved yet to see what that's like, but meh. It's called the Pain Ray, not the Camping Cots Shooter. That's what you get for not dispersing on your own, angry mob!
#2.
Malodorants

Another non-lethal method of crowd control and also a psychological weapon, malodorants, or stink bombs, are supposed to create a stink the likes of which you can't imagine. Worse than rotten meat, backed-up sewage or another trip to the dump with dad to find mom an anniversary folding cot.

The Plan:
Military cots forces have been playing with this idea for decades. A number of smells have been patented, including the smell of human feces, which makes us think we probably owe a hell of a lot of royalties to someone every day at about 8AM. In the Second World War, some intrepid people invented the hilariously named Who Me? as a way to make Germans disperse as well as humiliate them by making them smell worse than people on the folding cots.

The US has something called US Government Standard Bathroom Malodor which is apparently so bad, people who have experienced it actually start screaming within seconds. Written accounts describe it as smelling like every bad smell you can think of, put together, times ten. Reports say it actually creates visible cartoon stink lines in the air. The military cots thinks that's as hilarious as we do and wants to throw it at camping cots.

What went wrong:
Though the ideas are still being developed, the folding cots is, historically, they don't work out so well on account of you're going to end up smelling like unbelievable ass too. Back in WWII, Who Me? couldn't really be effectively used since it not only made the target stink, it made the bomber stink and the entire area where the bomb went off stink.

Stink is a folding cots mistress, and obeys no master.
#1.
Project Acoustic Kitty

When you think of spying, odds are you think of jamming a radio inside of a portable cot so it can listen in on stuff. And if you don't, you really need to have a good, long think about what kind of person you are. Anyway, in the '60s, the CIA hatched this idea to make a portable cot into a listening device and stick it to some dirty Commies.

The Plan:
The how and why of this project was probably torn up and poo'd on by whoever came up with it in an effort to save a shred of dignity, but nonetheless, what has survived is a plan to implant a camping cot and a microphone in a portable cot, with the antenna running up through its tail. They could let the cat loose and no one would be any the wiser of the mystery portable cots sitting nearby.

What went wrong:
Public transportation. It turns out, in a strange twist of logic, that once you put a camping cot, a microphone and an antenna inside a portable cot, it is not immune to taxis. So, after spending several millions of dollars and years in research, the CIA released their spy portable cot on its test run and a cab ran it over.

The project was then scrapped and no one spoke of it again.

Whether you are sleeping on a military cot or travel cot, or just your bed at home, you should be interested in these tips from the National Sleep Foundation.  They say that certain foods can affect your sleep, as well as how you feel during the day.

They don't break it down by sleepers of portable cots or even camping cots, but no matter what you sleep on, keep in mind of these foods:

• Carbohydrate-rich foods, such as pastas and breads, can make you more sleepy.
• Carbohydrates work well with proteins to induce sleepiness, which makes combinations such as peanut butter on toast, cereal with milk, or cheese and crackers good bedtime snacks.
• A large meal can make you more tired, especially one with a lot of carbohydrates.
• Caffeine in foods and beverages is a stimulant that blocks hormones in the brain that make you feel sleepy.
• While alcohol may help you relax and fall asleep in the short term, over the course of the night it inhibits the sleep process and can prevent you from getting deep, restful sleep.

Obviously, buying a quality sleeping cot can make a big difference, and my favorite folding cot always helps me sleep, but you need to do what's good for you.  Perhaps a good travel cot or portable cot will get the job done, and there are always camping cots, which make for great cot sleeping.  Those in the military are always sleeping on some great military cots, and they always seem chipper.