March 21, 2006
Halo 2 = Training for CROWS
We all knew that
raising a generation of American kids on violent video games would pay off at some point for the military industrial
complex:
The U.S. Army has discovered a remote control gun turret that works, and cannot get enough of
them. The army wants over 9,000 CROWS (common remotely operated weapon stations), but is only getting 15 a month. There
should be about a thousand CROWS in service by the end of the year.
...But there's another reason, not often
talked about, for the success of CROWS. The guys operating these systems grew up playing video games. They developed
skills in operating systems (video games) very similar to the CROWS controls. This was important, because viewing the
world around the vehicle via a vidcam is not as enlightening (although a lot safer) than having your head and chest
exposed to the elements, and any firepower the enemy sends your way. But experienced video gamers are skilled at
whipping that screen view around, and picking up any signs of danger. Iraqis are amazed at how observant CROWS is.
Iraqis tend to just wrote this off as another example of American 'magic.' But the troops know better. Video
games can save your life.
God bless our Master Chief-loving troops and their mad fragging skills. It
turns out splattering Iraqi insurgents from the comfort of your Humvee is that much easier thanks to countless hours
spent blasting Covenant Elites. Maybe this means some defense contractor will sponsor a free weekend of Xbox Live.
(Via Xbox 360 Fanboy.)
Posted by Phil at 07:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 03, 2004
Eat It Dan
As a follow-up to my last post about the MSM, read this exchange from Dan Blather, via Ace of Spades:
But it turns out the White House won't be making these crazy demands alone. Oh, no. It will be employing its propgaganda organ, something called "The Blogging Machine," to agitate for an unconstitutional end to the election.
After Ed Bradley explains to Dan that if there are only 175,000 votes outstanding, but John Kerry is behind by about 175,000, then there's no realistic chance Kerry could win (which difficult math Dan seemed perfectly baffled by, incidentally), Dan the Document Man offers us all a new reason to hate his partisan guts:
DAN RATHER: One would expect that the blogging machine which the White House and the Bush-Cheney campaign has used for any number of purposes over their four years will start now, if it hasn't started already, to say, listen, Kerry-Edwards, for the good of the country, need to concede.
ED BRADLEY: I'm sure it's started already. If we could tune into the Internet [ummm.. can't they? -- Ace] we'd see that people are already saying that now. That's certainly the drum the White House is beating.
The MSM dinosaurs just don't get it.
Posted by Phil at 03:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bush Revolution
What a crazy past 36 hours. Thankfully, not so crazy as four years ago. I stayed up late into the night watching the news and watching the blogs, waiting for the final decision. When commentators started talking about provisional ballots, recounts, and sending lawyers to states like Iowa and New Mexico, I went to bed in disgust.
I am glad Kerry took the high road and conceded mid-day. He could have let this drag on forever.
Now we have a president who has won more popular vote than any president ever (even more than Reagan 20 years ago) - how's that for a mandate? Bush also won more than 50% of the vote, something that has not happened since 1988 (not even Clinton can claim that one). And more importantly, Republicans control the House and the Senate. A huge victory.
It's time to really get down to business in Iraq, without having to worry about "wrong war wrong place wrong time" crap. And hearing about "insurgents" (call them what they are - terrorists) every day. It's time to mop up. Let's go into Fallujah and clean house. I don't care if we destroy a mosque or two. Kill those who would love to kill as many Americans as they could. We are in a war. We need to win decisively. I hope the Democrats get behind Bush instead of constantly undermining him. I have my doubts.
Finally, there is a big message I took from this election - the Main Stream Media cannot be trusted. I don't know why I even watched MSM yesterday. It sucks. I got so much more quality and quantity from the Internet.
If all you did yesterday was watch MSM, you would have thought the election was over before it started. Drudge and a few blogs leaked some early exit poll data and it showed Kerry doing well. The media took the numbers and ran. The stock market reacted to the numbers (negatively), and Democratic leaders were on TV mid-afternoon talking about how Kerry was going to win big.
What MSM forgot to tell you was that the numbers were skewed towards women voters in urban areas. It's almost like they wanted the electorate to get discouraged and not vote. Idiots.
Couple yesterday's "stunt" by the MSM with the past year of Bush-bashing and Kerry-passing, and I am done with MSM. It started with obsessive coverage of Abu Grahib, continued through the summer with dire news every day about Iraq (with the good news constantly being overlooked), led into the fall with the tired old fable of Bush's military service, and then ended with the failed October surprise of CBS (the supposed explosives cache story that was set to run the Sunday before the election), and culminated with the edited OBL tape.
Here are some good quotes from VodkaPundit:
By midnight, Bob Shaeffer on CBS was pouting like a petulant kid being kept after school. Dan Rather looked enbalmed. By far the worst coverage of any broadcast network (ABC was a close second here).
MSNBC was one long Chris Matthews whine about Democrats not being able to win in the South, and what the hell was Ron Reagan doing on there? This guy does dog show commentary, for God's sake. Speaking of which, he went into a petulant rant around 1 AM about the electoral divide being between "people who believe in religion and people who believe in science."Hey, Ron, I'm an aerospace engineer, and I didn't vote for your guy, either. Tell you what: you don't lecture me about science, and I won't lecture you about ballet. Deal?
Peter Jennings: Let's go to Dean Reynolds at the Kerry/Edwards street party in Boston.Dean Reynolds: ... the Kerry people are shocked to have lost Ohio.
Jennings: Actually, sorry to put you in an awkward position, Dean, but we haven't called Ohio yet.
Reynolds: Well, everyone else has and the Kerry people do have TVs.
Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Chris Matthews, Ron Reagan, Peter Jennings, and all the other MSM mouthpieces, I have two words for you - "Eat it".
Posted by Phil at 02:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 01, 2004
Former Debate Captain vs President != Debate
Yeah, I watched the debate last night, if you can call it that. Somehow the format used last night doesn't really cut it for me. But then again, I was on the debate team in high school. And so was JFK - if you didn't know that. Some have made a big deal about how he started a debate team in prep school just for the fun of it. And how he was so good that Bush didn't stand a chance. Yeah, I think they said that in 2000 too.
But really all the debates do is frustrate me. Because my mind has been made up for a long time now, and pretty much nothing is going to change it. I doubt I will watch the other two. I prefer to get my news online now. There is just so much more out there. Quality. Quantity. Insight. Stuff you just can't find on TV anymore. Here is a good example. I found this after reading various postings about last night's debate, and it struck a nerve with me. Sometimes I wish Bush would just get up on stage and say something along these lines:
...But mostly I hate the debates because I simply cannot abide hearing certain statements I’ve been hearing over, and over, and over again. I can’t take any more talk about bringing allies to the table. Which ones? Brazil? Mynmar? Microfrickin’nesia? Are there some incredibly important and powerful nations out there whose existence has hitherto escaped me? Fermany? Gerance? The Galactic Order of the Belgian Dominion? Did we piss off the Vulcans? Who? If we mean “France and Germany,” then please explain to me why the reluctant participation of these two countries somehow bestows the magic kiss of legitimacy. They want in? Fine. They don’t? Fine. At this point mooning over France is like being that sophomore loser dorm pal who spent his dateless weekends telling his loser roommate about a high school sweetheart who stood him up for the prom. Give it up. Move on. I understand; they are wise and nuanced, we are young and dumb. We’re the cowboy leaning with his back against the bar, elbows on the rail, watching the door; we need our European betters to teach us how to ape the subtle forms of Nijinsky, limbs arrayed in the exquisite form of the Dying Swan. Understood. But I don’t want to be the Dying Swan. And I don’t want posture lessons from a country that spent the last 20 years flopping on its back and grabbing its ankles when Saddam showed up waving stacks of Francs in exchange for bang-sticks. Don’t you think I know about France’s relations with Saddam? Surely the advocates of the French Touch must know, and don’t care. Or they don’t know – in which case their advice is useless...
...Perhaps the “ally” is that big blue wobbly mass known as the UN, that paragon of moral clarity, that conscience of the globe. You want to really anger a UN official? Tow his car. Short of that you can get away with anything. (Sudan is on the human rights commission, to cite a prominent and amusing detail. It’s like putting Tony Soprano on the New Jersey Waste Management Regulation Board.) I don’t worry that the UN is angry with us. I’d be worried if they weren’t. And I find it interesting that someone who would complain about outsourcing peevishly notes that we hired <psycho screeching strings> HALLIBURTON </psycho screeching strings> to do the work instead of throwing buckets of billions to French and German contractors who sold them the jets and built the bunkers...
...Ask yourself this: you’re a dictator who has violated the terms of a peace treaty over and over again, and frequently shoots at the planes enforcing the treaties. Who do you fear the most? A) The magnificent concert of allies in the UN, some of whom you’ve bought off, who are desperate to prove their legitimacy by prolonging the process into the 22nd century. B) The United States, Britain and Australia, who have several hundred thousand troops on your border and frankly are in no mood to put up your crap any longer...
...Here’s the thing. I’d really like to live in John Kerry’s world. It seems like such a rational, sensible place, where handshakes and signatures have the power to change the face of the planet. If only the terrorists lived there as well. Who does Zarkowi fear the most - France, summiteers, or Marines? If the rightness of a cause is measured by the number of one’s allies, would Britain have been right if the US had stayed neutral in World War Two?...
From Lileks.com
Posted by Phil at 09:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 16, 2004
Fear and Loathing in Iraq
I stumbled across this site a few days ago. Pretty interesting. A blog with almost daily updates by a soldier in Iraq.
I thought it was interesting that his roommate would play SOCOM on the PS2 after shooting at jihadis all day. Isn't the real thing enough?
Posted by Phil at 08:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 27, 2004
SELF-REFUTING SPIN: The goofy Kerry NASA...
SELF-REFUTING SPIN: The goofy Kerry NASA photos have drawn this response: "Cahill, asked by FOXNEWS whether it was a dirty trick, said: 'Well, what do you think?' No photos were supposed to be taken, she said."
But if you follow the link, you'll see Kerry obviously posing for photos. His campaign folks blew it, and now they're only making it worse.
UPDATE: How out of touch is the Kerry campaign? A bunch of these pictures were made public on the Kennedy Space Center website. As reader David Mayer emails: "Just scroll on past the (pretty cool) MESSENGER stuff, and there's a series of official Bunny Senator photos. It's pretty hard not to look dumb in a suit like this; that's why few people have them in their wardrobe. But pretending that it's all a dirty trick is very avoidably stupid."
"Avoidably stupid." Not much of a campaign style. Perhaps they'll do better. But hey, not everybody thinks it's stupid. Reader Bill McLane emails: "What a genius this guy is! Who else would have cleverly gone for the bee keeper vote?"
It wouldn't have crossed my mind.
MORE: Now this, on the other hand, is just wrong.
STILL MORE: Tom Maguire: "Maybe 'the campaign' had no idea that there would be any photographs, but Kerry must have known - what did he think was happening when the four people gathered together and smiled? Who is he smiling at in the other photos ? . . . C'mon, there are cameras everywhere. Kerry should not let his campaign manager go out and embarrass herself this way."
MORE STILL: Reader Ted Armstrong emails:
If Kerry had any sense of humor, he'd make fun of the photos himself. If I were he, I'd put one in my speech and then have a humorous comment to say about it. It would take a lot away from his aloofness. But I don't expect them to take my advice .
That would have been much better than lame assertions of dirty tricks.
FINAL UPDATE: Howard Kurtz has more on this story:
But Kennedy Space Center spokesman Mike Rein said a video was routinely made of Kerry "as we have done for the last 40 years." He said NASA takes such footage because Kerry was in "a very confined and hazardous area" and that the pictures are always made public.
I thought we were supposed to be for openness in government.
Posted by Phil at 11:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack