Politics & Stuff

[kmk108 1,186]

2 hours ago, Spike said:

 

Yeah, except I never said it was the same thing. Any comedian should be pushing the envelope and doing so isn't a sign of talent, it is the bare minimum. I've said it once, I'll say it again, he is only popular internationally because you'll find the same shit any pub in Australia. He sells a stereotype that foreigners aren't accustomed to.

The way he speaks in the Piers Morgan video is literally how Australians speak, there isn't any funny about it, there is no nuance, there is no subtlety, he isn't even satirising Australians.

The video of him and Piers isn't him being a comedian. He's not trying to be funny.

You're perfectly fine thinking that's why he's popular, but that's not why I think he's popular. Give his material to an American comedian and I'll still think it's funny.

[Spike 12,049]

3 hours ago, kmk108 said:

The video of him and Piers isn't him being a comedian. He's not trying to be funny.

You're perfectly fine thinking that's why he's popular, but that's not why I think he's popular. Give his material to an American comedian and I'll still think it's funny.

Of course he was trying to be funny, it's all about self-advertisement. If he can't go on Bill Maher and get some laughs from Maher's sheep audience then it makes him appear drab; and if he appears boring he won't gain any new fans.

[Spike 12,049]

My favourite comedies of the top of my head:

• Black Books
• Blackadder
• Seinfeld
• Red Dwarf
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• Futurama
• The Life of Brian
• The Holy Grail
• Hot Fuzz
• Dr. Strangelove
• Office Space

[kmk108 1,186]

9 minutes ago, Spike said:

Of course he was trying to be funny, it's all about self-advertisement. If he can't go on Bill Maher and get some laughs from Maher's sheep audience then it makes him appear drab; and if he appears boring he won't gain any new fans.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I didn't hear a joke from him in the video. Just a disagreement with Piers. 

[kmk108 1,186]

2 minutes ago, Spike said:

My favourite comedies of the top of my head:

• Black Books
• Blackadder
• Seinfeld
• Red Dwarf
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• Futurama
• The Life of Brian
• The Holy Grail
• Hot Fuzz
• Dr. Strangelove
• Office Space

Hot Fuzz but not Shaun of the Dead!? They're both great.

It's Always Sunny is probably my favorite comedy show. That or South Park but I practically grew up with South Park. 

[Spike 12,049]

2 minutes ago, kmk108 said:

Hot Fuzz but not Shaun of the Dead!? They're both great.

It's Always Sunny is probably my favorite comedy show. That or South Park but I practically grew up with South Park. 

I haven't seen Shaun of the Dead in years and to be honest I forgot about it. I'd add South Park but the older stuff. I'm not that into the direction the show has taken the last years. The plot serialisation just doesn't interest me.

[kmk108 1,186]

1 minute ago, Spike said:

I haven't seen Shaun of the Dead in years and to be honest I forgot about it. I'd add South Park but the older stuff. I'm not that into the direction the show has taken the last years. The plot serialisation just doesn't interest me.

I need to watch them again. It's been a couple of years.

The first serialization season was alright because it still allowed them for episodes that didn't really advance the story much (the Tweak and Craig episode is coming to mind) but the last season was, overall, probably their worst season. Luckily, I think they're done with it. The last episode was titled "The End of Serialization as We Know It". I always liked that's I could randomly play South Park episodes as background TV for hours. The serialization kind of screws with that  

Interestingly, the creators say they're not going to focus on the Trump administration because they're satirizing American politics too well for South Park to do much better. 

[Spike 12,049]

27 minutes ago, kmk108 said:

I need to watch them again. It's been a couple of years.

The first serialization season was alright because it still allowed them for episodes that didn't really advance the story much (the Tweak and Craig episode is coming to mind) but the last season was, overall, probably their worst season. Luckily, I think they're done with it. The last episode was titled "The End of Serialization as We Know It". I always liked that's I could randomly play South Park episodes as background TV for hours. The serialization kind of screws with that  

Interestingly, the creators say they're not going to focus on the Trump administration because they're satirizing American politics too well for South Park to do much better. 

Trump is a low hanging fruit anyway, anybody can make a Trump joke. South Park doesn't need to be strictly political and that's what I like about it. They lampoon everything from pop culture to history, I'd hate for them to be shoehorned into strict political satire. They've never taken sides and that is why I've watched every single episode of South Park and I've never felt like they've been preachy. I also love how they can take the ridiculousness of the world and put it through the lens of a child; 'Isn't every crime a hate crime?'

I do miss some of the old style episodes that weren't really about anything. Like the 'Brown Note' or 'Scott Tenorman Must Die', it was just comedy gold without the need for commentary. That is probably the most difficult comedy to create.

[Spike 12,049]

20 hours ago, Leif said:

The majority of Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc, are too passive to really be passionate & to-a-T regarding their faith; obviously because more often than not these days, they've just been following mum/dad's orders & found it easier to play along and call themselves whatever faith they are, than be scolded for otherwise. There's also a lot of perks to going along with this; you get a large community of 'friends' to an extent who you've never even met, special holidays, some decent philisophical teachings. So it's not OK to paint Muslims in general as dangerous; because the majority are no different from the rest of us.

However, there are a portion of people who choose by themselves to follow certain faiths. And what I want to say is, that out of those people, out of the passionate die-hard believers who chose this path, it's only Muslims killing thousands of people. The passionate Christians who take texts from their faith literally are not for the most part, instigating murder. Neither are Jews who take their teachings literally, Buddhists, and so on. But I'd say the majority of Muslims who take their historic texts literally, do indeed harbor a dangerous energy which more or less stands as "Be one of us, or be less than us."

It cannot be ignored then that when we evaluate the 'radical' portion of believers of each religion, Islam beyond tenfold is producing murderers & rapists. None of my 'Muslim' acquaintances fall into this bracket though, they're all, soft&fuzzy Muslims who're only on this path because it makes life easier for the reasons I said above. There is also a small portion of self-decided Muslims who are very intelligent people and know that not all texts & teachings should be gospel, but again, in comparison to other religions the figures are scary when you compare the rational vs. the irrational. At this point I'd say, the majority of Western Muslims are completely lovely people with no danger inside of them, but I feel for the sake of themselves and for the earth, they need to distance themselves aggressively from the old teachings of Islam & the current Eastern Muslims (for the most part; again, I've seen fine examples on this forum of lovely Muslims from Asia), and rebrand themselves essentially as Muslims mk2. 

It's like there's 2 types of Muslim just as there's 2 types of communism; the clean Marx kind, and then the butchered Stalin kind. The latter needs eradicated, because it's a dangerous cult fueled by misunderstanding.

People are passionate of their religions, people do love their god(s) and people do devote their lives to spirituality. 'Passion' and 'passive' aren't mutually exclusive and 'passion' and 'extremist' aren't mutually inclusive. It is completely assumptive that young people aren't spiritual and only pay lip-service for their family's sake. Islam is different from the 'rest of us', it is different to Christianity, it is different to Judaism (since when were Jews considered 'us'?), it is different from Hindi, it is different to Shinto, and it is different from the western world. Orthodox Islam is incompatible with the 'West' as Orthodox Christianity (not the Greek schism) is incompatible with the 'Near-East', as the two religions exist opposite each other as the founding pillars of morality, science and philosophy. That isn't to say a Muslim couldn't adapt to certain areas 'West' or a Christian couldn't do the same in the 'Near-East', the individual isn't the argument but the overall principles.

Spain, France and Italy are all countries that share the linguistic route of 'Romance' and share a long right history together but they are not the same: culturally, ethnically, and socially. To break it down even further each of the three nations has different native cultures, ethnicities and societies within itself. There is no love lost between the cultural and economic divide of north versus south in Italy; Castillan, Basque, and Catalan nationalism in Spain, and Occitan, Bretagne and French cultures in France. The nations aren't the same, the sub-groups aren't the same, the languages they speak aren't the same; despite them all sharing a similar and intertwined history. So if three nations are already divided by so much internally and externally what would make it so that two or more dividing and opposite religions are 'no different from the rest of us'?

It is okay to generalise any culture, ethnic group, religious group, language group if their is empirical data and evidence to suggest certain ideals are the 'norm'. If we together study a random tribe in Polynesia and we noticed that out of the entire tribe 85% of the people engaged in cannibalism, it would be a fair statement to say that tribe are 'cannibals'; despite the 15% exception. Only when we accept a certain phenomenon as the 'truth' can we examine why it happens. For instance if we were to poll the Muslims of Tunisia and Bangladesh  asked them the question 'Can suicide bombing be justified?' and Tunisia (population ~10,000,000) voted 5% yes and Bangladesh (~155,000,000) 47% yes, what would you say was the rule and the exception? Obviously the rule would be that Muslims don't agree with suicide bombing, because slightly more disagree than agree (that still leave nearly 80,000,000...); however what if we plopped those numbers next to America? Only 8% of American-Muslims agree with suicide bombing. I have no stats on the rest of the population but if we go with the hypothetical that they do not agree with suicide bombing than only 8% of 1% of the American population believe in suicide bombing, or 0.125%. Would you prefer one-hundred Tunisians immigrating to America or one-hundred Bangladeshis? Which of the two has a better chance of integrating? Which would be more likely perceived as 'no different from the rest of us'? Would you prefer a New Zealander immigrate to the UK or a Syrian? Or you could ask a Palestinian, would they prefer another Jew immigrating to Israel, or another Palestinian recovering their pre-1967 land?

Their are degrees of difference; a Catholic Spaniard is different to a Protestant Englishman, but they are more similar to one another than to a Sunni Saudi.

Ask yourself:' are my friends the exception or the rule?' 'Am I the exception to the rule of religious tolerance?' 'Is Luton the exception or the rule to increased Islamic immigration?' 'Is loss of cultural and national identity the exception or the rule to mass-immigration?'

Communism, Marxism and Stalinsim is all the same. It's theft of property, loss of individuality and the promotion of the state above the individual. It abolishes the family as a unit, promotes absolute belief in the state and the forfeiture of democracy and personal rights.It is the murder and destruction of personal gain, ambition and achievement. It removes the incentive for progress, the yearning for more and self-improvement. Whatever you want to call it, Communism has stolen and killed more lives in the last 150 years than anything else. What right does any government have to possess my personal business, sell the assets and redistribute the wealth to everyone. What right has the lazy fool down the street have to the business I took a risk on, what right do they have to the fruits of my labour?

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/

http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/01/concerns-about-islamic-extremism-on-the-rise-in-middle-east/pg-2014-07-01-islamic-extremism-10/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/22/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

http://www.people-press.org/2011/08/30/muslim-americans-no-signs-of-growth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/

[Johnnyeye 7,501]

what a joke, sad world we live in...

http://www.espnfc.us/english-premier-league/story/3063000/dwight-yorke-denied-travel-through-us-because-of-iranian-stamp-on-passport

[CHOULO19 24,332]

It's always painful listening to Trump trying to talk, but him trying his best either to condemn or refuse to condemn (I genuinely couldn't tell which) the rise in antisemitism was on a whole different level. 

Literally his best answer to the fact that antisemitic threats are skyrocketing was "My daughter is Jewish"  Meanwhile, the FBI just stopped a right wing extremist with a gun who was going to shoot up a synagogue "in the spirit of Dylan roof".

I don't criticize Trump much because everyone else has that more than covered, but it keeps surprising me how genuinely stupid he is. That's irrelevant of politics. The fact that he's a pathological liar aside, he's got one of the lowest IQs among anyone in politics almost anywhere. 

Something in the system went seriously wrong. Someone like Trump should be the distraction not the winner of the election.

It's almost scary and funny in equal measures watching racism and fascism rise on the back of such pure stupidity. You always picture fascism in relation with strong charismatic leaders with great speech giving abilities but Donald Trump sounds like a dyslexic trying to read in his second language a beginner-level translation of Hitler speeches...

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Incidentally @Fulham Broadway, Bill Maher did give that Milo guy a platform as you said he should get, and of course he ended up getting all the spot lights and the attention while he spewed toxic hate against immigrants, trans people and other minorities.

You can't seriously debate a guy who is the equivalent of a walking bigoted facebook meme, not that Maher was trying his best to push back. There is no logic in the first place in his arguments to try to counter or take apart, just hyperbole and bigotry. You end up just legitimizing his bigoted ideas when they were not legitimate before.

I applaud Jeremy Scahill who refused to be on the show because he did not want to be a part of the normalization of Milo's beliefs.

[kmk108 1,186]

18 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

It's always painful listening to Trump trying to talk, but him trying his best either to condemn or refuse to condemn (I genuinely couldn't tell which) the rise in antisemitism was on a whole different level. 

Literally his best answer to the fact that antisemitic threats are skyrocketing was "My daughter is Jewish"  Meanwhile, the FBI just stopped a right wing extremist with a gun who was going to shoot up a synagogue "in the spirit of Dylan roof".

I don't criticize Trump much because everyone else has that more than covered, but it keeps surprising me how genuinely stupid he is. That's irrelevant of politics. The fact that he's a pathological liar aside, he's got one of the lowest IQs among anyone in politics almost anywhere. 

Something in the system went seriously wrong. Someone like Trump should be the distraction not the winner of the election.

It's almost scary and funny in equal measures watching racism and fascism rise on the back of such pure stupidity. You always picture fascism in relation with strong charismatic leaders with great speech giving abilities but Donald Trump sounds like a dyslexic trying to read in his second language a beginner-level translation of Hitler speeches...

I was absolutely blown away by the, frankly, incoherent ranting he did on Thursday. He continues to denounce journalism that does anything but praise him, called his administration a "fine-tuned machine", says he inherited a mess, was called out for lying at the podium, actually asked if anyone had an easy question and then fired back when the question wasn't to his liking. He called himself the least anti-Semitic and least racist person, ever.

People in attendance were in shock. Regardless of your feelings about what is going on in American politics, it's a really bad look for the President to just rant and rave for over an hour in mostly fragments and hyperbole, calling out the media while himself misrepresenting "facts" and telling straight up lies.

[kmk108 1,186]

6 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

Incidentally @Fulham Broadway, Bill Maher did give that Milo guy a platform as you said he should get, and of course he ended up getting all the spot lights and the attention while he spewed toxic hate against immigrants, trans people and other minorities.

You can't seriously debate a guy who is the equivalent of a walking bigoted facebook meme, not that Maher was trying his best to push back. There is no logic in the first place in his arguments to try to counter or take apart, just hyperbole and bigotry. You end up just legitimizing his bigoted ideas when they were not legitimate before.

I applaud Jeremy Scahill who refused to be on the show because he did not want to be a part of the normalization of Milo's beliefs.

I generally don't like Larry Wilmore, but...

 

[CHOULO19 24,332]

9 minutes ago, kmk108 said:

I was absolutely blown away by the, frankly, incoherent ranting he did on Thursday. He continues to denounce journalism that does anything but praise him, called his administration a "fine-tuned machine", says he inherited a mess, was called out for lying at the podium, actually asked if anyone had an easy question and then fired back when the question wasn't to his liking. He called himself the least anti-Semitic and least racist person, ever.

People in attendance were in shock. Regardless of your feelings about what is going on in American politics, it's a really bad look for the President to just rant and rave for over an hour in mostly fragments and hyperbole, calling out the media while himself misrepresenting "facts" and telling straight up lies.

And Netanyahu was actually standing next to him in the other conference and the genocidal lunatic was actually defending Trump and celebrating the fact that he rose to power on a wave of bigotry and antisemitism 

But of course the twat of course can allow himself to talk in the name of all Jews even after helping the CIA arm literal Nazis in Ukrain  

 

14 minutes ago, kmk108 said:

I generally don't like Larry Wilmore, but...

 

What a bigoted twat Maher is. Even the right wing extremist had to point out that he just called all trans people 'weirdos'! Wanker...