Forrest Gump had it so right…some classic examples of practical application of the Gump Doctrine in the last couple of weeks…
First prize must go to the Taliban which persists in stirring up trouble in Kabul. How hard is it to sit on your hands for a couple of years, tour the world, read a book and THEN take over the country once NATO and the US have packed up and gone home, secure in the knowledge that Afghanistan has worked…?
The Tea Party are always Top Ten ‘Gump-ers’ and this example, albeit from Mother Jones, is a classic…let’s not build any more infrastructure because Al-Qaeda will just blow it up – this would be the same AQ that got lucky ONCE in the US, once in Madrid and struck out badly in the UK with attacks on physical infrastructure?
If anyone doesn’t believe me—England and Spain. Now, if we have a more decentralized mass-transit system using buses, if the terrorists blow up a single bus, we can work around that. When they blow up a rail, that just brings the system to a grinding halt. So how much security are we going to have on this rail system, and how much will it cost?
Yeah, dude, let’s just take the horse instead…more telling is this rebuttal from The Onion:
Here’s what Al Qaeda’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, said in a video released in July:
The al-Qaeda network is fully prepared to continue the jihad against the American infidels by launching deadly attacks, but your outdated and rusting transportation infrastructure needs to be completely overhauled for those strikes even to be noticed. We want to turn your bridges into rubble, but if we claimed credit for making them collapse, nobody would ever believe us.
And in this week’s third place, just when you thought he might be ‘getting it’ here’s Mike Yawn lipping off again…if anyone ever doubts whether there really are some dumb-as (second ‘s’ optional) people (the much-vaunted ‘the people’?) around, just check out his fan base like some of the clowns posting on this Yawn FB post:
One Day this American Soldier May Try to Kill Me
He’s stationed now at Kandahar Air Field. I’ve warned the Army about him numerous times. I have little doubt that he will attempt to kill me if he gets the chance. He’s a US Soldier named CJ Grisham. He published this on Facebook this week in regard to me: “I want to rip his head off and piss down his windpipe!”
I cannot warn the US Army loud enough that this Soldier is unstable. They ignore my back channel warnings.
And again today…
Criminal American Soldiers
Only a small percentage of US troops become murderers, but it happened here and it happened in Iraq.
The warning signs were there. I have cautioned only twice about dangerous American soldiers. The first one committed suicide last year after my repeated warnings that he was dangerous. I told numerous key people that this soldier might want to kill me. He’s dead now. The second one is Master Sergeant CJ Grisham, now stationed and armed at Kandahar Airfield. Our military is playing with fire by keeping this man armed and in uniform.
Let’s not forget that Mikey is currently embedded with a US unit in Afghanistan – and has been doing some good work – and so, you might think, would be less likely to snap at the hand currently (literally) feeding him…What’s CJ Grisham’s real sin? He dares criticise Saint Mikey…that’s it.
Mikey, there is a big difference between someone fantasing about what they would like to do to you “I want to rip his head off and piss down his windpipe!”, threatening to do so…”I ‘m going to rip his head off and piss down his windpipe!”, and then actually acting on those words. One of these days, you’ll be a big kid and understand…in the meantime, try not to cry too much if you get disembedded again…or maybe even slapped with a libel suit yourself…I mean, you are after all abusing your position to make unsubstantiated allegations about a serving member of the force that is currently supporting you – how big do you think its sense of funny really is?
And finally, Australia which, having been thumped at the Global Oval Ball Competition (speaking of stupid…Rugby World Cup has been so heavily copyrighted that we can’t use the three words in close proximity to each other!) by Ireland, promptly resorted to accusing everyone of being mean to it…not like when the boot might be on the other foot, eh, Diggers? Even more embarrassing when, just like the much-reported misbehaving Government Ministers on opening night, not a single shred of evidence could be found to back up the bleating….so just for you guys, Seven Tips For Fans Going To Matches in New Zealand
So get over it!!
Courtesy of 
One of my all time favourite movies and books – the first one anyway – maybe, after The Dambusters, Peter Jackson will remake this, especially now that it looks like we will have at least one flying Mossie down here soon…
My next take on ‘texture’ is this afterburner can from the B-1B ‘Bone’ (B-One – get it??) in the modern hall at the Museum…this is where they dump hundreds of litres of raw fuel in order to get more thrust from the engines – and so the crew can see the needle on the fuel gauge move – downward!
One iteration of the Interceptor from Mad Max at the recent Scale Model Expo in Wellington…it is relatively simple to get smooth shiny unblemished surfaces on models, it is somewhat more difficult to give an impression of dirt, grime and roughness…I thought this builder pulled it off rather well…
This is the Hierarchy of Assessment referred in the last two points:
In simple terms, it all comes down to national interests linked to campaign objectives and being able to measure the same; and at the tactical level, specifically, as recommended below, link development objectives to those campaign objectives and national objectives i.e. no more AID for its own sake. This just creates legacy dependency issues.
The World According to Me... 