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Make Love, Not War
Lede of the month:
The U.S. military rejected a 1994 proposal to develop an "aphrodisiac" to spur homosexual activity among enemy troops but is hard at work on other less-than-lethal weapons, defense officials said on Sunday.
No word on whether those weapons include a nude bomb.
Franklin Harris|1.24.05 @ 7:27PM|#
There never has been a nude bomb, and there never will be a nude
bomb.
*boom*
Why is it so drafty in here?
|1.24.05 @ 7:40PM|#
When I was in high school, one of my buddies was big into
filmmaking. He was also a big fan of Indiana Jones and had most of
the action figures. Apparently, when you took the robes off of the
Bedouin guys they are nekid except for a g-string. He decided to
make on of these figures the star of a series of stop motion
animation and called him/it the G-String King (GSK for short). In
one episode, GSK, who happened to be homosexual, invented the �gay
ray� in order to "spur homosexual activity among enemy troops,"
rout them and add them to his forces. Enemy troops being the old
Indiana Jones standby, Nazis. The funnies thing is that the ray was
lotion and it looked like love juices being sprayed on Nazi action
figures, but that�s neither here or there.
Sorry for the silly post, but reading that gave me a flashback to
my high school years and this post invites frivolous postings.
|1.24.05 @ 7:45PM|#
Imagine if the DOD and the other federal agencies were publicly
traded companies. With insipid ideas like these, which they seem to
put into practice with depressing regularity, they would be penny
stocks.
FULL DISCLOSRE: I don't own any government bonds, and wouldn't on
ethical grounds. I think that most government departments engage in
activities that are injurious to either the prosperity or the
liberty or both, of the American people.
|1.24.05 @ 8:06PM|#
"The U.S. military rejected a 1994 proposal to develop an
"aphrodisiac" to spur homosexual activity among enemy troops but is
hard at work on other less-than-lethal weapons, defense officials
said on Sunday."
I knew it!
...Alberto Gonzales is simply a victim of a secret government
experiment.
Xrlq|1.24.05 @ 8:12PM|#
I'm bummed that they dumped the gay bomb. What better way to test the idea of gays in the military?
|1.24.05 @ 8:12PM|#
3. Do not be taken in by "insiderisms." Fledgling
columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of
journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as "lede."
Where they lede, do not follow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/opinion/24safire1.html
Jesse Walker|1.24.05 @ 8:41PM|#
I'm always happy to defy the will of Safire. Or, as we insiders call him, Safyre.
Franklin Harris|1.24.05 @ 9:20PM|#
Ah, lede. A golden oldie I still use even thought it was obsolete by the time I entered the newspaper business. It was coined to avoid confusion with lead, as in lead type, not that we newsroom types mix with pressroom types, anyway, unless you count smoking on the loading dock.
The Lonewacko Blog|1.24.05 @ 10:42PM|#
Weapons like this and the ants/rats one could be very effective.
They might be even too effective, counting as violations of
chemical weapons treaties, Geneva conventions, etc. They might also
lead to long-term, generational resentment such as caused other
wars.
Anyone who scoffs at the idea of weapons that attack an enemy's
will hasn't really thought about this too much.
|1.24.05 @ 10:58PM|#
Let me get this straight...
Are you going on the record in favour of weapons that encourage
homosexual activity?
...and if so, are you speaking out against those of us who don't
spend more time thinking about weapons that encourage homosexual
activity?
|1.24.05 @ 11:06PM|#
If I recall correctly, this one was scrapped because the friendly fire got a little too friendly.
|1.24.05 @ 11:31PM|#
I'm sure some enterprising gay porn script writer is working with this idea. There's probably already something in production, but I really don't want to do the Google search to find out.
|1.25.05 @ 6:51AM|#
Based on lots of my military friends...seems like they've already tested this on the Marines. ;-)
|1.25.05 @ 7:26AM|#
How well guarded are these weapons from falling into the hands
of domestic terrorists?
Hopefully not too well! I'd love to get my hands on one and use it
on a sorority house full of co-ed beauties!
|1.25.05 @ 10:16AM|#
Jesse,
Yeah, I know they rejected the idea. That's why I said "put into
practice", so as to distinguish. But, I'm afraid that I wound up
conveying the opposite idea. So I guess it's back to rhetoric class
for me.
|1.25.05 @ 12:59PM|#
I've often thought that the idea of an all gay army was a great idea.They would be feared by all.Who would want to be their prisoner?
|1.25.05 @ 1:17PM|#
"Another idea involved creating "severe and lasting halitosis"
to help sniff out fighters trying to blend with civilians."
Great! Bad breath earns a one way trip to Gitmo.
|1.25.05 @ 1:20PM|#
Of course, over here we call a "lede" an "intro". Much
better.
By the way - this was in the New Scientist two weeks ago and all
over the British press a day later thanks to Drudge.
Has it not been picked up by the US press? Jeez, your papers
suck....
|1.25.05 @ 2:21PM|#
east flatbush: "I've often thought that the idea of an all gay
army was a great idea."
You're too late. I've read that in ancient Greece, the city of
Thebes was defended by a military force called the Theban Band,
made up exclusively of pairs of male lovers. The story is that no
member was willing to show cowardice before his lover, so they
fought very aggressively, never surrendered, and generally kicked
ass big-time. Until one day they encountered an enemy they couldn't
beat (I forget who), and because they refused to surrender, were
slaughtered to the last man. (And yes, in the context of this
paragraph, I should not have written a sentence with both the words
"member" and "ass" in it.)
|1.25.05 @ 3:39PM|#
Stevo, I once read about them too, weren't they also called 'the sacred band' If I recall correctly, the whole army wasn't made up of homosexual couples, but the 'band' was the most elite division of the military, which I found very interested given the effete reputation of homosexuals today, oh and I feel like the book said the macedonians kicked their ass, im going to check up on that now
|1.25.05 @ 9:29PM|#
Dante's: You may well be right, I'm going from an off-the-cuff
memory of something I read in one of Jerry Pournelle's "There Will
Be War" SF anthologies (probably vol. 3, "Blood and Iron.")
OK, I just did a quick Google, and apparently they were known as
both "The Theban Band" and "The Sacred Band of Thebes." Apparently
various latterday organizations have also adopted these admittedly
rather cool names, and I'm afraid to do any further research on an
employer-owned PC so I'll stop now.
PS: One source mentioned this band was made up of just 150 couples,
so I guess it wasn't Thebes' whole army, just an elite group like
you said.
raymond|1.27.05 @ 7:17AM|#
One source mentioned this band was made up of just 150
couples, so I guess it wasn't Thebes' whole army, just an elite
group...
"Athens was probably the only Greek city-state with more than
20,000 citizens."
Let's see.
300
_________
15000 (?)
That's a pretty hefty chunk of the population.
(I suppose most of them were non-Thebans.)
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