Halfway in, Prof. Wolff's latest monthly update is already fantastic. Nothing new, really. But his presentation of the (post-)FDR period is rather captivating. For an economist, the man really knows how to tell a story.

Edit: also, Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone finally published the sequel to his epic "Vampire Squid" story about the massive wrongdoings of the banking sector, and Goldman Sachs in particular. I haven't read it yet, but the last one was one of the most outrageous things I have read in the last 30 years. Truly epic shit.

I've watched the video a few more times now and checked out the band's other songs. I suspect based on the imagery and lyrics that the song is excoriating the Japanese government for its failures in Fukushima. The switch halfway through the song to decry Winny may be referencing the fact that despite the multiple fuck ups at Fukushima, the Japanese government last year was somehow able to get its shit together enough to pass a law criminalizing the downloading of copyrighted material.

This band is pretty cool. I've checked out their other songs and they also provide an interesting mix of social commentary and comedy. Thanks for bringing them to the Sift's attention.

*quality

Scolding? Weakest goddamn scolding ever.... should have had Key and Peele bust in halfway through the interview

I couldn't make it to the end had to stop halfway. So lame!

I don't have much interest in MMORPG's but that was a pretty cool movie, and with all that chain action going on I halfway expected to see Pinhead or some Cenobites come marching out of the dust.

Rule Number 4 of the Sift Guidlines prohibits the posting of full episodes.

4). "Please do not post entire episodes of television shows or movies, unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt they are in the public domain. --That's what BitTorrent is for. "

Please refrain from posts of this type.
I've noticed a lot of new posters lately, which is great, but please make yourselves awary of the posting guidlines which can be found halfway down the FAQ page. #37 http://videosift.com/faq

Full story on this? That looked like a real deleted scene, but if it was that would suggest that there was a pretty major script rewrite after filming that bit.

The best explanation I can muster is that it was largely a real deleted scene, but that Jar-Jar actually jumped out in the real version, and this is a fan-made edit that cut out that escape and/or CGI'ed him back into the vehicle as it went over the brink. Or I guess possibly it is all real and they were going to have him meet up with the group again later after miraculous surviving the fall -- gungan reflexes or something (hey, the film has midichlorians, so why the hell not).

If it is a fan-edit, they did one hell of a job, and started from footage I've never seen.

---
EDIT:
I googled around and came up empty. This video and blurbs about it are making the internet rounds, but nobody seems to say anything other than that it is a deleted scene and it was probably cut for "creating too many plot holes"...

That seems like a pretty huge understatement to me. Ignoring the fact that Jar-Jar appears (briefly) in Eps 2 and 3, he plays a pretty major role with a lot of screen time in the Gungans vs Droids portion of the final 3-way battle sequence at the end, which happens well after where this scene would appear in the movie (right?).

Plus, Ep. 1 is very clearly a kids movie, and it would be pretty dark to kill off your comic relief / slapstick character halfway through the movie.

Maybe they had some early warning from focus groups that Jar-Jar was going to be ... not exactly well received and decided to film this just as a joke or even to play it for those focus groups and see their reactions?

Very weird. Not that I mind seeing Jar-Jar die, but I'm quite puzzled by this!

@ChaosEngine and @artician (I will combine these two posts into one because I don't want it to be so long as I posted before.)

Chaos. Cops around these parts make about 46K to start, then max at 65K. That is without promotions. Lts. or above easily make 110K. If you make rank of command staff it is free health benefits for life. The benefits a cop has, while not free, are decent. And this isn't even the biggest area or highest paying city around here. From what I can tell this cop was making 55K, he was almost halfway to a decent retirement and had good benefits. (Really great pay if you ask me.)

Next to answer you art. Examples can be speculation. There is no inherent problem with this. Here is a real situation. A cop shoots an unarmed man on the ground. Murder? Well, possibly. Problem is his tazer was on the hip side that the gun was. In the heat of the moment he could have reasonably grabbed it and got ready to use it. That was his claim. Bam. Sad, yes. Murder? Proving that would be difficult. Manslaughter? Depends. Some States say no in a moment of adrenaline (For everyone btw.) But the outrage was enormous.

WHY IS THIS NOT IN THE TERRIBLE CATEGORY?!

You assholes ruined a great evening. You know how many "halfway-decent-evenings" I get?

God damn...

Dude forgot his lines halfway through the song.

That was so amazing that I thought it was fake halfway through. That guy is amazing.

If you like cooking segment screw-ups on late night, check out any of Craig Ferguson's. He does not give a fuck, and I sometimes wonder how the guest chef doesn't just walk out on him halfway through.

1) "The Democratic Party in Europe would be a far-right party".

I don't think it would be. A decade ago, yes. But not today.

Look at what Blair (Labour) and Schröder (SPD) did to the left-of-center parties in their respective countries: they moved to the right, significantly. And by doing so, the entire political sphere was pushed to the right. Tory and CDU, the former right-of-center parties are not that different from the Democratic Party, nowadays at least.

The French are still holding on to the alignment of their political system. However, the austerity enforced by conservative moralists, mainly the troika of IMF/ECB/EU Commision as well as the German establishment, is putting immense pressure on Hollande to "encourage" a political shift to the right.

2) Resistance from within the political system.

We have two of these parties in this country, parties that, to some degree, oppose the establishment in areas of significance. They manage to mitigate some of the damage the establishment tries to inflict upon society, but if we're honest about it, most of it is only postponed by a comparatively short period of time. One might even argue that it's just for show so that the illusion of choice is kept up...

In any case, they cannot create the level of fear neccessary to keep the other parties in check. For that to change, the ownership structure in traditional media would have to be changed, radically. As of now, the marginalisation of anti-establishment forces is working effectively and any attempts at meaningful change are demonised.

3) A recently published document by JP Morgan illustrates just how openly their efforts against democratic societies are being waged these days:

Political systems around the [European] periphery typically display several of the following features: weak executives; weak central states relative to regions; constitutional protection of labour rights; consensus building systems which foster political clientalism; and the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo.

The shortcomings of this political legacy have been revealed by the crisis.

JP Morgan: there's excess of democracy in Southern Europe that needs to be trimmed.

Political systems around the periphery typically display several of the following features: weak executives; weak central states relative to regions; constitutional protection of labour rights; consensus building systems which foster political clientalism; and the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo.

The shortcomings of this political legacy have been revealed by the crisis.

These guys are almost awesome yet i always just find them more annoying and tune out halfway through.