The Bullsh*t – Lie Line: Offseason Sunday Open Thread

Lies get a bad rap. Falsehoods are the lubricant of social life. The pantomime of “How are you doing today?” and “Fine, thank you” is only a mutual acknowledgment of mores. You think that’s “wrong maaan?” Then by all means, Your Authenticness: tomorrow morning answer to someone “Hungover as fuck”.

It’s not always a matter of honesty. Sometimes lying is just a matter of sparing someone’s feelings. “No, I liked it that way”, and saying “open competition” to Geno Smith are beyond reproach. Then there are the times when true things are obviously total crap. Yes the contract says “$90 million” and “5 years”, but it’s really a two-year deal with $30 million in guarantees that spill over the “we’ll talk about it then” third year. We’ll be hearing a lot about false money this week, once the free agency “legal tampering” period starts next Tuesday.

Oh yeah, it’s totally OK. A team can’t sign a player until Thursday March 9, but can get a head start jetting and wining and dining a free agent, and doing everything to have him leave the state after a deal is in place. It’s only “tampering” in the technical sense, because the contract with the other team is still in force. So “legal tampering” is not a lie, or even bullshit; it’s merely a less off-putting term for “courtship” and shorthand for “Teams can do anything short of kidnapping”.

I remember reading that a lie is something you say with the intention to deceive. That allows for tricking someone with the truth, which is pro-level deceit. The first thing that comes to mind is using a sarcastic tone, for example: “Oh yeah, I totally was exploring my bisexuality with that stunning coworker of yours with skunk breath”. Pulling it off might entail making sure that horrible detail is common knowledge, and later catering to most of your significant other’s insecurities. Most; you do all, the jig will be up.

Bullshit I think is something that is kinda, or sounds like, truth. Like whenever a top QB’s team is having a bad stretch and his stats are being compared to Brian Hoyer’s. Or votes of confidence for coaches undergoing slumps—well, that’s more of a death sentence really. The secret to passing off bullshit is being supremely confident and putting stuff in general or subjective terms. Jerry Jones and the Texans top brass excel at this. Or just use a lot of words to appear candid but say nothing really. I think this gem Seahawks GM is exemplary: “You go into free agency you have Plan A—but there are 25 other letters in the alphabet. We got like a whole slew of things going on”. Sources say that, for 2017, Seattle’s O-line got bumped all the way up to “P”.

Oh, the title of that article is Seahawks GM: Blair Walsh Is a Confident Guy. Ckickbait, thy ore is bullshit.

Finally, I apologize for not having a rundown of sports where stuff is actually happening. I’d rather watch the last two Harry Potter movies, which I thinks are on FreeFormdon’tjudgeme. The only thing I can look forward to is speculation, as this is March of the offseason. Hopefully free agent signings this week will bring optimistic self-deception. Hey, if it keeps you functional, who cares if it’s a lie.

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Don T
Poor choices, mixed results. ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre! Titans4Eva
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BrettFavresColonoscopy

I know it’s a first world problem, but I can’t stand the feeling of when your Lyft/Uber says it’s X minutes away and then doesn’t move for > .5X. It’s the ass crack of dawn on the west coast, I’m already cutting it close to get to the airport on time, and this guy is just parked 7 minutes away. Fuck me in the ear.

Wakezilla

I hate Isiah Thomas of the Boston Celtics. That “your time is up” taunt is stupid and I’m glad the Suns rallied and beat the Celts with the last shot of the game. Leave it to a Boston based player to go from underdog you hope does well, to, complete STI infested dildo.

Not sure why, but the title of tonight’s threat got this song playing in my head:

Big Krit and Kenneth Whalum’s Not OK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkkAgBJN2ow

Senor Weaselo

Power Rangers has some weird shit.

Unsurprised

I could swear this shot was recreated in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Unsurprised

We’re gonna need a bigger bomb.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Everybody ready for Monday?

http://68.media.tumblr.com/8e0887c8fe4f716b240d0de5b0b6d136/tumblr_ofhznlpMVz1uq2bk5o1_1280.jpg

16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer being taken to prison after killing two people. Her answer as to why she did it was “I don’t like Mondays.”, 1979

JustStopDude

The extremely rare female spree killer.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Spree killer or just REALLY hates Mondays?

Senor Weaselo

The Garfield defense didn’t work.

JustStopDude

Is there anything better than rich assholes fucking up their insanely expensive cars?

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Senor Weaselo

Rich assholes giving us their insanely expensive cars?

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Rich assholes getting run over by their own insanely expensive cars?

/that was not an Anton Yeltsin joke – he was not an asshole at all by all reports and drove a fairly humble vehicle.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
JustStopDude

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jjfozz

So the oldest Fozz Spawn and I met with a guy who coaches football, and my oldest may have just decided to play the Game of Kings. Not the game of kings? Um, the Game of Dukes! No, I hate the word Duke. the Game of Earls! Yes, Earls.

JustStopDude

You mean “Horseshoes”?

BrettFavresColonoscopy

So who had to chug the middle beer?

JustStopDude

So…North Korea is firing off missiles again.

WWIII anyone?

Brocky

don’t they do that every couple of months?

i’m not being sarcastic, their means of survival seem to be provoking others into “meeting” their demands

JustStopDude

Well the annoying thing is that it gives the impression that their nuclear weapons are the reason countries aren’t lining up for a regime change. The reality is the massive population of economic refugees that would result even from a peaceful collapse of the North Korean government.

People tend to forget just how damaging the peaceful unification of Germany was to the European economic sphere. The West out numbered the East 5:1 and the east had the highest standard of living among the USSR satellite states, including the USSR as they were seen as an important Propaganda tool as a state. So basically the best conditions possible and it retarded the European economies by 10 years.

Even today, the Western part of Germany heavily subsidizes the East.

North Korea, the demographic problems are much worse. The South only out populates the North by about 3:2. Their economies could not be more different. Even among the intellectual class of the North, you have a massive population that has never used a computer before. So integrating these people into the Southern or Chinese economies would be extremely difficult. No one nation could make a dent in absorbing these folks without severe economic repercussions.

It would kill or at least severely stress the South and the Chinese economies…and the Chinese economy is not exactly doing great right now. This in turn would severely affect the Japanese markets. With Japan getting slammed, the US economy would get the triple hit of the Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese economies struggling.

This is the result with a peaceful, organized collapse. In the event of a war, its even worse.

The South tried to use the Sunshine Policy to basically prop up and advance the North economy not to keep them around but to prep their economy better for the eventual fall. Even if it was successful, the South was expecting at least a trillion USD slam to their economy. Kim Jong Il rather smartly saw this for what it was so once the aid stabilized his regime’s control, they immediately pulled out of the programs.

No matter what, the North is a ticking time bomb with severe global consequences.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

War wise it is also a strategic and tactical nightmare, complexities and ramifications that would echo world wide. Look at the bright side; we now have an administration that is capable of deal……… well fuck.

JustStopDude

At this point, even a surprise attack, the North would really struggle projecting its force deep into the South. Its doubtful they have the strategic resources in fuel just to move their forces very far. They could do tremendous damage with their artillery, but moving forces in any meaningful way would be incredibly difficult.

For any invasion action, if the forces are on par with each other in terms of pure power, training, and resources, you need about a 5 to 1 ratio to be successful about 90% of the time. That success rate drops incredibly. They have a massive standing army on paper, but their ability to turn those paper numbers into results is questionable.

The other thing would be that their soldiers would would literally stop and gawk at the South. It would be akin to a WWII military invading say NYC and not stop and be completely flustered by the size of it and all the cars.

A life time of propaganda would fall to pieces.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

You seem to project ignorance where it does not necessarily reside, but you are reading about it, not very many people seem to do that.

The technology disparity between the forces, even though the north has greater numbers.

Just one look at a map can you that a full fledged attempt at an invasion would cause tremendous regional and local damage as you said, ROK is a good ally and substantial trading partner as everybody knows, but the human cost would be ridiculous.

JustStopDude

The affects of artillery on the South would be terrifying and most of the gun emplacements are in harden locations difficult to hit.

So initially a lot of shelling in population areas of the South. Utterly frightening.

The could do tremendous damage, but it would be over in less than a week.

It reminds of the story I was told by a guy I worked with who was a Russian army officer. His tank battalion was based in Russia and they would do war games for invading Europe. Because of the inability of the USSR to make decent batteries for their tanks, they would train where the crews would run to the tanks and then sit there as a team of people literally ran from one tank to another, jump starting the fuckers.

I got another coworker…well boss actually, that used to be a missile command officer for the East Germany military.

Dear god the stories he has told while we have been drinking. Its amazing to me that we survived the Cold War because his near miss stories are horrifying.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42343.Blind_Man_s_Bluff

https://www.amazon.com/Spymaster-Thirty-two-Intelligence-Espionage-Against/dp/0465014453

You may have already read these, but they are good reads and informative; along the same lines.

Over pretty quick yes, but in a small area with highly populous cities within range…. it’s fucking depressing.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Side story; my uncle was in the US Army in the latter part of the Korean conflict; one thing he mentioned was that when they captured a male DPRKA he said they were fairly docile and hungry, the females on the other hand would never stop fighting. He basically said they were a pain in the ass.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

In any case this is another load on the depressing train as we fuck up the planet.

Unsurprised

It really warms my heart that as this happened, Trump was dick waving with the current host of his celebrity game show. Fuck everything.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Their means of survival is getting aid from China and black market activities.

JustStopDude

The thing that currently is putting an insane amount of pressure on the North is the loss of coal shipments from China. The assassination of the Kim Jong Nam was HUGELY insulting to the Chinese government as they basically had been housing him over the years. It made the Chinese look weak.

So without the coal shipments, the North’s economy has really grounded to a halt…well more so than usual.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

I read somewhere that the food shipments remain about the same, so the army and favored government people are eating for now. Agreed that this has the potential to turn really bad soon. They have their own manbaby.

JustStopDude

Its utterly fascinating how their official propaganda has changed in regards to Communism. The mental gymnastics the regime has done to justify extreme isolating and a hereditary rule is just amazing.

Its less a communist country than an extremely xenophobic, ancestor worship government. Its got a lot more parallels to Japan during the lead up and conclusion of WWII than anything written by Marx.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Yep, there is no Marx visions in that. I guess I am amazed at the thoroughness of the isolation/ indoctrination…. I shouldn’t be; the geography helps, but damn.

You may have these from elsewhere, but his is some basic estimated numbers:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2013/apr/08/south-korea-v-north-korea-compared

Wakezilla

Yeah, usually to have sanctions reduced. Democrats are getting a hard-on with the thoughts of a war with Kim Jung Un. They made a chart!

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Brocky

I’ll never forget my talking to me about the definition of “honesty”

if you can make someone’s else’s day better by not bringing them down with your bullshit, than that’s the honest thing to do.

he isn’t great with words, but this always stuck with me.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

All right, I made it through the day without eating all the Sponch. I think my reward is going to be some Sponch.

Unsurprised

Isn’t that the plot to 40 Days and 40 Nights?

SonOfSpam

“Falsehoods are the lubricant of social life.”

Apparently they don’t have Astroglide in Puerto Rico.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

In spite of our fucking egos lying is one of the first thing children learn; getting attention and food they learn how to manipulate their parents.

litre_cola

anyone up for poker? I be internetting and listening to sad, angry, fist in wall music so I am not busy

Senor Weaselo

I will be, I’m currently editing some music and while giving a pep talk.

litre_cola

populate

Brocky

i checked in, no one else apparently.

Unsurprised

Oh, I ended up writing early this morning (I went to Starbucks when it opened at 4:30 AM) and once I finished several handwritten pages and hit an end point I stopped and was really good. I was completely content to be done with that story. So, yay me!

I’m a fan of Captain Marvel and I don’t understand how the screenwriters are having trouble writing the script, but anyway now I want to write a spec script just about this dress.
http://s27.postimg.org/ajofjoscj/kiohffwmdnjy.jpg

Unsurprised

It definitely makes me feel less self-conscious seeing the lines on the page and no glow zeroing straight in on my eyes. It’s not as bad as growing up on CRTs, but still. It just feels more natural, but not always as fast as I think. I’m not sure if that is good or bad.

Brocky

I was confused on the name captain marvel, so i got stuck thinking what does the chick from 21 jump street have to do with shazam

Wakezilla

Well, considering how there are writers struggling to make Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman interesting, it’s not that hard, apparently

Unsurprised

I hope Justin Verlander loses this foot due to a catastrophic field mower accident. (Larger https://gfycat.com/JaggedGaseousGull)
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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
litre_cola

Came home for “bar meeting” sideways. Lots of hugs, now Tool in my ears. Jesus I dont know whether to be angry or angry concerned.

BrettFavresColonoscopy

Who put his tool in your ear?

nomonkeyfun

Deer,
You want to have oral sex, not aural sex.
Unless you’re Curt Schilling and have a thing for strippers from the Bronx.

Senor Weaselo

What about putting a banana in your ear?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ48Oj4ZNvA

Unsurprised

Where? How? I need details!

litre_cola

Don T with the walk off!

Unsurprised

Brilliant article, Don T.

I saw a Browns fan going through Bumble this morning, and I found that so amazing I had to swipe right. It just now also dawned on me that as a Browns fan, she is well-accustomed to crushing disappointment. So here’s hoping for a match!
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ballsofsteelandfury

The secret to passing off bullshit is being supremely confident and putting stuff in general or subjective terms. Jerry Jones and the Texans top brass excel at this.

So does our president.

BrettFavresColonoscopy

I think he’s past bullshit and into complete fabrication/Alex Jones bullshitland.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Absolutely; regular bullshit has some basis in truth or fact, no mater how small a component it is. This is just ransom shit.

Unsurprised

It also helps to have an audience/fanbase of braindead morons.

Senor Weaselo

The Texans top brass is so good at it that you think there’s actually a team called the Texans!

herodotus450
Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

This is the time of year when you believe EVERYTHING that agents, GMs, coaches andNFL officials say; it is the season of honesty.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

That banner image brought back memories of one of Drew’s finest efforts.

BrettFavresColonoscopy

Daaaaaaaamn. I had forgotten about that piece.

Unsurprised

God, it’s a damn shame what happened to Ol’ Drew.

Gratliff

Will never forget “EL QUEERO HIT THE PYLON”

Senor Weaselo

It’s because it’s not Harry Potter weekend, but Hermione Granger weekend.

Unsurprised
Wakezilla

Still trying to figure out how this is supposed to be controversial.