Remember the MSM hype about recruiting shortfalls?

[eleanorigby]

@Merijeek

However, the thought of an 18-inch tongue that is also prehensile makes me quiver in terror.

Some of us quite like the thought of an 18 inch prehensile tongue…

Giraffe you gots to show yer teef! That’ll skeer 'em fer sure.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

I wonder if Army Secretary Francis Harvey was part of the MSM:

Low unemployment, the Iraq war and a greater reluctance of parents to approve of their children’s enlisting are the main factors behind the Army’s failure to meet its recruiting target for the first time since 1999, Harvey said. The shortfall comes despite the increase of recruiters from 9,000 to 12,000 for the Army’s active duty, reserves and National Guard, and an addition of $130 million to the advertising budget for recruiting.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we’ve got positive momentum, that the problem’s solved. I don’t know yet,” he said.

The Army is beginning the fiscal year with its smallest pool of recruits already in the pipeline in more than a decade – just 12 percent of its new target of 80,000 recruits, compared with the goal of 25 percent.

Facing the prospect of another challenging fiscal year, the Army is pressing Congress to approve a slew of new incentives. These include doubling the maximum enlistment bonus, from $20,000 to $40,000, and an Army home mortgage program that would make a $25,000 down payment for soldiers who stay in the service for four years. Another program would offer a “finder’s fee” of $2,500 to soldiers who identify a recruit who goes on to complete training.

To expand the recruiting pool, the Army is also lowering test guidelines to bring them in line with existing Defense Department minimum qualification standards – essentially opening the door to more recruits with average and below-average scores.

“We’re not changing standards – we’re just going to abide by long-standing DOD standards,” Harvey said.

Of course, that article was in the Washington Post, so it’s possible they were lying to cover up their embarrassing gaffe. Or it could be that crazy dipshit rightwing nutjob websites aren’t telling the whole truth.

(I particularly liked the “Defeat [Hammer and Sickle] Hillary” t-shirt being advertised on the website. Whyever wouldn’t the MSM admit they were wrong in the face of such compelling evidence?)

[Excalibre]

@Brain Wreck

It’s tin-ear conservative gasbag shorthand for “strawman that I’m about to shred mercilessly.” It refers to “mainstream media” which means “whatever out-of-context news story my local talk radio host read to me out of a newspaper”.

You can safely ignore anybody who uses the term MSM as it is a shibboleth for upstanding citizens of Crazytown.

I still think “men who have sex with men” when I see “MSM”. And no, we have no interest in filling any shortfall in recruitment.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

@Giraffe

You know, it’s clear from posts like this that my mean moderator look is passive and ineffectual.

It’s not the look (well, besides the fact that it’s so high up most people have trouble discerning it to begin with). It’s your taste in moderator jackboots.

[saoirse]

@Excalibre

I still think “men who have sex with men” when I see “MSM”. And no, we have no interest in filling any shortfall in recruitment.

That’s what I thought, too. Only I thought you had to identify as straight to be an MSM.

[asterion]

@Excalibre

I still think “men who have sex with men” when I see “MSM”. And no, we have no interest in filling any shortfall in recruitment.

See, I was figuring the OP was bitching about something to do with “don’t ask don’t tell.”

[Excalibre]

@saoirse

That’s what I thought, too. Only I thought you had to identify as straight to be an MSM.

Far as I know, the idea befind the term is that ideally it’s neutral in regard to sexual orientation - it describes behavior only, without reference to whether you feel or consider yourself gay, straight, bisexual, whatever. Of course, the idea of a neutral way to refer to men who have sex with men arose precisely in order to create a discourse outside of “gay” and “straight” and all those terms entail, a need that doesn’t exist with regards to those who self-identify as gay and perceive themselves as members of the “gay community”. So as you say, it tends to be used in regard to men who identify as straight, but I think ideally it’s not supposed to signify anything that way. (I suppose it also works to refer to men like these troubled souls who are in no denial about their sexuality but feel they’re outside the “gay community”).

[Marley23]

@Dead Badger

As for how the armed forces lowering standards to meet recruiting goals proves the “MSM” were wrong to report genuine shortfalls in the past, well - there I can’t help you.

I thought they not only lowered standards, but also lowered their recruiting goals, thus making it easier to meet their goals. Is that so?

[FordPrefect]

@Giraffe

This is a trend I’d like to see stop. This isn’t a warning, but if the trend continues, it will be. ::mean moderator look::

Which would be too bad, because Jebus H. Christ is a great monicker.

[Biggirl]

First Microsoft Money tells me I won’t be able to retire until I’m 98 and now it’s predicting troop strength? That Bill Gates has is fingers in EVERYTHING!

[RTFirefly]

Funny, but I was just responding yesterday to a similar post.

This AP story had said:

March marked the 10th month in a row that the active-duty Army has met its recruitment goals, aided by an aggressive campaign that includes financial bonuses and a significant increase in the number of recruiters. It has recruited a total 31,369 Soldiers since last October 1, compared to more than 32,100 as of this time last year. The goal for each year: 80,000.

Last Sept. 30, the Army closed out one of its most difficult recruiting periods in decades, falling more than 6,600 recruits short of its goal.

My response:

What I see is that as of the end of March (the halfway mark in their recruiting year), they were over 700 recruits behind their pace for the previous year, when they missed their target by over 6,600.

Since their annual targets for both years were the same, and they hit their targets for the last four months of last year and the first six months of this year, they must’ve either really screwed the pooch in April and May of last year while making their targets in every other month, or between last year and this year, they lowered the targets for October through March, and raised them for April through September.

And even if America’s overall numerical troop strength has remained essentially constant over the past few years, there’s plenty of evidence that, in addition to Army and Marines seeing multiple tours of duty in Iraq, the military’s reaching deeper and deeper into its stores to supply enough troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. Take this USA Today story, for instance:

The Navy and Air Force are training their sailors and airmen for war duty far from the seas or skies: jobs typically performed by a strained Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Navy and Air Force personnel are replacing Army soldiers to carry out such duties as guarding convoys, patrolling bases and watching for homemade bombs, the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.

The Navy also is running a prison in Iraq, patrolling rivers and helping to clear and search buildings.

About 8,000 sailors are on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Rear Adm. David Gove, head of the Navy Personnel Command. By the end of the year, that number is expected to grow to as many as 12,000, he says.

I’m not saying this is a bad idea; AFAICT, it’s a reasonably sensible one. But the military is having to resort to increasingly unusual steps to find the manpower to sustain its operations, and that’s not a message that all is well. After awhile, the military will run out of options such as this, if our wars keep on demanding the same numbers of troops.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

That’s all well and good RTFirefly, but you’re evading the OP’s concerns. Why won’t the MSM admit that they were wrong?

[RTFirefly]

@Hentor the Barbarian

That’s all well and good RTFirefly, but you’re evading the OP’s concerns. Why won’t the MSM admit that they were wrong?

They’re just imitating their hero, George W. Bush.

[Ethilrist]

@Giraffe

Jebus, I notice that all nine of your posts to date are in threads you’ve started. You’ve started five threads, four of which you’ve never participated in after posting the OP. You’ve yet to participate in a single Pit thread you’ve started, nor any thread started by someone else.

This is a trend I’d like to see stop. This isn’t a warning, but if the trend continues, it will be. ::mean moderator look::

Well, it looks like the MML worked.

He’s not abandoning threads in the Pit any more.

[RTFirefly]

@Hentor the Barbarian

I particularly liked the “Defeat [Hammer and Sickle] Hillary” t-shirt being advertised on the website.

Yeah, I love those shirts!

Take the Che t-shirt. I swear, he’s on right-wingers’ minds far more than on liberals’.

Or the “U.S. Armed Forces Freedom World Tour” tee, which is already clearly in need of major revisions.

[RTFirefly]

I didn’t look far enough down the page.
"Rope. Tree. Journalist.

Some assembly required."
Conservative ‘humor’ at its sickest.

[Skywatcher]

@FordPrefect

Which would be too bad, because Jebus H. Christ is a great monicker.

Monicker Lewinski?

[Ponder_Stibbons]

@Ethilrist

Well, it looks like the MML worked.

He’s not abandoning threads in the Pit any more.

Aw, come on. When you’re dropping such beautiful and well crafted nuggets of wisdom as he does, you don’t really need to follow up.

[Marley23]

@Jebus H. Christ

Think the MSM will admit they were wrong? No, they never do (see Dan Rather and Memogate).

I’m sure you’d never be that stubborn.

This guy is shaping up as a wannabe-Clothahump. GREAT. :smack:

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Ponder Stibbons

Aw, come on. When you’re dropping such beautiful and well crafted nuggets of wisdom as he does, you don’t really need to follow up.

IOW, his OP is his follow-up.