I once again entered the local hipsterplex to watch The Death of Stalin. The trailers before the film established once again that as a glib I was a stranger in a strange land. There was a trailer for a sad looking rodeo movie and a documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsberg which received audible applause from the audience. After the applause I couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of the audience thought of the film and of Stalin. I assume they all disliked Stalin but likely had blinders on for certain aspects of why he was terrible which is a trait I believe the film mostly shared.
The film is directed by the creator of the HBO show Veep. I haven’t seen any of that show so I can’t comment on the similarities. The film’s tone reminded me of a more cosmopolitan take on Monty Python, less loose, less cutting. The Python connection is reinforced by the presence of Michael Palin as one of the minor cabinet members Molotov. The film brought forth a couple chuckles but it didn’t really have any laugh out loud moments. The film mostly explores what totalitarian power does to people, the mind games, the unsure standing and most of all constant fear.
The film begins with a concert performance where Stalin calls the control board and asks them to call back, they do so only to find out he wanted a recording of the performance; unfortunately it wasn’t recorded. The reaction of the control board to this simple misunderstanding is the first example of the constant fear, the crew close the doors and prevent the orchestra and most of the audience from leaving this goes on for a while and a great deal of drama happens for a recording Stalin is likely only to listen to once. Stalin falls ill maybe a quarter way through the film and immediately the now open struggle for power begins before he is dead. In the film there are three main people in the straggle for power and they are arguably the three main characters of the film. They are Simon Beal as Beria, the director of security forces, Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev, head of the party and Jeffery Tambor as Malenkov.
Steve Buscemi’s Khrushchev is pretty much Steve Buscemi, a bit neurotic but not to Larry David levels. Khrushchev has the main character arc of the film. He starts out as one of many ministers and isn’t particularly powerful within the dynamic of the group, but he rises to the occasion and ends up leading the group against Beria. The film seems to present him as the good one, the smart one, the reasonable one, and the film is largely about how the totalitarian system of the Soviet Union under Stalin corrupts him through the horrible things he must do to survive.
Beria is portrayed as the villain, the one who gets things moving and forces a power struggle. He plots, he schemes, and seems to have been preparing for this for years. He is shown as being the most linked with Stalin’s system of terror and violence, but the most willing to openly distance himself from Stalin and the past. Simon Beal’s performance as Beria is tonally inconsistent; at times he is just goofy and slapstick as the rest of the group, but there are other moments where he seems to come from a darker and much more serious movie.
Tambor’s Malenkov is quiet, nervous and confused. He doesn’t seem very intelligent and reminded me of Lurch from the Addams Family, which made it funnier for me when Beria compared him to Boris Karloff. His character isn’t very active throughout the film and the performance doesn’t go very deep because of that. He inherits the position of leader once Stalin dies and it seems like he was put in that position by Stalin as a political pace car for the rest of the ministers.
Strangely, but not super surprisingly, the film doesn’t really address communism, there are hints towards it but for the most part the focus is on the idea of Stalin as a dictator who rules by murder and fear. The film goes into the constant cautiousness and the double think it requires to survive in Soviet Russia, but it never really explores how or why this system came about. One instance where a better understanding of how the filmmakers feel about this would have improved the film, is when we are shown the shabby conditions that Khrushchev and the others live in. Is this to show how even the powerful are poor under communism? Or more likely is this shown as a contrast to the wealth Stalin lives in and how a dictatorship is the ultimate system of inequality?
Ultimately, the film has left me inspired to show my appreciation for this platform to ramble about movies by starting a coup of my own and rise up against the Eternals in The Vortex and post the first and almost certainly last Waterfall Insurance links. I also thought I would try something else new and stay on topic.
- First the real deal.
- And the NY Times. They almost get it right but they throw in a couple lines brown-nosing Mao.
- The NY Times again, so brace yourself against the paywall, this time about Khrushchev.
- And I will end with a music link a childhood favorite. My mom hated this song, especially when my brother would play the video on the living room tv.
Comments
352 responses to “Death of Stalin Review”
Did they airbrush out Jeffrey Tambor entirely, or just from the posters?
Ah, you say he’s in.
Still pretty ironic.
In keeping with the theme, he was unpersoned from the posters.
Look. I honestly tried to stay on topic, but I’m so drunk all your articles are blurs m, so I’ll just say “thank you and good job”.
I’m trying to catch up with you so that we’re on the same page, but this Scotch is not doing it. I need to dranks moar. Hmm, eyes bourbon…
Unfortunately, my nut brown ale just kicked. This means that I’ve only got two beers on tap, a sour, and an imperial stout. It’s a bit warm to try to work through the keg of stout. On the bright side, I did pick up some Fever Tree Tonic and Ginger Beer from the grocery store earlier today.
I’m working on this bottle of The Dalmore, but it’s not doing it. Damn, I wish I had some beer, I guess I could dial up an order on Drizly… but I think I’m going to go back to Blanton’s for now. Keg of Stout? I would be willing to help with that.
I’d tap that.
Imperial stout. Between 9-10% ABV (depending on which calculation you trust more), It was brewed last June, and was just put on tap in April.
Damn, that sounds good.
It is good. I prefer it more in cooler weather though. It’s a homebrew, so I can provide the recipe if you’re interested.
Right now I’m working through some Juicy Goodness and some Smiley Faces. I’ve also thrown some home made wine into the fridge to cool down as well.
I like darker/heavier beers better in cooler weather also. I’ve not gotten into home brewing, yet, but I’m interested. Wifey and I are planning to buy a home (3rd), that we will actually live in. next year, so I’m looking at all sorts of new possibilities, gardening again being the one I’m most excited about. But beer, yeah, I’m into it.
You know, Nephilium an article here about home wine making would be interesting.
*starts Googling making wine at home*
Hyperion: There seems to be a healthy number of homebrewers here, and it’s a good hobby. As long as you don’t count the time, it winds up being cheap as well (I can do my nut brown for ~$5/gallon).
egould310: On the home wine making, I’m a novice. I’ve basically picked up a couple of kits and followed the instructions. Ohio doesn’t exactly have a good grape growing area (unless you like sweet wines), so there’s little chance that I’ll be pressing my own grapes. I’ve order most of my kits from https://morewinemaking.com/ free shipping is always good.
Yeah, it’s very popular here in MD also and there is plenty of businesses selling supplies for it, I just don’t have the space for it in an apartment.
Q ginger beer is the only one for mules.
It’s always stout season.
Damn. Nicely done. I’m just finishing my first beer.
Just poured a Smirnoff, lemon juice, and Perrier.
Cheers, Glibs!!
Lifts glass of Blantons.
That sounds tasty. Crisp, fizzy, tart and boozy.
I just poured a mezcal neat with a Modelo back. It’s shrimp taco night.
Shrimp tacos yum! I’m sautéing chicken thighs in olive oil/butter. Served with asparagus spears I’m going to slow cook in a white wine/cheddar cheese sauce.
I love chicken thighs and asparagus. And cheese sauce makes everything better.
Switched from Sol to Dogfish Head Sea Quench Session Sour. It’s pricey buy damn does it scratch that itch on a hot day.
Uncle passed away yesterday and I have to do much of the writing for the service. Therefore this afternoon I managed to get good and toasty.
Started with a couple of beers, then made myself one of my terrific martinis. Two shots of gin, one of vodka and a half of vermouth, shaken well with three olives. Polished off the last of the Gentleman Jack then switched to goo old No. 7.
Nicely done. And I won’t remember a think in the morning.
… Hobbit
“for the most part the focus is on the idea of Stalin as a dictator who rules by murder and fear”
With communism as the excuse.
Thanks for the review…looks around, now to go off thread:
From the Introduction to the Cato Daily Podcast, Christmas Day, 2017: “At the end of the most turbulent year in American politics and public policy…”
Really? Really??!! I’ll avoid the obvious suggestion to go to 1861, Caleb Brown: try 1968 and 1974 and get back to me.
Cato’s implosion may even be worse than TOS.
I knew Caleb when he lived in Louisville. His middle name is Orion, which says all you need to know about his parents.
Quaker background I believe?
Hunters?
They really don’t deserve their name this point. They need to be the Cataline Institute. Or at the very least the Cisero Institute. I’m pretty sure Cato the Younger’s whole schtick was about not compromising on his principles. Thats all they seem to do anymore.
Or they could become the Cincinnatus Institute and fold up shop.
Give up those sweet cocktail party invites and go back to the farm?
Mentioned it late in the last article, but does anyone have some insight on the prison reform bill that TrumpPutin Nazi is going to sign?
The two main things I can see are (i) increases amount of accrued time for good beahvior – according to TOS, this would result in 4000 federal inmates being released immediately & (ii) prisoners must be housed within 500 miles of their family.
Semi OT. Been looking for a good place to drop this. An interactive map of the Gulag. Everyone here appreciates that it was awful, but I was struck by the sheer size of it and the numbers involved. Also the effort the Soviets put into it during WWII. They were literally in a war for their survival, but still put so much effort into imprisoning millions for thought crimes.
https://gulagmap.ru
Just as impressive, imho, is the Chinese creation of the new Soviet man via social credit score, something that is apparently adored by progs world round.
That is just some scary shit.
The Economist seems to have written some pieces slamming the scheme. Which surprised me, frankly; I thought they’d have considered it an excellent libertarian way to help people make better personal choices.
Twenty years ago, The Economist used to have the best caption editors for their photos. Glib level alt text snarky.
Agreed.
They’ve gone downhill in many, many ways.
150 years to build it up. 10 to totally fuck it up.
What is the story? What happened? I thought they had always been lame and people just were looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.
What is the story? What happened?
At some point they turned Prog.
When I first subscribed, back in ’05 I think, they advertised that they were unapologetically pro-free market and for freedom. John Stuart Mill was occasionally cited positively. With the exception of guns, they were.
Nowadays? I’d be shocked if they said such a thing. It’s been a long time since I saw any positive reference to John Stuart Mill.
Yeah, it was pretty extensive. One of my books on Communism has a map of the Gulag. I think it’s the “Black Book of Communism”.
Death of Stalin Review
Doesn’t sound like a movie I’d enjoy, but I appreciate the write up.
Started watching Magnificent Seven since Death of Stalin ain’t on Prime yet. Two minutes in: “This country has long equated democracy with capitalism, capitalism with God. So you’re standing not only in the way of progress and capital. You’re standing in the way of God!” Oh, good.
We would have gotten it right if it weren’t for the Christocapitalistdeploranazis.
They have a point here. And I for one don’t think capitalism should stand for such slander.
Hah! Nice.
Okay, this movie is hilarious. I thought it’s supposed to be a woke western, but it’s tokenist comedy at its finest.
I take it this is some modern remake.
Never saw the original. It’s got the surly cast of ragamuffin loners, but it’s amusingly diverse. The black
sheriffwarrant officer, the Japanese knife guy, the Cherokee arrow guy, the Mexican vaquero, and then the white Bible-thumper and the white ex-confederate and Chris Pratt, the drunk Irishman.Well the true original was The Seven Samurai, so the ‘original’ western version was an homage/remake itself.
I saw the Magnificent Seven first, on PBS back when I was a little kid, and I’m glad I did because it is good but Samurai is indeed better.
I think the black character in the remake should have been played by Stellan Skarsgård, as a homage to the casting of a Russian Mongol as the Cajun-American and a gay German as the pussywhipped Mexican-American in the original.
I haven’t seen either but I need to see both.
It’s starting to hit home what a dumb premise this movie has. Yes, okay, the point of it isn’t the tactics of the heroes, it’s the heroic stand. Fine. But you’ve got this guy Bogue coming with an army of hired guns to take your town, which, let’s be clear, is about to get turned into a shooting gallery anyway. But you’re fighting for your home against this unrelenting “capitalist” who’s coming in to take what’s yours, because, of course, that’s capitalism, right.
Hey, here’s an idea: wait his stupid army out, dummies. He’s having to pay his hired guns, and he’s figuring on overwhelming your town with numbers. That’s not a small investment. So hie thee into the hills and make him waste his money keeping these bandits camped out. He can’t keep them hired for long. Then you can harry them and melt into the wilderness at your pleasure until they go home. I think we won a war doing that once upon a time. So what if he burns down your shitty clapboard hovels? You can always rebuild, but you’ll be alive, and Bogue will go broke trying to hunt you down.
First of all, if you want to watch a pro-libertarian Western with your leftist friends, the answer of course is Viva Zapata! It’s not as good as The Magnificent Seven but it’s hard not to love it just the same.
That established, perhaps the crops were in the field and the farmers figured it would be worth it to risk a fight that with victory some might survive, to the prospect of complete ruin when Calvera burns their fields. I don’t know, that’s my guess.
I’ve yet to see any of the background characters do anything other than cower, lounge, and now raise a church bell in the least convincing scene so far. THE ROPE ISN’T TAUT. They’re raising what appears to be a big brass thing maybe three stories, and the bit of twin they have goes a little slack between pulls.
Really Connecticut? I expect this kind of showing from Utah, but what’s your excuse?
I’ve got to tip my hat to New Hampshire, damn guys… 40.6 gallons of beer a year?
Yet again, Montana makes me smile
Wisconsin is only #5?
The beer scene here in Idaho is chugging along nicely. And there are thousands of acres of new hop fields.
I’m more happy that we’ve had a couple of small malt houses open up here in the Cleveland area. Understandably, neither of them are selling to homebrewers yet, but I understand one of them is hoping to be able to soon.
Hops I can grow in my backyard, but malting is a whole other level of work.
Would be interested in a similar ranking but in adjusted pure alcohol consumption to throw in the wine and spirits drinkers.
I’ve got to tip my hat to New Hampshire, damn guys… 40.6 gallons of beer a year?
I do my part.
And, now that I’ve seen the map, Pennsylvania is as low as it is because I don’t live there anymore.
I’d like to point out that I moved from NH in 2015, so take those numbers with a grain of salt.
Or a tab of LSD. We are libertarians, after all.
A post Stalin power grab isn’t my cup of tea but thanks for the write up.
Everything from the NYT is smelling even stronger of desperation sweat and fail. Maybe this will stick?!? Please?!?
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/politics/trump-jr-saudi-uae-nader-prince-zamel.html
It was the Arabs what dun it!!!! /NY Times
They are less credible than the National Inquirer yet the pros just keep on reading…..
*progs
*porgs
*gropes
Stick how?
Exactly. This will slide down the titanium Trumpian wall just like all the other garbage has.
As far as I can tell he hasn’t done half of what every other candidate/president has done in my lifetime. They cant make it stick any more than a bank robber can bust a guy for shoplifting. It’s more of a ‘do you really want to go down that road?’ question.
His list of accomplishments and campaign promises met are pretty stunning in comparison. The latest headline on Fox about a tentative trade deal with China to close the trade gap just adds to that juggernaut.
Hey, Glenn Beck even put on a MAGA two days ago.
Great review. As I noted a month or two ago – funny and fairly consistent, but not as good as “In the Loop” or the British political show “The Thick of It” – both of which preceded “Veep” – which I still haven’t watched.
FUCKITY BYE
This guy gets it.
What’s to drank?
Drankin
Choices, choices…
Really, to be honest, I want to open one of these. The aged charred oak barrel after taste of this stuff is delicious.
Pitu Vitoriosa
Dalmore. Good stuff.
Never had aged cachaca, but I like the silver stuff. Pretty ubiquitous when I was living in Miami.
Q, forget about the clear cachaca, the aged in barrel stuff is just as good as the finest bourbon or scotch that money can buy. I have an invite for next year to go on a cachaca tour in Minas Gerais, and looking forward to it. Hope to bring back some premium stuff.
But, I still remember the first time I had a caipirinha in Brazil. We were out at a bar by the beach and one of my wife’s friends bought me a caipirinha. All it was is limes, some other fruit, and clear cachaca. I took a drink and I said ‘holy fuck, this is pure alcohol!’. Wife’s friend said ‘Shut up and drink it like a man’. How the fuck can you argue with that? I just said ‘Yes, mamm’ and drank it like a man. But really, it’s shitty vodka at best. But the good stuff is pure fucking gold.
Yeah it’s just sweetened cachaça with a lime.
Cachaça is made out of sugar, not molasses, so it’s only in the most superficial sense a cousin to rum and is really more like the overproof vodka it tastes like. I wonder whether the same drink would taste far better with Wray and Nephew or another overproof rum; sounds like a much better idea. There’s no reason we have to ape everything the Brazilians do just because they are hot and know how to party.
One thing I can tell you is that they have figured out how to make world class liquor and beer. Devassa and Antartica are better than any American lager and that cachaca I posted a pic of is just as good as the best bourbon or scotch. So they’ve figured out something besides having the world’s hottest women, which by the way I dispute, Latina women are just the hottest women period, regardless of where they are from,
I like The Dalmore. Tasty stuff. I’m into my second pour of Del Maguey “Chichicapa” Mezcal.
Nice choices.
I started the night with beer and will finish with a little wine.
Is it just me or does Bob Costas look like he’s aged about 40 years in the last decade.
The botox can only do so much.
How the fuck do you know who Bob Costas is? Does he have a hockey sportscast I don’t know about?
Some horse thing ran late. But I’m a 49 year old American – of course I know who he is.
Did they have to put down any horses?
And if so, can they shoot them so the horses’ heads jerk back like in the Zapruder film?
Rhywun: here’s the membership option with Streaming for Carlton: https://membership.carltonfc.com.au/international
I assume Collingwood has something similar. The nice thing about it is not only do you get everything live, you can also watch full replays.
Found theirs, thanks. 99 bucks for the season, might be something to consider next year.
And yeah, replays would be essential given the 15 hour difference.
Oh never mind, that doesn’t seem to include streaming the games. The one that does include streaming is similar to yours, which includes the whole league pass. I don’t see an option to stream just one club’s games.
Yeah, sorry. Maybe it was something they used to do but don’t anymore or maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
The conference center at Leesburg blows…and it has rained in biblical proportions…that is all. To the bar
Godspeed.
Leesburg? Florida? I could’ve told you it would blow, just from previous experience with that town.
Count Potato, if you are still around;
4″ 586
6″ 686
4″ 19
6″ 17
6″ 57
7-1/2″ 57
6-1/2″ 29
6″ 629
You will notice that 6″ 19 is not on that list. I must remedy that.
This is also missing from the list- https://www.gunbroker.com/item/771341768
I must be pretty buzzed. I forgot this from my yet to acquire list
http://www.smith-wesson.com/firearms/model-25-sw-classics-6-12-blue
And the model 27
I have to quit thinking about this because the missing list is getting longer.
I’m browsing Gunbroker. I found this and it makes me sad to see what someone did to a beautiful rifle.
Thanks for the response. I’m still here, but I’m half in the bag 🙂
Have you considered a 625 “mountain gun”? Way less recoil than a 29 or 629, with way better terminal ballistics. It’s simple physics, increasing the diameter increases the volume of the barrel. The internal ballistics of a .429 aren’t bad, but .451 is vastly superior. While the internal ballistics of a .357 magnum are just awful. Due to safety reasons the cartridge is longer than a 38 special, which results in severe flash, report, and recoil. It’s just too long and skinny. 9mm/357 Sig are much better. It’s just that revolvers are much more simpler, accurate machines than semi-auto pistols.
Waterfall: “we are shown the shabby conditions that Khrushchev and the others live in. Is this to show how even the powerful are poor under communism? Or more likely is this shown as a contrast to the wealth Stalin lives in and how a dictatorship is the ultimate system of inequality?”
Second one. In a system of total power the top man has all the wealth and holds all of the cards. Even top lieutenants are pushed down as far as possible but kept just above the subjects. It is always that way.
K and others are definitely in an unenviable position – towering apartment blocks kinda near downtown, but with constantly broken amenities – toilets, elevators, etc – but still expected to make it to the office quickly and professionally. I think Buscemi’s Khruschev definitely woulda preferred a little hovel with a working outhouse on the ground floor.
That wasn’t real communism, it hasn’t been tried yet. You know, we know that, because if it would have been tried, it would have worked.
It’s always the same excuses. They know exactly what they are doing. It’s about power and nothing else. Socialism is custom made for power mongers.
The theory is simply too beautiful for this world.
If only we could get rid of human nature.
Communist tyrants: You think we haven’t tried?
Well, they certainly got rid of plenty of humans.
But those were only wreckers, kulaks, and hoarders, so it was OK.
Meh, if the film does not answer this question, I’m not really sure why that’s a drawback as the review (which I like) suggests. There’s only so much you can address in a film. I don’t see why a film cannot plop you down into its setting without showing you how it came about. I don’t know that a film that takes place under Communism, even one that pertains so directly to it, needs to address Communism in a more expansive way. Like I think you could place a film in medieval times, and even have it be about various characters engaged in a feudal power struggle, and create a very satisfying movie by taking you into the middle of what it takes for a person to survive and win in such a world, without really addressing anything like the origins of the feudal system or even really being “about” feudalism in any more comprehensive a sense than what’s required to show off the characters.
Agree – take the wonderful “Die Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)” for example. It’s about Communism, but not about it.
Thirded. “Die Leben…” is a great film about life under communism. Grey, cold and soul crushing.
“Goodbye Lenin” is a good, and funny, film about emerging from the grey life under communism into the technicolor life of western euro freedom.
“Das Leben der Anderen” is great. I will join the parade of people recommending it.
Second on “Die Leben der Anderen”. Great film.
Shit. Fourthed.
Just join the Crazy Train.
Wow, that was an awesome tune for 1982.
Where is the think piece about what The Death of Stalin can teach us about Trump?
…And will it come from the Gawker Group, or will Reason beat them to it?
I enjoyed the movie. But then again I studied Soviet history under a great prof while an undergrad in 1979-1980. I took three courses from him and learned a great deal about the USSR. If you know something of Stalin and Communist theory the movie is hilarious. The theater I saw it in was split between those old enough to remember the CCCP who thought the movie funny, except for one person (more later). The young hipsters were confused and the movie was not what they expected.
I spoke with the older woman who did not like the movie for a bit after the movie. She grew up in Belo-Russia and said Stalin was “the devil” and she was hoping for a more damning movie. She did not forget or forgive Stalin or the Communist Party.
WI- Michael Palin plays Molotov, who was the Foreign Minister. The guy who signed the pact with Germany in 1939 etc etc.
I love his cocktail recipes. Sometimes it hits you and just explodes though.
What the fuck did the hipsters think the movie would be about? Unless you are saying the education system is so bad that those born after 1991 do not know what came before. Who do they think this Stalin was that they hear about–just that young hottie with the stubble and the great hair who looks like the brown kid from One Direction?
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch and Gulag Archipelago I dont think are required reading anymore. They were required reading for me in HS. I think these days the numbers of Stalin apologists in education are pretty substantial.
That just blows me away.
They weren’t required reading for me, but “1984” and “Animal Farm” were.
I know at least one US college professor who claims Stalin never killed anybody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRPTZF5zSLQ
***
Dr. Grover Furr is an English professor at Montclair State University. He is actively engaged in concealing the murder of 150 million citizens by Stalin and other communists. How an accessory to genocide like him is permitted to teach at any American University is evidence of the successful Marxist takeover of academia.
***
Hey dbleagle this is wicked off topic but when you went through the Q, did you know anyone who skipped language phase because they already had fluency in a second language? Just curious.
I went through SFQC back in 1986. Back then your did your target language when you got to your Group. When I was teaching at the USAJFKSWCS(A) back in 2000-2001 you could test out of language training if you could score high enough in a qualified language related to your Group assignment.* I am not sure of the policy today.
*The Group relation was to keep you relevant. If you spoke Thai at 3/3 and were going to 1st SFG(A) you were good to go, if you were heading to 10th SFG(A), sorry. We like that you have a language, but Thai is not a large language in Europe or Israel so get back in Russian class.
So your group assignment came ahead of your language class? Thought they’d place you into your group based on prior experience. Thanks for the info.
Only reason I ask is I’m a prior service 18X shipping on 2 July. Training hard and heavy but curious to know if it’s worth getting my Russian to 2/2 before I head out. If not I won’t waste time with it.
It is always worth keeping your languages skills up. If you are interested in serving with 10th SFG keep your Russian current and let them know.
Group assignment comes before your language, otherwise they can’t assign a language.
Remember the SFQC is physical, mental and academic. Never quit for a second in your mind.
Roger that. Thanks.
*Kif sigh*
8 pm and my gf is fall down drunk.
Glad I got some this morning.
Wait..was that OT? ?
Wait… you going to let this opportunity go by? Just remember, she’s going to remember 20 years from now, you’d better hit that now.
I blame you for expecting her to have the same tolerance as you. 🙂
She drank more than me!
(she’s Irish)
This makes me recall… more than a decade past, one skinny little girl from Arkansas who asked me out on a date and said she could out drink me. I think she maybe weighed 100 lbs max. More like 95 lbs. Cute as hell though, so I went out with her. That girl could drink an amazing fucking amount of booze. At one point I asked her if she was wanting to commit suicide by alcohol. Sometimes sex can save lives, that is all.
Lol. Some twenty plus years ago, I had a petite lady drinking buddy. She drove us sometimes. One night she managed to get both of us home but left her bumper in my driveway. I have no memories as to how that occurred.
There are tales told here in Cleveland of a Cleveland Beer Week party that involved several brewers/brewery reps. The biggest names in this tale are Laura Bell (4′ 10″ daughter of Larry Bell; Former CEO of Bell’s Brewing) and Adam Avery (6′ 2″ head brewer of Avery brewing, most well known for their Hog Heaven barleywine). Through the course of the night, the brewers went around and hit up local breweries and craft beer bars. From all of this, I heard that Laura drank poor Adam under the table through the course of the night.
And she’s falling down drunk on a random Saturday in May? Did she not understand that in the US 5% ABV is the start for our beers?
We’re low carb and don’t do beer anymore. A glass or two of red wine, then straight to liquor.
Sean knows a good time.
For a good time, call Sean?
I had a banshee of an ex named Sean. No disrespect. But she was a wiry, bony, sarcasmic kinda gal.
Dude, you just need to hit that or she’s gonna be mad. Trust me on this. I’ve only seen my wife drunk like maybe 2 times in our 10 years together and both times she wanted sex and got it.
She’s already asleep. I think tomorrow morning is a better bet.
Wake her up in the middle of the night. My wife loves that.
My ex was an early-to-bed early-to-rise type and liked to wake me up after 4 or 5 hours of sleep. Totally worth it.
It’s a fine line between wild animal sex and puke in your lap sex.
Rule 34 implies some people find the latter a turn-on.
(I am not one of those people.)
Nothing wrong with a hot lunch.
Speaking of movies. The only movie I am tempted to go see at the cinema is Ready Player One. And that’s only because I’m reading the book. Takes me a long time typically to read a book because I don’t read every day and only at bed time.
I like this guy. I like his reviews.
It sounds like a ghastly dumb movie.
Yet Stephenson still can’t get a film made.
I’d hate to see Stephenson done with less than a trilogy (or better – a miniseries) – Cryptonomicon, etc are just too dense. Maybe Diamond Age or Snow Crash in 2.5 hrs, but it’d be tough to condense the background – much more complicated yet integral to the story than RP1 – and a LOT more characters.
I vaguely remember sort of enjoying the book but like so many of these genre efforts it’s loaded with clichéd evil kkkorporate nonsense.
Yep, it’s like that, Rhywun. I just try to ignore that shit.
Unfortunately the movie has very little to do with the book. The overarching storyline is the same but everything else is different.
Really? Huh.
Since they canceled The Expanse and I stopped bothering to try to catch up on the new season I got to thinking of reading the books. Anyone read them & does the show follow the books?
Sixth Column by Heinlein would be a cool movie, since it’s basically Red Dawn, but with Japanese invaders and sci-fi weapons. There’s no way in hell it would get made though.
A phony religion? A death ray that only kills Asians? Yeah, that’s not a formula for box office success.
I’m still waiting for the Moon is a Harsh Mistress being done as a movie.
Maybe they can make it so that the guy shooting the death ray at the other Asians is Johnny Rico, that way it won’t be a racial thing.
Actually wasn’t Sixth Column basically Heinlein remaking another guy’s story that he found morally objectionable, didn’t respect, and was probably ridiculing as much as anything else? Rather ironic that the same fate eventually befell him!
Wiki sez yes
Reslanted to remove the racism?
Yep. Campbell was really down on Orientals; Heinlein added the character of Frank Mitsui who was an Asian-American whose family was wiped out by the PanAsian invaders to balance the story and show Asians as individuals. IIRC, William Patterson notes that in his biography of RAH.
The Old Man might not have considered it an artistic success, but IMHO, it’s still head and shoulders above a bunch of the stuff that passes itself off as science fiction these days.
Just meant the term “reslanted”.
It would’ve been worse to reneg.
It’s an entertaining flick (haven’t read the book) – but I can definitely see the 80s nostalgia overload. I guess if you’re WB and already own the rights to tons of random properties, it’s fun to just toss everything at a screen regardless of whether it sticks (Gundam, Back to the Future, Ninja Turtles, Halo, Godzilla, etc).
Looking forward to catching Deadpool 2 on Monday night – that one looks like it’ll be worth it.
Caught DP2 last night. It wasn’t bad, but I can see why they’re looking to go X-Force for any sequel.
I think I should go see this movie.
A former coworker of mine is Armenian and old enough to remember Stalin. After the Soviet Union collapsed, he left for America, arriving in New York City on July 4th.
One day, when we met at a gathering a little after we both left the job where we worked together, he said to me, “It’s good to be out of there. It reminded me too much of life under Stalin.” I think he exaggerated a bit, but it was quite a political place.
Office politics so tyrannical they reminded him of the Big Guy! Yikes! You must work at Lululemon. I applied to work there a summer during grad school and I have never seen any environment so creepy.
“creepy” how? They make yoga pants.
In the same way Crossfit is creepy?
Their corporate culture is extremely overbearing. It felt like you were applying to Jonestown. You’re even required to spend your leisure time (off the clock, of course) having endless “fun” with your Lulu colleage team, socializing with them and doing group workouts together and opening up and becoming emotional support for each other and posting about it all on social media how awesome it is to inspire and be inspired and be on Team Lulu. I later found out they’re kind of famous for that. And the social media accounts of everyone who worked there started to remind me of those template websites that all Scientologists used to have during the Web 1.0 days, except better done and seemingly all earnest and as enthusiastic as a bunch of unusually well-built and attractive young Stepford Wives. Anyway this is one wife who floored it and got the fuck out of Stepford.
Oddly enough, they are supposedly libertarians; if you look at those vapid quotations printed all over their bags you will find some Ayn Rand quotes mixed in. I was an (increasingly heterodox) leftist at the time, but even I had thought libertarians would be likely to be chill people to work for. I’d even prepared answers to the interview questions, intially, that I expected would impress libertarians because I thought all the creepy groupthink questions (and they all were) were tricks to make sure they were hiring people who took responsibility for themselves. But the bag quotes were the only thing about them that seemed remotely libertarian. Must have been what it was like to be around Rand herself, come to think about it.
Holy hell. Not a fucking chance I would put up with any of that.
Same.
*Oh yeah there were little trips too, getting some outdoor exercise, that people would organize that you were expected to go on on days off to hang out with your “friends” and then post about it. I frankly don’t even know what kind of person would work there, who would be working at a clothing store and could afford to live that kind of lifestyle.
I ended up going to Abercrombie. Now that’s a job environment! You literally just stand there for hours and get paid. And the entirety of their corporate culture was “Don’t steal shit.” RIP, you were too good for this world.
Couldn’t be any worse than what we’re hearing about Google.
Nope. It was a tech company that is pretty well known.
Are there any large companies where office politics aren’t dominating and awful if you don’t like playing those sort of games?
Some are better than others.
My company is pretty big (maybe 5K employees?) and we don’t have any politics to speak of.
That’s the great thing with contracting. They give you a t-shirt every couple years and stay out of your way (even better being offsite).
I would have danced on that fuckhead’s coffin to this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tlIGAg1aiU
That’s an interesting song.
Music to my ears!
Actually before I remembered the title of this thread I thought it was going to be a clip of Lester Pearson.
“I’ll take quotes I thought I’d never see for $600, Alex”
You’re out of your element! Shut the fuck up, Khrushchev!
+1 walrus
“How the fuck do you split a
carkulak, ya dummy? With a fuckin’ chainsaw?”Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter?
Walter Sobchak: No, Donny, these men are nihilists. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
Say what you want about the tenants of national socialism, at least they had an ethos.
I really need to get that movie on DVD.
Another song I’d dance to on that shithead’s grave (and other murderers like Lenin, Che, Castro and even lazy boy Marx):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjAzI5zALo
Nice
I’m surprised no one has posted a YouTube video of Marine One taking off with Obama in it, with Beyoncé’s “At Last” from his inauguration playing over it.
Hah! Get to it.
lol.
Or you could play this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX9fqSgksYU
But I’d play this (speaking of Westerberg down thread):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyni84KkyOg
The red bewigged one sets off my hot/crazy matrix like a swarm of yellow jackets.
And this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOgY4UMQsaY
My Dad took my brother and I to this movie when I was 13. Life changing experience! Gee, wonder why we left Mom at home?
I had that poster and I’m pretty sure that was when I subscribed to both National Lampoon and Heavy Metal!
You didn’t keep that poster? I want to get it. My way of flipping the finger at modern narrative.
True story – When we were teenagers me and my brother got into a fist fight at the golf course. He ran home, broke in because I had the key and ripped every poster and piece of art off my walls, puked in the waste basket and passed out on the floor. I was pissed about the art more than the posters but looking back, some of those posters might have been worth something in current year. What a mean fucking family I grew up in.
Did you get fired? I feel like even the kids from Caddyshack would not have been so uncouth.
Fuck that, we were paying customers! The old lady that ran the place turned a garden hose on Bro Dave because he was trying to cave my skull in with a golf ball. He ran off and I cleaned up a little and resumed my round.
My family was, erm, interesting too.
Know what song I would dance to on murderer’s row?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9becn8y3CA
Jeebus. I got on the tractor this morning and started cutting hay. I innocently brought a case a beer in an ice chest. I didn’t start on the beer until 1 or so. Here it is 8:30 and I have 80 acres of hay laying on the ground. Well cut, but damn I’m drunk.
Anyway, It was a good day. I hope you Glibs have had a swell a day as I.
Who the fuck screwed up my hay overnight? It looks like Parris Island “barber” did this field.
/Lachowsky tomorrow morning
It was then God damn kids who won’t stay out of my pasture.
Your day sounds a little like mine. Took the little ole dog for a walk down by the crick and then got all my lawn tools tuned and sharpened. Next thing i knew It was 6:00 and I’d packed away a case. I hope to hell I’m not as sunburnt as I suspect that I am. A pretty good day if I don’t wind up being more freckle than man in a coupla weeks.
I spent a little while wheeling out loads of dirt and caliche we didn’t need for backfill to the dumpster. Then I went home and napped off a hangover. And now I’m drinking with you fine folk.
I was wearing shorts today for about the first time this year. I’m definantly burned in the lower exteremeties.
https://imgur.com/7pBgink
Hawt.
I’ve been wearing shorts for a while. I only started when I normally start because I went south for a vacation. It’s been unusually chilly here this Spring.
There are pants that go below the knees? Unheard of here.
Hawaii humor:
Q- What do you call somebody wearing a suit?
A- The defendant.
Relevant.
Jesus, Rhywun, I stopped a Fugazi video for that. Waiting Room, if anyone cares. Goddammit.
But I don’t idly by – because I know how much time it wastes.
Also, the next song from YT is Holiday in Cambodia, so fuck it.
“sit idly by”
I spent all day inside because it was raining.
Watched a couple of movies off my DVR.
Better get it baled before the rain comes!
Forecast is the mid nineties for the forseable future with little chance of rain. I should be able to bale this on Monday, no problem.
Spent the better part of my junior high/ high school years putting up bales in haymows across the county. Those old farmers got mighty twitchy between cutting and baling and getting em in the barn.
My neighbor across the bayou cut 140 acres of hay and before he could windrow it the weather changed and we got three days of rain. It finally did dry out and he got it baled but man, I felt bad for him.
I left out an important detail. Two years ago he had a similar situation. Believe it or not the guy baled it a day after it was rained on and stored it in a huge barn.
I will let Lechowski finish this story. I bet ten bucks he knows exactly how that turned out.
Fire.
Never put up green hay. Ever
And hay fires are right up there with tire fires. Bring your marshmellows and just let that sucker burn.
Uh… spontaneous combustion?
I thought I was joking. Seriously?
No Sir, it’s no joke at all.
Yes. After the hay is cut, it continues to respire which generates heat and in combination with heat loving bacterial growth, which feeds upon itself until the temperature rises to combustion point if there isn’t adequate air flow & conditions to dry the hay. Stacked compressed bales or even piles provides the perfect environment for that.
Also, organic breakdown as Lachowsky says below can release heat to combustion levels.
Often teachers will explain spontaneous combustion in terms that make it sound like you are taking a chance. You aren’t. Fire is a certainty. Hell, a few years ago I made a hay bale garden – cut out space in a hay bale and fill with dirt. It made the most beautiful squash I have ever seen but several times I caught the hay bales smoking. That is a single bale sitting on the ground in the open. Imagine Hundreds of tons stacked together inside of a barn.
It is a certainty.
That sounds like when people use boiled linseed oil for something, then toss the rags in a trash can or ball them up in a box.
I’ll stick to drywall. Gypsum isn’t flammable. We’ve got land, but we rent it out to people who know wtf they’re doing.
Knew a guy that burned down his house like that. Drenched his charcoal briquettes with water and put the barbeque in the garage.
I’m no scientist, but when organic material dries, it creates heat. If you take organic material that needs drying and compress a whole lot of it, then you get a whole lot of concentrated heat. that heat will easily catch hay on fire.
It isnt the drying, it’s the rotting. Because it is wet the bacteria can feed on it. Digestion is essentially slow motion combustion. Hold your hand over a compost pile and you can feel it. As the fungus and bacteria consume the hay (wet) the heat cant escape from inside the bales. Putting wet hay in a barn is about like throwing a match on it.
Yeah that was one of the facts I found most fun in HS chemistry. That when you say “burn calories” that is not a metaphor. It is true in the most literal sense. It is not rapid enough to give off visible light but metabolism is literally combustion. So is rusting metal, same deal.
That makes sense.
By coincidence wife and I were on our way to the grocery store. The flames had to be 100+ feet in the air. The highway is about 75 yards from the barn. Driving by the heat was…unbelievable.
I couldn’t believe he did that. How does any farmer not know better?
Insurance man —> “You cant believe it? That makes two of us”
Speaking of….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f775c_KgXE0
Great song to chill on Stalin’s grave with a beer while spitting on it.
When I worked fire service in a rural area, we had a couple of those hay fires in barns. Not pretty.
At one of them, the farmer – about 50, life-long farmer! – said, “Well, I thought maybe I hadn’t waited *quite* long enough. Won’t make that mistake again…I hope.”
We managed to get his dairy cows out without a loss.
Can you get gonorrhoea from a tractor?
For no reason – Pixies: Here Comes Your Man
I see your here comes your man and raise you a waitress in the sky…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMRUszqMVM8
If you;re not going to at least raise an Alex Chilton, I fold.
That was all over “alternative” radio in HS. Love it.
This just came up on Pandora.
Lost my new phone. F***. Sucker just slide out of my pocket because I haven’t bought a case for it yet. Now I gotta find the ID number and track it down.
Fuck a royal wedding, why not celebrate my birthday instead? Please do so by insulting me. Some of you gave me that honor a few years ago at TOS. I got a kick out of that.
How many bumps do we have to give?
12:02. Cheers! And go fuck yourself. Is that ok?
Happy Birthday!
Fuck your fucking fuckday you fucking fuck.
*cheers*
Happy Birthday Mary.
Well, fuck you. You don’t think you’re better then a gods damned welfare wedding? Have some gods damn faith in yourself. Leave the self pitying to those of us who have earned it you gods damned bastard.
And if it makes you feel better, fuck off Tulpa.
It’s my dad’s birthday.
You’ll get nothing and like it.
Who the frick is Michael Dyson? He’s quite possible the most retardedly insufferable smug racist prick prog out there. Holy cow it was brutal watching him attack Peterson in such a, well, mean-spirited way. Oh look….projection….And that girl was no better. Which brand of glue has she been sniffing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tlIGAg1aiU
Oddly enough I watched outtakes of that before I came here. Peterson dismantles them.
I always thought the most retardedly insufferable smug racist prick out there was Trigger Hippie. Happy birthday big guy!
Yeah, just more hypocrital assholery on parade. Talk about priviledge and entitlement.
Jordan Peterson always comes off as mild mannered to me whenever I have heard him (I don’t make a point to read or listen to him). He’s a mild mannered liberal at that. And the progs paint him as the harbinger of the Second Final Solution. I don’t know where you could even argue he directed enmity at his opponent there, as Dyson claimed. Their panties are in a bunch because a mild mannered liberal who isn’t even some intellectual heavy weight can unravel their bullshit with utter ease.
In terms of the argument, you have Dyson attacking Peterson for supposedly lacking empiricism before telling him that white privilege can’t be quantified (which was Peterson’s fucking point, you dolts) or have a number assigned to it and how its about our willingness to challenge our values or some such bullshit…
I’ll have to watch it. Because Buscemi and Tambor.
Ditto.
Meh, Buscemi=poor mans Marty Feldman, Tambor doesn’t deserve to smell Tobolowsky’s shit.
From what we now know about his freaky self, probably not a bad chance he’d be into that.
That’s a bold opinion, Cotton!
Someone has to speak truth to power.
Fuck, shoulda went with D J Qualls, not Marty Feldman, that’s one goofy looking mother right there.
DJ Qualls was the best part of Legit. And he had a decent role in Supernatural.
Left vs Right voting ideology of congress, past 100 years. The split is near perfect.
The far more alarming trend is how much more uninterrupted those lines have become.
Progressivism was trendy in both the Republican and Democrat parties at the turn of the last century. It’s only later that it became almost a Democrat only phenomenon. Didn’t dig into exactly how they’re determining left & right ideology over time as those move and change. Even so, you can see the split prior to WWII between the two colors. The post war consensus was an aberration, not the norm, throughout political history. Screw the whole Democrats and Republicans politicians could be friends and pals after hours and respect each other even if they didn’t agree (while they conspired to fuck the country over) phony ass narrative.
Looking at the graph and seeing the widening split and thinking, “With her legs spread like that, someone is getting fucked.”
Ah, progressivism, and the Republican party; both born in the nether regions of Wisconsin. Our political legacy isn’t very sterling.
The liberty laws passed in Wisconsin to thwart the fugitive slave act are at least something to be proud of.
And he pulls Joe McCarthy from the deck for the block, -15 HP
Tailgunner Joe wasn’t entirely wrong either.
No, but he was a grandstanding asshat.
Starts in the Wilson Administration so you pretty much have a modern left-right issue set available to you for the whole time period. It’s not like we’re trying to figure out whether it is left or right to support the Specie Circular.
Why is Wilmer’s Character on That 70’s Show Effeminate?
I dont know who any of those people are.
As for the lisp, Castillian is predominant in Spain. I do not recall if he was supposed to be from Spain or just some ‘mexcan’. I didn’t care for the show; the only notable thing to me was it took place in Wisconsin, and just like so many other hollywood shows got everything wrong about where the show was set.
Yeah. I blew one of my employees’ mind a couple weeks ago when we were listening to Big Star and “In The Street” was playing.
“Hey! That’s the theme from That’ 70’s Show!”
“Yeah. These guys wrote it in 1974. It wasn’t a popular song until 1994. Then it was on tv. Cheap Trick did the theme song.”
“Who’s Cheap Trick?”
*spends the next 3 hours on Spotify explaining power pop*
They did have pretty awesome music on the show, when they had it.
One of my favorite moments on the show used one of my favorite songs of all time. Eric has just spent the day with his mom, a nurse, at work. And the patient he got to know and befriend, a sweet man who was a favorite patient of her and everyone, dies–Eric’s first death. It’s a quiet, devastating moment. Now they are driving home at the end of the night.
Just perfect. Still gets me.
All those years they were supposed to be in Oshkosh, and I don’t remember them going to Lake Winnebego, which outside of the Great Lakes is only smaller than Lake Ponchatrain in Florida, and bounds the city on the east side. Then again, like I said I didn’t really watch the show.
Late to the game again… did we already cover the FBI deal with the Trump campaign? Too lazy to dig it out, so I’m going to rant regardless.
The New York Times decided to debunk the Trump administration’s claims by playing semantics. And they are entirely full of crap.
They say that Trump claimed “without evidence” that the FBI sent a spy to his campaign for political purposes, even before they had an inkling of the Russian “hoax”. Then they say the “informant” (not spy) was sent in response to “suspicious contacts” with links to Russia during the campaign.
Ok, NYT, you are already done at that point. Anyone who could write that spin with a straight face is too stupid to be in a position of trust. How do they know they have “suspicious contacts” if they are not already spying on them? Duh…. ask a question once in a while.
Anyway, back to the point: Here’s the headline… “F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims
Image”
Informant. Not a spy. Oooh, burn! Trump is such a liar. Because we used the word “informant”. (You know, an informant. Someone with knowledge from the inside who is cooperating with the cops and informing on his boss or organization.)
Wait…. you sent an informant? You sent someone under false pretenses to talk with people in the campaign to get information from them about the campaign – secretly. But that’s not a spy? Exactly what would a spy look like? Is it because they sent someone who wasn’t an FBI agent? Exactly how dishonest is the NYT?
So congressional oversight committees are asking for docs about the spy. The FBI refuses, on the grounds that… well, let’s let the times tell it:
WHAAAAT?
They sent some college professor to spy on the Trump campaign, and they are claiming that revealing his name will put him in danger? A name that the NY Times was able to root out?
In danger from who? Are they seriously claiming that Trump is going to send a goon squad to England to go break this guy’s kneecaps for daring to spy in his campaign?
If I’m a reporter and my “source” is telling howlers like “it isn’t a spy, it is an informant” and “we can’t reveal his identity because it puts him in danger”, I’m definitely not taking anything he says at face value. And I’m sure as hell not publishing his stupid whitewash spin as straight news like that.
But then I remember that this is the same times that reported over a year ago about the Obama administration plot to scatter classified information gleaned from spying on the Trump campaign around the government with the intention of leaking it after the inauguration. The Obama administration officials were given the hero’s treatment – not excoriated for spying on american citizens and political rivals, leaking classified information and undermining the peaceful transfer of power.
Adam Corolla has a saying… “Stupid, or liar?” Which is it? Because either the NYT is incredibly stupid if they believe what they are writing, or they are just straight-out lying to us. But it has to be one or the other. Either you are so stupid that you think “informant” is an actual distinction in this case, or you are just lying.
Did they even ask the question about “what danger, exactly, are you talking about?” Somehow I doubt it. Or “if you were not already spying on the campaign, how could there be “suspicious contacts” with people who have nebulous “links” to Russia.
And finally, let’s remember that during this time the Clinton campaign was actively working with Russian sources to obtain dirt on the Trump campaign – to the tune of spending millions of dollars on the effort. Dirt that would eventually be shared with these same reporters and these same FBI agents and would be used to obtain warrants to …. wait for it…. spy on the Trump campaign.
Holy crap, people. This is just going off of there own claims and reporting. What the heck could you uncover if you actually had any curiosity?
They are a bunch of banana republic thugs and monkeys, straight up. Wanna be tin pot dictators. This is th behavior that we used to sneer at when it was done in ooooga booga because we had rule of law, fair play and we were rivals,not enemies. Like everything the progs touch it turns to shit.
I just can’t wrap my head around the groupthink that allows them to miss seeing the forest for the Trump in the room. I mean, I get being anti-Trump. The guy is pretty easy to disapprove of, even if you are not a Democrat. But still…. you’d think that principled leftists would be up in arms over this stuff – even as they denounce Trump.
But they are not even the least bit interested. In fact, they are cheerleading the whole thing. I just don’t get it. This stuff is really, really obvious to me – and I was anti-Trump at least a decade before he started pretending that he might run for President someday.
I’d love to go back to 2013 and explain to Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart and every mainstream news organization reporter that in just a few short years they will be watching their government spy on a political party’s presidential candidate and not only would they not be upset about it… they’d spend all day, every day reporting on it and praising it from the heavens as God’s own work. There’s no way they’d ever believe that about themselves.
And yet here we are.
“principled leftists”
Hence the problem. This shit is much worse than Watergate which was used by these same clowns to take down a president. There are no principles, just principals. The ends always justify the means to them.
For all the money and power the left has funneled into DC, they’ve gotten off pretty easy with Trump.
Their only question would be if that candidate was a republican; and if that is a positive then of course you have to spy on them, for the good of the country. Can’t have another Darth Cheney! Wait, he wasn’t president? Well, he controlled the president!
I’m going with “liar”. The NYT is really upping it’s game lately. Their coverage of Trump’s “Animals” statement and MS13 and now the “spy” vs “informant” games should make it clear to anyone not to trust that propaganda rag.
My favorite thing was to argue over Hillary’s emails with people. To get accused of relying on right wing hit sites only to post the links to the NYT’s saying exactly what I was telling people. That was the sad thing – all the evidence needed to convict her ass was printed in the media that desperately wanted her to win. That’s just the shit they let us see.
Thing about all the dots these fucks refuse to connect and report on when its someone they support. It’s the other side of this coin.
I’m still waiting for someone to ask why she felt it necessary to hide her State Department business, why she figured FOIA laws were worth ducking. What was she worried about? Secretary of State for the most transparent president ever, what precisely was she so worried about seeing leaked?
She wasn’t worried about anything you sexist pig! It was just easier to do it the way she did, and she didn’t know it was ‘illegal’, some law made up by old white guys. Colin Powell did it to!
Nixon cancels trip to China
Excellent headline… you could write for Drudge with work like that!
Her stance is about as solid as a frog
Stalinesque Revisionism + Helpful Alien Friend = Guilt-Free Nostalgia
I think Phylicia Rashad was hot back in the “Cosby Show” days.
Yeah she was pretty damn hot. Growing up I always thought Sondra was hideously ugly. She’s not–especially by a little kid’s standard–she just looks like it by comparison.
Yeah, I had the same impression. Most of it was probably standing between Phylicia Rashad and Lisa Bonet. Not a lot of women are going to look like a beauty standing in that company.
But she also had a sort of condescending air about her that was off-putting.
Lisa Bonet was hot too.
High Fidelity; just sayin.
I can never truly like that movie for the joke it inexplicably passed up. When Cusack first meets her, her first line should have been a casual, “Hey, nice sweater!”
Meh, two cosby sweater jokes would make it over the top. Plus, she probably never paid too much attention to the sweaters, having to watch to make sure no strange pills made their way into her drinks on set.
It’s a callback to the sweater joke! Unless one could manage a more subtle way to allude to the same thing; that would be even better. But they make the Cosby joke, and then later they have him sleeping with Denise by coincidence. Maybe that was the joke; maybe that was the wink and we were supposed to pick up on it. But, perhaps unsubtlely, I didn’t get that feeling; it just looked like a random accident.
All I know is the father never seemed to work. Something was fishy.
Amongst all the “lessons” the Huxtables aimed to teach or are described as having taught the public, it’s something of a running joke of critics that one of them was how absurdly much free time successful New York City obstetricians and corporate lawyers have. (Not just to constantly spend time with their kids either, but also to constantly clean their beautiful, enormous, immaculate home with no help.)
Magnificent Seven was a bust. Played it by the numbers with an evil, white, avowedly capitalist villain who had an intense introduction and then not nearly enough screen time, and a white heroic savior who upstaged Denzel the entire time, and a bunch of interesting, unique secondary characters who couldn’t be fleshed out much because, Jesus, people, it’s a two hour movie. Maybe keep it down to a magnificent four or five.
Too bad, eh. Training Day was excellent.
Did you like D’Onofrio’s character though?
Jordan vs Michael.
jordan vs bird
jordan vs thomas
jordan vs magic
Now you’re just being a mean white man.
Here’s the full debate. Trying to debate these two assholes that are arguing in bad faith must be infuriating. Feewings, wo, wo, wo, feewings.
When Stephen Fry is your ‘right wing’ response, you know the debate is already skewed. The man is a comedic genius, but waiting for libertopia or even 90s right of center he is not.
Stephen Fry is a self-professed socialist, isn’t he?
I try not to know the political persuasion of entertainers I like lest I be disappointing.
His opening statement was pretty good. His role seems to be “Hey, I’m a liberal, but I don’t like the way you guys are doing this. It’s oppressive itself and doesn’t work.” Fine for what he’s supposed to be doing.
Yeah, but as you said, Peterson himself thinks he’s left, and Fry is left; so it comes across more as messaging than the actual thought process. I don’t know for sure. Didn’t listen to the whole thing; Peterson has never impressed me and I respect Fry too much for his comedy to listen to him make a fool of himself over politics.
Fry is quite left indeed but rather dedicated to free speech last I heard. The British comedic legend with the truly interesting perspective is Cleese. He is an outspoken Brexiteer (almost alone among the creative elite) but is, of all things, a Lib Dem. And not a casual one either, but an active and rock-ribbed one who has been cutting long and rather eloquent informercials making the case for their position since the Alliance days.
Also Fry did a series on the English language that was embarrassing dogshit. I don’t know why they don’t have a personable academic linguist, of whom there are many in England, instead of a TV comedian in charge of what was supposed to be a serious educational series.
I like Jordan Peterson because he is probably a better “classical liberal” than Sommers or Rubin (it would be hard to be a worse one) but doesn’t really make himself out to be a faithful one at all.
Eh, I got to sit through a safety brief video hosted by Tony Robinson (Baldrick).
I agree to a point. It would’ve been better to have had Bret Weinstein instead of Frye if the goal was to have an academic asskicking. Jordan is strong enough on his own to take on Dyson concerning academic arguments. Frye, however, adds a little levity and decency to the debate.
He is always good for that, I will admit.
Decency, because all involved avoided any indulgence in the “Dyson…you suck” pun. I would not have managed such restraint.
Finally getting to the end of the debate. Frye actually handled himself quite well. He added a lot more than I gave him credit for.
“A. M. Goudarzi
A. M. Goudarzi
2 hours ago
Any sentence that Michael Dyson says is an act of terrorism to human knowledge and intellect.
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Peadar Balbh
Peadar Balbh
2 hours ago
I’m no clinical psychologist- but it appears Dyson’s rocking in his chair is a sign of some real mental instability.”
It’s very rare to have people go against Peterson.
The only ones seem to be media and elites and obviously SJW and progressives. But the average person with a brain can spot the bull shit spewed about Peterson.
Dyson and the girl were just plain stupid.
Well, youtube comments aren’t a good place to measure brain power.
A Grotesque Spectacle in Jerusalem
This has long been my favorite in shit like this:
That’s right; and see if the Israelis fucking care. What’s this now? A religious leader says to his flock, “Do not abandon our faith, lest you be damned for your unbelief”? Why I never! Where are my smelling salts? I for one am always deeply eager for the approval of religions that I reject as false.
It’s always like that for the left. Hey, Jews, did you know that we are your true friends? Those right-wing Christians may offer you constant zealous cries of affection and endless unwavering support to back it up, but you know what? They think that at the end of time you’ll be convinced that their opinions are correct! Can you believe? You’ll certainly not want to reply to that by saying, “Uh, no problem Christians; we’ll sort it out then.” You’ll want to stick with us, whose support you can really count on when the chips are down, because it comes from a spirit of true enlightenment. If there’s one group the Jews can always count on, it’s not the one that thinks that God has commanded them to side with His people with all their effort until the end of time; it’s the one with an eternal commitment to the moral value of not punching down.
The lefties hate Mormons too.
The Dutch national symphony orchestra does The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
Metallica does The Ecstasy of Gold, S&M
Nope. The don’t nail the end. There’s that incredible end where Tuco finds Arch Stanton’s grave, and there’s this cacophony of disharmony… there’s a word for it, I can’t remember right now… but that’s essential to the piece.
It’s incredible seeing the whole performance, for sure, but that abrupt denouement is an inescapable part of it.
Not to mention the standoff, which is easily the best bit.
A friend of mine knew someone that worked with Clint Eastwood on the Eiger Sanction. The guy was sitting on the side of the mountain during a break, Clint sat down next to him. The guy didn’t say anything. After a few minutes Clint got up and said ‘Pussy.’ and walked away.
LOL
It’s already a “friend of a friend” anecdote, so when I tell it it will be downright ridiculous. But that is so awesome I cannot bear the thought of dying without sharing it as truth.
Well, it was the guy’s wife that told that story to my friend (she knew the guy to) but yeah, it’s just such an Eastwood thing that it rings true.
You see, in this world, there’s two kinds of people, my friend… those with friends who sat down next to Clint Eastwood, and got called a pussy, and those who heard about it on the internet.
Aim for the heart Commodious, aim for the heart.