Festival's halt to virtual killing is killing Sykes

Peace activists won a small victory for humankind Tuesday when a phone call campaign convinced Summerfest to shut down an Army recruiting exhibit that invited 13-year-olds and up to "hop into a Humvee simulator and fire machine guns at life-size people on a computer screen," as the JS described it.

Added bonus: It sent Charlie Sykes off the deep end, causing him to write some things that made even less sense than usual -- and that's saying something. Says Sykes:

Political rallies for Barack Obama: OK.

Virtual warfare games: Out.

While men and women continue to fight (and win) in Iraq and Afghanistan, Summerfest gets all squeamish about the Army's virtual reality war game. But, just remember: they support the troops.

How's that again?

We're winning in Iraq?

Political rallies for Barack Obama are the same as Army recruiters using violent video games to recruit teenagers?

If you don't want your kids exposed to that sort of "reality" at Summerfest you don't support the troops?

Sorry, Charlie. You clearly don't have a leg to stand on, or you'd have done better than that.