Real Sports w/Brian Gumbel - maybe the best sports segment I've ever seen. Must watch.

pgprescott

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

nolaegghead said:

Every major world superpower has fallen through history.  The Romans, Greeks, etc.  Now that we have a belligerent idiot that's surrounded himself with yes men, could happen.  Plus people like you to support the demagogues.  History man.  Learnin is good.

You have just witnessed 8 years of pathetic leadership. Our foreign policy has been set back decades. We have ignored the threats and sat on our hands as Russia has gone from a who dat to the player internationally. We have proven to have little or no spine and disinterested. Leading from behind is likely the single dumbest thing ever. It's an oxymoron. I do not understand what you see, but bless your heart.

Now aren't you late for the Chelsea Manning welcome home party. 

A traitor! Really man, a traitor! 

Yeah, I'm worried. Worried that the harm done by this brilliant Harvard law guy is even worse than reported. 

Trump wouldnt have have been my choice, but I'm not scared because he's different. 95% of the stuff you guys spew is just noise. The rest, we'll see. He's better than the other choice we had. That's hard to swallow, I know. Believe me. 

      

You know...I think you are wrong in just about every declarative statement in that post.

No...wait...I was wrong - you are wrong in EVERY declarative sentence in that post.




Oh I'm wrong huh? Go ahead and correct the factual record then. 

"Factual record".

That's hilarious. You'll have to help me out here. I didn't catch a single fact in your post. Just a pile of the usual right wing anti-Obama rhetoric.

Btw, you geniuses said I was wrong about my assertions and I asked you to correct my ignorance. As usual, you didn't, I believe, because you cannot. True story. 

I'm kinda busy today so I probably won't have too much time to play today but I will leave it at this for now.

You say things like:

"You have just witnessed 8 years of pathetic leadership."
"Our foreign policy has been set back decades."
"...Russia has gone from a who dat to the player internationally."

Those are what we commonly refer to as opinions. If you really believe those to be statements of fact I have to ask you by what metric you believe those to be factual statements. What is the supporting evidence?

How, specifically, has our foreign policy been set back "decades"? What was our foreign policy decades ago anyway?

Russia is not the same thing as the USSR. Too many people forget that. Certainly Putin has been endeavouring to try and make Russia more relevant as a geopolitical force since the end of the First Cold War. Of course now that Putin's Puppet is becoming our president tomorrow things likely will change for Russia...much to their delight.

You deny reality. We are living it. To pretend it isn't so because I didn't reference an article from fact check or NYT makes you foolish at best. These things are precisely my opinions. It would take a book to list all the weak kneed miscues by this administration. There is simply no area of foreign policy where we are on better footing now than we were before. You could argue why I'm wrong, but you won't because my opinions happen to be true. Putin has embarrassed the US for 8 years now. So has Iran and the others. I'm not suggesting these issues could have been easily handled. I am suggesting it would be hard to do a worse job. We will see about this new guy. If you're correct, its gonna be a rough four years. If you're wrong, you will deny reality again. I'm confident in that prediction.

I don't deny reality. I understand the reality of global affairs (current and historical) quite well.

Where we depart is that I don't have your apparent need to create a parallel fantasy "reality" based on "opinions" (which you earlier said were "factual record" but you now acknowledge were really just your opinions) supported by...what exactly?

Just as you have previously refused to share with us any of your daily reads/listens for news/information it leaves one wondering how you are drawing a conclusion that, as you said - "You have just witnessed 8 years of pathetic leadership" and that "Our foreign policy has been set back decades."

I can only assume that it stems from the knee-jerk Obama hatred that started months before he won in November 2008 and will continue for years to come.

Realistically, neither Russia, Iran, ISIS, North Korea, the Boogeyman, or Killer Clowns are an existential threat to the US. I understand that there are various constituencies interested in developing and touting the idea that they are all just minutes away from actually destroying the USA and our way of life and that many folks actually buy into those ideas. The question remains tho - what is the FACTUAL basis driving those fears?

North Korea (who remember, we are still technically at war with) has had the same modus operandi for decades of bluster, and threats and occasional acts of violence (which has resulted in the deaths of some people including Americans). It's all part of the gamesmanship all the various actors involved partake in. The funny thing is tho that all the actors involved really don't want an actual solution to the "North Korea Problem". China likes the thorn in the foot of the US that the DPRK can be used as and they don't really want a unified democratic Korea on its border. The South Koreans would certainly like to have better relations but they don't really want to see the collapse of the DPRK because they don't want to, and wouldn't be able to, deal with the massive influx of refugees from the north. And the US likes to have the DPRK as an excuse for the normal military industrial complex/ geopolitical influence reasons.

Candidate Trump said he would remove all US troops from South Korea. President Elect Trump is saying that the troops will remain and we will further strengthen our relationship with South Korea. Not really surprising cuz as I said, the status quo is too useful to too many constituencies.

I came across this cartoon many weeks ago and it cracked me up while it also made a very important point (which is of course the raison d'être of any good political cartoon):



I think you could substitute the DPRK flag/character for the Iranian flag or even the Boogeyman flag and the point still stands.

Not sure about the Killer Clowns tho - those things really are scary.

Yawn. 

Funny, on another thread earlier today you say this to me (in reference to a post not even directed towards you):

"Again, you have nothing really to say."

And here, where I take some time to try and engage you with a "for instance - North Korea" and that is your response.

Kinda ironical ain't it?

Were you the captain of your high school forensics team? Just curious.

I have nothing to say of any importance or disagreement. I don't find it interesting. I find it telling that you picked NK to argue about as it is probably the only area that there is little disagreement. I don't find your comments particularly controversial or crazy. Good for you. I think you intentionally picked NK because you cannot defend any of the relevant areas of contention and this one is largely non-contentious. You have now bored me. 

HeavyG

Well, as I also said you could substitute Iran for the DPRK with the same result.

Sorry you're bored. I've come to learn how dealing with specifics rather than vague generalities is problematic for you.

Still curious to know a couple of your daily reads/listens. Might help me understand where you're coming from.

pgprescott

HeavyG said:

Well, as I also said you could substitute Iran for the DPRK with the same result.

Sorry you're bored. I've come to learn how dealing with specifics rather than vague generalities is problematic for you.

Still curious to know a couple of your daily reads/listens. Might help me understand where you're coming from.

Back at you. You are not stimulating. It is just dumb to substitute Iran for NK. Dumb. 

HeavyG

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

Well, as I also said you could substitute Iran for the DPRK with the same result.

Sorry you're bored. I've come to learn how dealing with specifics rather than vague generalities is problematic for you.

Still curious to know a couple of your daily reads/listens. Might help me understand where you're coming from.

Back at you. You are not stimulating. It is just dumb to substitute Iran for NK. Dumb. 

Why?

Just trying to draw out from you your reasons for being so afraid of Iran, ISIS, spiders, etc.

Forget sharing with us what you read or listen to each day to inform your view of world events. Try this instead - gimme your top three reasons why you think Iran is an existential threat to the USofA.