Lots of friends and family that love the show, but I never could get into it. So no love for it or urge to defend it. Also having not watched much of it I don't know how good/bad this aspect of the show is. However, I've stopped watching the video at the 7 minute mark as it feels an awful lot like an over analysis of flawed characters. When a show has flawed characters, and something like their ignorance, or sexism is exhibited in a way that the audience is supposed to laugh AT the flaws I don't see that as insidious.

Correct me if the rest of the video has more vulgar examples/clips but it sounds to me like protesting too much.

Fascinating analysis of a *quality song.

And the solo damn near brings me to tears everytime I hear it. Such an amazing piece of playing... as he says, it's not super technical, but the feel Gilmour puts into every bend.... it's magic.

Also, it's insanely cool that you can play it in harmony with itself.

We all get the duality of this. I had a bad feeling, but then an even worse feeling kicked in... I should do a cost-benefit analysis. I already hate myself for sinking into management-speak. But...

Guy on phone: only obvious benefit is lording this over his bully. It feels really good, especially when broadcast. Maybe some residual guilt. Got to take into account that, whatever his original intention, his reaction was from the gut.

Bully: unknown. Depends on what kind of person he is now, years after. Probably angry. Possibly feels bad about what just happened to his mother.

Mother: no benefit. Probably feels raped. Possibly was raped, depending on your definition. Possible shame over what her son did. Comment of "you probably deserved it" could be genuine, or could be severe defensiveness.

Radio station:
OK, I can't be objective here. It's possibly mostly live, they maybe feel an obligation to entertain, they have little control, but fuck those guys. I just hope they apologised afterwards.

Personal analysis: doing the deed isn't cool, given the innocent victim. Laughing about it on the air is understandable, but fucked up. Broadcasting it, laughing, and celebrating the outcome - whoever you are - is disgusting.

That is where I ended up, too.

Missing from your analysis is that black people buy a lot more air freshener than white people (how do I know this weird fact? haven't a clue.)

So the cynical piece is bigger for me.

And.

Yeah. Get that message out there. Educate, educate, educate.

Spot on analysis. Don't get me wrong--I loves me some Iron Giant, but the point of the book is that everything significant in the Oasis (and thus significant to the Gunters) were things from Halliday's childhood in the 1980s. I do not doubt that an older Halliday would react to The Iron Giant positively, but it's against his thesis that the 1980s were a wonderful time to be a child.

By Joel Clement July 19 at 4:10 PM

Joel Clement was director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Interior Department until last week. He is now a senior adviser at the department’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

I am not a member of the deep state. I am not big government.

I am a scientist, a policy expert, a civil servant and a worried citizen. Reluctantly, as of today, I am also a whistleblower on an administration that chooses silence over science.

Nearly seven years ago, I came to work for the Interior Department, where, among other things, I’ve helped endangered communities in Alaska prepare for and adapt to a changing climate. But on June 15, I was one of about 50 senior department employees who received letters informing us of involuntary reassignments. Citing a need to “improve talent development, mission delivery and collaboration,” the letter informed me that I was reassigned to an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies.

*quality *promote

John's analysis of the Where We Are in America is riveting.

Funny and not funny.

LOL. Dumbest assumption of the month. No seriously.

I'm not "telling @newtboy that he doesn't know anything about it except for hearsay" - I'm pointing out what he has already admitted (hopefully you can see the difference). If I've read the bible and don't remember 100% of it (fucking please - I was clear that my knowledge wasn't eidetic) and you compare it to someone who hasn't read it at all - then that is a false equivalence. If you're going to try and call out some form of hypocrisy, you should probably get your argument right.

Pick any book you've read and I'll find something you don't know in it. I won't suddenly argue that "you don't know what it actually says", because that is not true. You would have limited knowledge, like every human, on every topic that has ever been.

Has your self-confessed atheism brought you peace? Are you an angry atheist? Are you vegan? Lol. I'm guessing that you googled every verse you quoted. So how much of the knowledge is yours?

As above - the bible read by itself without the context of Tradition becomes untenable. And literal interpretations are often incorrect.

No, I didn't argue that those verses you quoted don't say something along the lines of him being all powerful - they clearly do. I don't have issue with that. They say what they say.

I'm making my own analysis and argument of your examples (not referring to the verses), and the verses (separate from your examples). Do you have a problem with that? Are you calling the Bible fact? Or are you saying that the definitive interpretation of those passages is what you say it is and that is the "fact"? Or that those passages say what they say (and this is the fact) regardless of whether they are true or not? Not that you're unclear or anything.

I see you agree with my statements. Yet you go and make all these assumptions. Go figure.

Hey I'm sure whatever system you come up with will be heaps better than anything that's gone before. I hear all the 20th century attempts worked out really well.

KaptainKristian and David Fincher? Two of my favourites!

So yay to *quality analysis and *promote excellent film-making!

more David Fincher orsumness
*related=https://videosift.com/video/David-Fincher-And-the-Other-Way-is-Wrong

and more on how to use CGI well (including several examples from this video)
*related=https://videosift.com/video/Why-CG-Sucks-Except-It-Doesnt

This is Monty Python we're talking about. The fans overthink everything. We put the 'anal' into over-analysis.

Case in point, here are a few things that may or may not be relevant that he missed:
1) We see Bedevere tying coconuts to birds' legs to distribute them, as per the first castle scene.

2) When God talks to Arthur, both are played by Graham Chapman. Does this mean God is only in his/your own mind? The other knights react to what they see, but don't talk to him or reference anything he says.

3) You can see that when the black knight is down just just the one leg, he's actually played by a one-legged local instead of by Cleese.

There's lots of this rubbish, and we love it. I only just made up number two (although it is true).

As a bonus, here's a relevant XKCD:
https://xkcd.com/16/

While I'm in no position to buy from Monsanto, and don't know enough to advocate for or against them, the troubling impression I have of them is their business practices. This is why I had a quick look through that contract analysis.

It reminded me of something I am familiar with: software. You often have clauses that prohibit analysis or reverse engineering of software. Like the farmer doing the Monsanto contract analysis I [almost always] have no interest in doing that reverse engineering, but I definitely want others to be able to so they can look for things like security holes.

Having the attitude of 'this contract is fine because it doesn't restrict me from anything I want or would expect to do' is completely understandable, but can hide some of the real issues.

I love the Kurzgesagt videos, and again here they impress me by mentioning the issues with these companies, while completely separating it from the issue being analysed.

I think Sam Harris is awesome, so there was a lot of interesting stuff in there even though it came from before the election.

I agree with everything he said about who Trump is; his motivations (or lack thereof), narcissism, potential psychological issues, etc. Yet I disagree with his threat analysis. I still think that Trump's "balloon flying around randomly" presidency seems like it could easily be better than a Clinton presidency.

Trump will cause some incidental damage with his chaotic randomness. But basically, it will be 4 years (please) of loud noises and flashing lights that mostly goes nowhere. Hillary, with all the baggage and rumors etc. that may not true, is still in general the kind of person that people like Hitchens said she was. She's savvy, subtle, and frankly dangerous. And she's extremely well connected. When Trump randomly bungles his way into some big screw-up, we're going to hear about it. If Hillary weaseled into some dirty back-door stuff that could cause real long-term problems, there's a good chance we'd never find out about it.

Then he mentioned the "Trump vs random US citizen" argument. Jesus, I'd have taken random US citizen in a heartbeat over Trump or Clinton. Hell, I think that would be a fantastic way to call a mulligan and replace every last member of our corrupt, incompetent, and entrenched congress...

Nothing is ever simple. I'm just not properly explaining what I was saying -- Jon Stewart went off and did his public speaking, crowd organizing thing with this belief in something that he couldn't quite define. He lost his mojo, in a way, saw that he was naked, bereft of his staff. Any talking/figure head with a staff of writers or information feeders can be comparable to other leaders of a similar make up. Trump and Stewart are reality tv stars of a similar make up.

Dag suggested that the writers of the Daily Show are what created Jon Stewart as we know hom, and so I ran with the idea that he, like the figurehead and reality star, Donald Trump, are products of other people's opinions -- this, when left to their own devices, while successful entertainers, they realize the emperor's clothes are transparent and now they have to rely on their own smaller slice of knowledge. Not that Stewart is dumb, but Stewart without writers and correspondents, is a similar archetype to Trump. Stewart's writers and correspondents, including the man whose show he is on in this clip, are akin to the media that Donald Trump treats like his writing staff. But instead of leaving the Daily Show, Trump is leaving *most* of the media, revealing he is not as knowledgeable without his sources.

Anyway, I was following the logic as laid down by dag's logic for why Jon isn't as funny or put together. I also know that good leaders put themselves in other people's shoes before giving advice to other leaders. Stewart MUST do this because he is a decent figurehead, but Trump doesn't -- that's why the media questions him on what biographies he is reading; leaders are supposed to put themselves into their rivals AND heros shoes as a matter of critical self analysis -- so, Stewart is speaking to the media almost as if he is also putting himself in Trump's shoes and speaking about how his own writing staff and correspondent's left him and succeeded.

Stewart has a 4 year contract with HBO. He will have the structure and writing teams he needs. Trump should utilize the media, including books and newspapers, and follow the subtext Jon laid out here.

Edited for spelling, grammatical errs and additional context. Done editing.

The examples in this video (picture wise) are bad.

A big point in 'the prince' was that one needs to appear as a good person, regardless of whether or not you are or are not good.

Hence the best examples would be people who were perceived as virtuous, when they behind the scenes were sometimes not [when they needed to be not virtuous in order to achieve their goals].

Showing plenty of examples of people historically perceived as villains, is actually not the point. In fact, Machiavelli makes a point of how being perceived as bad runs a high risk of ending your reign.

One example in the book is of a ruler who assigns a man to ruthlessly crush disorder in a city. The man ruthlessly crushes disorder, and earns the hatred of the citizens. The ruler comes to the city, kills the man (cuts off his head and takes it out to show people), and claims to have liberated the people from this abusive man. In doing so, he both swiftly eliminates the disorder, demonstrates his authority, and ends up appearing as the good guy (one who cares for the suffering of the people and earns the people's appreciation).




The prince is a historical case study of different rulers throughout history, their circumstances, their intentions, their actions, and their success/failure, and what functional elements interconnected these factors. It's a game theory analysis for monarchs. Primarily technical (morality outside of its scope, morality being neither promoted nor admonished).

(The prince was not Machiavelli's personal opinion of how one should act - he personally preferred virtue and the republic. Personal preference was not the point of 'the prince'.)

-scheherazade

Mark Blyth is my third favorite Scot, right after two brothers who are dear friends of mine. After his famous interview for Athens Live, every video of his released by the Watson Institute has pretty much been a must-watch, particularly his takes on "The Deplorables" and the Front Nationale.

I got his book "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea" after it was praised heavily over at NakedCapitalism 3-4 years ago -- to me, there is no bigger compliment for an economist than praise by Yves and the commentariat over at NC.

His takes on the mercantilism of Germany are among the best, and by far the clearest. Bill Mitchell had some great pieces on it as well, but Blyth's capacity for facilitating understanding of these concepts is on a different level entirely.

So do I disagree with him on parts of his economic analysis? Yes, but only on the fringes where MMT/functional finance is concerned.

Check out the companion talk to his book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQuHSQXxsjM

And a recent bit:
https://youtu.be/vGiHiZyKuAE?t=43m2s (juicy, this one)