Time to sit down with the studio execs and remind them that you guys are on the same side.
The CIA must still be smarting from its portrayal as torture-happy thugs in the critically acclaimed/declaimed “Zero Dark Thirty.” Not only did acting CIA director Michael Morell take the time to claim that *shock* a Hollywood film took “significant artistic license,” but the agency’s website has published a supposedly myth-busting piece that aims to portray the CIA as a bunch of good guys (and girls) who always play by the rules. I suppose being a secretive agency that’s frequently linked with torture, assassinations, indefinite detention and round-the-clock surveillance isn’t as much fun as it used to be.
It’s a very sparse selection of myths, attached to even sparser “debunkings.” Sadly, the CIA’s debunkings can be easily debunked simply by taking a few quick peeks into the past, along with even briefer peeks into its present actions. (Read more)
Some context for foreign Gold storage: Nixon cut the dollars last ties to gold in 1971 when the French wanted gold for the money they lent us during the Vietnam war. He basically said, screw you, you’re only getting paper. This is a little appreciated source of Franco-American animosity. The situation with Germany is different. Because of the Soviet military threat, many European countries kept much of their gold reserves in the US.
The Concern: Many people believe the Fed doesn’t actually have Germany’s gold. People say this from varying depths of the rabbit hole of conspiracy. What’s clear is that the Fed has steadfastly resisted any audit of its gold.
Possible Outcomes: If the Fed continues to refused, as they’ve done with previous requests of the Bundesbank, it will cause a huge loss of confidence in the US Fed. (For some stupid reason, people still have confidence in the US gov’t.)
If those Germans continue to insist on their gold, as they should, then a gigantic house of cards might come tumbling down. The likely effects are a huge loss of confidence and a soaring gold price.
I think the more likely outcome at this point is that the media will being calling the Budesbank Nazis and they’ll retreat with their tail between their legs — but that will only work for so long.
PRESIDENT OBAMA has refused to tell Congress or the American people why he believes the Constitution gives, or fails to deny, him the authority to secretly target and kill American citizens who he suspects are involved in terrorist activities overseas. So far he has killed three that we know of.
Presidents had never before, to our knowledge, targeted specific Americans for military strikes. There are no court decisions that tell us if he is acting lawfully. Mr. Obama tells us not to worry, though, because his lawyers say it is fine, because experts guide the decisions and because his advisers have set up a careful process to help him decide whom he should kill.
He must think we should be relieved.
The three Americans known to have been killed, in two drone strikes in Yemen in the fall of 2011, are Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico; Samir Khan, a naturalized American citizen who had lived in New York and North Carolina, and was killed alongside Mr. Awlaki; and, in a strike two weeks later, Mr. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was born in Colorado. (Read more)
Who says universities don’t teach valuable job skills? They teach thousands of students how to be professional victims. For example, you’ll never hear feminists applauding the 85% drop in rapes since the 1970s, which occurred despite many expansions of the definition of rape. Instead, we encounter the increasing prominence of the term “Rape Culture” in the feminist lexicon.
I’ve found myself increasingly interested in Cultural Marxism, including its feminist branch. Did you know there’s an emerging Men’s Rights Movement (MRM) which actively refutes feminist claims, at least in the freedom of internet communications? Some university feminist groups consider the MRM to be hate and resort to violence to suppress them.
Below is a collection of wonderful videos which I recently watched, plus a few articles. You can also check out the archives of my relatively new category Egalitarianism/Culture Wars.
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The core of feminism refuted: Men have had harder lives than women, and the relationship between men and women is not adversarial.
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On Blaming Men for Not Marrying:
All the of approved paths to a positive male identity . . . are gone . . . men have always been willing to work and sacrifice and sweat and bleed if they were rewarded with the means through which to see themselves as worthy of respect, but when every single role
society wants to cram you into is not longer a way to respect yourself or have the respect of others, then its time to throw those roles away. One thing [feminists & fellow travelers] . . . will never realize is that using shame to coerce men into doing what’s expected of them isn’t going to work this time, because while it’s possible to shame a man into giving his life for his country, if there’s a promise of respect in it, it’s impossible to shame someone into working his ass off and risking his future just for the joy of looking in the mirror and seeing Homer Simpson . . . looking back.
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The White Feather Campaign began with the creation of the white feather as a symbol of cowardice and unfulfilled civic duty. With the war effort and the recruitment campaign in full swing, the women of the White Feather would present any healthy young Englishman in civilian dress with this token, in order to symbolize their scorn for him and his failure to be man. Upon receipt of a white feather, these men were being told that they weren’t “real men” and that the women around them looked upon this apparent lack of masculinity with disgust.www.studentpulse.com/articles/151/the-white-feather-campaign-a-struggle-with-masculinity-during-world-war-i
There’s no such thing as rape culture in the Western World.
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Rebutting Patriarchy Theory.
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The ridiculous dating discussion of feminists.
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Feminism is (mostly) socialism with panties. When choosing between women and the state, most feminists will choose the state and shun women like Ayn Rand, Margaret Thatcher, etc.
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Evolution and the train of men to help women.
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In my view, as the state replaces the father, women are increasingly resorting to tribal mating patterns. Perhaps this is a cause of the widely observed moral decline which RamzPaul satires here:
PARIS – Several hundred thousand people are expected to march through Paris on Sunday against the planned legalization of same-sex marriage in the first mass protest against the unpopular President Francois Hollande.
Strongly backed by the Catholic hierarchy, lay activists have mobilized a hybrid coalition of church-going families, political conservatives, Muslims, evangelicals and even homosexuals opposed to gay marriage for the show of force. (Read more)
The CIA must still be smarting from its portrayal as torture-happy thugs in the critically acclaimed/declaimed “Zero Dark Thirty.” Not only did acting CIA director Michael Morell take the time to claim that *shock* a Hollywood film took “significant artistic license,” but the agency’s website has published a supposedly myth-busting piece that aims to portray the CIA as a bunch of good guys (and girls) who always play by the rules. I suppose being a secretive agency that’s frequently linked with torture, assassinations, indefinite detention and round-the-clock surveillance isn’t as much fun as it used to be.
(Read more)