>> ^bareboards2:

Yeah, I read it. Doesn't change my opinion that she has a valid point of view.
I disagree with you. I agree with her. That doesn't make us a scourge of humanity. Nor a shill of corporations.
Just two people who have a different opinion than you.

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^bareboards2:
I admire Rachel. She is often the voice of reason. No exception here, in my opinion.

Did you not read all that stuff below the video? This basically exposed Maddow to all those people who thought that a "Free Thinker" got their own show on an American News network. What did you guys think that she was special or something? That the public relations industry wouldn't notice her challenging their power and just let it slide?
She's funded by corporations...she would not be in the position she is unless she knew the rules...she's a vanguard there to stifle debate. It's always going to be just like NPR THIS FAR and no further because you can't say and do certain things...such as challenging power.



Really? You think that playing the "It's just a different opinion card" works in this situation rather than refuting the evidence against your argument that has been presented?

Possibly you have an opinion on any of the bullet points at the top of this page?

Yeah, I read it. Doesn't change my opinion that she has a valid point of view.

I disagree with you. I agree with her. That doesn't make us a scourge of humanity. Nor a shill of corporations.

Just two people who have a different opinion than you.


>> ^Yogi:

>> ^bareboards2:
I admire Rachel. She is often the voice of reason. No exception here, in my opinion.

Did you not read all that stuff below the video? This basically exposed Maddow to all those people who thought that a "Free Thinker" got their own show on an American News network. What did you guys think that she was special or something? That the public relations industry wouldn't notice her challenging their power and just let it slide?
She's funded by corporations...she would not be in the position she is unless she knew the rules...she's a vanguard there to stifle debate. It's always going to be just like NPR THIS FAR and no further because you can't say and do certain things...such as challenging power.

>> ^bareboards2:

I admire Rachel. She is often the voice of reason. No exception here, in my opinion.


Did you not read all that stuff below the video? This basically exposed Maddow to all those people who thought that a "Free Thinker" got their own show on an American News network. What did you guys think that she was special or something? That the public relations industry wouldn't notice her challenging their power and just let it slide?

She's funded by corporations...she would not be in the position she is unless she knew the rules...she's a vanguard there to stifle debate. It's always going to be just like NPR THIS FAR and no further because you can't say and do certain things...such as challenging power.

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/12/07PARIS4723.html

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 004723

USTR FOR SUSAN SCHWAB
DEPARTMENT FOR E - REUBEN JEFFERY AND EB - DAN SULLIVAN
FROM AMBASSADOR STAPLETON

SUBJECT: FRANCE AND THE WTO AG BIOTECH CASE

¶1. (C) Summary: Mission Paris recommends that that the USG reinforce
our negotiating position with the EU on agricultural biotechnology by
publishing a retaliation list when the extend "Reasonable Time
Period" expires. In our view, Europe is moving backwards not
forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with
Austria, Italy and even the Commission. In France, the "Grenelle"
environment process is being implemented to circumvent science-based
decisions in favor of an assessment of the "common interest."
Combined with the precautionary principle, this is a precedent with
implications far beyond MON-810 BT corn cultivation. Moving to
retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to
EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.
In fact, the pro-biotech side in France -- including within the farm
union -- have told us retaliation is the only way to begin to begin
to turn this issue in France. End Summary.

¶2. (C) This is not just a bilateral concern. France will play a
leading role in renewed European consideration of the acceptance of
agricultural biotechnology and its approach toward environmental
regulation more generally. France expects to lead EU member states
on this issue during the Slovene presidency beginning in January and
through its own Presidency in the second half of the year. Our
contacts have made clear that they will seek to expand French
national policy to a EU-wide level and they believe that they are in
the vanguard of European public opinion in turning back GMO's. They
have noted that the member states have been unwilling to support the
Commission on sanctioning Austria's illegal national ban. The GOF
sees the ten year review of the Commission's authorization of MON 810
as a key opportunity and a review of the EFSA process to take into
account societal preferences as another (reftels).

¶3. (C) One of the key outcomes of the "Grenelle" was the decision to
suspend MON 810 cultivation in France. Just as damaging is the GOF's
apparent recommitment to the "precautionary principle." Sarkozy
publicly rejected a recommendation of the Attali Commission (to
review France's competitiveness) to move away from this principle,
which was added to the French constitution under Chirac.

¶4. (C) France's new "High Authority" on agricultural biotech is
designed to roll back established science-based decision making. The
recently formed authority is divided into two colleges, a scientific
college and a second group including civil society and social
scientists to assess the "common interest" of France. The
authority's first task is to review MON 810. In the meantime,
however, the draft biotech law submitted to the National Assembly and
the Senate for urgent consideration, could make any biotech planting
impossible in practical terms. The law would make farmers and seed
companies legally liable for pollen drift and sets the stage for
inordinately large cropping distances. The publication of a registry
identifying cultivation of GMOs at the parcel level may be the most
significant measure given the propensity for activists to destroy GMO
crops in the field.

¶5. (C) Both the GOF and the Commission have suggested that their
respective actions should not alarm us since they are only
cultivation rather than import bans. We see the cultivation ban as a
first step, at least by anti-GMO advocates, who will move next to ban
or further restrict imports. (The environment minister's top aide
told us that people have a right not to buy meat raised on biotech
feed, even though she acknowledged there was no possible scientific
basis for a feed based distinction.) Further, we should not be
prepared to cede on cultivation because of our considerable planting
seed business in Europe and because farmers, once they have had
experience with biotech, become its staunchest supporters.

¶6. Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target
retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a
collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the
worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and
must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an
early victory.

¶7. (C) President Sarkozy noted in his address in Washington to the
Joint Session of Congress that France and the United States are
"allies but not aligned." Our cooperation with France on a range of
issues should continue alongside our engagement with France and the
EU on ag biotech (and the next generation of environmental related
trade concerns.) We can manage both at the same time and should not
let one set of priorities detract from the other.

PARIS 00004723 002 OF 002



Stapleton

Sarzy: ever in the vanguard with all news cinematic. Well done, sir. Malick is more accessible than Kubrick while retaining all the contemplation and measured pacing. Thin Red Line is a fucking masterpiece.

@westy

I agree with you on some things, but I can't let you get away with saying Star Trek Online looks terrible, I played that game when it launched, and it looked absolutely incredible (Visually) The on-planet landscapes could've used a bit more work, but space itself was jaw-dropping at some parts.

Also, I don't know if it's just your rig or what.. but almost all MMo's have little-to-no stability issues a few months after their launch. WoW started off rocky.. whenever I played it though, I never had any lag spikes, same with my current LoTRO, previous FFXI, etc. The only exception to this was Vanguard, and that's because it wasn't finished before they were forced to launch it.. and because of that, never got the subscriptions needed to fuel its continuing development and if it hasn't already, will soon die a horrible painful death.

Anyway, back to STO, The game itself was all about star trek. They made their devs watch the entire series of every generation of star trek t.v. shows and all the movies before they were even allowed to talk about what they wanted to do with the game.

The ships were all inspired by trek-cannon, the quests had the exploration elements, and fighting of klingons, phasers, torpedos, even sexy mini-skirts. I don't see how you can really say that it had nothing to do with the universe.

Vanguard did a good segment on this same subject a few years ago. It's still on huluz for anyone interested

Fuck both Pauls. Neither one believes in civil rights, and both are good at hiding their extreme views in the closet or in plain sight with the veneer of intellectualism/principle.

It's indicative of the extremism of the Pauls that the Teabaggers think they are vanguards.

@NetRunner, you're right.

But what I said does apply to the Democrats as a whole.

There is a passive-aggressiveness about the Democratic party against its left flank that is just unbearable at times.

Again and again, they want the left of their party, which I consider the vanguard, and which they treat like the rear-guard, to just shut up and do what they're told.

I'm a big Grayson fan, and a Kucinich fan, and somehow or another we need to figure out how to put those guys at the top of the heap instead of people like Pelosi and Reid who always talk a tough fight, but bend over backwards not to offend anyone.

>> ^Krupo:
I got ME1 for five bucks on sale through Steam. You have all confirmed I might as well wait for ME2's five buck sale as well - at least I'll feel like I'm getting my money's worth.


Just to clarify, I think ME2 is a great game, and a must-buy for anyone who liked the first one.

I'm mostly expressing my disappointment that it didn't meet my outlandishly high expectations for it, and that I personally preferred the story elements and nearly linear progression of the first game.

The combat mechanics are vastly improved -- it's now basically on par with a real 3rd person cover-based shooter, and that's a plus. They've ditched a lot of the RPG elements (no inventory, and no base weapon skills to level), but I found that to be a plus as well. I hated inventory management in the first one, and hate needing to level up a skill to make my aim steady with weapons. They do still have some decisions to make as far as which of your skills you level, but it's basically a base +dmg +health skill, or one of your activatable powers.

The classes also all got revamped to make them more unique and distinctive, and having tried a Soldier & Vanguard I can say that they've definitely succeeded on that front.

They ditched the Mako, but now the exploration missions are actually interesting, instead of being bland and somewhat pointless. They also went from the 4 multi-hour missions of the first game to literally 30+ sub-hour missions that you could do in almost any order (or not do if you so choose), punctuated with 3 or 4 mandatory missions at certain intervals to move the main plot along. Supposedly they'll be releasing a hovertank as DLC, but I have no idea how that will work.

I haven't played with how many ending scenarios there are yet, but I'll mention as a minor spoiler that I'm essentially certain that every single member of your team can die in the last mission, including Sheppard himself...or you can come away without losing anyone.

I personally felt the story wasn't up to the standard set by the first game, but it was a joy to play, and I'm already well into my second playthrough, and I think I'll probably do a third run -- I wanna try out the new Infiltrator class!

Alright, brace yourself. This is gonna be long.

I've had a handheld almost as long as I can remember, we'd have SEGA Gamegears, little portable things..well, technically not little, it was like 8 inches wide and took 8 AA Batteries to power if you weren't using an AC cord.

From there I got a PSX for Christmas when I was 7, and started off playing Tomba and Jersey devil, eventually graduating to better known games like Tenchu and FFVII+

A year later, I got an N64 and Zelda OOT, had those for years and amounted a fairly impressive collection of games.

Sometime in this period I also came across the GB, GB Colour, and eventually the GBA.

When the PS2/Xbox launch came years later, I asked for a PS2 for Christmas, and for whatever reason my mom convinced me to get an Xbox (No idea why) Got DoA3 and Amped as the two games for that...a month later for my birthday I got Max Payne and Silent hill 2..which scared the everloving shit out of me.
(I was the only person who had an Xbox out of all my friends, and we played the original halo so much I had to buy 4 different copies of it because of how scratched they got)


Year after that I got a PS2 for xmas, and FFX..and probably some other stuff that I actually don't remember.

Later in 2003ish, I bought FFXI and that's what started me down the road of MMo's, I bought it for PS2 and had a special Keyboard/controller thing that hooked into the USB slot for the console.

My xbox got moded because I rarely went on live, and the mod that was placed gave me a crapton of original NES and SNES games, as well as a few PSX rips.

I also got a gamecube, prettymuch for the sole reason of Smash bro's, but I also have a copy of fire emblem kicking around somewhere.

Acquired a PsP sometime in this timeframe aswell.

When the 360 was released in 2005, I bought the "Pro" console, and a copy of oblivion to go with it.

Some months down the road, my friend got interested in MMo's too, and wanted to try WoW, so we got the $2 demo disc and went our separate ways home to install it. Well, our family only had 1 shitty computer up til that point (it was bought in 2001) and didn't have a DvD drive, so I bought my own computer..can't remember the specs, but it was basically a piece of crap.

From there I played WoW consistantly for about 2 years, and off and on for another 3.

I also decided to upgrade my video card this year..Went and bought an ATI..something, got it home, installed it myself (Was the first time i'd ever opened my computer) and found out that my computer wouldn't turn on after that. Half hour later, went back to Futureshop and the guy told me that I needed to upgrade my power supply to a 450w to power the card.. wasn't happy, but I sprung for it.

After this, I installed and tried out Vanguard (to test the new video card with a brand new MMo) the day after, I uninstalled vanguard and set it on fire.

Nov 19, 2006. Actually lined up at a walmart to buy a Wii.. worst investment of my life.

In 2007 I bought a 60G Ps3 because they went on sale due to them only making the 20 and 80 after that.

2008 my 450w power supply died, and in attempting to fix it, I managed to fry a couple other aspects of my PC, and was forced to buy a new one.

I improved it to a 750w Supply and bought an extra 2 gigs of ram, and an Nvidia 8800 GTS 512mb, and tried AoC out when it launched, then WAR.

EvE, Richard Gariotts Tabula Rasa, CoH/CoV, FFXI(pc) Pirates of the Burning Sea, EQ2, and LoTRO all fit in there somewhere, too..but not sure where. So do NDS, NDSi, and an Ipod touch.

I've got a Pre-order for Aion (yay beta key!) and i'm currently working on Empire:Total War on my PC.

Overall..I'd have to say I actually prefer FPS' on console, I prefer twich shooting with my thumbs. RTS wins out PC, and some RPG's (Fallout, ect) are also on my PC..but the majority of my games fall onto my consoles.

..Overall, i've probably got over $10,000 worth of video game crap all in one room..

Well, I don't have as much Maria Schneider as I should. (But don't tell anyone) So unfortunatley I'm not familiar with that track... at least not yet!

Well, as soon as my power points recharge you have about 5-6 videos with 9 vote, so one of them will be promoted and then you will have your star points! that is, unless you sift another video.

But I loaded my 'to promote' playist with a hole whackload of your vids and I'm not even done looking through your pqueue, which is superb btw.



In reply to this comment by jacobrecker:
In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
Woah! you have 99 star points too!

Just need that 1 star and then I have arrived

btw I love this post of yours http://www.videosift.com/video/Maria-Schneider-Jazz-Orchestra. I got her "Sky Blue" a few weeks ago. Pretty sweet. My favorite recording of Rich Perry playing is on "Absolution" from "lickity split" by the vanguard band. Have you heard that one?

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
Woah! you have 99 star points too!

Just need that 1 star and then I have arrived

btw I love this post of yours http://www.videosift.com/video/Maria-Schneider-Jazz-Orchestra. I got her "Sky Blue" a few weeks ago. Pretty sweet. My favorite recording of Rich Perry playing is on "Absolution" from "lickity split" by the vanguard band. Have you heard that one?

.......

War is evil, and in almost every case in RECENT history, its been unjust. But the soldiers play no part in whether they go to war or not, their purview in enlisting is first and foremost the protection of sovereign territories from enemies foreign and domestic.

They play no part in the political bullshit that gos on in the background, so you should do your best to remove that portion of your mind that places stigma on wars and links it to the soldiers, they play no part in the decision.

Every western nation (im not sure how other nations pay their respects to the fallen, I have to admit my ignorance on that part) pays tremendous, TREMENDOUS respects to fallen soldiers, they are the vanguard that protect our society from true evil.

Would have been much better with a vanguard of Scooter Brothers in multiplayer. I'd love to see a bank heist with that crew.