Living the dream

It turns out those Army boys in Iraq have it made, assuming they can get their boss to leave them alone.

US soldiers shy from battle in Iraq

WATERTOWN, New York – Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here in upstate New York say that morale among US soldiers in the country is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice dubbed “search and avoid” missions.

See, I do this kind of thing all the time, only I call it “avoiding work”. I’m glad “heroes” can be just as lazy as the rest of us.

Aliff [an active duty soldier with the 10th Mountain Division] said he participated in roughly 300 patrols. “We were hit by so many roadside bombs we became incredibly demoralized, so we decided the only way we wouldn’t be blown up was to avoid driving around all the time.”

“So we would go find an open field and park, and call our base every hour to tell them we were searching for weapons caches in the fields and doing weapons patrols and everything was going fine,” he said, adding, “All our enlisted people became very disenchanted with our chain of command.”

I guess I was suffering with a lack of morale whenever I goofed off at work. If I was more motivated I probably would have been working more enthusiastically. The only problem (for my boss, that is) is that I saw no reason to work harder. It’s not like it would have changed anything – there still would have been more work to do and I’d still get paid the same. Maybe being the guy everybody else dumps their work on is its own reward. For now, I’ll follow the lead of the brave boys in the US Army:

“[S]earch and avoid” missions continue today across Iraq. “One of my buddies is in Baghdad right now and we email all the time,” he explained, “He just told me that nearly each day they pull into a parking lot, drink soda and shoot at the cans. They pay Iraqi kids to bring them things and spread the word that they are not doing anything and to please just leave them alone.”

That’s pretty much the dream of any wage slave: Get left alone to drink Shasta Cola, listen to music and shoot at cans. Really, who can blame them? It’s a crappy situation to be in a country where everyone hates you, you don’t know the language, and your bosses are idiots. It’s nice to know that the American work ethic is alive and well. To quote Homer Simpson, “If you hate your job, you don’t quit. You just go in everyday and do your work real half-assed. That’s the American Way.”

New Mount&Blade!

Modern PC games tend to be bereft of any startling innovation. It’s to be expected, given the large budgets now in existence – but it’s still lamentable. For truly innovative games you have to look outside the already established areas. I guess you can’t get more outsider than Mount&Blade, because not only are its creators not from the established game industry, they’re not even from the United States. Yes, Mount&Blade is actually from Turkey. The development team started off with just one dude and his wife, but now there’s a handful of other people attached, most of them also from Turks. It’s a really neat medieval RPG with an emphasis on historical veracity. The setting is in a fictional land, but the weapons and armour are all fairly accurate recreations of actual medieval items.

When you begin the game you’re plopped in as a virtual nobody in the middle of a gigantic civil war. There’s several different factions, from the pseudo-Viking Nords to the Khergit horse archers. Keep in mind, though, that it’s probably best to hold off choosing a faction until later. Depending on your choices as you create your character, you can either be the son or daughter of a minor noble, the adventurous heir of a merchant family, or an unknown adventurer. These correspond somewhat to difficulty levels, as the one from the noble family starts off with some acceptable equipment and an already established name. To get the full experience, though, I suggest you start off as a nobody. If you’re playing the game right you’ll eventually get called to the nobility anyway. You start off with very little money, so it’s best to earn some either by competing in the arena or buying up goods in one town and carting it to another to sell for a profit. It’s your basic mercantilist system, where if you buy more of an item the prices go up, and if you sell more the prices go down. Once you have enough money you can also buy some good equipment, assuming you haven’t already looted some from the enemies you’ve defeated.

It’s in battle that Mount&Blade really shines. It’s in a third person view, something like a more realistic version of the action in the Dynasty Warriors, or an expanded and actually enjoyable version of the combat in Oblivion. You can choose swords, lances, axes, bows, crossbows, and a whole host of other weapons. You can choose to be on foot or mounted, with or without a shield, with a large band under your command or a small one (or none at all), and all these different choices have their advantages and disadvantages. The violence is rather muted but blood does spurt and there’s something kind of gory about seeing an arrow sticking out somebody’s face.

The newest version is 0.890 and it adds a whole host of new features. The only downside is that there’s also a bunch of new bugs, but the development team is working on them as we speak and will probably release a newer, less-buggy version soon. You can download the game from the Mount&Blade website but the download section still only leads to a previous version. To get the latest, go to here. The downloaded game stops upgrading at level 6; you need to purchase a serial key to go beyond. I’d definitely suggest doing so since the price goes up as the game gets closer to full release, plus you can feel smug knowing you’re helping fund the development of a really cool game.

Update (Sept. 27): Versions 0.891 got released quite recently, followed quickly by 0.892. The Mount&Blade website still only has 0.808 available for download so go here if you want the latest version. I also notice that some people are coming to this page while looking for cracks for Mount&Blade – tough luck, I ain’t giving any. Although I don’t doubt that there’s cracks and CD keys available out there I still bought mine fair and square. It’s a small indie developer and the price is really quite reasonable. For only $22 you get the full unlocked version and it’s still cheaper than the $29 it will eventually cost and it’s better than most of these PC games with million dollar budgets. Really, it’s a great deal. I can understand people not wanting to buy a lemon but that’s why the trial version is available for download.

Fighting over nothing

Huh, I was gone there for a while. I wish I had an excuse but frankly, I don’t. I wasn’t overly busy or the like, I just didn’t feel like updating. To compensate, I offer up this Harper’s article by McKenzie Funk about the Northwest Passage. Well, the actual article isn’t online, it’s in the September issue of Harper’s, but the commentary by Scott Horton gives you a good idea of what it’s like.

(Incidentally, doesn’t McKenzie Funk sound like the name of the missing Canadian member of the Furious Five? As soon as someone invents a time machine and I learn to rap, I intend to go back to early 80s Brooklyn, adopt the name “McKenzie Funk” and have rap battles with the Zulu Nation. I will be billed as “the time-traveling MC.”)

Funk opens with the Canadian military’s show of strength in the North. A war game was held where a U.S. merchant vessel (it wasn’t really, of course) traveling without Canadian clearance had to be subdued. It ended up being slightly ridiculous since the outcome was predetermined, and it’s not as if a shipping vessel has any real means of fighting back. Funk even mentions that the radio operator of the “American” vessel, perhaps trying to add an air of verisimilitude, used a terrible version of what the writer calls a “California surfer accent.” The best lines to highlight the comic aspects of this are actually in the opening:

On the first full day of the sovereignty operation, the captain slowed the frigate and we took out the machine guns and sprayed the Northwest Passage with bullets. It felt pretty good. It was foggy, and the unpolluted water boiled as we polluted it with lead. There was no life we could see, and few waves. The wind was cold, the Arctic Ocean a drab green. There wasn’t any ice. But if there had been ice, we would have shot it.

In spite of how it comes off, the operation was deemed to be necessary by the Canadian government, and for good reason. The melting of the ice in the North will soon make the Passage a viable shipping lane. This route can be faster than through either the Panama canal or round the tip of South America, at least if you’re shipping from Asia to the east coast of America. Funk mentions that a shipping container sent to a northeastern port of America currently takes about $1500 to get there. If the Northwest Passage was used, it would only cost $500. This massive, two-thirds drop in price will have many shipping companies salivating. The only problem (for the Canadian government, that is) is that the US and other nations do not recognize the Northwest Passage as falling under Canadian sovereignty. Instead, they consider it to be an international strait, which definitely peeves off the Canadians something awful. Since a military blockade would be foolhardy for many, many reasons, the only real solution is diplomatic. This can be yet another problem, since American attitudes towards Canada alternate between indifferent and paternalistic. Funk writes about a trip to the policy-making centres of Washington and finding

a capital that was awakening to the security risks posed by global warming, and also awakening, perhaps, to the idea that northern riches could be ours—yet barely connecting the dots between the two. No one really seemed to think that Canada would get in our way. No one really seemed to think that it would come to blows. No one really seemed to think about Canada at all.

Canada and the U.S. aren’t the only nations arguing over the North. Russia, Norway and Denmark (recall that Greenland is Danish territory) also have claims, with the Russians probably the most visible in terms of the international media. Their recent flag-planting stunt definitely drew attention. In some ways, this is actually a good thing for Canada because it prevents it from just being a fight between it and its southern neighbour. All these countries necessitate the use of the United Nations as a mediator, which probably irks the Americans to no end. The most relevant treaty is the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which highlights just how far the sea is considered part of a country. The treaty says a nation territory extends to within 200 km of their land, though “territory” and “land” are more finely defined in the agreement. This is something of a problem for the U.S. since it never actually signed the Convention (even though it actually helped in drawing it up). After ignoring it for some 30-odd years, the U.S. is now rushing to sign. (To be accurate, Pres. Bush wants it pushed through, but the Republicans in Congress and the Senate consider it a blow against American sovereignty. Will he or won’t he get it signed before he leaves office? Stay tuned to find out.)

So what’s next in the fight over the far north? A sergeant Funk met in the operation highlighted the basic Canadian strategy. Referring to a dispute with Denmark over an insignificant island off the coast of Greenland, Sgt. Strong says, “Just set up a trailer on the island with a couple guys. Give them enough supplies for a six month stretch, then rotate them out and resupply.” (Not an exact quote, I don’t have the article in front of me.) A sustained presence, military or otherwise, is the best way to show ownership of territory. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has committed to the development of a deep-water port in the area, the ranks of reservists in the North are being expanded, and the operation Funk tagged along with is just the first of many. This means that, if you’re ever traveling in the North, don’t be surprised if you turn on your radio and hear a horrible attempt at a SoCal accent. Resist the urge to mock the speaker, as he could well be part of an operation to establish control over a currently useless stretch of sea. At the very least, lay off the moose and igloo jokes.

Bonus: A Boston NPR station has an interview with McKenzie Funk about his article. Listen to Mr. Funk talk about all this stuff while curiously refraining from laying down any mad rhymes.

This just in: Quebec police haven’t seen Serpico

So there’s talk about Quebec police planting agent provocateurs among protesters at the Montebello summit. As the above photo shows (which I swiped from the comments thread of the Torontoist article, I hope it’s okay with whoever posted it), these agents apparently never bothered to change out of their police-issue boots. This is exceedingly stupid, and reminded me of that line in the cop movie Serpico, where Al Pacino decried undercover agents who’d go to a lot of trouble getting the right clothes, haircut, and so on, but still wear the same shoes they’re handed at the station. The boots are kind of a moot point anyway – the fake protesters were quickly identified since none of the real protesters knew them but they were still trying to stir up a bunch of middle-aged people into a confrontation with the riot squad. If you ask me, this is a pretty ham-fisted approach.  They should have had agents join student protest groups like the NYPD used to do (and for all I know, still do).  Still, if you’re going to the trouble of instigating a riot among people who don’t know you then at least make sure it can’t be traced to your employer. You’d think a reasonably intelligent undercover agent would know not to wear the same gear as his “enemies” but I guess these were especially stupid police. They’re so dumb I imagine they’re already on the fast-track to lieutenant; within a year they’ll probably be heading the RCMP’s intelligence division.

Assholes Abroad

Most journalists are hacks – that’s a fact. They’re lazy, they do little fact-checking when they can get away with it (which is most of the time), they censor themselves from writing what they’re actually seeing (or deliberate refuse to see what’s in front of them), and they like to pat themselves on the back whenever they spell somebody’s name right. People like to believe that there’s more hacks now than there were in the past, but hacks have been around since whenever it was someone first got paid to relate the news. The only difference is that today either the hacks have become better organized or the population at large has gotten dumber. This has led to good journalism either being forced to the fringes or getting so watered down it’s practically a press release. Well, some interesting stuff still gets done in the fringes; my case-in-point is the Moscow-based English-language alt bi-weekly, The eXile.

Started in the ’90s by a bunch of expats, The eXile has covered some of the most important stories coming out of Russia, from the corrupt government ministers (and there are lots of them) to the Western institutions and companies who rapaciously looted the country. They don’t just stick to Moscow either; they’ve run stories on many of the former Soviet republics and the more out of the way areas of Russia. At times they’ve become part of the news themselves, such as when they jokingly took credit for a fax that sparked a diplomatic brouhaha between Washington and Moscow, or when they included in a joke issue an article claiming that Pavel Bure dumped Anna Kournikova after he found out she had two vaginas. Needless to say, they’ve been sued several times, and if they were in the United States they probably would have been shut down by now.

That last sentence makes it sound like they’re a bunch of assholes, and they are, but they’re the most honest bunch of assholes in the business. (For the least honest assholes, see the New York Times and company.) There’s an occasional series about the moderately ugly to moderately attractive hookers they screw, there’s a column by a guy who works in a Russian office and hates it, and there’s a running series of pranks on the biggest hacks out there. One of my favourite columns is by the “War Nerd”, a guy who found the collapse of the World Trade Center a thing of beauty. He talks about the various wars going on right now and the many, many wars that have gone on in the past. This guy really is a war nerd, as he has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of warfare without actually having any firsthand experience. He says he’s a fat office worker in Fresno, but eXile readers have speculated he’s actually a pseudonym for one of the paper’s top guys. I don’t suppose it matters either way.

Let me quote a couple of paragraphs from the latest issue to give you a taste of what the paper is like.

I remember the young couple from whom I rented a spare room when I first came to Moscow. One night, I was going to the toilet, when I noticed that the light was on in the kitchen. Through the glass door, I could see Sasha, a wiry, spotty muzhik, reading a book… and masturbating. On to a plate. In horror, I abandoned my toilet trip, rushed back into the bedroom, pissed into a bottle, and tried to get the image out of my head. In the morning, I found the book on the kitchen table. It was called “Adventures of the Russian Special Forces.” I didn’t eat at home ever again.

Pretty funny, right? The same issue also had this, about a US base in Afghanistan:

The Uzbeks we expected to ambush us may have been mercenaries, or they may have been part of the forced exodus of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) members from South Waziristan, a lawless tribal region straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border. The expulsion occurred in March, following fierce fighting after a mortar attack by Uzbeks killed several schoolchildren. “The Uzbeks have been kicked out lock, stock and barrel from the Wana Valley,” an Afghan government spokesman said after the fighting. It was third such attempt to drive out the Uzbeks, who had grown increasingly unpopular with the locals. The IMU, the largest of ten such groups active in Central Asia, wants to establish an Islamic state in the Central Asian Republics, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Interesting stuff about the Uzbeks, and not something you usually read about in the Western press. Sure the eXile has an abrasive editorial tone, and they tend to belittle anyone who dares to write in, but it seems obvious to me that they’re really a bunch of idealistic softies at heart. Even if they’re not, it’s still one of the best English-language papers around.

The eXile