Juror#8

It is the most singularly complicated movie that I've ever seen. I got a PM from someone asking me for more detail around it so I'm watching it again on Friday evening. Hopefully my command of the movie will be better than it is now after watching it twice cause I'd like to provide a coherent explanation. I'll defer to a movie critic who put it best: "anybody who claims he fully understands what's going on in Primer after seeing it just once is either a savant or a liar."

What were your thoughts on Primer?

To Birddog: On the Submariner thing...it's a magnificient watch. I'm just not sure that I want to spend that much on a watch right now...and I'm only looking at used examples. The best thing is, though, that it holds it's value and actually appreciates. You can buy a used Submariner today for $5000, wear it, scuff it, whatever, and sell it in 10 years for $7,000. At least if the last 30 years is any indication. http://www.bobswatches.com/rolex-watches/wp-content/themes/seocart/images/submariner.png Rolex has a done a great job with marketing and price controls so that even though they are not particularly rare, they maintin the appearance of exclusivity. I'd really like to get a Daytona but I'm about 10 years away from that purchase.

Ok...yea....so, I read your review, then did a little Wikipedia search... This movie sounds both intriguing and very disturbing. Probably what the director was going for. Thanks for the review. I like David Lynch movies but this may eclipse even that.

Very well put and I understand completely. My collecting back in the late 80s and early 90s consisted of buying a pack of cards and hoping to get Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson cards. Lol!

You're the second person in as many weeks who has said that. Never even held one but when I mention my interest the usual response is "what's the point." Zombie Apocalypse I guess. I'm most interested in military guns from Israel and Eastern Europe. I just haven't been serious enough into collecting to make a purchase. I also would like to buy a revolver...likely a Smith and Wesson Model 625. What's your favorite piece if you don't mind me asking?

Because of inconsiderate and hypocritical jackasses like me who complain about ad hominems while in the same sentence subtly tossing insults. Seriously though, because both sides think the other side is pernicious but conveniently ignore, or consider as anomalous, the exact same behavior when it happens just as frequently on their side of the isle. It's called projection. But I've found square, reasoned, and enthusiastic political conversation here quite frequently.

Who is this guy and why is his name in a thread near the top of the page everytime I visit Off The Wall?

I started with a Citizen Eco Drive Watch and became interested in the movement and ability for sun to operate a time-keeping device. A 60s era Omega Constellation followed which cost a few dollars more than the Citizen but the movement and vintage is magnificient. Truly a classy piece. I'm eyeing a used Submariner but the price is a deterrent as of 3:00 p.m. today. Maybe not tommorow though. What do you do with the speakers and such? I have two three trigger Steven shotguns. You think they're worth anything? Just kidding. I would like to get a .50 caliber Desert Eagle though to add to my very small collection. GGG!!! ......which....stands for....."gotta go get..................stamps"

Pretty cool. Just wondering, has the counterfeit industry bitten into sports card memorabilia any? I collected basketball cards for abut 3 years (Skybox, Hoops, Fleer from 88-91 or so). I remember the card to get was a Fleer Michael Jordan rookie card. Now authentic ones are going for a couple grand less than what they once were because of the uncertainty around reproductions. I still have about a 300 card basketball card collection in a teenage mutant ninja turtles binder that I haven't looked at in 10 years. A little bathtub gin huh?

I know that it's not the most happening of hobbies but I was wondering if anyone here fancied, collected, appreciated, timepieces? Any other unique collections/hobbies for which you've devoted considerable time, energy, passion, financial resources?

Of course the people who accost me at Gallery Place Metro show me different literature. And obviously that is calculated. However, that is where the push back comes from body politic. I have never seen a media campaign for drilling that shows those images of relatively undisturbed ecosystems. The pro-drilling campaign is really lacking with respect to public relations. And they have obviously had their share of hiccups. Exxon Valdez (transport, not drilling) will always be the quintessential case against enterprising oil exploration in human-uninhabited ecosystems.

Good points. Allow me to clarify a bit. My original point was that the POTUS should be intimately involved in every aspect of such an operation. TARO brings up a good point in that the POTUS should be the decisive voice, know what's going on and understand the gravity of the mission but leave the logistics to the pros. That was the nature of my retraction. There are spooks who do this schit day in and day out. I expect the president to have a logistical awareness of things but they'll never understand the logistical nuances of surveillance, combat, and tactical and operational siege campaigns from behind a desk 5000 miles away. For that reason, they probably shouldn't be qb'ing such an effort with respect to detailing and real time adjustments based on some operational viccissitude. It's the Good Will Hunting theory..."once more unto the breach, dear friends..." But overall I agree with you. Bush should have known about it and understood to a strong certainty what was going on, when , with whom, how, etc. He should also set the course of action and articulate the parameters of such an operation. Anything less than that is dereliction.

Interesting reads 3rd. I think that ANWR is one of the most beautiful, pristine, undisturbed land that we have in the world. Huge oil rigs drilling there and disrupting the ecosystem SUCKS. That said, it needs to happen - with best practices in place to ensure environmental compliance and wildlife conservation. I can actually see the perspective of the enviro-nuts though. The optics of Exxon contractors clubbing baby seals and seagulls wallowing in oil soot is heart wrenching. They feel that that is the inevitable slippery slope of allowing oil drilling in that region of Alaska. I'm very interested in the article concerning the drilling leases for oil fields. I'm not sure why obtaining a permit doesn't go hand-in-hand with securing the lease. Why whould those processes be separate and distinct? And taking alomst 5 years to secure a permit for land that the government has already ok'd the lease on is unconscionable. That's like leasing a car and not being able to drive it, or leasing a house and not being able to reside in it. I know that someone will opine that changes are being made to the land whereas in the house analogy there is no extension being built, etc. But if the calculated objective of leasing the land is to drill, than whatever process is necessary to effectuate that end should be considered eo ipso into the preliminary due diligence process of obtaining the lease. In the law we have a fun little concept called "frustration of purpose" that in many instances can get you outside of a contract repudiation situation. You would think that an avoidance of fop challenges would prompt the government to tighten up their processes.

Agreed.

O.k...point taken and actually, you're right. The more I think about it, "qbing every minutia" is a bit much to expect from civilian, non-intelligence personnel (which is essentially what POTUS is). Good catch and I retract that part of my statement.

Looking for it now...

Please put this in context: 1. Smug persona/Over-confidence - Yes. 2. Schhit-eating grin - No. 3. Sackless ethos - No. 4. Spineless ethos - No. 5. Limited understanding of business? - Yes. 6. Profound innability to re-direct the country economically? - Yes. 7. The wrong people advising him? - Yes. 8. Nice Guy? - Yes. 9. Should he have been elected president? - No. 10. Will he improve as a president? - No. That is the difference between Romney and Obama. I think that Obama is a genuinely nice person with good intentions. I just think he is doing a bad job of putting the pieces together and he is not likely to improve. The country can't afford that. I think Romney is a spineless, privileged, rich boy who is personally odious but is a good enough puppet and has enough bequeathed silver-spoon experience to surround himself with people who have a clue and can get things moving in the right direction. So I'll vote for Romney. But only because the choices suck so bad. I agree with this 100%. Romney is everything that McCain wasn't with respect to discipline and campaign skills. I just wish that Romney had McCain's character, consistency, and sticktoitiveness - but then that would be Jeb Bush. Bush, sadly, won't run.

What Obama needs to do is ok the Keystone pipeline so that we can be somewhat prospective in our energy efforts. He acts like you can't research alternative sources of energy and drill contemporaneously with one another. He has ZERO strategic vision domestically. He is so reactionary. Everything is "after-the-fact." It's sad because the people who would really really make great presidents, namely Jeb Bush and Robert Erlich, won't run. The people who have less regard for the institution and the direction of the country, than their own prestige, glad-handing, and power-brokerism, always run.

Romney is running a very disciplined and spectacular campaign. He isn't giving into the salaciousness and "red meat" stuffs that typically accompany the campaign season in June-September (with October, November being the "close the sale" time unless you're H.W. and you have a Willie Horton in your pocket). With that said, I can't stand Romney's !@#$ing smug plastic-queer persona, his schhit-eating grin, his 'just for men' perfectly placed grey streak in his Jimmy Johnson head, or his fake do nothing, entitled, privileged, silver spoon, sackless, spineless, ethos. He probably wears a Breitling or Tag Heuer time-piece and thinks it's the schit. !@#$ him. In his heart of hearts, all the fluff and pagentry aside, I think the guy is an opportunistic liberal who found an angle. Romney already has my vote because, from a policy and "direction of the country" standpoint, I really don't want to see Obama get another term in office, but why does the alternative have to be so pathetic and noxious? Why did they have to force Buddy Roemer out?

The honest answer is that I don't know. I just know that some very smart people in positions to truly appreciate the circumstances and who are of opposite ideological persuasions say that choice was difficult. When Gates says that it was one of the most singularly difficult calls he has ever seen a POTUS make, I respect that statement - especially when that individual has worked for presidents dating back 30 years and 3 republican administrations.

That was just the most exhaustive Tora Bora account that is available. It is fairly well documented that obl was there in 01. The U.S. didn't commit the resources at the time to fully destroy that disgusting scourge: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296136,00.html With respect to the 2005 occassion that Bush may not have been aware of - if he wasn't that would speak to a dysfunctional command structure. He ABSOLUTELY should have known. He should have been there. He should have qb'd every moment and nuance of that operation down to the most infinitesimally small minutia of a detail. Anything less would have been absolutely unacceptable. I'd like to think that he was involved. I voted for him the second time precisely because I believed that he was absolutely committed to a strong national defense and prosecuting the war on terror. With respect to McCain, yes - true hero and soldier; he is a truly remarkable man. But his words on the matter are disquieting. 40 years of political posturing can change a man.

I agree, the administration handled the after-process horribly. And the politicizing of it is pathetic. The only thing that I take issue with is the claims that it was an easy call. It simply wasn't an easy call. I commend him for correctly making a very very tough call. Gates and others have said that the quality of the intelligence was spotty. If it would have been a miss, you have blatant incursion into a sovereign nation without consent of said nation. We'd be tacitly acknowledging that we didn' trust a "partner in th war on terror" without any substantiation. We'd also be conducting a full scale military operation that likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars on what would have amounted to a personal residence. We'd be putting lives at risk. One big factor is that it would have undoubtedly announced our presence and surveillance capacity in that region towards that objective. If that would have went wrong and obl did something else...the WH would have been politically destroyed. And those are just the prima facie considerations that are apparent to a layperson.

See above. Non-parallel analogy and asyndetic. But otherwise, cute.

It wasn't an easy decision and that you think it was implicates your naivete and stupidity. You're a dolt whose bona fides with respect to this subject matter is relegated to Glenn Beck talking points. Both your classlessness and your cluelessness is shining nearly as bright as the 7:00 sun on this beautiful Washington D.C. morning. But don't take it from me, let's hear from Robert Gates. Who do you feel is more credible? The 30 year CIA, NSA, NSC, Airforce Lieutenant, first ballot Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of Defense, and Reagan, H.W. Bush, and W. Bush appointee (parse this context): http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/15/news/la-pn-robert-gates-60-minutes-20110515 “I worked for a lot of these guys. And this is one of the most courageous calls, decisions that I think I’ve ever seen a president make. For all of the concerns that I’ve just been talking about. The uncertainty of the intelligence. The consequences of it going bad. The risk to the lives of the Americans involved. It was a very gutsy call” Or Dante: Sorry Dante, you lose. Your tampon is saturated and your menustrating gap is betraying the identity conflict that the "procedure" didn't quite correct. Now you're just a B word with a peach fuzz mustache and a deep voice. Let me guess, Dante will say: 1. "What is he (Gates) supposed to say?" To which I'll reply - he didn't have to say scchit. He certainly didn't have to be that effusive. And I believe that HE WAS RETIRED when he made those statements so it wasn't for sake of professional advancement. 2. "but but but...Donald Rumsfeld..." Lol. Waiting for this... 3. "I don't care, I'm entitled to my opinion." Righteeeeooo. You'll pardon me if I defer to Mr. Gates though, won't you? 4. "I would have made that call." No you wouldn't have. Whatever small, fifth world, southeast Asian under-developing nation of less than 5,000 citizen dolts that would elect your dumb ass would have been long overran by the apes, country annexed, and your light-in-the-loaffers ass would be running scared.