Supporting the Troops

I'm talking about that perpetual righty ploy, particularly in the US, of equating "supporting the troops", that is, supporting the men and women getting shot at, with support of every random hare-brained scheme that is thrown into effect over them.

This has been banging around for a long time, and I always sort of assumed it was about to evaporate, because it's such an obviously wrong and disrespectful argument, but it's still getting heavy use, and more often than not seems to go completely unchallenged. So now, as a member of "the troops", I've decided to make my statement.

To all individuals who consider "support the troops" an argument for any war policy, consider this. The neocons supported the troops by making up a real war for fake reasons, sending 1/3 the troops required because they wanted tax cuts for millionaires, and not giving them body armour or armoured vehicles for the insurgency that resulted. If that's support, you can all go support the terrorists please. There seems to be some difference in the way conservatives support the troops and their political masters, however. Republican politicians rarely seem to wind up with their legs blown off, shitting in a bag for the rest of their lives.

Materialism

I'm going to write about something personal now, so prepare to squirm.

I never thought I'd be a rat race guy. When you're a teenager and know everything, it's all so obvious that money isn't everything, what you do for a living isn't who you are, money can't buy happiness etc etc. What you can't understand is just how defining and resistance-crushing working every day for your money is.

So I piss my dunkets away on holidays, expensive food and little geeky gadgets. And does it make me happy? Hell no.

I guess I thought I was over the whole existential thing when I hit my 20s, but I was just putting it away for a few years while I got together some money for eating and whatnot. Suddenly the fact that all I really do is earn money and try to get fit seems like a pretty paltry existence.

So am I going to shave my head and join the Hare Krishnas, or go to the Congo as a humanitarian aid worker or some such? Hell no.

Anyway, I just got a NetFlix membership, so that should make me happy.

The Mandela Bushism

I'm burned about this.

At this stage, everyone in the world who doesn't spend 18 hours a day pushing a wooden plough has been exposed to the latest special Bush gaffe, probably by some horrible radio jerk or other person who depends on the topical humour du jour to amuse halfwits.

The rage I'm feeling about this is twofold. Firstly, the hacks are so very excited about this, but they're only getting any mileage out of it by pulling it out of context. The man says something moronic every day. He was a fratboy and a drunk well into his forties at least. And the best you can pull out of that situation is this crap?

The second thing I'm seeing red spots about is the sinking feeling I now get whenever something like this happens, because I know I'll be assailed with weak-as-piss jokes about it for the next 48 to 72 hours.

It's time to give up the topical humour thing for dead. Jon Stewart is still allowed to do it of course, but otherwise it needs to be a strictly controlled permit system, and it must be conclusively proven any topical humour is based upon original research.

Anyone who has no idea what I'm dribbling about, hopefully this is a clip.


Ahar, success! My scriptkiddy powers are great and you shall kneel before me!

IRONY WATCH
Yes, I have just based a whole post around showing you this clip.

Do not make lame jokes about this, or God will punish you.

First comment!

I've had my first comment. Now I have to deal with the social fallout, that is, with only one commenter, it's more like a conversation than a website, now isn't it?

Anyway, in the style of Flight of the Conchords, you will now be referred to as The Commenter Base, because The Commenter sounds less impressive.

Californication goes down in a cloud of hackiness

First of all, three weeks since I posted anything. It's not that it's hard to think of something to post about, it's just really hard to care when you're working 11 hours a day and trying not to plan workplace massacres the rest of the time.

I had such high hopes for Californication. The cable willingness to put whatever on TV is a nice place to start creatively, the willingness to sink some money into a good thing is even better, and then they actually seem to have some writers banging around over there at Showtime, so good for them.

Sadly, today I watched the fifth episode and the thing that had been bothering me the whole time finally starting slapping me and screaming like a strung out meth head. There may be writers working at Showtime, but no one told them about Californication.

It's pretty, and there's lots of boobies, but the dialogue is painful. In fact, it's most definitely the spiritual heir to the Sex and the City crown. It wasn't immediately obvious, because David Duchovny has the ability to deliver this horrific dross with an illusion of talent and edginess, but Madeline Zima plucked the scales from my eyes by delivering this wretched creaking scribbling in an awkward stilted manner that Andie Macdowell would have thought was forced. I can't fool myself anymore.

Any pretence at thinking TV from this show was just a diversion from the sad attempts to tickle the lizard brain. The whole show is basically the masturbatory fantasies of whatever halfwit created it. If I want porn, I can get porn, and at least then you can mute the sound and still follow what's going on. You know a show is shit when it's not matching up to the legacy of a show that couldn't bring out any bigger guns for the season final than revealing the name of a recurring character.

I'm going back to giving Weeds more credit than it deserves.

UPDATE: Weeds has an Olsen guest starring. Showtime can eat shit, it's over. I'm strapping my suicide belt on as we speak, does anyone know their street address?

Selling out

This topic comes to mind, as I've just applied to put Google AdSense advertisements on this site on the off chance that some accident of fate makes it wildly (or slightly) popular and I can buy an island and get fat.

It's not really a consistent concept. Those of us in the post-modern poseur segments of society love the term, generally as a way of indicating a beloved band or some other form of light entertainment has dumbed itself down to reach a wider audience, or signed up with an evil corporation, or otherwise fallen from a supposedly pure state.

Of course, none of them were ever really pure in the first place. Your favourite band might have been rocking the local pub for $50 each three nights a week, but they wish they had sold a million albums, and face it, would probably do backing tracks for Justin Timberlake if it meant they could avoid being on stage somewhere bottles are going to be thrown at their heads.
Starving artists have trust funds, that is the universal truth. No one gets a studio apartment in New York, insanely expensive cobalt blues and canvases, and all the cafe food they can nibble while trying to stay thin and drawn, which of course means you must be terribly creative, without some filthy lucre.

Some might argue that there are some genuinely pure things out there. John Butler Trio are still independent. Maddox doesn't run banner ads.

But guess what? Those guys are still there for the money. Maddox is selling books now. John Butler Trio make more money as independents than they ever would on a major record label, because they actually get to keep a little bit of money from the CDs they sell.

Basically, I will always hate Offspring and Metallica for their mercenary ways. But I also realise that calling people sellouts is ridiculous, and every time I come home from work without punching my boss the fuck out then setting fire to him in his office, I have also sold out.
So that's what I think. Now you must think it too.

UPDATE:
By selling out, this is not what I mean.

Apple is the evil empire

Okay, third post and it's time to stir up a nerdy hornet's nest. To all those Macintosh fanboys out there slavishly adoring every colourless overmarketed turd Steve Jobs punches out: Apple is evil.

Yes, they're innovators. In the Macintosh, the iPod and the iPhone they have ingeniously taken other people's inventions, made them into user-friendly killer apps, and crashed into the marketplace changing the entire world of consumer technology. The products that aren't from them are copied from them.

But here's the rub. Each of these products has been deliberately designed to limit their use in critical ways and solely to the benefit of Apple. The tiny software base of the Mac, the Digital Rights Management of the iPod and the locked-down status of the iPhone make these beautiful products of engineering more profitable per unit, but the frustration is crushing to the soul of the true technophile.

Apple has managed to sell a hell of a lot of people on their image as the "alternative", for the funky creative types, but the fact is, they just have good marketers. They shrewdly pick their product placements and are a lot more clever in their advertising campaigns. Aside from that, Apple is as soulless and empty as any other corporation out there. Apple has a lot in common with Steve Jobs' other enterprise, Disney - they attract creative people to make great things, then hollow their creations out from the inside.

The best thing that could happen to the world of consumer technology is the collapse of Apple once and for all, so all that free-floating talent can come out and really play.

How to fix the Global War on Terror

The turn of the 21st century brought a few surprises, not least of which was the return of 19th century-style “Great Game” politics. All it took was a few scary-crazy neoconservatives floating to the top in the wake of a faux cowboy and a dubious election result, and a thirty-year-old dirty war coming back to bite us, and suddenly we were back in the colonies, fighting the Hun wherever he may be, and once more turning our eyes towards the events of Central Asia. Again, we were going to turn them around with a taste of steel, and the boys were going to be home by Christmas.

Strangely, this return to form has not been welcomed, and has in fact developed rather a backlash. It seems that the news media has betrayed us, and rather than reporting all the gallant victories, holding the square and all that, has rather come down on the side of the natives, dwelling on unpleasantries such as civilian deaths and internecine conflicts. Obviously this view misses the point. How do these people expect us to build an empire?

The whole thing needs an update for the new century. I hope to make you see that, with a few minor changes, this sort of thing could jig in nicely with the more popular sports of today.

The first order of business must of course be allowing the gentry to have a polite flutter on the proceedings. The whole Game is really about unearned wealth, and most of our problems are stemming from keeping that unearned wealth confined to too few individuals. The oil executives and military contractors are doing just fine, but a proper tote will extend things to the labourers, academics, and professionals who are out there marching and dissenting. If there is one thing the history of civilization tells us, it’s that almost any atrocity can be ignored when spiced with gambling, such as child poverty, gladiatorial combat and Las Vegas.

The second measure is already mostly in place. The soldiers – or “competitors” as they will now be known – will be held to a completely unrealistic double standard. We will select for the most aggressive and testosterone driven young men, then decry and castigate them for any aggressive or testosterone-fuelled behaviour. The masses must hate their heroes to love them, and the delicious spectacle of the media railing against them will attract the pious and prurient punters who would otherwise ignore our Game altogether.

Thirdly, we need a really professional competitor. We will need to arm, train and fund the other side, to make sure we always have the right degree of competition to keep seats filled. This idea has already been significantly implemented in the past in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not to a sufficient extent. The other side have not been wearing proper jerseys nor playing by any rules that I can recognize whatsoever. In fact, one could mostly mistake them for mere civilians, angered by our interference in their homeland and culture! The whole thing can rather put the punters off their tea.

Finally, the most important thing is that we all just get behind it. The fate of the world is at stake here, and we’re trying to build an empire that will last forever. You know – like the last one did.

Here I am! Just in time...

Well, I've finally joined the blogging bandwagon, five years too late to be wildly popular, three years too late to be relevant, and two years after the whole thing started to peak.

Why am I starting a blog? The same reason everyone else does - because I think I'm funny and uniquely interesting, and everyone should pay attention to what I think. So pay attention.

About me - I'm Australian, in the Army and a raving lefty in an organisation that's slightly right-wing of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Otherwise, read my posts. If I make any.

And bookmark this site, because you're going to want to know what I think so you can have the same opinion as me. Seriously.