I know you probably get asked this all the time, but was that excerpt fictional or for reals?

Mad, serious props for the Undewear Gnome ref.

“Why we signed up? We wanna be the rag-tag motley crew that carries only guns, Bud and good country beans around in our modded n’ trimmed HardFuck (TM) FartHard (TM) SUV while taking potshots at the surrounding zombies!”

“similar to PCP” except for the small matter of the fact that it is completely different. cathinone, the active component of khat (Catha edulis), is chemically similar to amphetamine or sudafed, and about on a par with strong coffee as far as stimulant potency goes.

PCP is a dissociative anesthetic.

so you can see that they are similar.

rageahol,

You’ve obviously never had to take down a dangerous zombie terrorist with ADHD and clear sinuses.

Yes — among all of the good reasons to invade Iraq (and stay there until you reach Phase 3, Profit), one of them must be that “‘ninja costume-wearing terrorists” take a drug similar to PCP.

At least that explains the Fed invasion of Norbiz’ house.

Me, you could always follow the link through and check for yourself. If that is too hard, maybe S,N! could publish a “solutions” book that explains all of the jokes and finer points of attribution.

But really, you should try to figure it out yourself first, showing all of your work, and turn it in to be graded and corrected. That is the best way to learn.

The Sudafedayeen.

You, that’s an excellent suggestion. If I may offer one of my own, please remove General Sherman from your rectum. Thanks.

Um, I’m no expert, but isn’t khat very very very similar to DayQuil?

Funny, doesn’t the US military hand out amphetamines to troops?

And the closest thing he’s ever come across that’s “similar to PCP” is the dextromethorphan in the Robitussin he’s been drinking.

Dammit, I need to read before I post.

I love the humility of naming your auto-biographical column “Marine Hero”.

#4 is a winner too:

4. Human Experiment Pictures

I still can’t shake the pictures out of my head…. One baby had an eye that was shifted toward the middle of its head.

Luckily we invaded before Saddam was able to perfect the wall-eyed super-soldiers.

Funny*, I remember seeing lots of pictures of extreme birth defects coming up along side discussions of Gulf War Syndrome and the use of depleted uranium**.

* Not “ha-ha” funny, more like “incredibly horrible” funny.
** Also, I can’t tell you how sick I am of the question “why do you think they call it depleted?”. It’s STILL URANIUM, you jackoffs.

Dude! the Cyclops of the Apocalypse!

Me:
I find that it is generally best to just let the General burn his way on through. The South will rise again, hopefully after learning to go easier on the chili pickle.

On the other hand, the mass graves and the mutilations were real and were extremely awful things that no decent person should tolerate.

Fortunately our invasion didn’t kill large and maim large numbers of innocent people (compared to, say, WWII in Europe, Africa and Asia. Or if you refuse to believe numbers that say otherwise. Or if you have an arbitrary and self-serving figure for “large numbers”).

And now that it’s over, people in Iraq are only being terrorized and murdered by dozens or hundreds of warring militias, sects, and gangs*, rather than by Saddam. So that’s clearly better.

* I’m including the guys named after a Doobie Brothers song in the “gangs” category, as they make money on “contracts”.

Khat is stimulant slightly stronger than the energy drinks US troops consume in mass quantities.

Also, I can’t tell you how sick I am of the question “why do you think they call it depleted?”. It’s STILL URANIUM, you jackoffs

It’s a line that works on a scientifically illiterate public—makes it sound like DU is uranium “depleted” of its radiation. IIRC it’s somewhat less radioactive than natural uranium (isotope sorting or somesuch), but it’s still plenty radioactive. And the process of radioactive decay leaves behind an atom that’s no longer uranium, but something else—such as thorium—which is also radioactive. Then it eventually decays into another atom, until eventually a stable, nonradioactive atom is created. This takes a very long time, though.

Actually, such stable, “truly depleted uranium” exists in great quantities, and has already been a standard component of bullets for centuries. It’s called lead.

But but but, Khat is illegal in America! It must be eeevil like that marywarner the spics and hippies love to smoke.

The 5 Things I Saw that Make Me Support the War

Reason 6: Sand in everything
Reason 7: I didn’t understand anything any Iraq said to me ever
Reason 8: People were trying to shoot me in the head

“Iraqi”

Shit, khat is illegal? That Egyptian parking attendant that used to sell me pot didn’t even WARN me! He just said it was an herb or something.

Next thing you know I could have been in Gitmo waiting for the Supreme Court to decide if it was a Constitution sorta day.

The Sudafedayeen.

I about died laughing. Thanx.

Although I honor and respect the soldier’s service to his country, that doesn’t make him any less a dipstick.

“That’s when we realized that our zombie-like attackers were zealots who came to fight and die.”

Man, what would you be like if the man busted into your kitchen while you were poppin’ some effi’s with your boys and drinking warm Coors light? That’s some bullshit, right there.

Also, I ain’t no scientist, but injecting khat? You’ve got to be shitting me! The effects of that, I reckon, would be somewhere between erectile dysfunction and death…

At least they’s gettin’ their (second) Renaissance with them Teenage Mutant* Ninja Jihadis. Maybe soon, as all them people who like to believe history is a straight line for each civilization claim, they (the Muslims) will get a nice, bloody Reformation.
Al-Bukhari
Al-Masudi
Al-Khwarizmi
Ibn Khaldun
and
Fatima O’Neil

“Jihadi power!”

*Mutation caused by excessive khat consumption and/or Hussein-regime-era experimentation as youth. (I can’t believe the Marine Hero didn’t suss out this connection!)

Not to be uncivil and call bullshit, but does anybody else find it a bit odd that this is the first we’ve heard of these activities four and a half years after the invasion?

FWIW … many people carry around syringes/vials of adreniline. Does this clown think that people at risk for anaphylactic shock are part of teh evil Islamofascist conspiracy to establish teh Global Caliphate?

Also, I ain’t no scientist, but injecting khat? You’ve got to be shitting me! The effects of that, I reckon, would be somewhere between erectile dysfunction and death…

Eh, just pop some Viagra and Jesus and you’re covered for all contingencies

Not to be uncivil and call bullshit, but does anybody else find it a bit odd that this is the first we’ve heard of these activities four and a half years after the invasion? – LA Confidential Pantload

I agree — how did, in a casual glance, someone know that a bottle was of nitroglycerine? Was it labeled in big, latin letters “N*I*T*R*O*G*L*Y*C*E*R*I*N*E” like in a cartoon? You’d think people trying to hide bomb-making would have a code worked out or something …

I couldn’t for the life of me understand why the ninja costume-wearing terrorists we encountered in a series of hellish firefights just wouldn’t go down—even after being shot.

Couldn’t have anything to do with the issue 5.56mm with the tungsten core they use now because the old lead spitzer 5.56 slugs would shatter on just about anything, including twigs, and couldn’t reliably penetrate auto glass.

Now, you hit a guy, the round zips right through in one piece unless it hits bone. Dude doesn’t even know he’s hit. Three or four times. Oh, he’ll bleed out after a few minutes, but it’s makes ’em look like supermen when you’re cappin’ ’em at six meters and they act like they didn’t even fucking NOTICE…

mikey

Yes, DAS, it was.

And they were twirling their mustaches and cackling while they poured it into a hollowed out bowling ball with a protruding wick.

You obviously haven’t been to Iraq

Reason 8: People were trying to shoot me in the head

Back or front? Seriously. I’m trying to count here.

Also big users of chat/khat?

The Ethiopians, our great good allies in the Brave War on Terror.

OT, but fun– the Ig Nobels! Includes the shocking revelation that research into weaponry designed to make Manly Soldiering Men in Teh Ghey comes not from Teh Homosexual Agenda, but from the US military.

2007 Ig Nobel Winners

Medicine – Brian Witcombe, of Gloucestershire Royal NHS Foundation Trust, UK, and Dan Meyer for their probing work on the health consequences of swallowing a sword.

Physics – A US-Chile team who ironed out the problem of how sheets become wrinkled.

Biology – Dr Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a creepy crawly census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds.

Chemistry – Mayu Yamamoto, from Japan, for developing a method to extract vanilla fragrance and flavouring from cow dung.

Linguistics – A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards.

Literature – Glenda Browne of Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word “the”, and how it can flummox those trying to put things into alphabetical order.

Peace – The US Air Force Wright Laboratory for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among enemy troops.

Nutrition – Brian Wansink of Cornell University for investigating the limits of human appetite by feeding volunteers a self-refilling, “bottomless” bowl of soup.

Economics – Kuo Cheng Hsieh of Taiwan for patenting a device that can catch bank robbers by dropping a net over them.

Aviation – A National University of Quilmes, Argentina, team for discovering that impotency drugs can help hamsters to recover from jet lag.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7026150.stm

I agree — how did, in a casual glance, someone know that a bottle was of nitroglycerine? Was it labeled in big, latin letters “N*I*T*R*O*G*L*Y*C*E*R*I*N*E” like in a cartoon? You’d think people trying to hide bomb-making would have a code worked out or something …

Maybe the bottle was labeled with its’ chemical formula-C3H5N3O9- which we all know your run of the mill grunt would understand.
#4 also sounded like birth defects and depleted uranium came immediately to mind. First we provided nerve gas and bio agents to Saddam and now we provide genetic malformation through radiation. Any wonder why the Arab world loves us?

“Reason 8: People were trying to shoot me in the head

Back or front? Seriously. I’m trying to count here.”

What does it matter, back or front? He said “Sand everywhere,” didn’t he? What more do you want?

inhalable terrorism.

So Iraq is really just the newest front in the never ending war on drugs. Well, that changes everything.

For anyone interested, the Wikipedia article on Depleted Uranium .

I’m not impressed. Letterman’s lists are twice as long. Twice.

I used to live in Kenya where khat (they call it miraa) is legal and when my friends and I would plan to party late, we would have some beers and chew some miraa.

The process of using the stuff does not exactly lend itself to being portrayed as any sort of hard, dangerous drug. You buy a packet of twigs and chew on the bark along with a piece of cheap gum. It keeps you awake. That’s it.

Every time a see the drug mentioned somewhere I have to laugh at how sensational people are about it. If you have actually used it or even just seen it in real life you have to laugh. It ain’t no PCP.

It’s a line that works on a scientifically illiterate public—makes it sound like DU is uranium “depleted” of its radiation. IIRC it’s somewhat less radioactive than natural uranium (isotope sorting or somesuch), but it’s still plenty radioactive

Fuck the radioactivity. That’s a red herring, dude.

It’s a heavy metal. Like mercury, only more so. It gets turned into dust, ingested by people, and screws up their systems and those of their kids.

The next time some idiot sneers “oh, but it’s not very radioactive at all”, point out that mercury is not radioactive at all, and ask him if he’d like to take a big swig of that.

I thought the main purpose of PCP was to give cops a reason to say why an arrestee managed to escape their grasp or why someone had to be shot — you know, “They musta been crazed on PCP, ain’t no normal man who coulda ever tore himself outta our death grip like we had him in…”

Oh my.

Scandal brewing at Oral Roberts U.

By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press Writer 57 minutes ago

TULSA, Okla. – Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million for Roberts’ university, or else he would be “called home.”

Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors’ expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter’s senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.”…

…The allegations are contained in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by three former professors. They sued ORU and Roberts, alleging they were wrongfully dismissed after reporting the school’s involvement in a local political race…

…An ORU student repairing Cantese’s laptop discovered the document and later provided a copy to one of the professors.

It details dozens of alleged instances of misconduct. Among them:

• A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.

• Mrs. Roberts — who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as ORU’s “first lady” on the university’s Web site — frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to “underage males who had been provided phones at university expense.”

• The university jet was used to take one daughter and several friends on a senior trip to Orlando, Fla., and the Bahamas. The $29,411 trip was billed to the ministry as an “evangelistic function of the president.”

• Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico’s clothing store alone in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. She also repeatedly said, “As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off.” The document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual usage on TV.

• Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by ministry donors.

• University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts’ home to do the daughters’ homework.

• The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use by the Roberts’ children.

• The Roberts’ home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years.

Dick, son of Oral.

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.”…

Thank God!

A heterosexual scandal for once!

PDF of the filing here:

http://kotv.com/files/0710/oru.pdf

“Some of the more salacious entries […] have been omitted from this petition […]”

“Some of the more salacious entries […] have been omitted from this petition […]”

Damn. Well, at least we know some enterprising blogger or TheSmokingGun or whoever will restore that lost data.

Well, at least we know some enterprising blogger or TheSmokingGun or whoever will restore that lost data.

I am getting read for a schadenfreudegasm.

Holy shit! I thought you guys made up that “ninja-costumed terrorist” bit as a *satire*. But I went to townhall, and that’s actually exactly what he said!! VERBATIM!!

OMFG. My mind is officially blown.

Liberals might support the war on terror, but only if it made Bush look bad. BDS and envy on display. Bush is doing an awesome job according to most balanced reports, and you hate it.

How young do you have to be to be underage in Oklahoma?

“Yes — among all of the good reasons to invade Iraq (and stay there until you reach Phase 3, Profit), one of them must be that “ninja costume-wearing terrorists” take a drug similar to PCP”

Actually, it’s even better than that — according to this guy, there was cause to invade Iraq because “terrorists” would take drugs if we invaded Iraq. Go ahead, wrap yer brain around THAT.

Was it labeled in big, latin letters “N*I*T*R*O*G*L*Y*C*E*R*I*N*E” like in a cartoon?

ACME brand, don’t you know.

As for the Ig Nobels, the biology study seems perfectly valid and useful, as does the nutrition study.

… according to this guy, there was cause to invade Iraq because “terrorists” would take drugs if we invaded Iraq. Go ahead, wrap yer brain around THAT.

Yeah, now I got it. We invaded Iraq so the terrorists would get all fucked up and fall asleep on the carpet and show up late for work and everything. Now it makes sense!

hey, the guy is entitled to his opinion and brave as hell for being there in the thick of it. at least he isn’t covered with cheetos crumbs while waging war from a freaking laptop in his mom’s basement.

Masturbation material for John Woo:

During a patrol we came upon two hungry Iraqi men scavenging for food. When our translator began speaking with the men I noticed that one of them had a stub for a tongue. Through the translator we learned that the tongue-less man had spoken against the regime and that Saddam’s henchmen had severed his tongue.

El Cid, you’re not just making this up to make us feel good, are you? Because it’s working…

Money, cars, clothes–fine. Whatever.

But “texting underage males”?

Priceless.

Fluffy wrote…

hey, the guy is entitled to his opinion and brave as hell for being there in the thick of it. at least he isn’t covered with cheetos crumbs while waging war from a freaking laptop in his mom’s basement.

Let me refer you to Hoosier X’s post at 22:10.

Through the translator we learned that the tongue-less man had spoken against the regime and that Saddam’s henchmen had severed his tongue.

Doesn’t this make you wonder whether the translator was just telling the Americans what he thought they wanted to hear?

Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico’s clothing store alone in less than a year,

Ya know, call me a hopeless old Marxist, but that right there is pretty goddamn disgusting. My mother taught school for 25 years and never saw more than $35,000 a year in pay. Anyone who manages to spend all most forty grand on friggin’ clothes should be…well, I don’t know. That just pisses me off thinking about it.

Money changers in the temple.

And you know, Chico’s clothes are moderately priced. So she must have bought a whole lot of shit.

Back in 1904, Thompson and La Garde were writing a report about the Moro tribesmen insurgents in the Philippines. It seemed that these Moro mohammedan terrorists were fanatical, crazed with narcotics, and unwilling to lie down and die straight away even when shot repeatedly.

What was it Snorghagen said, a few threads back, about the old tropes from yesteryear seeping back up like indestructible slime monsters?

Well you’re obviously a much more heroic soldier if you’ve fought against crazed fanatics who don’t drop even after half a dozen bullets. But what I really wanted to say is that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has the coolest acronym of any organization, armed or otherwise.

Let’s see…

3. Adrenaline-Fueled Fedayeen Saddam

I couldn’t for the life of me understand why the ninja costume-wearing terrorists we encountered in a series of hellish firefights just wouldn’t go down—even after being shot.

Hmmm… where have I heard that before? Oh.

The United States set a record in 1905 with 105 recorded lynchings of black men. At the same time, police nationwide switched from .32 caliber pistols to .38 caliber pistols because it was believed that the superhuman “Negro Cocaine Fiend” could not be killed with the smaller gun.

sigh. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

With these people, it’s always those pesky (sand)niggers.

Renko

caliph garrett said,
October 5, 2007 at 20:57

The Sudafedayeen.

Caliph Garrett wins.

Renko– what about the more recent “super-Negro” meme?
Remember that when 3 LAPD were beatin’ the crap out of Rodney King w/ 35 or so more lookin’ on, one Defense was that he’d previously smoked some pot laced w/PCP (they can’t be satisfied w/Coors like good white men) & was a “Super-Darkie” who had the strength of 40 men.
The myths of our “color blind” society . . .

@Righteous Bubba
schadenfreudegasm just became my new favorite word. S, N! provides such a rich expansion of my vocabulary. But seriously, I’m using that word in context tomorrow no matter how awkward the segue is.
For more on schadenfreude, search the Avenue Q song of the same name. Even the lyrics alone should leave you laughing if you can’t find the actual song.

Wasn’t the .45 round invented because the army found that its earlier .38 sidearms weren’t enough to drop a Filipino? I find this difficult to believe – I mean, I’m sure the Filipino rebels were brave, skilful and dedicated, but they’re all pretty small over there.

“Gary Ruppert said,

October 6, 2007 at 1:10

Liberals might support the war on terror, but only if it made Bush look bad. BDS and envy on display. Bush is doing an awesome job according to most balanced reports, and you hate it.” Wake up and smell the khat, Gary. And Ajay, I had heard that it was during the 2nd World War and it was necessary to knock the Japanese down before they could attack you, after having been hit.

.45 automatic pistol
From Wikipedian, my #1 source of questionable information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1911

While not mentioned in the wiki article, one of the reasons I heard back in my ROTC days ( about 20 years ago) was that the Moro tribesmen could enter a state called ‘running amok’ – basically they autohypnotized themselves into not registering pain. As to the veracity of that… your guess is as good as mine, I do know you can get people to do some pretty amazing things.

Okay… so, I’m still trying to work out the rational, reality-based line on this sort of thing. Goldberg, Steyn, Dubya’s daughters, et al are gutless chickenhawks because they haven’t themselves gone to fight in Iraq, but they support the war. This Martinez fellow has himself gone to fight in Iraq, but he still supports the war. DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES NOT COMPUTE FOUR LEGS GOOD TWO LEGS BAD FOUR LEGS GOOD TWO LEGS BAD FOUR LEGS GOOD TWO LEGS BAD… Aaaah, that’s better.

What’s your point, Rod, that those who want the war to be fought, just not by them, are not hypocrites because someone else who wanted the war did fight? Or that Martinez’s reasoning must be valid and correct because he’s not a hypocrite like the others? What does their hypocrisy or his lack of it have to do with the quality of his argument?

Just that you need to decide which stick you’re going to use, and then stick with it.

You’re the only person who brought up chickenhawks, why would anyone else need to stick with something they hadn’t mentioned to begin with? People thought Martinez gave a stupid reason and said so.