winsor

Wage jihad against the studio for his portrayal, of course.

Conservatards apparently are unable to perform the most basic Internet search. Can't say that is surprising. A Google search turns up plenty of FACTUAL information on IRS 501 c investigations, and the results of those investigations. Willful ignorance of the facts is a hallmark of conservatard philosophy. One must take what Faux Spews and Newsmax reports as gospel. No questioning of the current talking points is permitted. It is rather difficult to get past all the poison to determine if you actually have anything to say. I suppose your point is, in fact, the spewing of vitriol. Given that the sum total of your content boils down to "I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU...,), that mission is accomplished.

He could certainly be trusted to lead us into a war based on false pretenses and outright lies. A war whose costs exceed $1 Trillion and still rising. An unnecessary war that cost over 4,000 American lives and tens of thousands of civilian lives. And he led us into the deepest recession since the 1930s. That is one analytical opinion. The fact remains that many, many people at all levels of society and international government trusted him and followed him. President George W. Bush was/is a leader. BHO controls by coercion and deception. He has turned distrust into an art form. People at all levels fear him for his acquired power. I was raised to believe those people are called tyrants. Ron, trying to decide which president is more incompetent is a very tough call. I initially gave W the benefit of the doubt, assuming he played the village idiot to sucker people into underestimating him. Unfortunately, it turns out that he is much, much dumber than anyone would have guessed. A bull in a china shop is a study in grace and elegance compared to his leadership style. BHO tipped his hand early in the game. His writings included his admiration of communists/marxists in his youth, which tells me that he has an idiot streak of his own. As a teenager I read "The Communist Manifesto" and visited various Socialist Workers Paradises, and never got past the impression that it was all tripe. If someone says they used to be a marxist, it is as if they said that they used to be gay - even though they claim to be on to other things, the fact that it ever had any appeal to them says it all. BHO appears on the surface to be more erudite, but in practice is given to brute force and ignorance on a par with his predecessor. The incumbent's genius is strictly limited to the politics of getting elected; we would be in great shape if his skill at governing was a tenth as impressive. Both presidents have had opportunities to achieve great results with deft orchestration of the situation at hand, and both have completely blown it on an epic scale. The Presidency should not qualify one for the Special Olympics, but you would never know it on the basis of these two. BSBD, Winsor

Maybe the sport, and human nature, has changed significantly since I was a neophyte, though I doubt it. The reality is that the distraction provided by having a camera on hand is the killer. I have lost too many friends who got preoccupied with things other than saving their life at the wrong time, and cameras have been the problem all too often. Sure, swooping makes other parts of the sport look safe by comparison, but playing Russian Roulette with a revolver, rather than an automatic, is not a fundamentally safe activity. Any professional cameraman (for news orgs, etc.) can tell you that, while the camera is running, their world exists through the viewfinder. Regardless of what is happening, one's perspective is geared toward getting the shot. Thus, you have footage of people being maimed or killed, well framed and in proper focus, when the cameraman did not stop to render aid. Similarly, I have watched footage showing the last things viewed by the person shooting camera, where they might have flared or whatever if they had not been preoccupied by getting the shot. Having made rather a few camera jumps over the years, ranging from 35mm and Super 8 to GoPro, I can attest to how much discipline is necessary to ignore the camera when things get dicey, and thus have footage of a couple of pretty hairy cutaways. Be advised that the dangers attendant upon increased complexity are not limited to cameras. Jumping flags, wingsuits, skyboards (remember them?) and the like increase the likelihood of an "interesting" outcome exponentially. As far as being a safety nazi goes, I would not dream of telling what to do. Hell, I'd be honored to be on your ash dive. BSBD, Winsor

En Californie.

My feelings on this issue are mixed. When Chris Boyce ("The Falcon and the Snowman") revealed details of the Rhyolite program, he claimed to have done so because of transgressions of which he became aware as a signals clerk (rigging Australian elections, etc.), but he sold the crown jewels to the Soviets for cash. His requirement for payment rather undercut his claim of acting on the basis of conscience. Snowden, OTOH, seems to have thrown himself on his sword as an act of conscience, giving up a life most people could only dream about in the interest of "doing the right thing." He also appears to have taken pains to avoid burning anyone else, or revealing anything that wasn't painfully obvious in the first place. Since I consider it a given that NSA was doing everything Snowden claimed well before he went public, it strikes me as naive on his part that he was the tiniest bit surprised by what he discovered. "The NSA is monitoring EVERYTHING!!!!!" "Uh, yeah, that's what they do and have always done. You did not know that? Where have you been?" I am not sure what is the upside or downside of this incident in the long run. From his standpoint, it is certainly a game changer. With sufficient cunning, he might wind up being a cause celebre and thus immunized from repercussions, making massive amounts from a book deal and being the darling of the talk show circuit. Then again, he might wind up at Guantanamo. Any intelligence agency worth its salt could work this at least somewhat to its advantage. Through a skilled disinformation program, it could leave the opposition convinced that EVERYTHING is being read even if the technology is too buggy for words, or, conversely, you could give the impression that the technology does not work for beans when, in fact, it is flawless. There is a lot to be said for keeping the opposition guessing. In any event, I like the story more for entertainment value than anything. Seeing Senators getting worked up about people being privy to the back and forth of their Blackberries is amusing. The Snowden story promises to be entertaining as well. BSBD, Winsor

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-refugees-20130610,0,6484601.story Even I, liberal commie pinko bastard that I am, think we need to be pretty damn careful with this one. One of the lessons we perennially flunk is that the oppressed are often every bit as bad as the oppressors. There are countless cases of peoples who elicit sympathy when subject to abuse by those in power, but are then more abusive by far when they come into power. The saw that people get the government they deserve (in which case we must truly suck out loud) suggests paying close attention to the merits of the oppressed before bringing them into the fold. I can think of a number of ethnicities where the social outcasts were the intelligentsia, dynamic and insightful, who were opposed by the unwashed masses who were powered largely by superstition and stupidity. The oppressed in this case would be an asset to any society that chose to welcome them. There are other populations, however, where the oppressed are at the extreme of superstition and stupidity, whose capacity for unfairness and brutality outstrips anything their oppressors might bring to bear. These folks might warrant a sympathy card at best, and attempting to add them to the melting pot can only increase the quantity and decrease the quality of the slag therein. In Syria we are faced with a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Neither the powers that be nor those they oppose like us for beans, and it would be hard to guess at this point which group is more virulent toward us. One thing we sure as hell do not want to do is to make their problems our problems. We have enough problems of our own, thank you very much. BSBD, Winsor

The thing that impresses me most is that anyone is even the least bit surprised by all this. According to this Financial Times article, the U.S. Gov't coughs up about $800 a year per taxpayer to perform electronic surveillance and analysis. What would anyone expect them to do with this funding? It seems that we are doomed to spend resources we don't have on a series of fool's errands in the name of security. Richard Rhodes' trilogy 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb,' 'Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb' and 'Arsenals of Folly' did a pretty good job of describing how we tied up the best and brightest minds of a generation with the task of putting us on the road to receivership in the quest of achieving the capability of eliminating most, if not all, life on this planet. Now we are tying up some of the best and brightest minds of another generation with the task of putting us into receivership with the goal of eliminating anything resembling privacy (among other equally admirable ends). I suppose the source of my cynicism regarding Governmental excesses comes from overexposure to the thoughts of long-haired violent revolutionaries in my youth, to wit: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington There is little to be said for either complacency or tilting at windmills; per 'Bea's Song' by the Cowboy Junkies, "you can always see it coming, but you can never stop it." The only thing that seems to enhance the likelihood of surviving any disaster is to be somewhere else while it is occurring. The big question is where can one be that will be unaffected by the shitstorm that is now unfolding? There aren't enough lifeboats, but hey, we're unsinkable, right? Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think. Winsor

If this elicits even a hint of surprise, I highly recommend perusing a copy of The Puzzle Palace. It may have been published over 30 years ago, but it still gives some idea of what NSA might be up to at any given time. I am quite sure that their mission statement of remaining "5 years ahead of the state of the art" is still intact. BSBD, Winsor P.S. Hi to everyone at Ft. Meade.

*cough* DB Cooper thread *cough* You know why they couldn't find DB Cooper? Nanothermite. Pretty obvious when you think about it.

I am reminded of the bit in Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run" wherein Virgil is discussing his sentence. Having been given something like 950 years, he expresses optimism that his lawyer could get it cut in half. If someone was to come up with a way we could pay off what we already owe and get into the black, I'm all ears. So long as we're talking red ink, we are simply splitting hairs regarding how long we have before the economy reaches crush depth. We are already at the point where, if interest rates on our debt went to historical norms, our debt would consume the GDP. Then again, I have a hunch that you are skilled enough at that arithmetic stuff that you know this already. BSBD, Winsor

So you're still having trouble telling the difference between climate and weather. f=ma is wrong too. But it's still better than no model at all and allows us to design airplanes, helicopters, ships, trucks and cars. E=mC^2 +/-3dB

don't blame me, I voted for Kodos I like Ike.

Are you as much of a tough guy in real life as your Keyboard Kommando alter-ego is here on DZ.com? I think the "Internet Tough Guy" meme has been around for longer, but I find the "Internet Smart Guy" meme more annoying to be honest. I knew you'd say that before even you did. Quite possible. Most of my posts are the second draft of what I originally came up with to say and then if, when read back, I don't find them very useful I'll just delete it and move on to another thread. I've drafted and discarded at least as many posts as I've made on this site. Whooosssh.

I stand corrected.

Okay, so what did I say that had anything to do with the above? Was it simply happenstance that it was at my post where you chose to chime in?

The irony in the behavior of knee-jerk "conservatives" is on a par with that of knee-jerk "liberals." Deal with it. Ah, the "I'm rubber, you're glue" strategy. Not hardly. I'm saying there is not a dime's worth of difference between the pet concerns of the two extremes and their respective reactions. Your response says volumes.

The trick, of course, is trying to find a cure that is not significantly worse than the disease. The difference between Organized Labor and Organized Crime is all too often a matter of nomenclature, at best.

The irony in the behavior of knee-jerk "conservatives" is on a par with that of knee-jerk "liberals." Deal with it.

Right. George W. Bush was so hated because he is white. Our President is hated no more than our prior President. Different haters, but the present are no more hateful than the past haters. No, I'd say Bush-2 was hated by the left for much the same reason as Clinton was hated by the right. Obama is hated for all the reasons Clinton was, PLUS some people hate him all the more precisely because of all of his myriad personal ethnic potpourri. (But mostly because they think he's a nigger.) Yup, I said it. Nah, he's a mulatto - a half-kaf'.

"Nonconsensual" can mean that one party has not yet achieved the age of consent. Their participation in sex is thus grounds for statutory rape. Forcing an underage person to have sex against their will is forcible rape. My point is that there is a difference between the two.

There is also statutory rape, where a "victim" can be more than willing. Young folks have been known to lie through their teeth about their age in a fit of rutting frenzy, some even having fake I.D. to back up their claim of majority. There is a huge difference between using knockout drops or violence to initiate sex and having a very consensual encounter where one of the participants happens to be jail bait (she's HOW old?!!! No WAY!). The age of consent varies greatly, dependent upon venue, so what is a Class A Felony in one jurisdiction is True Love in another. The age of consent in PA is sixteen, so "fifteen will get you twenty." That's why the "forcible" part of rape is emphasized- it matters. BSBD, Winsor

I have listened to roughly equal amounts of Rush and Rachel, finding neither particularly appealing. Both seem to be quick to attribute to conspiracy that which smacks of incompetence if the source is one they oppose, and both are strangely silent regarding transgressions on the side to which they adhere. My take is that dunderheadedness knows no political persuasion. At least Rush was quoted as claiming to be an entertainer, as opposed to a political philosopher or whatever it was that he was accused of being. Rachel, as a talking head,postures as a credible source. As far as being right goes, a broken clock is right twice a day (an analog one, at least). People I like a lot have been completely wrong about some things, and people I despise have been spot on about others. I hold suspect those who evaluate data as a popularity contest. BSBD, Winsor

I liked the variant of the ad that ended with a female voice saying "Bill, it's for you."

I'm cool with it if, as part of the atonement process, said individual arranged a personal interview with God to ask forgiveness.