Sadly, this was in my hometown and quite frankly I'm not surprised.

Your video, Jim Jefferies visits Melania Trump's Hometown, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Update on my hometown figures. Our local paper says there were 1000 at the march. ONE THOUSAND. I can't help but think that is overstated. But even if you say "only" 800 -- that is mind blowing.

Such a bizarre little tour ... oddly intriguing. That's my hometown alright.

I'm basically done with defending WikiLeaks as well, after the shit they pulled with the leaks of Turkish data. Completely irresponsible, that one.

However, WikiLeaks doesn't need credibility -- the data does. And the data they published vis-á-vis Clinton/Podesta/DNC is, as of now, solid. There was one fake document, but that was shown to have been injected by someone other than WL.

"Strong bias" -- oh, I do have a strong bias. Plural, as in biases, actually. For instance, I'm disinclined to take anything the US intelligence agencies say at face value, given how they manufactured more than one casus belli. I don't put much weight into (un-)official statements in general, but especially since all the misinformation they spread about issues like the coup in Honduras or the actions of Nazi militias in Ukraine.

In this particular case, however, my argument is much simpler: Occam's razor seems much more likely than malicious intent. Propaganda outlets on both sides are run by people. Maybe the propaganda outlet Sputnik intentionally twisted the content of email, or maybe they just fucked up, like people are wont to do. Maybe someone intentionally fed Trump this bad info, maybe his people are just as incompetent as he is.

There are too many parts in this that include people who have more than once proven themselves to be utterly incompetent, or in complete ignorance of even the concept of truth. I don't think Trump gives a shit about truth or facts, he strikes me as the typical blowhard who spouts whatever shit comes to mind, and spins stories on the fly like a 4-year-old when caught red-handing.

No need for a conspiracy there, with all this incompetence, naiveté and plain disregard for facts.

So when they keep on pushing the Russian angle in this, it just seems like a desperate attempt to conjure up the old unifying enemy. Why worry about Russian propaganda when there's plenty on FOX and MSNBC/CNN? Why worry about Russian hackers when you accept the unbelievably insecure method of eletronic votes, partly without paper trails, and completely controlled by private companies?

It's just very strange to an outsider like me to see them focus on perceived external influences when the internals are a complete clusterfuck. And this presidential election is the biggest clusterfuck I've seen in 30 years, which doesn't mean much, admittedly.

That said, we can't just be looking at it from the outside with binoculars, not when people are back to full-blown Cold War rhetoric. When the ruling class in the US and/or the ruling class in Russia start their pissing contests and other forms of grandstanding, it's usually brown people who pay the price, like they have been in Syria for the last couple of years. And Libya. And Yemen. And Somalia. And Afghanistan, And Iraq. And Pakistan.

Personally, all the rhetoric about "standing up to Russian aggression" and similar nonsense makes me keenly aware that the bridge just outside my hometown was constructed with a shaft to place explosives in, to slow down advancing Soviet troops... so yes, I would very much like to bitch-slap all these warmongerers on both sides, but particularly the ones in the US since they are currently the ones racking up the highest death toll.

Edit: I should have made it clearer. Yes, WL is absolutely biased against Clinton and they do seem to act in support of Trump. Assange in particular. Which bums me out to no end, since I actually met the guy in person when they presented WL at the 26C3.

Quoting and responding..

"Well, yes and no. If you're being dumped somewhere that there's no landmarks and/or no cell service, you might have an argument that getting out puts you in danger, but that's certainly not the case here. "

Already agreed this isn't the case here. Twice, in fact

"I think that's the risk you take when you decide to go with Uber. You pay less, you get a certain type of service, but you have less recourse if it goes bad. "

Sorry, but no. There's still a base level of service to be expected.

"I don't disagree that he reacted poorly."

That's really my main point. You can be 100% in the right and still act like an asshole. If he had remained calm and called the police this video would've gotten no traction at all.

"He is NOT a taxi driver, he's an Uber driver. I disagree, Uber does not =taxi. Taxi=taxi...Limo=>taxi ...Uber ="

This is probably worthy of a separate discussion, but since we're here...

I 100% disagree with this. Uber is a taxi service, just a really poorly run one. They've just started in my hometown and they are actually encouraging drivers to break the law. In NZ, you are legally required to have a passenger endorsement to carry passengers for profit, but Uber just told their drivers "eh, don't worry about it, you'll be sweet" and then left them twisting in the wind when the government went "er, no, we weren't fucking joking", and started clamping down.

Frankly, the more I learn about Uber, the less I am inclined to use their service. I like some of what they're doing, but it's complete bullshit they way they treat their drivers.

Most of all, I hate the way they claim to be a "ride-sharing" company. If someone was setting up a service of "I'm going to the airport, want to share fuel/parking costs?" that's ride sharing (I think Lyft do that??). But that's not the Uber model. The driver is going where you tell them. That's a taxi.

Sidenote: I really wish we could have the old quote system back. Replying to long quotes like this is a pain in the arse now.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTZsSRnz8KW8KG_ZYPXbwVYaCRI50-8HK. I am 1/2 way through this playlist. I had no clue of this man and he is from my hometown. I thought you might be interested.

One in my hometown of course, *promote Alamo Drafthouse

Upvote for seeing my hometown on VS :-)

*promote my hometown homie and the sate i grew up in,though without all the snobbery,elitist rich inbreeding.

I actually got almost all of it (missed 2-3 words to a combination of crowd noise and the accent) without subtitles. But I've got several UK friends and coworkers, English and Irish, plus having English friends of the family that visited often when I was growing up.

A lot of the folks in my small hometown in Kansas are the type that have never been out of the state, and who need the TV subtitles even for accents that seem really easy to me like BBC English, New Zealand, Sydney (not broad Australian), etc. Just hopeless with accents.


But actually, the best thing about the video was her story -- which was actually quite funny assuming I got the "IRA" implication correct.

Upvote for my hometown!

This place is a hidden gem, not just in the Pacific Northwest, but in all of America. We have done a ton to turn this place around in to an amazing city! I'm very proud to be a part of it.

And they're not wrong, the glassblowing and artists here are very much an integral part of who we are here.

*promote my hometown homie!