FINALLY
FINALLY
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
My trip to Australia, and being in a bus with people from various countries in Europe really made it clear for me, in that:
-Americans don't have the reputation that we thought we had (although everyone wanted to visit America... after Trump was gone... and mostly coastal cities and Vegas)
-Europeans in college have it WAY easier. They're in college AND traveling the world???!!! This amazed me.
-Europeans lumped in the Canadians right with people from USA, strangely enough. "There's always two Americans on these trips." "I'm from Canada." "Same thing."
Not trying to unearth something that was put to bed, and thank you for apologizing. But I just wanted to back Duke up a little here because I feel like he's often out on his own on things like this.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
I'm perfectly fine if people want to dunk on America. It's the same impulse I have to dunk on the Patriots when they lose (sorry Duke). But it's never cool to stand on the outside looking in and tell someone "Wow...how embarrassed are you to be you right now? It must really suck. Is this the worst you've ever felt? If not, it should be." Well, maybe, I dunno. It's complicated. But nevertheless that ain't up to you to decide!
I get the criticisms, but I'm not letting anybody tell me how I should feel to be an American right now. On the same day that shit happened at the Capitol, my state (Georgia), just followed up a November blue flip after decades of being red by beating the odds and electing two Democrats to the Senate to give Biden the majority. I voted in those elections and I volunteered at the polls and it was awesome! Trump has monumentally fucked up COVID, but every day I work with dozens and dozens of people who are still trying to save lives - both in the U.S. and abroad.
It's been a mostly demoralizing year. But the best way to convince me to feel good about being an American is to suggest I should feel bad about it.
I stopped believing in America after Bush stole the election in 2000. The Iraq War killed the last bit of legitimacy this country had.
Blog!
And it's happened once again
I'll turn to a friend
Someone that understands
And sees through the master plan
But everybody's gone
And I've been here for too long
To face this on my own
Well, I guess this is growing up
I dont feel anything about being an American, good or bad. I was just born here. And no politician has represented me or my morals in my lifetime, so I'm not embarrassed by them because I have nothing to do with them. I understand how both meg and duke feel but I dont really feel either way.
I view it as "ugh, that show on CBS really sucks you guys must be really embarrased" and "hey not every show on CBS sucks fuck off I just build sets" and me over here watching NBC not even watching what show you're talking about.
As much as I laugh that Trump is deplatformed I feel that Big Tech has way too much power in this country and should be trust busted. Still he couldn't even go one more day without violating terms of service.
Blog!
And it's happened once again
I'll turn to a friend
Someone that understands
And sees through the master plan
But everybody's gone
And I've been here for too long
To face this on my own
Well, I guess this is growing up
Also a good article covering the Wednesday shit show: https://www.theroot.com/for-black-pe...mpression=true
Blog!
And it's happened once again
I'll turn to a friend
Someone that understands
And sees through the master plan
But everybody's gone
And I've been here for too long
To face this on my own
Well, I guess this is growing up
I think social media websites are private companies and have nothing to do with freedom of speech.
That's true. I remember many of us trying to tell those who cheered the Supreme Court cake baking decision that it would be used against them. The same principle seems to apply here.Quoting Skitch (view post)
Blog!
And it's happened once again
I'll turn to a friend
Someone that understands
And sees through the master plan
But everybody's gone
And I've been here for too long
To face this on my own
Well, I guess this is growing up
Exactly. Cant have it both ways.
Correct.Quoting Skitch (view post)
People often (wrongly) think that freedom of speech means they can say whatever they want without social consequences.
The government cannot kill you or put you in jail for saying things. That's all freedom of speech means.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Bingo
This is kind of bullshit and has been criticized since several of them have been labeled monopolies by countless state and federal district attorneys. Monopolies are illegal. There also tends to be a creepy monothink in Silicon Valley. The same day Trump was kicked off of Twitter, Apple and Google kicked off Parler on their app stores. It should concern anyone that this level of "dude, just use another platform" or "dude, just create your own twitter" when companies will actively work to snuff them out should alarm anyone that believes in free speech on the internet (or free speech in general). Apparently Parler uses Amazon servers and if they get kicked off of them, they are effectively ruined as a platform. Along with banks and paypal freezing your accounts, we have a handful of massively, massively rich and huge companies (Google (Alphabet), Amazon, Facebook, and Apple) that wield enough power to cut off smaller companies at the knees. I did contract work for Google setting up lights and video for a Masters of the Universe conference in San Francisco, and the amount of money they have to throw around for shindigs like that is unreal. They are richer than dozens of actual countries in the world.Quoting Skitch (view post)
Glenn Greenwald's most recent article is worth a read:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/vio...dangers-in-bbe
Last edited by Pop Trash; 01-09-2021 at 04:44 PM.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
I think there are two differences between the Civil Rights Era in the US and the present that are related to one another: Rising inequality due to the neoliberal economic policies of the past forty years and the increasing use of military hardware by local police forces. As inequality has gone up, state violence has become proportionately more spectacular in nature in order to subdue to the populace and protect the economic interests of the ruling class. In other words, the violence that the US government has exported globally to sustain its empire is increasingly being directed at its own citizens, although we're not yet at the point where the police start dropping napalm on American cities--presumably because they don't want to damage private property. This is one reason why many Americans seem to have a more realistic view of their own country now than they did just a few years ago: as US state violence has become more visible to the domestic population (most of whom are probably unaware of American war crimes like the dropping of white phosphorus on Fallujah during the Iraq War)--and as the difference between how the police treat peaceful black and indigenous protesters and how they treat armed white supremacist mobs has become even starker--the gap between perception and reality has become proportionately narrower in the population at large.Quoting Scar (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
But isn't that the endgame goal of America's entire economical strategy? For corporations to be able to grow and thrive to a point where they are so huge and have so much money they are almost indistinguishable from government?Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
Seems to me that is capitalism 101.
And the law may state that monopolies are illegal, but come on...they're clearly 100% OK if the money is going to the right people.
If anything, modern America encourages monopolies.
Last edited by megladon8; 01-09-2021 at 05:08 PM.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Absolutely, but that shouldn't be encouraged. I'm fascinated by the split in the GOP about this since I think for the first time in my life there are conservatives arguing against abject power and wealth in a few companies. There's never, ever been a bigger split between Wall Street (record high today of over 31K on the Dow Jones) and Main Street (locally owned small biz closing at a record rate, esp. bars and restaurants). Any working class conservative or progressive would have to be willfully obtuse to not see this. It makes the disconnect of 2008 / 2009 seem like peanuts.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
COVID has shown that any anti-monopoly sentiment that remained on western government is gone.Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
The idea that Walmarts and Targets can stay open and are "essential" while small business (who would honestly have a much easier time than big box stores in managing their customer capacities and implementing protective measures) were forced to close, many of them for good, is appalling.
Governments don't want small business. They don't generate enough income for them. They want our streets to be lined with Walmarts' and McDonalds'.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Nah Pop. There was a simple request to Parler from these companies to moderate their users because of hateful or harmful speech. I have no problem censoring anyone or anything who posts shit like this-Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
Agreed 100% Duke.
Inciting violence (especially when things are already so volatile) should be shut down.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Sorry. I'd rather have the 1st amendment not be infringed. As a true liberal (not a neo woke fake liberal) I'm a gun nut for the 1st amendment. The goal posts will continually be moved when we allow lawmakers to dump on our rights.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
100% agree. It's disgusting. Sadly we have neoliberal Democrats that are worse than Republicans on this front. Both of the Democratic governors of California and New Mexico (where I live) shut down small, niche, local businesses for months last spring (and to a certain extent in November and December) while corporate big box stores remained open simply because they have food (and of course Amazon raked in billions). Don't even get me started on the shit restaurants, bars, movie theaters, live theater, and live music have faced. I get that's a separate category of mass crowds in a small space, but it's ironic that these people in the creative arts are lefty progressives and are getting shit on the most by Democrat governors. A live theater company I've been attending for thirty years went under last year. As far as I know they were fiscally sound before covid.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
Last edited by Pop Trash; 01-09-2021 at 05:43 PM.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
You can go ahead and take your first amendment in the street. It doesn't apply anywhere else. The first amendment says I have the right to use racial slurs if I want to. But if I say them while I'm at work at my co-workers, I will be fired by my employer. The same applies to social media. You signed the TOS. You obey their rules.Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
If Big Tech cuts any platform off simply because they agree with 100% free speech, I have a huge problem with that. Parler has said they intervene and will kick people off if law enforcement gets involved. But if you create arbitrary rules about speech, that's not free speech. As people have noted, Twitter seems fine with having actual propaganda from the blue check official account of Saudi Arabia (that thinks "justice" is stoning a woman to death for adultery), but somehow Trump was a bridge too far. It's a completely bizarre and arbitrary system protected by Section 230 laws. Remove those laws and all social media would go under in a matter of days based on hundreds of lawsuits filed against them.Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
Anyone know if a president is impeached (like fully impeached with removal from office, not just the partial impeachment Trump has) is there a clause in impeachment that it's illegal for them to be president again? I would actually support a retroactive impeachment when Biden becomes president if it made it illegal for Trump to take office again if he ran in 2024. Sadly if that were the case, Donald Trump Jr. would probably run and win the nomination as a proxy for DJT Sr. GOP needs to get off the Trump cult of personality, but he remains wildly popular among the base.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
But Twitter isn't the US government, as much as Trump wants it to be.Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
Twitter can do whatever the hell they want, as they are a private entity.
I am a store manager. I can kick people out and trespass them at any time for any reason. It's not the government doing it, and they aren't being persecuted. But it's my right to protect my business.
Twitter has that same right. They aren't the government. Banning someone is their right
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."