I was way more of a lurker in '08 but distinctly remember his over the top obnoxious trolling leading up to the election. It was insane.

What I find weird is how someone can dedicate so much time to obsess over something, then, upon his return kind of shrug it off and say "meh, we all kind of lost our minds on that one, amiright?? I'm no longer interested in politics anyways." Must have been the same sort of logic Nazis used (real Nazis, of the Jew burning variety) after the war ended: "wow, I'm not really sure what came over me there! That sure escalated quickly! Back to normal now, nothing to see here..."

I'm kind of indifferent to his presence here, but, something about him doesn't seem right. The incessant trolling, the bet welching, even when he came back he mentioned he wasn't sticking around for long, yet, here we are reading 3 or 4 click bait titled threads a day from him...

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Wow, you went "Full Frontal Godwin" in exactly one post. Well done!

I too recall the old LR in a fond golden haze where we all got along and looked forward to Ms Kitty's next post on knitting.

and then you Canuks invaded our safe space and demanded consideration and listed people (well they aren't really 'people' are they) as Nazis, critiqued US foreign policy at each and every drop of the hat; demeaned our national sport, mocked our electoral process and its outcome, and had the temerity to comment negatively on our tourists abroad.


/r

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Steve

Actually, Mr. Mopdahl -- with whom I stupidly made a "one of us has got to go bet" -- over POLITICS! -- let me up off the mat and said I could stay, on a couple of conditions, none of which were really all that onerous (though one, where I couldn't scream out "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"at the end of a post or rejoinder making fun of the "other side," I felt was soul-destroying ;-). But I decided to leave, as that was probably best for everyone. And I never looked at the room for nearly five years.

I don't know what happened to bring me back. One day a few months ago I decided to look and see who was still here. Surprise -- EVERYONE still was, though I see the same election year emotions took out my counterpart, Mr. Mopdahl this time around, which I really feel was a shame, as I always found his thoughts enlightening and valuable, even when I was gleefully jumping and down on them like a Tasmanian devil on crystal meth. For that, I sincerely apologize to everyone that was here at the time. Politics is a pernicious thing, and it can make people who involve themselves in it equally pernicious if they're not careful.

As to "slowly delving in" to politics, I hope I'm not and I surely don't intend to. I despise everything about it and I don't trust any politician, anywhere at any time. Unfortunately, there's almost not a single subject that isn't immediately captured and politicized these days, and so it's nigh-on impossible to avoid ending up in a thread, about almost any subject, that someone doesn't try to turn political.

I guess the biggest reason I decided to stay after what was meant to be just a one-day return was that the discourse here is generally among a group of people who are obviously very intelligent, which in my line of work nowadays is something I rarely come across. Also, a number of the folks here (including those with whom I've differed in the past) said they didn't mind if I did. Bonus! :-)

The one worrying issue for me while here this time around is the politicization of pretty much everything, and I see it happening in the LR as well. That may be a reason for why I tend to give a short opinion about something and then post an article about the subject:If it turns political after that (and it has on a number of occasions) I do my best to just not talk and to listen instead.

The Politicization of Everything - POLITICO Magazine

24/7 politics: it probably increases mortality rates. LOL!

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

1. You went full-on Godwin, sir. You never go full-on Godwin. ;-)

2. I apologize if anything I've written in the past may have offended you.

As to clicky-baity threads these days, I don't see where I'm doing that. It's just that with everything -- BUT EVERYTHING -- so politicized, I'd rather discuss what I hope are non-political things that interest me, and which I hope would interest others, after I come across them while surfing, so I post a link to the article of interest. And I always try to post something from either a writer who's intelligent or from an information source that isn't actually clickbait.

If I were truly interested in click-baiting folks I'd do it much more subtly, believe me. And as a working writer in the past, I could do it (and have been paid to do it) quite easily. Again, with everything so politicized in this, the Age of the Orange-Haired Wonder (hah!), it's really hard to find something that someone, somewhere (especially here in the LR these days), won't claim is "political."

Let me tell you: if cat videos -- which apparently rule the Internet and which are the last politics-free zone, it seems -- go political, I'm going to see if Elon Musk has space for me on his first ship to Mars, even if it means riding on the outside. LOL!

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

LOL I couldn't resist!

Jesus Mary and Joseph


tony. tone it down. do us all a favor ok?


take good care
/r

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Steve

I always got the impression that you were being intentionally over the top to a) amuse yourself and anyone else with a lowbrow sense of humor yet decent vocabulary and b) to see what sort of reaction you could stir up.

After a while, you had said all these things so much that they took on a life of their own, and became a piece of your driving force- your satire became serious to you, but the tone didn't change.

You're a dude who isn't happy unless he's got 2 or 3 too many projects going, and this is an outlet for those stream of consciousness thoughts. And fart jokes.

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******************************
If I don't, who will? -Me
It's like being bipolar in opinion is a requirement around here. -TripleThreat

BK routinely writes really interesting posts. This place would be much less w/o him.

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Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Most of his posts are too long so I don’t read them.

MTV ruined me.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Agree- I never understand people who don't want more quality input even if you don't agree with everything. With people like The Forge being axed and Matt posting less we need more BK's to keep this place interesting.
Welcome Back Tony!!!

I have to put in a good word for Mr. Mopdahl. I didn't agree with him all the time, but, from what I saw, he handled himself well. He got kind of a bum deal on those Trump bets. Trump may have won, but I still say the smart money was on Hillary.

Not at 25:1 it isn't

I was a hair's breadth from putting down a chunk of money. But there was no way I was going to make myself happy when Trump won. Better to be sobbing and broke than $10k richer and happy when he won.

As for BK, "I despise everything about it and I don't trust any politician, anywhere at any time. "


Does anyone else feel like someone broke their promise to pull out?

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Well thought out posts pushing viewpoints contrary to your own are especially good. My facebook feed is constantly full of moronic political/social/cultural posts by halfwits. That is to say 90% of my HS buddies and 50% of my college buddies.

It's really tiresome. I can't just respond with "how the fuck can you post this shit? WTF happened to you? After we moved apart did you suddenly wake up one day a complete idiot? How can you not feel humiliated yourself posting such complete clickbait horseshit?"

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Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

You have written nothing to offend me. Plenty to annoy me, but that's a different subject!

I sure did go full on Godwin there and I hope most realize that was fairly tongue in cheek. But, I do find your extreme behavior in 08 really bizarre, and now even more so when you return and kind of laugh it off.

I wonder, if yahey were to come back and declare himself sane, would people believe him? Would his transition from full blown internet troll to seemingly normal community member not seem odd to anyone?

I guess what my thought process boils this down to is that, if I spent months, even up to a year or so like in your case, making it my mission every day to annoy a group of people, I would sure hope I could come up with an explanation better then "we all got wrapped up in that one, didn't we". You don't owe me, or anyone, anything here, the whole situation just really perplexes me.

As for your comment about everything being politicized "these days", do you feel you were not doing that in 08?

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Long Chile was a silly place.

It is bad enough I spend time here. I can't imagine having a Face Book account.
At least in the LR we don't usually personally know each other, so most ideas and a straw-man are the thing being attacked.

ONLY 2 or 3 too many projects going? You need to inhabit my space for awhile. I can get you some juice and HGH and all that other good stuff to help out. 'Cuz you're gonna need them. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

There’s HGH? Where can I sign up? I’m only 2-2.5 hours away.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I'm only 40, no need for chemical enhancement yet... YET.

With 2 employments by our friends the Feds, I have to behave. Once I retire from the Army, things might get weird.

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******************************
If I don't, who will? -Me
It's like being bipolar in opinion is a requirement around here. -TripleThreat

You're still a young man. I turned 57 today. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

But, but, but, that's my age too! Happy belated birthday anyway![/img]

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DFL > DNF > DNS

5 days till I hit that mark. Congrats from your brother from another mother in Detroit (well windsor, but same thing really)

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Jim
"In dog beers, I've only had one"
http://www.shakercolonial.com/
Creating custom made furnishing to your requirements

Hahaha! Thanks, and same to you! :-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Thanks, Jimmy! Happy birthday soon to come, buddy! :-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

If I remember correctly, 25:1 came shortly after the grab me by the pussy tapes surfaced. No risk offering up those odds after that. Took him a couple of months to settle up though.

He was okay by me. He offered to let me out of my exile, after Mitt Romney lost to President Obama, and the conditions weren't really all that onerous. I knew I needed some time away, though. I'm just amazed at the amount of betting money that was on offer for the 2016 election. Unbelievable.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

yep...a few of us really made out. Made for a good thread.

What was the largest pay out?

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Thought it was $5,000. Not 100% sure though

$5,000? Good Lord, but that's insane. It's only politics, and politicians are just not worth the sweat that one would have to generate to pay off such a bet. That was definitely a case of emotions overriding intellect, as I myself found out in 2012.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

yeah, no way I would risk that kind of $ on those boobs but at 25:1, I was more than willing to part with a $100.

Emotion? More like arrogance. Actually, the winners owe you a beer.

What got into these folks last year during the election? I went Johnson/Weld for obvious reasons but I've really given up on hardcore (even softcore) politics these days.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

rightio. you had me a little confused where you stood on politics the last several weeks.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Libertarianism is confusing to liberals. Live free!

I stand for freedom and the right to be left alone. If you're not hurting yourself or someone else, knock yourself out, in other words.

That's about it.

Johnson/Weld 2016.

You had your chance, you and your "binary choices," and you blew it. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

you've been polishing your getting-along-with-others skills!

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman