John McCain knows how to win wars. John McCain thinks it’s a good idea to start more wars that he will win because he knows how and that’s why (Sigh. If you insist on details, he has unlocked the secret code: hold L + R + Y + A + B + X and press Start, IIRC – but don’t tell Iran, Chavez or Obama). Even with unlimited victories unlocked, John McCain knows that he’ll need more soldiers (the unlimited lives cheat remains elusive). A problem you say? What with the current climate of lazy and spoiled Americans not wanting to get blown up in the desert for someone else’s oil profits?
A problem for some perhaps. Not John McCain. His time spent as a POW accumulating more commander in chief building experience than a thousand Obamas has taught him that you increase the size of the army with the recruits you have, not the recruits you want (besides it doesn’t matter what you might want because he knows how to win wars…have you been paying attention at all morans?):
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office paired with the Newport-based Army recruiter on Saturday July 12, in an effort to convey information to jail inmates about the possibility of serving in the U.S. armed forces. [...]
Staff Sergeant Justin Morlock of the Army recruiting office in Newport gave some of his own time to the project and was on hand to provide information to all interested individuals. Over a time frame of two hours, Morlock was able to contact more than 30 inmates, out of which three were found to be eligible for military service.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for rehabilitation, second chances, redemption, forgiveness and other forms of hemophilia of the heart (it’s the liberal side of me – the part that hasn’t sufficiently accepted the teachings of Christ I suppose). But, uh, can anyone see how this might not be the ideal venue for recruitment into the post-Petraeus military? The brave new military that is supposedly shifting to a counterinsurgency footing that requires remarkable levels of self-restraint and discipline from the top brass down to the shooters?
Laughing at Obama is a good start to ridding ourselves of the PC stranglehold on speech that every minority has a right not to be offended that the Left has been shoving down our throats.
Believing that this actually happened obliges you to believe a large number of not-very-believable things, starting with a department store selling lions and finishing with some sociopaths naming a child “Ace Berg”. The Daily Mail appears to buy it, which means … well, nothing. But Mr. Ace Berg and his good friend Mr. John Rendall say it happened, and his even better friends Mr. C. Monster and Mr. Ty Dell-Wave have kept any doubts they may harbor to themselves, so, fuck it, I’ll believe them. Even if it isn’t true, it should be.
… is satire. It’s a joke, and it’s very funny. Kevin Drum is a fine blogger and surely a wonderful person in many ways, but one is advised to file his comedy advice alongside Dom Deluise’s miracle 6-week washboard abs diet. The problem with putting a big Surgeon General’s warning label on this satire reading NO!! NOT REALLY!!! BUT JOHN MCCAIN THINKS SO!!!! is that doing so would make it not a satire; or, if it were a satire, a satire of humorless liberals. (And would presumably fail for the same reason that this satire allegedly fails – many liberals appear to sincerely believe this is a good and necessary correction.) I further suggest that “A Modest Proposal” would not actually be improved by putting the whole thing in the blood-drenched mouth of a Tory industrialist named “Dasterdly McBabyeater von Evil” and/or renaming it “An Absurdly Broad Caricature of Aspects of Contemporary Society which The Author, In Truth, Deplores”. True, the idiots being satirized won’t “get” the joke – that’s the joke’s value to those who do. I may be a horrible elitist, but I don’t think jokes are improved by pitching them to people with no sense of humor.
Senate bows to Bush, approves surveillance bill
By PAMELA HESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bowing to President Bush’s demands, the Senate sent the White House a bill Wednesday overhauling bitterly disputed rules on secret government eavesdropping and shielding telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.
We can identify two general methods of online ratfucking: propaganda and sabotage. Propaganda is promoting anti-Republican bullshit to a general audience; the model would be Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; the methods would include mass emailing and posting to large, unmoderated general interest message boards. Sabotage is undermining and/or co-opting pro-Republican organizations or communities; the model would be Cointelpro; the methods are legion. Sabotage is the more interesting method, its techniques mirroring those of movement-building:
To Facilitate The Movement
To Inhibit The Movement
Facilitate capacity for corporate action
Inhibit capacity for corporate action
Make it possible for energies of movement to go toward pursuit of broader social change goals, as well as maintenance needs
Direct energies of movement of defensive maintenance needs and away from pursuit of broader social goals
Create favorable public image; develop and support ideology
Create unfavorable public image and counter-ideology
Give information to movement
Gather information on movement
Facilitate supply of money and facilities
Inhibit supply of money and facilities
Facilitate freedom of movement, expression, and action; offer legal immunity
Inhibit freedom of movement, expression, and action; create myth and fact of surveillance and repression; apply legal sanctions
Build and sustain morale
Damage morale
Recruit supporters
Derecruitment
Build leaders
Destroy or displace leaders
Encourage internal solidarity
Encourage internal conflict
Encourage external coalitions with potential allies and neutral relations (or conflict only insofar as it is functional) with potential opponents
Encourage external conflict with potential allies and opponents
Facilicate particular actions
Inhibit or sabotage particular actions
A few operational pointers:
1. Proper hygiene is very important. Use clean email/blogger/newsgroup accounts and online identities. IP address masking or spoofing is probably overkill for most applications, but it’s simple enough. Also: there’s this thing called Google you might want to be aware of. Don’t post any details about ratfucking, because that shit will leave an world-readable, endlessly searchable, multiply-archived stain for a very, very long time. IM and email, plz.
2. He who lies best lies least. Changing your name constitutes adopting a fictional persona, and it’s probably best to leave it at that, without needless embellishments. Get to know your targets, how far you can push them and in what direction, and remember that an effective agent provocateur has a delicate touch and doesn’t draw attention. Don’t be the first to accuse others of having hidden agendas and you won’t be the next accused. You are entering a world where the paranoid style has always been en vogue.
3. Bring a friend. A) having someone to run plays with makes you that much more effective, and B) even thinking about doing this shit alone makes me feel like I’m losing my mind. Make a game out of it “I bet I can get them to swallow more shit than you (by some metric)” and joke about it later. What you are going is halfway between Donnie Brasco and an internet predator, and that’s a mighty creepy neighborhood. Don’t get lost.
4. Is your conscience bothering you? This is probably because you need to fortify your diet with Vitamin S:
It’s way cooler than huffing paint, and a little bit now could mean a lot less over the next 4 years. Bottoms up.
