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The nonsense thread - Enter at your own risk! Warning… 100% off topic and full of nonsense inside (Read 891,008 times)
sirmoonie
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2075 - Sep 10th, 2017 at 1:31pm
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I'm not too interested in Vietnam, Joe Hat.  On account of us losing and all.  When people bring up Vietnam, I change the topic to how we kicked some Southern butt circa 1865!
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"But in terms of what's left of white people, we're still it." - Andrew Moof Oldham
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2076 - Sep 10th, 2017 at 1:44pm
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sirmoonie wrote on Sep 10th, 2017 at 1:31pm:
I'm not too interested in Vietnam, Joe Hat.  On account of us losing and all.  When people bring up Vietnam, I change the topic to how we kicked some Southern butt circa 1865!




<  --------- Sir Moonie   ?!   .. !!!!!!!!    :



http://www.omaha.com/opinion/marc-a-thiessen-how-democrats-left-us-vulnerable-to...




" Marc A. Thiessen: How Democrats left us vulnerable to North Korea’s nukes    "




" With last weekend’s surprise nuclear test, North Korea has reached the final stage of its crash course to develop thermonuclear weapons that can reach and destroy U.S. cities. So why are we not on a crash course to protect our cities from North Korean nuclear missiles?

Answer: Because for more than three decades, Democrats have done everything in their power to prevent, obstruct or delay the deployment of ballistic missile defense.

Opposition to missile defense has been an article of faith for Democrats since President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. Sen. Edward Kennedy led the early opposition to what Democrats derisively labeled “Star Wars,” denouncing missile defense as a “mirage” and “a certain prescription for an arms race in outer space.”

Running against Reagan in 1984, Walter Mondale called it a “dangerously destabilizing” and unworkable “hoax.”

Reagan nonetheless moved forward with research and development, and his successor, George H.W. Bush, put missile defense on track for deployment with the Global Protection Against Limited Strikes program. But as soon as President Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he terminated the global protection program and cut national missile defense funding by 80 percent, while downgrading it from an acquisition program to a technology demonstration program. Clinton also signed an agreement to revive the moribund Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned deployment of missile defense and whose status had come into question with the 1991 collapse of our treaty partner, the Soviet Union.

Then Republicans took over Congress and passed a defense authorization bill in 1996 that required deployment. Clinton vetoed it on the grounds that there was no threat. Secretary of Defense William Perry declared “we do not need a national missile defense system because . . . no rogue nation has ‘intercontinental ballistic missiles’ . . . and if these powers should ever pose a threat, our ability to retaliate with an overwhelming nuclear response will serve as a deterrent.” In other words, national missile defense would never be needed — even to protect against a regime such as North Korea.

When President George W. Bush came to office, he revitalized missile defense efforts and withdrew from the ABM Treaty. Democrats were more upset than the Russians. Sen. Joseph Biden declared, “The thing we remain the least vulnerable to is an ICBM attack from another nation,” adding, “This premise that one day Kim Jong Il or someone will wake up one morning and say, ‘Aha, San Francisco’ is specious.”

Bush deployed the first ground-based interceptors in California and Alaska and put in place a plan to deploy 44 interceptors by 2009. He reached a historic agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic to deploy defenses. And he dramatically increased funding for three critical programs: The first two — the Airborne Laser and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor — would take out a ballistic missile in the “boost phase” of flight, the most vulnerable eight minutes when a missile is still over enemy territory and presents a large, slower-moving target because the small nuclear warhead at the top has not yet separated from the large rocket filled with highly explosive fuel.

The third — the Multiple Kill Vehicle — would place multiple warheads on our ground-based interceptors, so that instead of hitting a “bullet with a bullet” we could fire five or 10 bullets at each target, increasing chances of success.

If we had continued the Bush program over the past eight years, we would now have a robust array of defenses against any North Korean ICBM. We would be able to target a North Korean missile in the boost phase, and if that failed, we would have 44 ground-based interceptors armed with hundreds of warheads that could be fired to take it out in midcourse.

But President Barack Obama slashed funding for ballistic missile defense by 25 percent. As part of his failed “reset” with Russia, he scrapped Bush’s agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic. He reduced Bush’s plan from 44 ground-based interceptors to 30. (He belatedly changed course in 2012 after North Korea tested the Taepodong missile, but the United States still has not recovered from the delay.) And he cancelled the
Airborne Laser, Kinetic Energy Interceptor and Multiple Kill Vehicle programs.

As a result, North Korea now has eight minutes of unchallenged flight during which its missiles are most vulnerable, and we have dramatically reduced the chances of hitting a North Korean missile as it descends on a U.S. city.

Amazingly, on taking office, President Donald Trump’s budget continued Obama’s missile defense cuts, reducing funding by another $300 million.

Trump has since recognized his mistake, promising “We are going to be increasing the anti-missiles by a substantial amount of billions of dollars.”

Time to do so is short. He should immediately deliver Congress an emergency supplemental spending bill to speed the deployment of ground-based interceptors, and he should revive the Multiple Kill Vehicle, the Airborne Laser and Kinetic Energy Interceptor — and then work with Congress on a long-term plan to build and deploy space-based interceptors.   "



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...&&&&D.J. Jazzy Joe and the Fresh Prince of Boca Raton !™&& *** " VICTORY !!!! " ***...
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2077 - Sep 11th, 2017 at 8:58pm
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sirmoonie wrote on Sep 3rd, 2017 at 3:06pm:
WTF???  I mean, what in the name of J. Christ is this?!?!  My god.  It's like that summit we had a few years back and a few of us are trying to listen to some music, and the rest of you self-styled "bozos" are out in the hallway, jumping up and down, playing slap ass, and try to pull the goddam balls out of each other's pants!  In a crowded hotel full of profiteers!  I've fucking had it with this stuff.  This is repugnant.



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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2078 - Sep 11th, 2017 at 9:09pm
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sirmoonie wrote on Sep 4th, 2017 at 5:38pm:
ass hats
fish hats
butt hats
hat ass
ass gumbies
ass mops
blow fish
ass clams
bunder munchens
bundt cakes
bundt dicks






...
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...&&&&D.J. Jazzy Joe and the Fresh Prince of Boca Raton !™&& *** " VICTORY !!!! " ***...
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2079 - Sep 11th, 2017 at 9:32pm
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sirmoonie wrote on Sep 4th, 2017 at 1:35pm:
Some Guy wrote on Sep 4th, 2017 at 9:52am:
gorda wrote on Sep 4th, 2017 at 12:23am:
Look at what happened in Alabama!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OE5h72Fem0



Edith and moonie do not like salads. We predicted this.


Methaphoricalism.  Tomatoes.

What factual observations (lessons) have we learned from this Trump experience of ours?  Or what previously learned observations have been reaffirmed from this Trump experience?

One seldom mentioned or admitted observation that appears to have been sadly reaffirmed, is that a substantial number of Americans, despite access to vast information and methods to improve cognition, remain pretty much idiots/retards.  The degree to which this is genetic versus stubborn stupidity is difficult to determine.  At least I can't figure it out, but it's all worth discussing.





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...&&&&D.J. Jazzy Joe and the Fresh Prince of Boca Raton !™&& *** " VICTORY !!!! " ***...
 
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sirmoonie
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2080 - Sep 11th, 2017 at 9:44pm
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I did shrooms in Toronto, Canada once.  Went up that big ass stupid needle tower they have.  I shroomed the fuck out of that tower.  I puked in the stairway and blamed the Mongoloids.

Canadians are drunkards.  They stumble around drunk.  It's disgusting.  I prefer people with purity of heart and soul.  They need to rise up, these Canadians.
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"But in terms of what's left of white people, we're still it." - Andrew Moof Oldham
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2081 - Sep 13th, 2017 at 10:47am
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Vote for Finn !!



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“What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there,” he says. “All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another.” - Keef
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2082 - Sep 13th, 2017 at 4:43pm
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I'm tired of winning.
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2083 - Sep 13th, 2017 at 9:33pm
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Some Guy wrote on Sep 13th, 2017 at 4:43pm:
I'm tired of winning.


<  -------------   Some Guy   .... ?!  ... !!!!!!   :




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/north-korea-threat-sink-japan-us-a...




" North Korea threatens to sink Japan and turn US to 'ashes and darkness' "

" Tokyo condemns ‘absolutely unacceptable’ provocation, as Pyongyang reacts to imposition of new UN sanctions following missile tests  "




" North Korea has threatened to sink Japan and said the US should be “beaten to death like a rabid dog” after the two countries spearheaded fresh UN security council sanctions in response to the regime’s recent nuclear test.

The Korea Asia-Pacific peace committee, which oversees North Korea’s relations with the outside world, described the UN security council, which passed a new round of sanctions on Monday, as a “tool of evil” in the pay of Washington, and called for it to be broken up.

It is the first time that Pyongyang has issued an explicit threat to Japan since it fired a medium-range ballistic missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido at the end of last month, triggering emergency sirens and mass text alerts.

“The four islands of the [Japanese] archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche,” the committee said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency. Juche is the ideology of self-reliance pioneered by Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder and grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un.

“Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the committee added.


The 15-member security council voted unanimously in support of a US-drafted resolution condemning the missile test and imposing measures that include a ban on North Korean textile imports and restrictions on oil exports to the country.

In response, the committee said the US should be “beaten to death like a rabid dog” for the “heinous sanctions resolution”.

“Let’s reduce the US mainland into ashes and darkness. Let’s vent our spite with mobilisation of all retaliation means which have been prepared till now,” it said.

Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, described the statement as “extremely provocative and egregious”.

He added: “It is something that markedly heightens regional tension and is absolutely unacceptable.”

A new report has claimed that the detonation on 3 September of what North Korea claimed was a hydrogen bomb involved a device with an estimated yield of 250 kilotons – making it far more powerful than initially thought.

The US-based 38 North website noted that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation had revised upwards the seismic power created by the test from magnitude 5.8 to 6.1.

It added: “This revision is significant because, rather than providing an equivalent yield of about 120 kilotons derived from the lower magnitude estimates, the application of standard formula with appropriate constants shows that the yield can now be estimated to have been roughly 250 kilotons (one quarter megaton).

“Regardless of whether this most recent test was an operational warhead for an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] or simply a device, the yield of the test clearly shows North Korean progress in increasing the yields of their nuclear weapons.”

After weeks of heightened tensions and threats emanating from Pyongyang and Washington, there are signs that US and other officials may be attempting to engage the regime diplomatically.

UN Security Council steps up sanctions against N Korea – video
Japan’s public broadcaster NHK claimed on Thursday that US and North Korean officials had met “secretly” on the sidelines of a security forum in Switzerland earlier this month.

The report did not offer details, but said that Choe Kang-il, deputy director general for North American affairs at the North Korean foreign ministry, and Evans Revere, a former senior official at the state department, had raised North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear tests.

While Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has refused to consider negotiations unless Pyongyang abandons its nuclear weapons programme, an MP has claimed that support is rising inside the governing Liberal Democratic party for possible engagement with the regime.

Antonio Inoki, a former professional wrestler, said he had spoken to several unnamed LDP MPs who supported sending a delegation of Japanese parliamentarians to Pyongyang in an attempt to defuse tensions.

“We are seeing a situation where [Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un] is raising his fist, and the situation is escalating,” said Inoki, who met North Korea’s top diplomat, Ri Su-yong, and other officials during a trip to Pyongyang last week. “It’s important to see who can be the first to lower his fist and reduce tensions.”

The 74-year-old, who has visited North Korea 32 times, said LDP lawmakers had become more receptive to the idea of dialogue. “The political wind has changed direction,” he said, adding that North Korean officials were receptive to the idea. “I made a proposal and was told they would be happy to receive such a delegation.”

In another gesture apparently aimed at lowering the diplomatic temperature, South Korea’s government is considering an $8m (£6m) aid package for North Korea.

Seoul suspended aid to North Korea, provided via UN agencies, after the regime conducted nuclear and missile tests in 2016. But under a proposal that could be approved next week, the South would provide $4.5m to a World Food Programme project to help infants and pregnant women, and $3.5m to Unicef, according to Yonhap news agency.

“The government’s basic stance is that humanitarian assistance to those who are vulnerable in North Korea should be continued regardless of political considerations,” Yonhap quoted a unification ministry official in Seoul as saying.

“Seoul plans to decide the details of the aid and its timing after taking into account the inter-Korean situation,” he added.  "



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...&&&&D.J. Jazzy Joe and the Fresh Prince of Boca Raton !™&& *** " VICTORY !!!! " ***...
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2084 - Sep 13th, 2017 at 10:29pm
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Some Guy wrote on Sep 13th, 2017 at 4:43pm:
I'm tired of winning.



winning ugly?
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Disco STILL sucks!

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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2085 - Sep 14th, 2017 at 5:42am
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mojoman wrote on Sep 13th, 2017 at 10:29pm:
Some Guy wrote on Sep 13th, 2017 at 4:43pm:
I'm tired of winning.



winning ugly?



Oh no, it's a beautiful thing !!



...
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“What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there,” he says. “All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another.” - Keef
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2086 - Sep 14th, 2017 at 8:45am
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Edith Grove wrote on Sep 14th, 2017 at 5:42am:
mojoman wrote on Sep 13th, 2017 at 10:29pm:
Some Guy wrote on Sep 13th, 2017 at 4:43pm:
I'm tired of winning.



winning ugly?



Oh no, it's a beautiful thing !!



...


Trump is the Cleveland Browns of politics
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"Runnin Like A Cat In A Thunderstorm"
 
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Voodoo Chile in Wonderland
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The Stones are back you
bastards!!!!

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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2087 - Sep 14th, 2017 at 7:25pm
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I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeping with your girlfriend!!
WWW gerardo.liedo rocksoffmessageboard  
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2088 - Sep 14th, 2017 at 10:06pm
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Voodoo Chile in Wonderland wrote on Sep 14th, 2017 at 7:25pm:



"fires another missile from rear"

kimyoungjoey
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2089 - Sep 14th, 2017 at 10:21pm
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"Why would any sane person want to leave Rocks Off? If you have an issue outside of Rocks Off, handle it. When you return it will be as if you never have left. Once you are here-it's expected you stay. Why waste long cultivated posting skills somewhere else? The outside world will not understand." -Nellie

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Posts: 66936 | Registered: Dec 2002



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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2090 - Sep 15th, 2017 at 10:29am
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U2 welcomes both the left and the right to the Superdome in epic night


September 15, 2017 at 8:30 AM

By Doug MacCash
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune



Bono, the charismatic front man of the superstar quartet U2, pledged that Thursday's (Sept. 14) show in the Superdome would be "one of those nights none of us forgets," an "epic night." Ask any of the thousands of rock fans that filled the big arena: U2 delivered on their leader's pledge.

Bono may be as well known for his philanthropy and social activism as his music, so it was no surprise that the show was sprinkled with pithy political statements between the songs. But Bono made an effort to remain inclusive and non-partisan.

In the aftermath of the song "Pride (In the Name of Love)," he declared that whether his fans were "from the left (or) from the right, you're all welcome here tonight."

Though he's Irish, Bono infused the show with a sort of informed American patriotism. The U.S. was "a great country in a difficult time," he said. The concert ended with an 8000 square-ft. American flag glowing on the LED screen behind the stage.

Referring to the historic migration of his countrymen to America, he thanked the U.S. "for giving the Irish safety and sanctuary." America, he said, "had always been a sanctuary" and he hoped it stayed that way.

On the subject of immigration, he cited New Orleans as "a kaleidoscope of cultures, music and good looking people."

After the song "Trip Through Your Wires," Bono shouted out to Louisiana Republican Congressman Steve Scalise, who is still recovering from the impact of an attempted assassin's bullet. "We wish him continued strength," Bono said.

The revered rocker never mentioned President Trump directly in his asides, though a black and white snippet from a 1950s television show projected behind the stage seemed to be implicitly critical of the president's policies.

The western drama "Trackdown" depicted a carnival soothsayer named Trump, who foretold the end of the world unless he was allowed to build a wall around town.







"When human rights drown out human wrongs, that's a beautiful day," Bono intoned during the song "Beautiful Day."

In 2006 U2 was among the bands that helped celebrate the repair of the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina with an appearance. Bono recalled the use of the Dome as a refuge for flood victims. He called it a "sacred bowl" and "a place of shelter." Certainly one of the most moving parts of Thursday's show was when he called on the crowd to illuminate the interior of the Dome with sparkling iPhones, as he led in the singing of Paul Simon's longing refrain "we've all come to look for America."

Bono expressed his devotion to New Orleans time and again during the concert. In a passage dedicated to feminism, five-story-tall portraits of Chef Leah Chase and civil rights icon Ruby Bridges appeared behind him. He shouted out to Jazz Fest producer Quint Davis and to Trombone Shorty. He led a Saints chant, as black and gold fleurs de lis blossomed on the big screen. U2 is an international act, but the show had enough local reference to make it feel tailor-fit for us.

If you missed the concert, here's the rundown:

The band kicked off the two-hour show with the stirring anthem "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and a handful of other past hits, then played their breakout 1987 album "Joshua Tree" in its entirety. After a very brief intermission, they returned for another mini concert including an intimately performed new tune titled "You are the best thing about me."

The sound in the big Dome was beautifully clear (at least where I stood). The gorgeous images of desolate highways, desertscapes, and other scenes that filled the giant screen behind the band helped set the mood for the songs without becoming too much of a distraction. Bono and his bandmates, all of whom are in their 50s, played with passion, but were utterly dignified doing so.

Those of us on the floor certainly had the best seats in the house, without having seats at all. Without struggle, we found ourselves just a few yards behind the barricades that demarked the high-priced section up front. When Bono and the band performed on the runway that jutted to the 50 yard line, we could see them pretty much as well as if they'd played a Frenchmen Street club.


http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2017/09/u2_superdome_new_orleans_1.html#inca...
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“What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there,” he says. “All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another.” - Keef
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2091 - Sep 15th, 2017 at 11:06am
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sirmoonie wrote on Sep 10th, 2017 at 1:31pm:
I'm not too interested in Vietnam, Joe Hat.  On account of us losing and all.  When people bring up Vietnam, I change the topic to how we kicked some Southern butt circa 1865!



<  ------------   Sir Moonie   ......    ?!   .... !!!!!!!    :





https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/arts/television/review-ken-burns-the-vietnam-...





" Review: Ken Burns’s ‘Vietnam War’ Will Break Your Heart and Win Your Mind   "




" The Vietnam War” begins in reverse. After a brief introduction, there’s a sequence of familiar footage, running backward. Napalm is sucked out of the jungle. Bombs fall up. A prisoner springs to life as a bullet shoots from his head into the chamber of a gun.

The sequence feels like a mission statement for Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s plangent, encyclopedic, sometimes wearying documentary. Yes, you’ve seen these images before. But to have even a chance at understanding this mess, you have to go back. Way back.

The first episode, which airs Sunday on PBS, pedals back to 1858 and the French conquest of Indochina. Most of it is devoted to Vietnam’s colonial history, the rise of Ho Chi Minh and France’s own doomed war.

This gives you a sense of the scope of the series, at 18 hours and 10 episodes one of Mr. Burns’s longest.

It also sets a theme: that this history had its own history, one we disastrously ignored. (“We” here and below means Americans, because while Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick include many Vietnamese voices, they are ultimately telling U.S. history.)

“The Vietnam War” is not Mr. Burns’s most innovative film. Since the war was waged in the TV era, the filmmakers rely less exclusively on the trademark “Ken Burns effect” pans over still images. Since Vietnam was the “living-room war,” played out on the nightly news, this documentary doesn’t show us the fighting with new eyes, the way “The War” did with its unearthed archival World War II footage.

But it is probably Mr. Burns’s saddest film. “The Civil War” was mournful, but at least the Union was preserved. “The War” ended with fascism defeated.

The war in Vietnam offers no uplift or happy ending. It’s simply decades of bad decision after bad decision, a wasteful vortex that devoured lives for nothing. It was, the narrator Peter Coyote says, “begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War miscalculations.”

“The Vietnam War” is less an indictment than a lament.

This is where Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick’s primary-source interviews are so effective. Arguably, the most important Ken Burns effect is not a visual trick but the refocusing of history on first-person stories.

Geoffrey C. Ward’s script has a big-picture historical arc — presidents and generals, battles and negotiations, domino theory and madman theory. The narrative wends nimbly from Washington to the battlefield (both sides) to living rooms, TV studios, campuses and convention halls.

But the film’s power comes from the oral histories. An American veteran describes dragging insurgents’ corpses into a village square “to see who would cry over them” so there would be more people to question. A soldier’s mother remembers tensing up every time she heard the crunch of tires on her driveway. A North Vietnamese officer recalls when she was assigned to a house abandoned by a South Vietnamese counterpart, an unfinished dress that the daughter had been sewing still lying in place.

One interviewee who stands out is the soft-spoken John Musgrave, whose arc over the course of the documentary takes him from a Marine driven by pure hatred of the enemy, to antiwar protester. His emotion is still on the surface as he recalls a dark time, after his discharge, when his dogs interrupted him as he sat with his pistol to his head. “I think,” he says — and it’s as if the immensity is hitting him at that second — “I would have k-k-killed myself.”

The emotional climax comes in the eighth episode, which culminates in 1970, when Ohio National Guard troops shot to death four student protesters at Kent State University. The war had already killed thousands upon thousands. But with Kent State, it feels, America had simply broken.

You might mistake Episode 9, which ends with the American withdrawal in 1973, for the conclusion. But it wasn’t an ending for the people of Vietnam, for the remaining prisoners of war or for the United States. Like Maya Lin’s Vietnam memorial, whose opening the finale covers, “The Vietnam War” can’t offer closure, only catharsis.

Sometimes the film echoes today’s headlines, as in the subplot of foreign collusion in an American election. Richard M. Nixon had made a secret deal for South Vietnamese leader Nguyen Van Thieu to stay out of peace talks, thus enhancing Mr. Nixon’s chances in the 1968 race. President Lyndon B. Johnson was aware of the deal through intelligence surveillance and believed it to be treason, but chose not to publicize it.

He did, however, call Mr. Nixon, who — we hear on the audiotape of their call — coolly lied to him. And Mr. Nixon’s paranoia about being found out drove him to the strategy of break-ins and cover-ups that eventually led to his resignation.

It’s easy to take for granted the amount of material Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick present here, but it’s staggering. Yet “The Vietnam War” is sometimes overwhelmed by the need to be about everything the conflict connected to: the Cold War, the counterculture, Watergate.

All these are much-told stories, a fact reinforced by the many musical cues overfamiliar from other period films and TV: “For What It’s Worth,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “White Rabbit.” (Along with the pop soundtrack is a score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, with additional music by the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma.)

But you could argue that this predictability has a purpose. Mr. Burns is willing to risk obviousness because his project is not to find surprising twists on American history. It’s to create a historical canon in the most broadly acceptable terms.

This might in part be public-TV centrism, but it’s also an ideology. Mr. Burns’s films assume that it’s still possible for Americans to have an agreed-on baseline — on government, war, race and culture — from which to go forward.

In relatively peaceful times, this approach could seem banal, as if the films are arguing for pieties that everyone already agrees on. In — well, times like now — it can seem naïve to think that there’s any fact so unobjectionable it can’t be litigated by opposed camps. In the divides the war rended, you can see the swellings of today’s impenetrable political bubbles.

The saddest thing about this elegiac documentary may be the credit it extends its audience. “The Vietnam War” still holds out hope that we might learn from history, after presenting 18 hours of evidence to the contrary.   "
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2092 - Sep 18th, 2017 at 10:33am
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“What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there,” he says. “All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another.” - Keef
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2093 - Sep 18th, 2017 at 4:00pm
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sirmoonie wrote on Sep 11th, 2017 at 9:44pm:
I did shrooms in Toronto, Canada once.  Went up that big ass stupid needle tower they have.  I shroomed the fuck out of that tower.  I puked in the stairway and blamed the Mongoloids.

Canadians are drunkards.  They stumble around drunk.  It's disgusting.  I prefer people with purity of heart and soul.  They need to rise up, these Canadians.



Our national hero:




This guy comes in a close second

...

WINDSOR, Ont (June 30, 2013). — There seems to be photographic evidence that Windsor’s John Morillo really did swim clear across the Detroit River and back again.

Images provided to the Windsor Star appear to show the 47-year-old Canadian emerging from the water at the Renaissance Center on the Detroit side of the border — just as he claimed last week.

Markus Wolfstetter, a passerby, said he took the pics — including one side-by-side with Morillo — on the night of July 22.

“In fact, I’m the guy … who told him where the ladder was,” Wolfstetter said to The Star in an email.

“When he first came ashore, he expected to be arrested and waited over 20 minutes for authorities to apprehend him.”

The photos show a wet, shirtless and smiling Morillo at what appears to be the Renaissance Center’s riverfront railing.

Wolfstetter described Morillo as “slightly drunk, but extremely cordial, and more amused with himself than proud.”


Handout /Postmedia News
Wolfstetter said he and other observers also grew amused when it became apparent that Morillo’s arrival had gone unnoticed by U.S. border patrol.

According to Wolfstetter, the main reason Morillo decided to swim back to Canada was because no one on the U.S. side stopped him.

“He seemed to have no interest in fame,” Wolfstetter said. “We repeatedly asked if we could contact someone on the other side to verify he had made it. He said he didn’t need the attention, and was satisfied proving it to himself.”
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2094 - Sep 18th, 2017 at 9:32pm
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sirmoonie wrote on Sep 10th, 2017 at 1:31pm:
I'm not too interested in Vietnam, Joe Hat.  On account of us losing and all.  When people bring up Vietnam, I change the topic to how we kicked some Southern butt circa 1865!





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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2095 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 7:59am
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Moonie.....Canadians don't puke.....lol....Couldn't handle the CN Tower on shrooms? My man you need some practice.
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"Runnin Like A Cat In A Thunderstorm"
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2096 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 3:21pm
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As you know I am no fan of Trump. However his speech at the UN was spot on and about time that room full of ass lickers got an ear full. I calls em as I sees em.
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2097 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 3:40pm
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gimmekeef wrote on Sep 19th, 2017 at 3:21pm:
As you know I am no fan of Trump. However his speech at the UN was spot on and about time that room full of ass lickers got an ear full. I calls em as I sees em.
Smiley


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“What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there,” he says. “All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another.” - Keef
 
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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2098 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 9:19pm
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gimmekeef wrote on Sep 19th, 2017 at 3:21pm:
As you know I am no fan of Trump. However his speech at the UN was spot on and about time that room full of ass lickers got an ear full. I calls em as I sees em.




<  ---------- Gimmekeef   ?!   ... !!!!   :





http://www.omaha.com/opinion/david-ignatius-trump-gives-a-conventional-u-n-speec...




" David Ignatius: Trump gives a conventional U.N. speech  "




" NEW YORK — When you discount the rhetorical overkill, the most surprising thing about Donald Trump’s address to the United Nations Tuesday was how conventional it was.


He supported human rights and democracy; he opposed rogue regimes; he espoused a global community of strong, sovereign nations. Pretty shocking stuff.


Because he’s Trump, the zingers got the headlines: He repeated his childish, snarky (but sort of funny) playground denunciation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission.”



And he offered a bombastic threat that if North Korea attacks the U.S. or its allies, “we will have no choice but to totally destroy” it.


OK, got that: It’s a restatement of the existing U.S. policy of nuclear deterrence. Trump also thanked China and Russia for their diplomatic help and pushed them to do more.


He said the Iran nuclear deal was “an embarrassment” and its regional actions were a “scourge,” but he didn’t say he would tear up the deal. He appealed to the Iranian people, without exactly calling for regime change.


He checked all the hard-liner boxes, in other words, without making any new commitments.


It was a well-cooked pudding, the sort of speech Trump might have given at his inauguration back in January if he hadn’t been so angry. Back then, he spoke like a wrecker (raging about “American carnage”). Now he’s using the alliterative phrases that are speechwriters’ earwigs, as in calling for “a renewal of will, a rediscovery of resolve and a rebirth of devotion.”


Stirring, pleasant to hear, otherwise incomprehensible.


Trump even had one of those JFK-style false-dichotomy “ask not . . . but what . . .” passages when he talked about the choice between lifting the world to a new height or letting it fall into a “valley of disrepair.”


The speech was reportedly written by Stephen Miller, aka Darth Vader among many in the mainstream media, but this seemed to be Miller 2.0, and perhaps the language left his now-deposed mentor Steve Bannon gnashing his teeth: What happened to the insurgent populist Trump who talked a year ago as if he wanted to topple the global order? On Tuesday, Trump seemed instead to embrace an updated version of it.


Trump’s address offered a heavier dose of nationalism and self-interest; he wanted to root collective action in sovereignty and reciprocity, rather than a vaguer “globalism.” He spoke about righteousness defeating evil, a “great re-awakening” of nations and other fuzzy Reaganisms.


But at its core, this was a speech that any president since Harry Truman probably could have delivered. (Interestingly, Trump twice favorably mentioned Truman, the haberdasher from Kansas City whose stubborn common sense shaped the liberal order.)


Trump was something of an interventionist in his remarks. He wanted to bash not just North Korea and Iran, but other undemocratic rogue regimes as well, such as Cuba and Venezuela. He spoke up for human rights, decrying the authoritarian nations on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Trump even invoked the Marshall Plan, the very cornerstone of the liberal international order. He added a Trumpian touch, saying it had been built with “these beautiful pillars” — sovereignty, security and prosperity. He was right in that, as in saying that North Korea shouldn’t be America’s responsibility, because “that’s what the United Nations is for.” (Warning to base: Has POTUS been kidnapped by the black-helicopter crowd?)


Watching Trump give his biggest speech since the inaugural, I was modestly reassured to see him operating within the four walls of rationality, albeit reading from a teleprompter. “Rocket Man” aside, the tone seemed a bit like last week’s bipartisan legislative opening to Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.


After a miserable nine months, Trump is sick of losing. He wants to “win,” and he evidently has realized that he can’t do so with a collection of right-wing outliers as his only allies. The U.N. speech, especially its repeated emphasis on the U.N. itself, struck me as the international version of his rebranding.


So what worries me about the speech? Oddly, it’s precisely that it was so conventional.


If Trump is going to deal successfully with North Korea, he’ll truly have to think outside the box. If he wants a better, longer-lasting deal with Iran, he needs in some way to engage that nation and its people.


And most of all, Trump needs to bring America with him in making a reformed United Nations a place that actually solves problems. The Great Disrupter says he wants to revive the global community and make it work better. OK, Mr. President, let’s see what you’ve got.  "

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Re: Politics thread (ssc!!)
Reply #2099 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 9:22pm
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sirmoonie wrote on Sep 3rd, 2017 at 3:06pm:
WTF???  I mean, what in the name of J. Christ is this?!?!  My god.  It's like that summit we had a few years back and a few of us are trying to listen to some music, and the rest of you self-styled "bozos" are out in the hallway, jumping up and down, playing slap ass, and try to pull the goddam balls out of each other's pants!  In a crowded hotel full of profiteers!  I've fucking had it with this stuff.  This is repugnant.




...
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