What made you laugh today - Fifth Edition

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Reading a book on war theory from 2014*, and the final paragraph on the (recent) war in Afghanistan reads (my translation):

"The result will likely be that when ISAF* withdraws, Afghanistan will fall apart."

I know many people predicted it, but it's fun to see an analysis step by step poignantly predict it, early on :grin:

* The War - An Uncontrollable System by Gorm Harste, Univers, 2014
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force
 
Reading a book on war theory from 2014*, and the final paragraph on the (recent) war in Afghanistan reads (my translation):



I know many people predicted it, but it's fun to see an analysis step by step poignantly predict it, early on :grin:

* The War - An Uncontrollable System by Gorm Harste, Univers, 2014
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force
Unless he deals with poppy field politics and finance, as well as Pakistan ISI's agenda, he was just guessing. :razz:
 
Trump's tax returns declared negative income in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2020. He paid a total of $1,500 in income taxes for the years 2016 and 2017. On their 2020 income tax returns, Trump and his wife Melania paid no federal income taxes and claimed a refund of $5.47 million.
Where's Eliot Ness when you need him?
 
Isn't that just the typical tactics by wealthy people in finance?
If you compared Trump's taxes with other, similar people, you'd probably see the same. There's no crime involved in that. Just stupid tax laws.
The New York Times also posted his previous tax returns and it showed the same picture.

Among the key findings of The Times’s investigation:

  • Mr. Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years that The Times examined. In 2017, after he became president, his tax bill was only $750.
  • He has reduced his tax bill with questionable measures, including a $72.9 million tax refund that is the subject of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service.
  • Many of his signature businesses, including his golf courses, report losing large amounts of money — losses that have helped him to lower his taxes.
  • The financial pressure on him is increasing as hundreds of millions of dollars in loans he personally guaranteed are soon coming due.
  • Even while declaring losses, he has managed to enjoy a lavish lifestyle by taking tax deductions on what most people would consider personal expenses, including residences, aircraft and $70,000 in hairstyling for television.
  • Ivanka Trump, while working as an employee of the Trump Organization, appears to have received “consulting fees” that also helped reduce the family’s tax bill.
  • As president, he has received more money from foreign sources and U.S. interest groups than previously known. The records do not reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.
 
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Chinese authorities never comment directly on censorship decisions, but the word within the Beijing film industry is that Born to Fly‘s producers were made to realize that their movie’s stunts and visual effects were far inferior to Top Gun: Maverick’s and that the Chinese version risked ridicule in comparison ...
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Well, if you look past the visual effects, Maverick is about a pathetic old man trying to do youth stuff, all packaged in militaristic nationalism with hardware porn. So let's take a second to laugh at the Americans too (or shrivel in a cringe spasm).
The US film is actually more jarring because you don't expect (much) government involvement, but there was plenty. We don't expect much from China though where the state has a much larger role.
 
Well, you're no fun.
I think one can look past the politics and see the humour of the Chinese about to release a big budget movie, only to watch "Maverick", with their jaws in their laps, completely blowing it out of the water.

I actually liked Top Gun Maverick and have little criticism. Saying it's "militaristic nationalism" is just the story of Hollywood war movies the past 60 (?) years, with a few (good) exceptions. I buy into that watching it.
Top Gun is so over the top silly and far from reality that it's practically a fantasy hero movie. Notice how the enemy is literally anonymous. An odd change from classic war movies where they'd at least invent a fictitious Slavic/Middle Eastern sounding country (with -ia or -stan suffix). It's an ideal world where even the enemy doesn't "exist".
How the world has changed...
 
You are right, and I'm not getting invited to parties, but it is scary how much leeway we implicitly give to the Americans because they dominate our entertainment. Only when you describe what they are doing without mincing words, just as for any other countries, you realize that plenty of what they are doing is not okay and that we internalized their flimsy justifications from watching too many damn American movies.
The anonymous enemy is obviously Iran, but it is remarkable they showed restraint in not calling it Iran like they would do in the 80s. I wonder who the Chinese chose as their enemy in their movie. The Americans?

If the Chinese released the movie and it contained terribad special effects or even stolen scenes from other movies (not beyond them), it would have been even more hilarious. It's remarkable that they canceled the release and are fixing the movie, even though we don't really know just how bad it is.

Here's something fun for Adorno, but may also maek him cri.

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Christ!

In a modern world Maverick almost transcends the classic war movie propaganda.
It exists in its own fantasy world, like superhero movies, and I see it as such: fantasy entertainment.
But criticising the war propaganda is totally legitimate - with this movie and all the others.
 
Twitter’s recommendation algorithm is open source, revealing that it tracks four groups: power_user, republican, democrat and elon.

“According to Twitter's own explanation of how this metric tracking is being used, if an algorithm change benefited an entire group of users, but negatively impacted the group made up solely of Elon Musk, it would not implement that algorithm change.”

https://mashable.com/article/twitter-releases-algorithm-showing-it-tracks-elon-musk-tweets
 
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