The Fly: Hypocrite, Patriot, News Junkie

Hey folks! That's right, it's Christmas Eve (well, Christmas Day when I actually post this), and your most excellent host the Fly is avoiding the temptation to celebrate. A little bit more about that later. There are a few things that I want to post this evening, so in a continuing bid to keep myself awake I'm going to go ahead and write them up. Fair warning: I'm video-happy tonight.

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I've been horrible about posting lately - well, not so much about posting, but about posting news. Because of that, I'm going to post some of the lighter news items - things like the articles I've been collecting about China, or Iran, or various other topics will have to wait. Tomorrow (Christmas Day) should fairly quiet, so maybe I can scrape a few of them together then.

For a long time, I've been monitoring the same three main news sites: Fox, CNN, and the BBC. I've sort of hemmed and hawed on Spacewar. I used to monitor Tech Central Station on a daily basis, but now I look at it about once every six months, if that. This summer I started checking Family Security Matters on a regular basis - I don't always appreciate the openly political bent, but I've found some great articles there.

Being the Anglophile that I am, I've also started looking at two of the more reputable British dailies (which really isn't saying that much): the Times, and the Guardian. Both of these are on my sidebar, but I'm going to admit something, just this once, because it's Christmas and nobody is actually reading this: half of those links are a failed attempt to get me to actually look at those pages on a regular basis. However, as I mentioned, I've been looking at the Times and the Guardian lately, and I may start looking at the Daily Telegraph. At some point, all of this may be consolidated down to the big three again in the interests of time, but for the time being I'm using these numerous sources to educate myself about what's going on in the world on any given day.

One story I found to be interesting was this story that I found. It details the experiment conducted by some scientists at the North Pole, who intentionally encased a ship in ice to prove that it could drift. It's unclear whether or not Vice President Gore was there, hunting for Manbearpig.

One thing that I think I'll pay some attention to (which means, do some casual research and maybe write a little bit about) in the coming year is the attempts at the turn of the century to transform the American military, and what the results have been. I've found a couple of articles about this lately, one at Spacewar about how the goals of former SecDef Rumsfeld have proven unreasonable for the wars of the near future; and another about an experiment conducted in 2002 in which the initial results were completely unexpected. Personally, I think that some of the concepts (such as the troubled Littoral Combat Ship) have been good, while others (like Seabasing) have been completely misguided. The bottom line, though, is that in the late 1990's, our vision of post-Cold War conflicts ended up being drastically different than what we were to face in the coming years. As a result, the attempts to "transform" the military ("transportation" being a big buzz word in upper echelon circles over the last few years) has proven costly and counterproductive, with valuable defense dollars being channeled to projects like the completely unmatched F-22 Raptor and the Light Armored Vehicle, when what we would really end up needing were thinks like MRAP vehicles and more reliable rifles. As a taxpayer, an international security specialist, and a supporter of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, I find these developments to be very, very frustrating. (And I know that I brag up the Marines on a regular basis, but they've really proven themselves better at this than the other services - they get more effective tools for their money, particularly when compared to the Army.)

Peter Jackson is slated to make two films based on The Hobbit, the precursor to The Lord of the Rings. I think this is pretty cool, and I'll look forward to going to see these movies. Interestingly enough, this conjures up a really entertaining video clip...


I know, I really need to learn how to stop myself. It's all Mighty Mo's fault, without her I would have never figured out that you could embed a video. Anyway, the other interesting story is that they were able to trace Arthur Guinness' lineage. They demonstrated that he didn't come from the distinguished family that he claimed to come from, but I think it's fair to say that he's more than surpassed those wankers in popularity and importance - after all, his beer (the finest in the world) has made him legendary the world over.

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Long-time readers of this blog will know that I made the decision a few years ago to stop celebrating Christmas, because its actual origins have nothing to do with the Christian faith and, let's face it, I'm a total scrooge as it is. (My big sister Mo will attest to this - she knows how cheap I am, and how that impacts the way I live my life.) It's become more and more apparent to me this year just how huge the Christmas hype is, and just how much impact it has on so many people's lives.

So here I sit. I've always perceived Christmas Eve as "Christmas" - when I lived at home, we always celebrated Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family, and Christmas Day with my mom's side, and I was always closer with my dad's side of the family than with my mom's.

Honestly, I feel really isolated tonight. Everyone else is celebrating with family or friends, and I'm not only not celebrating, but I'm also more than two thousand extra miles away from home than I was last year. (Well, to be fair, I was only about fifty miles from home last year, but that's not the point I'm trying to make.)

Part of my beef with the celebration of Christmas is that its origins have nothing to do with Christianity; another is that even those who choose to celebrate it (read: almost everyone) completely ignore what they think is the basis for the holiday, namely the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It's odd that on 24th December, 2007, I'm actually listening to the one Christmas album I own: Christmas by Chris Isaak. What's the irony? Only one song on the whole album mentions Jesus, at all; nearly all of the songs, from "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to "Gotta Be Good" are secular for what is, at its core, a holiday that originally had nothing to do with Jesus at all. Plus, it's Chris Isaak. Chris Isaak are like Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity: normal rules don't apply.

(Another irony is that the song that mentions Jesus gets it wrong, claiming that Jesus was born in the "Last Month of the Year" - Jesus was more than likely born in the spring or autumn.)

And of course, I'm compelled to be completely hypocritical, because I've also been listening to a Christmas song that I downloaded for my mp3 player months ago: a combination of "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" and "We Three Kings", performed by the Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan on the Barenaked for the Holidays. Hey, at least it's a pair of songs that are actually about the birth of Christ, right? You can see a low quality version of the video below.


Wasn't that pleasant? For the founder of the Lillith Fair and a band who call themselves the "Barenaked Ladies", it's really a pretty beautiful rendition of both songs.

So, yeah. It's Christmas and, at the very least, I hope everyone's having fun, whether you celebrate or not.

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After consulting with Desert Rat Tim, I think that I'm now in the market for an FN FAL. The FAL almost became the standard infantry rifle of the United States military before the M14 was adopted in its stead. Since most of the countries that used to use it have retired it, FN FAL rifles have become available on the surplus market. A video about the weapon is below.


Some of you may be interested to watch that whole video series, which goes from the M14 at number ten (underrated) to the M16 and AK-47 rounding out numbers two and one respectively. Personally, I think that the M14 was underrated and got short shrift, and that's evidenced by the fact that the M14 is seeing a resurgence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Having spoken with Desert Rat Tim, it sounds as if the FN FAL is very similar, but without as many maintenance requirements as the M14. I may try to put a few rounds down range with his before forking over the money for one of my own, though. More on this as it develops.

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Alright, folks, if any of you are actually reading this, I hope you're having a great day. And, for the record, I was hypocritical again last night: I attended the candlelight Eucharist at the church I've been frequenting. Having been up since 04:30, I was hurting to stay awake, but it was a beautiful service and I'm glad I went, even though it will create scheduling issues today.

Take it easy, but don't take it too far!