This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Dumbass Bullshit

  • PTSD – Some Valuable Perspective

    Doc Bailey has a post up worth reading:

    His last paragraph captures his point as far as us ‘Nam vets so I’ll quote that:

    The real tragedy is that because there are so few people that have served, and because the public has largely ignored the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these men and women are far more isolated.  Only Vietnam veterans were as isolated, their isolation more because of scorn than because of their disproportionately small portion of society.  They are further isolated by stereotypes that both Hollywood and the News Mediums perpetuate.  The idea of the animal in a cage, waiting to loose his rage on the world, is something that will keep far too many Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans from seeking the help they need and so deserve.

    Read the whole thing.

  • Another Book I Won’t Read

    Hollywood seems to lack for new ideas; how many movies are re-makes, sequels, or prequels? Our news media (as Jonn notes) certainly lacks perspective and originality as well.

    Us geezer types are often accused of lusting after “The Good Old Days” while the REAL hypocrites like the antiwar crowd, and OWS, are trying to recapture their own imagined “Good Old Days”.

    Rarely is this hypocrisy quite so blatant as in this book (no direct link from me!)

    A review: In “The Operators,” Michael Hastings, the man whose Rolling Stone interview doomed the career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, offers up dispatches from Afghanistan.

    During the Vietnam War, the generation of David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan transformed America’s mainstream media into a hotbed of antiwar and antimilitary muckraking. By the time a major war effort returned, in 2003, that generation had grown too old to visit the trenches, allowing the emergence of Generation X reporters like Dexter Filkins and George Packer, who did not share their predecessors’ contempt for the military. Most Americans welcomed the change.

    Not so Michael Hastings, as we learn in “The Operators,” his account of events in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2011. Mr. Hastings asserts that this generational change drove him to write “The Runaway General,” the Rolling Stone article of June 2010 that doomed the career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. With characteristic acerbity, Mr. Hastings laments that his press colleagues have abandoned the spirit of Vietnam, when “war had been exposed as the Giant Lying Machine, in Halberstam’s words.” Instead, he says, they write glowing profiles of generals and other officials in the hope of gaining greater access to sources.

  • Military Leaks to Hollywood

    Tman sends us a link to an article in the LA Times about Peter King investigating the possibility that the Obama Administration leaked classified details of the bin Laden raid to director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal in preparation for their latest film endeavor.

    King’s interest was aroused in August when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that “the movie-makers are getting top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration.”

    Boal, Dowd wrote, “got welcomed to the upper echelons of the White House and the Pentagon and showed up recently — to the surprise of some military officers — at a CIA ceremony celebrating the hero Seals.”

    Oh, I’m sure everything is fine. Hollywood is really good at protecting information that could harm our national security or get some of our operators killed. Hollywood has always had our national interests at the center of it’s concerns.

    Given Bigelow’s inability to stick to the facts, we can probably expect footage of Obama stepping out of the crashed helicopter and delivering the coup d’etat without any Secret Service presence and the screen decorated with “Obama 2012” logo. I can’t wait to stay away from it.

  • This is why we have safety briefs before ranges.

    From the people who first found this.

    (0:16) – Is it necessary to use a real gun to practice such a drill? It seems to be asking for an negligent discharge into the “aggressors” hand etc..
    (1:58) – Punching with your handgun and flashlight? “I’ve taken it from impact from shooting a projectile, to impact using the steel” – LOL ok buddy whatever you say…
    (2:45) – Where they start play fighting and trade taking shots from holds LOL priceless..
    (3:45) – Speed & Accuracy (trust your team members) – *epic facepalm* whyyyyy?
    (4:10) – Nice work on keeping the camera man in front of your muzzle, then dumping off a few shots… real classy and safe.
    (4:37) – Yet again the camera man is infront of the muzzle during live fire
    (4:42) – Why risk one life, when you can find 2 people stupid enough to stand next to your target? Like I always say 2 is 1 and 1 is none.

  • West: That’s your last race card, AG Holder

    Florida Representative Allen West told The Daily Caller that Attorney General Eric Holder has used the race card one too many times;

    “I think this is absolutely the last card in the deck, and that shows how weak their ground is,” West said in a phone interview. “But, what that means is they want to make white individuals afraid of continuing to put the pressure on Eric Holder because they don’t want to be seen as racist, and that is something that we have got to move beyond.”

    Holder had told The New York Times over the weekend, in a front page Sunday story, that he thinks those who are criticizing him have racial motivations to do so. Holder said some unspecified faction — what he refers to as the “more extreme segment” — is driven to criticize both him and President Barack Obama due to the color of their skin.

    Well, Holder has used that as an excuse to deflect criticism too many times for conservatives to take him seriously any more. It’s like water off a duck’s back.

    Holder uses it now to deflect criticism from the Left and to keep them on the metaphorical and rhetorical plantation these days. The Left are the only ones who chafe from the “racist” charge anymore.

    Thanks to ROS for the link.

  • Is THIS Joke Funny?

    Okay, so it really ain’t a joke?
    Ron Paul: Iran wants to disrupt world oil supply because we are provoking them

    There is a video at the link, but here’s a transcript:

    How would I deal with the threat or the so-called threat of the Iranians, that they are going to disrupt the oil supply?

    Well I’d be provoking them a lot less because they’re reacting to the provoking of the West saying “we’re gonna put on sanctions”. We have them surrounded with nuclear weapons and we’re claiming that they’re gonna build a nuclear weapon and there’s no evidence for this.

    So we’re just looking for trouble. We’re building the war propaganda against Iran just as we did against Iraq.

    And it’s the march on. You know it’s Libya and it’s in Egypt and now we’re involved in Syria, now we’re sending troops into Africa. And also, of course we’re still in Iraq, we’re into Pakistan and we’ve been in Afghanistan for a long time.

    And people want to go to war against Iran. And I think they’re reacting to the provocations of so many other people saying that “we’re liable to bomb you because you are building a nuclear weapon.” But our CIA doesn’t confirm that nor does the UN confirm that.

    So they’re acting actually in a rational manner because they’re saying “they’re gonna attack us and start bombing us”. They have to say “well, we don’t have any nuclear weapons, we can’t really defend ourselves. So we might sink a boat, sink a ship out there in the Persian Gulf”, hoping that we might back off.

    I just think we’re treating the whole thing wrong. …

  • Red Cross wants to regulate war crimes in video games

    TT sends a link to the stupidest shit I ever read, about the International Conference of the Red Cross decided to influence governments to pass laws that would require video game makers to comply with the Geneva Conventions;

    “While the Movement works vigorously to promote international humanitarian law worldwide, there is also an audience of approximately 600 million gamers who may be virtually violating IHL,” according to the event’s description. “Exactly how video games influence individuals is a hotly debated topic, but for the first time, Movement partners discussed our role and responsibility to take action against violations of IHL in video games. In a side event, participants were asked: ‘What should we do, and what is the most effective method?’

    So I suspected that the story may be a plant and went to the website of the Conference and found nothing of the sort there. I did notice, however, that they discuss “Promoting a culture of non violence and peace“, so it’s entirely possible that they did discuss the issue.

    The article continues;

    Reached for comment earlier this week, Alexandra Boivin, head of the Civil Society Relations Unit’s Department of International Law and Cooperation for the committee, declined to discuss their findings yet.

    “Unfortunately, it is too early in the discussion to share our views publicly,” Boivin told Kotaku. “We will be posting some information on the ICRC’s website in the weeks to come, with a view to stating and explaining our interest in the topic.”

    Alexandra Boivin is a real person at the International Red Cross, so the quote may be accurate as well as the rest of the story. We’ll be keeping an eye on it.

    In the meantime, that clique of gamers who hang out here, we’ll be expecting you to set the example and conform to the Geneva Conventions during your virtual exploits.

  • We’re ALL Wrong About OWS

    And I feel MUCH better now.

    Over 150 Economists Sign Letter Of Support For OWS

    Recently Newt Gingrich publicly dismissed the Occupy Wall Street movement as being nothing but unemployed, uneducated rabble in need of a bath.

    Of course, this flippant label makes no sense to anyone that has visited an OWS encampment, talked with its supporters, or even lightly researched the movement.

    To further disprove the idea that only idiot socialists would identify with OWS, a group of top economists from around the world recently released a statement supporting the movement (see below).

    “We are economists who oppose ideological cleansing in the economics profession. Equally we oppose political cleansing in the vital debate over the causes and consequences of our current economic crisis.

    We support the efforts of the Occupy Wall Street movement across the country and across the globe to liberate the economy from the short-term greed of the rich and powerful “one percent”.

    We oppose cynical and perverse attempts to misuse our police officers and public servants to expel advocates of the public good from our public spaces.

    We extend our support to the vision of building an economy that works for the people, for the planet, and for the future, and we declare our solidarity with the Occupiers who are exercising our democratic right to demand economic and social justice.”

    See… Don’t you feel bad now?