thaibeachlovers

No, most of them are bad, actually bad. They just became too PC. These days I don't really watch Hollywood anymore. I watch Japanese and Korean movies and series.

What happened in 2005? I was watching a lot of great movies back then. Covid did ruin movies though. They are so bad now I haven't watched any in a cinema since Top Gun 2. The tickets are too expensive for what we get. I did watch Elvis on DVD though, and it was OK.

They got taken over by the woke. Now it's all about how great women are. They even took a childhood story I loved and ruined it ( Swallows and Amazons ) with nonsense about German spies and changed the characters into nasty kids. The 1974 version was way better.

What are you on about? I lived there and I certainly didn't hide inside all the time. Nor was I on mind altering drugs. Far as I know, porn is illegal in LOS and I'm sure they would know if you were watching it on the internet.

From the Alien planet of course.

I have that movie on DVD, and watch it from time to time. It's a great movie considering when it was made, so the special effects are not that good. My only complaint is that the guys hair is always perfect. They must have had a hairdresser on set between takes. Loved the robot. Actually, it's probably the first movie I ever watched, and I must have liked it so much I never forgot it ( like Old Yeller and The Wizard of Oz )

I lived there for a while. It's too cold and too damp for my liking.

Pyramids are still high tech. I've been inside the big one and the chamber is so perfectly cut that it would be a problem to replicate even now. IMO there is no way it could have been cut thousands of years ago with the tools they had then. Yes, we are well on the way to developing the weapons that will kill us all. Gaia will rejoice when we are gone. (Why are there no aliens, for example? Have they destroyed themselves My theory on that is that they genetically engineered the ancestor of apes to be human slaves and we killed them all, or they got so scared of the violent humans they made that they left before we could kill them all. Now they are sitting out in space and will kill us all if we look like escaping into the universe.

Desperate men do desperate things and Zelensky must be a very desperate man by now. Perhaps Zelensky is sending all his loot to China and intends to follow it. A guy like that could become an advisor to Xi, on how not to run a war.

I'd say the process has already begun. It's certainly not going to be pretty and the only ones doing well at the end will be the 1%, as per usual. There will be loads of divide and rule going on eg man made climate change, multiple genders, reparations for what happened hundreds of years ago, abortion, etc. IMO all carefully designed to make people angry at each other and not look at what is going on behind the curtain.

Isn't it likely that Russia is being demonised SO the elites can chip away at their baked in entitlements in terms of social welfare, pensions and healthcare? It's a classic case of deflection. Look over there while I steal your wallet.

Which is basically eff all. Probably programmed that way. If it told the truth it wouldn't be around much longer.

Interesting and thoughtful post with much to comment on. I won't comment on the bits I agree with ( I don't have all day! ). has made powerful arguments that the greatest moment of the British Empire when it was at it's greatest was 1937 not 1837 as you would think and WW2 and the rise of independence movements from colonial lowers finished it off. I disagree. IMO Britain was strongest before WW1 when the navy and the empire was at it's height. Trench warfare and the insanity of sending the best and brightest ( university students ) to lead pointless frontal charges against machine guns removed the future from British leadership in every aspect. WW2 just finished the job. It could be said that Butcher Haig was the catalyst that destroyed the British Empire. The colonies only demanded independence because they knew they could, The iron fist had gone. IMO the most telling moment of British impotence came in the Suez adventure, when America forced Britain to abandon it. I reckon that was the moment Britain began it's long and slow spiral down to a has been power. Falklands was probably the last gasp of a once great naval power. The freedoms we have in the west are also our weaknesses the mass of the populace want a continuation of the benefits that have been used to and when thy find them wanting supporting Ukraine won't be top of their agendas. and why should they? Of what benefit is it to the British, or any other country throwing money into the pit, whoever claims to be in charge of Ukraine. It was Soviet in the past, and when the western regions come under Russian control, will it make an iota of difference to the ordinary Brit trying to survive in an unfriendly economy ( not helped by throwing billions of quid at a corrupt nation )? If the prospect of Trump in power again isn't a sign of the canary in the coal mine dying, then I don't know what is. Why just Trump? Do you think Biden is any better? I'll stick at those two ( though to comment on the war criminals that have served as POTUS in my lifetime is tempting ), but when a blowhard clown and an incompetent geriatric are elected to be "the leaders of the free world", unless one is willfully blind, it's the end of our civilisation writ large. It's just a question of waiting for the fat lady to sing. Stalin and Mao must be having a laugh from the depths of hell. Oh, and nukes, I forgot about that - the long shadow hanging over all of this. No point being concerned about them. Either they get used and it's all over anyway, or they are just the boogeyman to scare us into behaving. Either way, they are like climate, nothing we can do about them.

In NZ the Ukrainian conflict barely got a mention outside the news for a while ( even Al Jazeera barely mentions it any more )- it just wasn't a topic of conversation. The propaganda only works till it gets boring. Perhaps the advantage of being so far away is that we can ignore such things. I don't think I ever saw a Ukrainian flag, even at the beginning. People are back to normal, complaining about the economy, the government, crime, lack of houses and how bad the traffic is. Interesting that you bring up people being angry. Everyone I know ( and don't know ) is angry about something. IMO it's not going to end well.

Somewhat correct. It was rotten within ( does bread and circuses seem familiar today ) but the "barbarians at the gate" were mercenaries hired because they couldn't get locals to do the job. Apparently the mercenaries realised that Rome had nothing to stop them so they just took over. It all seems very familiar today. All empires rot from within and ours is no different. The Roman Empire took hundreds of years to rot enough, but seems we are on speed cycle to the end.

LOL. IMO most voters have absolutely no idea of the shenanigans that their elected leaders are up to. The elected leaders no doubt like it that way.

While I am in no way saying the report isn't true, I find it strange that Russia would allow the execution of prisoners that would be valuable to exchange for Russian POWS in Ukraine. Perhaps it was done without permission, though I'd find that puzzling as well. Dead POWs are only good for generating propaganda from the other side.

IMO no one with sense "signs up" unless they think they will be on the winning side. Seems that Ukrainian men have the opinion they will not be winning. In this event, it's normal to introduce conscription. Is it significant that Zelensky has of now not done so? Perhaps he fears a revolt from the populace, like happened in the US over Vietnam, or worse. Whatever, if he can't convince Ukrainians to go fight, the end can't be too far off.

You really are a sad man ( or woman ), IMO. Who really cares about a piece of technology, when the world is turning to <deleted> ? IMO we all should have more important things to wonder about- leave your basement and go out where there is some grass and trees and wonder about the miracle of nature, not some tech that will be obsolete in a year.

IMO wrong. They say nothing about ending the war. The resolution only calls for a temporary ceasefire, and the release of hostages, following which there will be nothing to stop the israelis completely flattening all of Gaza, with American bombs. This resolution IMO only assists the israelis in their genocide ( the UN has declared it a genocide, as reported in another post by myself ), and does little to end the conflict. Biden could stop the war tomorrow if he wanted to, IMO.

If a SC resolution is not binding, why does the US have to use the veto so often? Doesn't matter anyway, as if israel chooses not to abide by it, nothing will happen other than some hand wringing, IMO. IMO Biden must be seriously worried about his election prospects to allow the vote to succeed.

I'm sorry to have to keep pointing this out, but short of israel removing all settlers from the West Bank, there is not enough land left to have a Palestinian state on, so the two state solution is a pointless talking point that can not happen, IMO. What is not usually discussed is that if the West Bank became Palestinian, they would control most of the river water, and I can't see israel giving that up.

Don't applaud too soon. As I expected, israel has not ceased to fire, so the resolution is void, IMO.

Hamas now doesn't have to refuse to release the hostages since israel violated the ceasefire already.

Of course, israel has ignored the order. Did anyone expect it to obey? As seen on Al Jazeera news this morning, and too soon for a link, but there is this from U tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttFuF4xJCQQ By doing so, IMO it has openly declared that it isn't after the hostage release at all, which was conditional on a ceasefire.