On 1/13/2026 at 9:56 AM, Gromnir said:

zor is specific using out of context quotes to promote a narrative even you conceded weren't accurate. 

Do you know what 'context' is. Because you were most definitely given it.

If you really need it spelled out for you, again, lead paragraphs of articles are introductions to and summaries of the main points of their content. That's context, and you were told that, and anyone who has completed primary school would know that. You were told why they were picked, you were told how they were picked, you were told where in the article the quotes were taken from... that's context.

You just don't like it so have decided to burble on MAGAesquely (again) as if you get to make up definitions to suit you (again). Boring.

While going after Bill now is certainly not motivated by a desire to see justice done, I personally don't care if he does get caught up over that because he sure as well was/is very good friends with a lot of the other Epstein guys and probably did do that ****. While he's there he can tell them about another guy him and Jeff hung out with in the aughts. 

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

Do you know what 'context' is. Because you were most definitely given it.

If you really need it spelled out for you, again, lead paragraphs of articles are introductions to and summaries of the main points of their content. That's context, and you were told that, and anyone who has completed primary school would know that. You were told why they were picked, you were told how they were picked, you were told where in the article the quotes were taken from... that's context.

You just don't like it so have decided to burble on MAGAesquely (again) as if you get to make up definitions to suit you (again). Boring.

again, am not certain if is deceit or legit ignorant, though is requiring brobdingnagian ignorance to lean in that direction. even you could see the lines you lifted from your internet searches did not meaningful represent the articles portrayal o' pahlavi, which is hardly surprising as the search engine results is mindless extraction of snippets from the first two paragraphs o' sometimes longish stories. those stories (and the american-but-nevertheless-western articles we linked *eye-roll*) attempt to explain the possible significance o' the iranian pahlavi photos and chants in crowds o' protesters and oft times reach ambivalent conclusions.

we s'pose you learned about conclusions in primary school? conclusions is important too, but am thinking @Hurlshot would regrettable need give you a poor grade if you ignored everything in-between the intro and conclusion when testing for your reading comprehension o' a source, but you ignored conclusions as well, so... 

nevertheless, in spite o' being confronted over and over with both western and non western sources who is recognizing the invocation o' pahlavi's name by iranian protesters without painting him as heroic or even with a skew towards his legit relevance, insist that your lazy-arsed search engine selective-quoting is a defense to your failure to link the stories and abrogating your responsibility to show what those stories actual said 'bout pahlavi. no meaningful context to the quotes sans to say,

"And on Pahlavi, taking the first ten search engine results for reza pahlavi (exc wikipedia/ brittanica and revapahlavi.org) over the past four days"

okie dokey.

beyond all reason, and in spite o' being confronted now by numerous western and non western stories which undermine any reasonable conclusion that there is an organized effort to "embiggen" pahlavi's standing, you cleave to your initial hasty generalization based on what?

laziness? deceit?

unlinked snippets from internet search summaries? serious. 

nevertheless, is good to know am able to add you to our list along with sharp_one and wrath of dragon who excused their posting o' articles which undermined their position 'cause those articles showed up in an internet search. bravo. you enjoy special company.

unrelated to zor's typical defense o' the indefensible,

Federal prosecutors resign over concerns about probe into Minneapolis ICE shooting, source says

At least six prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota have resigned over their concerns with the direction of the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, a person familiar with the resignations told NBC News on Tuesday.

...

Within the main Justice Department in Washington, at least six leaders at the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division were taking early retirement, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News. A third person familiar with the departures said that they were planned before the Minnesota shooting.

end

am gonna note carol leonning is also reporting that the civil rights division attorneys who resigned were considering leaving the doj before the renee good shooting, but the events in minneapolis clarified and hastened their decisions. twelve resignations so far, and it's only wednesday.

'course the french is likely more concerned with greenland, but as is so infrequent we find ourself in agreement with the french or am able to appreciate their humor, honor demands we admit to having chuckled when we saw the 30 rock bit. à votre santé.

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Republicans Block Effort to Check Trump’s Power in Venezuela

Mr. Hawley and Mr. Young were part of a group of five Republicans who last week joined all Democrats in supporting the measure aiming to curb the president’s war powers.

...

Mr. Hawley said that assurances from Mr. Rubio in the letter, and in phone calls from both the secretary and Mr. Trump, had convinced him that the resolution was no longer needed.

...

couldn't help but flashback to 

HA! Good Fun!

denmark say usa are set on conquer greenland

yet still not even a strong word against usa

guess they will not die for greenland

13 hours ago, rjshae said:

The current President is the person in power, so politically he is the subject that matters (to Congress). Choosing to go after Clinton like they are is just a distraction tactic. Unless Clinton has something pertinent to add about the current President, it's more the business of the judicial system.

I had a chat with some of my family last night  about this and they agree with you and @Lexx

They also support what the Clintons are doing because they believe its just a way to create a distraction from Trumps involvement  so  the entire inquiry is insincere 

 

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/iran-massacre-of-protesters-demands-global-diplomatic-action-to-signal-an-end-to-impunity/

As predicted Iran has unleashed the full might of its security forces to crush the protests, total deaths are anything from 3k-10k but because of the Internet and information blackout we will never know total deaths 

And as expected South Africa has a completely inconsistent stance on this latest crackdown. We have failed to  unequivocally condemn Iran, there is a deafening silence around what should be the foundation of our foreign policy

According to our foreign affairs our foreign policy decisions are based on  "human rights and Constitutionalism "

So the reason we took a position on countries like  Venezuela and Israel is because of this 

And yet its amazing listening to the mental gymnastics of some  people on talk-shows trying to justify why we cant condemn whats happening in Iran, the excuses range from " we shouldn't get involved in the affairs of other countries  " to " but Iran is just trying to survive and they have a siege mentality because of years of Western sanctions " 

None of that matters if the foundation of your foreign policy decisions is based on human rights 

The DA has demanded  that the ANC take Iran to the UN Human Rights Council but I doubt we will see that happening. That type of outrage and global action only applies to Western countries or Israel and BRICS countries get a pass when they flagrantly and egregiously ignore human rights 

https://www.polity.org.za/article/da-asks-lamola-to-report-iran-for-human-rights-abuses-2026-01-14

"In a letter written to Lamola, the DA said the use of blatantly deadly oppression against civilians by a sitting government is one of the “most egregious forms of human rights abuse witnessed anywhere in the world” with the party questioning South Africa’s relationship with the country.

DA spokesperson on International Relations and Cooperation Ryan Smith said the principles of freedom, democracy and human rights enshrined in the South African Constitution compels Lamola to execute his sworn duty, as the custodian of the country’s foreign policy, to protect global citizens against autocratic regimes.

Smith said the UNHRC was the “ideal” international forum where South African foreign policy, rooted in the Constitution, could find expression on the international stage.

He said as a member of the Government of National Unity (GNU), the DA would not tolerate South Africa “turning a blind eye to brutal authoritarian regimes at the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) behest”.

 

 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07xpndjdd8o

Everyone's mind broke a bit watching this

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/south-africa-voices-concern-over-iran-unrest-urges-parties-to-show-restraint/3800247

The SA government has finally made a statement about the Iran crackdown. Its days late  but at least they said something

 

" South Africa said on Thursday it was monitoring the protests in Iran with concern, urging all parties to exercise “maximum” restraint.

“Sustainable peace and stability can only be achieved through solutions that center the agency of the Iranian people,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Pretoria called on Iranian authorities to guarantee citizens’ right to peaceful protest, responding to “concerning” reports of unrest and fatalities.

The ministry stressed that South Africa considers the rights to peaceful protest, freedom of expression, and freedom of association as universal human rights that “must be upheld without exception.”

 

16 hours ago, Gromnir said:

even you could see the lines you lifted from your internet searches did not meaningful represent the articles portrayal o' pahlavi, 

Holy moly, you do a fabulous impression of being denser than the galactic core. Good thing I know from experience it's actually MAGAesque refusal to accept the obviously true. 

The first paragraph of an article is always a summary. It is, by design, what the author thinks is a 'meaningful representation' of their article and its most important points. ie, the complete opposite of what you are saying above given that all but one? of the quotes came from the first paragraph. They are what the authors' thought were the most important points in their article.

Since you, apparently, need a citation for facts that are taught to nine years olds:

"The lead is the opening paragraph of a news article—the top of the inverted pyramid. It sets the tone for the story and delivers the core facts to hook the reader."
"1. The Headline: Your First, and Often Only, Impression.. Immediate Impact: Deliver the most significant piece of information upfront. Don’t hide the lede.. Ask yourself: If a reader stops after the lede, have they fully grasped the fundamental facts of the story?"

Do I need more? Do I need to provide, lol, 'context'  for those quotes? Well, you're not going to get any. If you really and genuinely cannot grasp the basics of article structure may I suggest enrolling in elementary school for a refresher?

 

Seeing videos of ICE meatheads saying they're stopping people because of their accents is really something else.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/01/15/ice-minnesota-minneapolis-venezuela-man-shooting/

And also related, but again nothing to worry about.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/five-takeaways-reuters-interview-president-trump-2026-01-15/

“It's some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms,” Trump said. He boasted that he had accomplished so much that “when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.”

deflect much?

"And on Pahlavi, taking the first ten search engine results for reza pahlavi (exc wikipedia/ brittanica and revapahlavi.org) over the past four days"

that was your context, which is not meaningful context at all.

also

5 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The first paragraph of an article is always a summary

not true. a journalist's lede is not necessarily a summary and am suspecting you are again purposeful misreading and misrepresenting. as your links reveal, the lede is an attention grabbing line or two which hooks the reader and presents essential facts. there is distinct summary ledes, but even those is not properly described as summaries o' an article. a summary lede simple identifies the the who, what, where and when (why and how is all too frequent absent from the lede, which is in part why we got the phrase "bury the lede" as part of common vernacular,) as well as including the emotional hook.

@Hurlshotteaches middle school, so is not perfect, but am expecting that if he asked his students to summarize a multipage article and all they did was quote the lede verbatim, he might fail the student... well, nowadays am suspecting the student might be given a c-. 

you posted ledes, one sentence (two sentences in one case?,) lifted from internet searches (without attribution as grammerly reminds you is vital-- "Remember to attribute your quotes properly to maintain transparency and build trust with your audience. Make sure the source is clear, and use their exact words to avoid misrepresentation.") and then you slapped on your own gestalt conclusion, sans support, about what those on or two sentences revealed about a general effort by western media to "embiggen" the significance o' pahlavi. your conclusion were not part o' the ledes o' the stories you quoted and suggestion that such a conclusion were obvious simple 'cause you selective quoted from a handful of articles is the product o' your typical rake stepping.

again, journalists is mentioning pahlavi 'cause curiously, iranians had been invoking pahlavi. as grammerly observes, ledes set "the tone for the story and delivers the core facts to hook the reader." pahlavi getting love from iranians don't make much sense to Gromnir and to many westerners, so is hardly surprising journalists would write articles to explain the unexpected situation. al jazeera has now posted multiple articles on the subject o' pahlavi and his support with iranians in exile as well as those chanting his name in the streets of iran. is eye-brow raising facts which hook the reader. grammerly would be proud.

the articles you lifted quotes from did indeed speak about pahlavi and his possible relevance to the moment, so nothing contrary to the observations gleaned from your single sentence lift o' rando articles sans attribution, but you reached a conclusion not supported by the actual content o' most o' those articles you quoted and you provided no support for you rather grandiose conclusion sans the mere existence o' those brief snippets you discovered via a mindless search engine population.

ignorant or deceptive? am s'posing both is possible. past zor efforts reveal that your ignorance and deceit tends to be symbiotic, but am not sure if the deceit is defensive or calculated. regardless, sharp_one, wrath of dragon and now zor. three stooges quoting articles which as often as not refute your positions. 

again, you didn't post summaries. your quotes were ledes-one sentence (and in one case two sentences? *gasp*) from an internet population sans your links to those articles. your context was as follows:

"And on Pahlavi, taking the first ten search engine results for reza pahlavi (exc wikipedia/ brittanica and revapahlavi.org) over the past four days."

as am having shown multiple times now, after reading the articles it becomes apparent to readers that the articles you quoted is tending towards ambivalence and equivocation regarding the significance o' pahlavi, so your continued after-the-fact defense appears, at best, desperate.  you have recognized the equivocation, but nevertheless attributed a widespread western effort 'cause o' the mere mention o' pahlavi's relevance to iranian protesters in the first paragraph or two o' articles?

tragic. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps for funsies we did a google story population search for "iran" + "protests"

the headline, sub-head and lede for story 24: 

Deposed Shah’s Son Seeks Center Stage Amid Iran Protests
Reza Pahlavi, living in exile in the United States, has long marketed himself as a future leader of Iran. His father’s repressive legacy casts a long shadow.

As mass protests have swept Iran, some Iranians have called for an unexpected figure to take center stage — Reza Pahlavi, scion of the Pahlavi monarchs who ruled Iran before their ouster 47 years ago.

underlined portion of the lede is missing... 'cause y'know, mindless internet searches is gonna cut off based on character count.

...

Analysts say it is difficult to assess how many Iranians on the ground seriously hope Mr. Pahlavi would return as a future leader, because of both a government-imposed internet blackout and his own polarizing reputation. His critics accuse him of exaggerating his support within the country, and say they face frequent harassment and threats from his supporters.

...

Mr. Pahlavi also most likely needs the vote of another man who seems equally skeptical of his relevance: President Trump. Asked last week whether he would meet with Mr. Pahlavi, Mr. Trump demurred and suggested it would be better to see how things played out.

after the following story, number 60, we grew bored o' the exercise o' attempting to gauge just how much the western media were attempting to "embiggen" pahlavi's relevance. 

 

 

Edited January 16Jan 16 by Gromnir

warning: sweary

Spoiler

 

until it is definitively proven otherwise, am gonna assume the linked "protester" is @Bartimaeus. am gonna read all future barti posts with that voice and the colorful turns of expression fixed in our imagination.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Trump accepted Machado's medal  

is strange the norwegians felt the need to make such a post... albeit no more weird than trump accepting machado's medal.

...

am pretty sure lawrence taylor's superbowl xxv ring sold for near $250,000, but most go for less than $50k. with all the sh!t coin money trump has amassed, he can buy a superbowl ring for every finger w/o hardly noticing. owning the rings might make him feel more manly and save the rest o' us from the price o' his insecurities? heck, if trump would agree to retire before the midterms, and take at least stephen miller and rfk jr with him, we would buy him a handful o' such jewelry and consider it money well spent.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited January 16Jan 16 by Gromnir

where are the 2nd amendment ppl when you need them

29 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

where are the 2nd amendment ppl when you need them

 

they joined ice

No joke, ICE name list was leaked and Proud Boys are on it of course. 

DJT's argument for a hostile takeover of Greenland:

'If we don't, Russia or China will': Trump doubles down on takeover of Greenland

Europe's counter-argument is that doing so will end NATO, which is entirely plausible. This must be immensely pleasing to Putin. All he needs to do is keep stirring the Greenland issue, prompting DTJ to take action and end his most formidable deterent.

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

DJT's argument for a hostile takeover of Greenland:

'If we don't, Russia or China will': Trump doubles down on takeover of Greenland

Europe's counter-argument is that doing so will end NATO, which is entirely plausible. This must be immensely pleasing to Putin. All he needs to do is keep stirring the Greenland issue, prompting DTJ to take action and end his most formidable deterent.

Threatening tariffs on any European state that doesn't go along with it as well.  

 

21 hours ago, Gromnir said:

that was your context, which is not meaningful context at all.

You'd have a point, if they weren't from the first paragraph. Since they were, you don't. After all, the first paragraph, to quote some random "presents essential facts"

Quote

not true. a journalist's lede is not necessarily a summary and am suspecting you are again purposeful misreading and misrepresenting.

hmm. I do hope you don't say the exact opposite in the very next sentence, otherwise some might suspect it isn't me who is being false and misleading.

Quote

as your links reveal, the lede is an attention grabbing line or two which hooks the reader and presents essential facts.

Well now, that's just plain embarrassing.

Everything about the description of the lede is what you'd expect in a summary. Burbling about it not actually being a summary isn't even really sophistry, it's just denying reality.

I think I may owe Bruce an apology.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by Zoraptor

4 hours ago, rjshae said:

Europe's counter-argument is that doing so will end NATO, which is entirely plausible. 

Can't see any way it wouldn't. Very hard to envisage any situation where rump NATO could politically sell any other response to their populace. Best result would likely be the US being suspended, but there's neither precedent nor method for doing so in the North Atlantic Treaty.

Indeed, the broad calculus of those pushing it in the US is that Denmark values NATO and the US so highly that they'll eventually fold in some face saving way in order to preserve NATO; and if they don't, well, what are they going to actually do when faced with a Little Green Men type situation let alone an invasion? Greenland is not really defensible from the US, and short of threatening nukes (via France, no way Britain does it) rump NATO has no viable military response available. 

There really isn't a face saving way out of it for Denmark short of the US backing down on the idea. It'd be asking everyone involved to commit political suicide at very least and, really, handing over a chunk of your land to a foreign country would be tantamount to treason. For the same reason Europe would have to respond somehow, no matter how much von der Leyen/ Kallas/ Mers/ Macron etc might like to patch things up and not make a permanent break they'd have to do something. 

The problem is that support for the US and having the preservation of NATO be a very top foreign policy goal works well when it's a traditional actor as US President- you might get drawn into a bunch of wars that aren't really your concern, but the balance is worth it- but all Trump sees is a vassal with pretensions. And vassals are supposed to give stuff to their overlord when demanded.

The ultimate problem is that appeasement doesn't work- as stated by Europe for the past four years, and true enough- but they then rolled over for Trump first time he growled to preserve relations. All that says is that you can be bullied, and your instinct is to fold. The likely misjudgement from some in the Trump Admin is that Europe will fold over Greenland, when if an invasion or Little Green Men situation arises they simply cannot.

30 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

gibberish deflection where we you try and take us away from discussing whether or not western media does "embiggen" pahlavi

first, the placement o' the quotes as being from the first paragraph is irrelevant 'cause your context was, again, "And on Pahlavi, taking the first ten search engine results for reza pahlavi (exc wikipedia/ brittanica and revapahlavi.org) over the past four days."

that's it. no claim you were defacto summarizing by posting ledes (HA!) your context was the above quote followed by rando quotes which grammerly told you in no uncertain terms you should identify and attribute sources. is understandable why you would avoid link and attribute, 'cause other than Gromnir, who is gonna bother to hunt down the source material and read all such articles only to discover that the stories, in their full context, do not in fact promote or "embiggen" pahlavi? 'course this is ordinary zor misdirection and fibbing, so is not shocking.

duh.

but you now wanna focus on definitions o' lede? color us not at all shocked. you may post giant font and continue to deflect, but nobody in their right mind would accept  a list o' quotes sans context as meaningful summaries, even if those brief lines shares were, after the fact, described by zor as ledes, o' which  summary ledes is but a single example... which should hardly be shock as a few o' you ledes left out who, what, where, why and/or how essentials.

duh.

and

essential facts + hook ≠ a meaningful summary. just because something has the word "summary" in it's descriptor, does not mean it is in fact a meaningful summary. if what you shared were in fact summaries, there wouldn't be any need to add the lede qualifier. even the most generous primary school teacher would chastise zor for simply quoting a lede verbatim if she/he asked you for summaries. 

duh

am assuming you ain't this obtuse, so the alternate must be deceit.

'course you complaining about sophistry insofar as lede definitions is comical ironic. you did not in fact claim that you were  posting a list of summaries to defend your claim that western media were acting to "embiggen" the relevance o' pahlavi. heck, you did not even suggest you were posting a list of summary ledes... which woulda' been inaccurate too. you did not describe your rando quotes as ledes until multi posts following your initial buffoonery. nope, you posted the following:

"And on Pahlavi, taking the first ten search engine results for reza pahlavi (exc wikipedia/ brittanica and revapahlavi.org) over the past four days,"

followed by a bunch o' unlinked quotes, which grammerly folks most certainly would criticize as, at best, bad form. 

but here we are again with zor purposeful misrepresenting articles he linked... though am happy to see you at least linked the lede stuff. baby steps.

oh, and again, o' the first sixty news articles returned by an iran + protests google search o' news articles, only one had pahlavi mentioned in the headline or lede. your embiggen claim looks increasingly pathetic... not least 'cause if anybody had read the articles which were the source o' your rando quotes they woulda' discovered just how equivocal and ambivalent were the opinions about pahlavi's relevance.  

time is a flat circle. we keep bringing back to the relevant issue, but you wanna argue ledes ... which you also can't help but misrepresent.

10 hours ago, HoonDing said:

where are the 2nd amendment ppl when you need them

am having stated more than once that the self-identifying libertarians is, as often as not, lukewarm republicans pretending to have some kinda intellectual integrity.

the nra started out as a glorified gun club, but when it first became involved in lobbying efforts, it was dedicated to promoting firearm restrictions.

“I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons,” said Karl T. Frederick (nra president... and a 3x olympic gold medal winner in shooting events,) according to a transcript of the hearings. “I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses."

and later, during the civil rights era, the nra became firebrands at the forefront for gun control.

quite the mystery, eh?

sadly, am thinking that if the woman in the image @HoonDing  shared answered the door of her home, openly carrying a firearm, most o' those gadsen flag waving 2nd amendment patriots would be ok with federal officers shooting her as the woman in hospital scrubs would be creating a reasonable apprehension o' imminent harm to those law enforcement personnel. 

at best, the they are all bad clown car libertarians would try and convince you that if kamala harris had been elected, the same thing would be happening but it would be ranchers in montana or preachers in tenessee being deprived o' their rights instead of lesbians in minneapolis and venezuelan nationals in louisiana. 

most libertarians is terrible hypocrites... and am having spoken with only a handful who know the history of firearms legislation in the US. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

 

 

Unless DJT backs off, I think the one way this could work itself out diplomatically without damaging NATO is for the US and Denmark to agree on some sort of shared "Protected territory" status for Greenland. Let Denmark and Greenland handle the political state and economy, and the US handles most of the defense matters, along with special influence on minerals handling.

this video were sent to us and am of the opinion it is worth watching... perhaps a couple times. however, keep in mind that just 'cause you got rights it don't mean that you should tell a cop to engage in improbable acts o' prurient self gratification as an alternative to you complying with their demands.

HA! Good Fun!