Quote from: RE on Aug 23, 2025, 01:18 PMI am alive.  I'm Binge Watching Game of Thrones.  I'm through 5 seasons  so far.  Politics was so much more fun when the rich and powerful were killing each other all the time.

RE

Good to know you are alive.  I avoided GoThrones but You-Tube inundated me with shorts after I watched just one of them.  Consequently I learned quite a lot about the show on the cheap (not much time spent).

Lots of nasty people in that show.  I see it as VERY addictive gratuitous violence.  Pure entertainment and nothing wrong with that, but that is all it is.

"Politics was so much more fun when the rich and powerful were killing each other all the time."

In the real world there is quite a bit that going on.  Enough so that we are numb to it.








I have to wonder if TV violence led America to think killing your enemies is the way to go.  There is more acceptance of it than there used to be, and somebody is going to get bit in the ass for this new arrogance.  I was one of the many who was glad that Putin did not have an accident on his Alaska visit.  Something that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.


Somebody said "Thou shall not kill once",  does anybody remember who said that?

Quote from: KdogLots of nasty people in that show.  I see it as VERY addictive gratuitous violence.  Pure entertainment and nothing wrong with that, but that is all it is.

Less violent than your average cop show or action hero or war movie, just older weaponry.  Because you only see bombs dropped and explosions the violence seems cleaner.  Many more people end up dead though.

As opposed to most of those shows, this had consistently good acting and writing that fleshed out the chacters and what their motivations and psychology was.  It demonstrates how money and power corrupt people, allowing evil to grow and flourish.   Its also one of the few depictions  I have ever seen of how incestuous the whole system was to createe classes of "highborn" and "lowborn" people.

The magic and fantasy aspects weren't overdone as they usually are in fantasy depictions of the pperiod, and there was a lot of parallels to the evolution of modern religious philosophy.

My main complaint with the show was the final season and how they tied it up at the end.  I found it inconsistent with the rrest of the series and very unsatisfying.  The actions of the characterrs weren't consistent with their prior behavior and it was too facile.  But I guess they were just tired of it and looking to tie up the loose ends.  I could have done it better. 

Anyhow, it gave me a much needed break from modernity and the utter stupidity of today's Game of Thrones.  In one of the nicer tie ups at the end, one of the heroic figures poisons an entire house of one of the nasty families at a feast.  Very satisfying vengeance.

Finally the most important lesson here is that the wisdom "violence never solved anything" is patently false.  The entire history of politics is that the ONLY thing that ever solved anything was violence.

RE

It was actually about 10 days for 8 years of about 13 episodes/year. Also went to the AK State Fair for one of the days, plus watched some other stuff.  Then there's Physical Therapy, Chess, eating, sleeping, excreting, showering, smoking & meditating.  It's a busy schedule.

RE

Quote from: RE on Aug 27, 2025, 07:09 PMIt was actually about 10 days for 8 years of about 13 episodes/year. Also went to the AK State Fair for one of the days, plus watched some other stuff.  Then there's Physical Therapy, Chess, eating, sleeping, excreting, showering, smoking & meditating.  It's a busy schedule.

RE

Why did this response to my question wind up in an entirely different thread?

This is the first of Trumpolini's changes I support.  It is a little closer to the truth than  "Department of Defense".  It could have been better though.  I have a few suggestions. How about:

Dept of State Sponsored Violence

Dept of Mass Murder

Dept of Death & Destruction

Mayhem, Violence & Killing Agency


We also need a new flag.



https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/pentagon-officials-department-of-war-anger-confusion-00548367

Pentagon officials fume over Trump's Department of War rebrand

RE

The Mayhem, Violence & Killing Agency <---- You nailed it.

Pray for Karma, can Karma work that way?  I do not think so, but concerning the criminals in charge, Karma needs some help.

The motherfuckers are going to start a war on purpose to hide their other crimes.



US ordered 2nd attack to kill survivors of Caribbean boat strike

The U.S. military carried out a second strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel in the Caribbean after an initial attack left two survivors hanging onto wreckage, according to multiple reports.

The White House says the murder of unarmed fishermen hanging onto their ruined boat had to be done for self-defense.

The White House (what is left of it) says lots of things.

Illegal Attack On Venezuela Imminent: Latest Breakdown 2025-12-02

CASEBOOK.ICRC.ORG • 2025-12-04

History Lesson

The Peleus trial of Kapitänleutnant Heinz Eck and four others for the  killing of members of the crew of the Greek steamship Peleus, sunk on  the high seas.

Check out the link before you read on.  You know you want to.

I did not watch it when it aired, but I binged watched it later.  The Sopranos.  An average person in the mini-series might be killed.  But anyone who had cancelled someone else's ticket and was part of the killing machine was sure to die.  The Sopranos is a modern morality play.  If 👹 Deathseth 👹 watched it, the obvious message went ovah his head.  Like Jets.

Quotemorality plays were specifically intended to teach moral lessons. They were a type of medieval drama, popular in the 15th and 16th centuries, designed to illustrate the struggle between good and evil in a way that educated the audience about virtuous living and the consequences of sin.

Characters were often allegorical—such as Everyman, who represents all people, or abstract concepts like Virtue, Vice, Knowledge, and Death—rather than individual personalities. The purpose was didactic: to guide the audience toward ethical behavior, religious devotion, and spiritual reflection.

On the Sopranos, if you wacked somebody, you got wacked.  It might not happen until the next season, but it happened.  And at the end when there was the brilliant fade to black that left you asking?  Now you know.  Tony had to go.  And if there were a sequel to the series, that guy in the' Members Only' jacket would have to go too.  Like 2 and 2 is 4.

Trump, Deathseth, and others in the MAGA clown show are 'Members'.  If real life was like the Soprano mini-series, one of them would be mauled to death by a dog.  And they all would have to go.

The return of the Hitler Youth!



Let's not forget the League of German Mattresses! 😁



https://warontherocks.com/2025/12/from-restraint-to-readiness-germany-considers-conscription/

From Restraint to Readiness? Germany Considers Conscription

RE

An article by a total warhawk.

QuoteRussia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Fuck that.  The author is ignorant.

QuoteCatherine the Great annexed Crimea in 1783 after a series of military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, aiming to expand Russian territory and influence in the region. Her journey to Crimea in 1787 was a significant event that showcased her power and the Russian Empire's ambitions.

Russian troops were legally present before 2014, and in 2014 the people voted.  Ukraine is a construct, founded in fascist roots.

It's not just Taiwan... Five flashpoints that could spark World War Three in 2026
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/predictions-conflict-war-russia-america-middle-east-taiwan-black-jellyfish-b2891404.html


It's not just Taiwan... Five flashpoints that could spark World War Three in 2026

Five global tinderboxes are ready to blow, fragile regions where the newer attack methods of cyber, information and influence are getting stuck in, writes Robert Fox – and the British government needs to wake up to them quickly unless it wants an even more unpleasant shock in the coming year
Monday 29 December 2025 11:13 GMT

There is something ambivalent about the season of goodwill, as it usually triggers a splurge of journalistic predictions of bad things to come for the new year; more trouble and pestilence and worse wars. One point of comfort is that journalists, on the whole, make lousy prophets. So, in the ambiguous spirit of the season, let's look at the places and occasions that could spark wider confrontation, regional war or a global standoff.

Not that I can foresee a war in Europe, or anywhere else, of the kind gloomily forecast by Mark Rutte, the secretary general of Nato – "on the scale of war our fathers and grandfathers". Whatever is in the works, it will not be anything like the great wars of the 20th century.

There will be no let-up in the intensity of combat and violence we are now seeing in Ukraine, Sudan, Rwanda and Congo, and Yemen. The standoff between Thailand and Cambodia seems tense as ever, and the ghastly bouts of civil strife and massacre in Myanmar are intensifying as the military junta finagles elections this spring.

A random spark in several of these conflicts could be the trigger for wider confrontation. As Rutte warned, we need to be prepared for war in order to prevent it.
The Baltics

Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia will continue to fight for outright victory in Ukraine, and if Europe wants war, he is ready. He is likely to provoke the European allies of Nato and in the EU at a number of pinch points – especially in the Baltic, the North Atlantic and through the Balkans. This could be the use of false flag incidents around the enclave of Kaliningrad, the wedge between Poland and Lithuania. This means dressing up a border incident as a piece of aggression by a Nato ally, such as those in recent months by covert Russian disruption of border patrols on the frontier with Norway and Estonia.

Nuisance patrols by Russian submarines to test the new Nato concept of the Atlantic Bastion security and early warning system are sure to increase, given the steady improvement of Russian submarine services deployed from the Kola Peninsula. They will be accompanied by more attention in British home waters as well as the Baltic by the ships and subs of the GUGI surveillance and sabotage intelligence service, especially their mothership, the Yantar.

The Kremlin will try to provoke us, while Trump's America is acting nice to Moscow and quarrels with European allies. It will be tempted to act before European Nato can get its rearmament act together. A falling out between the US and a founding Nato ally, Denmark, over Greenland is an opportunity too good to miss.
South America

The second major area of jeopardy for the United States is the American continent itself, where Trumpland has reclaimed hegemony in its new National Security Strategy, resurrecting the old continental claim by President Monroe back in 1823. It is not only a question of regime change in Venezuela, on which Donald Trump has now set his heart, apparently. Any American incursion in Venezuela risks repeating the mistakes made with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As the former general and secretary of state Colin Powell remarked, if you break a thing in these actions, you own the problem. There would be an urgent need to reform and run the security forces and the public administration, or face years of civil war, as in Iraq.

Action in Venezuela would accelerate the incipient instability across the region from Ecuador to Colombia and Guyana. Beneath the inflated Trumpian rhetoric, the key element is oil and the US becoming the dominant global oil power. This is sure to upset the big Opec powers and China, a big stakeholder in South America.
Sudan

A third region, the Middle East, is a tinderbox of risk for further warfare – from Kurdistan in the north to the Arabian peninsula, Sudan and Somalia across sub-Saharan Africa. Gaza is still a flashpoint, as are Yemen and Sudan. In South Yemen and Sudan, the proxies of the two biggest powers of the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are in open war. The shaky regime in Iran could pick its moment to attack, directly on Israel or by working through proxies from Syria through to the RSF militia in Darfur and beyond.

"There is no sense of security across Sudan whatsoever," says Pasquale Ferrara, who has designed Italian policy for the region for years, "but a huge amount of arms." Fighting on the borders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo has strategic implications, given the contest for minerals such as rare earths and cadmium, between the agents of China, Russia's former Wagner group, and powerful organised crime gangs.
Pakistan-India

In south and southeast Asia, my fourth regional scenario, several standoffs have growth potential for conflict. Pakistan and India eye each other over Kashmir and Afghanistan, and India confronts China across their high mountain border. Cambodia and Thailand are not fully at peace, whatever Trump may claim, though the trouble is unlikely to spread.
Taiwan

The fifth area of major conflict concern has to be China. In 2025, Xi Jinping and his regime have been the global grandmasters of the art of strategic ambiguity, outsmarting Trump and Putin where it counts. Next year, Xi might well calculate that the US president is too distracted by Venezuela, Ukraine, Gaza and his own ego to react in time, if China were to try a decisive move against Taiwan by overt or covert means.

A mistimed and botched bid for Taiwan would provoke a huge reaction in all the major regional players, including India and Japan, Australia and America. In a worst-case scenario, it risks a truly global confrontation.

The risks of war and conflict are not just a matter of geography, the tinderbox of five fragile regions, nor of the old-fashioned means of warfare and diplomacy. There are the less obvious, usually unannounced, means of attack, through cyber, information and influence – the aspect of security and resilience for which the UK, for example, seems so woefully unprepared. Our governments just don't want to think about it, and least not obviously or transparently so. Think of the bill for the cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover, now believed to be the work of a Russian proxy – a loss of £1.5bn to the company and £5bn for the national economy.

More concerning is what the business school geeks call a "black jellyfish" phenomenon – the terrible monster of the deep we want to ignore till it's too late and to our ultimate peril. The black jellyfish in warfare may be new forms of biological and chemical weaponry – something more lethal and elusive than the ricin, sarin, polonium and novichok we have seen deployed as terrorist tools in the past half-century. In the hands of the non-state cult member and fanatic, they could be the biggest threat of all.

RE