Abject Geekery

I am well aware of all the arguments against it…
… but tough shit.

It was the right thing for it’s time… but it was never more than a transitional step toward the US military finally figuring out what other nations already knew…that it doesn’t matter one way or the other.

Whatever rump you range or muff you dive… you follow the rules of conduct and everything will be fine.

Oh… and about the marines, who some suggest are more against this… it really depends on the way it’s presented. If people are asked to confront something that makes them uncomfortable… they will answer to what is familiar and comfortable.

However, if you get a bunch of marines in an assembly and ask them if would be willing to fight next to a soldier that is homosexual who wants to kill the Islamic scum that would cut our throats, enslave our women and bring our nation to it’s knees… then you will hear a rousing yell of affirmation that would rip the roof off.

This is Donna and I at the Cock and Bull Pub in Sarasota Florida. I’m going as a Dead Hippy and she is dressed as the sexy Fire Pixie that she is. I totally love the shirt I bought for this and it has become my favorite article of clothing. As conservative as I am politically,  I love me some tie dyes.

I bought this shirt from a local Head shop. I walked in and saw this groovy shirt, snatched it up and sauntered proudly to the cashier…one aged person of the long haired variety. As I freed my plastic to purchase my booty, said long hair commented that they are a “cash only” establishment… nodding sagely, I collected my minions and drove to the nearest ATM machine, which was in a corner Walgreens drug store.

After paying the small homage fee for the use of the convenient box, I collected my duckets and migrated back to the home of my soon to be adopted shirt. With a fistful of dollars, I bought the shirt… and as the long haried one was bagging my wares, I commented that it was very convenient to have an ATM a block away as the nearest bank was about a mile distant… to which the unwashed one snarled “Dude, you just paid a fee to get your own money! And you paid it to …A BANK” (said with a snarl best kept for child rapists).

I was in shock at the stupidity of what I had just heard. Here I was…enriching this dirty hippy and helping to put bread on his table and a roof over his deadhead, and he is giving me grief for paying a bank 3 dollars for providing access to my money by installing and maintaining a very expensive piece of telecommunication banking hardware in a local drugstore! That 3 dollar fee put food on the table for that technician who works on that machine which is allowing me to buy this shirt and keep this dirty hippy in business. Look around you, oh dirty hippy… see the houses and the shops and the organic foodstores… and know this… there would be none of these things without “banks!”.

… and I wouldn’t have to have done so if you ponied up a card machine in the first place!!!

Geez…

Well, anyway… I had a great Halloween…

Charles Krauthammer’s take on the Obama administrations handling of our national security is spot on.

IMO, it is not even defensible by the left that Barry’s entire Ivory Tower view is anything other than a fraud and suicidal. The academia mind-set of world affairs is WRONG. It ignores first principles…which is not harmony and social “progress”. It is national defense which allows all the virtues of an enlightened society. That “enlightenment” doesn’t create the foreign policies. It is teh security of a strong foreign policy that allows the luxury of academic fancies.

This is all quite mad even in Obama’s terms. He sends 30,000 troops to fight terror overseas, yet if any terrorists come to attack us here, they are magically transformed from enemy into defendant.

The logic is perverse. If we find Abdulmutallab in an al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen, where he is merely preparing for a terror attack, we snuff him out with a Predator — no judge, no jury, no qualms. But if we catch him in the United States in the very act of mass murder, he instantly acquires protection not just from execution by drone but even from interrogation.

The president said that this incident highlights “the nature of those who threaten our homeland.” But the president is constantly denying the nature of those who threaten our homeland. On Tuesday, he referred five times to Abdulmutallab (and his terrorist ilk) as “extremist(s).”

A man who shoots abortion doctors is an extremist. An eco-fanatic who torches logging sites is an extremist. Abdulmutallab is not one of these. He is a jihadist. And unlike the guys who shoot abortion doctors, jihadists have cells all over the world; they blow up trains in London, nightclubs in Bali and airplanes over Detroit (if they can); and are openly pledged to war on America.

The Dallas Morning News has a great article about how the video game industry has filled the void Hollywood has left on entertainment which extolls the virtues of the American Military.

Hollywood churned out dozens of in-the-trenches, pro-America extravaganzas such as Wake Island and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo while World War II was being fought.

But the portrayal of the U.S. military during its current engagements has been more subdued and even critical.

Game makers have stepped into the breach. And they’re making huge bucks crafting patriotic entertainment pieces for which the movie industry used to be famous.

Most notable of the new virtual epics is Modern Warfare 2 and its predecessor, both from California-based publisher Activision Blizzard Inc.

Activision’s top executive made it clear where the company stands when he announced an endowment to help military veterans find jobs.

“Business leaders have an opportunity to … reverse an alarming trend of not recognizing the sacrifices made by the men and women of our military service,” CEO Robert Kotick said.