me: “Do you ever worry that you just might be the last refuge of a scoundrel?”
my patriotism: “No. No moreso than I worry that I’m a legitimate excuse for you to sit around in your underwear today drinking Mexican beer simply because you got up early and hung a flag from your awning.”
me: “Good point. But in my defense, I have an awful lot of lime wedges that I refuse to let go to waste. And isn’t that a uniquely American quality?”
my patriotism: “Actually, no—but I admire your spunk, you drunken, half-naked bastard.”
my patriotism: “Now go put on some pants and let’s blow some shit up with those M80s you bought off the cholos! For FREEDOM!”
Man, that sure makes the Ordnance Corps officer in me happy. GO BLOW ‘ER UP!
My wife the IT professional explains our cannon ownership to her peers thusly:
“It’s simple. We like to blow shit up.”
Always pick the right roommate service. Ours has paid off for nineteen years come August.
Happy Independence Day, y’all.
TW=”power”. More POWER!!!
Please tell me it’s Dos Equis or Negro Modelo. Corona is simply not acceptable.
Careful with the M80’s dude.
Sometimes those pinche cholos cut their product with talcolm powder.
Jeff, M80’s are for pussy’s. Real PATRIOTS go for the mortars and rockets.
Major John  Ever hunt ground squirrel burrows with a claymore?
Jeff’s fame of the Interwebs grows.
Why can’t I ever get stalkers like yours, Jeff? They’re so cute and cuddly and bereft of the sense God gave little green apples. Oooh, I just wants to eat ‘em up!
This is awesome! It’s like a real-life “Hadji Girl”! I can’t believe that stupid Marine Corps won’t release that great song.
dd, if you’re going to be a douchebag, at least be a douchebag that doesn’t fuck up the page format.
And posts a working link.
Fucktard.
Kim Jong Il is showing off his patriotism today. And I’m impressed at the size of his display.
All told, today he shot-off more big, firey rockets than we did!
Gotta love his Esprit de Corps!
dd —
Chris Clarke tracked back to an earlier post of mine, so that’s been linked here. Your second link is broken, but I think I may have fixed it.
[update: nope, still broken]
Steve  Dude. He missed a continent. Even with Soviet-surplus crap, that’s embarrassing.
BTW, put the word out, the Shuttle was carrying the laser that shot down the missiles. That orter get Little Kim’s paranoia going…
Richard – no, can’t say I have. I did manage to set a field on fire one Independence Day with a green star cluster that might have made its way home with me… man, did I do a combo Smokey Bear waltz/speed-metal flamenco to put that out…uh, hypothetically speaking that is.
Major John,
No good ammo NCO would have ever let you take that Green Star Cluster home.
He’d have taken it home himself! Not that I ever did that. Nope, wasn’t me…
TW: Area, as in I burnt quite a large area once…
Hey now, I am an Ordnance Corps officer. I have a few small tricks up m’ sleeve. Of course, after that little mishap back when I was a 1LT (uh, hypothetically speaking of course) I haven’t taken as much as a dud 5.56mm blank round….brrr.
An M80 has nothing on what’s going on right now at Scrutator. It’s getting crazy over there! Drunkenness, lesbians, infidelity. Happy 4th, everybody!
Heh, the only time we really got happy with pyro was in the first go in the Gulf in 91. We were still in southern Iraq but were turning in our Brads and every piece of TO&E except small arms and promasks. Had to get rid of all the ammo. We shot of everything in a mech co. basic load from TOWs to 5.56.
TW: last- last time I shot 13 Dragons in a day, I can assure you.
Uhh, you wouldn’t perchance have an instructional video of that?
XBradTC  Ran a 203 qualification range one year for which the battalion couldn’t actually be arsed to send more than six 203 gunners. Me’n the range safety NCO wound off firing off about 300 40mm rounds between us since the ammo dump wouldn’t take them back.
I was saluting like John Kerry for the next two days…
Phew. I’m relieved that Deb’s not here. I was starting to feel like the android scientist from “Alien” who gets a little too fascinated by the specimens. *shiver*
TW: space, nobody can hear you LTFOL
George S. “Butch” Patton (Mrs.) sez:
Real or powder puff range rounds?
**never got to shoot anything but powder puff, grumble grumble**
Major John,
Thanks for the reminder. I remember coming home one day and the street in front of the house was filled with fire trucks. My brothers set the field behind the house on fire, and they were catching hell. I never laughed so hard in my life, because, for once, it really wasn’t me. I wasn’t a malicious kid, but I craved excitement – at least more than was to be found in suburbia.
I joined the Marines partly so I could blow stuff up. They sent me to Japan where I was allowed to clean my rifle, but never to fire it. There were, however, other compensations. Legal fireworks even. Who knew?
TW: under. under-achiever? Well, I probably will never be all I could be, but I had most of the fun and few regrets. Happy 4th to all.
“Gunpowder? HAH!… Oh no! I loaded this baby with Fulminate of Mercury!”
— Frank Pulver
SB: them
big ants
Seems, judging by comments at Burgess’s place, that a certain pacifistic troll who makes deplorable comments about children while drunk, then apologizes for his behavior privately afterwards, then posts elsewhere about the incident in quite a different voice, has sent a nasty email to one of our commenters (and frequent contributor at The Daily Ablution). Note: it was an (singular) email.
Ladies, this pacifist weightlifter (not that there’s anything wrong with that) is gloriously available. I think that the pattern of drunken bluster followed by sincere apology may be only a passing phase, and mention it only for the sake of full disclosure. What do you think?
TW: just. It was just my invagination running away with me
MarkD, Major John, George,
I don’t know why the hell someone enlists in the Navy or the Airforce, but for certain, almost everyone in the Army and Marines hoped to blow at least SOME shit up.
Heinlein won this thread long before we began it.
Pablo  HE or HEDP, don’t recall which. None’a that orange dye crap.
Great post.
Link…?
XBrad
Some join the Navy or Airforce to FLY in addition to blowing things up
(daughter’s boyfriend going to FL this October to do just that)
Former Bradley TC, I never got to fire a TOW
I guess that is what I get for being an 11B as an enlisted guy.
However, I did get to fire plenty of M-203 HE rounds! Even if I didn’t shoot enough at one time to salute like John Kerry (ha!).
One thing I have noticed, speaking of ranges, is that all of our guys returning from Iraq are awfully damned good with the M2. I wouldn’t want to argue with anyone from Illinois that had Ma Deuce backing him up.
Man, what a country to protect. I hope everyone had a great Independence Day.
Ah, the laughter of the (for once) innocent…
Wouldn’t happen to be JackGoff, now, Mark, would it?
Until you squeeze the trigger of a minigun, thou hast not lived.
Fired a minigun oncet! Prolly the coolest 3-400 rounds I ever fired. Oddly enough, even after a few years of TC’ing, never fired a TOW. I was a dismount when we were in the sandbox. And I was awfully glad the only thing I had to shoot Dragons at was abandoned junk. Not nearly as fun to think of trying to pop a T-72. Remember, max range of a Dragon was much less than the max range of the TC’s 12.7.
XBRadTC— Saw a documentary about Desert Storm, I think the Battle of 73 Easting. They interviewed one corporal who had that “I so want to meet my recruiter again” expression on his face as he said, “Oh, yeah, nothing more fun than being the dismount element in a tank battle…”
heh. ‘Tis good to be in the air wing, let it be known. Looks like it sucks down there.
“Butch”,
You do know the guy who led the Cav at 73 Easting is H.R. McMaster, now leading the cav at T’al Afar?
And while I can understand squids and zoomies wanting to fly, most guys in the navy or AF have as good a chance of flying as I have of becoming pope.
As Neptunus Lex mentioned, when he joined the Navy to see the world, nobody mentioned it was 2/3 water.
TW: If it ain’r raining, we ain’t training
like the old song:
we joined the Navy to see the world,
but what did we see?
we saw the sea.
Brad, you compliment yourself…I’ve seen the pictures and the webshots; the donkey pretty much ruined your shot at the Holy See.
And God, man, I didn’t know they made sequined assless chaps. Bravo! I think…
Well, crap, they said the pics were for private use only…
I always love range duty. Plenty of rounds left over and it’s “hey, doc, you want to shoot?” followed by maniacal laughter on my part.
I’ve gotten to play with all sorts of small arms and crew served weapons. Dropped two mortar rounds and even pulled tail on a Paladin.
We’ve gone from being a squadron in an ACR to the RSTA in a Cav brigade so we have lost our tanks. I’ll probably never get to play with that piece of equipment, but I am otherwise very satisfied with my career.
TW: Public. as in the public never understands just how fun it is to shoot that shit.
Growing up in New Orleansin late 60’s early 70’s, we used to toss M80’s into the storm drains in the street. Kinda cool how the green glow came out of the adjacent drains 100 feet away in each direction. Odd how swamp gas in the storm sewer system glowed green.
M80’s used to do a number on the neighbor’s mailboxes too.
Me,
So that’s why our dranage system doesn’t work!
Here in Vietnam, fireworks are totally illegal. I hear tell you can get a little stuff down in Cholon in Saigon, but up here in Hanoi it was quiet as the grave, even at the American Club 4th of J party.
Oh well. Guess they’re a little touchy about the noise of things exploding in urban areas.
Any of you have liberal friends who don’t know that you’re conservative and just assume that you think as they do?
We went to an annual 4th of July get-together with friends (our kids met in preschool 11 years ago). She told a story about seeing a bumper sticker around DC that said, “Republicans for Voldemort” (Harry Potter allusion). She said, “I KNEW you’d love that!” My husband, grinning wickedly, said, “Oh, we can probably find one on the internet.”
Later she mentioned that it was too bad my husband wasn’t a citizen in ‘04 so he could have voted for Kerry.
Then while she was serving desset–a very yummmy cheesecake with blueberries and strawberries–she commented, “This is as patriotic as I get.”
I never reply to her political remarks, believing it to be rude to slap one’s hostess. I just wish she would pick up on my vibes and stick to the subjects we really do enjoy discussing.
I love the 4th of July, except the part where the yahoos across the street are still setting shit off at 11:00 and I have a job interview at 8:00 in the morning.
The 1,000,000 candlepower spotlight put ‘em out of business, though. They’re probably still trying to recover their night vision.
I always try to preempt them. You know how easy it is to recognize them. I’ll say something along the lines of, “So and So probably even went so far as to vote for Kerry. He/she probably just followed the herd. Gawd, how brain dead do you have to be to vote for that charlatan?”
Sorta like when you see a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on a car and you pull up next to it. Honk and roll your window down and say something like, “Did you know that some a**hole stuck a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on your car?”, and then drive off.
Yes Goddess I have shared many similar experiences.
My husband is a professor and we having a running joke about when he is coming out. We were at department picnic before the ’04 election when the entire conversation was about the evil GW. Furthermore the running under current was how republicans were stupid and democrats were brilliant. My 14 year old son came up to me and whispered into my ear, “You are white with anger.†What truly annoys me is that our base knowledge about the issues is vastly superior. All of our friends base their opinions on knee-jerk reactions and trends.
Added to this has been my own personal suppression of opinions. I have just received MS in social studies education. For entire year while attending grad school I have kept my opinions to myself. There was even one class I opted for a B because I just didn’t have the energy to write a paper about Jared Diamond’s idiot book. I know it would take much more effort to write a negative review than a positive one and at the end of day what did it really matter. My former advisor sends out the most obnoxious political emails. I am still sitting on my hands because currently I am looking for a job and I need him in my corner. We all know how open minded leftist are … I am sure the emails about job opening would stop as soon as my true opinions surfaced.
Leni,
I take it that when you speak of Jared Diamond’s idiot book (not to be confused with Wordsworth’s “Idiot Boy”) you mean “Collapse.” I read it, and though it wasn’t nearly as good as the other one, “Guns, Germs and Steel,” it still has some interesting information in it, and it still displays some of the cybernetic thought that makes him an interesting read. Having said that, or course, there are a lot of messy and ill-considered heuristics, because he’s wanting to make himself still more topically “relevant.” I wouldn’t say it’s an idiot book. Of couse, one’s opinions of such matters are sometimes colored by the uses to which the tomes are put by idiot professors.
Jeff Jacoby on the Bush Dictatorship:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/07/05/about_our_dictator/
I have to say, I was made uneasy when I saw the Cheney Youth marching in the Bristol, VT, Independence Day Parade. But then again, they may have been a youth marching band from Canada. I was distracted.
It is an idiot book.
Feh–conventional ordnance.
Boomer sailors really blow shit up. And make the rubble bounce. At least we could have.
Good times.
OTOH, the left shows us what real political discourse is about:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/07/05/lieberman_faces_his_war_critics/
Because it’s all about the inclusion.
>A few hundred yards behind the Liebermans, giant papier-mâché heads of Lieberman and President Bush were locking lips in a pose meant to evoke memories of the president’s bear hug of Lieberman—the senator insists that no kiss was involved—after Bush’s 2005 State of the Union address.<
A little homophobia? Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . .
You know, Dan, it always galls me when I consider such outrageous opinions as the one Jacoby brings up. Who in their right mind would honestly entertain the idea that George Bush aspires to be a dictator?
The left is able to make all sorts of rash claims and pronouncements, only by virtue of the fact that not one bit of what they claim is true: if Bush actually were a dictator, he wouldn’t obey the laws he didn’t like; if Christianity actually were such an intolerant philosophy, one would never be able to take for granted one’s freedom to criticize it with impunity; if the United States actually were descending into fascism, idiots like them would never be permitted to vote; if our citizens actually were so economically oppressed, they wouldn’t enjoy increasingly better circumstances, etc., etc., etc.
It’s either a game or self-delusion.
Yep, dictators listen to Supreme Courts, ahem. Espcially Supreme Courts that are packed with right-wing reactionary…wait a minute…
It will be a major back-pedal day in Leftyville on January 20, 2009. Around noon EST. Set your search engines now for the first “He was TRYING to be a dictator but we didn’t let him” post.
I call dibs on the incredible ego that is Kos, but the field bet is probably better because some of them will off themselves on a November night in 2008.
Um, Leni, you don’t have to get into discussing what was wrong with Jared Diamond’s rather excellent “Collapse” if you don’t want to, but I’m baffled by why you thought it would be harder to write a negative review than a positive one. In general, the opposite is true. If you were really having trouble figuring out how to criticize the book…well, deduce away.
I mean, did you strongly disagree with the multiple criteria he devised for which Polynesian islands might be expected to experience social collapse? Did you find it unconvincing that those criteria (distance from the Asian dust plume, etc.) did in fact seem to predict which islands had experienced environmental collapse? Did you think his breakdown of the factors which made Greenland Norse society more vulnerable to climate change than Inuit was misguided? Or did you disagree strictly with his application of the factors he came up with, based on analysis of previous societies facing environmental challenges, to modern industrial societies? And if the latter, why?
Or are you unable to explain this, and that’s why you couldn’t write the book review?
me: “Do you ever worry that you just might be the last refuge of a scoundrel?â€Â
Do you ever worry that your navel gazing is boring?
Can’t let it go.
Brooksfoe, would you care to backpedal on your story from yesterday of how Bangkok has oppressed Thai Muslims for centuries?
Nah, allow me to administer punishment now.
You see the southern provinces were under Malay control until Rama V or so and the border with British Malaysia wasn’t actually set until 1909. So keep up the slovenly intellectual work as you continue to post long passages to cover up the fact that you usually have no idea what you are talking about.
Hint: Consider that sometimes there are just evil fucks in the world and no “oppression” is needed.
Over 5,000,000 say no.
How’s your abacus of a site meter today?
And I’d swear you said you’d go away AGAIN, somewhere near the top of the previous thread.
Over 5,000,000 say no.
Given what I’ve seen of Mr. Goldstein, I am pretty sure he finegles his stats. And even if 5 million people have landed in this swamp, so what. Look how many people voted for dubya.
Jeff is a third (fourth?) rate rightwing blowhard who has a comically inflated “Bio” on his site. (His list of accomplishments includes items like “I won most improved penmanship award in third grade.”)
His writing is atrocious, his thoughts are regurgitated rightwing drivel and he attracts nasty rightwing dingbats.
Apparently Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel is pretty much discredited by the evidence…so why bother with Collapse? Of course he COULD be right…won’t help us none…Western Civ is obviously unstable vis a vis human nature how else to explain reproductive failure?
He also attracts turds in the toilet!
Hell, Deb, your crap isn’t even drivel!
That democracy thing blows, huh?
You guys nominated John Kerry. To be President. Of the United States.
I wonder if Jeff’s writing is atrocious enough to be denied tenure at a Pac-10 school?
Speaking of drivel, a brave Brit attends a State of the Union conference in Aspen:
http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/baker/2006/07/july_4th.html
Yikes, wishbone – Jeff didn’t even make it out of the starting gate of academia so it’s kind of stupid to diss me for being denied tenure. But if you could understand this basic logical inference, you probably wouldn’t be hanging out here!
I always thought that “reality based community” was mere self delusion but lately I have realized that its code for “we hate Christianity”.
wishbone, did you get in on the pool for the number of times SWP promises to leave before the esteemed untenured professor actually leaves? I’m not sure who is holding the bets, but you might be interested in tossing in a quarter or two.
I suspect that Deb was denied tenure because she hung around the faculty lounge obsessing about “the Big Guy in the Sky”. She didn’t realize that the choir gets tired of being preached to.
RealJeff–
There’s a kind of competition already going on in the previous thread, but no idea what the prize is. I’ll take the box next to Carol Merrill.
You know guys, I’ve been thinking and I’m going to stick around until the big guy gets up the nerve to ban me. Sorry for the change of plans.
So what’s your excuse?
Whatever floats your boat Deb. Oooops!
Jeff could not possibly summon the nerve to ban you by pressing a button…poof! Just not possible.
So I guess you must be thinking about the “big guy in the sky” again!
Jeff didn’t even make it out of the starting gate of academia
Yeah, choosing to stay home and take care of your kid is just a horrific career path, isn’t it?
Whatever floats your boat Deb.
She doesn’t need a boat; she’s a floater.
Deb
Outside of your continued repeating “America is just a big poopy head and all you that support it are poopy heads, too!” have you ever made one substansive, legitimate point?
Don’t you ever wonder what your students snicker about you behind your back?
Do you have students? Ones, I mean, that don’t drop your class within the first week or so.
swp keeps returning in order to spew the bottom-fed bile it sucked out from the asses of marxist idiots and when such constipated hate fills this obese monster beyond human recognition it must seek tolerance from the good guy to relieve itself of Marxist’s miserable disease.
Face it spw you need Jeff in order to stay alive for without him your bile would explode inside your body and you could not live with the humiliating mess you have made of yourself.
Uncle, uncle. Okay, okay, Deb. You’ve seen right through me. Actually, there’s only one visitor–me–and I’ve been here more than 5 million times.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to assume all these fucking aliases? ‘Withheld’ alone took me a month of work. ‘actus’ puts me to sleep. And then, there’s ‘PIATOR’ who sent me back into rehab for 30 days. Some nights I wake up screaming. I could go on…
Jeff doesn’t pay much, but it’s pretty slim pickings for an armadillo these days: they either want to stuff you and set you next to the lava lamp or scrape you off the highway and call you road-kill. It’s that damned Bush. Anyway, it’s a living.
You can stick around it you’d like, but ease up on me, please. My nerves are shot the tips of my paws are sore, and Jeff says I’m absolutely, positively going to have to get up on stage and dance one of these days. I hate getting up on stage.
Between you and me, huh?
tw: ahead. Baby, you want to give me a little ahead?
Maybe. I think it was because she is crazy as a shithouse rat.
Speaking of patriotism, read Paul Belien’s latest at the Brussels Journal: Europe Must Find its Roots in America.
Armadillo,
You do me too? Damn, you are good.
Apparently, Ken Lay has given his last full measure of devotion.
tw: karma
XBradTC  “Well, crap, they said the pics were for private use only…” And the privates are still passing them around to this day, so what’s your beef?
Guys, the prize of winning the Deb pool is, she comes to your blog for a week.
Second prize, two weeks.
Just so you know:
is a registered trademark of Wishbone Enterprises. Any uses of the pictures, descriptions or accounts of the shithouse rat without the expressed written-in-crayon ramblings of of Rep. Maxine Waters is prohibited.
It wouldn’t take “nerve” to ban you. You are making such an utter fool of yourself that to put a stop to it would be more an act of compassion.
More like a mercy-banning.
JohnAnnArbor
Womyn in academia don’t like kids. It’s the St. Am*nda of Fornicatus liturgy that bearing children is proof of letting The Patriarchy own one’s uterus. Or for people like retired professor Linda Hirschman, “feminist philosopher,”
Saw a ‘Dissent is the highest form of patriotism’ attribution to Thomas Jefferson on a bumpersticker in my neighborhood yesterday. Thought that was pretty sad.
I also drank Mexican beer on the 4th, Tecate, is that wrong?
Defense Guy–
It’s not wrong, per se, but it would have been better to go find some Bohemia.
I wonder what kind of rewards for what kind of risks Hirschmann is referring to? Leftards usually pay no more than lip service to free enterprise.
-Jerry Pournelle
Interesting quote, Darleen. Makes you wonder what that type thinks of the housekeepers and nannies they hire.
Darleen,
Those types want all children turned over to the State to be raised (“free child care for all!”) and for education (“no school choice!”).
Sounds like Brave New World stuff.
noah
Hirschmann believes women who choose to be full time wives and moms are traitors to all other womyn. One is not truly “fulfilled” unless they are spending 60 hours a week going for the lawfirm partnership.
Kids are just not worth the effort … womyn should either marry a guy with enough $$$ to hire drudges to care for ‘em or marry “down” (she recommends the ‘starving artist’
and make sure THEY stay home with the kids.
Hey, we have starving artist sales in some of our area’s motels.
Maybe she can come here and buy one.
the border with British Malaysia wasn’t actually set until 1909. – wishbone
Ooh, ooh, I am so debunked. Fine: “a century”. Point was regarding nonexistence of substantial angry Muslim minority in the US. Have you succeeded in finding our angry Muslim ghettoes anywhere? Dearborn, MI? Lackawanna, PA perhaps?
To the interested
Linda’s first article here
and, after the fit hit the shan, her snarky response here. From the second “Unleashing the wrath of Stay-at-home Moms”
Can ya feel the LOVE? Can you feel the TOLERANCE?