Monday, August 10, 2009

In Further, Deeper Discussions of Aesthetics...

G.I. Joe: The After Action Report, pt. 2 [John J. Miller]
Today was a travel day, so I didn't have a chance to say much this morning about the G.I. Joe movie, which I saw last night. But I wanted to expand on one of my points. The movie contains all kinds of military equipment from high-tech fantasyland: nanotech bombs, robocop uniforms, etc. It's the kind of movie that features a vast, secret lair full of bad guys beneath the polar ice cap.

But for all the gee-whiz gadgetry, what's the one thing that nobody seems to have? Missile defense. Yet our country already has built a rudimentary system. It will grow more robust if the Obama administration reverses course on plans to slash its budget.

I guess Hollywood thinks personal accelerator suits are more likely a part of our future than ABMs.
Men may wish to catch their ladies as they faint: GI Joe may not appear plausible to your little boy conservative pundit.

56 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Penus Penus Penus!

Hey that's how 3Bulls! speels it, and who am i to box with [strike]dog[/strike] Pinko Punko?

P.S. Foroku you,Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed: [strike!]!
~

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Thunder is struggling to come to terms with our Digital Masters.

Another Kiwi said...

Thunder is the thrall of their hegemony.
I thought GIJoe was a wankfest for adolescents not a basis for DoD decisions. Fuck, but American politics is difficult for those of us from the edge of the world.

mikey said...

So I was watching PTI the other day (Hey, I'm unemployed, what do you expect me to do?) and the sponsor was this GI Joe movie.

The thing I thought was weird is that at the end of the commercial they said it was "innappropriate for children under 13".

What? GI JOE? A DOLL for adolescent boys? And they want them to be unwelcome at the MOVIE?

I'm so fucking confused...

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

well, it's easy mikey.

It's aimed at the guys who were 13 when the cartoon was on, and have been living an arrested adolescence ever since.

A self respecting 13 year old today is out cooking meth or torching hobos, not playing with dolls.

Substance McGravitas said...

The cartoon went hand in hand with Joe's shrinkage to teeny action figure. No more bendable wrists!

M. Bouffant said...

mikey, PTI watching is perfectly OK. It's watching ATH that can be trouble.

Saw two or three minutes of GIJOE Sat. at the multiplex, trying to recoup some of the $23.50 + parking spent on another feature, came in right at the end where the icecap was about to be exploded. Loud, fast, not much dialog. Perfect/best for music, not necessarily for movies.

J said...

Miller's not completely off the mark, however much his machismo offends sensitive liberal types like SubMcG.

Grunts have become more or less expendable in the age of the USS Hillary supercarriers.

M. Bouffant said...

Machismo isn't "offensive," just stupid, boring & transparent.

And just when weren't "grunts" expendable?

J said...

Many a liberal ho objects to grunt machismo--at least of sarge schultz sort--until friday night comes 'round, and she takes one home, and takes the machismo, like, up the grunt-hole. Though the grunt's now more likely to be like wesley snipes than sarge schultz


Grunts are not expendable to ho-wood tho. About every movie of the week--orcartoon for that matter-- depends on 'em (as does the usual flagwaving journalist, demo or GOPer).

Heh heh. Keepin' it real as F.

mikey said...

Hmm.

It LOOKS like english.

The individual words are clear enough. They just aren't put together in any kind of order that makes sense.

What is all this "grunts"? The US Army is a very large organization. Bigger than IBM or BP or even Google.

You can find a grunt (I assume you mean eleven bravo, infantry rifleman) who will agree with anything, even incoherent ranting.

I wore LPCs for the 1st Cav. I jumped out of hueys and watched tearfully as they lifted out of the LZ and left us in the boonies. To an uncertain fate.

Now I'm sure that has contributed richly to my current worldview, but much else has done so, too. Anybody who thinks there is some group called "grunts" is just totally unclear on what they're saying...

J— said...

Nothing is bigger than Google. Nothing.

Substance McGravitas said...

Miller's not completely off the mark, however much his machismo offends sensitive liberal types like SubMcG.

Your imagination is noted.

J said...

It makes poi-fect sense, and as usual the writing's free of pop-liberal sentimentality (does that mean we support the GOP?? Nyet, except to nitwits). Just not your usual fare, so sort of scares you.

Grunts are soldiers, more or less. The ones who responded to a draft card, I might salute. The enlistee, nyet.

mikey said...

poi-fect sense

Step away from the taro root.

Ok, sure, you can sustain your existence with it, but it does not taste good. No matter how it's prepared.

Ok, sliced thin and deep fried, taro chips with malt vinegar are pretty good.

But I'm suspicious. I'm kind of wondering if it's the malt vinegar and not the taro.

'Scuse me. I gotta heake

J said...

More like Nietzsche and Darwinism, applied.

Maybe start by reading the cliffsnotes to Nietzsche, instead of like TandyCo manuals.

And while GI Joe's only a flick, Miller was correct insofar that in terms of materiel, the US is now playing catchup with Russia and China in many areas. Check out say some of Russia's new "Birch" ICBMs--north beach in less than 30 minutes, and as powerful as anything the USA has. They have superior missile defenses as well. For that matter, google the chinese infantry (probably 5 times that of the USA)

mikey said...

Look, I totally don't wanna be a dick here. But I was just chopping bell pepper and it occurred to me to wonder:

What must it be like to be Mrs. J?

"When you're sent to penny fights and alldshor it"...

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

For that matter, google the chinese infantry (probably 5 times that of the USA)

Why? Are they going to swim here, or else take over all the good chess-playing jobs?
~

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

sargeant schulz was macho?

I do not think that word means what you think it means...

J— said...

You want macho? Watch me pound my poi.

mikey said...

[Ring Ring... Ring Ring ]

Hello?

Umm, hello? Is this the chinese infantry?

Yes, yes, this is the chinese infantry. Can I help you?

I was just wondering...Are you gonna invade?

Invade? Invade WHAT?

Well, the US. Are you going to invade the US?

The US??? Are you outta your mind? Those are some dog - crazy motherfuckers. We spend at least half our time trying to convince those idiots we're NOT invading. What are you, stupid?

No, I just heard you were like five times bigger than our infantry, and I got scared.

Well, c'mon. Yeah, there's a whole lot of us. But when you're a poor country living under single-party rule and you're trying to keep things from blowing up, you need to have full employment. So we have a bunch of kids in the military. Look, these are kids who can't write their name. Many of them have wooden replica AKs - hell, we don't want to issue these villagers and peasants REAL weapons.

And don't even get me started on those fucking crazy Uigers. Those bastards you can't even HAVE in the cities. Trust me, sewage everywhere.

So...You're NOT going to invade then...

Nope. No chance. The whole world knows. The US does wars while the rest of us do commerce. Notice who's economy is growing and who's is shrinking? You think there's some kind of accidental coincidence in that? Look, I gotta go. Time for group exercise. Don't worry about us so much, seems to us like your own government is fucking you over plenty good....

Substance McGravitas said...

J, whatever it is you think you're reading, you're not reading it, whatever it is you think I'm thinking, I'm not thinking it.

Really, whether Miller is accurate or not is neither here nor there to the funny in his post, in which a grown man ruminates on missile defense given the example of Hydra.

You can certainly defend his stance, as blockheads defend the asinine, but I don't think you can pretend to have gotten the joke at this point. Machismo simply doesn't play a part when it's a toy-tie-in movie.

J— said...

I like Ben Shapiro's approach. He knew the movie was un-American well before it came out because he read the G.I. Joe crew was international.

Substance McGravitas said...

Shapiro's not a big fan of American art forms anyway, so WTF?

Another Kiwi said...

Damn those internationalists from other countries...


Oh gross I got an exarm here. ZRM is this yours!!??!!

J said...

Ah it's not your favorite euro Ahht flick or something? Too 'Merican? Low brow? Rah-thurr.

SubMcG, you sound more Anglo-tory with each post, dearie.

Even if it's just manga (and if GI Joe's too international), there are reasons to be concerned about missile defense issues (and materiel issues in general).

Substance McGravitas said...

there are reasons to be concerned about missile defense issues

No shit guy, but not the subject of the post.

Please, when you're on the verge of understanding something, hold back. Can't be true.

J said...

You could work on a PC GIJoe sequel, SubMcG! (tho' it's already looking fairly PC).

Don't ask; Don't Tell: GI Joe in Hot Baghdad Nites

J said...

Well, SubMc-Reason, your attempt to ridicule Miller misses the point. Do you mean to suggest he should not even attempt to extract some political point from a kid flick? Or just your usual ad homs. You're the one conflating the aesthetics with the political, via your own usual faux-liberal code.

Substance McGravitas said...

Do you mean to suggest he should not even attempt to extract some political point from a kid flick?

I am fully in favour of him extracting a political point wherever he finds it. You let me know when he does that.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

Do you mean to suggest he should not even attempt to extract some political point from a kid flick?

Oooh, that's a harsh stinging rebuke. Summer action blockbusters targetted at children are, of course, the absolute most valid milieu to be searching for social/political commentary - and Subby McGravol is on shaky ground to suggest otherwise.


That's right McGravitas - you are the tyrannical dictator stomping all over Free Speech. I bet that realization is gonna force you to write "hypocrite" all over your Lie-beral Islamofascist ID card in indeliable marker.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Do you mean to suggest he should not even attempt to extract some political point from a kid flick?

Right after he manages to extract vanilla pudding from a guinea pig.

Seriously, is the only point that you LIKE missiles? See thunderpoint in the first comment.

Substance McGravitas said...

2 Girls 1 Cup: no missile defense in that one either.

mikey said...

Au contraire, McGravy.

2 Girls 1 Cup makes my missile go limp and completely useless.

Now THATS missile defense.

I gotta go get a sammich at the ountimat

J said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Substance McGravitas said...

That's right McGravitas - you are the tyrannical dictator stomping all over Free Speech.

Well, when it comes to J, sure, that's me, sometimes just because it's funny.

This angers the war god Aress.

Substance McGravitas said...

Ooh! There's one now!

J said...

I think you're funny, jewboys.

In a pathetic way. The SubMcG possay's not really even democrats---parlor-crats!

You're probably following some gangstas' orders to diss Miller/NRO, or maybe it's your mother, or....NAMBLA staff perhaps.

mikey said...

Well, yes. Of course.

I'm actually here representing the National Association of Black Libertarian Archivists.

Ok, sure, we don't have a LARGE membership, but we have a surprising level of political clout.

wigerem?

Substance McGravitas said...

I think you're funny, jewboys.

Mazeltov! This is all I strive for!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I'm here at the orders of AZAAG.

Associated Zombies and Assorted Ghouls.

Yeah, keep bringing the Democrat purity demands though.

J— said...

J at 10:04 AM brings the funny and wins the thread. Come get your reward: a big misal!

tigris said...

I need to drop some acid and reread this thread. Maybe then it would make sense.

9 said...

Now, was that ordered by your n-gah boss, or your supervisors at NAMBLA-Co, SubMcG? Rock on, NAMBLA-crats of Cafe SubMcG

Nada mas que

CHANDALA

Substance McGravitas said...

I need to drop some acid and reread this thread.

Sources have informed me that you are a jewboy in good standing with NAMBLA, so... Y'got any?

mikey said...

Look, lemme be frank here with you jewboys. I got nothing against your funny little beanie and your unkempt facial hair, to each his own,y'know?

But this utter lack of recognition for the irish catholic atheist drunkard contingent of McG's Jewboys is offensive and, well, hasati!

tigris said...

Sadly, only muriatic in the house. Captcha thinks he'd better be guings.

Another Kiwi said...

Those of us who are presbyterian boys also take some offense at our constant dissing. So we dress nicely and wear haircream ,it looks, god forbid, tidy.

Capcha rings gently with the resonance of the hog

herr doktor bimler said...

I need to drop some acid and reread this thread.

I was just thinking that I chose the wrong thread to give up smoking dried leeches.

mikey said...

Is it worthwhile to mention that leeches smoke much more, er, pungently before they're dried?

I thought not.

I apologize for my distieda

Substance McGravitas said...

Is it worthwhile to mention that leeches smoke much more, er, pungently before they're dried?

AND they don't give a shit who's in the elevator with them when they light up.

Another Kiwi said...

Well, this is only a one time experience, but smoking leeches after sex is pretty pungent.
Capcha asks eukosi. Not too bad thanks

herr doktor bimler said...

Leech porn DO NOT WANT

herr doktor bimler said...

Also I am concerned by the image of Another Kiwi watching a pair of leeches enjoying their hermaphroditic jollies so he can catch them immediately afterwards and smoke them.
He is betraying too much about how we roll in NZ.

Another Kiwi said...

It is, as the french would not say, Le Joie de Mort.
Let our love become a funeral pyre.

You back in Godzone? good Herr Doktor or still lallygagging around the socialist fleshpots?

herr doktor bimler said...

Too much gagging and not nearly enough lalling.