I've seen most of the GitS material incl. the comics & anime. I actually found the Hollywood adaptation watchable.... because I placed it in its own little isolated corner and the lowest of expectations -- Hollywood, blockbuster, skin-deep sci-fi... and I came out much relieved it wasn't as bad as the critics said. At least I had a nostalgia blast from the visuals. My blockbuster movies watching has evolved into a state of "don't care to be angry/don't pay to watch at the theatre/ just wait them out to be on Netflix/clearance DVD BluRay)

Seriously... how can anyone expect anything of above average depth from a Hollywood blockbuster anymore? Don't be silly and set yourself up for disappointment.

I can totally understand their reasons for risk-aversion. From their perspective, they got burned too many times financially (not saying it's not their own doing) to make films that demand thoughtfulness from the audience. I just don't believe in Hollywood will give us anything deep anymore for these big budget films...

Yeah... I can understand laughing at it the first time when it's unexpected because it's pretty funny, but making her try it again and again while continuing to laugh at her isn't very nice. She is clearly frightened and confused. Leads to more social anxiety, leads to more isolation, leads to worse dementia.

What pressure, exactly, is he exerting against China or N Korea?
As I understand it, he talked to the Chinese leaders for 10 minutes and declared this problem more difficult than anyone knew, like health care, and had no suggested solutions.

Also, yes, a joint UN statement, especially one with threats of sanctions, has been useful in the past to move nations in the direction we want them to move....or to isolate them like Iran. Instead, you seem to be defending Trump's lack of leadership by implying he would never uselessly grandstand....um.....have you seen him in action? Useless grandstanding and spouting off at the mouth is about all he does.

Your video, Japan EarthQuake Server Room Seismic Isolation Floor, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

WTF, seriously?!

Dude, Trump was warned by Obama and Yates multiple times not to trust Flynn.

Remember, Trump had the "best people".

Big whoop? And you're talking about this in isolation. His former campaign manager is in deep crap as well for Russian connections. There are lower level people as well connected to the Trump campaign.

This isn't a liberal witch hunt at this point. A special prosecutor independent of the executive must be appointed now. I can't think of a single good reason why there shouldn't be one at this point now that Trump fired the head of the FBI.

This isn't about party. This is about preserving our democracy now.

Huh; did not know that. Electronically isolated or mechanically?

Your video, Grace Slick Vocals Isolated - White Rabbit, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Grace Slick Vocals Isolated - White Rabbit has been added as a related post - related requested by Fantomas on that post.

Again,

If you want to take a book of rules and ignore it take American law and only read a portion of it like:
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death

I suppose that in isolation suggests that American law justifies citizen's pulling out a gun and shooting people providing comfort to Americas enemies. Of course, if you read the WHOLE of American law you find there are things about due process and courts and other checks and balances in place. In fact, that the naive original reading is completely the anti-thesis of what American law advocates.

The point of course being that is EXACTLY the same thing you've done with the bible by entirely ignoring the existence of other parts in that address alter, or provide context on the pieces you picked out. You know, like some guy named Jesus that came along later and some folks have made a big deal about following the teachings of.

don't forget to vote for your own video

https://videosift.com/video/Isolation-Mind-Field-Ep-1

Wut?

Edit: Oh I see what you mean now. It's because of how the video has been cut together. "She" made sense in the original lecture as a follow on from what he was talking about before.

I can see why it seems funny in isolation though now I've noticed it.

@radx and @enoch

radx said:
Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive.

enoch said:
i have considered his works and found them informative and reflective of our current situation.

just as i have found:howard zinn,noam chomsky,amy goodman,jeremy scahill,laura poitrus,glenn greenwald,paul jay,richard d wolffe.

All of the outlets and authors listed above have been very thorough or exhaustive in documenting the evils of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). The length, depth and detail they have all given and time spent documenting any and every instance is almost breath taking. For a long time, I sort of sat closer to you both by looking at the merits of each instance and case weeding through which stories were accurate, which ones were complete, which ones were misleading or fair. Lots and lots of the coverage from those groups and individuals were very accurate.

Here's the counter balance though, how much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to any positive outcomes of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). How much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to the evils of any alternatives or opposing forces that would or did fill the voids were America isn't involved? It's crickets all around.

Chomsky's work alone could fill a library with the thorough documenting of America's evil corporate execution of class war on the workers of the world. How many books and documentaries can we count form the entire group that attempt anything similar for China, Russia, Middle Eastern nations, heck, the rest of the world combined?

I don't draw attention to this to point out that anything they have all observed is even wrong or incorrect. I draw attention to the glaring omission of similar documentation of alternatives. As it stands, a country like Russia couldn't dream of a better and more effective propaganda coup than the work of these groups and individuals. That doesn't in anyway say any of them are in allegiance with Russia, or even like anything about Russia. It still stands that even if Russia set out to discredit and smear America and leave itself looking clean, it couldn't pay people to do a better job of it. That's something worth considering and the deep, deep absence of balance and perspective that the listed sources represent is DAMAGING when taken in isolation.

Perhaps more pointedly, is the problem with Breitbart merely with it's fact checking department? They are, in as close as investigated them both, about on a Howard Zinn level for accuracy/honesty. None the less, it's the facts they willingly and knowingly leave out that makes them so damaging. The fact they fall right wing instead of left wing doesn't make their damage so much more appalling to me.

Sounds like an exercising in rearranging the furniture on the Titanic to me.

In a world where discrimination and separatism is qualitatively and quantitatively on the rise, people in charge must be ecstatic that they can appease people without having to do anything meaningful that might piss off the extremists on the right, or "shareholders". And people are so used to being told that change is only possible through incremental adjustments that they'll eat it up like candy and think this is progress.

"People people people, if you're going to call someone a filthy tranny and throw fast food at xem on public transport, at least use the proper pronoun when you verbally abuse xem."

When there's a hole in the boat and you're taking on water, the least of your concerns should be about what language you use to describe the in-rushing water or shape of the hole, nor arguing over the colour of the material you use to repair it.

I'm sure some people will see this as a victory. Until next time they apply for a job and not get hired due to transphobia. And the manager of the company, with a gleam in their eye, begins the rejection letter with 'Dear bun/bunself', then sniggers to themselves and says "fucking trannies."

What I'm trying to say was summed nicely in a tweet i saw the other day:
ALTRIGHT/NEO NAZI: your all going to the gas chambers!!!
NEOLIBERAL: you're*

If this is the extent of what activism is able to achieve, i should say that the establishment/elite have won by pacifying and declawing the protesters. It's no longer about breaking the shackles of oppression. We can't go around breaking shackles everywhere - think of the effect on the economy? And what about people getting hit by shrapnel? No, instead the LGBTQ community will be given multi coloured chains, the black community will be given slightly longer chains, and we'll pad the shackles with silk so that everyone is much more comfortable. Don't complain about the concept of being chained, instead complain that your chain is not as nice as the next guy's chain.

It's as though the great struggle of protest and civil disobedience has been taken over by the liberal intelligentsia, and the worst kind of discrimination faced by a 20 year old middle-class university student with rainbow coloured dreadlocks and a nose piercing is the letter they receive about their student loan that begins "dear sir/madam". So they go out and march about it and think they've made progress when they get their own pronoun. In their life, in their experiences, they are treated equally in other respects, so they think they ARE fighting inequality.

But for the working class male or female transsexual who gets filthy looks and a seat isolated by themselves on public transport, to travel to their entry level job where they've been skipped over for promotion for not looking the part, or getting the right level of respect from the trans-phobic staff, getting snide whispered comments from customers about the size of their hands, getting abuse yelled at them as they travel to have a night out at the ONLY trans-friendly bar within a 20 mile radius....... I get the feeling that receiving a letter with the correct pronoun isn't exactly going to change their fucking lives.

To remove a weed, you go for the roots. Some wanker calling you him/her when you prefer bun/bunself is not the root of this problem. The problem is that they are trans-phobic, not the language - which is just the tool they use to discriminate against you. To change the language and think that you've won is a bit like redefining room temperature and claiming you've warmed everybody by a few degrees.

If you march for equal rights, fair pay, fair treatment then people are going to see that and join your protest because they also want those things. Those things will solve the problems faced by the trans community, feminists, masculinists, minorities alike! And through common goals and by supporting each other en masse for simple, unified goals like EQUALITY, progress will be made, change will happen. It is a concept called solidarity and seems to be going out of fashion, but our grandparents knew.

The objective for the establishment is to drive a wedge between groups of people so that their demands are more manageable, and they can be turned on each other. Feminists, masculinists, LGBT, everyone... can't you see how better off you'd be marching together for common values that lie at the core of what every human wants?

Wall of text, sorry... and I know it looks like i'm being insensitive. So congratulations, genuinely, for getting someone to use your preferred pronoun if that makes you feel better. But whilst people have been fighting tooth and nail to get their own pronoun (in civilised settings only), we've suffered huge leaps backwards in freedom and tolerance behind their backs whilst they were bent over intently concentrating on the finer detail of what their ideal equality looks like.

This isn't one of those things you can discuss in isolation. There does exist the problem of violent criminals that refuse to listen to any and all authority. When you have free citizen that murders somebody, if you are lucky enough to catch and convict them they go to jail. Some of these folks continue to violently attack other inmates. Some even continue to violent attack the prison guards when they come in to try and stop that. There comes a point where the question is what to we do? Just how many resources do we expend working with individuals hell bent on abusing the rights and bodies of everyone else around them? Western legal systems have already ruled any form of punishment through physical force as out of the question, so self preservation isn't a motivation. There exist scenarios where the only option left for protecting people from an individual is isolation.

It's good to do our best to treat even the worst elements of society with the highest standard possible. The trouble is in practice failing to punish certain actions with imprisonment or isolation leads to predictable abuse of otherwise innocent bystanders.

This is why I don't watch previews at all. (Once I decide that I want to watch the movie at least.) This scene mostly worked in the context of the movie where they were escalating this effect over time, but in isolation it does look a bit silly.