The stuntwork and fight choreography in Atomic Blonde, particularly on the stair fight scene, is very much worth watching. It’s impressive and brutal and it doesn’t cut wildly to conceal anything or in an attempt to make it more exciting. It feels just like real fights feel. Most particularly, it accurately portrays — unlike really any other movie — just how incredibly exhausted you get when you’re fighting all out. There are parts of that scene where the two (or more) combatants just cannot fight anymore, though they are trying to kill one another, because they are completely drained of all energy.

That’s absolutely accurate. I’ve been in fights before that I could not even stand up at the conclusion of, though I wasn’t severely injured, because I was so enervated. I could barely move. I couldn’t even raise my arms.

The part of the scene where Charlize Theron finds a weapon, tries to stand up, and then just falls over from utter exhaustion…so perfect. I’ve done that! The thing is, you are so keyed up on adrenaline that you don’t know how done you are so it’s a shock when you can’t stand up. Whoever choreographed that scene has been in a fight before in real life, I can guarantee it. So, so good.

This is why I am 100% for burqa bans and (mostly) for hijab bans as well. Liberals like to pretend that symbols don’t convey meaning, don’t express an ideology, don’t have any relevance except to and for the individual . Alas, however, that is all balderedash and we live in a world of warring symbols and interpretations that tell us what sort of people to be and what sort of civilization we should uphold as an ideal and as a practice.

The reason huge majorities of people of all faiths and genders all over Europe tell pollsters they want the burqa off their streets is that it affects all modern egalitarian civic-minded human beings. It is most damaging to girls and young women, who grow up witnessing the most graphic exposure of — not the inferiority, but the nothingness of women, every day of their lives as they walk the streets of their cities.

Yes. If the burqa only affected those who chose to be constrained by it, so be it. However, it goes well beyond that. The doctrine of neoliberalism insists we are all atomistic individuals, completely disconnected consumption units, and the liberal disavowal of societal imperatives in the name of “voluntary” enslavement and subjugation to support individual “rights” is therefore nothing but neoliberal ventriloquism.

Western societies and burqas are incompatible — and if they are not, they should be.

That is a great post, and said in few words why burqas and hijabs (etc.) are so harmful to everyone — not just those directly subjugated by them.

Want to know why I utterly despise Obama and his “achievements?”

I don’t think people realize the radical damage that Obama did to the economy by bailing out the banks and not rolling back the terms of bank credit to keep housing affordable. Obama basically said, “Make housing unaffordable. Make as many junk loans as you want. Don’t worry, because I’ll stand between you and the mob with the pitchforks.” He didn’t jail any bankers. He didn’t regulate them. He created the situation that Trump inherited. Trump has just pushed it to a further degree, with full Democratic support.

That’s pretty much why — at least one of the main reasons. I’m so impressed, though, with Obama’s skill at having people still adore him completely whom he greatly, demonstrably harmed. I’d never really understood the dynamics of abusive relationships until I witnessed that en masse.