Biltong

Is that unusual? I've got a late night craving for some biltong. Giraffe, elephant, NANDI......just as tasty.

Hope I'm not preggers. My wife would be so upset.

Tetchy...

(n. meaning touchy)

Looks like there's a wiki war going on about Sparta. Helots must be pissed.



Wiki, Digg....it's why you still need books.

The 300 Million

So my wife and I took in Frank's Miller "The 300," today. Good flick.

After we left the theatre, I decided to drive over to our local book emporium, and see if I could buy Frank Miller's graphic novel, "300." I did, and read the novel. Pretty much what you saw, or will see, on the screen is what you'll find in the book. Well thought out scenes, and tight dialogue, sprinkled with laconic wit. I also went and downloaded a couple of the snappier tracks on iTunes. This modern life. But back to the movie.

Written in 1999.

Criticized in 2007. Dean Barnett links to Slate critic Dana Stevens, who takes the french root of embarrass (to show ones ass) to heart:

A Movie Only a Spartan Could Love
The battle epic 300.
By Dana Stevens

Read the whole thing, as THEY say, then come back. Below, you'll find nothing more than my half baked ToE.

I will say this. It is my thinking that many will take offense at "300," for many of the same reasons folks found "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy distasteful. It takes black and white themes, and demonstrates them in technicolor. It praises honesty, integrity and commitment while damning cowardice, avarice and betrayal.

On the whole black and white (colors of the rainbow) thing, well, I read somewhere that modern racism is a relatively recent (read within the last five hundred years) innovation. Tribalism, sure, nationalism, o.k., city-statism, yup. But good old fashioned race hating is pretty new to the scene. The Greeks, the Romans, even the Arabs, cheerfully enslaved their own races and others. They also provided ways out. Greek slaves could become metic citizens, and eventually parents of free citizens. Roman slaves could buy their way out, or be given freedom. Arab slaves could find a way out by conversion to Islam. Of course, there were levels of equal, some being more equal than others, but you get the point. The whole idea of a Master Race, seems to me, something the tribes of Europe came up with as a way of binding themselves together, against the rest of the world, as they ascended through the Renaissance to Industrialism and finally Colonialism. Then autocide. Racism is a weak glue.

Like anti-american/zionist/capitalism is today. But that's another post.

M. Stevens takes a couple of swipes at "chiseled white doods." Now, I'm making the assumption that M. Stevens is white. Why? Because if not, then the article would be be by lined by a Mbuki Ndege or Yuan Lee, or Abdullah Jihad, or Sven Michaelson...you know, something appropriately ethnic. Pegs in a hole. M. Stevens seems to have an issue with white doods who work out. But then, so do I. They're always hogging the Smith Machine when I need to do a Bi/Tri workout.

I'm constantly amazed by the level of self loathing I find among my white brothers and sisters. If you buy into the whole sins of the father, collective responsibilities, and communitarian crap, then I guess it makes sense.

But to me? As an individual? This is madness!!

Me, I take people as they come, as individuals. Trying to place stereotypes (up to and including the soft racism of low expectations) is a loser idea. People are either good, because they are, or they're dicks, because they are.

But onwards and upwards.

I find it odd that M. Stevens talks of a "at least some nod in the direction of antiwar sentiment" as if this were some sort off bad thing. I love the way "anti-war" is seen today as a positive trait. Our language has been slimmed down to present "anti-war" on one side, and "warmonger" on the other.

I would argue that what masquerades as "anti-war" today, wouldn't know a quaker if one came up and pissed in his oats.

But that's just me.

Then M. Stevens writes about being at war with Persia, which is what Iran used to be called, before it's former Sha fell in love with Nazi ideology and switched the name to Iran (Aryan...some people just can't spell werds).

Well, today, the thousand nations of the Persian empire are descending upon us.

Well, in a sense, they are. Not if you get all wrapped up in Ru Paul stripping off the drag and playing Xerxes leading a million man march army to the hot gate (Oh behaaave!!). But in the sense that majority view in the world tends towards strong, centralized, authoritarian entities.

Some numbers.

The population of America is a bit over 300 million. That's about five percent of the worlds population.

She produces ten trillion dollars in value, each year. That's roughly half the worlds production.

She has about a one million three hundred thousand citizens actively under arms. Of that, I'd say about one hundred and fifty thousand are bonified, spear carrying warriors, able to gain and hold terrain.

You dig under the hoopla, and you get a very small number of people resisting a very large global trend.

Again, a global trend that favours, to be blunt, God-Kings in cod pieces over individual freedoms and liberties.

Just the way it is. And instead of a constant assault by Immortals, Medeans and steroid chugging Elephants, you have a consistent, persistent, assault on the ideas that underpin America's (and possible the worlds) success.

Persian Empire? Got it.

Gorebal Warbbling? Un hunh.

Agreed Frameworks? Sure, why not.

All that jazz are just surface appearances.

The ultimate aim is to find away around the 300 million, gain the high ground, compel surrender or induce slaughter.

Games theory.

I mean, that's just the way I see it. But I'm probably wrong.

Tooning In

While digging through cartoon brew, I followed a link out to this worth 1000 contest where you photoshop cartoon characters into famous paintings. Great stuff.

My personal favourite:




I have a hard time drawing women. My dirty little secret is that I do not sketch my drawings. I just put pen to paper and draw. With dudes and gidgets, that's not to tough. And arm here, a leg there.

The female form is delightfully more complex. Boobies, backsides, thighs and heels high have to be proportion, or the effect is just wrong. So in my copious spare time, I like to pull out a book I actually sketch in, and draw women.

I steal shamelessly from Pinup Toons for my models.






Sorry, dude, but your stuff is just to good.

International Man of Mystery Part II

A few post back, I mentioned that I'd had the pleasure of being photographed with the High Panjandrum's of War and State.

Now, I can add to that list, in a way that would make Nigel Powers proud. Take a bow, Nigel:



Today, I can announce that I've been photographed with not one, but two Playboy cover models:

Candice Michelle and Ashley Massaro



(Of course, like the Panjandrums, they're both short. Or am I just tall?)

Of course, this sets up an interesting conundrum. If invited to a State Dinner honoring the Grand Visar of Upper Lower Wassabi while at the same time holding an invitation to the Grotto, which one do the wife and I attend?

I'll figure it out while watching "The 300," today.

Life is about choice.

Good Stuff...

Stumbled upon the link to cartoon brew and found this jewel from Aardman: Purple and Brown.




Worth a look, worth a chuckle.

So I made a joke to my subaltern about people freezing up in New York. Attributed it to global warming. He looked at me odd, because I've pretty much established to him that I am not of the faith.

A heathen, of sorts, clinging as I do to hearth and home.

So I asked him had he read Crichton's article on Complexity. Oh geez.

No, he hadn't read it, and no he didn't want to read it, and Crichton is not an environmentalist and yes he's a scientist but no he's not the right kind of scientist, so.....

Blah, blah, blah.

So then I started telling him about control, and how I saw the current crop of grendels motivated mainly by control issues. Look, I don't know why people want control, but I do know there are plenty of people out there who want control. Money, power, nice table at Spago's?

I told him to read Crichton's article on complexity, and report back to me next week, with a page, page and half summation. I linked effects based operations and complexity theory as part of my "justification."

Control. I got it, I use it.

But in the course of the conversation, I got an interesting look under the hood of what passes for contemporary thought. Me, I'm GENX, kind of on the bleeding edge. There but for the grace of God, I could have been a boomer. The subaltern is firmly in the GENY cohort.

I was raised by Boomers still getting their act together. He was raised by Boomers (they breedth slow but long) with an already established "narrative."

So we had had a wide ranging conversation on the impact of DDT on the endangered species act and how polar bears, at least those in the Alaskan Arctic circle and global warming. The subaltern is an odd mix of blood and soil and internationalism. Or he could have just been flailing for arguments.

I told him it was odd that Vice President Gore talked green, but heated his house with a kajillion kilowatts a week. Whereas President Bush basically lived the green dream.

Then I asked him something I thought was basic. What mattered more, intentions or methods and outcomes. For him, it was intentions. Not even bromides about the road to hell, and whatnot, could sway the kid. He also thought of government as a force for good. Wow.

When I reflect on culture, I sometimes think we're like Scott Adam's "Moist Robots." The degree to which we're programmed by designed, shared cultural beliefs is amazing. Unless and until you cut the cable keeping you a little coppertop, it all seems so natural.

Back in the Day, it was big business, military and Ike. Today Co-ops, diplomacy and Al. Still the same little coppertop.

I keep returning to David Brook's "Bobo's in Paradise" book. In it, he described how the meritocrats shoved aside the WASP dominant culture and established themselves as the Prime Culture. Largely, I agreed it was good idea.

But today, we're witnessing the end of that idea. And the end of The Meritocracy, as currently defined. As the WASP became arrogant and sloppy in thinking, so to do the Meritocrats. Overly invested in "Education" and less interested in learning, the Meritocrats are ending as the prime mover in our culture. Used to be, the Dan Rathers could defaecate on a plate and present it as Noos.

Times change.

Just a the WASP still hang around (James Baker Must Eat!!!) so too will the meritocrats.

But something will stand up, and displace them. My monies on the final shove coming from GENY.

That's why I like talking to the little mushheads.

Peace.

Klien Post

Busy, busy, busy. The devil's work, and all.

For my money, I thought Lance Lord had the best name for a four banger Air Marshall.

He's been beat. Jock Stirrup.

Dirk Diggler must be turning green with envy.

Back in a few.

A Tale of Two Wars

There's different levels of suck, and they parallel the different levels of reality.

A the sharp end of suck, you're on foot patrol in some crazy eddie infested part of Iraq, dodging direct fire and IEDs. Realities pretty sharp up there, at the tip.

Move back a bit, and you're in one of those C.O.B.'s, the company operating base. Life's a little less Hobbseian there, indirect fire attacks and VBIEDs.

You get to go on a combat logistics patrol, and you find yourself on a F.O.B., the forward operating base. Some hot chow. A shower.

When you need to brief big, maybe you get to the M.O.B., a main operating base bereft of combat power, but in the words of Dave Bowman, "it's full of stars."

Time to leave, and you're at a S.N.O.B., a somewhat near operating base, where they wear funny uniforms and smile more often.

Finally, you get on a plane and head west. Somewhere over the Atlantic, you pass through the looking glass and arrive back in America. At this point, the suck is real low. But so is the level of reality.

It's a continuum.

What's fun is finding people along that continuum, and hearing what they say. Times have changed. Back in the day, if all you had was a handsomely bound, leather Italian writing journal and a quill pen, well, then that was what you used. Today, with web 2.0, email, phones and a general connectivity, the front is just there, over the hedge row. It's no secret that military personnel blog (don't ask, don't tell).

So two things.

One was this email exchange by a Marine, who, because he's anonymous, we'll call Stud. I'd brushed up against the "controversy" over the weekend, but found the full exchange on David Axe's most excellent Warisboring. Stud writes:

"God, I do love killing these bastards."

Now see, obviously, Stud is troubled. Probably something about a confused sexual relation with his Dad, inner feelings of insecurity, or a white boy's fear of the "other." Or probably not. Looks, god bless the Marines. They are nucking futs. If I get a DEPORD to invade hell, here's to hoping the Marines go in first. And they will.

Read the whole thing, as they say, and you don't find a blood thirsty maniac bent of notching up the so called 655,000 dead Iraqis a bit more. You find someone who, simply, found someone "who needed killing." Crazy Eddie.

Well, I swung up the contimuum a bit, and found this post at a NSFW site about CPT KJ, and officer blogging from Baghdad. For Glamour Magazine. First thing I thought, when her picture popped up was, um, yeah, "air force."




But she's on that continuum, and web 2.0 enabled. Flickr, a blog, and now the Glamour thing.

Fighting a different fight than Stud, but fighting nonetheless.

My whole thing is these voices from the front are varied, and getting louder. My one fear, is that they won't break through the noise at home.

What's it like, when someone tells you to have a nice day, you respond that you are....and then you get ignored.

Maybe I'm Ann Coulter in Drag

Awhile back, when wassisname made his "faggot" comment about wasshisface, I had this to say:

So a guy I never heard of, on a show I've never watched, is entering therapy for calling a castmate a faggot. Man, that's wrong. Here's my take on the subject: "Dude, you're a faggot." "Look man, go fuck yourself. Or better yet, I'll do it to you. Bitch." Crude? Yes, but effective. Instead, we have this self exposed idjiot going into therapy. Getting his mind right, no doubt, on his failure to communicate (too much). And the victim, he makes the talk show tour.

My offense was not the idjiot and his word, but the whole "rehab" process that followed. Then along comes Ann Coulter, who makes pretty much the same observation. Full disclosure: I'm not an AnnFan. Never have read her books. I'd rather curl up with a good solid book, like Robert K. Masse's Dreadnought (current read) and a bottle of 20/20 Mad Dog.

I can't help the feeling that my language is slipping, and being massaged into something it is not. Up is down, right is left, sort of thing.

So, in my mind, it's funny that Ms. Coulter is catching so much flack for an observation that is obvious.

Faggot and Nigger have become words possessed, by the group they were originally aimed at, and less pejorative. Words you can use if gay, or black. If you're outside those groups, then the words are verboten, and beyond the pale. Coulter lives in Greenwich Village, for Managements sakes!!! She pushes bounds in a way natural to her environment. Hell, CNN didn't even use the dreaded bleep button when covering the story. Maccaca!

Bah. Onto something else.

Dennis Kucinich, IMHO, holds some rather loopy opinions. I think his Department of Peace Initiative is, well, D.O.P.I.

That said, I take my hat off to him, with regards to his taste in reds:

Domhnach na Fola

How do you say that in Ebonics?

Look, for my money, Eyes on the Prize is the best tome covering down on the Civil Rights Movement, here in the U.S. of A.

Maybe my memories failing me, but I don't remember the Selma to Montgomery marches being referred to as Bloody Sunday.

If you know one Irishman, then you know about Bloody Sunday. You know to let them talk about it, and whatever opinions you have about the English, you keep to yourself, nod and take a sip on your Vodka Sprite.

Bloody Sunday is a brand, with a U2 Song.

How it got applied to the StM March I'll never know. I will say someone at Wikipedia is johnny on the spot about making sure it sticks.

BS, The StM Cut, atractted two presidential Candidates and a bunch of Newsbots. It was, in short, an Event.

I wonder what the intended Effect is?

On this same day, I get the news that Bruce Gordon resigned as the Head of the NAACP (quick Turing Test. If you're black, you say N Double A CP; if white, you say N...A..A..C..P. Never have figured that out).

That actually surprised me. I didn't know that Bruce Gordon, who is black, was the President of the NAACP.

This blogger, who is black, read the NYT artcile linked above, and thinks he's teased out the reasons why:

"Mr. Gordon was a creature of the corporate boardroom..."

CODE: He did stuff.

“We want it to be a social justice organization; he wanted it to be more of a social service organization,” said Julian Bond, the chairman of the N.A.A.C.P. board.

CODE: We just want to say stuff.

“On a day when you had so many positive signs that there was new life in the civil rights movement, to hear of Bruce’s departure is surprising and shocking,” said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who is black. “We all pray that the N.A.A.C.P. is able to recover and regroup.”

CODE: My name is bennet, and I ain't innit.

From the start, there were questions about whether he was a good fit for the organization. Since its founding in 1909, it had been led by lawyers, ministers and, in Mr. Mfume’s case, a politician, with backgrounds in the civil rights struggle.

CODE: Don't talk to us about accountability. We stir up the passions and skim off the cream. Praise God and pass the checkbook.

Seems Mr. Gordon's chief sin was in wanting to provide social services (CODE: Do stuff) vice social justice (CODE: Say stuff).

If there's one resource on this planet I'll concede is finite, then it's "power." As power devolves to individuals, then those invested in the current structures (NAACP, Greens, UN, etc) feel a need shore up their "base." Who gets rolled in the process is of little account.

Still teasing that theory out, but I will say this about our current crop of Power Elites: these folks have issues.

Eukaryote Prime

With the recent revelations that SEN Barrack Obama's ancestors used to own Mr. Al Sharpton's ancestors in a sort of wife multiplying thing between Mitt Romney and Strom Thurmond, I'm left bitter and cynical.

One day, we'll have a candidate whose eve mitochondria is pure back to the first eukaryote (who, I believe, was named Bob). Used to be you just dug up dirt on the candidate/political/activist busybody. Now, it seems, you have to dig up the whole bloodline.

I'm so disillusioned.

R. Humans

So I'm about midway through Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near. At least now, I can reread Accelerando with a much better understanding.

This is the Year 2007. Or the Year of the Gnat. Or Fifteen Hundred Akabaka. Or something.

Still, no aircars, moon colonies, planned Jupiter Missions or ETI invasion.

In a word, boring.

I asked my subaltern how old he was. 22 was the answer.

Cingular is now the new AT&T. My subaltern wasn't even born when the old AT&T was broken up into the Baby Bells. I remeber when calling across the street was a like a dollar in long distance charges. And cars cost six thousand dollars. A a trip in a plane was, well, not something you did for a weekend trip.

The world, at least my corner of it, has gotten smaller, and in many ways, better.

Kurzweil posits some ideas I'm still digesting. Interesting ideas.

I don't know.

But if 2107 is anything like 2007, I'm going to have to talk to management.

A Bloodbath at Walter Reed....

A little inside baseball, but dang. To lose a Two Banger and a SECARMY in forty eight hours.

Wow.

Accelerating change.

Major General Eric Schoomaker (little brother to Army CoS Pete Schoomaker) will be a good leader. Less management by numbers, more putting the Soldier at the center of his formation.

He's just that kind of guy.

And the world still spins.

Bits and Pieces...

So today I was informed that I'm being looked at for Adult Continuing Education. Sweet. Lazing on the Government's Dime has always been a goal of mine. But that comes later.

So MG Weightman has been relieved, as Commander of WRAMC. In connection with the whole WAPO articles. Accelerating Change.

I was talking to my subaltern, today. Told him AQAM/Crazy Eddie had a Navy (USS Cole attack), and Air Force(9-11) and ground forces (damn near everywhere). Told him that the AQAM/Crazy Eddie had mastered Joint/Coalition Operations, and were working on Interagency Operations. He was sane enough to say, "well, that seems like a stretch."

So I hit him with this.

The Measure of Performance (the Bang) may be laughable. Crazy Eddie with a Navy, Air Force and an Army? Ha, ha.

So I challenged him to look at it from the perspective of the Measure of Effectiveness (what the Bang does).

Purpose of Navy/Air Power/Ground is to deny access. Crazy Eddies MoPs may be hijackers and dingy riding bombers may look laughable as a MoP, but as an MoE, they've managed to incluence the way we do business. They've had an effect.

Get caught up in the MoP, and it becomes a numbers games. "X" number of battlegroups versus Bob in a Dinghy.

I think the MoE tells a more complete story. Crazy Eddie wants us to deny us access, cut our connectivity, and force a retreat.

One love.

I'd think when his battle staffs meet in hiding, they've got to be pretty impressed by their own MoE.

I am.