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Amazon Sells Out Predator Drone Toy After Mocking Reviews

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."

15 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Stand by ... by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... for a press release from the Iranian Air Force about their newest UAV development.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  2. they need... by fyngyrz · · 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.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:they need... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't forget the Congressional Inaction Figures.

    2. Re:they need... by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...they only work if you buy the lobbyist figure set.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  3. G.I. Joe by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just wait until these people find out that G.I. Joe has been turning children into war machines for half a century. He has a full complement of air, ground, and water assault vehicles. He has even militarized outer space with his own space shuttle.

    1. Re:G.I. Joe by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Funny

      G.I. Joe never objected to any killing mission that I sent him on. Joe is a good soldier, who obeys orders, and is willing to kill ANYONE who gets in the way.

      Let that be a warning, you commie pinko AC!

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  4. Re:Awesome by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now Johnnie and Susie have another toy to celebrate their gradual development in our new, post-Orwellian future!

    I thought that having just this one was somehow, inadequate:
    http://www.amazon.com/PLAYMOBIL&%23174;-36138-Playmobil-Security-Check/product-reviews/B0002CYTL2

    Now? We need an EasyBake Backscatter nudity scanner, a "pat down" edition of "Operation" and a GI Joe Seal Team Six bin Laden's Lair play set.

    Duty Now For The Future!

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  5. Dont know whether to laugh or cry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You've had a busy play day - You've wiretapped Mom's cell phone and e-mail without a warrant, you've indefinitely detained your little brother Timmy in the linen closet without trial, and you've confiscated all the Super-Soakers from the neighborhood children (after all, why does any kid - besides you, of course - even NEED a Super-Soaker for self-defense? A regular water pistol should be enough). What do you do for an encore?

    That's where the US Air Force Medium Altitude, Long Endurance, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) RQ-1 Predator from Maisto comes in. Let's say that Dad has been labeled a terrorist in secret through your disposition matrix. Rather than just arrest him and go through the hassle of trying and convicting him in a court of law, and having to fool with all those terrorist-loving Constitutional protections, you can just use one of these flying death robots to assassinate him! Remember, due process and oversight are for sissies. Plus, you get the added bonus of taking out potential terrorists before they've even done anything - estimates have determined that you can kill up to 49 potential future terrorists of any age for every confirmed terrorist you kill, and with the innovative 'double-tap' option, you can even kill a few terrorist first responders, preventing them from committing terrorist acts like helping the wounded and rescuing survivors trapped in the rubble. Don't let Dad get away with anti-American activities! Show him who's boss, whether he's at a wedding, a funeral, or just having his morning coffee. Sow fear and carnage in your wake! Win a Nobel Peace Prize and be declared Time Magazine's Person of the Year - Twice!

    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!

    (Source: Amazon listing)

  6. Re:Thanks /. by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    but it's not a jet.. it's a propeller plane. the fucking toy even has the propeller. so wtf, why does this article exist and what the fuck is it doing here?

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  7. Re:Awesome by osu-neko · · 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.

    --
    "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  8. Yes we do by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do we want to teach our children the good guys kill from far away

    If we want to raise smart kids, yes. That makes a lot more sense than going where someone can hurt you.

    and attack enemies who have no capability to do them any immediate harm? ... unless you get close, then the have guns, mines, explosives planted in roads, succeed bombers, etc.

    Do you also teach your kids its safer to cross the highway by dodging cars rather than using the pedestrian overpass?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  9. Re:Awesome by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, 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.

  10. Re:Awesome by rohan972 · · 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.

  11. Re:Awesome by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    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.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  12. Re:Awesome by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, 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.