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RomaVicta

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by RomaVicta

  1. This was reported in an obscure publication called the New York Times. ... Below, is a dated discussion of it between myself and @956 Worldwide.
  2. What I quoted from one of your posts: Perhaps you can explain where I go wrong in my interpretation of "large conventional military response" while referring to this campaign.
  3. I know this is the kind of series that many people love and get defensive about if the love is not shared, but I'm not much grabbed by it either. I think Hanks and Spielberg can be carried away by the golly-gee-whiz belief in the WW2 generation veneration. Band of Brothers stands out and is excellent because they don't fall prey to it. I'm guessing the source material and the first hand meeting of the men had much to do with keeping them real. The best episode for experiencing the characters has been the one in the retreat with the actress you keep referring to. It's the best written with a cast that elevates the writing. It's also, oddly enough, the best look into just how damaging the bomber crew experience was. Most of the prior episodes, I started just speeding through the scenes of the guys kidding around and laughing at shit that isn't funny hoping to persuade me that there is wit present. There never was. It never feels real. "But these are real people. This really happened." Plenty of pictures about real people and their real experiences fail to dramatize them in a way that brings the story home to the viewer. The earlier comment about character development is apt, IMHO. These two guys were great pilots who were friends and really cool. Those are other guys are gunners and bobardiers who seem kinda interesting, but we'll never really know. I've watched the action scenes because that is the best place for war movies to bring out character. BOB does this brilliantly through an array of characters. I like seeing the bomber experience. Much detail is present that hasn't been present before. There's not much insight into individuals. The Gregory Peck movie, 12 O'clock High, is superior in every regard except techinically. You get a full range of characters and you see what the experience does to them. I binged this up until the last episode I saw that ends with the reunion of the friends. The scene in the German city had a lot of value. The Germans in that sequence display more depth and range than the bomber crews have thoughout the series: you get grief, horror, fury, cruelty, and vengeance. You get an aspect of war. Frankly, I've forgotten to catch up since then. I will, but I'm not particularly anxious to. I wish I was having the reaction of those who are loving the show. Band of Brothers and Generation Kill are easily the best war series I've seen about any war.
  4. Well, if they're going to put the longhorns on somebody, I guess vengeance is the best.
  5. If everything ran perfectly, I have no moral objection to capital punishment. We get it wrong too often. We apply it unequally. We can't even find a humane way to do it.
  6. Didn't much care for Maestro. Seems Bernstein and everyone he knew were smokers. Oh, and they all talk at the same time and laugh at things that aren't funny. Hard to loose with Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in the lead, but they found a way. Mulligan was the only thing even vaguely interesting about the movie.
  7. If you haven't read the book, you're in for a treat. One of the treats is that this series has strayed pretty far from the sequence of events in the book. I've read it more than once. I'm only so-so on the series. I think it was a mistake to start the story in the capital where all the characters are gathered. It's hard to keep straight who is doing what and why. The book and original series (also very good, but it's been a long while since I've seen it) start with the ship and the village and lingers there for awhile. Both are easier to follow. I think they're relying too much on the politics to drive the story. It's all so serious, but it's hard for me to care much. They are clearly doing as they announced, gunning to be GOT. This show needs some fucking Lannisters. They need a Ronin like Bronn (Watch Mifune in his movies). They need to loosen this thing up a little. Cosmo is killing this show. I keep expecting him to break out of character (to whatever degree he ever really is in character) wink at the screen and ask, "How you liking my Richard Burton impression?" So many fantastic British actors, and we get this clown. A lot of good Australians, too. Americans usually don't do British very well. Mariko looks a little too modern. It's dumb that they made her a great fighter. Production values are top notch. Pacing is solid. I'll keep watching hoping that the story finds its way.
  8. Damn. I would likely vote for Schiff, but I hate seeing Porter lose anything. I see it's four years until the other seat comes up. I have little knowledge of Butler, but a quick scan on google indicates she might very good. Just a guess. Biden should find a place for Porter in his administration. She's too valuable not to be working for the republic.
  9. You're smart, but this position of yours is getting desperate. We're bloody, violent, and stupid in our application of force. We're far more restrained than Israel. Destroying Kabul with airstrikes followed by an armored invasion would be comparable. The ISIS conflict was horrible. The Iraq invasion needlessly killed tens of thousands of civilians not counting the post battle trauma. We were wrong to invade and the results have been disastrous. Baghdad is not a pile of rubble. Iraquis stilll live in Iraq. We've no doubt killed way too many people but, other than the indigenous population of North America, we haven't made a policy of erasing a people. Israel is conducting a campaign akin to what the Serbs were trying to do in Kosovo. Or akin to our shameful history with the native civilization of North America. The Nazis in Warsaw also make for a good example of a trained modern army crushing determined but feeble resistance and erasing the inhabitants. I don't see those as precedents justifying Israel's slaughter and starve campaign. I don't think you finding details that differ means much. You need to argue how Israel is justified. You can't rely on calling it inevitable. You can't rely on hypotheticals that history does not support. I'll repeat that I respect you and your way of arguing. I've learned a lot from you.
  10. I couldn't disagree more. The US, bloody as we can be, didn't cut a swath through every town in Afghanistan after 9/11. What you say is an inevitability is clearly not. Even it the slaughter in Gaza was an inevitability because of Israel's disposition, the attack would not be justified. I'll say it a last time; the attack in October is no longer what is leading Israeli policy. They want to erase the Palestinians from Gaza. And we're complicit.
  11. The difference is that had HRC acted as Trump has, we'd want her under the jail in the same way we hold that opinion about Trump. Your argument drifts into speciousness by raising hypotheticals and granting equivalence to things that are not equivalent. Your later statement about the poor choice of candidates between Biden and Trump needs illumination. How are they equivalent? Does either represent a threat to the election process? Which candidate could we best expect to protect the Constitution? Serious questions.
  12. Interesting posts, @BHMCruiser. I'm in the camp that believes the actions of Jan 6 were obviously efforts to seize the government illegally. It matters to lawyers and judges if you can define it under a certain legal code. Whether they can or not doesn't alter my opinion of what I saw and what I have read. I've been kicking around the stange notion that the obvious doesn't mean so much anymore. That someone who did what Trump did, which we saw, and not be eliminated out of hand from holding office is just plain bizarre. Trump may not fit the narrow definition of an insurrectionist or traitor, but he is clearly a dangerous enemy of the republic. He has invited whatever a loyal citizen of the US might do to him. We have the same opinion of the real problem being the electorate. Trump's presence on the ballot supported by that electorate is a combination that is both shocking and dangerous.
  13. Nothing in the post suggested that pre-emptive actions were off limits. No one is suggesting kid gloves. After 911, I've advocated a war on the terrorists who mean us harm mainly using intelligence and special forces. I capped it off with saying I'd rather err on the side of thoroughness. Bombing the Gaza strip into uninhabitable rubble while pressuring a neighboring country to take in the refugees is displacement on a massive scale. The ensuing starvation, disease, lack of shelter, lack of feminine napkins (no joke), and even water has little to do with the October attacks at this point. I don't care to get into an argument about the definition of genocide because it's a trivial distinction to me. Mass slaughter of noncombatant civilians meets a high enough standard. Calling this a war is a lie.
  14. Truly. I'm glad the windows can be opened out here in the country. I can listen to the bird, feel the breeze, and check for emerging flowers. Never thought I'd like it so much out here, but I love it. I do try to change my gaze more often.
  15. So very well put, 'Stache. You cover my opinions and add others.
  16. There was an earlier account of what at least one female Israeli soldier was put through in October. Horrific. Maybe even moreso than what other women suffered. Torture isn't an adequate word for such psychopathic outrages. The Israelis have been cruel captors, but there is no way to both sides this one. Not close. I would like some insight into how Hamas creates such an army. We all can name generalities, but if anyone has a resource that really looks into the brainwashing that must be going on. This is beyond anger. This is beyond what is needed for terrorism. These men were not all born psychopaths.
  17. From the beginning, the problem has been the electorate. When I read 1984 the first two times, my main objection was how totalitarian rule could be imposed on a once free society. I read it the last time in 1984, and I finally got it. The people will not consider the change an imposition. The vast number of proles (in the book) are totally content with the dissolution of truth, the limiting of language, and the choreographed displays of emotion. Big Brother Cares About You!
  18. That guy seems pretty alarmed by it. This only lacks, "Good day, sir. I said, good day!" Their pompous mode is almost as cringe inducing as their cloying "please love us" videos. You know, "we're not weird" and the profoundly self-humiliating video of them doing SEC team cheers. You'd recognize this as Aggie from a mile off. The explanation of something everybody knows as though they're the only ones keen enough to perceive it. "College football is a business, In business..." Then there is the self-agrandizing lie about their importance and their ever-selfless motives. I think a lot of the ridicule was directed at you asking, "the same Sidney Carton who posts here?" As opposed to what, the original one last seen on a tumbril? I'm not saying you're an idiot; it was just a funny slip.
  19. American Fiction: Loved it. So very smart. Poor Things: What's the fucking deal with this POS? Got bored and abandoned it after 35 minutes. I was surprised to see how well-received it has been. Sometimes you just miss the point, I guess. Emma Stone was certainly committed. Only Oscar nominee left to watch is Zone of Interest. I've been strongly preferring the smaller movies: Past LIves, Holdovers, and American Fiction.
  20. So good that some people ate their own fingers! I don't look at much AI stuff, but the hands are usually pretty bad. Clever of this fraud to have most hands or at least fingers hidden. That's fairly subtle. Trying to float the notion that Trump was celebrating in the bossom of a Black family at Christmas and looking quite at home is not so subtle. It's ridiculous.
  21. I appreciate the thought and tone of your response. However, I think your sense that a great opportunity was missed because the six line "simple statement" was not uttered at the start is errant in the extreme. First, every value stated is obvious to any modern nation. Russia is even aware of it, but they chose to go against the assumptions in their brutal attack of Ukraine that has similar aims as those possessed by Israel. Does a nation like Israel, populated by educated and clearly civilized people, really need to be reminded that they should "minimize risk and actual harm to civilians?" Of course, they have the right to defend themselves. Every nation does. Second, the part about not supporting Israel should they cross the boundaries laid out in the warning, the second they crossed that boundary with the air campaign, voices, including mine, objected to the US attachment to the developing outrage. Those voices were raised because of the violation of the rules set down in the simple statement. Everyone knows those rules. Lastly, that's all moot at this time. The US is on the wrong side of this wholesale destruction of another de facto country. Israel is guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and empire building. We're sending them the tools to finish off a people.
  22. Well, they could start by not lying about their goal in Gaza and justifying it by pointing to the horrors of October. Using an accusation of lack of imagination for presenting a solution to how Israel should deal with Hamas was indeed used to cover Israel's air bombardment of Gaza and the early part of the ensuing ground invasion. What are they supposed to do? There have been answers to this including two independent states; cease colonization of land cede to Palestinians; use precision attacks. The answer has been consistently, "well, that hasn't/won't work." First, the above paragraph is not license for Israel to execute murder from the air, murder on the ground, or murder by deprivation and starvation until a better policy is discovered. Second, the issue is no longer what Israel should do to destroy Hamas. The issue is what is actually happening: a ruthless, brutal campaign to terrorize a population into leaving their homeland. And we're complicit. We're all pearl clutching and talking about how bad things are. Until we cease support for Israel as a response to this action, we're abetting them.
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