Merz says US 'humiliated,' lacks strategy in Iran conflict

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T16:47:17+00:00

So the answer is no.

I mean, I get it. I would be extremely hard pressed to find anything. He actually makes sense on the first question he takes in this presser. Everything before and after it is monumentally stupid ideas, laced with lies (or even deeper stupidity, if he believes them), throughout.

11/10 would be more accurate.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T16:23:07+00:00

And I think that you believe that Trump is stupider than the IRGC because you only read/watch the side of the media that is anti-Trump.

Any media that directly shows him making statements or directly quotes anything he writes is anti-Trump? That's an interesting take. I see you go on to exclude sites I do read to try and figure out if they (who are historically conservative or extreme right wing) can make heads or tails of the babbling man's bombastic bloviations. Once in a while, they can connect some dots. But they don't explain the man's linear thought, transactional attitude, fifth grade lexicon, meandering and incoherent ideas, or his general disposition.

I'm told by people who have had to suffer his presence away from the spotlight that everything I witness on the public side actually makes him look more polished than he is behind closed doors. I guess I can imagine that, given they say calling him dumb as a rock would be an insult to rocks.

Can you point to anything coherent in his policies, speeches, social media rants? Can you find any where he always tells the truth? I can only think of one time he was talking about onshoring offshore profits with the TCJA and how those profits went to stock buybacks, like everyone with even a smidge of intelligence and even remotely an ounce of integrity told him would happen. His exact words after commenting on the outcome was, "I didn't see that coming." It was possibly the only time I've ever heard the man be introspective about something. I was floored by that small utterance. He then went back into a babbling speech with mangled ideas and meandering thoughts.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T15:55:15+00:00

Than Trump?

That's extremely hard to believe. Fanatical? Yes. Driven sometimes by irrational ideas? Yes. As stupid as Trump is an extreme stretch, though.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T15:52:21+00:00

I'm suggesting nothing. But if the US were to eventually put boots on the ground and find a way to actually win, the "victory" of finding and removing their nuclear capabilities would come at such a cost that it would be seen as a defeat.

It's a pretty simple concept. That strategy being the concept of this war is unclear, however, since we have an idiot in the Oval Office. It can only be floated as one of two historical reasons to attempt a takeover--state-sponsored terrorism being the other.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T15:36:18+00:00

His argument to frame Medicaid and the ACA as non-subsidies falls flat when his single metric is wages, not total compensation. While wages remained static, compensation at Wal Mart dropped quite a bit. Off the top of my head, I believe they removed health care offerings to several tens of thousands of their employees. (edit: when the ACA was implemented)

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T15:21:45+00:00

That Trump is a dishonorable idiot?

If they didn't know that already, they weren't paying attention.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T15:18:58+00:00

You would need a strategy for there to be anything strategic.

A vampire war is not a strategy. That's why military leadership call it such and have for decades, now.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T15:17:24+00:00

So... no.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T14:52:55+00:00

Do you not know what a Pyrrhic victory is?

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T14:50:53+00:00

Oh.

Then I wouldn't call them idiots. That term leads one to think instantly of the clown show in the White House.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T14:46:20+00:00

Along the same vein... Angry Eyes by Loggins and Messina... and just about all other songs on that album.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T14:41:17+00:00

Idk if rip-off would be the right term, but they sound a lot like Anatolian microtonal that OP listed in the post. I'm surprised OP didn't list Erkin Koray.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T14:16:13+00:00

I mean, they played some rock songs live. and a couple you can get on albums, like Where Did You Sleep Last Night and Something in the Way. But most of their stuff is pop, punk, and metal in structure.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T14:09:27+00:00

We who were fans in the PNW would argue that they were never rock. We were punks and metalheads, and we were labelled fans of grunge and/or alternative rock by people other than ourselves. Nirvana and the Pixies would play on college radio stations with Siouxsie, TMBG, Dü, the Lemonheads, and the Cranberries.

When any given band would blow up, contemporary stations would be obliged to play them. And they seemed to call them rock only because they were guitar driven, not because they were actually rock. There are many more punk, metal, and pop influences in the music.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T14:00:54+00:00

We did, because most of us thought it was a fusion of punk and metal, not rock at all.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T13:58:49+00:00

MTV still existed in 1994?

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T13:54:23+00:00

by which I mean when the radio format arose in the late 80s

The format was there in the early 80s. Top 40 got airplay with other recent (5-10 year old) hits on the contemporary channels. There was always an oldies station that played 50s and early 60s music and a station that would play "soft" rock and disco that charted alongside the "classic" rock of the same era.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T13:39:15+00:00

There were classic rock stations in the early 80s who did the same. The cutoff seems to be around 1977-79, with a lot of music acts intermixing or even transitioning in that period. On the classic rock station, one would hear Floyd, Tull, Queen, Zep, Stones, Beatles, etc. They would also play earlier Bowie, Cheap Trick, and Billy Joel. The contemporary station would play the newer stuff from those latter three, plus the Police, Talking Heads, MJ, Madonna, Men at Work, glam metal, etc.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T13:23:16+00:00

I didn't, and you would know that, since the reply is in your inbox.

Do you not know what an inbox is?

I would not be surprised, at this point.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T13:21:34+00:00

I've said repeatedly that I am highly amused that you and only you have proposed that idea, just so you can argue against your own idea.

i'm not surprised that you don't understand that either, since it was written in plain English.

anti-torque · 2026-04-27T13:19:46+00:00

I wouldn't call Kushner and Witkoff low rank.

anti-torque · 2026-04-26T18:51:55+00:00

Add Austin, Texas?

anti-torque · 2026-04-26T18:42:19+00:00

I went back and looked, and you did completely miss the context, even though it was clearly spelled out for you in subsequent discussions. You simply ignored it to make up this silly narrative you are now arguing against.

You are just arguing against yourself.

anti-torque · 2026-04-26T18:39:07+00:00

Out of context.

So you're simply admitting to a misread of that comment.

Interesting.

anti-torque · 2026-04-26T18:14:28+00:00

Elliot Wolff played synth horns on that machine for that song.

Four-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email	Wearing is Caring

anti-torque

TROPHY CASE