[Maark Abbott]

So Texas seems lovely

[Lady Bliss]

 Maark Abbott, on 08 September 2021 - 07:53 AM, said:

So Texas seems lovely

Yeah, our politics suck, but we have TexMex!

[Lady Bliss]

George W’s speech today was particularly good. Honestly, for a republican, I didn’t think he was that bad of a president.

[EmperorMagus]

 Lady Bliss, on 11 September 2021 - 07:35 PM, said:

George W's speech today was particularly good. Honestly, for a republican, I didn't think he was that bad of a president.

Ummm ... except for Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and 2008, right? Cause by any metric you want to measure it GW has caused more pain and suffering than any other president in the last 30 years.

[amphibian]

GWB is a bottom 3 president in US history and Trump is right above him at bottom 5. The pain and suffering they've caused for millions is and should be legendary - not washed away by halfway decent speeches that do little to address the decades of misused and wrongly used power.

[Lady Bliss]

Look guys, I’m a flaming liberal and I agree with some of your points. BUT, I have always felt that his actions were what most people wanted at the time, and never was he the racist or nationalist that Trump was. The issues that you lay out are basically the differences we have always had between both parties, but I don’t recall the radical division that we have today.

[amphibian]

What party difference is the head of the US government actively channeling a nation's pain and frustration into a war that killed hundreds of thousands of brown people, displaced millions, delivered tens of thousands of wounded Americans back to us, and supplied the police across the country with more and more dangerous equipment to hurt people with?

Life for my brother (who is darker brown that I am) changed September 11th, 2001 in a way that can more accurately be called "the immediate and near sanctioned expansion of the way many in this country like to treat black people". He's joined by millions of others.

Without what GWB did to win vs Gore and with the wars, which put in the base for the GOP to start enmeshing the "keep the wars going bc we're making $$$" into their obstructionist strategy, we don't get Trump and a stacked the wrong way for any progress judiciary for decades to come.

The quiet became louder under GWB's terms and it was the wrong crowd getting louder. The falls of voter protection laws and the judiciary should be telling you that we're seeing the work of decades of progress be undone by people working for decades.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 Lady Bliss, on 11 September 2021 - 11:08 PM, said:

Look guys, I'm a flaming liberal and I agree with some of your points. BUT, I have always felt that his actions were what most people wanted at the time, and never was he the racist or nationalist that Trump was. The issues that you lay out are basically the differences we have always had between both parties, but I don't recall the radical division that we have today.

The invasion of Afghanistan maybe, but Iraq?... no.

Different president might have---almost certainly would have?---focused more on Saudi Arabia:

'Bin Laden was an authentic product of Saudi Arabia, not simply a rogue child. His family was one of the most powerful in the country. The House of Saud owed its very existence, and perpetuation, to Wahhabism, a fundamentalist school of Islam. He was not an aberration. [...]

[...] The connections [between the House of Saud and the Bush family], cultivated over a quarter of a century, are complex and multifarious, emanating outwards from Houston, centred on oil, embracing both the public and private sector activities of the House of Bush, lubricated and driven by money and power. [...] estimates that $1.476bn has made its way over time from the Saudis to the House of Bush, and its allied companies and institutions. [...] "It could safely be said that never before in history had a presidential candidate - much less a presidential candidate and his father, a former president - been so closely tied financially and personally to the ruling family of another foreign power. Never before had a president's fortunes and public policies been so deeply entwined with another nation."'


https://www.theguard...reducation.news

IDK how many deaths or how much misery can be attributed to Trump's mishandling of the pandemic (including the extent to which he helped make belief in conspiracy theories more mainstream). W is still in the lead though, with 900,000 deaths vs 659,000.



But if we consider how many lives (and how many trillions of dollars) could have been saved if President Gore had actually managed to do anything of much significance about climate change... why again haven't scientists conquered this terrible species yet? Will we need to wait for Skynet to take action?

[Gorefest]

Bush jr was a bumbling buffoon. I cannot even blame him for his actions on Iraq and Afghanistan because I honestly cannot get myself to believe that he even had a conscious decision input in it, it must have been the people around him. I'd be amazed if he could even point to Iraq on a map. Trump in my opinion is way worse because he couples stupid with egomaniacal, petulent and all-round nasty.

[amphibian]

I didn't bring this up in the earlier post, but I have a college friend whose father died in 9/11 because he went back into the WTC building he was in to get more people out. I have been to the towers in the mid 90s just after the repairs from the first WTC attack happened, seen in person the gigantic hole after the towers fell, seen the new site as it revived over time, been many times to a 9/11 exhibit at the State Museum etc.

I mourn them, just I do the victims of the unnecessary and incredibly stupid wars, the Muslim and Muslim-adjacent people who still suffer now, and others. But GWB is still a bottom 3 president ever and it galls me to see people try to include him in a path moving forward.

[Malankazooie]

A general query I have about 9/11. Did the phrase "too soon" enter the common vernacular and become popular after 9/11 (when people would make jokes and so forth)? Or was "too soon" used before 9/11?

[amphibian]

It was used way before. It got used for a style of 9/11 jokes because the structure is easy and well known.

[Malankazooie]

huh, Biden is going to be here tomorrow. I did not know that. Luckily I caught the little blurb about it on the local evening news. It will be his first visit since becoming president. When Trump stopped in, that was blasted in all media outlets probably a month prior to his date of appearance. It's nice we are back to the (mostly) boring mundanity of national politics.

Also, do you guys think we are building back better? I guess that is what his visit is in regards to.

[Malankazooie]

There's going to be a rally at the Capitol tomorrow to show support for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists? Ummm, this is not going to end well, right? Well, I at least hope they have a resonable police presence, unlike on Jan. 6. Are we caught in some kind of Groundhog Day, repeat cycle?

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 18 September 2021 - 12:33 AM

[Malankazooie]

What was the deal with France? What cheesed them off? They're thick skinned I believe and are not easily offended. So what was it? Something about submarines or something?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 Malankazooie, on 21 September 2021 - 12:06 AM, said:

What was the deal with France? What cheesed them off? They're thick skinned I believe and are not easily offended. So what was it? Something about submarines or something?

'Budget overruns and culture clashes over long vacations plagued the $50 billion submarine deal France got booted from in favor of the US and UK

[...] As costs ballooned, officials were "stunned" by the French taking a month vacation each summer.


[...] While officials in France appeared blindsided by the move — with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian accusing Australia of a "stab in the back" — the deal had been on shaky ground almost since its inception in 2016.


[... French] Naval Group [...] admitted that the two nations did not see eye-to-eye, and said it was designing courses for French expatriates in Australia so they could learn how to "behave, how to understand, and decode," [...]

[...] French officials in return were likewise said to be surprised that Australian officials expected meetings to begin on time [...]

[...] The report also mentioned French workers requesting more understanding of their need for long lunch breaks.'

https://www.business...to-us-uk-2021-9




In all seriousness though, the French would have the right idea for the future of humanity---if only they also embraced automation more....

[Malankazooie]

Border patrol on horses chasing down Haitians. Not a good look.

[Tiste Simeon]

 Malankazooie, on 23 September 2021 - 06:30 PM, said:

Border patrol on horses chasing down Haitians. Not a good look.

I've yet to see border patrol do something that makes them look good in fairness.

[Primateus]

https://www.newsweek...-margin-1632304

Hah, Trump's buddies in the Ninja audit revealed that Trump is, in fact, an even bigger loser than previously thought.

[Malankazooie]

That made my morning.