Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

It's kind of funny to watch them fail - but my stomach also gets twisted in knots when I think of the power these ass-hats have.

Much like her, I did not see that twist coming.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I do miss Jon. What's the deal leaving in an anal sex reference but bleeping "bullshit"? Censorship rules on TV are really twisted.

You elect a gameshow host its in a twisted sense very logical that your country should be run like a bad reality TV show.

I wouldn't trust Trump to host a show on QVC if he were producing it as well... his incompetence is really beyond question anymore.

Love Devo. Their music always seems happy at first glance, but they have a wonderfully dark and twisted sensibility underlying it all.

I remember this story.

If your job is PUBLIC RELATIONS and you make a stupid post like that on a public forum... WTF did you think was going to happen?

Having read up on the follow up from this story, I don't think she's racist. I actually believe she her when she said she was having a go at white privilege, and to the few people that followed her on twitter, they probably knew her and understood her tone.

But like I said, twitter is a public platform, and devoid of context (one of the many reasons I don't use it), and again if your job is PR, surely you should understand this.

Basically, the takeaway from all this is that twitter is a fucking TERRIBLE platform for any kind of meaningful discourse, in fact, any kind of commentary beyond simple announcements and banal observations.

Sacco ended up meeting Biddle and in the unlikeliest of plot twists, they became friends.

While I agree, being on RT does not mean the story is falsified, but it does mean you can't assume it's not.

When propaganda machines masquerade as news, you're better off just ignoring them, even though they will likely tell the truth every now and then. The issue is you can't tell, without extraordinary investigation, which is real reporting and which is pure propaganda, and which is a mixture. What this means is most people who get their news from these organizations will be constantly misinformed and less knowledgeable about the actual facts, having been duped by propagandists.

No reputable reporter would tarnish their reputation by joining one of these lie factories, IMO. That Chris Hedges ended up here means he made a HUGE mistake somewhere and is no longer working as an actual reporter but instead has become a purveyor of biased opinion.

What I think swayed tens of thousands of voters was the reporting of the underhanded collusion between Clinton and the DNC. Most didn't vote for Trump, they didn't vote for president at all, or went 3rd party.

What happened in 2001-2002 was the administration cherry picked and twisted intelligence to make a case for war against a country that had not attacked us, the intelligence community was not on board for the most part, and many declassified reports indicate they were not at all confident about WMD's or them having any hand in 9/11, contrary to the administrations public and zealous position at the time.....but that is why it is relevant. Trump has shown he'll take his own advice and viewpoint over intelligence professionals, so the idea that he'll lie about, twist, and ignore intelligence reports is relevant....he's already done so and he's not even president yet.

First concert I ever saw live - Mr Roboto in the Saenger Theatre.

Twisted my mind but good for a few months.

I heard what the twist of the movie was and refused to watch it because of its stupidity.
Same happened with 'Lucy' where the premise was too stupid to endure the film.

@bobknight33
why is @newtboy a dumb fuck?

for pointing out that historically suicide bombers have not been exclusively muslim.newt is not disagreeing that radical islamic suicide bombers exist,he is simply pointing out that the practice of bombing in the name of religion is not an exclusively muslim practice when viewed through the lens of history.

the problem is NOT exclusively the religion of islam,the problem is fundamentalist thinking.so while at this point in history it is islam that is the theology that is twisted for a sinister and destructive purpose,the same justifications can be found in ALL religions,predominantly from the abrahmic:judaism,muslim and christianity.

this is not a simple issue,there are many factors to be considered on why people will strap a bomb to their chests and walk into a crowded cafe and blow themselves up.

factors such as:education,employment,community,family structures and most of all...hope.we need hope.all of us need hope but when conditions for normal people are so oppressive and hopeless,people will seek to find hope anywhere,which can be in the form of religion.

look,
words are inert,they are meaningless until someone reads those words..and then interprets them.

this is particularly true when addressing religion.
if you are a violent person,then your religion will be violent.
if you are peaceful and loving,then your religion will be peaceful.

no matter which sacred text you adhere to,be it the quran,the bible or the torah.you will find justification for any and all acts you choose to engage in,be it violent or peaceful.

and THAT is what sargon is addressing!
sargon is dissecting the apologetics of those who are just not getting the plot.radical islam is a problem,a big problem,and attempting to dismiss the underlying factors in order to make a more "palatable" explanation is wading into dangerous waters.

so we can understand the politics and motivation of a young man from palestine who straps explosives to his chest and blows himself up taking innocent civilians with him.we can look at the events that led up to that grievous choice.we know,because there is historical record,how badly the palestinian people are being treated,and have been for decades.the young man was stripped of hope,and the only solace he found was in the quran and so began his radicalization.

it is the politics that always,and i mean ALWAYS,sets the stage but it is the religion that lays out the justification.

which is what newt was basically talking about.
we can use the exact same calculus for fundamentalist christians,or zionist jews.

think about it,how many radicalized muslims live in america?
how many?
deerborn michigan has the largest muslim community in america.now go look at how many suicide bombers are born from that region.
notice anything?

politics is the fuel,religion is the match.

some here may take issue with sargon's take on this situation,but he is making valid points in regards to how some people (mainly on the left) engage in apologetics,while ignoring the larger implications.

if we,as a species,wish to curb the tide of religious fundamentalism and the radicalization of whole communities.then we need to address the politics first and foremost.otherwise this "war on terror" will become never-ending.because the "war on terror' is actually on "war on ideas",really bad ideas,predicated on even worse politics.

today it is islam.
tomorrow it may be christianity,and there is a whole army of fundamentalist and dominionist christians just waiting to be called for their "holy war".

or should i just call it "christian jihad".

Prometheus was almost great, but there were too many "that's fucking stupid" elements. The entire crew was shit, not a single one was likable. At least with the space truckers in Alien, they were all sorts of assholes, but they were likable assholes. In Prom, they were just unpleasant people, doing unpleasant things, while generally being bad people - I hate them all still.

One thing Prometheus had going for it was visuals - Ridley Scott knows how to film a good looking film, I don't really think anyone can argue that. I really hope the story won't get fucked over this time, and I hope it won't just be a retread either. The reason Aliens was so great, is that it did something new with the franchise; prometheus tried and failed to do that well.

Alien 3 was not actually so shit, I think. It made some damn near unforgivable choices in killing off Newt and Hicks off screen, but aside from that I actually liked it. Close to a retread of Alien, but still a twist on it.

A4 was just shit with some good bits in - the many twisted clones of ripley, the Auton, and the aliens in water was all fun things. The rest is garbage.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Covenant, more classic horror, I wager, but with Scott's signature visuals.. we'll see!

As well as that from Charles Dickens, who wrote in "A Christmas Carol":

"Oh, Man, look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

"Spirit, are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. BEWARE THEM BOTH, and all of their degree, BUT MOST OF ALL BEWARE THE BOY, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. AND ABIDE THE END."
(emphasis mine)

Ignorance is a bill that always come due and it comes due like a motherfucker when you will least expect it and can least afford it.

To quote Orwell:

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

Reality is a motherfucker, too: if ignorance is the fall, then reality is the sudden stop at the end.

It does seem like poetic justice if Trump won because of the electoral college and then the electoral college did what they were designed to do and did not award him the presidency.

That's too good a story twist not to happen.

I'm basically done with defending WikiLeaks as well, after the shit they pulled with the leaks of Turkish data. Completely irresponsible, that one.

However, WikiLeaks doesn't need credibility -- the data does. And the data they published vis-á-vis Clinton/Podesta/DNC is, as of now, solid. There was one fake document, but that was shown to have been injected by someone other than WL.

"Strong bias" -- oh, I do have a strong bias. Plural, as in biases, actually. For instance, I'm disinclined to take anything the US intelligence agencies say at face value, given how they manufactured more than one casus belli. I don't put much weight into (un-)official statements in general, but especially since all the misinformation they spread about issues like the coup in Honduras or the actions of Nazi militias in Ukraine.

In this particular case, however, my argument is much simpler: Occam's razor seems much more likely than malicious intent. Propaganda outlets on both sides are run by people. Maybe the propaganda outlet Sputnik intentionally twisted the content of email, or maybe they just fucked up, like people are wont to do. Maybe someone intentionally fed Trump this bad info, maybe his people are just as incompetent as he is.

There are too many parts in this that include people who have more than once proven themselves to be utterly incompetent, or in complete ignorance of even the concept of truth. I don't think Trump gives a shit about truth or facts, he strikes me as the typical blowhard who spouts whatever shit comes to mind, and spins stories on the fly like a 4-year-old when caught red-handing.

No need for a conspiracy there, with all this incompetence, naiveté and plain disregard for facts.

So when they keep on pushing the Russian angle in this, it just seems like a desperate attempt to conjure up the old unifying enemy. Why worry about Russian propaganda when there's plenty on FOX and MSNBC/CNN? Why worry about Russian hackers when you accept the unbelievably insecure method of eletronic votes, partly without paper trails, and completely controlled by private companies?

It's just very strange to an outsider like me to see them focus on perceived external influences when the internals are a complete clusterfuck. And this presidential election is the biggest clusterfuck I've seen in 30 years, which doesn't mean much, admittedly.

That said, we can't just be looking at it from the outside with binoculars, not when people are back to full-blown Cold War rhetoric. When the ruling class in the US and/or the ruling class in Russia start their pissing contests and other forms of grandstanding, it's usually brown people who pay the price, like they have been in Syria for the last couple of years. And Libya. And Yemen. And Somalia. And Afghanistan, And Iraq. And Pakistan.

Personally, all the rhetoric about "standing up to Russian aggression" and similar nonsense makes me keenly aware that the bridge just outside my hometown was constructed with a shaft to place explosives in, to slow down advancing Soviet troops... so yes, I would very much like to bitch-slap all these warmongerers on both sides, but particularly the ones in the US since they are currently the ones racking up the highest death toll.

Edit: I should have made it clearer. Yes, WL is absolutely biased against Clinton and they do seem to act in support of Trump. Assange in particular. Which bums me out to no end, since I actually met the guy in person when they presented WL at the 26C3.

What's (shoulder roll) with (sticks elbows out) all (twists forearms) the (swings hands down towards crotch) weird (lifts arms to shoulder height) arm (makes devil horns with fingers while gesturing) movements (dab)?