What earth needs is an alien invasion to make us one. And lasers.

Or just this...

Ever notice alien invasions of the British are always a bit of a lark, but the ones going after the Americans are always assholes?

Sadly I'm going to have to call 'fake'.

First, "project blue beam" is a conspiracy theory idea that claims things like the planes that flew into the twin towers were really holograms, or that there's an alien invasion program creating odd holographic images to confuse humans, or aliens are using holograms to present us with a false messiah/Jesus/Gawd/4 horsemen of the apocalypse. Uh...yeah.
Second, I notice that only a single person in the background audience has a reaction that might be attributed to seeing a whale jump at you, the rest just clap casually.
Third, there are many clear artifacts at the whale's edge where they photoshopped it in.

I wish holograms were at this level today, and they should be, but they aren't. Projecting white into a bright 3D space doesn't work without smoke or mist to project on, and even then it's only really visible when the surroundings are darker.

What's coming inevitably will be as it's always been in the 'century-of-self ': The machine keeps peeps distracted by disinformation, issues to rally-behind, toys to play with and continual mind-fucking through Bernay's-style cradle-to-grave programming then....Suddenly, like three skyscrapers dropping into their footprints on International Shit-Box Tonight with Sham Cocksworth, yet another, 'create-the-crisis-provide-the-solution' scenario will further strengthen the resolve of the assholes who want ultimately to have the world to themselves and the bulk of humanity as dutiful robot-putty-slaves.

Technology, technique, fear, and an empty promise of safety and security (please, think of the children again, break to commercial) will shape the next worldwide crisis and urgency of action...and again, watch rights and individual responsibility deteriorate into a controlled chaos.

Fake alien invasion? Orchestrated and choreographed conflicts? Some scary flesh-eating disease? Most-likely the next planetary theatrical concoction will be some superfecta once again where fascism continues to reign supreme and the entire globe continues along the path of planetary lock-down.

Oh, and pusillanimous shit-heals with Cheeto-stained fingertips will between anime-clips and chicken-choking to porn, (who think they know how police fraternities work), will continue to pop-spit from the illusory comfort of their soiled computer chairs....

'Right...'Left' ?? Again, for the ChaosEngines of the world...a concocted and programmed, fucking illusion.

@enoch, thanks for your comments. I thought it better to respond directly to your profile than on the video, about which we're no longer discussing directly. Sorry for the length of this reply, but for such a complex topic as this one, a thorough and plainly-stated response is needed.

You wrote: "the REAL question is "what is the purpose of a health care system"? NOT "which market system should we implement for health care"?"

The free market works best for any and all goods and services, regardless of their aim or purpose. Healthcare is no different from any other good or service in this respect.

(And besides, tell me why there's no money in preventative care? Do nutritionists, physical trainers/therapists, psychologists, herbalists, homeopaths, and any other manner of non-allopathic doctors not get paid and make profit in the marketplace? Would not a longer life not lead to a longer-term 'consumer' anyway? And would preventative medicine obliterate the need for all manner of medical treatment, or would there not still remain a need to diagnose, treat, and cure diseases, even in the presence of a robust preventative medical market?)

I realize that my argument is not the "popular" one (and there are certainly many reasons for this, up to and including a lot of disinformation about what constitutes a "free market" health care system). But the way to approach such things is not heuristically, but rationally, as one would approach any other economic issue.

You write "see where i am going with this? It's not so easy to answer and impose your model of the "free market" at the same time."

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The purpose of the healthcare system is to provide the most advanced medical service and care possible in the most efficient and affordable way possible. Only a free competitive market can do this with the necessary economic calculations in place to support its progress. No matter how you slice it, a socialized approach to healthcare invariably distorts the market (with its IP fees, undue regulations, and a lack of any accurate metrics on both the supply-side and on the demand-side which helps to determine availability, efficacy, and cost).

"you cannot have "for-profit" and "health-care" work in conjunction with any REAL health care."

Sorry, but this is just absurd. What else can I say?

"but if we use your "free market" model against a more "socialized model".which model would better serve the public?"

The free market model.

"if we take your "free market" model,which would be under the auspices of capitalism."

Redundant: "free market under the auspices of free market."

"disease is where the money is at,THAT is where the profit lies,not in preventive medicine."

Only Krugman-style Keynesians would say that illness is more profitable than health (or war more profitable than peace, or that alien invasions and broken windows are good for the economy). They, like you, aren't taking into account the One Lesson in Economics: look at how it affects every group, not just one group; look at the long term effects, not just short term ones. You're just seeing that, in the short-run, health will be less profitable for medical practitioners (or some pharmaceuticals) that are currently working in the treatment of illness. But look at every group outside that small group and at the long run and you can see that health is more profitable than illness overall. The market that profits more from illness will have to adapt, in ways that only the market knows for sure.

Do you realize that the money you put into socialized medicine (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc.) is money you deplete from prevention entrepreneurship?

(As an aside, I wonder, why do so many people assume that the socialized central planners have some kind of special knowledge or wisdom that entrepreneurs do not? And why is there the belief that unlike entrepreneurs, socialist central planners are not selfishly motivated but always act in the interest of the "common good?" Could this be part of the propagandized and indoctrinated fear that's implicit in living in a socialized environment? Why do serfs (and I'm sure that, at some level, people know that's what they are) love the socialist central planners more than they love themselves? Complex questions about self-esteem and captive minds.)

If fewer people get sick, the market will then demand more practitioners to move from treating illness into other areas like prevention, being a prevention doctor or whatever. You're actually making the argument for free market here, not against it. Socialized bureaucratically dictated medicine will not adapt to the changing needs as efficiently or rapidly as a free market can and would. If more people are getting sick, then we'll need more doctors to treat them. If fewer people are getting sick because preventive medicine takes off, then we'll have more of that type of service. If a socialized healthcare is mandated, then we will invariably have a glut of allopathic doctors, with little need for their services (and we then have the kinds of problems we see amongst doctors who are coerced -- by the threat of losing their license -- to take medicaid and then lie on their reports in order to recoup their costs, e.g., see the article linked here.)

Meanwhile, there has been and will remain huge profits to be made in prevention, as the vitamin, supplements, alternative medicine, naturopathy, exercise and many other industries attest to. What are you talking about, that there's no profit in preventing illness? (In a manner of speaking, that's actually my bread and butter!) If you have a way to prevent illness, you will have more than enough people buying from you, people who don't want to get sick. (And other services for the people who do.) Open a gym. Become a naturopath. Teach stress management, meditation, yoga, zumba, whatever! And there are always those who need treatment, who are sick, and the free market will then have an accurate measure of how to allocate the right resources and number of such practitioners. This is something that the central planners (under socialized services) simply cannot possibly do (except, of course, for the omniscient ones that socialists insist exist).

You wrote "cancer,anxiety,obesity,drug addiction.
all are huge profit generators and all could be dealt with so much more productively and successfully with preventive care,diet and exercise and early diagnosis."

But they won't as long as you have centrally planned (socialized) medicine. The free market forces practitioners to respond to the market's demands. Socialized medicine does not. Entrepreneurs will (as they already have) exploit openings for profit in prevention (without the advantage of regulations which distort the markets) and take the business away from treatment doctors. If anything, doctors prevent preventative medicine from getting more widespread by using government regulations to limit what the preventive practitioners do. In fact, preventive medicine is so profitable that it has many in the medical profession lobbying to curtail it. They are losing much business to alternative/preventive practitioners. They lobby to, for example, prevent herb providers from stating the medical/preventive benefits of their herbs. They even prevent strawberry farmers to tout the health benefits of strawberries! It is the state that is slowing down preventive medicine, not the free market! In Puerto Rico, for example, once the Medical Association lost a bit to prohibit naturopathy, they effectively outlawed acupuncture by successfully getting a law passed that requires all acupuncturists to be medical doctors. Insanity.

If you think there is no profit in preventative care or exercise, think GNC and Richard Simmons, and Pilates, and bodywork, and my own practice of psychotherapy. Many of the successful corporations (I'm thinking of Google and Pixar and SalesForce and Oracle, etc.) see the profit and value in preventative care, which is why they have these "stay healthy" programs for their employees. There's more money in health than illness. No doubt.

Or how about the health food/nutrition business? Or organic farming, or whole foods! The free market could maybe call for fewer oncologists and for more Whole Foods or even better natural food stores. Of course, we don't know the specifics, but that's actually the point. Only the free market knows (and the omniscient socialist central planners) what needs to happen and how.

Imagination! We need to get people to use it more.

You wrote: "but when we consider that the 4th and 5th largest lobbyists are the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry is it any wonder that america has the most fucked up,backwards health care system on the planet."

You're actually making my point here. In a free market, pharmaceutical companies cannot monopolize what "drugs" people can or cannot take, sell or not sell, and cannot prevent natural alternatives from being promoted. Only with state intervention (by way of IP regulations, and so forth) can they do so.

Free market is not corporatism. Free market is not crony capitalism. (More disinformation that needs to be lifted.)

So you're not countering my free market position, you're countering the crony capitalist position. This is a straw man argument, even if in this case you might not have understood my position in the first place. You, like so many others, equate "capitalism" with cronyism or corporatism. Many cannot conceive of a free market that is free from regulation. So folks then argue against their own interests, either for or against "fascist" vs. "socialist" medicine. The free market is, in fact, outside these two positions.

You wrote: "IF we made medicare available to ALL american citizens we would see a shift from latter stage care to a more aggressive preventive care and early diagnosis. the savings in money (and lives) would be staggering."

I won't go into medicare right now (It is a disaster, and so is the current non-free-market insurance industry. See the article linked in my comment above.)

You wrote "this would create a huge paradigm shift here in america and we would see results almost instantly but more so in the coming decades."

I don't want to be a naysayer but, socialism is nothing new. It has been tried (and failed) many times before. The USSR had socialized medicine. So does Cuba (but then you may believe the Michael Moore fairytale about medicine in Cuba). It's probably better to go see in person how Cubans live and how they have no access to the places that Moore visited.

You wrote: "i feel very strongly that health should be a communal effort.a civilized society should take care of each other."

Really, then why try to force me (or anyone) into your idea of "good" medicine? The free market is a communal effort. In fact, it is nothing else (and nothing else is as communal as the free market). Central planning, socialized, top-down decision-making, is not. Never has been. Never will be.

Voluntary interactions is "taking care of each other." Coercion is not. Socialism is coercion. It cannot "work" any other way. A free market is voluntary cooperation.

Economic calculation is necessary to avoid chaos, whatever the purpose of a service. This is economic law. Unless the purpose is to create chaos, you need real prices and efficiency that only the free market can provide.

I hope this helps to clarify (and not confuse) what I wrote on @eric3579's profile.

The "silent" war has been a huge success already-

Distracting and dumbing-down an entire nation while toxifying them with food, advertising, punditry, sports diversion, terrorist paranoia, mindless, vapid dialogue of current events designed to disrupt critical thinking and instill a systemic helplessness to recoil or rebel....It's going to take meta-programming on a global scale to correct this fuck-up, or perhaps simply worldwide natural catastrophe or alien invasion. We could start by executing politicians on national television, that'd be the fastest quick-fix...after a speedy series of mock trials of course-

Damn Buck, that just about covers it-I'm Pat Condell, and I'd like to buy you a few pints and some virgins!

Srsly, what you hate about Islam and Muslims-at-large lies in the root developmental-disability: Something so hard-wired into a culture it would take several generations to correct or, as I have mentioned before, a collective world-wide experience that flips the paradigm on it's head.

An alien invasion or worldwide catastrophe would go a long way towards sobering us monkeys the fuck, RIGHT up! (world shakes fist at sky with one tongue, "Fuuuuck yewwwwwww, Gaaaaawd!")


Besides Buck and myself, I wonder how many people's first reaction when they heard what this guy had to spew was to want to take one of those sticks to his mealy, little mouth???

Last 10 or so presidents...interchangeable parts of an erector set of nefarious design. Voting is ineffectual and folks are too exhausted or brain-dead to revolt. Act of nature or alien invasion, only 2 events that will turn the police-planet around...or a plague-Problem with a plague is that it would most-likely be engineered by the same assholes.

Isn't that the Negative Zone? I'm fairly certain it works like however Marvel wants it to work. Sort of like the Power Cosmic. Stupid review judging it as a movie outside the bounds of comic book conventions.

Comics are silly, convoluted, and prefer form over function:

1. Thor and Iron Man are required to have pissing contests.
2. Sunglasses and eye patches make people without super powers look badass.
3. Banner on a motorcycle is a good juxtaposition against his Hulky-jump-through-the-air travel form.
4. Loki is a conceited god so the Iron Man delay works -- didn't this reviewer. already assess that Loki was there to convert and not kill?
5. Of course CAPTAIN AMERICA just jumped from a plane. Idiot.
6. Did he just judge the movie according the Captain America's silly costume? Idiot.
7. No lap dance? He wants to watch the Russian dude give Black Widow a lap dance? I'm confused.
8. Bad guys running laps happens in... most action films with bad guys that need to fill in some time and guide direction visually. Reeeaaaally dumb criticism.
9. Plasma screens? You'd prefer to see a cell phone and then a split screen with 4 other people on cell phones? WTF
10. Loki's scepter is also a space phone??? My phone is also a camera, GPS, medical adviser, blogging tool, gaming device, and if I could download an app that performed mind control, I would. Loki is a god so he can.
11. The hellicarrier was created by Jack Kirby. Fuck you, this is an Avengers movie.
12. Sweeping cameras may sound silly, but comic book logic dictates that this is fine. Why not?
13. His criticism of little girls being able to find Bruce Banner is a criticism of our emotional attachment to the Gavroche, not the Avengers. Is the mystique of a street smart urchin gone from our collective unconscious?
14. Hawkeye's virus arrow is perfectly executed and makes sense according to his abilities.
15. Thor being easily tricked by Loki using low brow tactics is true even in Norse mythology. What exactly are we critiquing here?
16. Loki's objective in being captured is partly him being an overly confidant asshole god. He's just sort of going around half cocked because he can and likes to do so. The gods aren't smarter than us, just more powerful and with magical abilities that trump technology. In fact, this means they don't need to try as hard and would definitely be candidates in the personality disorder department. Hell, for all we know they could suffer from intellectual disorders that would never have become an issue (aside from making them stupidly violent) considering their power.
17. Hawkeye versus Black Widow is not cool? Damn.
18. Fury also gave an intimidating death stare in Jurassic Park when Nedry's "Ah ah ah, you didn't say the magic word" security screen pops up. HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS. I liked the half reference.
19. If you have trouble understanding the powers of Mjölnir, why do you also complain about the plodding exposition?! These things require exposition and it's so arbitrary that it becomes plodding. Comics are FILLED with plodding exposition because of this and there's a point where you just have to know the characters. Do they explain superman's laser eyes in the movies? Actually... do they?
20. Black Widow is a weapons expert, including theoretical weaponry.
21. In the comics Hulk learns to control his powers and can even be intellectual in said form.
22. The alien invasion would do more damage than a nuclear bomb. These villains enslave entire worlds.
23. The ending requires homework??? THE ENTIRE SERIES OF MOVIES REQUIRES HOMEWORK.


That being said, I agree with a good number of the points:

1. The tesseract was a rebranding of the Cosmic Cube which has a long history in the Marvel universe. (So I guess this movie was made for comic book fans?)
2. Well lit facility. There should have been some sort of cloaking shield around it, which is perfectly acceptable in a comic book world, if not the real.
3. Cap's bet. I don't believe Cap would have done that because it isn't just.
4. Speaking in English to Germans. It would have been cool to hear him speak in German. Damn!
5. Hawkeye's arrow fucking up the hellicarrier. However, I could see this happening in a comic book, I just don't like it.
6. Captain America's ear piece and bad aim.
7. Tesseract mind control wearing off after blunt trauma.
8. Cap's super powers are kinda lame in these movies, but I'm sure if they weren't, then this review would contain criticism about how his human fists can smash through metal.
9. The aliens are a pretty shitty replacement for the Skrulls. This is what makes me the saddest.
10. Imiatating transformers... this bugged the crap out of me when I first saw the trailer. UGH!
11. Thor's lightning must have a long cooldown.
12. Yeah, it was pretty lame when the aliens died after they were cut off from the mother ship. Inferior to the Skrulls fo sho.

*spoilers*

tesserect was explained more in "Captain America" and being as this is effectively a culmination of all the previous movies, it shouldn't be detrimental to expect people to have seen the previous movies.

2 Asian extras killed in a row? I guess that's there for comedies sake, but I hardly see how that's against the movie again.

The little girl can find banner because he's helping cure the native population of some plague, and it even says in the movie "You found me?" "We never lost you".

The "Second pissing contest" was the exact reason loki wanted to be captured in the first place. He wanted to turn the Avengers against each other so they'd never work together, crossing two points off right there.

The entire alien invasion is a threat because it's demolishing the city. Just because we never actively see anybodies head explode in a family movie, doesn't mean that people aren't getting killed. The city is in flames, and buildings are being destroyed. Kinda doubt everybody is totally okay in that.

I could go on, but I really feel that if I do my nerd muscle will explode. Seriously, I saw the movie twice, both times when it was in theatres months ago, and I still managed to explain 6 of his points away with ease.

pretty certain that some type of cat will save us from some type of alien invasion... we will breed and ride sabertooths like he-man

>> ^gwiz665:

Loved this show! The overarching story was bullshit though, only the monster of the week episodes were fantastic.


This is 100% absolutely correct. I loved the show but the alien invasion stuff was increasingly wearisome.

On a positive note, it's twats like this that will get the first pictures of the alien invasion, despite that fact that they'll be the first ones into the sausage casing.

Looks like something you'd blow out your nose and cough up in an alien invasion movie.

QM, I tend to disagree with many of your political comments, but I have to say that I think youare right about something. That is: Obama has not lived up to the (gigantic) expectations that people had for him. The "change" that was "hoped" for was not to the extent that was needed/expected.

That said, parties aside, what would you have wanted to see done differently over the last 4ish years? I don't mean who does what. I'm not asking for your favorite candidate or historical president. For a minute I'd like to pretend that that doesn't matter or don't exist, and presidents never have names. I'm just interested in what actions/decisions could have been taken/made that you might have approved of. What could have been done differently to land us in a better place for us both, and Americans in general?

And, again without giving any mention to political stripes, how would you make the world a better place?


@notarobot

Thank you for your question.

We Americans are notoriously short-sighted. Our politicians do just enough to win reelection and pass the buck (debt) to the next poor bastards. I don't see any way to reverse this, so whatever is done that works has to be constantly reinforced and relearned. But it isn't.

The simplest answer: reduce the size, authority, roles (and payroll) of government in our lives. Government is a necessary evil and loves creating "solutions'" to problems which are worse then the problems themselves, thus guaranteeing it always plays a huge role in "solving" every problem.

At this point in our history, whichever side is in power, things will worsen until a space alien invasion arrives or there's a civil war to restore some measure of balance between the states and the federal beast. I'm not happy about it, but we've lost our way and (hopefully limited) civil war may be the only solution left. You don't get good government unless politicians are scared shi'r'tless of the people.

Back in 2008 I would've exercised a moratorium on all federal laws for 2 years. This would have put the kibosh on the economic uncertainty that the Obama regime (sorry to name names again) has put on not only Americans but the world. There would be many more arrests (than zero) for the banking crisis, no bailouts and no scamulus.

I'm not sure how in every instance, but I would start dismantling government meddling in health care, not ending socialist care overnight but creating tax-free health savings accounts and demanding the consumer have real options. You don't pay your auto insurance company to put gas in your car and change the oil. Same principle.

I'd end federal control of education, it's a waste of time and money. Let the states figure it out. Private schools do a better job at half the cost. How are you going to educate children to be socially and historically aware and awake citizens mistrustful of government power when it's the very entity "teaching" them?

I'd make war, war again. Soldiers are supposed to kill people and break things until the enemy surrenders. Anything beyond that is someone else's job.

One of the reasons the economy is staying in the sh!tter is people waiting for Obama to be removed from office. Much as the Arab world sighs with relief (but can never admit it) when we (or Israel) take out a radical nutball, so the American left can't admit what a screw-up and disaster His Earness has been (pride). They will breathe a sigh of relief when he's gone as they unify in hatred of another moderate (read: pu$$y) Republican president who will then go right on growing government and approving annual budgets of all those unconstitutional programs like the guy before him. Jobs will slowwwly return.


A final answer no one wants to hear (and why I can't stand the left's insistence on an "equality of outcomes"): while one-sixth to one-third of people are capable and intelligent, if not "good" in all circumstances, another one-sixth to one-third are just plain hopeless, there's nothing anyone will ever be able to do to help them. I'm not talking about people with medical problems or even mental problems, just ordinary people who don't give a sh!t. I would minimize the damage they cause through severe legal penalties, make it exceptionally hard for them to game the system and/or simply pay them off to keep to themselves and stay out of the way.