 |  |
 
October 2012
August 2012 July 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003
     |
 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! June 4, 2006 Canadian Terror ArrestsBy GreyhawkAllah has been following the story closely. I wonder if "domestic surveillance" was used to bust up this group? No doubt Canadians will be outraged at the threat to civil liberties if so. Posted by Greyhawk / June 4, 2006 6:51 PM | Permalink 1 TrackBackI've been spinning my wheels a little lately. Okay a lot. The Haditha story just flew all over me. The liberals/progressives, the MSM, the islamic masses have been having a feeding frenzy at the expense of our Soldiers and our nation. Read More 15 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
Comments (0) |
|
The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
An interesting question indeed. I wonder whether the Canadians are logging every call in the country, and watching all the clicks and e-mails on the Internet.
... and I wonder that the Milblogosphere will say about it in the U.S. if and when Hillary takes over on Jan. 20, 2009.
Holy FBI Files, Batman, now she can listen to all our phone calls!
Yes, Robin, she can. Be careful what you wish for.
If they were smart, they would be doing the same that our NSA is doing here: gathering a database of info for quick reference when terrorist activity is identified, and cross checks can be made of the phone numbers, e-mail addresses and web visits.
According to this, internet monitoring did help track these people down and prevent the attack, which was apparently imminent.
"If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. We will show just as much concern for your privacy as the last administration did."
Hillary Clinton
June 11, 2009
I'm sorry, I made a mistake with the title
Presidentrix Hillary Clinton
June 11, 2009
To WW:
I don't come here very often and I rarely blog about the war. But I've been reading the posts and comments here for the last few days and I must admit, I'm impressed.
Of the last ten posts here you've commented on nine of them. Not just that, you've been the first commenter on seven of them, and never later than the third. That bespeaks a level of commitment and stamina that one just doesn't see very often in this era of instant gratification and short attention spans. If I sat in front my computer for as long as you must I'd have saddle sores the size of dinner plates.
And your ability to stay on message is truly awe-inspiring. To paraphrase, "Bush lied, the war's a debacle, we've lost, the Army and Marines are covering up atrocities, the milbloggers are propagandists and shills for the war..." Man, that absolutely wozzles me. And you keep saying it over and over and over and over and over no matter what anybody says in reply. That shows a single-minded determination that I could never hope to match.
One caveat though: the word Presidentrix is definitely sexist. You really want to watch that.
See you around, and have a nice day. ;)
fatman, you really should give a presidentix a try sometime. $300 an hour, $350 with spiked heels. She doesn't care how much you weigh.
What If They Gave A War And Nobody Came?
Remember that old peacenik slogan? Well, maybe you're too young to remember it. I'm not. It was popular in the late '60s and early '70s.
Well, guess what? It's true. They gave an Iraq War and nobody came.
Let me explain. We've got about 140,000 troops there, many on their second and third tours. In a country of 300 million, that's not much of a footprint. We're putting the bill on the national credit card. Those soldiers and marines are volunteers, so they must want to be there.
When they're killed or wounded, they are shipped back home in the middle of the night. That's to avoid photographs. The military doesn't talk about the wounded, and therefore the news media don't talk them. Oh, a story here and a story there. But not that you'd really notice. If anyone should begin mentioning the casualties, the right-wing calls them unpatriotic. As if we really needed to be encouraged to ignore them.
Face it, the Iraq War is a blip on the national radar screen. The news media talk it about some, but even their coverage is fading. Apparently it's a ratings-killer. No one wants to watch.
And what about those yellow ribbons? You know the ones you can buy at the post office for 15 bucks. Take a good look next time you're in your car. Do you notice how many of them are so faded as to be unreadable? Support the troops. Hoo-rah.
The Iraq War is like a specialty channel on TV. One of the 200, somewhere between the Comedy Channel and Home Shopping Network. People who care about it care about it, but they're a pretty small group. To the extent that the war registers with the public, it's mainly through the perceived correlation with gas prices. Before Bush invaded Iraq, gas was a buck and a half a gallon. Now it's three and a half bucks a gallon.
Hey, wasn't this thing supposed to be about cheap gas? That's why people want it to be over. It's costing too much to drive these days. Not that there's any logic involved. Any statistics professor will tell you that correlation doesn't equal causality, but thinking it through isn't in style these days. We go on gut feel, and in the national gut, if we get out of Iraq the price of gas will fall. So let's get out. That's about the extent of the national concern.
The Haditha Massacre? It's a scene on the specialty channel. People who care about it care about it. Everyone else says, hmm, the Haditha Massacre? Isn't that the newest video game?
One of the so-called "milbloggers" on the Internet proposes a hierarchy to use in judgment the credibility of comments about the war. In his taxonomy, those with direct combat experience have the most credibility, civilians the least. In his own tiny way, the "milblogger" reinforces the trend of isolating the military from the society it supposedly protects. You haven't been there? Shut up and let us military guys figure it out.
Well, okay, as they say at Burger King, have it your way. But don't be surprised that those stickers have faded, and don't be too shocked that no one really thinks or cares much about the dead or the wounded or the hardships of war. You see, we haven't been there. We can't understand. So we'll butt out. And don't call us. We'll call you.
The moral of this story for everyone concerned: Be careful what you wish for. Did you really want them to give a war and have no one show up?
I'll save the fifty bucks. I don't like spiked heels. They're murder on the upholstery.
As for "What If They Gave A War And Nobody Came?", yes, I'm old enough to remember that moldie oldie. I'm still trying to figure out what it, and everything you posted after it have to do with what I posted, but maybe I'm just being dense.
And thank you for your prompt reply. Fourteen minutes! (*nods head in admiration*)
I'm on a roll. I'll get tired out. Don't worry about the spiked heels. They'll wear rubber-cleated baseball shoes if you ask far enough in advance. Or so I've been told.
Guess what? Turns out the Canucks didn't get them by scooping up all the Internet traffic throughout all of Canada, or by tracing every phone call made in Canada.
Instead, the Canucks spied on radical Islamist websites. Imagine that. Those slow-witted dummies up north decided to fish where the fish are. Idiots.
http://w3t.org/u/qo6
'You see, we haven't been there. We can't understand. So we'll butt out. And don't call us. We'll call you.'
Who is 'we'? Do you pretend that your delusional rantings in any way represent even a simple majority of American voters?
'Those slow-witted dummies up north decided to fish where the fish are. Idiots.'
Yeah. Don't let them listen to your perverted phone calls. Just use racial profiling. We know how you left-tards like that.
Consider troll fed.
Do you pretend that your delusional rantings in any way represent even a simple majority of American voters?
I hate to interrupt your delusions rantings with facts, given how much the retired nut-scratching Republicans of the Milblogosphere hate facts. But I feel I must:
- 61% of the public disapproves of your president's (sorry, I don't consider him "my" president) handling of Iraq. That's a Quinnipac poll. A Washington Post/ABC poll put it at 66%. CBS 67%. Newsweek 62%. NBC/Wall St Journal 62%.
- 56% of the public thinks going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do.
- 29% of the public thinks the U.S. should withdraw completely, and another 28% thinks the U.S. should cut troop levels.
- 62% of the public doesn't think Iraq is worth fighting
- 76% thinks there has been an unacceptable number of military casualties
- 51% think the Iraq War has not contributed to the long-term security of the U.S.
- 52% think the Bush administration intentionally misled the public into war
- 60% of the public thinks that things are going badly in Iraq ("somewhat badly" 33%, "very badly" 27%)
- 57% think that the war won't succeed
- 47% think Iraq is like the Vietnam War; 35% think it's like the Korean War. Only 11% think it's like WW2
http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
Still waiting for some evidence that your feelings about the military, VA funding, etc. are shared by other Americans (term used very loosely in your case).
Still waiting for some evidence that your feelings about the military, VA funding, etc. are shared by other Americans (term used very loosely in your case)
I think all of those things are captured in the Liar-in-Chief's dismal ratings, and the war's unpopularity.