As 'they' drive all those launchers etc., with the tyre-walls painted white specially for annual parade day, down the main drag, the rest of the world's piss-takers tape cardboard or fibreglass nukes to their car roofs, not forgetting the tyre-walls, and parade en mass, at the same time if possible, in their respective capital cities. Of course the whole thing is televised. Blues=Reds or vice versa, take your pick.
May not achieve world peace, but it would be quite funny, or maybe not.-- thantox, Apr 06 2001 (?) Taking the piss http://www.matts-we...ord=taking+the+pissto crack a joke or make an insultI figured it meant "the ones who would be _hit_ by those missiles", but that turns out to be wrong. [jutta, Apr 06 2001] Taking the piss http://www.urbandic...taking%20the%20piss [Voice, Apr 29 2017] For a moment there I thought this had something to do with NZ Rugby Reds and Blues and all that... Most hick towns already have pickup trucks outfitted with Gun Racks. I'm on my way to the Army Surplus store to pick a few missiles and a ski rack out.-- thumbwax, Apr 06 2001 What in the HAIL is a "piss-taker"?-- mcdonald107, Apr 06 2001 For some reason I like the idea. The world needs more fake nuclear demonstrations so everyone gets the idea that the real ones are just as daft.-- Spacecoyote, Feb 13 2009 hmm, you must come from a country where patriotic parades are not the norm either that or you need to take a look around at the ostentatious shows of military force that we put on for the benefit of our communist friends. Taking the piss indeed.-- WcW, Feb 15 2009 //Are reds pro nuclear //
When I first saw this, I thought of those May Day parades of Red nuclear missiles through Moscow during the Cold War.
Back then, of course, the Reds were on the left ("The people's flag is deepest red / It's shrouded oft our martyred dead", etc.) Consequently, red left-wingers in western countries tended to be anti (western) nuclear weapons (but fairly quiet on the subject of Soviet nuclear weapons).
For reasons unclear to me, in the United States, the colour-coding has been reversed some time in the last ten years, so that now the Reds are on the right and the Blues are on the left.
Can anyone clear up for me how this happened?-- pertinax, Feb 15 2009 Honestly I haven't a clue what was meant by red/blue in this idea. Could be Reps/Dems, Communists/Capitalists, Burger King/Pizza Hut, etc.-- Spacecoyote, Feb 15 2009 Its Coke/Pepsi. Trust me.-- gnomethang, Feb 15 2009 <crunching on a carrot> Dunno wot you mean</coac>-- gnomethang, Feb 15 2009 I doubt that there is much of this going on in rural china either. If you doubt that other nations see Britain as a muscle flexing super power you need to take a second look. Video of military exercises and operations by Brittan's Finest hit the international news almost every night. A bunch of fake missiles being paraded back and forth looks a lot less intimidating than video of actual planes and tanks projecting power half way around the world, no matter what their political leaning. Frankly I feel that the US government uses internal propaganda about the military and military power far more effectively. When they want to show US citizens how strong they "we" are they have their pick of "independent" journalists to parrot the message and an audience that doesn't even roll their eyes at the hyperbole. I don't like any of it but staged "parades" are better than staged "liberations" .-- WcW, Feb 15 2009 In the US, Hollywood gets use of all the cool (declassified) military tech they want so long as they portray the armed forces in a positive light.
Of course, the fake missiles aren't supposed to be intimidating, that's what the "piss-take" part is about.-- Spacecoyote, Feb 15 2009 Missiles are simply excellent phalli and thus perfect for demonstrating how virile the government is and how efficient it will be in pounding dissidents into submission. Obsession with virility and potency quite frequently accompanies domestic abuse.-- WcW, Feb 15 2009 //Missiles are simply excellent phalli // As someone on a recent UK comedy programme pointed out, missiles would be completely un-aerodynamic if they were fanny-shaped. (That's pussy-shaped for Americans). Besides which, they'd whistle and spoil the surprise.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 16 2009 .......-- WcW, Feb 16 2009 //Missiles are simply excellent phalli//
While it would, of course, be deeply uncool to deny this claim, you might like to consider the following awkward questions:
1. By how many millennia do military parades pre-date phallus-shaped weapons? (By the way, if your phallus resembles a musket, seek medical attention). 2. How many times has any government, instead of just arresting a dissident during the hours of darkness, actually launched a large phallic missile at them? 3. How long do you think a government would continue to spend a large portion of its budget on phallus-shaped weapons once weapons of a different shape were shown to do more damage? <self-censorship> No, I wasn't going to add personally offensive questions here - I wouldn't dream of it. </self-censorship>
That's not to say that defence procurement decisions aren't sometimes made for shallow and childish reasons - they are - just not the ones you imagine.-- pertinax, Feb 16 2009 // instead of just arresting a dissident during the hours of darkness//No doubt using a truncheon, fnarr-fnarr.-- coprocephalous, Feb 16 2009 symbolic government phalli have been found all the way back to the reign of Hammurabi. It's hard to go any good with a giant stone penis. I suspect that the martial parade and the use of phallic symbolism by governments may have historical parallels.-- WcW, Feb 16 2009 Oh hey, there's some minor prior art here for my yonic spacecraft idea.-- notexactly, Apr 27 2017 Jutta, how'd you get newlines in your link description? Does it require backend access? I tried just now, on another idea, by editing the textbox to a textarea, but that didn't work. Pasting in copied newlines doesn't work either.-- notexactly, Apr 27 2017 To clarify the definition of "taking the piss" for our colonial friends, it has several nuances. If I'm taking the piss out of someone, it means I'm making fun of them. If a mechanic tells me my cambelt will cost £3000 to replace, I might ask him if he's taking the piss, as in trying it on.
If I'm pissed, I'm not angry: I'm drunk - possibly as a result of having been on a piss-up. But if I'm pissed off, then I'm angry. If I'm sufficiently pissed off (or if I just fancy going somewhere to get pissed), then I might piss off down the pub. But if it's pissing it down then I might just stay home and piss about.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 27 2017 ... or Dr. Ruth.-- 8th of 7, Apr 27 2017 random, halfbakery