BellGab.com Archive

Are you a fan of Fringe, BB?  Maybe you are encountering an observer from a parallel dimension!

Quote from: Zoo on October 01, 2014, 06:49:30 PM
I hope this is the beginning of the end. Oh please let it be!!1

You have a very dapper avatar for someone who's so misanthropic.  This suggests to me conflicted mind.  Have you considered a compassionate, competent therapist and maybe a mood-altering prescription?  Not being snarky here, friend... You just don't seem like the caring guy you appeared to be here.

Sorry about my geographic faux pas, folks.  Is Congo now The People's Republic of Congo?  I should Czech on that!

Quote from: Uncle Duke on October 01, 2014, 08:42:53 AM
Yeah, I've read a good number of books about Rhodesia and South Africa, the books on Portugal's colonial wars in Africa have only recently started appearing in English.  What I never realized was Portugal created a great deal of strife in NATO with their colonial wars because they unilaterally transformed their military into a counterinsurgency force at the expense of the conventional capabilities NATO counted on in Europe.  Like the US in Vietnam and the French in Algeria, the Portuguese military won their battles in the field but lack of support for those wars at home doomed them.

Rhodesia?  Dude, please, the preferred nomenclature is Zaire.

Damnit, Georgie, don't go gettin' all science-y and stuff on us!  Rush and Sean and Sarah all scoff -- that's good enough for me!

I wonder if any of us will live to see the day when the issue of climate change is truly decided upon and consensus formed...  Will we all one day agree that Al Gore is fat and climate change is a grand hoax to pad the wallets of hippie scientists, or will we agree that we are turning our only home into a not-so-easybake oven?  Inquiring minds want to know....

Oh, hell, yeah, western nations are complicit to a grand degree in the clusterfuck that is the ME!  Installing one regime, turning our back on another, sure.  However, in addition to that is the violent intersection of religion, tribalism, a sense of honor rather different than our own, and other similar ingredients all coming together to create a witch's brew of violence.

Man, where else on the web will you find people griping about a casting change for a show that's been off the air for fifty years?  Gotta love this place!

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on September 28, 2014, 11:33:11 PM
I think that was Peter O'Toole who said that, and not Lawrence; and the boundaries today are religious factions, but I get your point.

Oh, I know it was Sir Peter who said that... I assumed the line perhaps was, indeed, something that T.E. had said or written (in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom).

It just seems that part of the world has been a terrible vortex of religion, tribalism, and such for hundreds of years.  Leads me to cynicism.

Oh, my guess, YY, is that Levin probably has only the modest respect for his listeners and assumes they're too dense to catch his chicanery.

I have listened to a podcast by Bob Sheppard that covers logic and programming (I know the guy).  I have pondered starting a podcast myself.  I had been in radio back in the mid-late 80's, and I would like to someday return.  How about you, WM?  Do you podcast?

We need Lawrence back... T.E. Lawrence: So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.

Something less Draconian... Cut out their hearts and desire to fight without creating new resentments, new injustices, new fighters.  Ah, now there's the rub....

Quote from: VtaGeezer on September 26, 2014, 11:03:27 PM
And you can't assume a Muslim is an immigrant.  That was my point.

Sorry, my brain are not working good tonight! 😕

Quote from: Paper*Boy on September 26, 2014, 07:53:42 PM

I'm going to say yes, unless a non-Moslem is beheading people at work after failing to convert them to Islam

Can't go by just a name anyway; who'd've thought Sammy Davis Jr. to be Jewish based on his name?  Sure, Lew Alcindor and Cassius Clay changed their names, but I don't think all converts do.

Quote from: FightTheFuture on September 26, 2014, 05:31:44 PM

Ah, the religion of pieces

I see what you did there...

The extremists have largely frightened away Muslims who could chastise such behavior although there have been, thankfully, a few figures in the faith who have recently declared edicts against extremist behaviors.

I wonder if there are any figures on the number of people abandoning the Muslim faith in the last dozen years.  I would guess that the number of western Catholics has declined in light of the church's many scandals; is something similar happening in the Islamic world I wonder....

Quote from: FightTheFuture on September 26, 2014, 08:32:56 AM

That`s utter nonsense. Nobody CARES what Maddow says, because NOBODY watches her.

True enough... Funny, Rush has, what, 3,000,000 listeners and is considered wildly popular.  That's one percent of the population.  Maddow has 47 listeners, but still makes a decent living I suspect.  A book that sells just a hundred thousand copies is probably a best seller.  How do we get a piece of that action?

Quote from: FightTheFuture on September 26, 2014, 02:28:17 AM
I am really looking forward to all the books that are going to be written about how corrupt and incompetent the Obama administration was. 

Keep in mind, you ol' Buckeye, that with those books will come plenty of glowing appraisals, self-aggrandizing tomes written by those in the Obama administration, too.  The same thing happened after Bush left office and people like Rummy explained (sort of) and justified their every action.

Will no one think of the trees?

I can barely walk by the Barnes and Noble political shelves nowadays:  grifters grifting, dividing the country with every paragraph.

I agree, Bdubb.  Gutfeld (his name just just suits him) is a nationally broadcast person who is speaking--words, words, words, spilling from his pie hole, words that are mocking and sexist.  Obama offered a silent salute that has sent some to their fainting couches.

Imagine if it had been Maddow saying something about a cute male pilot (balls on the ground?)...  You people would want to string her up.

Quote from: Yorkshire pud on September 26, 2014, 06:49:59 AM
I wish I'd put a bet on you saying that; I told myself you'd say something to that effect. Funny how you get all righteous and indignant when it's the black man getting it wrong because he did something awkward, but you think it perfectly reasonable two assholes who haven't the balls or ability to fly a fast jet make sexist remarks about a female pilot--oh hang on, she's foreign! Ah that's it, if she'd been 'murican you'd have said nothing, nadda, squat, because you'd have been in that awkward dilemma of defending the 'warriors' but being a fan of Gutbucket.

I concur, YP.  Obama salutes awkwardly and thus demonstrated his disrespect and stupidity.  Gutfeld (what, you can't cinch a tie around that fat neck even though you're on national TV?) behaves like a sexist ninth-grader, but, hey now, he is just an entertainer.  Hypocrisy rules.

I think that like most AG's, Holder is divisive and less-than-effective.  It comes with the territory.  Those of us on the left hated Ashcroft and the dreadful Gonzalez.  I am not surprised Holder is held in disdain by many.

Man, I hope no one notices my occasional spelling errors...  A bit picky, innit?

Well, I believe NowhereinTime and I (among the left) have registered some criticism of Obama.  I expected more transparency from his administration.  I could offer a number more complaints, but to be candid, they focus upon how the man has not been as liberal as I would wish:  I expected more from him on the environment, education, support of sciences and NASA, more strenuous prosecution of banksters and the like.  Still, at least we never had to face a McCain/Palin administration (he said, shuddering fearfully).

I don't see any idolatry for Obama here, FTF...  Maybe weary doggedness to defend the man from some pretty frothy charges, but that's all.  Guess we all have different filters.  It is just weird to me how someone will howl when BO uses a teleprompter; when a picture is shown of St. Ronnie using one, crickets from the right.  Obama gave a militarily shitty salute.  GWB gave such a salute while holding a doggy and he gets a pass. 

I wish we could find the rules to this damn game we play of political sniping.

No reductionist thinking on this forum, by jingo, by gee, by gosh, by gum....

Oh, and as for Obama mispronouncing words, don't go new-Q-ler on him!

Holy crap, haven't seen you post here in a blue moon!  Welcome back, Tao!

Seems a broad jump, QK, that you just made.  Bdubb thinks marrying a 15-year-old girl is not healthy for the girl, so he must be gay?  My daughter is 13.  No way would I want her marrying anytime in the next even ten years.

KPIG out of the Santa Cruz, CA area is fun.  🐽 Lots of fun songs, comedy bits, quirky hosts.

Quote from: Gd5150 on September 18, 2014, 01:43:29 PM
Zoiks!

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Dude... Pirates do not say, "Zoinks."

I also hate the vague Karate-chop gesture delivered as some politician or executive says, "I'd like to speak to that issue..."  The issue has no ears; you can't speak to it.  Also the expression, "My question to you would be..."  What the hell does that mean? You have a question or you don't.