Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Movies that make you laugh?

wolfandnancy

 

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS  "Wolf and Nancy" from Monday.

I meant to note that, at THIRD, we did "200 Best Comedy Films" -- we would have liked to have gone to 500 (like we did for albums) but that took so much time.  As it was, the 200 films probably took about ten and a half hours.  A lot of discussions, a lot of debates.  A lot of rankings and then meeting up as one group and then reranking and blah blah blah. 


It's not my 200.  I love the movies that made the list but there were other movies that I like that I would have put on the list.  I would have put, for example, UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT on the list.  I would not put that HOW I LEARNED TO whatever with Peter Sellers on the list.  STRANGELOVE has never been a film that made me laugh.  It's 'heavy' and has a 'message.'  That doesn't make it funny.  I'm glad films like that didn't make the 200.


We weren't trying to be high brow, we were just trying to honor the actually funny movies.  NORBIT is a film that has been trashed by critics but it's a funny movie.  


Any critical fave on the list is on it because it's actually funny -- SOME LIKE IT HOT, for example.


The actors with the most movies on the list?  Goldie Hawn got the most and that's fine with me.  I would've put OVERBOARD and WILDCATS on there too.  And if was the top 300 funniest movies, I guarantee those two films would have made the list because they were mentioned in various groups (we broke up into small groups and would do our rankings and then get together and tabulate the votes).  


Goldie really has done a lot of great films.


Not even Diane Keaton had more films on the list and Diane is a great comedic actress.  She and Jane Fonda were right behind Goldie.  Others with numerous films on the list?  Eddie Murphy, Peter Sellers, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Richard Pryor, Gene Wilder, George Segal, Marilyn Monroe, Steve Martin, Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, Woody Allen (he was the director with the most films on the 200), Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Whoopi Goldberg, Parker Posey, etc.  Director wise, along with Woody Allen, Howard Hawks and Robert Altman and Mel Brooks, Hal Ashby and Nora Ephron all had more than one film on the list. 


If you like movies that make you laugh, I think you'll find several on there that you agree with.


Be sure to read Mike's "James Bond" about the James Bond movies and Ann's "Lucille Ball" about Lucy and her TV shows.

Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 Tuesday, October 20, 2020.  Joe Biden dictates to the press which gladly follows orders and Iraq's prime minister takes a stand briefly before fleeing the country to hide out in Europe for a few days.


That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Everybody But Bo Erikson" which went up last night (along with "Wolf and Nancy").  The comic notes how Joe Biden growls and the press goes running.  They don't get the facts, they don't pursue basic questions, they just cower.

Why has Joe never been asked about invading (harassing) girls and women?  Oh, he taped an 'apology' for it and that made it okay and off limits to questions?  Those incidents -- those disgusting incidents -- are on tape, you can find them all over YOUTUBE and, as we all know, the 'apology' was nothing -- it wasn't a real apology and days later he was making jokes about it to a gathering of union workers.  


Any other candidate would have been asked about it.


Then there's Tara Reade.  


We believe Tara Reade notes:

We are so thrilled that
@nycforabortion
is joining us alongside
@tempest_mag
in hosting A Conversation With Tara Reade on Sunday October 25th. Registration is a sliding scale with all proceeds benefiting
@ReadeAlexandra
bit.ly/believetara #IBelieveTaraReade


Tara Reade remains credible.  I believe her.  


The media went out of their way to destroy her.  What are you left with?


You're left with the argument that Tara Reade has a bad credit history therefore she couldn't be assaulted. 30% of Americans have bad or poor credit.  So they can't be victims by the latest 'reasoning presented by the press.'


This is beyond nonsense.  No victim who has come forward has had more supporting corroboration.  That includes her mother calling into Larry King.  And I've called Larry out before on this but let's note it one more time.  For him to join in the attacks on Tara were disgusting.  


He failed his audience.  That's what happened.  Tara's mother was someone who watched Larry King and she called in hoping he could provide help.  He failed her.  Listen to that segment, Larry's not trying to help or trying to seek information even; he's just trying to get her off the air.


And then years later, instead of apologizing for the way he let his audience down, Larry thinks he can attack Tara?  I love Larry.  I've defended him here when he's been attacked for being on RT.  But what he did there was appalling.  The only words he should have uttered on the subject of Tara Reade were an apology to her mother who sought help and/or advise and was left dangling in the wind.


Having failed her mother, Larry then thinks, years later, he can attack Tara?


Shame on you, Larry, shame on you.


Tara Reade did not get a hearing in the press.  She was attacked and destroyed.  It was outrageous.  That's PBS as well -- their nonsense 'report' was an attack.  The press does this every time with Joe.  They have built the loser up.  They cover for him, they protect him.


But it's getting real old.


Yes, there was wrong doing by Joe and Hunter Biden.  Yes, it was unethical and unethical is wrong.  Joe was a public servant.  The standard, for vice president, is not just to avoid a conflict of interest but to avoid even the appearance of one.  Joe didn't do that.  Even the State Dept was worried about Hunter's actions when Joe was vice president.  


And when you add in the rest of the family cashing in, it's not an isolated moment or event.  


Yet Joe has not been asked about the corruption -- that's what it is, corruption.  


Millions of Americans suffer each year because of a corrupt government.  We regularly note how corrupt the Iraqi government (installed by the US) is.  And it is corrupt.  But so is a Congress that enriches itself and so is the Biden family that's done the same.  


It's outrageous.  


October 16th, THE NEW YORK POST published a story.  The response has been outrageous and certainly not the standard for journalism.


THE NEW YORK TIMES, for example, runs an 'investigation' that's nothing but unsourced office gossip about one of their rivals -- conflict of interest.  Not only do they do that, they do it in a matter of days.


Remember their mini-culpa on Iraq?  That ran May 26, 2004.  Over a year and two months after the Iraq War -- a war they sold with lies -- started.  But to cover for Joe, the paper swings into immediate action?


As with the charges made by Tara Reade, the press is refusing to investigate what was revealed/alleged in/by THE POST.  Instead, it's attack anyone who questions Joe Biden.


Conservative Rich Lowry (NEW YORK POST) argues:


Even the lowest common denominator of news — simply being interesting — has been tossed aside. Boring and uneventful is the new newsworthy. This presumably isn’t how they teach it in journalism school, but no one has had trouble adjusting.

The tendency reached a new level in the media’s handling of New York Post reports on e-mails obtained from a laptop that Hunter Biden reportedly left off at a Delaware repair shop.

Here was a story with enough mysteries and plotlines to keep a couple of newsrooms busy. Are the e-mails, putting Hunter Biden’s sleazy overseas business dealings in a more sinister light, legitimate? Did Hunter really take the laptop to the shop and forget about it? And, more important, what do the e-mails say about what Joe Biden knows or should have known about Hunter’s work that depended so heavily on proximity to the vice president?

Instead, the press has been ­uninterested at best and hostile at worst. It’s the opposite of a feeding frenzy. The media have deployed their bomb-disposal unit for fear that a potentially explosive story might detonate.


He's right but he's not even getting to the heart of it.


"She deserves to be heard.'' That was the official line from Joe Biden and his campaign about Tara Reade.  And the press dutifully 'reported' that.  At the same time? They refused to report that the Joe Biden campaign was actively feeding them opposition research and slander on Tara Reade.  They let him appear high minded while he and his campaign were screaming at them to cover this or that about Tara Reade.


Tara's got bad credit.  But Joe Biden's the one with the history of lying.  Joe Biden's the one whose lies forced him to drop out of his first run for president.  Joe Biden's the one who knows his first wife was most likely turned around and arguing with the kids in the backseat or trying to police some matter the kids were having and she lost control of the car and that's why the accident happened.  Joe Biden's the one who knows that but has repeatedly lied to the American people -- in one event after another -- and slandered a man by claiming the truck driver was drunk.  He was not drunk.  Joe lied.  We could go over Joe's lies forever and ever because there's a huge number of them.


Funny thing though, the press never did that.  Instead, they attacked Tara Reade's character.


The Hunter Biden story has gone the same way.


One lie after another, all coming from the Biden campaign, has sought to steer the coverage and the press has allowed that to happen.


They were 'hacked' e-mails!!!!


No, they weren't.  From Ava and my "Media: The Lies Never End:"


Hacked? That was the excuse FACEBOOK and TWITTER gave for censoring the story.

They shouldn't have censored to begin with but what made our blood boil was the lie that it was hacked.

Where did the lie come from? The Joe Biden presidential campaign. We can't believe anyone took that garbage seriously. These e-mails were not hacked and they were the property of the owner who turned them over to the FBI and a copy to Rudy G. They were his property.

We're not inventing case law. We're breaking down reality for you. The press refused to do so and ran with Joe Biden's claim of "hacking."

Let's say you've got a lamp and some other furniture you don't like but you don't want to toss out, okay? You don't have room for it. What do you do? You rent storage. And you put your items there. They are your items. Up until you stop paying for the storage. After you miss your payment, the storage company can -- and usually does -- auction off the contents of your storage unit.

The story on the laptop is that someone (Hunter Biden?) brought it in to be repaired. They were contacted about it. They never picked it up. A computer repair shop isn't a storage facility. If you fail to pick up your item -- and item you haven't paid for -- it's now the property of the store.

These were not hacked e-mails. The laptop was the legal property of the repair store. The owner did what he wanted to do with it -- as was his legal right.

We were enraged and appalled as 'hacked' e-mails were promoted not only by Joe Biden's campaign but also by the media. If you don't know the law, get an expert.

'The owner is pro-Trump!!!!' Who the hell cares? His partisan leaning does not impact the law. It's his shop, equipment was left there for repair, it was repaired, it was not picked up and it was not paid for. At that point, he owns the laptop. As the owner, he can do whatever he wants to and, yes, the includes handing a copy over to Rudy G.

As FACEBOOK and TWITTER are rightly under fire, news outlets need to stop offering the 'hacked' excuse. These e-mails were made public by the rightful owner. This is basic case law and everyone knows it. What's the phrase? All together now: "Possession is nine-tenths of the law."                

They were not hacked.  The owner of the computer (Hunter Biden or whomever) stopped being the owner when (a) they failed to pick the laptop up and (b) they failed to pay the bill.  Just one of those would have resulted in the loss of ownership.  A repair shop is not a storage building.  


The e-mails were not hacked.  The laptop's ownership had passed the store owner.


"Hacking" was a lie from the beginning and a sign of just how controlled and corrupt the US media now is.  Who's going to issue the retraction on this lie?


Certainly not the disgusting Adam Schiff.  Used to be, we could all have a chuckle over the lies of a member of Congress.  But when we started this site, 2004, that was largely laughing at Republicans.  How corrupt my party has become is clear by the never ending lies of Adam Schiff.  He's the most dishonest member of Congress.  He lied throughout the Russia-gate nonsense and the media acts like he didn't -- in part, because they lied too.  Adam's immediate reaction to the Hunter story by THE POST?


It's a Russian disinformation scam!  I know this because I've been briefed!

No, he hasn't.  The Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe is on the record saying no to this crackpot claim.



This is nonsense.  Jonathan Turley notes:


Recently, we discussed how House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff stated publicly that the recently disclosed laptop information from Hunter Biden was clearly part of a Russian intelligence operation. Schiff said that “we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.” This morning, John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence, stated categorically that Hunter Biden’s laptop was not part of a Russian disinformation campaign.  What is most notable is that Ratcliffe has stated that Schiff and his Committee have not been given any intelligence to support Schiff’s conclusion.  The incident has raised lingering criticism of Schiff who previously told the public that he had clear evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia after that allegation was rejected in repeated investigations, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Schiff never produced the incriminating evidence and later it was shown that the widely cited Steele dossier was based on a source who was considered to be a Russian agent.


Jonathan Turley analyzes the Biden campaign response here.

Meanwhile, professional liar Natasha Bertand (still waiting on the Don Jr. indictment that you 'reported' was coming any day now -- back in 2019) offers in POLITICO that the intel community is stating that it's ta disinformation campaign.  Well . . . Not the community.  It's a bunch of people who no longer are in the intel committee.  A bunch of liars who regularly feed her garbage that she duly spits back up.  (Even she can't swallow it -- much to the boys' regret.)


Let's call out Krystal Ball as well.  Oh, she feels sorry for Hunter, oh.


What a load of s**t.  She's deeply stupid if that's the case.  Did Hunter have it hard in rehab?  Most caught smoking crack would have gone to prison.  Do you think those people had it easy?  Do you think the people thrown in prison because of Joe Biden's legislation over the years had it easy?  Your sympathies with the powerful are misplaced.  A little candy ass who never achieved anything and couldn't pay child support (or admit the child was his) until court ordered doesn't deserve sympathy.  He is the problem with our society.  He had all the breaks in the world and a powerful father to cover for him repeatedly.  My sympathies will be the real victims -- not with the spoiled rotten.

It's also amazing how the press has refused to cover the corruption of Hunter's 'service.'  How he wasn't qualified but got in due to his father.  They used the military to try to paper over Hunter's lack of accomplishments.  Again, spoiled rotten and given a huge break, Hunter can't even complete two months because he's failing a drug test.  

Turning to the Iraq disaster that Joe Biden helped create, Shelly Kittleson (AL-MONITOR) reports:


The specter of a return to sectarian bloodletting in Iraq after the latest killings in the southern part of Salahuddin province has raised alarms in the Sunni-majority province northwest of the capital.

Gruesome photos of the corpses of eight young men from a village in the Farhatiya district near Balad, hands bound behind their backs, appeared in WhatsApp chats and then on social media on the evening of Oct. 17. Twelve men had been kidnapped, but as of Monday morning, it was still unclear what happened to the other four.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi made a highly publicized visit to the area the following day and spoke to residents in an attempt to assure locals that there would be consequences for those who committed the crime.

Many noted, however, that progress has apparently not been made in the cases of several other assassinations of prominent figures in the country in recent months, such as that of well-known counterterrorism expert Hisham al-Hashimi in July, and expressed doubt that the perpetrators would be punished.

The young men killed were Sunnis. Locals immediately pointed the figure at Shiite-led “militias” operating in the area that are officially part of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).


 That's not quite what happened.  Mustafa did make "a highly publicized visit to the area" -- it was a brief photo-op and Arabic social media is filled with comments about how he then quickly left and quickly left Iraq.  (He's now in Europe.)  His response is seen as both inadequate and cowardly.


Even THE BAGDAD POST is Tweeting about it:


PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi starts a European tour in #France, #UK and #Germany, 20 hours after the #Salahuddinmassacre committed by the Shiite Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia against Sunni children and their fathers


And here:

Why fake committees formed to investigate #massacres reach nothing? Why PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi is reluctant on arresting the criminals, although he knows them quite well? #BaghdadPost #Iraq



Meanwhile, Jane Arraf has a report for NPR on Iraqi refugees in Jordan which notes almost two-thirds of Iraqi Christians have fled their country since the start of the Iraq War.


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