Odds and Ends
OK, so TSO is feeling better today, I left my cranky pants at home. Nothing major to write about, just a couple of things to ask/write about, and rather do an omnibus post that a bunch of independant junk.
1) Any of our readers play the board game Diplomacy? I am looking for a place to play online, and the place I used to go to play it seems offline. For those who haven’t played Diplomacy, it is a phenomenal game, sort of a thinking man’s Risk. It was allegedly the favorite game of JFK and Kissinger. Anyway, if anyone out there plays, or knows of a place that has online judges, kindly let me know.
2) I was uber-psyched after work yesterday to go home and watch me some TV. Obviously I was a bit fired up yesterday, probably on account of the 4 bowls of Cookie Crisp I had at lunch…well, that and the fact that I am still offended by how that corpulent Oklahoma lawyer is fleecing folks. Anyway, Wednesday is my favorite TV night because my two favorite shows are on, although unfortunately at the same time. I usually watch Psych, and DVR Mantracker. Every time Caro and I get together we watch Psych together, and I think it is the best written show on TV today.
But everytime I say I love watching Mantracker everyone always asks how often I watch the Gay TV station. Now, admittedly I have a bit of a mancrush on the Mantracker, but who wouldn’t? Dude is the shi’ite. Anyway, watch this quick video, maybe you will get hooked too. I own every season on DVD.
Oh, and just to make yesterday a complete wash, I couldn’t watch Psych because my cable kept pixilating (sp?) the USA network. So don’t spoil it for me by telling me how Shawn and Jules hooked up.
3) I am currently reading an outstanding book entitled The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan, by Eric Blehm. The publicist very kindly sent me a copy to review, the first such time that has happened. Now, I haven’t read far enough to do a proper book review yet, but my preliminary statement is: Go out and buy this book. Seriously, it will give you a depth of understanding about Hamid Karzai that you didn’t have before. I worked on Karzai’s protective detail for a while in Ghan, and talked to some of the DynCorps guys that had been his guards for a long time, so I already knew the guy was fearless, but this book will show you how brilliant he is too. If all you read is how corrupt the Karzai Gov’t is, and how they are untamable etc etc etc, go deeper into the story and read this. You’ll get a stronger appreciation of just what he faces over there, and how dedicated he is to creating a free Afghanistan. My key emotional feeling when reading it is shame that I wasn’t tough enough to make the SF, but so it goes. You guys seldom listen to me, but you really ought to purchase and digest this book.
Category: Pointless blather
I admit it….I like Mantracker too. I am also looking for a good book to read, maybe I’ll give this one a shot.
Jules and Sean don’t hook up…but they are one step closer. I have to admit though you might not like this episode, John Cena is a super secret army guy and some of the army scenes were a bit far fetched.
Don’t have time for tv (as I type on my keyboard wasting time).
I actually have to have the TV on to think. Even at work I have to listen to something like Stargate SG1 in order to write. I rarely ever even notice what I am listening to, but when I have it off I can’t focus.
Caro- Turns out Cena is a native Massachusian and a fan of the Sox and Patriots, so I will try to cut him some slack with ragards to the acting thing. Sorry I called last night to whine about the TV being out. Still pissed.
TSO… thanks for the book recommendation. I stopped by Barnes & Noble after a trip thru Leesburg and saw a few SF & Counter-insurgency books. My reading list is growing and the books arent being read fast enough, but a book recommendaton from a trusted sourrce helps.
SF… things change.. the standards for Indoc way back when were menat to eliminate most everyone.
I might read the book – it looks interesting, but I’m wondering what could possibly be meant by the concept of a “free Afghanistan” when Afghanistan, as well as Iraq, remains an Islamic state under Sharia law with Islam as the state religion according to their constitutions, completely contrary to the American concept of freedom of religion.
The conservative website Family Security Matters has an excellent article on that very subject at http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5341/pub_detail.asp
Debra: It’s a start. They have to get out of the Dark/Feudal Ages and up to the High Middle before they can have a Renaissance.
TSO: I also recommend “The Face of Battle, by John Keegan. An excellent examination of warfare as seen through different eyes, and the experience of the guy in the ranks. Additionally, “Soldiering”, By Rice Bull. The man was an NCO in the 123rd New York during the civil war, and his details of his experience, including so many little things and minutia of soldier life then will ring true to anyone who has served. You’d be surprised how little has really changed.
Diplomacy. My old wargames group used to LOVE that game. We replaced the small board with an 8X12′ board handpainted and covered with a sheet of plexiglass. Then we found WWI-style metal counters and used them instead of the ones that came with the game. WE’d all show up to play wearing Tuxedos with all sorts of bling and sashes, and have the game catered with Port & Cigars. We’d do that a couple times a year and it was wonderful.
Best Diplomacy advice: Stab last, stab deepest.
Lemme know if you find an online source!
Just like at Fox News, no mention of O’Keefe here either.
Ya know, Jeff, you could start your own blog and report all of the news we don’t mention here. Since we write about five posts a day, that ought to keep you busy. I recommend WordPress.
I like to pleasure myself while watching children’s tv.
You did report about ACORN alot (did I say alot?)…why stop
AW1 Tim,
In Afghanistan, with the current constitution enshrining Islamic law, it’s a continuation of the way it’s always been, but in Iraq, wouldn’t you say it’s more of a regression than a start? There was no Sharia law under Saddam due to his brutality against anyone remotely thought to be a radical Islamist. Considering the very nature of extremist Islam, how do you envision the progression from that to western values?
And now I am tired and hungry so I think I will go eat my boogers and then take a nap. Maybe dad will take my temperature with that thing he shoves in my ass again. He says I am a good boy when I don’t cry.
Jonn, do you know off the top of your head how much the Federal Gov’t gave to O’Keefe last year?
Also, yesterday he was accused of bugging the offices, and today it is merely interfering with the phones. Maybe Peskoff can tell us what is up, since no one in the media knows and I’d rather leave the wild assed speculation to him.
Yeah, Peskoff is projecting, again, with his “oh look, Fox didn’t run the O’Keefe story” as though that’s supposed to be some huge issue. That guy likes to try and pick fly shit out of pepper. Not that the other media outlets ignore stories all the time. Maybe the reason Fox hasn’t run the O’Keefe story is that they weren’t interested in jumping to conclusions based on breathless reports of James Bond type daring-do, as the other media outlets did, and now haven’t been as breathless to report they screwed up?
I mean, if some media outlet would put up a report “Pictures show Peskoff blowing mules”, would he bitch that Fox didn’t report it? Would he bitch that the retraction was put out, but not with the fanfare that the original story was put out, saying that “he was mis-identified as the one blowing the mules, and the that the person in the pictures hasn’t been readily identified, yet”?
Typical leftist dumbass.
But Fox did run the story – yesterday and Tuesday. I guess Peskoff meant that if he didn’t see the story, it was never written. In fact the first I heard of it was from a Fox video on Hot Air – another of those far left blogs.
If Peskoff would pull his head out of his fourth point of contact he’d know that we rarely write about the same shit everyone else is writing about – unless we’re trying to get the media to pay attention to an issue in concert with other blogs. I’ll be damned if someone who doesn’t pay the pay bills for this blog is going to dictate the direction it goes just to fit the interests of someone who doesn’t really give a rat’s furry ass about this blog anyway.
Peskoff, I could just as easily pull the plug on all of your comments as I’ve sent them all to moderation. I keep holding out hope that someday you’ll have something of value to add to the discussion other than neener-neener-neener baby shit. I guess that’s the liberal in me shining through.
you people are just way to funny. You did jump on that ACORN thing real quick Jonn, didn’t you???
liberal, liberal, liberal….sound like a broken record.
sorry it was leftist, leftist, leftist. Do you all walk around just looking at people and yourselves and say “that guy/girl is a leftist”, “that one is a conservative”…come out of your boxes. Stop labeling yourself and others. It’s pathetic.
Mantracker rocks. Period.
I will definitely pick up Eric Blehm’s book.
Thanks for your initial reaction to my book. Sounds like my publicists are doing their job! A friend was Googling around and alerted me to your site. Glad to see you are pleased with the reporting. I spent three and a half years dissecting the mission of these men, and only relied upon my own personal interviews with eye witnesses. I hope you’ll appreciate that this is not a pro war, or anti war story… It is a WAR story, from the perspective of those who fought and died during this historic mission. It tells the good and the bad. I appreciate your spreading the word.
Kind regards,
Eric Blehm
Eric,
That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Tell the story objectively, present the facts, let the reader decide. Glad you chose that format, and I look forward to reading your book.
Respects,
Ok, ASH: You forgot dumbass, dumbass, dumbass
Is that better? Or, if you would like, I have others at my disposal that would describe you just as well. Let me know what ya think, mmmmmkay?
What’s pathetic is most of your arguments, statements, that you can actually walk, talk, and act like you can think. I labeled you a leftist through your words and actions. If it walks like a leftist dumbass, talks like a leftist dumbass, looks like a leftist dumbass; it probably is Peskoff. Does that work for you?
You continue to project, even in your last statement, where you are telling us to come out of our boxes, as though you have come out of yours. That’s what’s pathetic; the fact that you are telling us to do something that you, yourself, haven’t done. Using your boilerplate big words, to make you sound smarter than you are, only makes you sound dumber by the minute.
So, when you actually have something to say that wasn’t written by some flunky trying to sound smart; come on back, because I’m getting bored having this war of wits with an un-armed man.