A bold strategy of non-stop baffling stupidity worked wonders for trump though. . .

It seems republican voters are just in the mood for a brawl, and a demonstration of force like this is just the sort of thing that turns them on.

Hitting a dog always kills the mood.

(edit) from the description it seems the dog they hit was already dead.

What kills me is they thought this video was somehow worthy of posting on yt for everyone to see.

Cenk Uygur can become tiresome, but he was pretty good last night in their coverage and kept my attention well, i was actually quite impressed. I really don't care for the rest of the lineup though. The guy on the right is the epitome of impotent rage, stumbling over his words, making complicated points poorly, a fretting, nervous, often very pink man in an ill fitting suit. At times reminded me of the main character from Limitless at his drug-binge/mental breakdown apex, with tight claustrophobia inducing collars riding up around his neck, the crispness of which contrasting and highlighting the beads of sweat, speaking too quickly and spitting. The guy on the left thinks he's 10 times cooler than he is, which is all the more annoying because he is actually a little bit cool - if he didn't think he was so cool, he'd be pretty cool! I could handle Sarkeezian's imperious hauteur - hell i'd find it very attractive - if it wasn't so obviously an act. She found herself compelled to leave the studio for a stiff drink at some point, presumably to bask in the moment when she theatrically interrupted the depleted panel and announced her actions proudly, claiming she was now in a feisty mood before ranting at types of people she blamed. I even think she used some kind of tv-friendly profanity; if you have the wherewithal to soft-censor your 'uncontrolled' outburst, you're faking it. Whatever kind of Don Draper scene she'd staged to pad her portfolio of career highlights, her disappointing final rant meandered down well trodden paths.

I had a best friend who had something very similar happen. He had a lifetime issue with Meth. I wouldn't necessarily classify it as addiction since he could go years without using it, but if it was available and he was in that mood, he would use it.

Usually it would happen when he went back home to Oklahoma and hung out with his old best friend from years before. The last time he went, he used it and it exacerbated an undetected aneurysm. They found him barely alive and with brain damage to the same area of the brain that the person in the video has.

After a year of recovery, during which we were unsure if he would recover at all, he did manage to begin speaking again and have some movement. His speech was very much the same; you could sense he knew what he was trying to say, but all the wrong words came out. He had to use a tablet like device that would tell you what he was trying to say, it was supposed to also help him retrain his mind so that he could speak again.

Sadly he passed away in his sleep about 6 months later. I still can't believe it sometimes. He died at 41, when I was 39. Now I am older than he was and he was in far better health than me, except for the aneurysm. It's just weird how things work out.

*promote

It's amazing how many smart people think that because alcohol is a depressant, the thing it's depressing must be overall mood over months.

It makes me wonder about the sense of resignation they must feel when they see a road sign that says "depression ahead".

*Warning I've only gone and done yet another wall of text again! This may or may not get read by anyone on here (good god I wouldn't blame anyone for skipping it), but at the very least it's formed the backbone to a video script so it's not a complete waste of my time! (he tells himself)*

This is as much @bareboards2 as yourself, but he already made it clear he wasn't willing to engage on the issue, so you're getting it instead MWAHAHAHHAHA! *coughs*

I don't wish this to come across as over condescending (though I'm sure it will none the less as I'm in one of those moods). But pretty much every (successful) comedy premise operates on the same underlying principle of irony. i.e. there is an expectation or understanding, which is deliberately subverted, and what results is comedy.

In this case, amongst other things we have the understood premises that:
A. rape is a bad, often horrific thing.
B. that there is an established social taboo about praising such behaviour.
C. that there is a section of society inherently opposed to making light of things of which they do not approve (or in a way in which they do not approve)
D. most words and phrases have an expected association and meaning.

What Jim Jefferies (an accomplished and well respected comedies amongst his peers) has done here, is take these commonly understood premises and subverted the audiences normal expectations in order to evoke a sense of irony, from which the audience derives humour and amusement.

A simple joke might take a single such premise and perform a single inversion of our expectation. e.g. my dog has no nose, how does he smell?....terrible!

By subverting our assumed meaning (that the missing nose refers to the dogs implied lack of olfactory senses), the joke creates basic irony by substituting this expected meaning for that of the odour of the dog itself.

This is of course a terrible joke, because it is as simple as a joke could be. It has only one layer of irony and lacks any sense of novelty which, might tip such a terrible joke into working for any other than the very young or simple minded.

We could of course attempt to boost this joke by adding more levels of irony contextually. e.g. a very serious or complex comedian Like say Stuart Lee, could perhaps deliver this joke in a routine and get a laugh by being completely incongruous with his style and past material.

And herein we see the building blocks from which any sophisticated professional comedy routine is built. By layering several different strands or ironic subversion, a good comedian can begin to make a routine more complex and often more than just the sum of its parts to boot.

In this case, Jim is taking the four main premises listed above, layering them and trying to find the sweetest spot of subverted expectation for each. (something which usually takes a great deal of skill and experience at this level)

He mentions the fact that his jokes incite outrage in a certain section of society because this helps to strengthen one of the strands of irony with which he is playing. The fact that he also does so in a boastful tone is itself a subversion, it is understood by the audience that he does not/should not be proud of being merely offensive and as such we have yet another strand of irony thrown into the mix.

You know how better music tends to have more and/or more complex musical things happening at once? It is the same with comedy. The more ironic threads a comedian can juggle around coherently, the more sophisticated and adept their routines could be considered to be.

Naturally as with music there's no accounting for taste as you say. Some people simply can't get past a style or associations of a given musician or song (or painting or whatever).

But dammit Jim is really one of the greats right now. Like him or lump him, the dude is pretty (deceptively) masterful at his craft.

There are at least 4-5 major threads of irony built into this bit and countless other smaller ones besides. He dances around and weaves between them like some sort of comedy ballerina. Every beat has been finely tuned over months of gig's (and years of previous material) to strike the strongest harmonies between these strands and probe for the strongest sense of dissonance in the audience. Not to mention, tone of voice, stance, timing etc.

I think Ahmed is basically terrible too, but it is because the jokes lack much semblance of complexity or nuance. Jeff Dunham's material in general feels extremely simple and seems like it uses shock as a mere crutch, rather than something deeper and more intelligent.

Taste is taste, but I feel one can to a reasonable extent criticise things like the films of Michael Bay, or the music of Justin Beiber for being objectively shallow by breaking down their material into its constituent parts (or lack thereof).

Likewise one could take the music of Wagner and while not enjoying the sound of it, still examine the complexity of it's composition and the clear superiority of skill Wagner had over most of this peers.

I guess what all this boils down to is, Jim seems to me to be clearly very very good at what he does (as he ought after all these years). Reducing his act to mere controversy feels a lot like accusing Black Sabbath of just making noise and using satanic imagery to get attention (or insert other less out of date example here).

The jokes were never at the expense of victims, they are at the expense of our expectations. He makes his own true feelings on the matter abundantly clear towards the end of the section.

As as he says himself his job is to say funny things, not to be a social activist.

I take no issue with you not liking it, but I do take issue with the suggestion that it is somehow two dimensional, or for that matter using controversy cheaply.

Offensive initial premises are some of the most ironically rich in comedy. It's like deliberately choosing the brightest paints when trying to create a striking painting. Why would you avoid the strongest materials because some people (not in your audience) find the contrast too striking?

Eh, much love anyway. This was more an exercise in intellectual masturbation than anything else. Not that I didn't mean all of it sincerely.

I'm sorry, but that is an oversimplification too great to just allow you to apologise for and continue on with the point.

To suggest a narrative in which all Thatcher did was close a few factories and blame the communities for being too lazy to fend for themselves or find a new job is not only naive and ignorant of all the facts, but incredibly insulting to people from those areas.

An apology for oversimplifying? I personally think you owe one to the hard working people of northern mining towns that were not only made redundant by Thatcher (with no other jobs available), they were victimised by her and then blacklisted so that they would not be able to find work again - some have only been vindicated in the past few years.

The only redeeming aspect of your frankly disgusting ideas about deprived areas in the UK is that you are clearly not in possession of the facts. Lazyness? The miners were the backbone of this country, the WORKING class - you know? Steelworkers lazy?

To some people in this country there has been no recovery, they are more in debt than ever, they have less job and home security, they are depressed, there is no future and it doesn't even seem like their kids will be able to do any better. David Chameron appears on the TV and tells them we're all doing better and the recovery is going great and they laugh at him... THEY'RE USING FOODBANKS TO LIVE. Their families eat by the grace of generous community members who donate food... in 2016....... in the United Kingdom, ex-fifth largest economy in the world. Recovery!? That's how the recovery was FUNDED!!! By taking money from the poorest and most desperate in the form of cuts and austerity! They're using foodbanks right now so that you can claim the UK had a recovery. Disabled people committed suicide because they felt as if they were a burden, because they were scared and saw no hope, all so that people could claim we had a fucking recovery. But the average person is no better off and the debt that Osborne made such a big deal about has increased. He's missed every target he made for himself and redefined poverty so that the statistics looked better!

And that isn't BECAUSE of brexit - that was before brexit. Many people are blissfully ignorant of how some people have to live their lives in this country, especially those most influenced by the Westminster bubble. Politicians and political commentators have completely misjudged the mood of the nation; that led to brexit, that has led to Corbyn who in fact has been the ONLY man in parliament to be making these points.

And they think he's no leader? When he goes to work every day he has to deal with around 400 people spitting abuse and doubt at him. He stood in parliament with hundreds of them jeering him and faced them down and made the democratic will of hundreds of thousands of people (who were not in attendance) felt. He is the only man who looks like a leader right now, the only one who looks like he knows what the hell to do.

That Macintosh Plus track led me to look into vaporwave too, although I didn't really like anything I've heard.
The exception is this track, which never fails to lift my mood.

There just doesnt seem to be enough to be gained either by leaving or by staying in at this stage. A lose-lose situation.

Britain has avoided adopting Schengen rules and the Euro, so there is little it can complain about regarding the EU, really.

There is also little to cheer for, the Euro and Schengen area are not working as intended, rules are bent and broken at will, the "democratic" political process is at best incomprehensible, but apparently skewed toward unelected clerks applying social engineering solutions to imaginary problems.

Really leaving (not bindingly decided in this referendum) would lead to short term chaos and economic loss for both the EU and Britain. With what long term gains, exactly?

Democracy should be used to pick representatives who make responsible decisions, not to vote about what mood people are in on a given day.

I think I'm being overly cynical today. All my comments are kinda downer.

Like this, first thing I thought of was "Oh joy, another prank that has a inordinate amount of general panic so the police are out looking for the Ghost Riding Tesla instead of... oh I don't know... maybe actual bad people?"

Yep. I'm in a mood.

If somehow you missed out on this amazing jam *doublepromote

It always puts me in the mood.

Nice! Didn't think someone would be analyzing/commenting on intros. I don't typically pay too much attention to intros, but I thought this one really creative and aesthetically pleasing.

Not to mention really setting the mood for the show itself.

Pebbles in a better mood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hto_uvmLq-8

If you're in the mood for some economic common sense, Michal Kalecki's insightful paper on the political aspects of full employment (what would it take, what stands in opposition) is always worth a few minutes.

That's MMT/post-Keynesian economics, published in 1943. The fact that it took close to seven decades before the likes of Adair Turner pushed this back into the mainstream makes me want to sent whole economics departments at universities into the bogs to cut peat with nothing but a spade.