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RomaVicta

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by RomaVicta

  1. I agree. Israel's leaders would love for the world to look at the Gaza displacement humanitarian crisis as Egypts fault for not inviting the refugees into their country. That's a nifty trick of moving focus from why there are refugees in the first place. Netanyahu has publicly repudiated Biden. He's daring us to act in certainty that we won't. I'm guessing Ben is counting partially on election year riskiness to help him. The United States should not appear to be anyone's lapdog. Biden has done more than enough for Israel. Get our name off of this slaughter.
  2. Thanks for straightening me out. Porter is a dim light indeed compared to the way you put together an argument.
  3. He forgot to mention the greatest recruiting class of all time! Oh, that wouldn't fit into the brilliance of it's a great job because they are always bad. No matter, I'm sure they'll find a sitting national championship coach who knows how to win national championships next time the job falls open. That sleeping giant will be awake any minute now!
  4. The fat and happy do not seem to make for a risky revolutionary surge. As I wrote elsewhere, it's concerning that we don't even get mass demonstrations about Trump and the GOP. I, sadly, see this going down rather tamely.
  5. She came out looking terrrible. She didn't make sense of her claim. She ignored the rational voice of Stephenopoulos. I'm not sure how to call that a loss for the host. Other people have their ways, but letting Mace repeat the same rubbish over and over was not a losing strategy.
  6. I don't know that there's a plan of any kind. He's just accustomed to dodging trouble. He likely has confidence that he will work his same voodoo on all of these problems. He thinks he deserves absolute immunity right now. He likely fully believes he will be in the White House again where he will certainly claim that. But plan? I don't hear a great strategist when I listen to Trump's rambling from the podium. I don't even get a sense of a particularly keen sense of reality. Just a shameless blowfish using deception to intimidate and fleece.
  7. Yep. I think the worst thing Clinton did was wag his finger and lie about the affair. It wasn't criminal. It was shameful. It's also, as far as I'm concerned, not really anybody's business, but some smart people may disagree. I think the Paula Jones incident was a misunderstanding that led to some form of actual sexual harrassment although I don't believe Clinton had any intention of interfering with Jone's career with the State of Arkansas. It's shameful conduct covered in some way by official policies. I doubt we would have heard about it without right wing bush beating, but that doesn't really matter in the end. Again, disagree all you want. It's that kind of issue. Now let's turn to Trump's shameful and criminal behavior. It's so very public, that there is no need to even enumerate them here. Everybody knows; nobody changes their votes. As short a time ago as Bill Clinton's presidency, the story of consensual sex on the one hand and sexual harrassment where no person was even touched on the other, generated wall to wall coverage on the news and outrage. I don't think that it's simply partisan. The persecution is mostly partisan, but what this says about the American people likely isn't. Who have we become? A large group actually supports this guy. A large group is completely indifferent as far as public discourse or action is concerned. Those outraged and opposed can't even muster themselves to take to the streets. I thought the pussy-hat march was only the beginning. It was the whole thing. 'Tis a mystery.
  8. @statsman @Brian Fantana Fontana names Gaza quite clearly. Statsman, evidently referring to the only proper noun in the exchange, lays the blame for attack on "them" as though he thinks he's writing about the same thing as Fonatana. He's not. Gaza did not attack Israel. Hamas attacked Israelies in Israel from Gaza. If there is a euphemism in all of this, it's statsman's use of the word war to describe what Israel is subjecting the people of Gaza to. Please stop conflating Gaza with Hamas. You're just perpetuating the dishonest, twisted rationale for the annihiliation and displacement of an entire people.
  9. Looks like Ivanka has resculpted her face again. She's got great surgeons. It could be that her face just can't move. Or it could be that she's got stereo sound of two clumsy crooks discussing something neither of them understand.
  10. Accurate. Enourmously late. Congrats for looking beyond the template and seeing the real story that has been obvious for years and years. Let's see if other outlets take up the same perspective. My guess is, if this gets discussed at all, it will be grist for a panel show where sensible people will agree and raving liars will muddy the water. The host will declare it an interesting conversation then, with great relief, move on to something less vital.
  11. No doubt about the complex and being right. They aren't being persecuted, and people don't like them.
  12. Persecution complex displayed before persecution: Everybody is dying to see this match up of unranked teams!
  13. Is this an AI attempt at humor? It's pretty dumb.
  14. That's right. I hadn't thought about this other reason the piece of shit should be in a cell awaiting trial. He encourages stochastic terrorism against officers of the court and jurors. But he's an ex-president!
  15. I always thought the carbon credit thing was sound only in theory. Seems like it would be easy to corrupt it in the way you describe. The buyer just wants to keep polluting and has no incentive to follow up to see if their money is being used as promised. Further, seems like a pretty good kickback scheme could be generated. The surviving families huddling in rusted out SUVs to escape the weather extremes will have plenty of time to reflect on this and hate our selfish guts. Hey, Daddy, I think these seats are real leather. Maybe we can boil them and eat them! I'm tired of chewing on vynyl. We'll feast tonight, daughter! Tell me again what MPH meant. Nobody cared, honey. Not one shit.
  16. I've had a thought for years that the Western countries who've alread obliterated their massive forests should pay Brazil handsomely to protect those forests. I know it's ebil globalism and shit, but why leave the burden of averting an international crisis in the hands of a single country? Pay off the current rapacious destroyers of the forest to kill their incentive for continuing. I don't care if they're evil. I don't care what they are. They're in it for money, pay them and be rid of them. In the breathing space before the next round of exploiters appear, take steps preserve and protect the forests. Fund the local, indigenous peoples in the best way to kill any incentive they have to destroy the forest just to feed their people. The US and the rest of the West have got fat eating up other country's resources. It's time to put back where we can. I know the first instinct of many Americans is to invade, but let's try to throttle back a little on that inclination. Maybe help people instead of bombing them. And put a lot of money into carbon capture if there's any future in it. I'm not well educated on it. Oh, and stop riding around in giant fucking pick up trucks if you're not a rancher or outdoor worker for fuck's sake.
  17. You have to believe something environmental is causing the rise in rate of rapid onset dementia in people under 60. I don't have a link for that, but I believe I've read or heard about the dementia rate from someplace reliable.
  18. On the plastics front which isn't really related to climate, there was a similar POV on a Last Week Tonight episode where Oliver narrated the story of how Coca-Cola and other big plastic users somehow managed to push the burden of dealing with plastic on to the consumer. It's our responsibility to save the unimaginably massive tonnage of plastic they create every day. I recall glass bottles with deposits from the old days. As with aluminum, there was an incentive to collect the bottles and turn them in for a little cash. California has a deposit return on plastic bottles that works pretty well. I was in Europe this past summer and was impressed at how much less they rely on plastic. We don't give a shit, or we feel deprived if anyone wants to change anything. It's pathetic. I'm no great citizen but I buy beverages like colas exclusively in aluminum. It helps fund other recycling and gives me a shred of rationalizing that I'm some kind of fucking hero for allowing an ounce of civic mindedness to penetrate my awareness.
  19. John Kerry was on All Things Considered yesterday. He's been fighting the good fight as a Biden envoy and pledges to continue working on slowing climate change [younger viewers may become alarmed and saddened by the following word. Viewer discretion advized.] warming. Made good points about progress and now focusing on the private sector. I just got sad. I hate that, but it's true. Humanity has handed the ball off on warming to natural processes already triggered by anthropormorphic impact. The permafrost thawing (New Yorker article) releasing massive amounts of methane. The threat to the Gulf Stream due to glacier melting and fresh water added to North Atlantic Ocean. Intensification of wildfires due to weather patterns already impacted. Rising ocean temperatures killing coral reefs and supporting plumes of phosphate triggered micro-organism growth that causes giant dead zones in spots like the middle of the Gulf of Mexico every year. There are others that I'm forgetting. My sources are generally The New Yorker and Atlantic over the last four years or so. What do we get from idiots? You can destroy the lives of our children and their's, but you'll never take our hamburgers! Things will cost more if we do anything. Makes any action de facto evil. It's a socialist plot cooked up by the nanny-state-make-us-slaves Dems. It's not happening. It was cold during the winter. So there. Donald fucking Trump. Rush fucking Limbaugh. Ronald fucking Reagan. (Villain Nixon signed off on the EPA. He's a comparative hero. Let that sink in.) Being right will have never been less satifying than it will be for the girl whose head we patted and then dismissed. But don't worry, it's only Climate Change.
  20. Really? One of the best ever? He's a great character, but such things are not as rare as you suggest. In BoB itself, there are numerous characters important and fleeting that are as well drawn. [Amusingly, I see I mistook the Dick Winters character you name for the Lewis Nixon character. Nixon is at least a match in quality, IMHO, to Winters] This includes Spiers and Malarky and many others including even David Schwimmer as Sobel in maybe his best performance ever. You also seem to suggest that there's no reason to try to clear that bar or even use it as a standard. That's the path to straight-to-video or the worst of the streaming services. @locodos writes: There are many ways to tell a story. We've established where we each stand, but your post did give me an idea for narrative approach. Follow the path of a crew member wounded bad enough to be taken out of action. No one can understand what he went through, let's see a few scenes of that. Maybe he's cleared to return and does not want to. Where does that go? What does that illuminate about the experience? It's another way to take the squadron navigator at the retreat approach. Again, just an idea and example, not an argument.
  21. Very kind. I don't think it makes my opinions any more valid, but I can explain what I mean fairly clearly.
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