oromagi

-->

@MisterChris

yeah i have to guess well before the DP

Created:

4 years ago

0

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I am RESTLESS SPIRIT- after death I can visit one person per night and add one VTL to that person

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4 years ago

0

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I'm okay with taking the bomb... my role doesn't activate until I die anyway.

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4 years ago

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@MisterChris

VTL Oromagi.

Oromagi didn't make a single contribution all of last day phase except to:
start a "speed is always scum" wagon
share poetry.
He was posting throughout the DP so clearly he was reading what was going on. I think this reflects his scum playstyle where he'd rather lay low to not screw things up. He's said himself he's a bad scum player.

I still haven't read all the Supadudz bickering from last night. I was just trying to figure out his claim when he got shot. I'm pretty sure I was second on speed and I was also second to share poety, if I remember right. Of course, my poetry had the advantage of originality.

Created:

4 years ago

0

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Hey, all. Sorry, drafter said DP starts on the 28th and I haven't checked in.

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4 years ago

0

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Covid Challenge

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@ethang5

Well, most people don't know when they contracted COVID so it seems like an unreasonable standard to expect celebrity coverage of the actual transmission of disease.

Still, we know Herman Cain contracted COVID in Tulsa on Jun 20, tested positive on Jun 29, admitted on Jul 1 and died on Jul 30.

We know Larry King went to the hospital on Dec 23 and tested positive for COVID then and died on Jan 23.

Roy Horn was admitted to hospital on Apr 28 and tested positive then and died on May 8.

K. T. Oslin was diagnosed with COVID on Dec 14 but she was already in assisted living due to Parkinson's. She died on Dec 21.

John Prine was hospitalized and tested positive on Mar 26 and died on APr 7.

Of the hundreds of notable people dead of COVID listed by WIkipedia, most have a date of death. Maybe half list the day of hospitalization or announcement of infection.

Created:

4 years ago

0

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@ILikePie5

As Negan would say...wellll shit

As Clay Davis would say, "sheeeeeeeee-it"

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4 years ago

0

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-->

@MisterChris

agree. Let Supa be our mislynch.

UNVOTE

VTNL

Created:

4 years ago

0

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Censure, but don't want to admit or defend it

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@fauxlaw

--> @Danielle
Look, sweetie....

You lost at sweetie

Created:

4 years ago

0

Posted in:

I have COVID-19

-->

@Vader

stay well, dudz

Created:

4 years ago

0

Posted in:

-->

@Bullish

This is pull 1:

Oh shit supa, u got hella unlucky

VTL Supa

I really did use RNG btw

You should have warned us you were playing russian roulette with a shotgun.

Created:

4 years ago

0

Posted in:

Censure, but don't want to admit or defend it

-->

@fauxlaw

Your argument suffers from non-sequitur.

Your argument is that the survival of American democracy does not rely on social censorship which is not a knowable proposition. Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler all murdered their censors before they overthrew their respective democracies so we may be able to say with fairness that the death of censorship often precedes the death of democracy but that doesn't establish the obverse as true- that censorship keeps democracies alive.

You give us six examples of responsible authorities in the know warning that Trump is an obvious and immediate threat to our democracy. All six recommend constitutional remedies to the threat. Not one of your sources argues that Trump ought not to be allowed to speak so how does this connect to your thesis?

Nor have you established any evidence of censorship. Trump complained of Twitter censorship for two weeks while fastidiously avoiding the most famous bully pulpit in the world: the White House press conference. Even now, Trump has only to walk out his front door and he can say whatever he wants on live television in less than 5 minutes. Josh Hawley weeps about censorship in a front page editorial in the MSM. What Republicans are demanding now is not the freedom to speak but rather the freedom to speak without contradiction- and that is the opposite of democratic discourse.

Created:

4 years ago

2

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@MisterChris

Particularly since Scott is so much bigger now. We owe our modern stories of Robin Hood, William Wallace, Rob Roy, & Ivanhoe to Scott. Kilts and Tartans and Highland Games basically started in Scott's imagination and became Scottish culture. What did Burns give us? That line about mice and men.

Created:

4 years ago

1

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@MisterChris

Waken, lords and ladies gay,

On the mountain dawns the day

I wonder if you are aware that you are quoting Sir Walter Scott on Burns Supper Day when Sir Scott (a great admirer and friend of Burns) specifically advised,

"There is no comparison whatever: We ought not to be named in the same day."

Created:

4 years ago

0

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-->

@Speedrace

Lunatic and Oro both having flags is ANNOYING me

I edited a famous Jasper Johns painting to a square to make mine. It looks to me like Lunatic actually edited the same pic to match me.

Created:

4 years ago

0

Posted in:

speed is always scum. I don't even understand why it's not freaking everybody out how often speed is scum.

UNVOTE

VTL Speedrace

Created:

4 years ago

0

Posted in:

will Ragnar EVER lose a debate?

-->

@gugigor

Is Ragnar destined to be undefeatable?

yes

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

What do you think you elected? Can-do Biden? Nope.

-->

@fauxlaw

Hidin' Biden told you he could solve Covid. Now he says he cannot.

Two sentences. Two lies.

Your only evidence is this?

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/21/948572720/biden-to-receive-covid-19-vaccine-monday

12/21, Biden says, "There is nothing to worry about." He wasn't talking about the Super Bowl, bud. Do you hear anything but the buzzing in your own head?

Biden gets his vaccine shot and says getting the vaccine is nothing to worry about. DId you misinterpret this as

Biden says he can solve COVID

or

BIden says he can't solve COVID?

Because this remark doesn't support either misassertion.

Here's what Biden actually said about COVID today:

BIDEN: Time is of the essence. We are optimistic that we will have enough vaccine in very short order. As you know, we came in office without knowledge of how much vaccine was being held in advance or available. Now that we’re here, we’ve been around a week or so, we now have that. We’ve gotten commitments from some of the producers that they will, in fact, produce more vaccine in a relatively short period of time and then continue that down the road.

I’m quite confident that we will be in a position within the next three weeks or so to be vaccinating people at the range of a million a day or in excess of that.

I promise that we would get at least 100 million vaccinations, that’s not people, because sometimes you need more than one shot, the vaccination, but 100 million shots in people’s arms of the vaccine. I think with the grace of God and the goodwill of the neighbor and the creek not rising, and as the old saying goes, I think we may be able to get that to 1.5 million a day, rather than 1 million a day, but we have to meet that goal of a million a day. Everything points that we’re going to have a

A, enough vaccine.
B, enough syringes and all the paraphernalia needed to store, keep, inject, move into your arm, the vaccine.
Three, a number of vaccinators, people administrating the vaccine, which is not an easy task of those who have those facilities, like the nursing homes and hospitals. They have the people to do it, but they don’t have the capacity to do everyone. And so I think we’re leaning hard on in areas where we produce more vaccinators. We feel confident we can do that. And thirdly, it’s really important that we have the fora, the place, the facility, the circumstance, where people can show up, stand in line, and get their vaccine without having to stand in line for eight hours. Being able to pick up the phone, call the pharmacy, and get your name on the list, et cetera. All those mechanical things are really, they sound simple, but they’re all consequential, when we’re trying to get out a minimum of a 100 million vaccinations in the 100 days, and move in the direction where we are well beyond that in the next 100 days, so we can get to the point where we reach herd immunity in a country of over 300 million people. Does that answer your question?

JEFF: Well my question was, at what date, or roughly when, do you think anyone who wants one would be able to get it? Is it summer? Is it fall?

I think it will be this spring. I think we’ll be able to do that this spring.

But it’s going to be a logistical challenge that exceeds anything we’ve ever tried in this country. But I think we can do that. I feel confident that by summer, we’re going to be well on our way to heading toward herd immunity and increasing the access for people who aren’t first on the list, all the way going down to children, and how we deal with that. But I feel good about where we’re going, and I think we can get it done.

JEFF: One more on vaccine. Mr. President, one more on vaccine......now that you’re President and you’re saying there is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months, what happened to two months ago when you were talking declaratively about, “I’m going to shut down the virus.”

BIDEN: Well, I’m going to shut down the virus, but I never said I’d do it in two months. I said it took a long time to get here. It’s going to take a long time to beat it. And so we have millions of people out there who have the virus. We’re just, for the first day, I think… Correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve been doing other things this morning, speaking with foreign leaders. But one of the things I think this is one of the first days that the numbers actually come down, the number of deaths, and the number on a daily basis, and the number of hospitalizations, et cetera. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take a heck of a lot of time. And we still have, as Dr. Fauci constantly points out, it’s one thing when we have mass… How can I say it politely? Mass disregard of the warnings about not wearing masks and wearing masks and social distancing and failure to social distance, and people getting together on holidays in ways that weren’t recommended, et cetera.

We see first thing that happens is we see the number of infections go up. Then you see the hospitalizations go up. Then you see the deaths go up. And so we’re in this for a while. What are we now? At about 410,000 deaths? And there’s going to be more. The prediction, as I said, from the very beginning to getting here after being sworn in, was the predictions were, we’re going to see somewhere between a total of 600,000 and 660,000 deaths before we began to turn the corner in a major way.

And again, remember, the vaccine, most of the people taking the vaccine, a vast, significant number, require two shots, and they’re average of three weeks apart. And it takes time for it to be sure that you get to that 95% assurance rate. And so it’s beginning to move, but I’m confident we will beat this. We will beat this, but we’re still going to be talking about this in the summer. We’re still going to be dealing with this issue in the early fall. And last point I’ll make, and I know you’re tired of hearing me saying it, particularly, you may be tired of me saying it. And that is that if we wear masks between now and the end of April, the experts tell us we can save 50,000 lives. 50,000 people otherwise would die.

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4 years ago

0

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Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day;
All the jolly chase is here
With hawk and horse and hunting-spear;
Hounds are in their couples yelling,
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling,
Merrily merrily mingle they,
‘Waken, lords and ladies gay.’
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
The mist has left the mountain gray,
Springlets in the dawn are steaming,
Diamonds on dewine are gleaming;
And foresters have busy been
To track the buck in thicket green;
Now we come to chant our lay
‘Waken, lords and ladies gay.’
‘Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the greenwood haste away;
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot and tall of size;
We can show the marks he made
When ’gainst the oak his antlers fray’d;
You sununu brought to bay;
‘Waken, lords and ladies gay.’
Louder, louder chant the lay,
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we;
Time, stern hickenlooper! who can baulk,
Stanch as hound and fleet as hawk;
Think of this, and rise with day
Gentle lords and ladies gay

Yay, let's awaken up lords gay

and 'gainst the oak their breeches fray

fleet of foot and tall of size

until compelling 'uncle' cries

with gentle horn and hunting-spear

at last they shed a jolly tear

but spend the final shot of quiver

then flee the boudoir all a-shiver

Oh! merry and well risen they

that start their morn up woke lords gay.

VTL SupaDudz

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

Twitter is not a politically neutral site

-->

@Vader

I've been doing a bit of research into this, but Pew Research suggests that 70% of Twitter Adults are Democrats. Corporations function to benefit the people and appeal to people, so it would be a fiscally reasonable to assume they'd appeal to masses

The argument itself is anecdotal in my opinion, as data is private, so we never have a full understanding. It comes down to anecdotal evidence

Only 20% of Twitter users are American and 45% of Twitter users are bots so that 70% Democrat number is not possible. I think the stat you are thinking of is that 92% of all human US Tweets originate with 10% of US Tweeters and of that 10%, 69% lean Democratic (which is not surprising since that demographic is heavily black, female, and millenial) But that group isn't doing political posting so much as lifestyle, shopping, music, etc. They're also Twitter's target demographic. But that's not a political choice by Twitter- that's just the group of people who are most likely to buy things they see on Twitter

Twitter doesn't put out real numbers but speaking very roughly- of the 100 million daily US tweets, about 92 million are generated by the most active 10%- some 7,260,000 of whom 70% or about 5 million lean Democrat. I bet 80-90% of the customers at my local McDonald's lean Democratic- does that mean my McDonald's is not politically neutral? I guess it really isn't politically neutral but can you really draw much inference about the McDonald's ownership and management by customer demographics?

I guess the eventual end of this argument is that Trump was banned because Twitter is not politically neutral- honestly I don't know how anybody could be politically neutral about an attack on our government by one political party working to disenfranchise the rival political party. Either you believe in the US Constitution or you were okay with Trump taking over our government- there's not much room for neutrality.

Created:

4 years ago

0

Posted in:

congress should not abolish the filibuster

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@n8nrgmi

the filibuster keeps our country stable and predictable.

evidence? I don't think there was a single filibuster during the Civil War years. The last four years have been among the least stable and least predictable in US history but no filibuster did anything to prevent that. The only really notable filibusters in history were both used to delay voting rights for black people and unequal treatment of some groups is a classic recipe for instability and unpredictability.

The heart of democracy is the expression of majority will and filibusters in practice only and always obstruct that free expression by the majority. Therefore, filibusters are inherently anti-democratic.

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

Is nature more powerful than science?

Science is the study of Nature.

It's like asking if gravity is more powerful than Issac Newton.

The answer is yes but the question suggests a misapprehension regarding the relationship.

Created:

4 years ago

3

Posted in:

draftermafia Sign-Ups

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@drafterman

/in 4 Duncan Idaho’s ghola

Created:

4 years ago

0

Posted in:

Twitter is not a politically neutral site

-->

@Vader

Twitter has been in a lot of controversy with regards to Trump's ban on Twitter. Many have agreed with this pact and claimed Twitter doing the right thing to protect their guidelines which they say Trump committed.

However, this article suggests that Twitter did not ban child pornography as they believe it did not violate their guidelines, but child pornography is a FEDERAL CRIME?
https://nypost.com/2021/01/21/twitter-sued-for-allegedly-refusing-to-remove-child-porn/?utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

You are telling me that twitter refused to ban child porn yet decided to ban Trump over this? Is Twitter truly politically neutral like they say? The answer is no.

So we have the NY Post (the place where reporters quit just weeks ago because Post executives pressured them to invent false stories about Biden) reporting that an anonymous lawsuit in Florida alleges that Twitter was slow to block pictures of a naked teenager in 2019. Let's note that from Jan '19 to Jun '19 Twitter suspended a total of 244,188 accounts for violations related to child sexual exploitation about 10% of the two million suspensions Twitter handled in that six months.

Twitter won't publish how many reports of abuse it handles daily but even if we go with a low number like 1 in every 100 tweets that's still 5 million complaints daily that have to be handled by a staff of 1500 people. Automated processes handle about half of these but that still leaves more than a thousand abuse reports per employee per day- obviously most shit just never even gets seen.

Of course, thousands of minors each day violate child porn laws by posting sexually explicit pictures of themselves all over the place. Nobody has the capacity or will to police this voluntary and essentially victimless activity so a lot of the less obvious stuff ends up getting ignored. By his own testimony, the boy was making his activity look voluntary and like an individual choice even if it is true that he was being blackmailed elsewhere. If an 14 year old boy looks old enough to be 18 and appears to be doing something voluntary and anonymous, Twitter's not really on the hook and is not going to devote the massive resources required to investigate the true circumstances.

There's nothing leftist about it- the most likely explanation is that no human actually looked at the first two complaints. My understanding is that the tweet was taken down after the third complaint.

You're talking about spotting needles in haystacks.

Trump, on the other hand, tweeted this after a well armed lynch mob wearing Trump T-shirts and MAGA hats tore down the Stars and Stripes from the walls of the Nation's Capitol and put up Trump flags, murdered cops and cried out for the death of the Vice President on every live television channel in the world:

Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country

and

These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!

This is the rhetorical equivalent of a missile pointed at the heart of American democracy- this is our President laughing and clapping as planes slam into the World Trade Center.

Your thesis is that Twitter must be corrupt because not every needle in every haystack is treated with the same alacrity as an inbound ICBM. It seems like such a profoundly false equivalency to me.

Created:

4 years ago

2

Posted in:

TRUMP MUST GO TODAY

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@fauxlaw

Chamberlain May 1940:

"So, I'm gone. Is everybody happy now?"

[ In the background, a bomb strikes Westminster Abbey]

"I didn't think so. Y'all don't know what that is."

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

TRUMP MUST GO TODAY

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@ethang5

It's not really an argument to just keep repeating your false thesis. History has concluded that Chamberlain was a conservative and Churchill was left of center by any modern American standard. I have made arguments to this effect that you have ignored. You have to present some kind of evidence supporting your claim that the opposite of history is true. Your thesis stands disproved and ignorant of basic fact.

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

The Green New Deal will kill us all!

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@fauxlaw

I'm not sure you know that the Green New Deal is not a specific set of proposals. AOC released a 14 page proposal that received 0 democratic votes in Congress (including AOC).

So your thesis is that any proposed legislation referred to as a "Green New Deal" will necessary end all life on this planet even before any specific proposal is offered. Doesn't sound very open minded to me. What if the Green New Deal was just another tax cut for wealthy old white guys, wouldn't you want it then?

Your evidence for this close minded claim is that a character in a movie once littered....seems pretty incoherent to me.

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

mask mandate

I guess if you never visited you might be forgiven for not knowing that the Lincoln Memorial is an outdoor venue. I'm surprised that nobody at InfoWars, NYPost, or FOX has ever been to the Lincoln Memorial, though.

Oh wait. No I'm not.

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4 years ago

0

Posted in:

walls

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@fauxlaw

Joe Biden's inauguration highlighted walls.
There were walls to keep Americans away from the traditional Inauguration parade.
Biden issues an EO to stop building the border wall to allow free passage of caravan aliens into the country.
This is supposed to be unity. Unity of whom? This is the United States of America, not the United States of the World.

ODDYSSEUS and his MEN in the HORSE on the BEACH before DAWN:

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’"

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

walls

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@fauxlaw

Joe Biden's inauguration highlighted walls.
There were walls to keep Americans away from the traditional Inauguration parade.
Biden issues an EO to stop building the border wall to allow free passage of caravan aliens into the country.
This is supposed to be unity. Unity of whom? This is the United States of America, not the United States of the World.

MONGOLS fleeing the GREAT WALL of CHINA: "Hng, no traditional parade?"

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

walls

-->

@fauxlaw

Joe Biden's inauguration highlighted walls.
There were walls to keep Americans away from the traditional Inauguration parade.
Biden issues an EO to stop building the border wall to allow free passage of caravan aliens into the country.
This is supposed to be unity. Unity of whom? This is the United States of America, not the United States of the World.

PICTS fleeing the ANTONINE WALL: "Ach, whatever happened t'unity, eh?"

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

walls

-->

@fauxlaw

Joe Biden's inauguration highlighted walls.
There were walls to keep Americans away from the traditional Inauguration parade.
Biden issues an EO to stop building the border wall to allow free passage of caravan aliens into the country.
This is supposed to be unity. Unity of whom? This is the United States of America, not the United States of the World.

ORCS fleeing the BATTLE of MINAS TIRITH: "Oi! damn humans keeps building walls when all we want is to come in for some barbecue."

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

TRUMP MUST GO TODAY

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@ethang5

--> @oromagi
In fact, Neville Chamberlain was a life-long member of the Conservative Party.
So was McCain. What people do is much more telling than what they say.

So you concede that Chamberlain was Conservative, disproving your thesis:

Inside your TDS racked mind sure. In reality, Chamberlain, who was a liberal like you, wanted to cozy up to Hitler, and Churchill, who was a conservative like me, wanted to kick Hitler's a$$.

WKPDA:The term has mainly been used by Trump supporters to discredit criticism of his actions, as a way of reframing the discussion by suggesting that his opponents are incapable of accurately perceiving the world.

For evidence demonstrating that your understanding of reality is superior to mine, you offered that

Chamberlain was a liberal like me

and

Churchill was a conservative like you.

But this is the opposite of true. You now concede that:

Chamberlain was a conservative

and

Churchill was far more liberal than modern US Trumpism

Since correct apprehension of reality was your grounds for establishing that I am deranged and we both now agree that your apprehension of reality was the faulty one, we should likewise conclude that you are the one who is deranged, no?

Trumpand Chamberlain share the same philosophy regarding dictators- appeasement.
Trump didn't come back from NK with a worthless "peace in ourtime" slip of paper. He showed Kim "fire and fury".

Yes, he did. Kim is still making nukes, testing missiles. Trump did no more than follow So.Korea's detente.

Like Chamberlain, Trump regularly defends establishing friendly relationships with emerging totalitarians
Trump was not blinded by loony dogma that made Chamberlain blind to the menace of Hitler.

Says the guy who didn't even know Chamberlain was a Conservative, that appeasement was conservative policy vs. Hitler in both the UK and the US. Trump thinks Putin and Kim are his friends. When Putin takes out contracts on US soldiers, Trump is silent on the threat to the men and women under his command, thinks of his own as "losers" and "suckers." Trump literally doesn't have a side when it comes to foreign policy, he sold his favor for compliments and ceremonies and a little cash spent at his hotels or golf clubs.

You call me a "historical revisionist" but then demonstrate near ignorance of well documented historical fact.
Not a single "fact" you posted contradicts anything I've said.

Yes, it does. You made a claim based in ignorance: that Churchill was a conservative like you, that Chamberlain was a liberal like me.

Refusal to recognize that your thesis has failed is not evidence favoring your thesis.

Trump won because he gave power back to the people, which is true democracy.

Cite three example of Trump "giving power back to the people."
1. Trump gutted the liberals tendency to ignore what people wanted for liberal dogma. On subjects like Islam, transgenderism, and, abortion. America harming dogma - as Biden is signing into law right now.

2. Trump made the Justice Dept enforce the laws on religious freedom in America. The religious were not liberal punching bags during the Trump administration.

These two claims contradict one another. Either Trump "gutted Islam" or "enforced religious freedom."

If Trump gutted Islam, than Muslims were less free
Islam is a religion
Some religions were less free under Trump
I, for one, don't understand how more law on Muslims, more law on Trans folks qualifies as "giving power back to the people"

Perhaps the point is that Muslims and trans folks are not people, or at least not the people getting power from Trump.

3. Trump made America first, like the American people want. That is why "the people" flocked to his rallies and speeches. What the people wanted, Trump gave them. That is power.

OK, so that is pretty clear. The people you are talking about are not ALL people. You only define people as "followers of Trump" Even if we call every Trump voter a "follower of Trump" that's still only one American in five. Your definition of "the people" is overly restrictive and excludes the vast of majority of Americans and therefore flawed.

Biden just signed an executive order to allow Muslim terrorists into America. If the American people voted on that, would it be what Biden just signed? No.

All Muslims are terrorists. Check.

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

Who will Hollowood attack, now?

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@fauxlaw

Why is Trump no longer a valid target?

with making movies a foregone failure if Tom Cruise has his way,

I don't get the reference. What way is the Tom Cruise way?

I think one thing the coronavirus killed is the public movie theater. I just don't see much investment or optimism in that kind of indoor space going forward. Essentially, TV and movies have become merged into a series of subscription service things except that movies denote one-shot two hour narratives and TV means any other narrative format. I think movies also still connotes bigger budget but that's changing.

I doubt Hollywood will go after Biden or Harris much- if Clinton and Obama's terms are any precedent then Hollywood will probably mostly endorse this administration.

I hear Oliver Stone has already started principal photography on "The Pee Tapes"

Created:

4 years ago

1

Posted in:

-->

@fauxlaw

What did the rhyming dictionary suggest for electroencephalograph?

Created:

4 years ago

0

Posted in:

I'm taking bets on Kammie's engagement of the 25A

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@fauxlaw

25A assumes hostile relationship between POTUS and VP. I think Biden will resign if health concerns warrant- nor do I think that's unreasonable speculation for the oldest president ever. Biden said from the start that defeating Trump was his primary purpose and having achieved that, I don't think he's too proud to drop out when the time comes. If I was Biden I'd proceed as if time was short and would be giving Harris the whole of public relations from the start. Put all the bad news on the president, all the good news on the VP. If you can get Harris's popularity to pop (and how do we gauge popularity in an age of broken polling?) in a time of peace, that would be the time to transfer power. The advantage of incumbency in any election recommends no later than Summer '23. Perhaps the best approach would be to plan to last until the mid-term elections. If Democrats lose ground (which is what usually happens in mid-terms) Biden can take the blame as he goes.

On the other hand, I saw Biden running around on the parade route today and thought, yeh, you'd never see Trump run like that. Biden may be fine for the whole four years. One thing Trump's incumbency taught us is that Presidents get much better health care than the rest of us. My bet is that Biden outlives Trump. Look at Carter- one of the few advantages of virtue is long life.

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4 years ago

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I can't find a published version yet of the poem 22 yr old Amanda Gorman's poem read today, so the break are mine.

The Hill We Climb

When day comes we ask ourselves

where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry asea we must wade.

We’ve braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.

In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice.

And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow we do it.

Somehow we’ve weathered

and witnessed a nation

that isn’t broken,

but simply unfinished.

We, the successors of a country

and a time where a skinny black girl

descended from slaves and raised

by a single mother can dream

of becoming president only to find

herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished,

far from pristine,

but that doesn’t mean

we aren't striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge our union with purpose.

To compose a country committed

to all cultures,

colors,

characters,

and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gazes

not to what stands between us,

but what stands before us.

We close the divide because we know to put our future first,

we must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms

so we can reach out our arms

to one another. We seek harm to none

and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.

That even as we grieved, we grew.

That even as we hurt, we hoped.

That even as we tired, we tried that will forever be tied together victorious.

Not because we will never again know defeat,

but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision

that everyone shall sit under

their own vine and fig tree

and no one shall make them afraid.

If we’re to live up to her own time,

then victory won’t lie in the blade,

but in all the bridges we’ve made. T

hat is the promise to glade,

the hill we climb

if only we dare.

It’s because being American is more

than a pride we inherit. It’s the past

we step into and how we repair it.

We’ve seen a forest that would

shatter our nation

rather than share it.

Would destroy our country if it meant

delaying democracy.

This effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed,

it can never be permanently defeated. I

n this truth, in this faith

we trust for while we have our eyes

on the future,

history has its eyes on us.

his is the era of just redemption.

We feared it at its inception.

We did not feel prepared

o be the heirs

of such a terrifying hour,

but within it, we found the power to author

a new chapter, to offer

hope and laughter to ourselves

so while once we asked,

how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?

Now we assert,

how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was,

but move to what shall be a country that is

bruised, but whole,

benevolent, but bold,

fierce, and free.

We will not be turned around

or interrupted by intimidation

because we know our inaction

and inertia will be the inheritance o

f the next generation.

Our blunders become their burdens.

But one thing is certain,

if we merge mercy with might

and might with right,

then love becomes our legacy

and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country

better than one we were left with.

Every breath from my bronze-bounded chest

we will raise this wounded world

into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the West.

We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast

where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the Lake Rim cities

of the Midwestern states.

We will rise from the sun-baked South.

We will rebuild,

reconcile and recover

in every known nook of our nation,

in every corner called our country

our people diverse and beautiful

will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade

aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light.

If only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

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4 years ago

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Richard Blanco:

One Today

A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration

January 21, 2013

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open

for each other all day, saying: hello / shalom,

buon giorno / howdy / namaste / or buenos días

in the language my mother taught me—in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country—all of us—

facing the stars

hope—a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it—together

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4 years ago

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Elizabeth Alexander:

Praise Song for the Day

A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration

Each day we go about our business,

walking past each other, catching each other’s

eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is

noise and bramble, thorn and din, each

one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning

a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,

repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,

with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,

with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky.

A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,

words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark

the will of some one and then others, who said

I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.

We need to find a place where we are safe.

We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,

the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,

others by first do no harm or take no more

than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,

love that casts a widening pool of light,

love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,

any thing can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

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4 years ago

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Miller Williams at Clinton's Second Inaugural:

Of History and Hope

We have memorized America,

how it was born and who we have been and where.

In ceremonies and silence we say the words,

telling the stories, singing the old songs.

We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.

The great and all the anonymous dead are there.

We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.

The rich taste of it is on our tongues.

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?

The disenfranchised dead want to know.

We mean to be the people we meant to be,

to keep on going where we meant to go.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how

except in the minds of those who will call it Now?

The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?

With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row—

and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.

Who were many people coming together

cannot become one people falling apart.

Who dreamed for every child an even chance

cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.

Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head

cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.

Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child

cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.

We know what we have done and what we have said,

and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,

believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—

just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.

All this in the hands of children, eyes already set

on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—

but looking through their eyes, we can see

what our long gift to them may come to be.

If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

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4 years ago

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An interval of 32 years passes before Angelou rises to consecrate Clinton.

On the Pulse of Morning

A Rock, A River, A Tree

Hosts to species long since departed,

Marked the mastodon,

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,

Any broad alarm of their hastening doom

Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,

Come, you may stand upon my

Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in

The bruising darkness,

Have lain too long

Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,

But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,

A River sings a beautiful song,

Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,

Delicate and strangely made proud,

Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your

Brow and when you yet knew you still

Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to

The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you

Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you

Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then

Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of

Other seekers--desperate for gain,

Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ...

You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree

I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, and if faced

With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon

The day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.

Women, children, men,

Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most

Private need. Sculpt it into

The image of your most public self.

Lift up your hearts

Each new hour holds new chances

For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever

To fear, yoked eternally

To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,

Offering you space to place new steps of change.

Here, on the pulse of this fine day

You may have the courage

To look up and out upon me, the

Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day

You may have the grace to look up and out

And into your sister's eyes, into

Your brother's face, your country

And say simply

Very simply

With hope

Good morning.

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4 years ago

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and here's the poem Frost wrote for the day (honestly, I think Frost went with the more noble conception)

Dedication

Summoning artists to participate

In the august occasions of the state

Seems something artists ought to celebrate.

Today is for my cause a day of days.

And his be poetry's old-fashioned praise

Who was the first to think of such a thing.

This verse that in acknowledgement I bring

Goes back to the beginning of the end

Of what had been for centuries the trend;

A turning point in modern history.

Colonial had been the thing to be

As long as the great issue was to see

What country'd be the one to dominate

By character, by tongue, by native trait,

The new world Christopher Columbus found.

The French, the Spanish, and the Dutch were downed

And counted out. Heroic deeds were done.

Elizabeth the First and England won.

Now came on a new order of the ages

That in the Latin of our founding sages

(Is it not written on the dollar bill

We carry in our purse and pocket still?)

God nodded his approval of as good.

So much those heroes knew and understood,

I mean the great four, Washington,

John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison

So much they saw as consecrated seers

They must have seen ahead what not appears,

They would bring empires down about our ears

And by the example of our Declaration

Make everybody want to be a nation.

And this is no aristocratic joke

At the expense of negligible folk.

We see how seriously the races swarm

In their attempts at sovereignty and form.

They are our wards we think to some extent

For the time being and with their consent,

To teach them how Democracy is meant.

"New order of the ages" did they say?

If it looks none too orderly today,

'Tis a confusion it was ours to start

So in it have to take courageous part.

No one of honest feeling would approve

A ruler who pretended not to love

A turbulence he had the better of.

Everyone knows the glory of the twain

Who gave America the aeroplane

To ride the whirlwind and the hurricane.

Some poor fool has been saying in his heart

Glory is out of date in life and art.

Our venture in revolution and outlawry

Has justified itself in freedom's story

Right down to now in glory upon glory.

Come fresh from an election like the last,

The greatest vote a people ever cast,

So close yet sure to be abided by,

It is no miracle our mood is high.

Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs

Better than all the stalemate an's and ifs.

There was the book of profile tales declaring

For the emboldened politicians daring

To break with followers when in the wrong,

A healthy independence of the throng,

A democratic form of right devine

To rule first answerable to high design.

There is a call to life a little sterner,

And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.

Less criticism of the field and court

And more preoccupation with the sport.

It makes the prophet in us all presage

The glory of a next Augustan age

Of a power leading from its strength and pride,

Of young amibition eager to be tried,

Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,

In any game the nations want to play.

A golden age of poetry and power

Of which this noonday's the beginning hour.

Created:

4 years ago

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Posted in: