I laid out this whole thing to my wife and she said, of Cox, "Oh, he sounds like Andrew Burt."
Even "revolutionary" would seem to be an exercise in understatement.
The parallels with that other reformation are pretty fascinating.
Best of luck on the effort, and I think the ripples are going to carry on for decades, at least. This is monumental stuff.
Fark has one that crops up in comment threads all the time (though, now, just in mocking reference) that starts:
"I'm a (member of group/employee of company/etc.) and I'm really getting a kick out of these replies."
Kip W @ #40
I've always liked Penny Arcade's take on the subject. (NSFW language, as usual with them.)
Anecdotally, I know Scalzi is absolutely correct in #6. F'rex, the comment threads at Fark.com can devolve quickly into trollish flamefests, though some of the most egregious can be lifted by moderators, especially since Fark uses a login system for commenting. Some of the comment threads can be very good, and they tend to stay good (and relatively low volume). Longer and more controversial threads almost always run long and get filled with "troll sign" quickly as commenters snap back and forth at one another in flurries.
What's next, editorslash? Bloggerslash?
Please, won't someone think of the editors?
Steve Buchheit demonstrates another common misapprehension.
A Bronze Star is the measure of a soldier's worth? I knew one Marine who received a Bronze Star for service in Iraq. He earned it. But I can tick off another two dozen Marines you should buy drinks for who have nothing to decorate their chests other than the Combat Action Ribbon that every Marine in my company received. I can point out heroes who never got into a firefight, who never fired a shot, but who are heroes just the same for their restraint.
And that kind of restraint doesn't get medals, either.
Unless you have served with those individuals, seen them under fire, known what they sacrificed and what they overcame, I daresay it's impossible to determine who is worthy of a salute, or a drink.
For what it's worth, the image of the average US soldier "lying terrified in the desert" is as much of a misnomer as any other blanket statement about the troops and who they are and how they go about their lives in Iraq.
And having been a Reservist deployed to Iraq, I don't think Ezra's words particularly apply as a blanket to that group, either. Few in the Reserves have illusions that their term of service is going to be uninterrupted with deployments or other calls of service. In fact, the bulk of Reservists today have joined since 9/11. Unless they've been wearing some really awesome blinders, anyone who has signed up for a Reserve or Guard unit since then has known that deployment should be treated as an inevitability.
And it's not like active duty troops, who do a heavy share of the fighting, have not left their families or are not regular Joes, as much as the Reservists are.
Personally, I defy any attempt to characterize any group of servicemembers in any one way. The troops are scared, and not scared. They're honorable, and other than honorable. They're the sort you wouldn't mind your son or daughter bringing home... and they're the exact opposite. They are human, as human as anyone who frequents this blog and their views and dreams and desires and character run the spectrum. Sure, maybe there are some trends, especially when you consider the military is all volunteer--there's some self-selection there. But there's no way to characterize them all in one fell swoop, in one neat and concise talking point.
I find any attempt to do so ignorant and lazy. Which, of course, goes for those promoting the talking points from either side of the aisle.
Why do you blame those poor, defenseless corporations? They're only doing what they need to in order to survive.
Ahem.
In all seriousness, if those in favor of exposing the egregious excesses of capitalism and corporatism ever hope to succeed, they're going to need to do much more of this. So far, it seems to me that the efforts at countering astroturfing and similar corporate intiatives have largely gone unchecked because the opposition fails (or refuses) to organize and make common cause. The infamous anti-globalization protests of recent memory come close but, really, they're making their appeal in front of the wrong people. The world leaders and giants of commerce are not going to be swayed by protesters in the streets, but the rank-and-file that support them may well be. Assuming they find the right approach, of course. Getting tear-gassed en masse did not seem to be very effective.
CaseyL:
It's not so much "magical thinking" but a rather robust reliance on the Almighty Specialist. Most of us lack the aptitude (and willigness) to be deeply initiated in every field of human endeavor and inquiry. So, at some point, most of us are going to be able to be led by the nose by a smooth-talking specialist when it comes to something that is outside our own personal realm of knowledge and training.
Which is what makes Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds' Army of Davids such a useful starting point in this discussion; I, for one, am perversely proud to say that I am incapable of differentiating truth from baloney on the question of liquid binary explosives. BUT, I am more than happy to listen to the horde of experts that have come out with their suspicions on the practicality of the plot, from a lab-tested chemist's point of view. It does help me make up my own mind on the question and define the scope of my ignorance.
Being an expert at everything is rather impractical, and it's the nature of the limitations of the individual human experience that we will be unable, in a given instance, to differentiate the banalities, the half-truths, and the outright lies. But then again, I could be wrong, and if you like, I'd be delighted to have in depth discussion with you about the practicalities of machine gun use and maintenance, or perhaps the nuances of information technology in dental practices.
Just because individuals do not know how hard it is to make TATP, does not make them starry-eyed, mouth-breathing morons.
"Some other miracle explains why everyone else has cancelled their subscription to The New York Times."
Because circulation of all other newspapers is also down, because people can get their news more-or-less free on-line?
Just a shot in the dark, here.
To my mind, to answer my own question, it says very little.
To me, it says more about the people who are doing the complaining, than about the object of the complaint.
It was silly for Weisberg to claim that Clinton's musical choices were poll-based, but that no more makes him a tool of the "Right" than his previous editorial condemning Bush's management of the executive branch makes him a tool of the "Left."
So, if the "Left" complains about the right-leaning bias of the media...
...and the "Right" complains about the left-leaning bias of the media...
what does that actually say about the "media"?
Chip,
Friends of mine are going back to Iraq next year to help train the Iraqis and make sure they do use the equipment properly.
But that's sort of the underlying point of the difference in numbers. One battalion has been deemed trustworthy and capable. The rest have not. There's a lot more going on over there than troops driving up and down waiting to get blown up. They are actually working to shape the new Iraqi Army. Whether or not this is successful, whether or not it's a repeat of the effort to make the South Vietnamese forces capable of handling their own defense and counter-insurgency, remains to be seen.
My point was that Bush's numbers were accurate, as far as actual personnel are concerned, though obviously those numbers do not tell the whole story, as Casey's statements indicate. Just offering corroboration, to give the numbers more context.
Incidentally, most of the contractors who won bids for the program were not American. In fact, only one was, and they are not Halliburton, or any other big military supplier. One contractor is from Ukraine, while another is China.
Someone to whom I'm rather close works in acquisitions for the US Army and recently helped shepherd through a couple of buys specifically for the Iraqi Army. More than a couple battalions' worth of gear has been bought and delivered. Quite a bit more, actually, much closer to Bush's numbers than Casey's.
In the Marine Corps, there are about 35 numbered battalions of infantry. At any given time, a non-zero number of them are way, way below combat effectiveness as Marines shuffle around from unit to unit. They are not, in effect, "Level One."
Saying "Five Marine Infantry Battalions Combat Ineffective!", while true, does not really allow for context, or anything else that gives the number meaning.
But as has been said, there's lies, damn lies, and statistics.
What else do you call what is happening down there? Precisely like Somalia, those with the guns are trying to drive off the relief or hijack it for themselves, and deprive the innocent and those truly in need. As much as a military solution was required there, one is required here. Those that take up arms to rise "in revolt against established authority, especially a government," are insurgents, by dictionary definition.
Yes, the word carries quite a bit of baggage, given the Iraq war, but let's not jump on someone for calling an apple an apple.
FWIW, some places seem to be in better shape than others, as far as non-Federal preparedness goes. Here in Grand Rapids, MI (about half the size of NO), the city, local, and state folks seem to have their coordination down pretty well. The example I saw was in response to a massive multi-car freeway pile-up.Within an hour of the incident, buses had been commandeered to get the stranded and un-injured off the freeway, all towing services in the city had been put under police control, and the injured had been triaged and portioned out to multiple area hospitals.
Certainly smaller scale, by several orders of magnitude, but doing the little things right tends to lead to doing bigger things well.
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