John Cleese is hardly new to this. When he and the python troop made Life of Brian, more than 35 years ago, church leaders tried hard , and in many locations succeeded in getting it banned.

Back then he did the circuits talking with religious leaders defending that he had the right to still say something even if they disagreed with it. It's worth noting, much of his support came from within Academia were young students were eager to push back against the religious leaders controlling what people should and shouldn't say in a film.

Fast forward 35 years to today, and now a new batch of young students from Academia are making the exact same fight against what should and should not be said. Professors and administrators who don't get on board are getting fired. Students who don't get on board are being expelled.

Where the religious leaders used to try and shut down criticism of their views on religion, abortion, sexual identity and other subjects, today it is SJWs trying to shut down criticism of their views on religion, abortion, sexual identity and other subjects.

Cleese is at least being even handed with calling actions out on both ends of spectrum regardless were he sits on it. It's tragic that the notion of critical thought and argument is done better by comedians than supposed leaders of thought both 35 years ago and still today.

Some bits it glosses over :

Puppet dictatorship is basically a description of every US and Soviet backed b-list nation on earth back then. The fact that it's a puppet state shouldn't be used to imply anything.
For example, the U.S.S.R. had modernization programs for its satellite states, building power plants, roads, hospitals, universities, etc, in an attempt to fast forward development and catch up with the west asap. They also did this while spouting secular rhetoric.
In a general attempt to undermine soviet efforts (*both sides tried to contain each other's influence world wide), the U.S. looked for any groups within the U.S.S.R. satellite nations that would be an 'in' for U.S. power/influence. For Afghanistan, this was the people most offended by the U.S.S.R.'s [secular] agenda, and most likely to make good on foreign anti-soviet backing - the religious Jihadists. Everyone knew very well what it would mean for the local people if Jihadists took over Afghanistan - but at the time, the soviets were considered a bigger problem than Jihadists (possibility of nuclear annihilation), so better to have Jihadists in power than soviets.

Also, Assad's release of prisoners was officially part of an amnesty for political prisoners - something the people and foreign groups were asking for.
Saying that Assad tolerated AQ or Isis is misleading. These groups gained power during the Arab spring, when a large portion of the civilian population wanted a new government, but lacked the military power to force change. Militants stepped into the situation by /graciously/ offering their military strength, in exchange for economic/resource/political support to help make it happen. After a short while, these groups coopted the entire effort against Assad. Once they were established, they simply put the people under their boot, effectively replacing Assad with something even worse within the regions they held. Assad lacked/lacks the military power and support to expel the militant groups, so they fight to a stalemate. But a stalemate is by no means tolerance.
One similarity that Syria has to Afghanistan, is that the anti-government kernel within the population that birthed the revolt, did so for anti-secular reasons. In Syria's case, it was in large part people from the region that had earlier attempted an Islamist uprising during Assad's father's reign (which was put down by the government, culminating in the 'hama massacre', leaving some intense anti-government sentiment in the region).
In any case, the available choices for power in Syria are 'political dictatorship' or 'religious dictatorship'. Whoever wins, regular people lose. It's not as if regular people have the arms necessary to force anyone to listen to them. Anyone with any brains or initiative knows that their best option is neither, so they leave (hence all the refugees).

The video also omits the ambiguous alliances in the region. Early on, you had the UAE, Saudis, and Turks supporting ISIS - because an enemy of your enemy is your friend. It wasn't until ISIS started to encroach on them that they tempered their support. Turkey remains ambiguous, by some accounts being the gateway/laundromat for ISIS oil sales... because ISIS is a solution to the 'Kurdish problem' for Turkey.
If you watch some of the VICE documentaries, you can see interviews where locals on the Turkish border say that militants and arms cross form Turkey into Syria to join ISIS every night.
Then you have countries like Iran and Syria fighting ISIS, but by official accounts these countries are the west's enemy. Recently, French leadership (after the Paris bombings) has stated that they are done playing politics, and just want to get rid of ISIS in the most practical manner possible, and are willing to work with Russia and Assad to do it.

It's worth noting that ISIS' main enemy/target is 'non Sunni Islam'. U.S./Europe tend to only mention ISIS attacks on their persons/places, and it leaves western people thinking that ISIS is against the west - but in fact the west is merely an afterthought for ISIS. For every one attack on a western asset/person, there are countless attacks on Shia, etc.

-scheherazade

Them just out of the '70s, 1980s sensibilities. Jump the river with your cop motor and FIX that cigarette lighter. I need to watch Stripes now so I can watch the sexy military police have sex with the military fuck ups. Then I'll fast forward the decade and watch Ferris Buehler not go to school.

Film in the 80s taught me about anarchy and it taught me well. Oh wait, film as media is inherently anarchistic. Aw, fuck it. Society must just stink.

That's cool. What's even more interesting is the time machine aspect.

Back in 2000 (when Clinton was still president) the US debt was 20k per citizen and actually going down. Fast forward 8 years to the end of the Bush administration and the debt has gone up to 33k, an increase of 65%. After 4 years of Obama, it's gone up to 49k, an increase of 48%.

Maybe your next president could try not starting a war in their first term?

Yeah, that wasn't really directed at you, but more at the whole "give us an objective review" cry that's been going around.

For the record, my two favourite gaming sites are bluesnews (that's how I found the sift in the first place) and rockpapershotgun, for different reasons obviously.

The reason I like blues and the issue I have with news in video format is time. I can read a days page of news on blues in well under a minute, spawning tabs of interest as I go.

Your video is 6:25 long.
First up is the BAFTA awards: it's a fairly dry list with no commentary on it. If I want that information, a link to http://awards.bafta.org/award/2015/games is a much more succinct way of presenting it.

Then some news about Hawken: cool! Hawken is awesome and I've been hoping to hear more about it.

Elder Scrolls: don't care.
Nintendo licensing agreement: don't care
Nintendo's next console: don't care

Steam refund policy change: Interesting.
Kojima to leave Konami: interesting.

The point is not what I care about or don't care about, that's going to be different for everyone. The point is I have to fast forward to the news I'm interested in and as presented, it's an inherently bad format for that.

Maybe instead of one long video have a series of shorter videos linked via annotations? Or even timecodes in the description. That way, we can jump to the stories we're interested in.

HTH

I admit, i kind of fast forwarded through this one

..and thus traveling faster then the speed of light? Suck it Einstein!

Many many moons ago when I was seventeen we started doing life drawing at my school. there were a few models they used but the most common two were a lady about thirty, nice looking, slightly plump but attractive and Alan. Alan was a thirtyish year old gay guy who was just very average looking. Physique wise he was 5' 10" or so, maybe just under 200lbs, slightly balding, wore glasses. Nothing offensive but as a seventeen year old lad I obviously started off preferring drawing boobies to schlong.

Thing is, I always drew better when drawing Alan because I just wasn't as distracted I suppose. He was a really nice guy and we got to know him pretty well over the year or so we did the class. I'd grown up doing a lot of sailing at a club with communal showers for the men so naked guys were no mystery to me. I wasn't offended by him and he certainly never did any poses like the guy in this video.

Fast forward ten years and I'm at a friend's house party. I know about half the people there and there's a lot of people from her work that I don't know. She worked at a medieval castle as a wench for their banquets and a lot of her actor colleagues were there. I kept catching the eye of this guy, forty years or so old, 5' 10" and just over 200lbs, pretty bald. You know when you get that feeling that you know someone? The face is familiar but you can't for the life of you remember where you've seen him before. Worse was the feeling that it was someone I knew quite well, not just someone I'd bumped into in the supermarket or something like that.

He looked puzzled by me too and we eventually got talking in the kitchen about where we knew each other from. We went through everything, from what we did for a job, where we'd worked, where we lived and drew blanks every time.

We went further and further back in time until he stopped, grinned and said 'you didn't go to Woodland's school did you?'

In that instant I knew exactly who he was, laughed and completely without thinking blurted 'Alan! I didn't recognise you with your clothes on!'

Of course it went quiet and I had to explain to my wife why I didn't recognise the gay guy with his clothes on (not helped by the fact that it was an all boys school). I still have paintings and drawings of him in my attic somewhere, which my wife was 'thrilled' to be shown!

Life drawing is great, and you don't need a 'fit' or attractive model. Anyone will do, in fact the more normal the better I think. It helps you look at what's there rather than any sort of ideal you might have in your head.

I've been a fan of Ninja Warrior every since watching G4's broadcast of Sasuke. And the American version is best for me on DVR where I can fast forward through the vast amounts of talking...but moments like this are why I watch the show. That was amazing. And it was nice to hear the commentators (who I agree can be scripted and boring) be genuinely surprised and excited too. It was refreshing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5MYIsARoQo

Fast forward to 2:49... Nuff said.

Usually I fast forward through live performances [I have to be there] ... this one sucked me in. You have good taste in my book

...as well as fast-forward the evolution of music. Sound and Vision peoples, HELLLLO!? Profits be-damned, the love of ART is the root of all evol-ution.

People SHOULD have a field-day with remixes and samples, ask Terminator X if he gives a FUCK about how many lawyers can BE stuffed in a casket. DIG A GIANT HOLE!!

I think this was the second or third CD my dad ever bought. I remember listening to it a lot and being dead impressed that you could just listen to whatever track you wanted without fast-forwarding the tape!

@rasch187, if you're going to post this, may as well include the epic intro too.

Probably can just fast forward to the 2:30 mark. The slow mo is pretty sick looking.
*timeshift *fire

Fast-forward to the now and you're on the same list Zinn was if you say ANYTHING online about, nouveau gestapo or the place that continues to use force to control you.
..and your mommies and daddies told you Santa was making a list and checking it twice