Amazon Sells Out Predator Drone Toy After Mocking Reviews 147
parallel_prankster writes "Amazon users are addressing the drone controversy with sarcasm. Maisto International Inc.'s model Predator drones are selling out on Amazon.com Inc.'s website as parody reviews highlight how the toys can help children hone killing skills, mocking a controversial U.S. practice. The toy is a replica of the RQ-1 Predator, an unmanned aircraft that the U.S. Air Force has used in combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq and Yemen, according to the product description on Amazon. Only one of the $49.99 military-style toy jets is available for purchase on Amazon's site, which is brimming with assessments laced with dark humor. 'You can't spell slaughter without laughter,' one pithy joker wrote."
Thanks /. (Score:2, Insightful)
they need... (Score:5, Insightful)
...supreme court dolls.
You pull a string, and they say things like:
"The supreme court can modify the constitution because the supreme court says so"
"interstate, intrastate, meh. Get me a bagel."
"public use means where people can see it."
"ex post facto, ex post schmacto. It's simply retroactive."
"It's not additional punishment if we say it isn't."
"Double jeopardy? No, no, just go after them in civil court." ...and so on.
G.I. Joe (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wait until these people find out that G.I. Joe [wikipedia.org] has been turning children into war machines for half a century. He has a full complement of air, ground, and water assault vehicles. [wikipedia.org] He has even militarized outer space with his own space shuttle [figure-archive.net].
Re:they need... (Score:0, Insightful)
...supreme court dolls.
You pull a string, and they say things like:
"The supreme court can modify the constitution because the supreme court says so"
Do you know what an amendment is? Jesus Christ Americans have a new Holy Bible.
Re:Dont know whether to laugh or cry (Score:0, Insightful)
OMG! It even comes with 1:97 scale hellfire missiles with spring loaded action! You can also pick up a 1:97 scale "brown people minding their own business" play set, a 1:97 scale "brown people wedding party" play set, and a a 1:97 scale "brown people ambulance crew/first responder" play set! It has an ambulance and a fire truck with spring loaded 1:97 scale explosive action! It's SO AWESOME! I wonder if the little models are american people or just regular people? Who cares, it doesn't matter! We can double tap them all, in realistic 1:97 scale of course! It comes complete with a little bag of 1:97 scale body parts, mixed with 1:97 scale blood! I love the detail on their little 1:97 scale faces! I swear, you can almost SEE the fear and anguish as they writhe in 1:97 scale agony! It is ALMOST as if you are actually flying a real (1:97 scale) death dealing predator robot, watching it kill brown people on your monitor from thousands of miles away. This toy is too much fun!
Re:G.I. Joe (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I'm puzzle at the sarcasm here. It's a war toy, somewhat more up to date than the war toys I played with as a kid, but cap-guns, soldier action figures, grenades, bazookas, model jet fighters, tanks, and battleships... I played with all of these. There's nothing new about this.
This is probably why most of the review-snark is focused on our wacky adventures in novel legal interpretation with a side of collateral damage, rather than the (not particularly exceptional, if comparatively cheap) capabilities of the drone itself.
The news isn't that weapons have marched on; but that we really haven't been covering ourselves with glory when it comes to using them.
Re:they need... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure do. hasn't got fuck all to do with supreme court justices. Read article five, chum.
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
How does "mocking" violate your constitutional rights to own a Predator drone?
Re:they need... (Score:2, Insightful)
See - it works! I got my slashdotter doll to post an incomprehensible, opinionated gibberish post that's so fucking ignorant it makes normal slashdotters want to smash their faces into their desks! IT WORKS ETHEL!!
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Different AC here, but I think they mean the President violating the constitution with extrajudicial murder, not that the mocking is a violation.
I assume so as well. It goes along well with the sentiments expressed in the top Amazon review (at the moment):
This goes well with the Maisto Extraordinary Rendition playset, by the way - which gives you all the tools you need to kidnap the family pet and take him for interrogation at a neighbor's house, where the rules of the Geneva Convention may not apply. Loads of fun!
I prefer to refer to this as "violating their rights" -- too many so-called "constitutionalists" forget that the writers of the Constitution they cherish were convinced that those rights were not rights granted by the Constitution, they were the rights of all men, everywhere, and the job of government was to protect those already existing natural rights, not to grant them through some legal fiction. If you're in favor of treating non-citizens any differently than citizens with regards to rights, you're opposed to the principles the Constitution was written to uphold.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
"How does "mocking" violate your constitutional rights to own a Predator drone?"
I don't know about rights, but I don't understand how someone could see the drone killings as "controversial" at all. According to treaty and international law, it's murder. Plain and simple. No room for much in the way of real controversy.
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not convinced anyone has a god-given right to weapons.
Leaving aside the issue of "god-given", surely everyone has a right to defend their own life. Whether they have a right to weapons is dependent on whether they need weapons to defend their life.
Being larger and stronger than average, if I attacked someone smaller I could be regarded as a lethal threat. In a one on one encounter, about 80% of the population would need a weapon to defend themselves from me. Since there is no way I can be required to become weaker (although that will eventually happen through age), then a weapons ban in practice means large people and trained fighters have the right to self defense and smaller weaker people do not. I do not find this to be equitable.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
But I assume that they would not need a 30-round clip.
Recently, I heard a caller on right-wing talk radio talking about the reason his wife needs a large-clip semi-automatic "assault-style" rifle for personal defense. "This way, she doesn't have to worry so much about aiming. See, she's not a very good shot, see."
I find it worrisome that someone would believe that the solution to being a poor shot is more firepower, when we're talking about a policy that affects, by necessity, densely populated parts of the country as well as rural America.
A woman who's a bad shot "protecting her family" with a semi-automatic rifle with a 30 round clip is by definition a social problem.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
"Murder, absolutely. No less or more than Hiroshima or Dresden."
I disagree completely. There might be moral arguments made to that effect, but I was referring to legality.
Hiroshima and Dresden were both acts of war, and neither were violations of then-current international law for war. (One might argue about who started the war but that's another matter.) Neither of those were considered "illegal", as acts of war, until after the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Drone killing, on the other hand, is killing, yet it is not a legal act of war or, legally, "justifiable self-defense" by our own law. It is an act specifically prohibited by treaty, and both U.S. and international law. Therefore it is legally murder.