fauxstor.net

This is the true face of war

In case anyone was wondering the primary purpose of smart bombs, it is to save the military money. If you throw a bunch of "cheap", inaccurate bombs at something, you could still miss. Then you throw a bunch more. Likewise, when you send a million-dollar missile at a military target and hit a poor neighborhood's marketplace, you have to shoot again. The Pentagon's reactions to these horrors probably go in this order:

1. Shit, the media will catch word of this. Now we look bad/worse.
2. Fuck, there goes a million dollars.
3. Damn, those Iraqis will hate us (more?), now they won't welcome us.
4. Gee, we killed some innocent civilians.

That is why I say indiscriminate bombing is the way to go. Not because I want Iraqi civilians dead, but because I want the world to see that there is no such thing as a safe war. If you aren't willing to kill the living daylights out of your opponent, then you had better get a stick and a big fucking sign, because it's time to go block some traffic. This is due to the fact that Iraq is not a regime, it's a country. And that's where we fight wars: in countries. Not in a fantasy parallel universe called "regime-land."

I can't believe that the American people could fall for something as saccharine sweet as Operation Iraqi Freedom. What a BALD FACED FUCKING LIE. They should have called it Operation No Civilian Deaths, and it would have been no more mendacious. After all, America got where it is today by indiscriminately killing. Go to your local Indian Reservation for evidence.

Sure, the Iraqi government is oppressive and practices genocide. But the Iraqis understand this much: Knowing your place in an oppressive society is better than getting liquefied by an errant U.S. missile. Just don't rock the boat. The whole "it is better to die on you feet that live on you knees" shit is for blockbuster films with Sylvester Gibson in some futuristic society. It's for American Civics classes. It's not for people who might just rather stay alive, and have their families stay alive, than get incinerated by mistake.

Every friend and family member of every Iraqi civilian killed in the above hyperlinked article HATES the Americans now. I am not talking about "on the fence" types, either. The parents, husbands, and children of those killed could have been waving American fucking flags when they heard the news of their loved one's death. Now they are looking for a book of matches and some gasoline.

Some people say they are either categorically for the war or against it. But most folks say "I am for war, but at what cost?" Short war? Few U.S. casualties? Dow up 300 points? How about a throw a toaster in there? I already gave you $300 for letting me steal the election.

Well, there are some hidden costs. But not really. You already knew they were there. Have a living grandparent who is a WWII vet or survivor? If so, it's time to ask ol' pappy to tell some stories. Know anyone who was in Viet Nam? You get the idea.

In a world that is approaching complete market transparency for even the most unsophisticated consumers - yo, remember the internet - how can so many be so duped by so few. You can sell us a war, but only if the closing costs are low. Except nobody even looked at the prime rate.

The prime rate for war is 100%. As in 100% commitment. Put everyone there, start the engines on your tanks, and start blasting. Because war is 100% death. Nothing else. Some of the side effects of war don't include the stuff you get from dietary supplements. It won't increase hair growth. It won't make you fuck longer. It is, by design, the thing you do when you want to kill people.

I am not only uncertain that the Iraqi people really want to be liberated, I am certain that they do not. Hitler was counting on the people of Russia to revolt under the oppressive regime of Stalin. Unfortunately, the Nazis were such brutal mother fuckers that they only succeeded in galvanizing them. You say that the U.S. troops surely cannot be compared to the Nazis. No, they cannot, for all the obvious reasons. But when your brother is a puddle of charred flesh, you don't much care. Oh, we got killed by a good American freedom missile, not an evil Nazi genocide missile.

Not only that, but Germany v. Russia = a European thing. Poland was a lot smaller than the Atlantic Ocean. And in this war, the cultural divide is much deeper than the geographic one.

But if you think we are going to cookie-cutter Iraq into a cute little democracy complete with megaplexes and Great Malls and everyone will forget about Allah and just shop, you are smoking crack. Because not only would it not take, but we aren't even going to try. It's another one of those hidden costs. You know, puppet governments, siphoning off wealth, using the region to get a better angle on Syria and Iran. Suck it down like a 7-11 slurpee then toss it away in 5 years. Then they can have their first real elections. And then they will have factions, and parties, and strife, because, after all, it WILL be a democracy, won't it? Then 10 years later, time for a military coup, because we didn't really do it right. We will have used them up, but before leaving we will have said, "You guys get the gist of this, don't you? If you have any problems, call the U.N."

If you are not willing to go on with full commitment, but rather still adhere to the folly that we can do this without hurting anyone, pull the ice pick out of your nostril.

Diplomacy, the world economy, the sovereignty of nations, those are all progressive ideas. Just count the wars in this century.

I do not say that force is never justified. Often it is. But force in the form of war uses that tiny part of the brain that is left over from before we were reptiles. Before that is unleashed, I simply demand that we fully exhaust the remainder of our intellect first. We have striven to evolve; let us not misstep.

---

Should you not have hit the link above, read it now.

Posted by justin at 8:43 PM | Comments (3)

The internet is supposed to survive a Nuclear war

Grrrr. My DSL went down at 3:15 a.m. PST. 10 hours later I am up. Of course this would be my first post.

- Original from joesken on 28-Mar-2003 12:02:03 Eastern:
We are currently investigating loss of sync, pppoe timeout or difficulties accessing sites and services on or off the EarthLink Network for DSL Customers in the following location(s).

Additional information will be provided as it becomes available.

The following locations may be affected:

San Fransisco, CA and surrounding areas.

Posted by justin at 1:40 PM

For a Refreshing Satanic Perspective

Get the scoop on the Church of Satan's views on the war with Iraq. Moreover, get a refresher on THE 11 SATANIC RULES OF THE EARTH. I would say I find them infinitely more appealing than the 10 Commandments (after all, these rules do go to eleven), except I don't believe in a red dude with horns and a tail any more than I believe in some white-robed guy with a beard.

Posted by justin at 3:27 PM

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.

Perhaps the most memorable moment in the 1970 film Patton was George C. Scott's delivery of the General's immortal words:

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

Patton was a military leader who believed that immediate sacrifice would ultimately lead to a shorter war and thus save the lives of more soldiers in the long run. Today, Bush has told us that we will take as long as we need in order to free the Iraqi people and remove Hussein.

The loss of American soldiers is in every case a tragedy. However, our media and the White House/Mlitary PR departments keep talking of our darkest day yet with...20 casualties? 47 total so far. Are they making us extra weepy in case chemicals don't get used?

Rather than bring the fury, we'll let our soldiers get picked away at for what the White House says could be months to come. Maybe years. And we certainly don't want to hurt any Iraqis who are just out shopping. After all, any aversion to shopping would destroy our chances of enfranchising them to the hyper-consumer economy that we will be importing along with good 'ol democracy.

Weren't we liberating France in WWII? That didn't stop us from bombing the daylights out of dense civilian population areas. For that matter, weren't we liberating Germany? As Patton said, "All Nazi's are bad, but not all Germans are Nazi's." True, but we still bombed the hell out of Berlin. Not to mention the firebombing of Dresden.

It as if our military is playing football in white linen pants, and does not want to get them dirty. I am not looking for mindless waves of bullet stoppers as in WWI. I am looking for the great sacrifice, valor, and determination of our armed forces and the soldiers within them. WWI was the "Great War", WWII the "Good War", and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the "Safe War".

A few more from Patton:

"War means fighting and fighting means killing."

"In war, death is incidental; loss of time is criminal."

"There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is, 'To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.'"

Posted by justin at 11:44 AM | Comments (3)

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi

The Oscars were several days ago, but I still must register my delight at Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film with Spirited Away. If you haven't seen it, you will have a chance, as Disney announced that it will be returning to U.S. theaters this Friday.

Most people who saw it probably had no idea what was going on, and they had the luxury of subtitling or dubbing in English. I picked up a Chinese VCD several months back when it became available, and had to piece it together with Japanese audio, as the subtitles were Cantonese.

My conclusion is that two years of studying Japanese is nowhere near enough to begin understanding the plot, let alone the cultural nuances, of a film like Spirited Away. As soon as the DVD Region 1 version comes out, I will certainly give it several more viewings, in addition to the theatrical re-release this weekend.

If you are a fan a Miyazaki and his elaborate other-world settings, Nausicaa is another film of his that I highly recommend. As with Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki overlays a heavy theme demonstrating the ills which result from man's destruction of nature. The nature preservation cause is furthered not only in his films, but by the Totoro Forest Fund. The Fund has made much progress, as my wife and I were able to observe numerous Totoro in their native habitat on our trip to Japan last year. We personally rescued a dozen Totoro from a toy store in Ueno, demonstrating our commitment to the cause.

We also rescued several Domo-Kun, whose habitat of television-equipped basements differs sharply from the camphor trees of the Totoro. However, they seem to be getting along fine together.

Posted by justin at 11:29 AM

If you like your tuna dolphin-safe, you'll love our aquatic anti-ship mines

Eerily similar to the 1973 film Day of the Dolphin, the U.S. military is employing these critters for the high risk duty of minesweeping. I use "employ" here loosely, as an extra can of sardines doesn't really qualify as combat pay.

As for the movie, it is worth watching once just to hear the dolphin, well, "talk". Hard to believe that the man who played Patton and the director of the The Graduate could combine to bring us the marine mammal version of Mr. Ed as best supporting actor.

Posted by justin at 2:58 PM | Comments (1)

Bug fix comes in the form of a major version update

Red Hat appears to be following Microsoft's lead by skipping 8.1 and going straight to 9.0. Which means I will have to wait for 9.1, which may never come, as they could go to 10 after that. I am quite content with 7.3, which may become the Windows 2000 of Red Hat - the last operating system I need on that platform. Which means that 8.0 is Windows XP, all window dressing and no real substance. So, 9.0 would then be their Longhorn (Texas, bad omen?). I must say I am not holding my breath, as I don't think multithreaded Apache 2.0 with mod_perl 2.0 (still at 1.99_08) will make the cut in a week.

Posted by justin at 11:07 AM

No Coffee Pot Radios Here

Oh, the horror of executing our troops, feigning surrender, dressing like civilians for an ambush. Did anyone really expect it to be like Hogan's Heroes out there? The lovable Sergeant Schultz and idiotic Colonel Klink aren't going to be duped this time around.

Geneva Convention? This isn't chess. You cannot have your queen back now that your pawn has reached the other side because I put a sledgehammer to that bitch the second I captured her. Too bad. In fact, all your captured chess pieces have been destroyed. That piece shall remain a pawn.

War is necessity in the absense of reason. Reason was for the conference room table. No one is at the table anymore. Don't let the gadgetry fool you. Take away the ideology, the culture, the good v. evil, and all you have left is the reality of the situation: A bunch of shaved apes trying to dismember each other. So do not be shocked by these "cheaters." The how/why of it does not really matter once bullets are whizzing by your head. A bunch of guys that you are trying to kill are trying to kill you. Try to kill. Sometimes, they try a little harder.

Posted by justin at 10:07 AM | Comments (1)

I drank a twelve pack for this?

One word: boring. The media must be disappointed. They are not there to "cover the war." They are there to cover the chemical attacks, the death of Saddam, the dynamiting of dams, oilfields, etc. Big-ticket items. Instead, they have to regale us with "what-ifs" from retired Colonels about worst-case scenarios. Substitute fantasies for fact, since the macabre "what-ifs" are the network producers' wet dreams.

And what happened to good 'ol cryptic military operation names. You know, like Overlord (D-Day), Market Garden (battle of Arnhem), Barbarossa (Hitler's opening of the Eastern Front). Instead we get shit like "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and the contemporaneously executed "Valiant Strike". They are either totally descriptive, or arrogantly self-serving.

In Operation Market Garden, the Germans captured a complete set of the operational plans early in the engagement. The operation failed despite the fact that the Germans did not heed any of the captured intelligence. At least those maps and plans bore the moniker "Operation Market Garden". Then you would have to ask, what is this operation all about? Let us read the plans.

If American plans ever fell into enemy hands these days, you wouldn't have to study them. Just read the title. "Operation Send 5 Tomahawk Missiles into the House at this Address in Southern Baghdad to Kill Saddam." Looks credible enough. Either that, or "Operation Brave Mighty John Wayne Get Medieval On Yo Ass." Sounds like the translation from a Shaw Brothers film.

Operation jerk-my-freedom-juice. Patriotic and descriptive.

Posted by justin at 10:53 AM | Comments (3)

bout to get my war on

Anyone who wants can come over on Monday night with some beer and watch the war on T.V. Are you ready for some football? Some MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL? The beauty of it is, the same software used to generate ABC's "Starting Lineup" graphics is used to make CNN's "Operation Desert Prong: America at War" text layovers.

Personally, I have my money on the Americans, for this game at least, but it's only "to win." Frankly, I don't think they'll cover the spread. That's ok though, we're still a few weeks away from the playoffs. If the North Koreans lose against the South Koreans, we'll clinch a playoff berth. If India goes to war with Pakistan, regardless of the winner, we'll lose home field advantage. It don't matter, I have faith in our secondary, the Presidential elections in 2004.

What I'd really like to see as our troops churn across the sand in chemical suits, is Snoop Dogg in his pimp outfit, doing a special episode of "Girls Gone Wild," only it would be called "Hot Girls Unveiled: The Liberation Edition." Cuz Saddam is a fucker, and we know he's oppressing a bunch of ladies who just want to get nekked. Next up: "Amish Girls Gone Wild".

So, I got Pay-Per-View on this shizz, and I bought the Red, White, and Blue channel, just like the 1992 Triplecast. Yeah, the red channel is all first-person view of smartbombs taking out targets, or a nearby orphange. We know they got plenty of those. Hey, the kids are future terrorists, that's acceptable collateral damage. God knows that by age 2, any hope of imparting reason on to non-anglo types is beyond hope. Unless you are Lord Greystoke. Then again, he went native again. Mistah Kurtz...he dead.

If the war gets boring, I'll put on ESPN2 and watch some RPM2Night. Bump some Insane Clown Posse. Equally entertaining and far more shocking.

** UPDATE - RAIN DELAY **

Looks like there's a 48-hour rain delay. But tonight it's on! As Dan Rather put it, it's "militainment" time!

** UPDATE - I'M DRUNK **

But not as drunk as Bush is with power! The suds are pouring as the scuds are soaring. Now I'll have to watch the NCAA on Picture-in-Picture. Woo! Fuck America! Oops, I mean, "Fuck Ya, America!"

Posted by justin at 7:57 PM | Comments (7)

Back from SoCal

Yes, sunny southern California. My wife and I went to San Diego, then L.A., to visit some friends of ours. The drive wasn't bad. Left Hollywood at noon on Monday, was sitting here in San Francisco at 5:30. Decent time, but no land-speed record.

One of the friends we chilled with is a jewelry designer. I helped her get a web site up a few months ago. Her name is Roxanne, she works in semi-precious stones / rocks, so we tried to register ladyrox.com. That was taken, so I ended up grabbing ladyroxdesigns.com. The ladyrox.com domain was registered to some place in Italy, though no webserver was running for the domain.
When I got back from L.A., I took the usual look at the server logs, and I noticed that a lot of searches were coming through for "lady rox", with Italian domain referrers . I decided to figure out who this "Italian Lady Rox" was, and hit the google.

No need for a drum roll here...PORN! Lots of nun-oriented porn, it turns out. Hey, whatever floats your boat. I went to this one site with all the video box covers for movies which had "Lady Rox" in them. After about a dozen, I gave up because they all starred her and 10 other porn stars, and I couldn't tell which one was "Lady Rox" for certain.

Then I found her "official" site, which is on a .biz domain. I wanted to make sure that if my friend has competition from a porn star, she at least be halfway decent looking. Not quite the case. (Dude, you'll get your damn porn links in one more paragraph, so don't skip ahead.)

The most remarkable thing about my "research" was that while horny nuns are acceptable, those NAMBLA mother fuckers sure aren't. Luckily, Lady Rox and I are on the same page. For there, on this page, was the following little gem:

THIS SITE IS PETITIONING AND CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACTION" STOP PET AFILES ".

  <---They even have a little logo.

I am totally opposed to pedophiles, but I had no idea there was another sinister epidemic: the PET AFILES. Please join me in combatting these PET AFILES, who either have sex with children, or animals, or animal children. I'm not sure which, but ALL of which I am staunchly AGAINST!

ya, ya...if you really wanna see this Italian bird, click here.

The video covers for her pornos: here.

Posted by justin at 7:32 PM

Loose Lips Sink Ships

While the "War on Iraq" news has consisted largely of sensational and propaganda pieces, this screenshot of the cnn.com site shows how irresponsible journalism sets a new low water mark for brazenly endangering our troops:




I mean, these guys just wanted to play paintball one weekend a month and get paid. Suddenly they have to drive tanks, get shot at, and eat sand-seasoned spam. And now CNN drops a dime on their secret base.

OK, maybe I shopped it a bit. But the "Play Video" link was actually there.

Posted by justin at 3:30 PM | Comments (4)

War Driving - Castro Style

While there has been much said about wardriving, it's implications, and general laxness of security on 802.11 networks (2600, Vol. 19, Summer 2002, pp. 6-11), I think one can tell much about a region's cultural constituency by the names assigned to the networks.

Yesterday, my wife and I went to Potrero Hill to drive around around, look for "For Rent" signs, and see if we could chance upon a nice loft or live/work space. Rental prices have been in steady decline in San Francisco, and we figured we would do a stint in some modern-type domicile before shipping out to New York, Tokyo, Madrid, wherever.

After a half-hour of few results in the signage campaign, I pulled out the 12" Powerbook with internal 802.11b/g card, and took a look-see around to find a network so we could check some area listings on the web. I assumed that the Potrero Hill area would be rife with them, as it was one of the burgeoning new-wealth districts in the late 90's tech heyday.

I was not to be disappointed. Over 100 networks in less than 10 minutes. So, we hopped on one, pulled over, browsed a bit, and continued our housing search.

The usual conclusions could be drawn. 70% were not WEP encrypted, and 15% had a network name such as "default" or "linksys." I resisted the urge to load 192.168.1.1 and start mucking about.

At one point, we hit one called "purplehouse," and sure enough, right in front of us was a house of the lavender persuasion.

Which gets me to my point. On the way home, I left MacStumbler on just for kicks. We cut through the Castro, then up 16th to take Divisadero home. That was when I noticed the network names became very geo-specific. And not just in terms of cross-streets. There was "QueerNetwork," followed later by "RubBiker," then "beaverstreet," which actually acts as a double entendre as the street does exist, and its location provides the opportunity for infinite wisecracks from bridge-and-tunnelers.

So, I wonder if anyone else has noticed the same thing about networks in other areas that are definable by cultural means. Are there a lot of "fightingirish" networks in Boston? Does the bible belt have WLANS called "jesusislord" everywhere? Is Montana full of "getoffmyland" routers?

If you have a car, a laptop with 802.11b, and a co-pilot, take a tour and see how people identify themselves under circumstances where they are given an opportunity for self-expression, yet perhaps feel that they are in a semi-private forum. No, don't go out and start maliciously hacking networks. Just take a survey. I would be interested in the results.

Posted by justin at 9:49 AM | Comments (3)