the cringe has an impressive level of lethality https://t.co/k4qtg8TvHZ
— Starfish Who Just Wants To Grill (@IRHotTakes) December 18, 2020
A hundred years from now, historians (assuming such still exist) will be explaining that ‘Mike Pence’ was no more a real person than ‘Santa Claus’; obviously he was a cartoon figure invented to explain generic GOP risibility to small children…
https://t.co/VSvgFoxh8X pic.twitter.com/LEep1Ws4SN
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) December 18, 2020
BREAKING: Mike Pence announces that members of the Space Force will be called "Guardians".
That is of course, only until 1/21/21, when they will be called:
"those guys who used to be in Space Force until it got de-funded because it was the dumbest f****** idea ever".
— Mark Judson For Congress – Scorched Earth Dem 2022 (@Judson4Congress) December 19, 2020
'Guardians of the Galaxy' director James Gunn is none too pleased with the U.S. Space Force calling its members 'Guardians.'? https://t.co/yfIU8IdE6P
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) December 19, 2020
Does this mean someone is going to be #groot pic.twitter.com/xTZMREbW9K
— Adam Barnes (@abarnes_95th) December 18, 2020
I'll accept it, but there has to be at least one General who is only allowed to communicate by saying "I am Groot"
— Amie Stepanovich (@astepanovich) December 18, 2020
Groot is the only politician who can actually help the environment… hahaha all those dumb ones can’t make OXYGEN pic.twitter.com/OA5xVneQRB
— Joelsteen (@VoteForYe) December 18, 2020
(I’d have gone for an elaborate riff about Pence dying at the hands of an irascible bioengineered raccoon… which is one reason I’m not on twitter.)
Aziz, light!
I am Groot.
Elizabelle
That
is kinda creepy. “Heritage” is another word that has been appropriated by the whackaloon set, along with “freedom” and “liberty”.
And “Culture” is downright amusing, because it’s the only type of war Pence or Trump would ever show up for.
JAFD
Brainteaser for you jackals:
You go into lobby of big fancy hotel.
There’s a chess tournament going on there. It’s between rounds, all the players are in the lobby, talking about their latest victories.
What month of the year is it ?
December, of course…
…”Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer…”
Leto
Avalune and I discussed this tonight and we both agreed, after the massive hacking that Russia has done to us over the past four years, what we need right now is a fucking cartoon “space farce”. We def didn’t need to take that money and put it into further cyber infrastructure, or standup an independent cyber command, nope, needed “SPACE FARCE!” Fucking kill it dead Jan 21st. Fold that shit back into the AF and move the fuck along.
Danielx
@JAFD:
You ARE going to see yourself out, right?
Elizabelle
@JAFD: Saw a joke of sorts on a WaPost reader comments thread today. Don’t recall which one. It was:
JoyceH
@Elizabelle: I noticed that too. “Mission” is just noise until you know what the mission is, but “heritage” and “culture” sound more appropriate to a southern small town genealogical society than to a SPACE force. Guessing the first Space Force commissioned vessel will be the USS Robert E. Lee?
Elizabelle
@Leto: And focusing on threats from space, when we have a pandemic, a crashed economy, and, as you mention, a massive hacking we don’t know the extent of.
This is going to be a long month.
lurker
@JAFD: speaking as someone for whom that joke fits my personal sense of humor …
you should consider counseling, 12 step programs (multiple)… really anything
(not that I personally am getting any better about the daddest of dad jokes, but there might be hope for you ….)
lurker
@JAFD:
@Elizabelle:
two penguins walked into a bar
…
which was really stupid ‘cuz the second one should have seen it
West of the Rockies
@JAFD:
Let me guess…you’re a dad?
I’m already waiting to share with my daughter.
LesGS
@Elizabelle: Champagne?
Splitting Image
I am Groot and so is my wife.
LesGS
@West of the Rockies: How do you know when a joke is a dad joke?
When it becomes apparent.
Elizabelle
@lurker: I laughed.
@LesGS: Champagne was a definite choice. Somebody might have said any wine went with that occasion.
Wish I could remember which WaPost story it was. Those villains appear in so many of them.
frosty
@lurker: @JAFD: When did the worst, most groaner puns, morph into dad jokes? And are there other types of jokes that qualify?
And yes, that chess joke was a stinker!
Jay
@Elizabelle:
it’s about militarizing space so that no other Nation can use it, and deploying weapons that can “precision” strike anywhere on the planet in seconds.
The logical end result, is that they will develop the weapons, eventually use them, and then any near peer opponent will then use their relatively crude “satellite killers”, creating a debris field that will forever bar humans and human technology from space.
SiubhanDuinne
I can’t be the only one here who finds this, as a slogan, both preposterous and yet somehow quite perfect for the Space Farce project.
Elizabelle
@Jay: Sounds like a giant money suck and sop to defense contractors. Galactic grifting!
Biden needs to hit the “abort mission” button.
frosty
@Jay: Wasn’t there a treaty somewhere way back that declared space would always be demilitarized? How did we get a Space Farce declared? Or am I just being a liberal la-la pollyanna again?
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: I can’t wait to see the uniforms.
Leto
@Elizabelle: I’m thinking just from a national security perspective here (all of what you listed qualifies), but cyber is the domain where we’ve transitioned most of our key communications/intelligence/assets. We’re digitally linked across every facet of our lives. Also you can’t control any of the space assets without a comm up/downlink. The majority of our military operations do depend on satellites working, but they’re not in danger of being shot down. All the spoofing/jamming equipment is here on the ground. It’s easier to do that (the Iranians did it when they brought down an RQ-170 about 6 years ago) than it is to shoot down a satellite.
It’s hallmark Trumpov dumb. I’m still gobsmacked that it happened, even though I shouldn’t be. Defund it, send the appropriate components back to their respective branches/agencies, and never speak of this again (unless we’re pointing out how incredibly stupid this was).
Leto
@frosty: If there’s not a permanent space station where we can station those dopes, then how can they call themselves a space farce? Navy has both ships and bases. There’s sea duty and land duty. Unless space farce has “space duty” they’re not a “space force”.
@Elizabelle: No, those are totally not Star Trek uniforms. I know that commanders are in red, enlisted in yellow, medical in blue… but that’s totally not Star Trek… they’re space force right? Should be an all black uniform so they blend in with their natural environment. Or it should be an all grey uniform so it blends in with the equipment racks that most of these people spend the majority of their time around.
eddie blake
@Leto:
in post TOS trek, command IS in red, but gold/yellow is for security and engineering and blue is for medical and sciences.
Elizabelle
@Leto: I am thinking this whole project is a giant pacifier to mollify Trump.
JCJ
@SiubhanDuinne: I think the name was chosen by the same people who came up with Boaty McBoatface
Leto
@frosty: Yes (and we signed on to it in 1967):
The Outer Space Treaty at a Glance
Elizabelle
Scrolling through replies to the official government twitter account, with the official government announcement.
From Giant Military Cats:
Leto
@eddie blake: thinking specifically about the AF, or Space Farce, those colors would fall right in line. Officers would be in red, most of the enlisted would be in yellow (most of our career fields are engineering oriented, especially in Comm; security forces (military cops) def yellow), and medical fits right in. Idk, we could give all the rest a nice shade of green.
@Elizabelle: It is/was! Some dumbass suggested it to him, told him how great it would be in securing his legacy if he created a whole new branch of the military. Space farce! And Melania would have a hand in designing the uniforms, Javanka would use those new Chinese patents/contacts to manufacture said uniforms… the cheeto would get to say that those were “his generals”…
I get really angry/annoyed any time someone mentions this shit show. I totally understand what you guys mean by wasteful military spending and this fucking nails it 1000%!
Jay
@Elizabelle:
It’s not a “grift”, it’s just an expansion of the Military-Industrial Socialism. Platforms already exist, and 99% of “Rods from God”, tech already exist, along with satellite “snooping”. ( That’s where in a guided close pass, the technology/sensors of a foreign satellite can be assessed.”
@frosty:
there is a global treaty “preventing” the Militarization of Space, other than, you know, comms, spies guidance system, ASat Weapons, etc,
You know, one of those useless ones that only apply outside the G8 plus one.
Fair Economist
Long ago a friend of mine ran a roleplaying game set in a fascistic world where the rulers prevented the souls of the dead from going to the afterlife by having the souls killed. The secret police that killed souls were called – Guardians. Has Trump been cribbing from his GM notes?
frosty
@Leto: Thanks! So this whole Space Farce is against a treaty and Biden can kill it without worrying about anything but the RWNJs.
I wonder why no one pushed back against Trump on this? Haha I slay myself.
Platonicspoof
@Leto:
Winston
@SiubhanDuinne: But do they have a speaking racoon?
MoCA Ace
Sweet Jebus, I can see it now… like the trial scene from Monty Python’s The life of Brian!!
(smartass GOP intern furiously waving hand) I know, I know… lets call them guardians (stifles laugh). Only to have Pence or one of Emperor Tang’s idiot henchmen latch on to it. After a few more meetings said intern is too fucking embarrassed to admit it was just a joke so here we are!
Guardians of the Galaxy… only in this fucking timeline they work FOR Thanos!
Frankensteinbeck
‘Heritage’ and ‘culture’ are white supremacist slogans and do not belong any-fucking-where near any American military branch’s motto.
EDIT – I don’t know why this, specifically, infuriates me so much, but it does.
SiubhanDuinne
Ann Telnaes drew some rats.
Lots of rats.
Lots and lots and lots of rats.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/18/telnaes-trump-republican-rats-cartoon/?arc404=true
Elizabelle
@Platonicspoof: That cat was not taking prisoners.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: And, like Ruth Marcus, she named them. To shame the shameless.
All the whackaloon names. Well, most of them. Are there.
Jay
@frosty:
It’s against the “spirit” of the Treaty,
It’s not against the letter of the Treaty.
Biden will probably “kill” the Space Farce, but more so because it’s a usurpation of projects/programs/missions/assets that the USAF has had since Ronald Raygun.
Steeplejack
Platonicspoof
@Elizabelle:
Dog only knows how long Russia has been recruiting black
catshats for these ops.Kent
@SiubhanDuinne: in the comments
”Now we know what the (R) is for”
gwangung
Meh. No little blue guys with glowing green rings. Or walking trees. Not even a raccoon as a mascot.
NotMax
Attention, insomniacs. TCM airing The Silent Partner at 4 a.m. Eastern. Rarely shown heist film (remake of an earlier Danish movie) with Susannah York, Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer. Also a very young John Candy.
patrick II
Everyone else has probably already figured this out — but it just struck me that because early shipments of a two-step vaccine are late, there is more to it than just some people not getting shots now, but later — can you trust that you can keep your schedule for the second shot or will be they not be on time? Should you slow down your local vaccination rate locally even if you currently have more vaccine to assure that when the second shot is due there is enough vaccine? Or do you go ahead and give the first shot, betting on the dependability of the Trump government sending enough vaccine for all of the second shots on time?
The inconsistency may slow things down more than is apparent.
Yutsano
@gwangung: Faster-Than-Light drive when?
Jay
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/12/we-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-and-about-accidental-conspiracists/
Kent
@patrick II: NPR was talking this morning about theorizing by some doctors/scientists that one dose may provide adequate protection and that they should be considering ongoing trials of one dose of Pfizer and Moderna to test their efficacy in the event that we can perhaps alternatively switch to giving everyone a first dose now and then the booster in 6 months or so as a way of bringing the pandemic to a quicker end.
Sloegin
Zero out all the budget lines, deny all promotions and end recruitment, let the Guardians suck vacuum.
Steeplejack
Watching Secret Agent on one of my fourth-tier cable channels, and Patrick McGoohan is lurking in a cabaret in Beirut as an impoverished artist while a chanteuse (Jeanne Roland) does a jazzy version of the Zombies’ “She’s Not There” in French. Trippy. And pretty good.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Leto: Command is yellow, enlisted is red and blue is science.
patrick II
@Kent:
That is good to year. Thanx.
NotMax
All this Space Force nonsense triggered a memory.
Hey, anyone else (Bueller? Anyone?) remember Super Adventure Team?
:)
lgerard
Expect trump to issue another EO to create some type of Space Force Advisory Board and appoint a bunch of unqualified wingnuts and religious cranks to it this week
prostratedragon
@JAFD: I’ll get my revenge one day!
Kent
@patrick II: Remember that the drug companies don’t really have a big incentive to test the efficacy of single dose regimes because that would cut their potential profit in half. So this is something that the FDA or other organizations might need to do themselves. Pfizer has no incentive to spend lots of $$$ on another phase 3 trial of just one dose if it means cutting their long-term potential profit in half.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
And for no discernible reason Kirk sometimes showed up wearing that oddball pea green chest sarong.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Dress uni.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
His dress uniform was high collared with a gold stripe down the middle. I was referencing the low cut double breasted number he occasionally wore.
mrmoshpotato
Did someone say Groot?
Trusted for Generations
Since our founding in 1914, we have built our reputation on consistency of performance and responsiveness to customer needs.
To maintain our position of leadership over the years, we strive to be on the forefront of quality service in waste collection, transfer station management, recycling collection, waste processing and waste transport.
Mary G
Jay
@NotMax:
that was “Trek after Dark” wear,
it’s always dark in space.
Shatner’s “to go where no man has gone before” uniform.
patrick II
@Kent: that sounds right, but trials take a while even though there are plenty of “volunteers” right now, no one is receiving blanks (I hope) as a control. In the meantime, we may find out whether one-shot works from necessity, not choice, forced upon us by incompetence.
And I am embarrassed by this. I worked in Army logistics for 20 years, and one thing I thought the Army could do is logistics. (they are using the military aren’t they?)
Jay
Jay
@patrick II:
as far as we know, the Military are managing part of the logistics.
pretty sure that when they get direction to manage shipment from point a to b, they do.
Who is managing direction?
Jay
NotMax
@Jay
And then there were the skants.
;)
matt the somewhat reasonable
Imagine how bad the names they rejected must have been.
SectionH
Amir Khalid
@matt the somewhat reasonable:
Knowing how Trump thinks, I’d guess he rejected all the names that didn’t sound like something out of third-rate space opera.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: there is a “Space Force March”, so the space opera already has an overture. The Space Force motto is “Semper Supra”, Always Above.
Craig
@NotMax: thanks. West Coast bonus. That was, singular? Genuine weird heist movie, that I couldn’t predict. Dug it. Curtis Hanson as a writer makes sense.
Baud
Mars, bitches!
Tony Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
I don’t know about you but to me that tag-line encapsulates everything worth knowing about Pettygrift’s backalley storefront of an Administration.
“Yeah, sure, it’s totally ripped-off from a more successful fictional franchise, but we couldn’t be bothered taking it seriously and anyway, don’t blame us, it was totally the ‘space professionals’ fault. Respect their Service!”
Even the advertising blurb is a ripped-off movie template. Shameless, lazy huckstering in service of one babyman’s collapsing ego, thrown-up out of shoddy materials with no expectation it will have to last more than a few weeks.
Trumpy.
Wag
@Aziz, light!: WE are Groot
Wag
@Elizabelle: Whatever you do, don’t put on a uniform with a red shirt
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
Black, with silver trim, including lightning bolts on collar tabs?
Just a wild guess… based upon culture and heritage.
NotMax
@J R in WV
No joke, that’s real close to an accurate description of the original design proposed for the uniformed contingent of the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush/Cheney administration.
evodevo
@patrick II: Yes. This. Especially among suspicious covidiots…when they have the normal flu shot-type reaction, i.e. slight fever, malaise, etc. for 24 hours, they will claim they were given covid (like they claim the flu shot gave them the flu), and never go back for the second shot…I work among these people, and this would be the game-ender for them…
Anomalous Cowherd
Heck, I believe that “Mike Pence” is none other than “Otto Pilot” from the movie Airplane! I mean, both have identical emotional gamuts.
S. Cerevisiae
Where is the wisecracking raccoon? This sequel blows…
Chief Oshkosh
@Frankensteinbeck: Totally agree. For anyone not experienced with the South, heritage and culture mean white supremacy. Sadly, the use has spread since Reagan, but heritage and culture is all about hate.
Plus, how the fuckity fuck fuck can a brand spankin’ new organization have a heritage? Heritage of what, for fuck’s sake?
kindness
Modern conservative dogma is so telling. They say stuff that anyone with a passing notion of history would react by pulling back in horror. But the essence of modern conservatism is all there. They refuse to recognize history and absolutely believe they are the chosen special ones, so they will pass off warmed over royal/dictator notions without even seeing what they are doing. Russia is bad but these folk are the biggest threat our Republic faces. The phone calls coming from inside the house.
Ken
The official announcement does say it involved the general public. You’d think they’d have learned from the IAU’s experience with “name an exoplanet”. XKCD captured the flavor of the results; many of the actual suggestions were unprintable, even for this nearly-top-10000 blog.
Explain XKCD notes a couple of other orgs that got burned this way, including:
Uncle Cosmo
@Steeplejack: You mean he wasn’t
? :^D
(FWIW I consider “Secret Agent Man” the best song Johnny Rivers ever cut.)
Warblewarble
If Space Farce are the Guardians ,who are the Handmaids? The Handjob Tale by Mike Dense
Just Chuck
@Fair Economist:
So in other words he was a Scientologist
Just Chuck
Honestly I dont want Biden to kill the Space Force. I just want him to lower its budget to just enough space to rent out a single office in a strip mall. Furniture not included. Personnel budget being minimum wage for one member. That person can be the Space Force.
Bill Arnold
The science fiction themed video that GiantMilitaryCats posted on this is excellent:
That cat Knows. :-)