... and one more for good measure: The Fury and Failure of Donald Trump by Matt Taibbi

Hell of a zinger right at the start:
"Keeping up with Trump revelations is exhausting. By late October, he'll be caught whacking it outside a nunnery. There are not many places left for this thing to go that don't involve kids or cannibalism. We wait, miserably, for the dong shot."

And it only gets better:
"Trump's early rampage through the Republican field made literary sense. It was classic farce. He was the lewd, unwelcome guest who horrified priggish, decent society, a theme that has mesmerized audiences for centuries, from Vanity Fair to The Government Inspector to (closer to home) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. When you let a hands-y, drunken slob loose at an aristocrats' ball, the satirical power of the story comes from the aristocrats deserving what comes next. And nothing has ever deserved a comeuppance quite like the American presidential electoral process, which had become as exclusive and cut off from the people as a tsarist shooting party."

The number of attacks on this country will skyrocket if Trump wins, simply because it would be far easier to radicalize people after that. Trump and the Republican party are doing everything they can to appease what ISIS wants us to do, making their job easier.

And while this guy was a Muslim, the constant labeling of him as being with ISIS is a bit out there. Yes he claimed allegiance to ISIS, but he also claimed allegiance to Hezbollah, a group opposed to ISIS that is in fact doing a lot of the fighting against them. So it seems more likely that he was taken in by the anti-gay rhetoric of religion (one shared by the far right Christians) and stepped it up to a mass murder rampage.

Nobody would call those guy who took over the Oregon facility Radicalized Christian Terrorists, though that's what they were. They did it in the name of Christ, saying that God was the one who told them to do it. You don't blame a whole religion for an act of a few radical members. The right then complains that regular Muslims don't do enough to protest the actions of those few, but I don't see masses of Christians counter protesting the God Hates Fags people who are protesting soldier funerals, or will be at the funerals of the people killed at this club... in fact I saw the God Hates Fags people there at the scene and there wasn't a big crowd of Christians fighting against the radicalized Christians spreading hate... Matthew 7:5 may apply to their attitude towards the situation...

Not only that, but when you suffer at the hands of cold, calculating oppression lacking entirely in humanistic compassion, when its flashing a badge and looking down on you like lesser than an enemy, but a nothing, a problem, a defect barely worth your time that simply needs handcuffs and a room without a view. The bounds of civil society begin to evaporate, because you no longer have a value to western civilization. Your pursuit of happiness ends and the collapse of your individual capitalist worth plummets.

And then nothing matters. Nothing. I fully understand why some people pick up guns and bombs and go on rampages. Even if it sickens me to consider such atrocity, i get it. Im staring into the darkness and it stares back and it makes sense.

Maybe after years of worthless surveillance, the powers that be will begin to understand this simple and very human truth. Dont devalue other humans.

Ever.

- Capuchin became aggressive after slurping dregs of rum from glasses
- Grabbed knife and began terrorising male drinkers – but not the women
- Video shows monkey scraping roof tiles with the blade before dashing off
- Bar owner was forced to call firefighters to capture rampaging animal
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3451187/

Wow!
That's almost like Red Bull Rampage Unicycle category. Impressive, and seriously ballsy.

@Lawdeedaw

There's so much factually wrong here, I don't know where to begin. Let's start with this:

"That rape and mutilation has been going on for centuries but was significant in the Second Sino-Japanese War, a distinct war in and of itself."

Japan was in a state of almost complete isolation from the rest of the world between the years of 1633 and 1853. Even after the period of isolation ended, Japan was too busy for decades industrializing to be rampaging through China, as you suggest.

Japan DID eventually get involved in Chinese politics and in fact went to war with them in the First Sino-Japanese War... in 1894. There are no reports of atrocities committed by the Japanese military during this conflict. In fact, quite the opposite, Japan would release Chinese prisoners of war once they promised not to take up arms against Japan again.

The subjugation of Taiwan (which was ceded to Japan at the end of the first Sino-Japanese War but resisted Japanese rule) is a different story. However, accounts of what exactly happened are sketchy and most of the information we have is anecdotal. What can be gleaned from these anecdotes is that the Formasians put up a fierce guerrilla resistance campaign and that the Japanese tortured and killed anyone suspected of aiding the resistance. Still, it doesn't appear to have been on the same scale as the massacres which occurred during the Rape of Nanking.

As you mentioned, some of the most awful abuses were done during the Second Sino-Japanese War between 1937 and 1945 (the Rape of nanking occurred during this war). The abuse ended Japan's defeat in WWII.

What you can see here by doing the math, is that Japan's military abuses in China lasted a grand total of 50 years--from the subjugation of Formosa (Taiwan) to the end of World War 2--not "centuries."

Next, let's talk about misrepresentation. You seem to be implying that Japanese textbooks don't say that Japan is the aggressor in WW2 (or previous conflicts). As I pointed out in my last post, that is flat-out wrong. There is ONE textbook that was approved for use that whitewashes the history but that book has been ignored an not used by the vast majority of schools in Japan.

If you want to criticize Japanese textbooks, you could criticize them on the grounds that though they mention the terrible things that Japanese forces did, they don't go into a whole lot of detail. See this article for more information.

As far as Abe goes, what exactly has he said that is so terrible? Yes, he hangs out with revisionists. Yes, he has expressed his opinion that Japan should stop apologizing for WWII and start looking to the future instead of the past. Yes, he has said that the issue of "comfort women" should be re-examined in light of claims that some of evidence of their existence was fabricated. But these are not really radical statements by any means. And many people and newspapers do strongly and openly disagree with his statements, so this idea that Japanese people don't challenge him is completely wrong as well.

Yasukuni is a total clusterfuck of a situation. It is a shrine to ALL of Japan's war dead. This includes war criminals, but it also includes regular soldiers just doing their duty. In terms of Shinto beliefs, all of their souls now reside there. Basically, if you want to pay your respects to someone who died in military service in Japan, you have to go there to "see them."

Abe is a total dumbass (and the press let him know it) for going there because he knows already how China and Korea will perceive it, but on the other hand his going there does not mean in any way that he reveres the war criminals who are interred there. I have no idea what his personal views are but publically he has stated that he and his wife go there to remind themselves about the terrible toll war had on Japan the last time Japan engaged in it.

Finally, as for the link you provided, it was to a year-old opinion piece that lacks context. Abe made that statement at a time when it was revealed that some of the evidence of the existence of comfort women in Japan had been faked. It was later decided that the apology would not be changed. In fact, The Japan Times is reporting that it is likely that Abe will mention that "comfort women" had their human rights violated by Japan in his upcoming address on the end of WWII, so the comparison of him to Ahmadinejad is a bit far-fetched.

I used to pray for this mans early demise, but now I kind of love him. Over the years I slowly downloaded and watched all his films. Every single one of them, with the exceptions of Rampage 1 and 2, were even worse than you could possibly imagine.
But they're still watchable, and highly entertaining if you go in expecting someones college project with a decent VFX budget.

Even if you hate Boll as most humans on this planet are justified to, check out his Rampage films. Seriously the best "rage against society" films that I've ever seen made, not cheesy, doesn't pull any punches, very unapologetic and seriously, for that genre, the best that have been made to date.

The tension was unbearable. I kept waiting for a troll, perhaps a carnivorous animal, or a legion of warriors on a blood rampage.
Could barely watch.

Some days I'm not well.

Within a couple weeks, I expect the kids who made this video to be tracked down and lynched by a mob of rampaging janitors from around the world driven mad by hours of scrubbing permanent ink off whiteboards.

Their leader will be the quiet sort, no one ever would have expected to crack, except he worked at a school where the dean was a militant feminist and the kids didn't have the artistic chops to manage a cat so just put whiskers on a dick.

In the end, though, it all might have been worth it.

So, the Republicans have created a monster, killer robot army, zombie horde, and or virulent disease and it's escaped their control and is now rampaging across the country. Yeah, we all know how this movie ends.

@harlequinn, you do realise that NZ actually has quite sensible gun laws? You can own semi-auto rifles and so on but to do so you need a firearms licence. This includes not only a police check, but the cops will actually come to your house and check that you have adequate storage provisions for your guns. On top of that

You will have difficulty being deemed 'fit and proper' to possess or use firearms if you have:

- a history of violence
- repeated involvement with drugs
- been irresponsible with alcohol
- a personal or social relationship with people deemed to be unsuitable to be given access to firearms
- indicated an intent to use a firearm for self-defence.

To me those are perfectly reasonable and sensible restrictions.

@scheherazade, ah yes, the libertarian argument. I want a gun and fuck everyone else.

Kids getting shot at school? Fuck 'em, not my problem.
Random nutjob mows down a bunch of people in California? Fuck 'em, not my problem.

The fact is that guns do cause harm. The "people kill people" argument is beyond infantile. Of course, people kill people.... with a gun. It's a lot harder to go on a mass killing spree armed with a stick.

Here are the indisputable facts:
- There are some sick people out there. Some are just fucked up, some are in need of help.
- Sometimes these people snap.
- Sometimes when they do, they get a gun and kill a bunch of other people.
- If they didn't have a gun, the harm would be less.
I'm assuming no-one disputes those facts.

Now there are two solutions to this:
- Pro-gun advocates take the position that citizens need guns to defend themselves from this kind of situation. They often argue that instead of taking guns away from everyone, we should focus on either helping the mentally unbalanced or stopping them by shooting them.
- Gun control advocates take the position that if the shooter didn't have access to a gun in the first place, then maybe the whole mess would be avoided or at the very least minimised.

To me, it's a simple matter of practicalities. Option 1 is simply not working. We're decades (possibly centuries) away from completely understanding mental illness, that's if we achieve that at all. Meanwhile, crazy/insane/evil people are still going on shooting rampages.
And stopping them after the fact? That's pretty cold comfort to the people that have already been killed.

I am genuinely perplexed as to how people don't understand this.
Gun control works. In every other developed country in the world, there are reasonable and sensible laws restricting firearm ownership, and there is nothing like the kind of insane shootings we see on a regular basis in the US.

No-one is arguing that all guns should be taken away. No-one is saying you can't hunt or target shoot or even defend your home if necessary (although again, in the civilised world, most of us have no need for that).

But jesus, maybe you don't need an AR-15 with a massive clip. And is it that unreasonable to check to see if someone is mental or criminal before selling them a gun?

Apparently, in the US, it is.

Again, you are making this out as they are being treated inhumane. In my example of the bakery. They couple that owned it didnt have any problems with the people. They just didnt want to be associated with a gay wedding due to their beliefs. LGBT in turn, ran them out of business because they didnt believe in their lifestyle.

The LBGT is nothing but a mafia type organization. Eventually they will be exposed for what they are.

I also dont want this topic to be about me vs the gay community. I could care less if some dude wants to suck another dudes dick or two ladies scissoring. If gays want to get married, godspeed. However, dont you dare tell me what I should or should not think about that. To me, the bigotry within the gay community is running rampage. They SHOUT that they arent being treated fairly but yet they do most of the persecuting.

Until all that dark shit you have been suppressing finally overwhelms your armour of contempt and you either:

A. Have such a cripplingly dark and nihilistic episode of backed up depression you finally kill yourself.

B. Break all the way through to a state of catatonic schizophrenia and need to to institutionalised.

or

C. Snap the other way and go on a self righteous violent rampage (think "Falling down" on a smaller scale)

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche


"The abyss" (of the futility at the core of the human condition) will never be your friend. Embracing it will only blind you to the entropy you are now helping to facilitate.


I'm a student of Epistemology (philosophy) and I'm absolutely no stranger to nihilism. It's a crucible anyone that wants to understand "reality/truth" has to go through. But its only 50% of the equation and offers only futility and darkness.

The other side is simple: if there is no God or ultimate truth then we ourselves are as Gods because we can choose our own purpose and reality (to a point mind!). Life can be virtually anything you want it to be.


Now on some level what you have quoted/suggested there would fall into this category, you would be making a positive choice to define your own reality. However the reality you are defining is a mirror to the abyss you are trying to escape, it is akin to trying to fight a monster. You will surely become/have become the monster you are fighting.

How do you think the monsters that make one feel so depressed in the 1st place come into being? They were staring into "the abyss" too!



Do you just want the depression to go away for a while? Or do you want to replace it with something beautiful instead? (or was this whole thing a Joke that I missed?)


Philosophy/pshychobabble aside what you are describing there basically = shunting all your negativity onto others around you. "If I take out all my shit on other people I don't feel so bad".

This seems like a less than ideal solution and is basically what one of my best friends does when he feels down. When he does so it makes me and others that know him seriously question why we put up with him.

I have nothing but sympathy for people that feel that "special darkness", but taking it out on others is not something I'm willing to tolerate from people I know. It's the main reason half of us are in this mess in the 1st place. People who don't give a fuck how the things they say and do will affect those around them, are pretty hard to keep giving a fuck about . "An eye for an eye will blind the world"

@jonny - I'm pretty much with you. These same "dilemmas" were presented to me in a college class (Psych? Philo?) and I objected to the 2nd one on the basis that I can't imagine a bystander fat enough to reliably stop a train, and if they were I wouldn't be able to push them off a ledge.

The TA that was teaching the class said that the idea is to just treat it like a Newtonian Physics problem (ie., everything is a frictionless sphere or make all assumptions to reduce complexity wherever possible). In the scenario, just accept that you KNOW that you are capable of pushing the dude off, that you KNOW he will stop the train, and that you KNOW that you have insufficient mass/strength to jump off yourself and stop the train.

I get how that limits the variables and therefore draws a more concrete difference between various answers to the situation, but to me it also limits the interest I have in the question. My brain doesn't work that way, my problem solving center engages automatically and tries to find pitfalls and assign success rates rather than just "assume this will work".

I think I'd rather see the situations / dilemmas reworked to have a more realistic expectation of success. Maybe something like a rampaging lion on the loose, and you can swing a door currently blocking a room with 1 person inside to instead block a room with 5 people inside (situation 1); or you are above a hallway with a lion running towards 5 people and have an opportunity to push somebody into the lion's path which would give the 5 people enough time to run out of the hall and lock a door (situation 2). I think my "hungry lion" dilemmas have fewer physics pitfalls than the traditional train dilemmas.

Yeah, you do that. Bend over backwards and do whatever they want. I hear that works out super well.

I have tried this, years ago, both ways (me as gunman and defendant) at the same distance as this video. The gunman reacts too slow every single time (as others have pointed out).

You're half right though. A well trained armed assailant won't close the distance like that. In which case every situation is different. If you think they are going to kill you anyway, i.e. they're on a rampage or you think they'll murder you after you do what they say, then it's time to man up and do whatever you can to stop them and every scenario will be different. You can't outrun a bullet and so running away may not be an option, in which case would you rather be found with a bullet in the front of your body as you attempt to stop them or in the back of your body as you tried to vainly run away?