I know someone who did and he came home early and the reason specifically given was “There is no form of combat training out there that can save you from an IED”. He said everyone competant and experienced came away with the same opinion and the ones that stayed were crazies and shooters. I think you are nuts but if you want the gig, send out some resumes. I don’t think a few felonies are going to matter at this point, it might be a plus.

I hope in the future you’ll refrain from your ‘war horror’ stories? You see, “War is Hell, unless I can make a buck or two” really makes those all ring hollow…

I hope that mikey will not feel obliged to censor his history in order to avoid disturbing the mores of my bourgeoise sensibilities.

And as an incorrigible middle child I’m appalled that my first comment to owlbear1 is negative. So I hope I can make some ammends by offering a shorter Mo:

I take it you’re not a fan of Conrad, then?

Are you west o’teh rockies?

Didn’t know. You shall from now on be included in california dreamin…

mikey

Don’t look at me.

Hell, Anne, if DA’s hosting with me, mortician and mencken getting drunk and breaking stuff, g keeping the peace and robert green and bouffant turning it into a screenplay, Brad will HAVE to come out for it…

Whoa. I am IMPRESSED. And envious. And I’ll chip in for the video, assuming somebody stays sober enough to point the camera…

Which brings us to the question: do we really want those who speak for teh left (or what passes for it in the media) to be shrieking eels? That’s a serious question, BTW — I’m honestly conflicted about the answer.

I haven’t read the rest of the thread but I wanted to put my two cents in. I see only a couple of alternatives. One is the Johnathan Turly approach. You’ve probably see him on Keith Olberman’s show but I had a chance to see him talking with Bill O’Reilly and I was amazed at how he seemed able to disarm O’Reilly without shouting or abusive language. I’m not really even sure how he did it. Turley vs O’Reilly

The other way isn’t to out shout them down so much as you stop everything and demand to be heard. You would have to raise your voice repeatedly and interrupt or otherwise bring the show to a stop until you could have your say. I’m not sure this would work because what the producers want is a fight. They don’t want reasoned debate, they want a train wreck because that is what gets ratings.

Eventually TV will become more like talk radio than it already is. If you want to fix that then I suppose you need to bring back the fairness doctrine. Good luck with that.

Now that I think of it there’s a third alternative. You make TV shout fests and TV itself irrelevant. You move everything to the internet. One of my fantasies right now is that an enlightened tech savvy Dem administration (and congress) you could be doing a lot more through the internet. The usual story is that even though the press and politicians hate each other they also need each other. Well, with the internet as distribution channel you don’t really need the press quite so much any more.

In my administration I would tell everyone “you don’t talk to the traditional media any more (unless we have to)” I’d have the presidential blog, the presidential pod cast, the presidential forums, the presidential wiki. I would be streaming audio and video almost everyday. I would talk to ordinary people, why do I need to talk to pundits? Why do I need to talk to CNN or Fox when I can grab a cheap camera, go out anywhere, talk to anyone I please and put it out for everyone to see? The internet is a content distribution pipeline par excellence. Let CNN and ABC and MSNBC get their stories from my YouTube page. Let them wither and die.

mikey

Mom does have internet access but she refuses to participate in certain active ways due to an overly advanced paranoia about identity theft. So – she visits some sites but she doesn’t post. she also has a deep disdain for all things Teh Cute.

Sorry, G — I figured probably you’d already thought of this, but sometimes it’s the “obvious” stuff that gets overlooked. Maybe someday you can help your mom set up a Secrit Online Identity on an encoding server so she can educate misguided puzzlers about the illegitimacy of Teh Cute, because cliche as it is there’s nothing as viscerally enticing even to an Eeyore as the chance to correct someone else’s mistakes. Heck, maybe you should google her high-school classmates and let her know what you find…

I would choose lesbians just for the psychological advantage.

I had a long, thoughtful post earlier on the subject of justifiable deaths, but my browser ate it as it sometimes does when I hold down the shift key a second too long after coming here from gmail. I have no explanation for this. But since it’s disappeared into the ether, we’ll pretend it was coherent and witty and brilliantly reasoned as well, okay?

I think my response would have been:

Second term? WTF? Are you shitting me? Second term?

D. Sidhe said,

February 22, 2008 at 5:37

I demand the other bear and puma picture. You know the one I mean.

Do you mean the one here? (Found while looking for an amusing picture to accompany the suggestion of sending Bears in Pumas)