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SpiralOut

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Posts posted by SpiralOut

  1. Oh, shit!  Hugo!  Quick!  Get the firing squad ready mah dood!  More traitorous action by our current President and his cronies!  We're bending so far over backwards for Putin it's just obvious at this point that Trump and Rand and everyone not with a D in front of their name are secret Russian agents!  They're in cahoots!  Cahoots, I tell you!

    Even more sanctions directly tied to Russia's bad actions. Also, Hugo suffers a setback on trying to be the leftist, Surl version of Alex Jones

    • Like 1
    • Haha 2
  2. 57 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

    No shit I don’t know. I’m don’t work for any intelligence agencies. Dismissing what happened and continuing to give Russia a pass publicly undermines our own national interests. 

    The number of passes you and yours give to this admin is fucking ridiculous. It’s not my job to protect American elections, it’s the presidents.

     

    Trump doesn't say the right things, but so far his administration and the Republican controlled Congress has kinda dropped the hammer on Russia.  More sanctions.  Expelling diplomats.  Closing a consulate.  Killing their people in Syria.  And we're supplying weapons to Ukraine.  All while trying to improve diplomatic relations with Russia and convince them to stop acting like assholes.  As unpalatable as it may be, you can't just ignore the problem and/or paint Putin and Russia as some rogue state.  They've got a lot of nukes and wield a lot of power and influence. 

    And I forgot, we're actually doing the smartest thing which is going after Putin's power base and money supply.  How Hugo doesn't know this considering it's his mission in life to live politics, escapes me.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/us/politics/trump-sanctions-russia-putin-oligarchs.html

    It's like with the North Korea shit.  You guys get bent out of shape because Trump even deigned to talk with Kim.  You act like it was the end of the world that Kim got a picture with the President.  So what should we have done instead?  Demanded the world from Kim and given him an "Or else" ultimatum?  Or just kept talking shit about him and not tried to advance a diplomatic solution while just doing like we have been for the past 50 years and sitting on our hands? 

    Russia isn't in a better place today than they were under Obama.  They blew their load on meddling in our election when Trump was going to win anyway because tired ass Hillary couldn't get her pecker hard enough to campaign in Ohio, Michigan, etc.  Now they're under the weight of a ton of sanctions, we're stopping them in Ukraine, they've become persona non grata in the civilized world, and you all are upset because Trump is keeping lines of dialogue open while not calling Putin a meanie poo-poo head.  And of course, none of us know what our intelligence services are up to in regards to Russia.  I sincerely doubt they're just whittling their time away ignoring the issue.  

    I didn't realize how many neo-cons we had here on the Surl.  We've only been at war for like 98% of our country's history.  What's two more with the Norks and the Ruskies?  Maybe we'll actually get to shoot off some nukes this time!  You can't just call everyone that you dislike or who fucks around the devil and shut them out.  Geopolitics doesn't work that way.  Especially when the other side has 10,000 nukes.

    If there's a place to bang Trump on his message it isn't what mean stuff he doesn't say about Russia/Putin.  It's what he actually does say about our allies in NATO, etc.  Though my guess is that comes down to them raking us over the coals when it comes to footing the bill for military expenses while they don't pay their fair share.  Maybe talking shit about them is a bad tactic, but I doubt it comes from a "we like Russia more than Germany, etc." place.

    Quote

    We are already at peace.  And there is really no threat of war, unless Trump creates it out of nothing.  And BTW, it's the president's job to lead foreign policy.

    The fuck?  Hugo, hobbes, and just about every liberal in the country wants Trump to ramp up the rhetoric on the evils of Putin and Russia while also ignoring and not engaging diplomatic efforts with North Korea.  So how is Trump going to create it out of nothing when he's the only one trying to engage in diplomacy with these foreign powers? 

    I mean, is that your guys' plan for foreign policy?  Act like the opposite side is evil incarnate and that they must be stopped at all costs?  Constantly shit on them to the entire world and drive further wedges between us and them?  Is that a successful strategy in ya'lls minds?  Because it sounds stupid as fuck to me.

    • Like 3
  3. 21 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

    Jones is a Weekly World News type.  He found his niche and has figured out how to make a living at it.  The problem with that niche is you have to get ever more outrageous as you go.  If you don't, people get bored and quit reading you.  Weekly World News finally reached the edge of outrageousness and couldn't keep up with the changing way that people consume media and went out of business.  Jones learned the lesson and has to continue to get further and further out there to keep his audience.  At some point a ways back he crossed the line, and they finally realized they need to actually enforce the lines in their TOS if they want to stay in business.  

    THIS is how you go after Alex Jones.  Not with huge, influential corporations playing politics on who and who doesn't fall under their "position-neutral" rules of conduct.  But with regular, everyday people who have been harmed by Jones taking him to court and kicking his ass.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/business/media/alex-jones-free-speech-not-protected.html

  4. 18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Let's translate this to someplace where we have a clear and understandable track record: talk radio.  Right wing talk radio has FLOURISHED.  The left tried to create a version of it....and it was DOA.  There just isn't that much of an audience for a leftist version of Rush Limbaugh, or Alex Jones.

    The olds vote Republican.  The olds are the only people who still listen to regular radio.  I could flip your argument around by mentioning how leftist politics has FLOURISHED on late-night TV with the likes of Colbert, Kimmel, etc. 

    Also, isn't it odd how all of these corporations considered people like Jones A-OK while Trump was just a goofball on TV and Obama was in office?  They had no problem profiting off them then.  It's only with the rise of Trump and the increasing popularity of idiots like Jones that now something needs to be done.  Funny how that works.

    But it's all position-neutral policies, right?  These policies have been in place for years, they just happen to be kicking in now in the Age of Trump.  You gonna try and sell me some ocean front property in Arizona for your next trick, Brisket? 

    Personally, I'm all for people, ya know, acting like adults.  If someone says some stupid, awful shit you either ridicule them or ignore it.  Silencing them just gives them credibility while also setting you up to be silenced in the future. 

  5. 2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

     

    Well, the problem is....there really isn't a significant group of nutbar leftist voices using these platforms (Youtube is a great example).  I mean, it's like asking "if they would call holding on both teams, it would give the refs more credibility"....but one team is blatantly holding 5 times on every play, and the other team is well-disciplined and hardly holds at all.

    I remember a trial once where opposing counsel finally lost it, asking the judge "will you instruct him to stop objecting so much?!?", to which the judge replied "well, when you stop doing things that merit an objection, I'll do that."

    The position-neutral rules that these providers have -- things like no hate speech, no clear defamation, etc. -- those are good rules.  If you can't present your position without violating those terms of service, then the problem is YOU, not your "side."  I'm sure that if someone on the left is stupid enough to post videos about how Trump is a lizard person who smells of sulphur and feasts on the flesh of infants, that person would be banned too.

    Yeah, I think you're showing your age here, Brisket.  I don't think anyone on the left has Jones' level of followers, but there are plenty of downright horrid people getting to freely express their horseshit who never get touched.  I mean, the Asian chick hired by the NYT is just one example.  She's clearly as racist as it comes and Twitter hasn't done a thing.  Meanwhile, that annoying black conservative gal takes the Asian chick's posts and replaces white with Jewish or black and she's insta-banned.  That's a double standard that's built into their algorithm.  Position-neutral rules have to actually be position-neutral.

    Antifa is a legitimate domestic terrorist organization.  They promote the violent overthrow of the government, their followers are actually attacking people in the real world, and they use rhetoric like "Liberals get the bullet, too."  They're ALL OVER these media sites. 

    You mentioned YouTube as being some bastion of no nutjobs on the left.  Except YouTube is partnered with the SPLC.  A nonprofit which clearly has a bias and which has been working to get conservative voices blacklisted on sites like YT. 

    YT and the SPLC

    And your argument just makes no sense.  There are nutjobs on the right like Jones.  Yet, in your mind, there are hardly any nutjobs on the left?  Or are they just technically illiterate and don't understand how to make YT videos or post to Facebook?  Or could it be you're just biased towards them and against the right so you're conveniently willing to overlook their transgressions?

    And just for laughs, here are some videos I found on YT just by searching "Trump is a lizard person."

    Someone ban Jim Carey from social media!  Think of the children! 

  6. 5 hours ago, HOOK'EMHOOAH said:

    Exactly. He is free to spew his hateful bullshit over there, on his own platform (even though it's disgraceful and despicable). Alex Jones' real problem is that his message is that of a deplorable asshole who is spewing hatred; were he to not do that he wouldn't have to worry about such trivial matters like getting kicked off of iTunes, Facebook, and YouTube.

    What would be nice is for those same companies to kick a few of the leftist hate mongers off as well.  Don't turn Alex fucking Jones of all people into a martyr for the nutjobs on the right.  All of them getting rid of him in a day while terrorists still have Twitter accounts, people preaching hate against whitey on their YT channels stay up, etc. is just asking for trouble.

    Prove that this really is a move to limit shitty people and not just politically motivated.  Otherwise, you've just given crazy-town someone they can rally around while making it look like you're just using your rules/policies as a political tool.

  7. 4 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    Call Putin out for the POS thug he is every day.  Invest in a massive anti-Putin social media campaign targeted at the Russian population and surrounding areas.  Make him a pariah in his home town and everywhere else across the world. 

    Or just do like Clinton did in the 90s and work to get your guy elected President of Russia by funneling millions of dollars to him.  Of course, since it's Putin running the show over there, that'll probably involve a lot of "wet work" to go along with the cash.

  8. https://twitter.com/BevHillsAntifa7/status/1026015575045095424

    More of bad_teammate's favorite people in action.  Two dudes, walking down the sidewalk, who have zero affiliation with any right wing groups.  They're just out and about.  One of them gets a bottle thrown at their back.  Then, an antifa LARPer comes in and sucker-punches one of them and then runs away.  His buddy then proceeds to pepper-spray the guy while he's on the ground.

    Dude on the ground who got sucker punched?  Yeah, he and his parents are Democrats.  Good job keeping those Nazis in check, you edgelords. 

     

  9. I'm a frequent listener of Joe Rogan's podcast and he had Lance on awhile back.  Rogan didn't press him too hard on his doping/lies, but Lance was basically just making excuses the entire fucking time.  Dude hasn't reformed at all because he's a sociopath.  He'll say some shit to try and sound like he realizes what he did was wrong, but it's just a facade.

    I remember catching SO much fucking shit from some posters back on the Shag when I claimed he was a POS before all his shenanigans got exposed.  People did not want to believe for a second their spandex wrapped hero was actually a shitbird. 

    • Like 1
  10. I used to quite like Warren even though she's a Democrat.  Then she kinda showed that she cares more about playing the game than being true to her principles.  She talked about how Hilldawg flat out lied to her face and fucked her over, but guess who was squarely in her corner this last election?  Warren had nothing negative to say about that evil bitch, even when it could have helped Bernie out.

    And the Native American shit is just silly as fuck.  She should admit she lied/exaggerated to score points and move the fuck on.  Her desperately clinging to it allowed Trump to hit her with the Pocahontas label and make it stick.

  11. 2 hours ago, Disco Missile said:

    This rarely ever works for movies. The best thing Star Wars could do is create new villains. Maul was great. Kylo is fine. 

    Watch the YouTube video Dutchrudder posted and apply that generally to iconic villains.
    Iconic villains are great because they're foils to the hero and exist as a mysterious, creeping malevolence always threatening to destroy the good.
    Featuring the villain forces them into a protagonist role, which requires a lot of baggage and explaining things about the character, which ruins the mystique.

    Besides, there are only a few ways to go with these 'villain as the hero' movies:
    1) you can play it for laughs or make it meta. Think later Freddy Krueger and Jason movies, American Psycho, anything from Tarantino
    2) you can make it really dark, like Taxi Driver, Devil's Rejects, Hannibal, The Shining, etc. but the problem there is that Vader would need to be a psycho, which he's not
    3) you can make Vader a tragic figure, like Frankenstein, Darkman, The Fly, or Maleficent, but this creates a sympathetic villain. Lucas already tried this and failed. It's the hardest to pull off and has never been done with a recurring character. 

    As for me, I like Vader and Boba Fett and every other villain being mysterious badasses. I don't need or want to know what they eat for breakfast, what underwear they prefer, or why they are the way they are. They exist, and they're awesome. That's enough.

    Well, my reasoning would be that at this point Vader's mystique has already been obliterated by the Prequels.  His character needs some rehabilitation.  Like I said, the Vader comic has been doing a phenomenal job with this.  They don't go too deep on what Vader himself is thinking and it's more how other characters perceive him, but it has done an amazing job of molding him back into what he was always supposed to be.  A scary as fuck, rage fueled machine who has no mercy.

    Though I'd be more than happy with them just creating brand new characters/settings inside the universe.  Of course, the problem always ends up being it's Jedi v. Sith, Rebels v. Empire, lightsabers, callback after callback to the OT, and PG-13 nonsense. 

  12. 7 hours ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

    The biggest problem is fans expecting the Star Wars series to be able to create complex, multi-layered stories that carry great weight. They WANT it to live up to their greatest fantasies of this amazing galaxy from long ago and far, far away. But as Sir Alec Guinness famously said of episode IV, "you can fit the story on the head of a pin." That's it. That's the truth. 

    I was 8 years old when SW premiered in '77. Living in small town Minnesota. Parents going through a nasty divorce. SW became my alternative life. After seeing the movie as often as I could I would read the paperback cover to cover repeatedly. It was the perfect escape at a time I desperately needed it. A simple story with easily defined characters & just a hint of a bigger mystery. ESB was the best of the series due to the Kershner/Kasdan influence. Beyond that, you've got a bunch of basic movies doing basic stuff with fancy FX and no new story to tell. 

    You absolutely could tell amazing and complex stories in the Star Wars universe.  The only problem is, you'd have to give up this whole market tested, appeal to everyone, make sure the parents can watch it with their kids, and sell lots and lots of toys shit. 

    You want a simple idea that would fucking blow people away?  A rated R film about Vader going around as a rage-machine and killing all the Jedi who escaped Order 66.  Like the Vader comic is doing.  Make it almost a fucking horror movie like Vader's walk of death down the ship corridor at the end of Rogue One.  You could do a deep dive on Vader, his psyche, his relationship with the Emperor and Tarkin, and the utter terror he inspires in those who face him.  Finally let him off the fucking leash.  But Disney will never in a million years make that movie.  Can't be selling Decapitated Jedi Master XYZ to the kiddos.  Can't be making lunchboxes with Vader's horribly burned and scarred face on the front as he force chokes the life out of someone who dared crack his helmet.

    The Star Wars Universe feels small because its massive success has pigeon-holed it into making blockbuster popcorn movies where the good guys always win in the end and light triumphs over dark.  When you try and step out from that even a little bit (like with Rogue One), you're still hamstrung into tying it in to shit that came before.  Because we gotta sell them tickets, sell them toys, and appease everyone with the nostalgia factor.

    Filoni is the only one having success with this IP and its because he's working on a smaller scale so he's not as beholden to all these bullshit rules for the SW universe.  His cartoons are based on the established timeline, but he's made up a ton of great characters out of whole cloth.  He actually made Anakin not suck.  He made the Clone Troopers interesting.  He gave us complex villains in Ventriss and the reincarnated Maul.  Ashoka ended up being a character you could actually feel good about rooting for and her whole arc through to Rebels was great. 

    Great stories can be done in the SW universe.  They just can't be done on the big screen by Disney.  Gotta protect that "We love the kids!" and "we're a family first company!" bullshit while making sure they keep the shareholders Scrooge McDucking into giant piles of money.

     

    • Like 1
  13. 1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

    i totally forgot this.  while i was watching, the instant we see in the truck that she's still alive, i was thinking, "i'm gonna go on the yellowstone thread and ask if i was the only one hoping she did it."

    Yeah, put me in the group who had their fingers crossed that her brains were splattered all over the inside of that truck.

    Of course, they couldn't stop there with the nonsense.  We had to listen to that ridiculous screaming from her once they got back to the house. 

    I don't know if this gal is just getting bad parts or if she's just bad herself.  The only other thing I remember seeing her in was True Detective S2 as Vaughn's girlfriend.  That character was a pain, too.

  14. 2 hours ago, Jack Burton said:

    It's actually incredibly easy when you you're starting point isn't "all politicians are crooks and only want to help themselves" like some angst-ridden melodramatic teen

    Wait, I thought we were talking about these politicians being clowns, not crooks.  Stop moving the goalposts. 

    Do I really need to waste my time linking videos to Republicans holding snowballs on the floor of the Senate to prove climate change is all BS?  Or maybe ones extolling the virtues of "Corch Urban Meyers and Go Gata?"  Or that Guam might tip over and capsize? 

    Or I suppose I could just post a picture of McConnell's face.

    It just never ceases to amaze me how locked in you ideologues are to this two-sided war of the mentally retarded.  You can't entertain any outside ideas that might upset the purity of your never-ending slap fight of failure.  There's is a lot of shit to make fun of Libertarians for, but they (and by extension their ideas) are all ridiculous and not worth anyone's time?  And Rand Paul isn't a Libertarian.  R in front of his name out front shoulda told ya.  So pick someone else as your Libertarian poster-boy. 

    Having at least one real Libertarian in Congress would probably improve the place.  Unless of course you consider the soon-to-be complete takeover of our government by corporate interests and the devolution of our political process to that of late-stage Rome to be a good thing.  Hell, as much as I disagree with her politics, having this gal from New York in Congress who is in her words a Democratic Socialist will probably improve the place.  I've seen this corporate controlled R v D movie my entire life.  It fucking sucks.  New ideas are a good thing.  Even if they just force people to critically think about their own positions.  

     

    • Like 2
  15. Textbook case of being hoisted by your own petard.

    The article is a bit lacking, so if you don't know how this all played out it went like this:

    Actor Mark Duplass who seems like a legit nice dude tweeted that if any of his liberal friends were interested in getting an honest, reasonable, conservative view they should check out Ben Shapiro.  This obviously led to folks on the Left getting the pitchforks out and demanding Duplass retract his tweet and apologize because Shapiro is supposedly a Nazi, blah blah blah.  Gunn jumps in and tweets to Mark that "No one should follow that asshole, Shapiro.  Even his own mother."  Then some Alt-Righters decided to go tit for tat and exposed Gunn's old tweets, which for some reason that moron didn't fucking delete years ago.

    And I'm all for edgy and dark comedy, but goddamn that dude had a LOT of pedo tweets.  

    • Like 2
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