Comments on: “Shock troops”

By: Tom G.

Tom G. — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:55:22 +0000

From TNR: “I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join.”

Pure comedy…you can’t make this stuff up. “El-Tee, would you please call CENTCOM and reschedule that luncheon in Tikrit? Top just pegged me again for fire-guard…Oh, and where in the hell are my new fingerless gloves I ordered from Cabelas?”

By: Casca

Casca — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:59:46 +0000

Turds usually float to the top eventually. This one being particularly gaseous has popped right to the surface, Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp. For those of you not in-the-know, a private is one of two things; either a new recruit who knows only the rudiments of the trade at best, or a shithead who has been busted, usually with good cause. To be serving in the field in Iraq, and holding the rank, it's a high percentage bet that he is the latter.

By: Jim C

Jim C — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:55:24 +0000

Heh, Scott Thomas outed himself on The Plank — TNR’s blog. My guess is that now that everyone knows who he is, he’s going to get some one on one counseling from his battle buddies.

Jim C

By: Casca

Casca — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:21:31 +0000

Cottus, dude, it was a joke. UCSD probably won’t be hiring him (One hopes they’ve learned from their California Poet Laureatte fiasco). It’ll take someone more whacked-out than he to give him a job behind the lectern. Literalism is a disease. Don’t believe everything you read here, lmao.

Loved your first para, very tight.

By: Ens Tim

Ens Tim — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:29:51 +0000

It is easy for some to accept a far fetched, unrealistic, and even fantastical version of current events because it reinforces some latent insecurity regarding the US military and government. There seems to be a need, for some, on a very primal level to associate the US government with all that is deceitful in the world.

It seems that the Lancet group falls in this category of folk, the category that will stretch the limits of ethical scientific research to contradict the principal claim of the US that we are in fact doing this for the benefit of the Iraqis. It’s terribly unsettling to deal with people in this “camp” for several reasons, not the least of which being their insistence on a version of reality well outside my threshold for rational thought. It’s hard to debate the pros and cons of our government (i.e. military) when one party relies on the principle assumption that this organization is both withholding the truth from the citizenry as well as acting without the best interest of either our country or Iraq at heart.

It also doesn’t help when these leftward leaning groups are citing sources that are pretty much full of “it.”

~Ens Tim

By: cottus

cottus — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:26:45 +0000

Thanks for the opportunity to comment on what should be the self – destruction of academia. It went from being the Ivory Tower of altruistic chaps doing a marvelous job for very little money, to being the secret weapon that won WWII and saved the world, to being a refuge for revolutionary thinkers on the forefront of a brave new world, to the monstrous indoctrination and propaganda machine it is today.

But why haven’t the budgets of the great land grant Universities been slashed by knowing politicians reacting to public outrage? Where’s the backlash? When’s the pendulum going to swing the other way? Is it true that the fraud Churchill finally got fired by U of Colorado only to be scooped up like a first round draft pick by UCSD? Why haven’t these snotty, overpaid, underworked hypocritical useful idiots felt it in the pocketbook like all others of us who miserably fail in our jobs?

Inquiring minds are dying to know. It remains for me one of the great injustices of our times.