Archive for the ‘war’ Category

I can’t even escape via Doctor Who!

Posted: November 1, 2009 by datechguy in doctor who, internet/free speech, opinion/news, war
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If you are a Doctor Who fan (and if you’re not you should be) you should check out the web site Life Doctor Who and Combom. It is one of the better sites on the web that covers the news of the series.

Yesterday he lined to a wired article by Scott Brown that apparently he didn’t realize was available online not online (he scanned it in) concerning can us Yanks appreciate Doctor Who? As his commentators noted it appears we have been watching two different series than the writer Mr. Brown, that was a slight annoyance to a Who vet like me but this bit just clinched it:

Sound familiar, America? Oh, I can hear the teabaggers now: This is defeatist talk! Doesn’t sound like your cup of Tetley, eh, Glenn Beck? Fair enough: Enjoy your Transformers and the baby-faced club kids of the new Enterprise.

I vented my spleen in comments there. My sons and I just want to enjoy our Doctor Who but I can’t due to another as Jay Nordlinger has called it safe zone violation, but I promised a longer response so here it is…

Memo to Brown I’ve been watching the show for 30 years, I have (and have reviewed) many of the Big Finish audios. I know the series very well and if anything it is an illustration of the value of action rather than non-action.

I will happily stipulate that whenever possible the Doctor will use a scientific solution rather than a violent one but they come at a cost. And that doesn’t preclude violence and guns (No matter what Sarah Jane says) if needed, let review:

In Planet of the Dead Unit kills the two creatures that come through the wormhole instead of the Doctor noveling them somehow.

In The Next Doctor Miss Hartigan’s Brain is fried by the Doctor’s action to save the city.

In the three part finish to last season (Stolen Earth, Journey’s End) the Doctor scolds his twin for destroying the Dalek fleet even though he knows that millions will die if it is allowed to live, his primary plan to stop Davros from slaughtering the universe is…to beg him not to.

In Turn Left the world is saved by Donna Noble killing herself

In Midnight the Doctor is saved by the Hostess killing the Ms. Sylvertry and taking herself with her.

In Unicorn and the Wasp Donna saves the day by drowning the wasp against the Doctor’s desire

In the Sontaran Stratagem and the Poison Sky the Doctor’s solution is to destroy the Sontaran ship killing them, only the fact that someone else did it prevented him killing them himself.

In Planet of the Ood the doctor actually…doesn’t do anything. Ood sigma and the friends of the earth solve the issue and it was because of , wait for it. Bloody Revolution.

In the Fires of Pompeii he kills the Pyroviles.

And lets take a quick peek at what happens when he refuses to kill The family of Blood?, How many people die because the Doctor isn’t willing to kill the four aliens in season 3’s The four humans they take over, the vet at the door, the two teachers, those who were shelled, the family of the little girl etc etc etc…

And you can go back to the primary series, The Invisible Enemy, The Invasion of time, The Sontaran Experiment, Terror of the Verviods, Snakedance, Monster of Peladon to see the Doctor do what has to be done to save the day.

Granted he does hold back, he does wait he tries every other method he can but in the end when talk can’t solve the problem he acts, and during the times when he just can’t pull the trigger and is about to be killed, (particularly in his 9th incarnation) someone else does it (Rose, The parting of the Ways).

One note about the 9th incarnation, his unwillingness to kill in part of the plot and the psychological injury of the Time War so it can be excused to some degree but even in that season he can do what needs to be done, (World War III).

So PLEASE don’t give me that pap about “Glen Beck” types etc. We who recognize that there are times when you have to act rather than talk know the cost and we recognize the cost of inaction is often even higher. Or as Ronald Reagan said:

Let’s set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace–and you can have it in the next second–surrender.

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face–that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand–the ultimatum. And what then?

For a long time our friends worldwide on the left had the privilege to tell us how primitive we where and less enlighten because they lived under the umbrella of our protection. As our current administration dithers on said protection others will have to make the choice to give in or stand up. To quote Mark (Dr. Who gay mafia) Steyn from his book America Alone:

A while back, I was struck by the words of Oscar van den Boogaard, a Dutch gay humanist (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool). Reflecting on the Continent’s accelerating Islamification, he concluded that the jig was up for the Europe he loved, but what could he do? “I am not a warrior, but who is?” he shrugged. “I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

The close of his speech at Hillsdale College says it all:

General Stark knew that. Mr. van den Boogard’s words are an epitaph for Europe. Whereas New Hampshire’s motto—”Live free or die!”—is still the greatest rallying cry for this state or any other. About a year ago, there was a picture in the papers of Iranian students demonstrating in Tehran and waving placards. And what they’d written on those placards was: “Live free or die!” They understand the power of those words; so should we.

It’s is a shame that I have to write this post, I just want to enjoy my Doctor Who and the adventures in time and space, but the more enlightened won’t allow it. I say to them you would make a good Castellan Kelner.

Project Valour IT. GO NAVY! BUMPED!

Posted: October 26, 2009 by datechguy in tech, war
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At HiWired we supported project Valor IT which was a great fit. That blog is long dead but I’m still the son of a Naval vet (Pacific theatre WW2) so Valor IT will follow me as will the Navy team.

I know how tough times are these days, maybe better than you think, but we can skip one trip through the drive through.

The day Bill Whittle is wrong about this…

Posted: October 26, 2009 by datechguy in Afghanistan war, opinion/news, war
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…is the day our country dies:

Here is a sociological experiment that might have something to teach us:

Kick down100 doors of self-proclaimed French pacifists, grab the women and kids, and haul them away. Then try again in Texas, with 100 NRA members. Collate, or rather, have a surviving relative collate the results. Extrapolate the abductors’ rates of casualties to determine the total number of murdering swine needed. See what percentage of jackbooted thugs have a suicide wish and then determine the number of men you will need to disarm, kidnap and murder 50 million armed people.

You will need a lot of men. More than you can raise.

These trust the people freedoms are so deeply engrained in the fabric of America as to be almost hereditary, I think. I used to worry that we’d bred that out of us, and then along comes Todd Beamer and company on United Flight 93, who, first among us that day, realized they were being marched to their deaths and decided to do something about it. Not for themselves, because by taking that action they knew they were doomed. They did it for us. Not only to save the lives of those on the ground for whom their aircraft was headed, but to remind us of who we are as a people, to add to the list of ordinary Americans who can gather extraordinary courage and resolve because they have been trusted all their lives by their government and their fellow citizens.

He mentions another point worth accenting:

As PJ O’Rourke points out, the U.S. Constitution is less than a quarter the length of the owner’s manual for a 1998 Toyota Camry, and yet it has managed to keep 300 million of the world’s most unruly, passionate people safe, prosperous and free. Smarter people than me may disagree with that document – I’m for not touching a comma.

So as a proud son of those brave men, I’ll take freedom – all of it – and because I accept the benefits of those freedoms, I’ll solemnly take the responsibilities as well. I may someday lose a child on a trip to Spring Break, but I’ll never lock them in the basement to keep them safe. And I’ll accept the fact that living in Los Angeles puts me at risk for being shot to death because I feel the freedom is worth it. I breathe that freedom every day, and hey, we all gotta go sometime. I’ll continue to fly experimental airplanes because I am careful, meticulous, precise and responsible, and yet the day may come when I am out of altitude, out of airspeed and out of ideas all at the same time. Oh well. I have seen and done things up there that you cannot imagine and I cannot describe. Freedom.

I respect and admire Canada. Although we have chosen certain diverging paths since the days of the Revolution, we have been, and always will be, the best of friends despite our differences. Canada is unquestionably as decent, modest and good a society as exists on Earth today. And yet while Canadians frequently point out that they are free of our vices, I perceive that they are free of our greatness as well. You can’t have it both ways.

Me, personally, I’ll take the spirit, ingenuity and passion that can plant the American flag on the moon over pre-paid health care.

Everything costs something. It is a pain that we have to have troops in Europe, but the peace that those troops in Europe have preserved is not a pain, it is a pain that we have troops in South Korea and Japan, but it is not a pain that both of those countries have been good trading partners and peaceful for decades and have not been to war in 50 plus years.

It’s a pain that we spend billions on carriers and missiles etc, but it’s a blessing that when disaster strikes a world away we can with those carriers provide clean drinking water and relief at the speed of a nuclear powered ship.

It’s a pain that we have to be the worlds policeman, but it also means that instead of a subordinate position were we have to go along, we are in the decisive position where we act and others can deal with us instead.

Anyone knows if you run a business there is a lot of work but you are the man in charge, if you work for someone you have to on occasion take orders and like it. Right now we don’t have to take anything from anyone and because we are what we are, a lot of other places don’t have to either because they know we have their back.

As soon as we stop having their back then the next guy on the block will start running the show, and all those fellows who used to count on us and didn’t mind tweaking us because they had us had better hope the next guy thinks like us, otherwise they are back to the 18th century power struggle, because people haven’t changed in thousands of years, only their technology and the greatest socio/political change for the good for the world in the last 10 centuries came from a bunch of rich white guys wearing powdered wigs who conceived principles that a volunteer force currently upholds for an ungrateful world and a group of pols who think they can count on them forever.

The Flemish Menace is foiled in Massachusetts!

Posted: October 21, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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…and don’t let that name fool you:

A 27-year-old Massachusetts man has been charged with conspiring with others to carry out terror attacks against shoppers in U.S. malls and against U.S. military in Iraq.

Authorities in Boston say Tarek Mehanna (TEH’-rek meh-HAH’-nah) of Sudbury sought training in terrorist training camps and worked with others from 2001 to May 2008 on the conspiracy to “kill, kidnap, maim or injure” people in foreign countries and to kill prominent U.S. politicians.

Federal prosecutors say Mehanna and his conspirators tried to get automatic weapons for a mall attack, but their plans were foiled when they could not get the weapons.

We can expect him to claim to be an idolized version of the compete Renaissance man any minute now.

Remember know the Flemish menace and save a life!

Update: HotAir somehow misses the Flemish connection!

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