What about a celebrity politician like Warren, Sanders, or even Obama? They all have name recognition and experience.
Abonetti is like nominating Clinton, not exciting and a bit scary for many Democrats and independents, totally divisive, and a reason to go vote for Republicans. Please let's not make that mistake again.

I'll be making my 63rd orbit around the Sun this Halloween if anyone wants to get me one of those in celebration.

But... He wasn't considered a great national figure. He was considered to be a "rich bc he fucked people over constantly" con man who seemed to have less money than he claimed to have.

Do you wish you had attended Trump University? If you said you "graduated" (in quotes because students were not graded" from Trump University, would people take you seriously if you put that on a resume? Would you let someone who graduated from Trump University handle your own finances, knowing they had an education from said school alone?

I don't think so. And that's the crux of all of this. That fake University is the model on which his entire business is built. Say you're giving them the best the biggest and give them something that looks flashy; you'll net a bunch of fools without any good sense of what they're getting into, but pull back the curtain and is the cheapest X Y Z they could sell you at that price.

Similarly, his politics are all one guffaw after another.

Nuclear disarmament from North Korea! Holly shit! Awesome! Ftw! Oh... Wait... You don't have a detailed agreement... What do you mean the word "Denuclearization" doesn't mean the same thing in Korean as in English? Oh, it means they will give up all their nukes because they won't need them anymore because we will get rid of all of ours as well? It's is a made up term from the 90's ??? https://www.npr.org/2018/04/22/604789492/how-does-kim-jong-un-define-denuclearization

Wait, they still have all their nukes and are continuing to produce more? But we had a coin made and everything! And we signed that thing! How could they still be making nukes? We signed a half assed contact! He agreed to my terms that he should agree to keep his nukes until he feels like getting rid of them!

It's just Trump University in nuclear disarmament form. It's a whole bunch of pomp and circumstance. Celebration for celebrations/political sake without any substance. That's why I'm not surprised that they are still producing nuclear weapons and the dumbasses who voted for this assclown are.

This is needless escalation.

First, yeah, a joke on a tv show doesn't warrant a letter from an Ambassador, and is needlessly escalating things.

Next though, Noah's response is unwarranted too, and is needlessly escalating again. Worse still, Noah goes for the throat against the ambassador implying that the ambassador is party to the problem of calling troublesome immigrants African and successful ones simply French.

So, I googled Gerard Araud for a minute to see what I could about where he stood on immigration. That came to the link below after a round of Islamic terrorist attacks within France.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/14/377262623/french-ambassador-to-u-s-outlines-predicament-of-immigration

"France is a country of 65 million inhabitants. There are between 5 and 6 million Muslims. And I guess 99.9 percent of Muslims are peaceful citizens. All the polls are showing their commitment to France. They are French; most of them are born in our country. So the message that we have to send to them is, they are part of the nation. They are a full part of the nation."

So he seems like an ally who already unequivocally put himself out there fully supporting (largely Arab and African)Muslims in the heat of a terrorist attack 3 years ago. So, not so much a fair whether friend only embracing French citizens of diverse backgrounds when they are champions, but in the much much harder time when the press coverage was terrifically negative.

So, the face value reason for the Ambassador's letter of not legitimising the neo-nazi right notion that true French citizens are "white/christian" looks absolutely his true intent.

The escalation here is not to be celebrated, it is needless division between people with the same good cause. The racists don't need the help of the rest of us fighting with one another.

Evidence of people's power is as recent as a few weeks ago in Armenia, where the citizens protested for several days and eventually overthrew the government. They're still celebrating. =]

Government policies have done more harm to blacks than anything else.

John Ehrlichman from the Nixon days. Damn near 50 years ago.

The Housing Act of 1937 Otherwise celebrated for making homeownership accessible to white people by guaranteeing their loans, which led to Redlining. RED Line property which poor neighborhoods ( poor black area) were not allow to get stimulus money.


How fare back do you want to go?

The past is the past.

For the last 50 years Blacks have gained more and more equality and today have no reason not to succeed other than Democrat policies keeping poor people poor.

Wow. Little to no evidence of smoked marijuana having any connection to lung or other cancers.

I must admit I'm surprised. To me it seems like burning something and inhaling the smoke is "obviously" a bad idea with regards to health.

Since the link between tobacco cigarettes and cancer is well established and agreed on by doctors, it makes one wonder what the difference is. Is it entirely the additives that cigarette manufacturers put into cigarettes? If so, why the hell wouldn't there be massive pressure to mass produce additive-free cigarettes at least as an option for smokers?

Also, I guess one (potential) downside of legalization is that the same sort of corporations that knowingly put cancer-causing shit into cigarettes might expand into marijuana territory, potentially trying to put crap into your pot that dispensaries and dealers never have.

Still, overall this is clearly good news for pot fans out there, and will put further pressure on the double standard between legal-but-far-more-dangerous alcohol and tobacco as compared to illegal-but-relatively-innocuous pot. Congratulations! Light one up in celebration (as if you needed a reason).

I'm seriously so bummed out right now. Celebrity deaths don't normally affect me so much, but as someone who loves to eat and to travel, Bourdain was an inspiration in so many ways. The world is definitely a worse place without him in it.

Most of Kimmel's viral videos (except the teary eye ones) are offensive like these. His Mean Tweets segments are the worse. These enable trolls to have a field day to say the most offensive things to celebrity.

I get that celebrities need to eat some humble pies, but not this way. Not cool.

Just plain don't like both Jimmies.

Lol. You're funny.
Ok, in your world, MLK, Ghandi, and Mandela were successful against tyrannical governments because their causes were backed by armed militants and their movements used threats of force not peaceful protests while clearly denouncing violence.
I don't live in that world. What color is the sky there? Do you celebrate MalcomX day there instead of MLK day?

Yeah...we're discussing America today.....but you must go back to when mechanical warfare didn't exist and the military used flintlocks to make an argument that your AK might make a difference against the military. *facepalm

You clearly aren't being rational. Good day.

Bob Durough dead at 94
RIP
*promote to celebrate the author of my childhoods Saturday morning soundtrack

It is very different and poppy compared to previous stuff for sure. I like it in the context of the song, even though overall I prefer Tool's prog/metal melding.

I'm not a Maynard whisperer / expert, but my guess is that there are 2 motivations for the sound of this song/album compared to other stuff.

1) Although Maynard is the vocalist for Tool, APC, and Puscifer (which I haven't listened to much), he kinda wants to keep all those projects distinct. Tool is more dark and heavy, APC is a bit more rock, and Puscifer trending towards some electronic stuff. But that kinda oversells this, because mostly he is putting vocals down onto musical tracks that the members of those bands have already recorded without much or any input from him...

2) From my interpretation of the song itself, he's being (mildly) critical about getting caught up in triviality of celebrity gossip and nightly news instead of paying attention to stuff closer to home. While simultaneously accepting that we all do that, and that sometimes it takes the death of a far-off idol from our adolescence that we'll never meet in person to get us to consider our own mortality.


So the poppy sound with that dark edge right around the corner really fits -- at least to me.

Note Ali (Muhammad Ali), Leia (Carrie Fisher), Major Tom (David Bowie), Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder), Prince, and Brady's Mom (? - Florence Henderson?), all recent celebrity deaths.

Lyrics from https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/perfectcircle/solongandthanksforallthefish.html :

Time is money and money is time
We wasted every second dime
On diets, lawyers, shrinks and apps
And flags, and plastic surgery
Now Willy Wonka, Major Tom
Ali and Leia have moved on
Signal the final curtain call
In all this atomic pageantry

Bravissimo, hip-hip hooray
For this fireworks display
Mind and body blown away
What a radiant crescendo

Ticker tape parade
Our hair and skin like
Like Marilyn Monroe
In an empty wind

Time is money and money is time
We wasted every second dime
On politicians, fancy water
And guns, and plastic surgery
Like old Prince and Brady's mom
All the dolphins have moved on
Signaling the final curtain call
In all this atomic pageantry

Bravissimo, hip-hip hooray
What a glorious display
Melt our joyous hearts away
Under the mushroom cloud confetti

Hip-hip hooray
For this fireworks display
Mind and body blown away
What a radiant crescendo

Hip-hip hooray
Hip-hip hooray

Ticker tape parade
Our hair and skin like
Like Marilyn Monroe
In an empty wind

Time is money and money is time
We wasted every second dime
On diets, lawyers, shrinks and apps
And flags, and plastic surgery
Now Willy Wonka, Major Tom
Ali and Leia have moved on
Signal the final curtain call
In all this atomic pageantry

You can record anything, but please do not pretend to be performing it live if you are not. And if you are forced to pretend, do it in a way that makes it obvious you are pretending, or be prepared to be labeled a fraud and scum of the earth.

If the performances in the video are billed as "celebrity dancing & karaoke" all is perfectly fine.

I find records with one person recognizably singing more than once at the same time weird and uncomfortable, yet hundreds of layers of guitar or synth or percussion noise (by one or two persons) do not faze me. No idea why.

This is all obviously a very pre-sequencer approach to music which must sound really stupid to current computerized generations.