Why are they never blue? Do casinos like it when I lose money because I think my diamonds are blue and consider all my red cards hearts?
I don't understand.
lol right after I rip on Obama for failing on medical marijuana, he comes back and takes out osama bin laden. nicely done.
Obama Succeeded Where Bush Failed: Osama Bin Laden Rhetoric And Reality
WASHINGTON -- As he announced the death of infamous terrorist Osama bin Laden on Sunday night, President Barack Obama struck an extraordinary contrast with his predecessor, George W. Bush.
That was to some degree unavoidable. Bush’s consistent failure to respond appropriately to bin Laden -- as a potential threat, as a fugitive, or as a public enemy no. 1 -- represents one of the greatest shortcomings of his presidency.
Obama has now succeeded where Bush failed. And it was impossible to hear Obama declare that "justice has been done" without thinking about how long it went undone.
But Obama also went out of his way to draw distinctions between how he approached the problem and how Bush did.
For instance, as the months and years went by after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- and Bush’s initial bluster about capturing the al Qaeda leader “dead or alive” became a source of embarrassment -- Bush began to insist that bin Laden himself wasn’t so very important.
"I truly am not that concerned about him," Bush said at a White House press conference on March 13, 2002. And of course the following March, he shifted America’s focus to Iraq, which proved to be a gigantic diversion.
Obama took a different tack.
"Shortly after taking office," the president explain Sunday night, "I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network."
Obama's comments on Sunday night were clearly directed not just to the American public but to the world, evoking images of the horror of 9/11 in an effort to dampen any possible al Qaeda propaganda value from bin Laden’s death.
By contrast, the tactics and the rhetoric of Bush’s “war on terror” -- most notably his decision to invade Iraq and the torture of Muslims in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere had served as al Qaeda’s most potent recruiting tools.
And to a nation of people who, nearly ten years after the terrorist attacks in America, are overwhelmingly despondent about both of the wars launched by Bush, Obama was at long last able to deliver something that, at least for a moment, seemed like victory: "The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda,” he said.
Ironically, Obama’s announcement came eight years to the day after Bush famously and prematurely declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq after landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
And if all that weren’t clear enough, Obama made an explicit appeal to set the clock back to those days of national and international unity right after Sept. 11 -- before Bush took the nation to war in Iraq, subverted historical prohibitions against torture and domestic surveillance, and used fear of terror to achieve partisan goals.
"[T]onight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11,” Obama said. "I know that it has, at times, frayed."
As Obama noted, the U.S. was virtually a different country then.
"On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together," the president reminded the nation on Sunday night. "We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.”
The Bush record on bin Laden, of course, starts with him failing to prevent the attacks in the first place. As has been exhaustively documented by now, during the summer of 2001, his White House waved off repeated warnings of an imminent attack from former counterterrorism director Richard A. Clarke and then-CIA director George Tenet.
Bush and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, were said to be more focused on their pet issue, missile defense, and the hunt for a reason to attack Iraq. Bush, according to Bob Woodward, said he wasn't interested in "swatting flies."
The unsuccessful attempts to engage Bush culminated in a briefing he got while vacationing on his Texas ranch. As investigative reporter Ron Suskind reported in his book, "The One Percent Doctrine," an unnamed CIA operative flew to Crawford to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."
"All right," Suskind reported Bush saying after hearing out the operative. "You've covered your ass, now."
Former President Bill Clinton in 2006 notably complained that he came close to killing bin Laden in a 1998 missile strike, while Bush and the "right wingers ... had eight months to try [before 9/11]. They did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted."
Bush’s post-9/11 swagger may go down as one of history’s worst examples of false bravado. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban government quickly fell and al Qaeda retreated into the hills. But in December 2001, when bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora, Bush didn’t pull the trigger.
Then for more than three years, Bush treated bin Laden a lot like the wizards in the Harry Potter books treat He Who Must Not Be Named.
In the summer of 2005, Bush started invoking bin Laden again -- but this time, to win support for his Iraq policy, which was very much on the ropes.
"Hear the words of Osama bin Laden," Bush said, "'This Third World War is raging' in Iraq."
By 2006, on the stump for his fellow Republicans, Bush was citing bin Laden extensively. The president cast bin Laden as the oracular leader of a global movement, and warned of the possibility of an Islamic caliphate "stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia" -- an unsubstantiated fantasy with only one thing going for it: It served the political agendas of both men.
Meanwhile, in an Oval Office session that same month, Bush told to a group of conservative columnists that focusing on bin Laden didn’t fit with his military plans. Putting "100,000 of our special forces stomping through Pakistan in order to find bin Laden is just simply not the strategy that will work," he explained.
Yet, in his attempts to persuade the voting public of the dangers it faced, Bush gave bin Laden exactly the attention he seemed to crave.
After the 2008 presidential election, during which politicians from both parties publicly renounced him, Bush finally admitted some regret in an ABC News interview.
"Do I wish we had brought Osama bin Laden to justice? Sure," Bush said. "But he's not leading a lot of parades these days."
Bush stalwarts are now trying to make the case that their president deserves some, if not most, of the credit for dispatching bin Laden.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Sunday night called bin Laden’s death "a victory for the United States and a tremendous achievement for the military and intelligence professionals who carried out this important mission." As for Obama’s role? "I commend President Obama who has followed the vigilance of President Bush in bringing Bin Laden to justice," Cantor said in a statement.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney similarly credited "the military and intelligence professionals who carried out this important mission,” citing their "tireless work since 9/11." It was those years of effort, the majority of which were during the Bush administration, that "made this achievement possible, and enabled us to capture or kill thousands of al Qaeda terrorists and many of their leaders,” Cheney said in a press release.
A small group of young fans gathered outside Bush's house in Dallas Sunday night with a sign that read, "President Obama forgot to say... THANK YOU PRESIDENT BUSH."
Bush himself issued a brief statement congratulating Obama and declaring, "[t]he fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."
*************************
Dan Froomkin is senior Washington correspondent for The Huffington Post. You can send him an email, bookmark his page; subscribe to his RSS feed, follow him on Twitter, friend him on Facebook, and/or become a fan and get email alerts when he writes.
Looking for a place to find some new movies where i can just click and stream it. Dont wanna go thru all the hassle of torrent files and all. Anyone know any good ones?
Hey guys I was just watching "Talking Funny" with Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais, and Louis C.K. got me thinking about comedy and how storytelling works; especially because jokes are often dressed up storytelling. Things got crazy from there and so what I'm about to write isn't focused around jokes or comedy, just storytelling and is probably most applicable to stories told via the written word.
Stories are most frequently told through a narrative. The audience is told what is happening, what is this character thinking, about the broken shard of the realm a heroic young elf just picked up. Where has a story been told without a narrative of events?
Many stories in all forms of media have played with the sequence of events, Kill Bill which use a nonlinear narrative being an example. This type of storytelling, from my perspective, causes the viewer to be more engaged in the film and plot because, knowing the film is nonlinear, they are likely to be actively thinking about how to put the plot together in a linear way. Our natural way of thinking about events and timelines drives us to do this.
Granting that audience engagement or involvement is a good thing, where has the audience been challenged by a narrative that focuses on describing things outside of the actual narrative. If the subject of a book were, instead of a handful of people in a city being destroyed by a sci-fi monster (Cloverfield), the feelings and the varying sentiments of the population of New York as this disaster unfolded. And it was told by describing the various "strains" (characters?) of sentiments and thoughts that went through this group -- of individuals -- as the reality of what was occurring passed by.
I don't know anything further about this subject and was hoping I could get some tips on where things like this have already been done (novels, poems, etc). The only things that ring a bell when I think of this is the name "ee cummings" and that one author who wrote "stream of conscious" novels (Joyce? idk).
I didn't proof read at all sry rofl GG I'M FUCKIN BLAZED SON
Here's one area where I feel that Obama has failed. I know those of you who don't use cannabis probably scoff and say "big deal, focus on a real issue". But considering the patients who have been harassed and persecuted because of Obama's policies, I think it's a legit issue.
Obama's inability to keep his word on such an easy to fulfill promise makes me doubt his other initiatives. The common excuse for why Obama doesn't follow through on a promise is the roadblocks put up by the Republicans and the gridlocked political system in the USA. But here we have a situation where Obama has the power to direct his people to follow certain guidelines, and punish them if they don't. He did the first part and directed the Justice Department to leave medical marijuana alone, but they have not followed that order and Obama does nothing about it. To me that looks like he's trying to have it both ways - look good to the public by taking the right stand, but still persecute medical marijuana patients and look good to the drug warriors.
As you all know I worked my ass off to get him elected. I still think I did the right thing, as he's overall better than McCain would have been. But at this point he's lost my vote and support. Sadly I will probably have no choice but to hold my nose and vote for him in 2012 because the only other choice will be the absolutely insane options that the GOP offers. Such is life in the great old USA.
3 month break even stretchby Into Infinity, April 30
like seriously, just run so fucking bad everytime
i was up a bit, then recently just had a fat downswing because of leavers or other stupid shit (people not getting couriers or wards ETC, in fucking high 1700 games? srsly?)
So decent month, hopefully will get my money from FTP soon. Didn't play much live this month as I had a fair amount of work, plus trying to hit the gym more frequently. Also doing the hour drive to and from the casino is starting to be a bit annoying. I have some money on merge but I think I'm just gonna stick to live for a bit, and focus more on getting healthy and stuff.
Might be taking an internship in seattle with some friends for the summer as well. Also was looking into getting a dog, a greyhound, but may have to wait until the fall or august for that.
Wife now in labour at hospital by HeroPoker-CEO, April 30
A few days ago the contractions stopped but now we are admitted to the hospital and the contractions are like 10 mins apart. Am still working between contractions will keep you updated later
Cheers.
Dave
553 am update
Lol the contractions are like going away but when they come they are uber strong. I think this is going to be a long labour. The contractions are now 20 mins apart now. Looks like I'm working on the iPhone for the rest of the day now.
Update 623 am.
Doc says since it is second baby definitly coming out in 2 to 4 hours.
May 1st baby hehe.
Update 747 am
doc says looks like just one more hour till our second child. Wife is doing well.
Baby boy born 9:30 am! All good and thanks to all the well wishers. No name yet but I want Gunhee as our first son is Gunoo but my wife will decide this time. ^^
cheers all!
11:44 PM
Convinced my wife to accept the name Gunhee! Whoot, its a big deal. But looking for an English name, our first born's English name is Ethan, but we are going to change it to Alexander, it was a toss up between the two originally, but my wife wants it now to be Alexander, so I guess.. Tom is a good name? ^^
Any suggestions for a intelligent and powerful name?
After my last blog post about how I am a busto but ready to rebuild, I started grinding a bit harder but as always, life gets in the way of things. Work made me travel, family things came up, downloaded Vampire the Masquerade, HOMM4, Battle for Wesnoth - games which took roughly 3-4 weeks worth of weekends. I did however to put in some hours at the casino which is always +ev but didn't make too much progress in terms of online poker. Black Friday came and passed, I snap panic withdrew my entire roll of 2k (which floated at this amount for a year or so due to low volume and just not improving). And hey, if the money's already in my bank, i might as well spend it to fix my pool pump and a shower leakage.
I just redeposited 500 bucks and i'm regrinding that shit. For reals. Again. Because i'm poor. I look back at the goals i set earlier this year, 10k by end of the year is still achievable but it'll need hard work. Nothing good comes *that* easy. My goal was to grind 10bi at 25nl, 10bi at 50nl and then crush 100nl.
That was last week. I've made my 10bi at 25nl, and made a few at 50nl.
GL all.
Guess I'll try to update my blog montly / bi-monthly as a means to motivate myself (though i'm pretty pumped atm)
this guy kingkohli on ap was chipdumping to vinnykohl111 and i was watching this as it was the only high stakes sng game running at the time. Then he finally sits at a 550$ and i instasit against him. He plays completely scared money and this is what happened.
started off really good, was up almost 25 000$ at midmonth and decided to take a retaded 10/20 HU shot against an aggro spewreg who ran like god, twice
crushed for ~15bb/100 on ~2/4 and 3/6 over 35k hands and started off good on 5/10, it ended bad and 10/20 shot failed hardcore so ye, go at it again next month i guess
+ 3000$ on EU sites, so still made about 1500$ or something overall so no biggie, just tired of failing them shots always in a brutal way, and im so retarded like that, next time im gonna grind more lower so that i cant lose half my roll in 30 minutes like u will see midmonth on my graph..
6SEK=1$, so the 120k drop is about 20k$, playing 2 tables 10/20 200bb deep, lost alot of 500bb coolers, brutal stuff really
Well, my last great attempt at poker was when I got picked up on a stake in March. I put everything I could muster into it and it.. didn't work out at all. I had taken the week before black friday to clear my mind and was actually going to resume playing on that day. But it wasn't to be.
My personal strengths and skillset don't lend well to being a high-level poker player. There are much better opportunities for me in this world.
Poker is behind me as something I will seriously pursue, but I will still play when the opportunity arises and try to maintain a bankroll.
Anyways,
Even though poker hadn't been going well, black friday along with the events with my schizophrenic uncle, repeatedly injuring myself in the gym and all around life pressure, I've been really depressed and all of my personal habits went to shit. I started smoking like 5x more than I did for the past year and a half and that hasn't helped either. So I'm making some changes and am going to get back into that productive groove. I really hope the changes I make in my workout stop me from hurting (my right shoulderblade area was getting injured after my back day, I think it was the French Press so its gone from the workout now.)
As part of these changes I've picked up a new hobby: Dance. Moving to music has always been a love of mine, there's nothing like feeling that beat and returning some art from the soul. I've pretty much never practiced but whenever I'm out on the town I just lose my shit and go crazy on the dancefloor. Surprisingly, people compliment me. I always receive them bashfully because the praise feels unearned. It will feel good to earn it with a bit of practice and improvement. Maybe I'll post some videos of myself down the line if some.. entertainment value comes up.
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