i like the self referential illustration "proof" God <-> Bible <-> God.

The only drawback to all these videos is that since the pro-God argument is so weak, juvenile, simplistic and easy to defeat, the sarcastic arguments made against it become repetitive and boring.

btw the guy needs to take his own advice and apply Science and Reason to his examples - the reference to unicorns is wrong, the centuries old mistranslation was due to lack of knowledge of ancient Hebrew. The correct translation reads:

8 He ranges the hills for his pasture
and searches for any green thing.

9 Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
Will he stay by your manger at night?

10 Can you hold him to the furrow with a harness?
Will he till the valleys behind you?

As for the giants reference, Genesis 6 IS very bizarre, but again "giants" is a mis-transliteration of ancient hebrew which has no english equivalent to convey what the original author meant. Yet, the correct word does still seem to refer to some non-human being...

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days — and also afterward — when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

Or does it? In old hebrew grammatical structure who does "they" refer to? - 'the sons of god' or 'The Nephilim', and who or what exactly was meant by The Nephilim, or "the sons of god" for that matter. Is it literal, figurative, poetic, or a cultural euphamism now long since lost?

When I say beg I mean beg. This is a sift commenter arguing about how cavemen use cavecars. Its absurd and self-referential; definitely worthy of three more upvotes.

Also, if you vote for this video I'll rub your bunions.

>> ^therealblankman:
Uggh. The sooner that this little bullshit meme has passed through the bowels of the intarweb, the better off we'll all be.


I would agree, but this is almost like a hilarious self-referential parody of the whole phenomenon.

In the book, Goldberg attempts to convince readers that six decades of conventional wisdom that have placed Italy's Benito Mussolini, Germany's Adolf Hitler and fascism on the right side of the ideological spectrum are wrong, and that fascism is really a phenomenon of the left. Goldberg also attributes fascist rhetoric and tactics to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and describes the New Deal's descendants, modern American liberals, as carriers of this liberal-fascist DNA. In a sense, "We're All Fascists Now," as Goldberg puts it in one of his chapter titles.

The vapid stupidity of this argument is profound, Jonah cites what Mussolini said as fact, as if the usurpation of power in Germany and Italy were political campaigns run in democracies not simply two men saying and doing whatever would garner them power. The whole argument reads like an excuse to call liberals Nazis.

John Cole put it very well in saying that Goldberg basically twists words to make them mean whatever he wants them to mean.

The Salon.com interview from which I pulled the gist of the book is a hilarious read, and filled with miles of bullshit and quotable lines.

"I would argue that Nixon was not a particularly conservative guy. Measured by today's standards and today's issues, Nixon would be in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

[On Mussolini but could be self referential] "And he said a lot of stuff. He was sort of a buffoon in that sense; he was constantly changing his definitions of fascism and talking out of one side of the mouth, then out of the other side of his mouth, largely because of the sort of pragmatic idea he had about politics. But in terms of the policies he implemented and where he came to, once again, at the end of his life, he always clung to the policies that were associated with the left side of the political spectrum."

"But there's another dystopian understanding of the future, which we get from [Aldous] Huxley's "Brave New World." That was a fundamentally American vision ... [T]he vision of the Huxleyian "Brave New World" future is one where everyone's happy. No one's being oppressed, people are walking around chewing hormonal gum, they're having everything done for them, they're being nannied almost into nonexistence. That's the fascism in Hillary Clinton's vision. It's not the Orwellian stamping on a human face thing, it's hugs and kisses and taking care of boo-boos. It is the nanny state. That is a much more benign dystopia than "1984," but for me at least, it's still a dystopia. An unwanted hug is still as tyrannical or as oppressive -- not as oppressive, but an unwanted hug is still oppressive if you can't escape from it ... [O]ne of the biggest distinctions between what I'm calling liberal fascism ... and classical fascism, is that classical fascism was masculine and violently oppressive and today's liberalism is feminine and not oppressive but smothering with kindness."

The full interview is here at Salon.com.

Wow, that was amazing. So much unintentional comedy, combined with the whole ridiculous concept ("healing" one's urges through religion) = comic hysteria.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that Gene didn't have a problem. In fact, it sounds like he was (and probably still is - as there was no evidence of his getting better given) a complete pervert. It's just the assertion that pornography was the cause of his problem, and that he could cure it through prayer and deprivation from porn (I guess? The cure wasn't really stated in the excerpt we saw) that's so misguided.

Porn is clearly not the problem here, and millions of people enjoy porn without problems. To paraphrase the argument for another debate: porn doesn't masturbate you. Your hand (or, in the case of at least one Congressional page, your bed) masturbates you. Not that masturbation is even wrong! Once you get into soliciting prostitution and being a peeping Tom, though, I think there's a problem - and, again, it's not with porn.

Anyhow, I've probably given this "debate" more thought than it deserves. Great, great video, theo. Thanks!

P.S. Wish this fit the top 100 guidelines, but I don't think it was created in, or is referential towards events from, 2006.

The Rules:

1. Videos may only be nominated once.
2. 5 nominations per Gold Star Member, (use them wisely).
3. Nominations close on 20th November.
4. Please don't nominate TV clips, professional music videos or videos that were not created or made popular in 2006.
5. An exception to rule 4 might be TV clips or music videos that are referential of Web videos or recent Internet events.
6. Use your best judgement, there might be other exceptions.
7. Goldstars only, but! if you get your goldie before November 20th, you can still nominate.

I get pretty tired of the Shatner joke, an old one-trick pony. What's nice to see is his sense of humor about it, as he pokes fun of himself, as well as his audience. He picked up pomo self-referential humor and it's fun to see him play with it. (Notice he makes a crack near the beginning of the clip, about loving Star Trek conventions -- a direct reference to the pummeling he took when he did a skit mocking Trekkies on SNL, yelling at them to GET A LIFE.)

What makes it postmodern, in my humble view, is that it is self-referential. It is "aware" of itself and pokes fun of the very medium in which it's presented. I agree that it doesn't make any real statement or have a point, and so -- again, in my humble eyes -- does not rise above parody to be truly satirical.

My $.02 , but for you, gratis.

daphne - "He was so brilliant at mass scale subversive humor."

in a nutshell.

i think many people do not "get" subversive humor. it is more extreme than irony, which eludes some. it also is self-referential. kaufman is mocking himself and whatever medium or institution that is his target. he breaks rules of a mutual agreement that i never had been aware of, until he came along and rocked the boat. suddenly, once i digested him a bit and "got" it (at first i did not know what to think), i realized he was playing a deconstruction game.

consider, young grasshopper, a broken hammer. you could say that a hammer is never MORE of a hammer than when it is broken. It is only then that you are drawn to notice the value and meaning of hammer, even if it is only because you lack it. its brokennes sharpens your concept of its un-brokennes, which is the normal, functional state of the hammer.

andy kaufman gives us broken hammers. he breaks the rules. he breaks the rules, and then goes one better. he keeps it secret. he doesn't give us a coherent concept or narrative of what he is doing, or even who he is. he lets us figure out (if we do) what he has done.

wow. i'm a little chatterbox. i'd intended to write two sentences.

coffee overload.