Both parties clearly pine for the old days where the party bigwigs gathered in a smoke-filled room and decided who the nominee was going to be.

Sometimes it seems like that system resulted in higher-quality candidates. Or at least candidates who were better able to hide their sleazy politician auras behind a screen of charisma.

But shit like this makes it very clear how and why that system was shady and corrupt.

Unfortunately, I don't think this story will be big enough news to change anything. The likelihood of the GOP going to a contested convention and foisting some candidate on voters that hasn't even been running (Drudge Report suggests Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan are likely choices of the party) is much more likely to cause a big enough splash to change things.

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@newtboy

i do not think your solutions will have the easy results you imply.

contrary to the propaganda WE are fed,groups like ISIS are far more sophisticated and culturally savvy,as this video is evidence to and one of the reasons i posted.

it is easy to buy into the media-concocted trope that ISIS members are a bunch of un-educated,backwater,third world countrymen who are just religious zealots pining for the good old days of a world caliphate from 700 years ago.

but to believe that you would have to ignore the disturbing number of westerners who are joining ISIS.these folks benefited from western,secular education etc etc.

religion,like nationalism,has always been an extremely effective tool to manipulate,control and justify.

islam is not the cause of violence,barbarity and war.
it is the excuse used to justify that violence and barbarity.

the simple and disturbing truth is that propaganda works,nationalism works,religiousity works to get normal folk to engage in violent acts against their fellow man.

america has been perfecting their propaganda system for over a century.perfecting their art of unending war and conflict.

considering how we have injected ourselves in the middle east since the 50's.it appears our middle eastern friends have learned from us,and become quite proficient at emulating the very thing we excel at.

so you would never see this on any cable tv channel or news outlet,but i think its important to see just how well they have become at utilizing media to get across their message.

using americas great gift to the world:marketing.

Jesus fucking christ, how did this abortion ever get green lit?

Way to completely and utterly miss the point of a franchise.

What's next? The next Raid to be a slow-paced, dialogue heavy introspection into the nuances of Indonesian geopolitics?
Does the drummer in Whiplash 2 join a metal band?

Every single thing about this is just stupid, from the soundtrack* to the lame attempt to give Chris Pine Kirks haircut. Fuck, I haven't even mentioned anything about the direction or the story yet.

@CrushBug, don't take this personally, but if there was a way to unpromote or anti-quality I would use every single point I earned on this abomination.

Look, if you want to make an awesome action movie in space with a kick arse soundtrack, great! Sign me the fuck up for that one. In fact, I watched it last year, it was called Guardians of the Galaxy and I loved it.

But that's not what Star Trek is about. Why would you even bother spending money on the licence? It's not that you can't even make a great Trek movie with decent action beats (First Contact nailed both), but Star Trek is supposed to be a tiny bit more thoughtful.

Fuck everything about this.


* I love the Beastie Boys and Sabotage is a great song, but it fits Star Trek about as well as smooth jazz would fit the next Avengers.

According to his description on YouTube it's 3mm PVC Komacel :

"Here is a video of me building a Dodge M37 body from scratch. Edited down to 17 minutes from 3 hours of footage from 60 hours of build time. I hope it can entertain and inspire folks to be creative and make things. The body is made mostly with 3mm thick PVC sheet called Komacel, glued with CA glue. Driver is pine wood, bumper is aluminum. Rides on a GCM 4ten leafed chassis and tcase, rc4wd K44 axles, axial trans, tekin esc and motor."

"esc" in his quote = electronic speed control.

His build of a 77 Ford is equally impressive.

@dannym3141

Broadly speaking, I tend to subscribe to the view that capitalism is the worst economic system anyone ever invented, except for all the others. There are plenty of problems with it but also practical solutions that could be implemented. Pining for a better system is great, but this quasi-vague revolution that Brand is espousing is as almost guaranteed to be as direction-less and short lived as the Occupy movement.

Take campaign finance reform, of what I'm familiar the Mayday PAC in the US is proposing a voucher system where either (1) each voter is given and limited to a set amount tax refund they can spend on campaign contributions or alternatively (2) there is public finance for something like a 10 to 1 matching system for smaller donations. That seems like a good solution to the problem. It's not perfect though, as speech via the media (TV, internet) would still be wielded disproportionately by those with power. But it's a start. More transparency on where donations are coming from would also help.

I'm no fan of inequality either, but it's a far more difficult issue to grapple with. If you approach it with taxes, the problem is you need global coordination. A single country raising taxes will just see incomes shift elsewhere particular the highest percent who are the most mobile. There needs to be some kind of standard on taxation globally as to whether it is incurred where it is earned or where the company is registered, otherwise you have companies like Apple paying next to nothing because they avoid it in both countries (known as the double Irish, although this has now been eliminated it's a good example).

Should investment income be taxed higher? Probably, I'm not too well informed on this subject but it certainly entrenches established wealth. Should there be an estate-like tax of sorts that limits wealth passed on through generations? Perhaps, but it seems like a band-aid of sorts and a double dipping on what should really be collected through income tax in the first place.

I'm all for public services where it makes sense to provide them publicly. I don't like political cronyism either. But solutions need to be practical. Eliminating tax avoidance by multinationals is good policy because otherwise these companies paying virtually no tax intrinsically sets up barriers to entry to smaller competitors which is terrible economically and leads to monopolistic behaviour and higher prices. Targeting finance with a specific tax probably isn't. Business will just shift globally and countries like the UK will lose out more than they gain.

@xxovercastxx I can understand your point, but in terms of unique film making it was head and shoulders above most modern science fiction. I thought he did an amazing job transitioning from a more 'realistic' documentary-style to an action setting, though I would have preferred if it were a bit less of an action flick myself.
I didn't mind the "love" aspect so much simply because, well, it was his wife! If you're own life-partner pushed you away for the insanity of it all, you'd probably pine for her as your only sanctuary as well. But now I'm just making excuses for the whole thing. Overall it wasn't perfect but it was still a shining gem in the genre.
Elysium on the other hand... . guh...

Democrats have all of these great intentions but every time they try to get it done, they fuck it up beyond all repair. Then Republicans think they can do it, and they fuck it up.

Which is why less gov't is more freedom.

Man, I never thought I'd pine for Bill Clinton. Of course, I never thought I'd vote for that worthless sumbitch John McCain, either.

But it's strange to watch the left just slobber over a guy who's trying to create this 'utopia'.

It's really 1984 all over again.

I did this exact same thing - that is, build a hand made dining room table for my wife. I didn't care about using reclaimed lumber, but I did want to avoid using glues. I used lag bolts and screws - I figured it would last longer than glue. Also, I used about 1/10th the number of tools he used. But I did use a sawsall and a drill.

I used all pine, but did a faux aging process with vinegar and steel wool, and black tea. It turned out awesome (after 12+ coats of spar varnish on the top... ug). I have two matching benches. It's all very rustic, durable, and functional.

Very cool video!

So who would you speaking of here, boynewt? Some people for example,only enjoy comedy of a higher-order. Some people continually laugh at themselves and encourage others to remove similarly, sticks and/or cobs from their own impacted orifices.

High comedy encourages us all to laugh at the world....Kinna like I'm laughing now.

Some comedy is formulaic and boorish and soon peters-out like a fast-burning fire of pine and dry brush, which would be my own prediction for Surly Sally here.

Fucking squirrels!

They built a nest in one half of my engine, including hundreds of pine cones from the air intake into the filter and all over the engine...which expanded to clog and crush everything. Also grass, leaves, plastics bags and Subway M&M cookies.

Luckily they didn't chew wires which I've heard can be $$$ to fix.

I would wonder where in the hell you get the idea that anyone cares what really religious people think. Also why the hell you would think that an "atheist evangelist" would help in anyway shape or form. It just plays right into peoples hands "See he's a psychopath, look at how much of a dismissive dick he is towards differing opinions."

Address criticism and answer to it, I used the example of Chomsky, maybe you should watch something where someone is confronting him in a vigorous manner. He handles himself correctly in my view, my opinion is that Dawkins does not. That he sounds like a dick and he turns people off and it turns out others in the field of science feel the same way. He is not the white knight we're looking for, we want him to grab some pine and shut the fuck up.

Again I don't know where you get the idea where anyone listens to religious people. They're useful to drum up and get votes for but everyone including republicans know they're crazy and do their best to control them rather than do their stupid bidding.