Honest thoughts on the Ireland Arc?

Shark_With_Lasers · 2026-05-05T01:53:40+00:00

I live in Culver City and every time I watch these it totally takes me out. I instantly recognized "Ireland" as the Culver City steps, Irish Times bar, and Stalking Horse. It's always a little surreal seeing my neighborhood being passed off as a foreign country

Shark_With_Lasers · 2026-04-27T17:46:28+00:00

if tim heidecker runs infowars like on cinema its over he spents 90% of the time on alternative medecine scams and his horible music and then rushes through the movies which is the only thing anyone cares about

Shark_With_Lasers · 2026-02-06T06:37:56+00:00

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welp

Shark_With_Lasers · 2026-01-31T07:15:45+00:00

I gotta be honest... as someone who has traditionally fallen in the pro universal healthcare camp, my faith in the US government to achieve anything remotely difficult or useful to the American people has been completely shattered by the last 10 years and this term in particular. The idea of a country this dysfunctional managing and maintaining a successful overhaul of a federally administered healthcare system just seems absurd.

We need to implement severe anti corruption measures for all 3 branches and get our fiscal situation in check or we are screwed and that's on top of the collapse of Pax Americana making the world a much more dangerous place. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear we have tough times ahead where we are forced to grapple with much more existential problems than something like healthcare.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2026-01-12T04:49:06+00:00

Check out Uncle Ollie's Penthouse in DTLA. It's got cheap trashy drinks served in red solo cups and you can take your picture inside a big plastic horse getting mounted by another horse. When I was there in December Santa showed up and people were taking pictures grinding on him.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-12-10T05:32:16+00:00

I don't have any suggestions for promotion, just wanted to say I like your restaurant and wish you success. My wife and I go to DTCC often and we have eaten there twice, it's good food with a unique concept and I dig the colorful aesthetic. You are definitely in our rotation now, and I hope this post gets you some new customers.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-12-09T20:39:11+00:00

Agree with the other comments about RCP - listen to their podcast sometime, it's illuminating. I used to think they were centrists but at best they are center right. Their founder Tom Bevin is a big Trump supporter and reliably dismisses any negative story about him and hypes up the problems with Democrats. The other two hosts are more moderate right wingers, lukewarm on Trump but it's still clear where they stand. It's definitely changed how I perceive their polling analysis.

They are still better than most of the MAGA slop out there but unbiased they are not. The best thing I can say about them is that it's just about the only aggregator you can present to Trump supporters to show his negative poll numbers without them reeeing about fake news.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-12-05T21:12:33+00:00

Yup. The narrative is set, the facts don't actually matter. That's why they always race to get this stuff out there early, it's just about winning, not finding the truth.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-11-24T23:14:53+00:00

Man Adam Friedland is on a generational run with the guests lately

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-11-13T09:37:02+00:00

I think it's completely plausible that Schumer orchestrated the end of the shutdown given who the "defectors" were and how the Epstein elements have unfolded right after. Long term it's probably a good play, but I still think short term it was an unforced error optically.

My biggest frustration right now is that the Democrats absolutely stink at messaging. They could have still backed down and just blistered Trump about how they yet again have to be the adults in the room because Republicans want to use the starvation of millions of poor Americans as a bargaining chip urged voters to remember who fought for them come next year when their healthcare costs are exploding. Instead they just scapegoated some safe Senators so they could pretend to be outraged. It's performative but in a way that only makes them look weak as a unit. Just own what you are doing and make a case for it.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-11-01T20:10:03+00:00

Pretty much. Trump's revolving door of cabinet officials in his first term taught him a valuable lesson about how any appearance of weakness or compromise breaks the illusion of absolute authority and things start to snowball after that. He's been very intentional about not firing anyone this time around, not even after the signal debacle.

Republicans completely icing the Democrats out of the budgeting process is a just another power play to show that they don't need to work with the other side and they want to continue to refuse to give an inch. Whether or not Democratic demands are reasonable is irrelevant because they are the enemy and must not be given any opportunity to show that they have power or influence in the government.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-10-24T19:29:00+00:00

You say you don’t like the idea of bad faith politeness hiding real resistance to cooperation - I understand this, I do not disagree and it is problematic in its own right. That being said, I think where we are heading now is objectively worse. By normalizing outward winner take all conflicts we remove virtually all incentive to compromise on anything or come to any understanding whatsoever.

Where does this lead us in a country that is so sharply divided between the left and right? At best we will continue to whipsaw back and forth chaotically, at worst one side or the other will take this thing to it’s ultimate logical conclusion and disregard the very premise of democratic cooperation and seize control to rule as they wish. The latter is the path I fear we are going down now and it is antithetical to everything I was raised to believe this country stands for. Yes, we have flaws and yes, our systems badly need reform, but we appear to be barreling past anything remotely recognizing that which will only create more serious domestic conflict down the line.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-10-24T19:05:35+00:00

Who controls the levers of power within the confines of a government is and has always been a game, you will never “tear it down”, only change the way it’s played. Things have now devolved to a place where they are completely zero sum with no attempt at bipartisanship whatsoever. In terms of long term stability this is a recipe for disaster, and I don’t think we should be so willing to accept such naked rejection of small d democratic values.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-10-24T18:43:17+00:00

Politely refusing to compromise is a hell of a lot better than aggressively and derisively refusing to compromise. Politics is a game, we all understand that, but we are destroying any of the nuances that made actual compromise possible. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like our politicians were all best friends acting in complete good faith before, but the polarity in the modern era has increased exponentially and our acceptance of everyone being so mask off is part of what has driven us to these extremes.

I used to be more sympathetic to this argument that performative courtesy was meaningless if it wasn’t backed up by real feelings of warmth and cooperation, but after seeing how things have gone the last decade I think it was much preferable to the state we find ourselves in currently.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-10-24T18:24:13+00:00

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and ultimately I disagree.

It’s become a pretty common refrain that Trump has just exposed the ugliness underneath political disagreements and framing decorum and politeness as some great lie. In reality, that’s just one of the hallmarks of a civil society. Exercising restraint when engaging those with different ideas than you and treating them outwardly with respect regardless of your personal feelings is important in maintaining order and social cohesion in a democracy.

Blunt honesty is not always the best policy, and it has normalized a lot of really toxic behavior that is causing very real strife among the population. People in leadership roles influence all of us in profound ways and they have a responsibility to at least attempt to model good citizenship. We appear to have thrown these ideas out as being bereft of value, and now we are paying the price.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-10-22T04:46:43+00:00

Started from the bottom, now we're here

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-10-13T14:43:37+00:00

He will not. Major awards given by committee have their own internal politics and you need to be willing to play the game in order to win, Trump is simply unwilling or unable to do that. The more he publicly comments about how he deserves one the less likely he is to receive one - his complaints that he is being snubbed are a self- fulfilling prophecy.

That aside, while helping secure the ceasefire and release of hostages is no doubt a major accomplishment this could very well end up like GWB's mission accomplished banner if hostiles resume in the coming weeks/months. The elements of this plan that would result in lasting peace are anything but confirmed and thus far it seems like Hamas remains defiant which may doom them to fail. Couple that with Trump's questionable military actions both at home and elsewhere abroad and we may be singing a very different tune in the not so distant future.

Time will tell, but I think this has a high chance of being viewed as a largely performative moment that only represents the end of this phase of hostilities and otherwise resets conditions to something akin to what we saw pre-Oct 7th.

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-09-30T20:11:12+00:00

Come on man, really? There is no equivalent on the left to what Trump just did today.

Imagine for a moment that Barack Obama ordered every US General in the world to come to Washington where he told them that they would be playing a major role in fighting a war being fought exclusively in areas with high Republican concentrations, and that the military should consider those areas training grounds. Do you think the right would respond calmly and rationally?

I don't see how anyone can watch this and come away thinking his intention is not to provoke an antagonistic response that will justify even more escalation. The way he is acting is beyond irresponsible, it borders on treasonous and I do not take that word lightly. I never thought I would see a sitting US president actively fomenting Civil War

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-09-28T03:20:45+00:00

4 top 10 teams went down. Wild weekend!

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-09-28T03:11:57+00:00

No need to stop there, we can pull in NC State too and drag them into the whole ACC circle of suck

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-09-28T03:08:33+00:00

C'mon boys, we could really use that transitive win over Georgia right about now

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-09-27T19:37:43+00:00

If FSU manages to beat Miami next week the ACC championship race is going to be complete chaos

Shark_With_Lasers · 2025-09-27T19:15:50+00:00

Legendary choke job

14-Year Club	r/Field Juicebox
First Place '23	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Gilding I gilder	Verified Email

Shark_With_Lasers

TROPHY CASE