But....Tongue piercing.

The bit about pop culture portraying New Yorkers as criminals, with the "stigma" leading some to intentionally lose their accents, that was pretty lame for an otherwise intelligent video. It gets presented as a researched fact when it sounds more like a ridiculous theory.

From my experience, current generations weaned on those movies shown in the clip would be more inclined to adopt that accent as just another affectation, tattoo, piercing, meme, avatar, email signature, sampling, bumper sticker.

And the bit about the accent losing favor after WWII, "as Americans were focused on their own identity, rather than maintaining ties to England". Sounds like something a college freshman would write at the last minute to fill out a 1000 word essay.

My thought exactly jimnms.

Just about any well made sword could do what that sword did, in fact probably do it better because samurai swords are so thick on the end they aren't that great for cutting, let alone piercing, no matter how sharp they are.

It's just that samurai swords (called that because they were a symbol of the class, but rarely ever used in actual battle) has this mythical air about it. But they aren't actually that great a sword.

Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Ian Black, Bradley Cooper, John Slattery, Judah Friedlander, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, Christopher Meloni, Marguerite Moreau, Zak Orth, David Hyde Pierce, and Michael Showalter.

That is a lot of funny people

Actually, it's for a reason, scientists now believe those seeds you have been joyfully spitting since you were a kid are actually the hardened remains of ant colonies.

These exotic ants immediately solidify the moment the shell of the watermelon is pierced and oxygen touches the interior of the fruit.

We know it's powerful enough to penetrate, fur &/or mail + a thick gambeson/doublet as most of the Nights watch wear (reference, any scene where she shoots a battle dressed crow such as end of season 4). Even allowing for heavy shafts and piercing tips that's still some serious power.

Well beyond your average 20-40lb target & small game hunting type bows. Even if it was primarily a hunting bow, the wildings frequently hunt big game like Elks so it makes sense that it'd be a relatively heavy draw.

Besides even if it was a relatively light warbow (60-80lbs or so lets say), that's still hardcore to the extreme to hold at full draw for more than a few seconds and not loose ones composure (my aim would probably start shaking after 3-4, my body after 10-20 tops).

(and I think 80-120lbs is probably more likely anyway)

Besides this all misses the real point underlying i.e. no one trained with a bow would be silly enough to waste so much energy holding at full draw. Half maybe, or just taking up the slack.

Doubly silly given John has no ranged weapon of his own here and she could probably draw and loose 2 or 3 arrows before he closed the distance if he tried.

Goes on my list of pet gripes with GOT alongside Daenerys "firing" catapults and the occasional sword "schwing" sound. (not that I don't love the show)

This was really good! It's pretty obvious now that most or all the history was invented by Lars, instead of studied. However, there are a few points that she didn't touch on or completely dismissed.

She makes a quite unsubstantiated claim that ancient people cannot measure time, and dismisses the entire speed advantage of the technique Lars is using. I would have liked to see how she would have addressed the account on the native american chief's abilities at speedshooting, where Lars pulled (invented?) an account that the chief could shoot 10 arrows into the air before the first one hit the ground, and Lars managed to break that record. Despite that a great deal of historical drawings are indeed poor at describing technique (just look at how many drawings depict the horse's gallop incorrectly), this is a metric that is easily recorded. Unless another modern archer has managed to come close to shooting 10 arrows into the air before the first hits the ground, the chief's technique has indeed been lost, and has potentially been revived through Lars.

Additionally, she mocked Lars a bit, calling out, 'where's his horse?', as if his technique wouldn't work on a horse. But, she then showed videos of people rapidly firing at targets while riding on horseback. Again, Lars' technique has a tremendous speed advantage, and he makes it obvious many times over that this firing technique can be performed during acrobatic stunts. If archery truly is about 'what works', this would work better.

Finally, she did a great job at pointing out how Lars was shooting with relatively little force compared to full draw on heavy bows. Indeed, where Lars shows he can pierce chainmail, he was shooting substantially slower, likely to pull back more weight. However, against unarmored or lightly armored opponents, it may not be necessary to pull back 80+ pounds. Instead of trying to invalidate his entire technique by saying he wouldn't be able to pierce full platemail without extremely high force, it would be more accurate to say that the tremendous speed comes at the price of lower force per arrow.

While Anna Maltese brought up many great points about historical fabrication and showed that Lars is overly sensationalizing his technique, she is committing the opposite sin by entirely dismissing the technique's advantages.

+ a central bank whose mandate is limited to inflation
+ the lack of a treasury
+ the lack of a harmonized tax system
+ the crippling deficits in democratic control that make it very hard to turn the will of the people into policy
+ etc

The last point is of particular interest if you look at Greece as a shock & awe induced suspension of democracy. Many nations are held in a permanent state of emergency through the war on terror, while Greece's permanent state of emergency was imposed through debt.

Previous governments did what they were told by troika officials, with parliament left aside and judicial decisions left ignored. The return of democracy into some parts of the system caused rather vicious reactions from both the press and European officials. Just look at what Martin Schulz or Jeroen Dijsselbloem said about Syriza officials in the last few days.

Debt is a tool powerful enough to suspend democracy in a heartbeat, even quicker than our famous war on/of terror.

Parliamentary decisions are superceded by transnational treaties and obligations. And if you take the thought one step further, you end up at TTIP/TTP/CETA/TISA. If Greece demonstrates that democratic decisions at a national level still overrule transnational treaties, governments lose a scapegoat for unpopular decisions ("treaty X demands it of us"). Should Syriza manage to end the state of emergency, to return control over the decision back to the elected bodies, it will become infinitely harder to impose draconian or even just highly unpopular measures.

But I digress. Twin Euro blocks (South/North) were part of the discussion, just like parallel currencies in troubled nations. A German exit is still being discussed as well, but I don't think its advocates within Germany thought it through. Switzerland just uncoupled its Swiss Francs from the Euro and it did a real number on their exports. A new DM would appreciate like a Saturn V, instantly shattering German exports. Without a massive increase in wages to compensate through domestic demand, Germany would bleed jobs left, right and center. A fullblown recession.

I'd say it would take very little to stabilise the union, even in its currently flawed configuration. Krugman had a piece this morning, calling one of Syriza's core demands reasonable. And judging by what I have read over the last five years or so, it is. He said Germany would be crazy if they demanded payment on full, no reliefs. And that's where it shows that he cannot follow the media or the political discussions in Germany to any meaningful degree, language barrier and all. Public discussion on economics in Germany stands completely separate from the rest of the world.

Ignorance, stubbornness, cultural bias, a feedback-loop of media and politics, group pressure -- we have everything. And the fact that Germany has been comparatively successful in the face of this crisis makes it practially impossible to pierce this bubble. We're doing fine, our way must be correct, everyone else is wrong.

What atheists don't believe, but what I believe, is that His word is the power of God unto salvation for those who will believe:

Hebrews 4:12 For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

No man, that body armour, those boots...I'd harvest the bones of a thousand murdered infants to build our bed if that's what it took. Do you think that's what she wants?

I had to go rewatch this. It's practically perfect. Not an origin story, no romance subplot, no compromise. Just a day in the life of Judge Dredd. Love it, but my favourite Dredd story was told in rhyme:

They'd been waiting there since nightfall for the Sharks to come along,
They knew they'd have to pass this stretch of street.
So they'd sharpened up their stickers and they'd brought along their bars,
And they were wearing steel-tipped stompers on their feet.

There was Big Frank Zit and Faceache, Crazy Joseph with his spear,
The Dixon Boys were there and Billy Rat.
Ike the Spike had brought his sister with her homemade ghetto blaster,
And the Ghoul had put new rivets in his bat.

Now it wasn't nothin' personal that they had against the Sharks,
Any bunch of dead-end spugs would do.
'Cos there was nothing they liked better than to mash and bash and stomp,
Same as any normal Mega-City juves.

"A-rumbling! A-rumbling! We love to go A-rumbling!
("AAAH!")
We love to lay in ambush in the night!
("AAAA!")
A-rumbling! A-rumbling! The Zits were born for rumbling!
(SMAK!)
There's nothing we like better than a fight!"
(KRAK!)

Then a headlight pierced the darkness - a rider gaunt and grim,
Daystick drawn and ready in his hand.
     The chin belonged to Dredd,
     And the voice as well, which said:
"You creeps can do your rumbling in the can!"

"It's just one judge!" cried Cindy Spike and opened with her blaster -
"I'll send him back to Central in a sack!"
(SPOING! "AAAAAAA!")
But Dredd's bike absorbed the blast and laid her on the street,
With tyre marks running right across her back.

Then the judge got down to business and his daystick rose and fell,
Striking out at every head he saw.
For though the Zits launched the attack, the Sharks were fighting back -
And self defence is no defence in law!

As the heap of bodies mounted, Big Zit could see his Waterloo,
Waiting just one station down the line.
Oh, sure, he loved to rumble - but he preferred to be on top...
"Let's scram and live to fight another time!"

("Dredd to Control! We got forty-plus juve rumblers fleeing east through Bernstein. Zits and Sharks, back-up required."
"Wilco, Dredd!"
"Med squads and meat wagons to Moreng Alley. Estimate twenty casualties, more to follow."
"Control to all units area Bernstein. YPs on the run."
VRMMMM!
"Pick 'em up!")

In the space of sixty seconds there was a judge on every street.
From watching bays others scanned the slab -
"We got two Zits runnin' fast though the Tamblin Underpass!"
"Krupke here! I got 'em in the bag!"
(THUNK! THUNK!)

They cut them off at Sondheim and they mopped them up on Wood,
On Pedway 12 they corned Crazy Joseph.
He tried to make a stand - but a spear's not worth a damn,
When it's up against a judge's high explosive.

The Ghoul surrendered quietly, he didn't have much choice -
Ike the Spike tried to scale the sector wall -
("Save your bullet, he'll never make it." "Oh no! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" SPLATT!)
The Dixon Boys all copped it when they tried to hitch a ride,
On the 2020 Zoom to Bernstein Halt.

Big Zit thought he'd play it clever, the law was everywhere,
The safest thing for him to do was hide -
Dredd tracked him down on infrared - "Don't bother to come out!"
"The best place for trash like you is inside!"

In minutes flat they'd caught them, every Shark and every Zit.
To Dredd it fell to ladle out the years -
"Twenty years apiece for Cindy Spike, Billy Rat and Ghoul."
An extra ten left Big Frank Zit in tears.

For Faceache minus half his face, for the hapless Dixon Boys,
For Ike impaled so cruelly on his spike,
For Crazy Joe with his gaping hole, there'd be one final rumble,
Along the last conveyor belt at Resyk.

A-rumbling! A-rumbling! They loved to go A-rumbling!
But the Zits will go A-rumbling no more!
A-rumbling! A-rumbling! They loved to go A-rumbling!
But they should've known they couldn't buck the law!

Teen Disowned by Family for Being Gay Raises Nearly $100,000 http://mashable.com/2014/09/03/daniel-ashley-pierce-teen-gay/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

Daniel Pierce: Over $90,000 raised for gay teen after video of him 'disowned' by family goes viral
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/daniel-pierce-over-90000-raised-for-gay-teen-after-video-of-him-disowned-by-family-goes-viral-9701182
.html

She dressed the way she wanted to. You're the one who decided it made her a slut. What about the way someone dresses gives someone else the right to act like an asshole towards them?

I think the style of wearing your waistband around your thighs is low-class; I think people who wear neckties at work tend to be ass-kissers; I think people who have piercings and/or tattoos all over are fashion victims who will regret their choices in another 20 years.

None of those things gives me the right to make comments to any of them; I may form opinions, but I keep them to myself. Why? Partly because I don't want the conflict--something that guys commenting to women aren't worried about--but also because I know I shouldn't be so judgmental and I try to avoid being an asshole.

Really, I need to explain?
What did HIS appearance dancing have to do with doing his job? Answer:nothing

It's the ugliness of her personality that is the most offensive, but her appearance is also quite offensive to me (I HATE facial piercings), far more offensive than a man dancing, especially since she's a roll model for at least one child. If it's OK for her to get a man fired for appearing inappropriate in her mind, why can't I return the favor? Seemed perfectly reasonable to me, turnabout is fair play.

EDIT: ...and where's the 'fuck you' to Esoog, who seems to have made the exact same point, before I did?

This video is not kidding. I had the same type of experience helping install a Prince Albert type piercing on a baby bull moose.