I saw a lot of guys in uniform on airplanes yesterday while flying Buffalo-Baltimore-Nashville-Minneapolis. All I could think was "you poor fucking bastards."
2: "Buffalo-Baltimore-Nashville-Minneapolis"? Jesus Frequent Flying Christ. I'd be chewing the skin off my own feet halfway through a trip like that.
I'd be chewing...off my own feet halfway through a trip like that.
Then we'd have to change your name to Flipper.
3: Plus I started at 4 am (Toronto-Buffalo, by car) and had a sleepy kid to deal with all the way through Minneapolis. I ended up carrying him off and onto planes in Bmore, along with my own carryon, his, and a big bag of food I'd brought along since the airlines don't feed you anymore. My back is killing me despite the massage I splurged on in the Nashville airport.
When I went to lunch just now there were three guys in fatigues coming out of the restaurant just as I was going in.
My back is killing me despite the massage
Shoulda gone for the happy ending.
8: Right, in the middle of concourse B. Anyway, I've had a couple of those since I got here last night, and my back hurts anyway. Fucking lack of core strength.
I luv teh comedy as much as anyone, but that guy really puts the smug in smug elitist. How much more clueless can someone be on what it means to serve in the military?
How much more clueless can someone be on what it means to serve in the military?
I don't know, but I'm sure you'll show us.
How much more clueless can someone be on what it means to serve in the military?
Yeah, and moreover, I don't think there's actually any decisionmaking going on in the chicken's head when it crosses a road.
Text, Apo, be nice to TLL. He's morally retarded.
I'm not sure what it is that Brown's not getting, actually.
I know you're all going to regret my saying that.
Thanks text, I don't have to prove to you or anybody else that I know what it's like to serve in combat. The whole point of the chain of command is to remove the individual decision-making process about killing someone else. That part of the process starts in boot camp, and contiues from there. Talk all you want about just war theory, but an individual soldier does not get to make the choice, outside of unlawful orders.
Good grief, that's the part of Brown's piece that was most clearly intended to be absurd. If the phrase "Personal Killing List" doesn't clue you in that the speaker is being either satirical or violently insane, then you really have no business participating in civil discourse.
The stuff about the troops being morally retarded is pretty off of point, and does just seem to detract from the larger point that: "this war is a moral abomination, and it sucks that we're all poorer because of it."
The whole point of the chain of command is to remove the individual decision-making process about killing someone else.
Um. You noticed that was the whole point of his rant, right? Especially the second one? That the chain of command remove the individual decision-making process, and that's a bad idea?
Of course he's oversimplifying. OTOH, his point that joining a military organization when the top of the chain of command is clearly depraved is, really, not that "smug" and "elitist." It seems to me to make plenty of sense. Heck, there are even those who might agree with him.
19: I read that book while I was at the beach last month. It's pretty horrifying.
Hit "post" too soon. "His point that joining a military organization " s/b "His point that it's a bad idea to join a military organization..."
And yes, the killing list stuff is clearly absurdism.
20: What hit me -- apart from his accounts of some of the actual atrocities -- was his description of the training that helps to explain so much of the mindset of the soldiers by the time they land there. It;s something that few other commentators seem willing to touch on.
Some parts clearly were meant to be more funny than biting, others to be more biting than funny. I guess you could call that a criticism, in that the tone did jump around a bit--perhaps too much for a segment only lasting a few minutes.
Overall the biting parts were better, I thought.
18 I know it's a joke: but it seems like one of those things said intentionally to rile up certain people. I'm not sure I approve of jingo-baiting.
No, we certainly don't want to bait the jingoes.
Okay, look, the important thing here is that Barry Bonds has been found cheating in an entirely non-steroidal way.
I'm a big Chris Rock fan, but there's a point in Bigger and Blacker that's always grated on me. It comes when he makes fun of insurance companies: "I buy insurance in case shit happens," sayeth Chris. "Now, if shit don't happen, shouldn't I get my money back?"
No, of course you shouldn't, Chris. You've completely misunderstood -- or pretended to misunderstand -- what insurance is all about, for the purpose of making a not-very-clever joke that suffers even more because it rests on a foundation of ignorance.
I feel the same way about the A. Whitney Brown clips.
But you see, they're not really telling you their name after they knock, it just serves to set up a pun when you ask for their last name. But the real giveaway is, they aren't even at a real door. They're just saying "knock knock". That's how I can always tell.
Great comedy exposes truths; it doesn't obfuscate falsehoods.
26, Craig Biggio's inevitable breaking of the hit-by-pitch record relies entirely on that kid of performance-enhancing substance (Kevlar). And yet he is lionizedc.
Overall the biting parts were better, I thought.
THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID
