Author Topic: Random Thoughts Thread  (Read 159632 times)

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Offline Askold

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #600 on: May 27, 2016, 02:24:22 pm »
Vladimir Putin.

Putin.

Grigori Rasputin.


Rasputin.


Putin.


RAS-Putin.


Coincidence? I think not.



Has anyone actually seen these people in the same room at the same time or am I crazy for thinking that Rasputin faked his death and resurfaced as "Putin."

...That's a really weak attempt at a fake name. He couldn't even think of more than one new first name and went with "Vladimir, son of Vladimir." And who actually believed the ridiculous legend of his death? That was like five guys blurting a different way for him to die all at the same time when they were questioned and then they tried to claim that all the deaths were true. 9 year olds can make up better lies.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #601 on: May 27, 2016, 08:10:38 pm »
I really should start working on taking in other points of view to weigh them instead of just dismissing them outright.

Offline Delirium

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #602 on: May 29, 2016, 12:07:34 am »
Vladimir Putin.

Putin.

Grigori Rasputin.


Rasputin.


Putin.


RAS-Putin.


Coincidence? I think not.



Has anyone actually seen these people in the same room at the same time or am I crazy for thinking that Rasputin faked his death and resurfaced as "Putin."

...That's a really weak attempt at a fake name. He couldn't even think of more than one new first name and went with "Vladimir, son of Vladimir." And who actually believed the ridiculous legend of his death? That was like five guys blurting a different way for him to die all at the same time when they were questioned and then they tried to claim that all the deaths were true. 9 year olds can make up better lies.



WAKE UP, WORLD!

(Also that Putin picture is funnier if you know Russian. When you're counting in Russian, you say "raz" instead of "odin (one)". So "razputin, dvaputin" would be "one Putin, two Putin.")
« Last Edit: May 29, 2016, 12:10:23 am by Delirium »

Offline Askold

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #603 on: May 29, 2016, 12:16:39 am »
Did you know that President George W. Bush "accidentally" called referred to Putin as Rasputin? Now why would he make a mistake like that?????????????
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Skybison

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #604 on: June 02, 2016, 02:26:17 am »
Am I the only person who hates the popular quote "Someone who would give up essential freedom for security deserves neither freedom or security."

I mean why?  If I liked in the 1770s and decided I'd rather keep the security of living under King George then risk having my family killed in the revolution, why is that so terrible a choice?  Heck, isn't the quote itself anti-freedom?  How can you call it freedom to say you HAVE to pick freedom over security or you lose both?


Offline Sigmaleph

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #605 on: June 02, 2016, 11:16:01 am »
I think "temporary" freedom was a qualifier, but yeah it's kind of fucked up. Everyone deserves both freedom and security.

Freedom vs security is a hard tradeoff to make, and no solved by witty quotes.
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Offline ironbite

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #606 on: June 03, 2016, 10:18:32 am »
I wonder what booze tastes like in a world without corn.

Offline Askold

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #607 on: June 03, 2016, 10:42:26 am »
I wonder what booze tastes like in a world without corn.

Wine, mead, vodka etc. Not all booze is made from corn.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline mellenORL

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #608 on: June 03, 2016, 01:51:06 pm »
Jack Daniels = the only booze. Apparently. I like rum and vodka much more.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #609 on: June 07, 2016, 03:11:43 am »
Finland is having the weirdest political scandal in a while. The Left Alliance (Short history: they are the biggest successor to the original communist party. Once USSR fell the original communist party in Finland had a bit of a fracas and was divided into several parties. LA actually seem like decent folk and one of the more sensible parties in Finland at the moment. Currently they mainly support Nordic Democracy kind of government.) elected a new leader for the party and several people and news agencies that are NOT in the party or connected to it are complaining about how the election was held.

You see, normally in Finland party leaders are chosen by what is basically a caucus (often the nominees are pre-selected by the inner circle / leaders of the party and then the members in the party meeting get to vote on them.) This time the LA let all their members vote before the official meeting and the winner got over 60% of votes from the 10'000 party members.  And for some reason this is a horrible breach of democracy and a scandal. No really, politicians, bloggers and even the editor of a magazine wrote how this kind of system is not part of a western democracy and how it is horrible because now the 3% of the members who take part in the official meeting can not vote on this matter (although they already did vote, along with all the other members) and the party leadership cannot make the final call on who gets elected because their hands have been tied up by the voting process...

So far the only actual definition on how this is undemocratic came from someone who complained that this is like "communists deciding who is the company commander by voting on it" (rather than following the established chain of command.)
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Skybison

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #610 on: June 10, 2016, 02:59:07 am »
After reading some stuff about Gary Johnson I started thinking the line everyone was using that Libertarians are Fiscally Liberal and Socially Conservative makes no sense.  Libertarians generally use the Nolan Chart/political compass approach to defining political ideologies:

Conservatives: small government of fiscal matter, big government on social ones
Liberals: Big government on fiscal matters, small government of social ones.
Libertarians: small government for both.

That's nonsense.  Liberals DON'T want a small government on social issues.  They want a big government that enforces anti-discrimination laws, punishes companies that allow sexual harassment, makes abortions readily available via socialized medicine, enacts affirmative action, maybe even criminalizes hate speech.  Libertarians are against all that.

So I've been brain farting all week about what I see as a more accurate replacement for the Nolan Chart approach:

Liberal Stance: The status quo sucks, we need a bigger government to make it better.
Conservative Stance: The status quo is/was good, we need a medium sized government to protect/restore it.
Libertarian Stance: We shouldn't fear change but we shouldn't force it, so we need a small government that won't act either way.

That seems a more accurate description of Liberals, conservatives and libertarians too me then the nolan chart.  Liberals want a government that intervenes in society to reduce poverty and reduce bigotry.  Libertarians don't want the government to enforce bigoted laws, but they want to stop at removing such laws from the books and no more.  This also gets into economics, political scientists have found that republican voters actually disagree with their leaders on economic matters, they strongly support keeping social security and medicare, tougher business regulations, and trade protectionism, big government stances all.  But I'd counter that's not fiscally liberal, what they want is for the government to protect the social order via Welfare Chauvinism.  They support cutting government programs out of a belief that liberals were undercutting the social order with welfare programs that were putting black people on equal footing with white people (and that's terrible) not because they don't want government involvement in the economy.

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #611 on: June 10, 2016, 03:25:36 pm »
I had a romantically-laced dream about a guy last night. I don't remember much of it, but I remember that it was angsty and involved shouting and crying.

Offline Katsuro

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #612 on: June 11, 2016, 11:55:17 am »
... it was angsty and involved shouting and crying.

You should turn it into a book and then sell the film rights, you'll be rolling in money in no time.

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #613 on: June 11, 2016, 12:37:55 pm »
as if gay cinema would ever achieve mainstream success lmao

Offline Katsuro

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Re: Random Thoughts Thread
« Reply #614 on: June 13, 2016, 03:45:16 am »
as if gay cinema would ever achieve mainstream success lmao

Well not entirely consensual BDSM cinema and necrophilia cinema achieved mainstream success so you never know.

Edit:  I'm referring to 50 Shades and Twilight respectively in case anyone was confused.  And we all know jokes are funnier when you explain them.