The news thread

[Venneh]

Demonoid's been taken out as well.

[Venneh]

And on top of all this, there's been another college campus shooting at A&M University in Texas.

[Garfield]

I'm getting really tired of the murderer being included in the death count of these awful events.

[slothian]

Legitimate question: does anyone want to see Prince Harry naked?

For all I know, the pictures of him in his birthday suit during his trip to Vegas are freely available on the intraweb somewhere. But now The Sun, the shining bastion of journalism and newspaper ethics under the benevolent Rupert Murdoch, has announced they will publish these pictures as it's supposedly in the public interest.

Leaving aside the media shitstorm that The Sun/News of the World/News International has found itself in these past 12 or so months, I'm always wary of what newspapers, and now gossip sites, deem to be the public's right to know. My opinion is that if famous/prominent Person X does or says something that directly contradicts their position on something, then public disclosure is justified in exposing hypocrisy. I have a feeling the tabloid media's definition is somewhat broader.

In this instance, Prince Harry has been photographed naked. The guy is a 27 year old bachelor living it up in Vegas and boozing with contemporaries, by way of context. He's also a bit of an idiot and notably once dressed up as a Nazi for a fancy dress do. Most idiotic drunken guys aged 27 run the risk of being snapped doing something idiotic whilst naked - hell, it's my biggest fear right now - but the twist is that this guy is 3rd in line to the throne. Give it 15 years and he'll be Scar to William's Mufasa.

So does an editor publish the images available to him? Plus points: sales will go through the roof as the British public are idiots/perverts (The Sun posts a picture of a topless woman in every issue btw, and has the largest circulation as a result [insert erection joke here]), it's a legitimate talking point and adds to Prince Harry's image as a bit of a tool. Minus points: Major implications for the relationship between the monarchy and News International - potential lawsuit, restriction of coverage etc. Moreover, adds to the unwanted image of the Sun as an exploitative rag, which the paper is sensitive about given its carefully-worded announcement & justification for publishing the images. Also....it's Prince Harry naked. Speaking as a ginger guy of a similar age, who has been called "Prince Harry" growing up, I can attest that this isn't the image of an alpha male.

I don't know if the images appeared in The Sun at the time, but consider Scarlett Johansson's widely-publicised exposure when images of her naked were leaked - I often do! It's someone the same age, arguably as famous around the world as Harry, and the internet circulated the images like mad. Would publishing those images be in the same "public interest" as that used as the basis of The Sun's justification for printing the Prince's parts? Is the difference simply that he was born into royalty and therefore "deserves" higher scrutiny. By my own definition of the phrase, the guy isn't being a hypocrite for drunkenly partying naked in Las Vegas because no-one really takes him seriously in the first place (see aforementioned Nazi costume).

This isn't an outraged Middle England post because at the end of the day I hold no interest in seeking out these pictures, whereas I did for ScarJo. I'm not an ardent monarchist, although I'm not a republican either - it boils down to me scratching my head at the idea of "Here's Prince Harry naked!!!" being touted as legitimate news rather than a cynical sales boost for a discredited publication.

[KnightWing]

Good god. Over here in America, there's no way in HELL any major paper would publish that sort of thing. I don't even know if it's technically legal.

[SuaveStar]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/celebrities/green-mile-actor-michael-clarke-duncan-dead-at-54-his-fiancee-says/2012/09/03/ba0ce26e-f60e-11e1-a93b-7185e3f88849_story.html

Actor Michael Clark Duncan, has died.

[dc20willsave]

Well, that blows.

[James D.]

As far as actors go, he was easily one of my favorites. RIP, big man. You will be sorely missed.

[JackFetch]

Looking through his IMDB I'm amazed at how much stuff he's done. It doesn't feel like he's been acting that long. I remember when The Green Mile came out and they said he had never acted before. Obviously that's not true since he was on Fresh Prince and Married With Children before it.

[Molly]

I forgot what a prolific voice actor he was.

[James D.]

This article sums up my feelings on the embassy attacks and our interventionist foreign policy perfectly:

Gary Johnson (Libertarian candidate for President):

Foreign policy is supposed to make us safer, not get Americans killed and bankrupt us. Yet, even as we mourn the loss of four Americans in Libya and watch the Middle East ignite with anti-American fervor, our leaders don't get it.

In one corner, we have the U.S. apologists warning that -- after the murders in Libya and the attack on our embassy in Cairo -- we must be careful not to say or do anything that might hurt someone's feelings. In the other corner, we have the chest-thumpers demanding that we find somebody to shoot -- and shoot them.

I have a better idea: Stop trying to manipulate and manage history on the other side of the globe and then being shocked when things don't turn out the way we wanted. As far as what we do right now in response to the tragic events of this week, it's actually pretty simple. Get our folks out of places they don't need to be -- and out of harm's way -- and cut off every dime of U.S. tax dollars we are sending to clearly ungrateful regimes.

Let's review American foreign policy during the Bush-Obama years. Just imagine for a minute that, in 2002, President Bush granted Iran's Ayatollah one wish above all others. It is not unreasonable to assume that the Supreme Leader would have said, "Can you please kill Saddam Hussein and make sure our mortal enemy Iraq can no longer threaten us. Then, we can get about our goals of destroying Israel, building a nuke and becoming a legitimate thorn in the side of the Western infidels."

Well...

And then there are Afghanistan and Pakistan. After 9/11, going after Bin Laden and al Qaeda was exactly the right thing to do. We were attacked and we attacked back. We must defend ourselves, and we absolutely must have a strong defense. But within a few months, our troops had scattered al Qaeda like ants from a kicked anthill, and Bin Laden had set up housekeeping in Pakistan. Al Qaeda left, but we stayed -- and kept fighting a war that was, in terms of our immediate interests, over. And we're still fighting it today, ignoring the lessons learned at great cost by the Soviet Union and the British Empire.

While we're fighting a war we don't need to fight in Afghanistan, we're pumping billions of dollars into the coffers of our new best friend Pakistan -- making them the second largest recipient of our borrowed and printed dollars on the globe. When we finally found and killed Bin Laden, was anyone surprised that we found him -- you got it -- in Pakistan? And our new best U.S.-financed friends are treating the good Pakistanis who helped us find him like criminals.

Fast forward to Libya. Make no mistake, Muammar Gaddafi was a despicable human being and no reasonable person mourns his demise. But toppling dictators we don't like has not worked out very well for us. We launched hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of missiles to kill the guy, and what do we get? A Libya that cannot even keep its benefactors safe -- and may not even be trying very hard. Somebody needs to ask, and I will be that somebody: As despicable as he was, would our ambassador and three other dedicated public servants have been killed in a Gaddafi-controlled Libya? Are we safer today after launching all those missiles and killing Gaddafi? Clearly not.

In Egypt and the other blossoms of the Arab Spring, is America any safer or our interests any better served as the result of the billions of dollars we are giving away? Again, clearly not.

Oh, and there is one other matter. We're broke. We are borrowing or printing 43 cents of every one of the more than $4 billion a year we are sending to Pakistan, Libya and Egypt. And all those missiles we launched, and the war in Afghanistan are likewise being put on the national credit card. Why are we building roads, bridges, hospitals and schools half a world away on borrowed money? Don't we have those same needs here at home?

It's time to tell and face the truth: The Bush-Obama-and-now-Romney interventionist approach to foreign policy is getting Americans killed and contributing to the bankruptcy of our nation without clear sight of our national interests. By what measure is that good policy?

In my lifetime, I can't remember two Presidential candidates who are so much alike in their policies as Obama and Romney. The only things they really seem to differ on are some social/moral issues, like gay marriage, which I, of course, side with the liberals on. But neither one of them seems to want out of these places we have no business being in. And all it's doing is getting more and more people pissed off at us.

[Stavros]

I'd say that Obama's foreign policy has done significantly less damage than Bush's, and most of the slow withdrawal is just to prevent violent blowback from the power vacuum a lack of western influence would create in the region. Not that there should have been any in the first place but still.

Plus even without western influence it's hard to say that supporting the Arab spring was the wrong thing morally. We don't yet know the full fallout but surely self determination is better than another 50 years of dictatorships?

[KnightWing]

We don't yet know the full fallout but surely self determination is better than another 50 years of dictatorships?

That was part of the argument behind Operation: Iraqi Freedom as well.

[JackFetch]

The middle east has always been chaotic, and always will be. Nothing has changed. Four people died, but it's not like it's the first time. The people there don't want a democracy, and will always fall back on "whoever is the strongest will rule". As long as religion is their driving force, nothing will change.

On not wanting to get out of the places we are in right now? We can't. Because we think of ourselves as a moral superior, we believe it's our job to fix their broken country. You know, the ones we broke. If we left after wrecking the place, a power vacuum will just fill in to take the place of the people we got rid of. This way, it'll happen slower, and maybe, just maybe, people will decide life is better than it was under the last rulers.

[Stavros]

We don't yet know the full fallout but surely self determination is better than another 50 years of dictatorships?

That was part of the argument behind Operation: Iraqi Freedom as well.

True. However none of the revolutions in that summer involved landing troops on the ground. Fuck, if the first Iraq war had supported the northern uprisings rather than giving up just in time for Saddam to turn around and slaughter them then Iraq might not have been a complete disaster for the last 20 years.

But the last thing I want on this board is a politics thread. I respect James' views, and certainly understand why he holds them.

[Dread]

The middle east has always been chaotic, and always will be. Nothing has changed. Four people died, but it's not like it's the first time. The people there don't want a democracy, and will always fall back on "whoever is the strongest will rule". As long as religion is their driving force, nothing will change.

On not wanting to get out of the places we are in right now? We can't. Because we think of ourselves as a moral superior, we believe it's our job to fix their broken country. You know, the ones we broke. If we left after wrecking the place, a power vacuum will just fill in to take the place of the people we got rid of. This way, it'll happen slower, and maybe, just maybe, people will decide life is better than it was under the last rulers.

I agree with Jack.

Everybody take a drink.

Edit: Ultimately, leaving these places and stopping what they are doing with their policy in the Middle East would be an admission that America is and always has been fundamentally wrong. If there's one country that is not going to say that it's wrong, it's America.

[Stavros]

It's unfair to say that the people of the middle east don't want democracy when they just fought so hard to get it in Tunisi and Egypt without outside intervention. That's a huge generalisation that mis-characterises an entire region. I'm honestly not a blue-eyed democracy optimist but at the same time I'm not going to write off the entire of North Africa as a lost cause just because they don't elect people we like. Besides, in the last ten years the broadcast media in that region has proved more progressive than anything in the US, there's plenty of reforming positive influences and dissenters from the religious right there.

It's not like that region is unique in having religion play a significant role in their politics.

Damn it, I've done it again. I'm seriously stopping now, there's a reason I don't go in Politics threads, no-one wins.

[Garfield]

I never joined in the optimism of the Arab Spring, and it was out of the concern for exactly what's been happening. Just because someone deposes their own dictator doesn't mean the next leader will be better. A look at Vladimir Lenin over Tsar Nicholas best illustrates this. And I'm not willing to give the people there a pass. Say what you want about the religious right here, they don't have massive murderous demonstrations here over movies.

[Venneh]

So, the movie that started the riots in Libya and elsewhere? The actors involved didn't know what they were shooting. They were given a fake script, and their lines were dubbed in in post-production. First hand account from one of the actresses.

Ladies and gentlemen, this shit is fucked up.

[Dread]

Ultimately, that's where the nasty aspect of the film comes into play. I doubt that they would have any legal recourse to sue for being misrepresented or anything, it's just incredibly dishonest.

None of this explains rioting because of a movie. It's a fucking movie. It can't be as bad as Jesus Christ: Serial Rapist (IMDB linked to prove it exists). But seriously, how mentally retarded are you to be so offended at a fucking movie. Personally, anybody who's offended at anything and feels the need to tell everyone why is already somebody I no longer give a rat's ass about.

But this is mental.

Yeah, the producer's an asshole, a fundamental Christian and probably a racist, but he deserves to make a movie about anything he wants.

[Dread]

Also, saying Middle East foreign policy has been flawed for the last few presidents is reductionist. It's always been bad. Reagan especially.

[Garfield]

I'm tempted to bring up an Onion article. It's a picture of literally every other major religious figure in a massive grotesque orgy with the headline "No one murdered because of this image."

It's too vulgar really to post, but I think the headline says it all.

[Dread]

I thought that one was pretty funny. Ganesh is hung like an elephant!

[Garfield]

I thought that one was pretty funny. Ganesh is hung like an elephant!

It's hilarious. I say that, and I'm actually a Christian. But the best one was Buddah. That grin on his face is priceless.

[MaxPower]

Just read that Onion post, hilarious. Anyone who wants a comical look at Islamic extremism, check out the very underrated movie, Four Lions, about a group of British Muslims planning a suicide bombing.