Syria-lessly

I'm a pretty Hawky, World Policeman kind of guy. And I won't cry if Assad the Chinless slips on a bar of "oh shit I'm an evil, murderous dictator and it finally caught up with me" in the shower and snuffs it.

The problem with this Syria thing isn't that they aren't a threat to our national interests, nor is it that someone uncorked some death gel. The problem isn't that we might knock somebody's block off or fire a few Tomahawks at now-abandoned airfields.

The problem, as I see it, is that no matter what we do or don't do, and for whatever reasons really smart guys say we should or should not do it, Obama will still be El Presidente afterwards. So bad idea or good idea, Obama will make it turn out badly for this country and bad for the West. I don't see it as much more complicated than that.

A Stew of Links To Enrapture the Unwary

This one is a 2-fer. Interface geeks and Star Wars nerds rejoice: Dan O'Bannon and the the tactical displays in Star Wars.

H/T to Borepatch for this one:  Armor Penetration and the Medieval Longbow.

Found this in Wired. Ever wanted to see a Zombie-decapitating Slingshot? Didn't know that you wanted to see that until just now?  The Slingshot Channel on Youtube.

Lefties, Thy Name is Mud

'Tis wondering strange.

A few years ago, when we attacked Iraq after almost a year of prep and prop and primp, AND a Congressional smiley face sticker, my lefty friends couldn't let a game night go by without bracing me on the topic and forcing me to give an opinion or defense on every news blurb and event they could parrot.

But now, after Chimpy McObamaHitler has attacked little Libya with no warning, whining, or waiting, they are silent on the topic. And I know that if I were to go out of my way to bring it up with my most opinionated friend, I'd get an instant roar of emotional white noise in response, and who needs that when we're trying to manage a 4 to 6 player game quickly and efficiently?

It's almost as if their politics are more driven by the man behind the plan than the plan itself.

The Hunt For Geek October

So a chick on the Training team a couple of cubicles over is yakking on the phone with tech support over some login/password issue, and she's reading off characters in the NATO-phonic alphabet - "Alpha" "Foxtrot" "Sierra", etc. - and while I'm hearing this, images from the PC Harpoon database of Soviet submarines keep flashing through my head.

Pieces of junk, all of them really, but they were fun to hunt & sink on my old 286.

Anyone know whether there is a good replacement for the HazeGray naval site these days since that one hasn't been updated in a while?

Well I Stand Up Next to Reason, and I Chop It Down With The Edge of My Hand

I heard this bad joke recently:

So this devout Muslim guy walks onto an Army base.

He yells "Allahu Akbar!" and shoots 40 unarmed soldiers, killing 13 of them.

Turns out he considered himself more Muslim than American, contacted known al Qaeda sympathizers, and had been under investigation by the FBI at one point.

And a few days later, a large number of yammerheads are assigning blame to every single part of his life except his religion which commands him to slay infidels.

It appears this is a joke without a punchline, sorry.