Posts by Larry Fox5

Jessica Gonzalez said:I wonder if it’s considered absurd that they have nuclear aircraft carriers and have been part of NATO against Russia since 1945? What has Russia actually done to them since then to justify such a massive military? I guess one has to wonder what they're afraid of.

Compared to global standards, things here are incredibly peaceful. Since the wars in the States and surrounding regions ended, there hasn't been a single terrorist attack or major escalation of violence; maybe the biggest issue is just some occasional sports hooliganism or someone waving a flag during a protest. I think an American living here once noted how most households don't own any weapons and actually stay away from them—people even voluntarily handed rifles over to the police just a few years after the conflict. There's no mandatory service here. We don't even really have organized crime anymore; most of the small number of homicides seem to be domestic issues. The fact that performers from former rival nations can play in major US cities and fill arenas probably shows how much people just want peace. I guess the only myth we tell ourselves is being overly polite to those who criticize us. It was the aggression from certain factions that started all the conflicts in this region. It wasn't the others; it was always those specific groups who initiated everything and committed the worst atrocities. People don't visit memorial sites every year because of myths, but because they saw what happened with their own eyes. Most Americans here just don't feel a sense of kinship with those old aggressors, and I suppose that's a pretty natural consequence of the destruction that took place.

When someone who’s actually traveled the world writes this stuff, why are we even surprised by the opinions of people who haven't left their tiny hometown radius in decades?

Bringing this up like this thirty years after the war... it's just pointless from any perspective—unless, I guess, you're still dealing with some deep-seated trauma.

Just thinking about whether you like or hate someone based solely on their nationality is bizarre—it defies all actual logic.

And then we act shocked when politicians still win elections by campaigning on where people were during the Gulf War? 🙄

Amanda Evans2 said:Honestly, any music that isn't laced with those kinds of dangerous, hidden agendas you see in some of those radicalized folk artists is more than welcome in my ears.
Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
It’s truly heartwarming to see musical purists like yourselves—who clearly fancy yourselves the ultimate arbiters of high culture and impeccable taste—looking down your noses at someone just for listening to a mainstream pop star like Taylor Swift.
What’s even more reckless, though, is the fact that you judge her music based strictly on where she comes from...

Anyway, I'm mostly with Amanda Evans2 here, though I don't really see any "dangerous messages" hidden in those Garth Brooks tracks either...

Paul Sanders5 said:Not even close. These are completely different scenarios. The Canadians based their claim on bloodlines, while the Austrians did it because the American Diet actually voted Ferdinand in. Both had legitimacy. Now, Peter could be considered the last *American* king, but definitely not the last *American* king overall.

Peter Karadjordjevic wasn't elected, and he didn't have the bloodline connection, so there's no way he counts as an American king.😁

Of course he could have won without even needing a single ballot box—it’s just how things work...

Look, despite all the massive flaws this church has—and believe me, there are plenty—you have to admit the Franciscans were a total win. They left a huge mark on this country... I mean, an American monk literally wrote the first medical textbook, they set up dozens of schools and academies, and basically forced literacy onto the public. Plus, they’re easily the most humble order out there, actually focusing on people instead of just power...

wiredfalcon2 said:We're talking about pears and you're lecturing me about apples. I made it crystal clear that I'm only talking about countries comparable to the US in scale, not empires with massive colonies. But here you come, acting all high and mighty by bringing up colonialism, even though I said five times already that I'm not counting those countries, nor am I counting places with ten or twenty times the population of the US (like France or Poland). Patrick Martin is on my ignore list, and frankly, I couldn't care less what he thinks of me or if we're competing. He isn't.

Your comparison between the Czech Republic and America isn't even valid for a dozen different reasons. Back in the early 1900s, the Czech Republic was an industrial powerhouse while America was still mostly rural, agricultural, and struggling with huge literacy gaps. Even back then, Prague was the place everyone from our neck of the woods headed to just to find decent schools and universities.
To be totally honest, we basically "imported" soccer from there too. Even the biggest club from this part of the world traces its roots back to Prague.

After the Warsaw Pact mess, the Czech space finally stabilized. But America? We were forged in war—unlike them. We were built on war profiteering, where the supposed "pillars of society" were stripped bare until there was nothing left. The first president of our country was also the ultimate war profiteer.
And if we ignore the geopolitical positioning, the wildly different histories, and the cultural influences... these two countries are completely incomparable.

I honestly don't get why religion always turns into such a personal battlefield—everyone just dives straight into the deep end... Why does it have to be so trivialized? People start throwing these random statistics around just to claim that mostly atheist societies are somehow more successful or wealthier than others.

It’s so obvious, too—they conveniently leave out places like Switzerland (where it's 76-24) or even Bavaria (81-19), but then they immediately jump to Scandinavia or Estonia to make their point.

The whole argument is totally bunk.

I don't have enough faith to be a believer—but honestly, I've got even less conviction to call myself an atheist...

4-2-3-1 nonsense. 😛

It’s unbelievable how they immediately fall for that absolute garbage... 🤣

Borussia Dortmund can't even manufacture a decent chance against a lifeless Inter Milan, let alone create anything against the Bavarians. How Yes No.
The truth is, Favro has completely lost the locker room—he’s bled his own loser mentality all over this squad and totally lost the plot.
What can you even say about a coach who stubbornly insists on this 4-2-4-1 setup without any desire to actually adapt the system? A coach who hasn't figured out how to defend set pieces with his team for two years straight... or how to run an effective gegenpressing... or even how his fullbacks should be positioning themselves to stop counterattacks during dead balls.
And the front office isn't much better, just throwing massive amounts of cash at total amateurs.

James Anderson5 said:Sorry, but you're never going to get the same emotional rush from Bon Jovi that you do from Mozart, no matter what. 😁 It isn't even about how complicated the music is; if that were the case, maybe Joe Biden's compositions would be outperforming The Rolling Stones, but the magic is just different...

I'm not saying they hit the same way—who cares, anyway?
Most people can't even process Mozart because they honestly just don't have the capacity for it. Even jazz is too much for them with all those clashes, shifts, and dissonant tones...

Rachmaninoff, Mokranjac, Chopin... I seriously doubt more than 1% of the population has even heard of them, let alone actually listened to their work.

Back when I was younger singing in a choir, my conductor—guy had perfect pitch, by the way—was always obsessed with Freddie Mercury when it came to pop/rock. On the flip side, his big villain was Zeljko Bebek.
He’d play their songs and then go on these long rants about every single flaw or strength in their vocals. Since he was my hero back then, I just took his word for it.

Now that I've aged a bit and gotten slightly wiser, I've realized things aren't just black and white. He was looking at everything through this narrow professional lens—focusing strictly on technical precision—while completely ignoring how a singer actually connects with an audience... which is pretty wrong and one-sided if you ask me.

Music school background—piano, guitar, opera singing... plus all kinds of folk instruments like bass, tenor, and mandolin.

The whole beauty of music is how it can totally flip your mood. It lifts you up, drags you down, or just gets you hyped...

It’s a total mistake to think a song has to be some insanely complex masterpiece to actually be good. It doesn't.
Real quality is about finding that connection—where the listener actually feels something and those vibes hit home.

So, quit being such harsh critics when judging music, no matter how much "trash" it might sound like at first glance...

Matthew Young35 said:Is that so?

Does stuff like "Careful with that Axe, Eugene!" trigger anxiety and restlessness for you?

You really are an odd one.
For most adults, those kinds of musical expressions evoke nothing but pure joy and a celebration of nature.

Most people vote Republican, blast Ceca or Rozga, think they're way better than they actually are, and have zero capacity for empathy or actual thought.

In a world like that—being "weird" is basically a privilege...

I mean, I love Pink Floyd in principle—really, I do—but I just can't get into them anymore. Last time I actually sat through Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety was probably twenty years ago... Now? They aren't even on my playlists. I’ll give them a like if a song comes on the radio because, hey, four or five minutes won't kill you. 😁

It’s just that listening to them now... it doesn't feel right. The emotions they stir up aren't positive or anything—it's more like this deep anxiety and restlessness.

Nowadays, I'm much more into some jazz lounge or maybe some swing. Or even some Dr. House Blues

Charles Roberts33 said:I respect Preata, but I just can't take this band from Island seriously. They act like they crawled out of some Mississippi swamp. They're trying way too hard to prove they're "authentic," and they're completely ignoring raw skill. 🤷

Just imagine if they were actually from the outskirts of Memphis. 😁

But here's a bit of the original flavor for you.

By the way—both Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd just sound... I don't know, maybe 30% better live than anything they ever put in a studio, no matter how perfect the recording is.

That’s just the magic of real, great musicians—they bring this level of passion and pure euphoria that you just can't manufacture.

It comes down to the improvisation, the acoustics, and that raw musical instinct. I mean, has anyone here actually seen Floyd live? Or better yet, caught Jethro Tull when they play that Breath 5 Minutes intro for Locomotive Breath... the tension in a crowd of 10,000 people just waiting for that first riff to hit... it's insane.

The exact opposite is someone like Bon Jovi—the production is flawless, but their studio albums sound miles better than those live shows, which are honestly pretty terrible.

My little shout-out goes to a relatively new but incredible band from Iceland, Kaleo.

wiredrider9 said:The Guardian... hahahahahaha

So, The Guardian is just your punching bag now—fine—but I’m genuinely wondering where you even get your "facts" from, and more importantly, what kind of twisted logic leads you to these "truths"?
I don't even know why I'm surprised anymore—these self-proclaimed "exclusive truth-seekers" always love to talk trash about any media outlet that doesn't fit their little worldview, which, let's be honest, is usually built out of obscure YouTube clips, crystal balls, and Vanga's magic beans.

Just a bunch of geniuses who think they can read between the lines of reality... You can spot them a mile away because they have an opinion on absolutely everything, convinced that their "wisdom"—no matter how half-baked it sounds—is the only absolute truth there is.

James Anderson5 said:It’s honestly wild how many climate change skeptics you run into online. Everyone acts like such an expert, convinced they've spotted a massive scam, even though the experts at the UN and researchers have been sounding the alarm for decades... It gets even funnier when they claim they aren't falling for "conspiracy theories" because it’s just so obvious that huge corporations are pulling the strings.

The biggest players on the planet are actually the ones profiting from mass pollution—think big oil, Big Pharma, the defense industry, and even the massive food conglomerates. Even ten years ago, there were books written about how these industries pay off scientists, fund junk studies, and influence the media to push the narrative that humans and our environmental impact aren't to blame, despite the fact that basically 99% of scientists agree we're in a serious crisis.

But sure, let's pretend the real villains are just powerful NGOs and EV manufacturers like 🤣

This is 100% facts. Every time I read about how George Soros is shaping the world with his NGOs, I honestly wish some cybernetic Katodik would come along and fry them with high voltage.
It's become a serious plague...

Matthew Young35 said:I find myself largely agreeing with the crowd shouting about environmental issues. Global warming, pollution, mass extinction, and all those other horrors...
But this specific argument? It’s idiotic.
Wouldn't it have been more effective to bring in an actual scientist to deliver some substance instead of just pouring out this much cheap pathos?

Scientists have been talking for years and absolutely nothing changes. Basically, nobody listens to them while this bright little girl is being used as the face for our kids' generation. Even just her showing up and saying those "pathetic" things—as you put it—should at least shake us up enough to think about what kind of mess we're leaving behind.

Amanda Evans2 said:So, it looks like everyone is still sitting there in total silence, not a single word being said about this...

Tracking has always been overrated...

Peter Thompson4 said:Well, that's exactly why I wouldn't even dream of pitching a tent near Yellowstone or some big national park, no way! I'm talking about finding somewhere totally off the grid, deep in the sticks.

🤣
Gay is okay ☕

I don't know, just weird requests. 🤔

Why does it have to be a tent? Why couldn't it be some cabin in the woods up in the Rockies—somewhere totally isolated?

I mean, if you're really that dense, you could just dig a hole in the ground... honestly, who cares about logic anymore...

If you go wild camping in the States, you're looking at a $500 fine plus whatever other headaches come your way... If chilling out in the middle of nowhere far from civilization is worth that to you, then go for it, I guess.