Discussion for article #231312
The idea of world war III starting over a Seth Rogen Movie is a hilarious thing to contemplate.
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Could someone please explain why right wingers are going ballistic over Sony’s decision?
They are lusting about another attack–however absurd this “threat” is–on Obama’s watch. That’s all I can figure.
You know they have wet dreams about that possibility, regardless of what they say in public.
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Umm…because it’s their default setting?
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Nobody could have predicted-- ‘The Interview’ would bomb in theaters…
So, perhaps something was lost in translation?
jw1
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Sure, be terrified some foreign power is going to kill a bunch of people in a movie theater. Terrorist bastards! I’m sure we’re all happy the domestic intelligence and police services at least keep us protected from such madness being committed by one of our very own citizens…
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This is insane. Back in 2008 when Bush was still President, a movie about his assassination was released.
The scene where Bush is shot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qyPVDH6C7Mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qyPVDH6C7M
The movie was called Death of a President. The conservatives made only a minor stink about it. But, no one threatened terrorism, death, or mayhem over it. It was a British film, and not even Bush and Cheney wanted to bomb London over it. As far as I am aware, Cheney didn’t even have the CIA torture the people responsible. That could be because it was his wet dream come true though, he could have been the actual President for real.
Can we surveil for a vacant stare?
Though we should exercise caution.
That’s a slippery-slope toward arresting the merely slack-jawed.
jw1
If a vacant, slack-jawed countenance merited arrest and observation 3/4 of our citizenry would miss work tomorrow. Certainly the state of Indiana would have to close shop entirely.
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For 60 years we’ve basically had to deal with North Korea as a hostage situation. Who is the hostage? South Korea. Their vulnerability, and that of Japan, as well, has limited our ability to engage North Korea militarily. But the ability of the North Koreans to project episodes of violence onto the streets of America? Possible, but how large a scale of an attack could they actually muster? Are we really talking about one suicide soldier coming in through the back door with an automatic weapon he bought at a gun show? Possible, but is that risk any greater than what we face with all the random nuts with weapons that are currently out there pounding the pavement and clinging to their US Passports? Probably not. The real threat is psychological, thanks to 9/11–all they have to do is invoke it to terrify us. But the real danger is the cyber-attack against Sony. Done on a grander scale, it could throw the stock markets into turmoil. The Internet cannot be secured in an ad hoc fashion. The National Science Foundation has been stating this for 20 years. They have been warning the world not to put mission critical infrastructure and business processes on the web. Nobody listened. The financial gain was too compelling. Nobody wanted to wait for Internet 2.0. Well, now, we have a problem. A sovereign state has engaged in blatant criminal activity to target a multi-national corporation and steal it’s stuff and make it’s private communiques public and to influence their daily business decisions and operations. This is a game changer. And, other than a truly secure Internet 2.0, I cannot imagine how anyone could ever prevent something like this from happening again.
“Nothing can be more contrary than such a philosophy to the supine indolence of the mind, its rash arrogance, its lofty pretensions, and its superstitious credulity. Every passion is mortified by it except the love of truth; and that passion never is, nor can be, carried to too high a degree.” (David Hume, 1737)
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I’m amazed how the President can control the helplessness and disappointment he must have felt when learning the leaked ending to Blart: Mall Cop 2…
One day my children will see this analysis written, with the insertion of “Tea Party” for North Korea
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Unless you live in Florida, and a retired cop is sitting behind you in the theater. Then, you should be very afraid.
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Yes, the unbilled cameo by Adam Sandler as the slightly deranged, goofy mall custodian caught peeing in the mall water fountain is pure genius. Soooo unlike anything Sandler has done before and sure to thrill the various ESPN sports panels importuned into promoting it instead of focusing on the upcoming game.
The Orson Welles of F-word buddy flicks…
The President is screwing this one up big time. We just had a foreign country attack a company in the US and threaten violence against private citizens and his best response is trust me you’ll be safe. I get that North Korea is largely a paper tiger but still we were attacked by a foreign country and he’s basically ignoring it. He should be stating what he plans to do about the cyber attack and let NK know that if they carried out their threats against US citizens there would be serious military consequences.
The problem is there can’t be military consequences without guaranteed repercussions to South Korea and probably Japan. Japan is, after all across a narrow sea from North Korea and South Korea is right on the DMZ.They got a gun pointed at the heads of South Korea and Japan. So what do we do? I’m open to hearing suggestions.
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Would add that any significant military action made against North Korea has a very good chance of destabilizing that entire house of cards, and no one’s feeling brave enough to handle the economic and likely political mess