The Shmups Forum Dead Pool

[njiska]

If you know wrestling on TV, you know this guy. William Moody passed away yesterday, he was 58.

That was a real shame. Always such a nice guy and easily one of the best managers the business has ever seen.

Also this week, Canada lost our beloved folk icon, Stompin' Tom Connors. You can't be a hockey fan without knowing his name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxJvrD80nJ4

[Aguraki]

http://www.wagerminds.com/blog/gambling ... -die-7523/


think it fits well in this thread

edit:and i don´t like the dead pool thing but that article is awesome

[dan76]

Jess Franco... RIP. Sad, but he was 83.

[KennyMan666]

Roger Ebert passed away from cancer at age 70 today.

[drauch]

Jess Franco... RIP. Sad, but he was 83.

Yeah, that bummed me out. Just got an Orloff set in the mail a couple of weeks ago, even.

[Mortificator]

Roger Ebert passed away from cancer at age 70 today.

That sucks. I disagreed with his rating of individual movies as often as not, but Ebert really knew his shit except about video games and I checked his site regularly.

[KennyMan666]

And because I keep hearing about these things on IRC before anyone has posted about them here, today Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke at 87.

[Friendly]

Ding-Dong!

[SharkSkin-Man]

I would normally be against revelling in another person's death, but this is great news. Tramp the dirt down.

[MX7]

Thatcher should have been tried for war crimes. Her destruction of social housing, UK industry and implementation of neo-liberalist ideologies have repercussions still being felt even more strongly today. In spite of all this, she died an old woman with dementia, and celebrating her death is in not only in very poor taste, but changes absolutely nothing.

[SharkSkin-Man]

I wish I had it in me to view her as I would a normal human being. But I don't.

[Udderdude]

Blind faith in ideology is never a good thing.

[Jonathan Ingram]

I would normally be against revelling in another person's death, but this is great news. Tramp the dirt down.

Indeed. I was listening to that song when I read your comment. Made me smile.





"When Margaret Thatcher was asked about her greatest achievement, she promptly answered: "New Labour." And she was right: her triumph was that even her political enemies adopted her basic economic policies." - Slavoj Žižek.

A class enemy like no other.

[evil_ash_xero]

About the only thing I know about Margaret Thatcher is that Morrissey and Warren Ellis don't like her much.

[Skykid]

Roger Ebert passed away from cancer at age 70 today.

That sucks. I disagreed with his rating of individual movies as often as not, but Ebert really knew his shit except about video games and I checked his site regularly.

I certainly don't revel in anyone's passing, but Ebert was a shockingly poor critic of film and I certainly won't miss people citing his input as some kind of gospel. That said RIP poor chap, hope you're in a better place.

Thatcher, well, poor decisions aren't the stuff we're made of, but she made plenty. Still, RIP to the infamous too.

[system11]

She's generally demonised by socialists for not just believing in something different to them, but actually having the strength of will to achieve it. I'm sure someone will wheel out the sob stories soon, usually those people were too young to actually remember or be affected by any of it, but they've been absolutely sold on the idea that she's evil. Mostly it's social conditioning passed down from the parents. I have no problem with her - my parents were both working class (my mother still has back problems from her time on a factory soldering line), I was poorer than most of the kids at school, but we didn't live in or near a mining town - it's all a matter of perspective.

Some highlights: Poll tax, unpopular because it made everyone pay the same amount - which apparently is deeply unfair (actually what would be fair, is the people using public services more, paying more for them). This one did suck, it didn't work, her own party and treasury recommended against it, and much money was wasted trying to take people to court over it. Now we have something different that screws people based on where they live instead, which is apparently better. Beating the mining strike - for decades British miners had from time to time held the whole country to ransom through strike action - despite their industry being heavily subsidised BY THE TAX PAYER, the very people who got hurt when the lights went out. Well this time, instead of being destroyed by them, a government prevailed. The end results did affect tens of thousands of people, and ruined the local economy in wide areas of Northern England and Wales. On the other hand, millions of people were no longer having their taxes thrown down a well, and it took away their ability to blackmail the entire population at will. The real disgrace here is the behaviour of some of the police and strikers, but then this is nothing new. She took away free milk from schools for the over 7s, hence the 'Milk Thief' label. Again rather conveniently the people using this one forget that the previous Labour government took it away from all secondary pupils (just as many people), but we don't hear about that one very often.

The war crimes one is particularly stupid, since it's untrue. It refers to the sinking of an Argentinian ship, after they invaded British land. Stories used to say that it was trying to sail back to port, the reality is that the captiain of the ship himself considers it a valid attack since he had orders to fire on any British ship, and was sailing for a rendevous with the rest of the Argentinian fleet. But don't let facts get in the way of a childish witch burning.

The only positive thing is that finally some of the people currently chanting and celebrating will finally shut the fuck up. Possibly. Oh, no - they won't, and they'll teach their kids that Old Maggie is still hiding under their bed. Give it up already.

[SharkSkin-Man]

The war crimes one is particularly stupid, since it's untrue. It refers to the sinking of an Argentinian ship, after they invaded British land. Stories used to say that it was trying to sail back to port, the reality is that the captiain of the ship himself considers it a valid attack since he had orders to fire on any British ship, and was sailing for a rendevous with the rest of the Argentinian fleet. But don't let facts get in the way of a childish witch burning.

Personally, I don't think history will look kindly upon the sinking. War had not been declared, the Belgrano was outside of the British designated exclusion zone and was not sailing towards British forces. I think it's hard to argue the case for the sinking of the ship to be a proportional action. Labeling it untrue is perhaps a little naive.

I'm not sure her government's policies in the Northern Ireland troubles will be looked upon too fondly either with the passing of time, or that of her support of General Pinochet.

[system11]

The war crimes one is particularly stupid, since it's untrue. It refers to the sinking of an Argentinian ship, after they invaded British land. Stories used to say that it was trying to sail back to port, the reality is that the captiain of the ship himself considers it a valid attack since he had orders to fire on any British ship, and was sailing for a rendevous with the rest of the Argentinian fleet. But don't let facts get in the way of a childish witch burning.

Personally, I don't think history will look kindly upon the sinking. War had not been declared, the Belgrano was outside of the British designated exclusion zone and was not sailing towards British forces. I think it's hard to argue the case for the sinking of the ship to be a proportional action. Labeling it untrue is perhaps a little naive.

I'm not sure her government's policies in the Northern Ireland troubles will be looked upon too fondly either with the passing of time, or that of her support of General Pinochet.

The captain of the Belgrano and the Argentinian navy disagree with you. The British had said they would fire on any ship in the area disregarding the exclusion zone, they saw a ship which appeared to be positioning itself for a pincer attack, and this is exactly what was going on. Unfortunately some of this information was only released fairly recently, so the ongoing controversy took on a life of its own.

Of course yet another perspective would be that they shouldn't have invaded the Falklands in the first place.

[SharkSkin-Man]

I'm aware of why the decision was made, but it still doesn't sit well with me.

Falklands is a funny one. It being one of the final nails in the coffin of the military junta in Argentina is obviously a good thing - but that wasn't really Thatcher's aim (not a primary one at least).

[O. Van Bruce]

I say good riddance, one less person that shouldn't have existed.

She may have saved the UK from economical bankruptucy but she did it with a formula that destroyed the greater part of UK's welfare state and this same model is menacing every other welfare state in the world.

she and Ronald Reagan can just stay in the dark side of history for all I care.

[Ed Oscuro]

System11, great post.

I don't much care for a lot of what she did, but perspective, people.

There definitely was an element of (to my mind totally unjustified and nasty) sexism in this story; she was represented in the parody show "Spitting Image" as either crossdresser or hermaphrodite.

I definitely enjoy most of her comments, in an ironic way: "And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families." If that list keeps growing she'll end up at society

Like Reagan I don't dismiss the incalculable harm she did to the marginalized and the poor - but then again the British (and European) ideal of welfare assistance still appears somewhat malformed and unproductive. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I certainly don't revel in anyone's passing, but Ebert was a shockingly poor critic of film and I certainly won't miss people citing his input as some kind of gospel. That said RIP poor chap, hope you're in a better place.

That's just the thing - even critics are themselves a commodity. People liked or hated Ebert based on his personality and way of seeing things. I've enjoyed reading snippets of some of his reviews, but it's clear that he had a very idiosyncratic view. I guess the truth is that there are normal people who like a show, and then there are the academics - I don't mean that as a slam, but I mean the people who insist that even things which would drive Ebert to semi-incoherent agony (i.e. his Armageddon review) should be painted in shades of gray. Well, certainly the data-driven or Rotten Tomatoes view is that you can do this. But on the other hand I insist that he was right to be able to state that people have a right to walk out on a flop or even to accord them any kind of importance - even if they do, in some kind of way, have worth in the sense of a Platonic entity hovering in null space. Of course I suppose the same can be said about reviewers as well, even though they are people.

[KAI]

Thatcher the Liberator my ass.
The military government was already dying (just like all the other de facto governments in Latin America), but they used the Falkland conflict to regain popularity.
We should thank her for all the unnecessary deaths during the war.

[Ed Oscuro]

That's just silly. Argentina opened the war, Britain had no reason to cede control of their territory just to "save lives." Argentina had first responsibility in that matter, I'm afraid.

[KAI]

De facto

[system11]

Thatcher the Liberator my ass.
The military government was already dying (just like all the other de facto governments in Latin America), but they used the Falkland conflict to regain popularity.
We should thank her for all the unnecessary deaths during the war.

Approximately 700 soldiers who signed up for the military - half of which invaded foreign soil and the other half on a battleship with orders to fire on British ships. Those deaths? Welcome to armed conflict, at least it was only 700.

[Ed Oscuro]

De facto!

[SharkSkin-Man]

Approximately 700 soldiers who signed up for the military - half of which invaded foreign soil and the other half on a battleship with orders to fire on British ships. Those deaths? Welcome to armed conflict, at least it was only 700.

Apart from the ones who didn't.
Conscription was in force at the time and the majority of the Argentine Army (though not Navy afaik) casualties were conscripted soldiers.

[KAI]

700 soldiers who signed up for the military

Most of them were civilians who were dragger against their will. Every male over 18 was "summoned" by the army. That's the kind of stupid things that a De facto government used to do.

I'm not discussing about this shit anymore.

[system11]

700 soldiers who signed up for the military

Most of them were civilians who were dragger against their will. Every male over 18 was "summoned" by the army. That's the kind of stupid things that a De facto government used to do.

I'm not discussing about this shit anymore.

Didn't know that one, learn something new each day.

[Ed Oscuro]

This documentary on submarines mentions the sinking of the General Belgrano, (at about 25:06), with the somber commentator's note: "323 Argentine sailors lose their lives when the Belgrano sinks - a terrifying testament to the power of the torpedo." The documentary is British, as is the commentator. There's no gloating at all over it.

I bet, if I read things right, that a lot of the British people also viewed the war as a pointless exercise in defense of a few people who herd sheep and drink copious amounts of bad beer, while other people point out that preserving somebody's freedom in the face of arbitrary and wrong-headed military adventurism which seeks to subjugate people's needs to the political needs of the rulers is a noble thing. However, again, this one should be chalked up to "bad shit happens when you force a war for no good purpose." Everybody feels bad for the sailors and other dead, although there is still controversy over Herbert Jones' Victoria Cross, and Vietnam-era draft dodgers say hi also.

In any case, as a hopefully impartial observer (athough my country did give intelligence support to the British in spite of official neutrality), I have to say that any attempt to reassign blame is not warranted.