To save everyone the click...

Definition of Sardoodledom
Mechanically contrived plot structure and stereotyped or unrealistic characterization in drama : STAGINESS, MELODRAMA

The authors of the world's great plays are not mere tricksters in Sardoodledom
— John Mason Brown

Named for Victorien Sardou, a 1908 French playwright criticized by G. B. Shaw for the supposed staginess of his plays.

Next word: Haboob.

Oh yeah, libel per se is a -bitch- if you're nailed with it. In libel per quod ("lost-cause libel"), you have to prove damages. Generally, this is what prevents people from filing lawsuits every time someone calls them a dick on 4chan.

Libel per se is different. Oh, it is SO different. Libel per se means y'all fucked up. Y'all fucked up BAD. In LPS, what you printed was such bullshit and so obviously damaging, the plaintiff don't have to prove SHIT; they sort-of name a figure and the judge works from that.

In the case of Dominion, I'm 99% certain it'll be LPS. Also, the Gold Standard defense against libel -- what you printed is actually true -- will not apply here, and it'd be comedy gold if the defendants actually tried this defense. At that point, the three fastest winds ever recorded on the planet would be Typhoon Li, Hurricane Katrina and the explosive laughter and legal pimp slap from the bench. It'd make Rudy's immense clusterfucks in court seem like goddamn Perry Mason cross-examining a 6-year-old.

It gets better.

So, on the billion-to-one chance you win a libel per quod suit, you get "damages", which can be surprisingly little as you have to prove every single dollar in very narrow legal ways. Libel per se, on the other hand, is the BIG PRIZES. Your ass is at least catching dollar damages that would make Jerome Powell say "Y'all niggas need to tone them digits down, yo!". Those damages are ANYTHING THE COURT DECIDES. Again, LPS means the plaintiff doesn't have to prove a single dime of loss to claim damages of damned near any amount. Given that Dominion is asking for a cool bil-point-something, I wouldn't be hugely surprised if another zero wasn't slapped on the end of that figure.

That's just the "actual" damages. If you egregiously fucked up, like claiming a company overthrew a US election and was in league with a dead dictator, you get to spin the wheel of punitive damages. Punitive damages are how the court hands out spankings, only they're not spankings, they're that scene from 12 Years A Slave, only with less tickles and kittens. Given the shitstorm that followed the lies about Dominion, those damages could make the initial billion-dollar claim look quaint.

(By the way, you can't discharge the settlement in bankruptcy, given that libel per se is considered 'malicious', meaning the laughter from the judge presiding over your initial case will be roughly 1/10,000th the laughter coming from the bankruptcy judge.)

If I was Newsmax, OAN, Fox News, Rush or Alex, I'd be lawyering up but good, because the Wrath of Fucking God is coming and there ain't no rock big enough to hide behind.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of traitorous, America-hating, back-stabbing cocksuckers (and good luck to them on their per quod claim should they decide to sue me over the previous statement).

The original Markus Kloos short story it's taken explores the anthropormorphized relationship between a pilot and a ship in a superstitious and interesting way...The wartime autobiographical memoir that the genre seems taken from is similar to Robert Mason's book on his experience as a Vietnam era Huey pilot---"Chickenhawk"...

Your video, Arnaldo Costa, Stone Mason Extraordinaire, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Wait... my wife sent me this video -- fucking biiii... I mean -- freaking biscuits. Those darned biscuits and stuff. I'm sorry, honey bunny. Please don't murder me in my sleep, kthanx. You know, you been watching all that NCIS and CSI and Bones and Poirot and Midsomer Murders and old reruns of Columbo and Perry Mason and Murder Sheee -- OH MY GOD, MY WIFE IS GOING TO KILL ME

He did. He posted the yelp page and told them to leave messages.

And the "1:1" example was referencing the above video.. the one you're commenting under. The one titled "The New Wave of YouTube 'Skeptics", not the article. Which is why I said as such.

And I don't think one person calling up Mason's work is a good thing nor should it be condoned, but I also don't consider it on par with doxxing someone and sending your 400,000 followers after them. Which, doxxing someone isn't just "amusement". If you actually cared about harassment, like you want to claim with calling this woman's actions harassment, maybe you wouldn't equivocate on that.

And the reason I'm willing to draw a link to trolls and MRA-wackjobs and Mason is because: Those are his fans. Those are the people he pointed at this woman's yelp page. Those are the people that followed his target de-jour and doxxed them.

The reason I'm not willing to do that for Sarkeesian is because: I don't really care about Sarkeesian, she didn't post where Mason worked/his works contact info/told people to comment directly to him. AFAIK, there is basically no connection between Sarkeesian and this woman other than "well I guess they're both left-ish on the political spectrum".

But hey, I think it's pretty obvious which side your bread is buttered on and this isn't so much a dispute about the original topic (Poor examples of youtube "skeptics") any more, so my interest is waning.

I don't really care what his fans said on Twitter or anywhere else for that matter. Unless he explicitly instructed them to go out and harass somebody you can't realistically hold him responsible for the actions of others.

1:1 example? Were we even reading the same article? The bulk of the article describes how the Baphomet board on 8chan used publicly available information, possibly gleaned from thunderf00t's video, or perhaps not, to target Jennifer Keller and her business. The folks over at Baphomet were really just doing this for their own amusement, here's a quote from the article.

" I'll save the trouble that I'm a bit of a thunderfag and while I understand he's a cucked shithole obsessed with Anita Scamkeesian, the fact they will get him fired merely on the base of their hurt feelings kind of ticked me off. "

I should also take a moment to point out that Jennifer Keller aka 'Laughing Witch' on YouTube along with others engaged in a letter writing campaign to try and get Phil Mason 'thunderf00t' fired from his job. Now I don't know about you, but I would call that harassment. I find that kind of behavior unacceptable no matter which side you are on. But there she was, down in the trenches slinging shit right along side the other trolls and misanthropes.

As for specious arguments, the focus on minor details and painting whole groups of people with a broad brush, Sarkeesian and company do all of these things. Sarkeesian criticizes an industry and thunderf00t attacks her criticisms and questions her rationale. But supporters will try to draw attention away from his arguments by calling it an attack on her.

You want to hold thunderf00t responsible for the actions of trolls and MRA wack-jobs, but are you willing to hold Sarkeesian responsible for the actions of feminism's lunatic fringe?

Then you haven't encountered any of his fans on twitter.

And he is pretty much the largest and most 1:1 example the above video is referencing: He uses specious arguments, focuses on minor details or extreme examples to paint with a massive brush, and generally is more vitriol than skepticism.

And the difference between Sarkeesian making videos critiquing and thunderf00t is myriad: Sarkeesian focuses on depictions and media, thunderf00t focuses on indviduals and a very amorphous idea of "feminism" with videos like "Why feminism is poisoning atheism", "Why 'feminism' poisons EVERYTHING", all pretty much completely obsessed with Sarkeesian and Rebecca Watson.

That's not skepticism.. that's a creepy personal vendetta.

The other major difference are their fans. I don't recall Sarkeesian ever taking out a personal vendetta against a random person and suggesting her fans bombard their business on Yelp with bad reviews and then people on the doxxing boards of 8chan joined in the online attacks.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/25/1439148/-Phil-Mason-is-Working-With-Baphomet-to-Ruin-DC-Business

I mean, it's not quite as simple as "one person makes videos critiquing, another makes videos critiquing". But I feel like you probably already knew that.

I just watched Paul Mason's interview with Varoufakis and it's been rather depressing. Most of what he says is perfectly reasonable given the structural confines of the EZ. But it's all based on a belief in "mutual interests", a belief that negotiations can, and will, lead to a "mutually beneficial deal" with the financial inquisition.

Not sure if he's just adhering to his role as FinMin or if he truly believes it. I'd say it's a questionable assumption at best. From over here, it certainly looks like the creditors' position is "pay up, bitch!", end of story. Schäuble is not going to compromise, the majority of parliament is all in on neoliberalism and most of the electorate either doesn't care or even consents. Merkel might agree to a deal, given how she holds no convictions whatsoever except that being in power is better than not being in power. But Schäuble cannot be reined it with half the party being in lockstep with his actions.

No deal worth signing. Either full capitulation or they'll continue this charade with their buddies from PASOK and ND.

Depends on what their goal is.

If they aim, as some suggested, to change the Zeitgeist before they even attempt to change the politics, a stone mason's approach might be the only option they have: working the cleavage between pro- and anti-austerity players. Getting Schäuble and Dieselboom to play hardball, publicly, puts those two at odds with significant elements within France.

Then again, might as well be a combination of inexperience and a shitty hand. Time will tell...

Paul Mason's reporting on this entire farce has been sublime, just like AEP's over at the Telegraph and YS's at NakedCapitalism.

And yes, that guy is representative of the views of our government as well as of significant parts of parliament. Pacta sunt servanda, there's a moral obligation to pay for your sins (debt = sin), and expansionary austerity works.

Economic creationists, loads and loads of 'em. And that's not even the worst of it. There are also plenty of folks who are eager to use debt as a means to extract resources and to subjugate entire countries -- colonialism redux.

Contrary to what they would have you believe, this is NOT an academic group of scholars, but is actually a right wing political organization that has a home at George Mason University (but is not affiliated with or supported by Mason) dedicated to showing how a 'free market economy can solve any problem'.

From their web page: As the name implies, Mercatus (market in Latin) research focuses on how markets solve problems.

EDIT: Nice, I like the downvote for shining a light on your source with information from their own website. Keeping it classy!

Very true, nowadays I don't see why anyone would want to smoke it.

I have a cheap old EZ Vape plug in wall version next to bed for occasional weekend use. I want a Volcano but too expensive course I'm more a light user.

I grow my own, I keep 1 mason jar filled or half, growing 2 every few months in closet using cfl

We've been on a bunch of dates
I weigh debates that this creates
And hate that state of forced introspection
We traded wit, we swapped some spit,
You fingered me a little bit
But we never really had a connection

You did nothing wrong, I have no excuse
Just my intuition telling me we shouldn't reproduce

I know I have to end it
But pretend to just suspend it
By contending that I'm busy all week
I let the foregone linger on
Text back with an emoticon
Withdraw from you by being oblique

Inside I know my tactics just delay it
But I'd do anything so I don't have to say it

I'll draw this out forever like it's Vietnam
Then one day I'll be gone like Bambi's mom Awww

Cause there's the right thing to do
Then there's what I'm gonna do
There's so much I should say
But instead... I do the fade away

Now I'm fading like chalk on a sidewalk
Or the polio virus after Jonas Salk
Like a Jewish guy at Sizzler on Yom Kippur
The Whig party post Millard Fillmore

The erection of a man on antidepressants
The cast of Diff'rent Strokes after adolescence
Reproductive rights below the Mason Dixon
Native Americans after the barter systems
Your thyroid gland after Hashimoto
The family in the Back to the Future photo
Yeah I fade away

We say that men are asshole who don't communicate
We revel in our victimhood and amplify our hate
We find ways to be indignant like it's a sport
Then dissect their malignance with the views we distort

The way men break up may be sloppy and terse
What they do is bad, but what we do is worse

We pretend to ourselves it's the nice thing to do
To let you down gently by just not ever telling you
And deep down we know it's the worst way to play it
But we are what we have... huge pussies

And women are hypocrites
Especially ones in comedy bands
We see your faults but not our own
Then we wonder why we're all alone

We fill you up with maybe's, excuses and stalls
But like a baby in China... it's better to have balls

Not the Good Wife type like Christine Baranski
So I'll pull out and leave like I'm Roman Polanski

Cause there's the right thing to do
Then there's what I'm gonna do
There's so much I should say
But instead... I do the fade away

Like Verbal Kint fading into Kaiser Soze
The rights in Arizona for a guy named Jose
Opportunities for a college grad
The love between your mom and dad
Gonna Peter out like a gay Cetera
Iranian relations since the Regan era
Black Nike sales after Heaven's Gate
Summer Camp attendance at Penn State
The name Adolph after World War Two
Like Debbie Gibson's pop career, Out of the Blue
Yeah I fade away

Cause I don't wanna get to know you
I just want to blow you... off