>> ^Quboid:

>> ^Deano:

How many names am I supposed to give you? Is there a specific number that should convince you? Put it like this ff you were mining the wisdom of crowds they'd be the last crowd you'd go with.
A lack of education, also known as ignorance and poor critical thinking is linked to lack of comprehension and the wider phenomenon of stupidity.
You're incorrect about intelligence being a differentiator on the field. The number characteristic coaches look for is attitude. Players with an intense competitive desire and a controllable amount of aggression WITH talent are the ones who make it.
Off the pitch, being able to make smart decisions about contracts, sponsorship is where you'd be right. Actually maybe that means Beckham is a genius and I'm totally wrong! Or maybe he's well advised.
I always admired Klinnsman in that regard. If you forgot the diving you might recall he sorted out his own contract and only hired a lawyer and an accountant. The value of an education there is that you actually eke out a bit more money over the long term.
As for Barton his propensity for violence suggests he's not the poster boy for the football intelligentsia. I know he's been working via twitter to build a different kind of reputation but I'm yet to be convinced. It's amazing what you can cut and paste on the web.

I'd like over 50% of footballers, that would convince me. It's all anecdotal otherwise. The last crowd I'd go for would certainly not be footballers, it would be unemployed, ex-convicts who left school early because it was too hard for them.
Again, while a lack of education is linked with stupidity, this is because the reason is often that thick people can't handle school. Leaving school for a lucrative career is very different.
The characteristic that coaches look for is being a good player and more intelligent people will generally be slightly better. You mentioned this yourself - footballing intelligence. That's not a separate part of the brain, that's good old intelligence, along with experience on the pitch. If you have 2 players with equally intense competitive desire, controllable aggression and talent, the smarter one is the one who will pick better passes, position themselves better, concentrate better, be a better player.
Klinsmann is far from the only player who did his own contracts but then that's not really relevant - having good advisers might be the intelligent choice; if they get you 30% more and take 15% then they're worth hiring. Also, frankly, diving is intelligent given how pathetically advantageous it is.
You can add being a thug to Barton's rap sheet and that is pretty dumb. Whether he's just copy and pasting from www.NietzscheForDummies.com we don't know but even if he was, this would require a greater understanding of the world than British footballers are given credit for.


I think the smart answer from you would be to accept I'm not going to type hundreds of names out for you. That's not a real answer or proof. Your response is disingenuous.
We're going with our knowledge of what this demographic is. Note I've never said or claimed that footballers are universally "dumb". I said they aren't especially bright. I have said and will always maintain they certainly are not the smartest slice of the population. And by the way going back to the video, Mitchell is clearly taking the piss. It *is* a comedy program with exaggeration a key component.

"Thick people can't handle school"? I think there's a huge number of educationalists would argue that one. Provision levels and equality of opportunity along with socio-economic factors play a huge role. Footballers from poor working-class families more often find themselves excluded from progressing in the educational system and it's not always because they're "thick". In London I know the debate re the lack of educational achievement in boys linked to the decline in male teachers. You cross that with the race issue and it's even more complicated.

Ah now you're going with my definition of football intelligence? Well that's what I've been driving at. They're good at football. They know how hard to strike the ball, when to time a run, how to employ gamesmanship. They have good spatial awareness. You could now start to talk about different kinds of intelligence. But that's a bloody complicated area. I would however continue to separate football smarts from intellectual ones and general life skills.

You're right, having good advice on hand is advantageous. But some footballers are smarter than others. Tevez for example might be the dumbest, or unluckiest, guy in the game. Mostly the infrastructure is already in place for these guys. Word of mouth is important. I would love to know whether they would make more or less if they didn't employ representation. It would be interesting to know wouldn't it? I suspect it would take a huge amount of balls at a young age to do it yourself or entrust mum or dad.

I never intended to claim Klinnsman's diving was dumb, merely that I note it as a low light of his professional career. I saw him play once and he was excellent in what was really a workmanlike Spurs team.

I'll call it a draw with Barton. I don't know if you're calling *me* dumb but yes he is an unpleasant thug. He's a moron who's been unable to learn from his mistakes. Guess who's got the most yellow cards for QPR this season?

>> ^Deano:


How many names am I supposed to give you? Is there a specific number that should convince you? Put it like this ff you were mining the wisdom of crowds they'd be the last crowd you'd go with.
A lack of education, also known as ignorance and poor critical thinking is linked to lack of comprehension and the wider phenomenon of stupidity.
You're incorrect about intelligence being a differentiator on the field. The number characteristic coaches look for is attitude. Players with an intense competitive desire and a controllable amount of aggression WITH talent are the ones who make it.
Off the pitch, being able to make smart decisions about contracts, sponsorship is where you'd be right. Actually maybe that means Beckham is a genius and I'm totally wrong! Or maybe he's well advised.
I always admired Klinnsman in that regard. If you forgot the diving you might recall he sorted out his own contract and only hired a lawyer and an accountant. The value of an education there is that you actually eke out a bit more money over the long term.
As for Barton his propensity for violence suggests he's not the poster boy for the football intelligentsia. I know he's been working via twitter to build a different kind of reputation but I'm yet to be convinced. It's amazing what you can cut and paste on the web.


I'd like over 50% of footballers, that would convince me. It's all anecdotal otherwise. The last crowd I'd go for would certainly not be footballers, it would be unemployed, ex-convicts who left school early because it was too hard for them.

Again, while a lack of education is linked with stupidity, this is because the reason is often that thick people can't handle school. Leaving school for a lucrative career is very different.

The characteristic that coaches look for is being a good player and more intelligent people will generally be slightly better. You mentioned this yourself - footballing intelligence. That's not a separate part of the brain, that's good old intelligence, along with experience on the pitch. If you have 2 players with equally intense competitive desire, controllable aggression and talent, the smarter one is the one who will pick better passes, position themselves better, concentrate better, be a better player.

Klinsmann is far from the only player who did his own contracts but then that's not really relevant - having good advisers might be the intelligent choice; if they get you 30% more and take 15% then they're worth hiring. Also, frankly, diving is intelligent given how pathetically advantageous it is.

You can add being a thug to Barton's rap sheet and that is pretty dumb. Whether he's just copy and pasting from www.NietzscheForDummies.com we don't know but even if he was, this would require a greater understanding of the world than British footballers are given credit for.

>> ^Quboid:

That's 3 names. How many professional footballers are there? This are young men with a lot of money. Of course some will do stupid things. Joey Barton? Why do you think he's stupid? He's a pretentious, self-righteous hypocrite, but none of those mean he's stupid.
Being thick isn't the same as being uneducated. They aren't well educated but this is because they went into football, not because they couldn't handle it. Quite a few have got degrees in their plentiful spare time while playing.
Of course foreigners can be twits. That you would imply I'd think otherwise is what I mean, this idea that footballers, especially British footballers, are uniquely thick.
Why do I think they are probably above average? Because if you have two players of equal technical ability, strength, fitness, etc, the one who is smarter will generally do better and therefore play in a higher standard of league. Egro, the smart rise to the top. Since intelligence isn't a particularly important part of football, the effect this has will be small, it still exists.
Charlie Adam is rubbish, I'll give you that.


How many names am I supposed to give you? Is there a specific number that should convince you? Put it like this ff you were mining the wisdom of crowds they'd be the last crowd you'd go with.

A lack of education, also known as ignorance and poor critical thinking is linked to lack of comprehension and the wider phenomenon of stupidity.

You're incorrect about intelligence being a differentiator on the field. The number one characteristic coaches look for is attitude. Players with an intense competitive desire and a controllable amount of aggression WITH talent are the ones who make it.

Off the pitch, being able to make smart decisions about contracts, sponsorship is where you'd be right. Actually maybe that means Beckham is a genius and I'm totally wrong! Or maybe he's well advised.

I always admired Klinnsman in that regard. If you forgot the diving you might recall he sorted out his own contract and only hired a lawyer and an accountant. The value of an education there is that you actually eke out a bit more money over the long term.

As for Barton his propensity for violence suggests he's not the poster boy for the football intelligentsia. I know he's been working via twitter to build a different kind of reputation but I'm yet to be convinced. It's amazing what you can cut and paste on the web.

Man, this guy should get sponsorship from a shin guard company. His is the only set that seem to work in professional football.

What integrity!

Nice!

Don't we wish everyone with the power to help out those in need was able to follow this example?

(even if it requires sponsorship and self promotion - the outcome is still a ++ for the universe.)

Aye I agree that not hurting people is a worthy cause, but if you follow that line of thinking, once again you will find inconsistency. For example, if he truly doesn't want to hurt people, why did he try to have the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 repealed - twice.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d096:h.r.2310:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d094:h.r.13264:

Wouldn't having less safety at work result in more harm to workers, and even deaths?

How about his stance on the environment, would a degraded, polluted environment lead to harm? Quite possibly, and he's sponsored more than a half dozen bills to try to get rid of, or limit legislation protecting it, including a bill to repeal the Soil and Water Conservation Act of 1977.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d096:h.r.7079:

There are plenty of studies that demonstrate a scientifically significant correlation between pesticide exposure and cancers, birth defects and spontaneous abortions. Look up carbaryl, atrazine and benomyl-carbendazim to name a few, if he truly wanted to avoid doing harm, shouldn't he focus on legislation that tightens up the use of toxic chemicals in the food chain so that the seasonal and migrant workers (especially) might have improved health outcomes?

What about his handling of the Florida oil spill, the ecosystem there got devastated and there will be ongoing health consequences for not just the locals. His reaction was that there should be less oversight by the Government and instead there should be promises by the corporations to make good any damages with the populations they affect. That's not just an example of how his principles could harm people but it's an example of libertarianism gone crazy. His sponsorship of the H.R.2415 and H.R.4004 bills back this up, both of them incentivize off-shore drilling.
http://www.ronpaul.com/2010-06-16/ron-paul-defends-obama-on-bp-oil-spill-and-himself-on-owning-gold/

He takes the stance that he 'doesn't want to hurt people because he's then able to get a lot of anti-abortion supporters to vote for him, or in other words, he's doing a good job of being a politician. In addition, he's deciding what is right and what is wrong for the people that have other opinions and may wish to express those opinions in the form of exercising the right to make an informed decision about their future family - I don't call that libertarianism.

Is there something inherently defective about that brand of tennis racquet (if so, he was stupid to accept their sponsorship) or is he just a spoiled brat that lost his temper?

>> ^srd:

Two things that irritate me a bit about this commentary:
a) they gloss over the fact that GoDaddy was involved (some say their legal department directly, others say via lobbyists) in writing the draft AND they are themselves exempt from SOPA, and
b) didn't TYT have a GoDaddy affiliate program at one point? Is it still active? If so, are they going to drop it in response?
For some reason, I expected a bit more of TYT on this count.


He did mention this on the show the next day that they did indeed once get sponsorship from GoDaddy, however they have since ceased this arrangement with them (well before the SOPA thing started).

As much as I want to support VideoSift's 'pay for sponsorship' deal, I'm afraid this wasn't very good.

Having said that, it got me to watch it

The main stream media is the liberal media that's my point. Society needs more people figuring that out. For as much as people hate them (FOX news, Glen Beck etc,) they do bring stories forth stories that the main stream does not. EX. Main stream imply that Muslims are a peaceful religion. Its not. The true desire of this religion is to convert or kill. They treat their women like dogs. How can Americans tolerate that? But yet main stream media play stories that they are a nice bunch of people. >> ^alcom:

@bobknight33, who said anything about liberal? I think the larger issue is the "chilling" effect legal action and the loss of corporate sponsorship has on objective reporting in the modern media. From wikipedia:
"In a legal context, a chilling effect is the term used to describe the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of a constitutional right by the threat of legal sanction."
More to Farrakhan's point, read this article from 2006 on eneregygrid.com - here's a snip:
"US liberal media is dying because it has started to play by the same rules as mainstream media — primary being not to annoy your corporate sponsors by presenting anything too radical."
>> ^bobknight33:
This guy, like the left is wrong!
GE is the largest media empire. GE is so left leaning it is falling over. Its so large, its over 120 Billion larger than it #2 competitor Walt Disney who only did 36 Billion in revenues.. Fox is owned by News Corp who only did 30 Billion in revenue. Sounds like the left is the king of slant.
2009 revenues: $157 billion GE
2009 revenues: $36.1 billion Disney
2009 revenues: $30.4 billion News Corp ( FOX)
2009 revenues: $25.8 billion Time Warner
Who owns what in Media link

@bobknight33, who said anything about liberal? I think the larger issue is the "chilling" effect legal action and the loss of corporate sponsorship has on objective reporting in the modern media. From wikipedia:
"In a legal context, a chilling effect is the term used to describe the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of a constitutional right by the threat of legal sanction."

More to Farrakhan's point, read this article from 2006 on eneregygrid.com - here's a snip:

"US liberal media is dying because it has started to play by the same rules as mainstream media — primary being not to annoy your corporate sponsors by presenting anything too radical."

>> ^bobknight33:

This guy, like the left is wrong!
GE is the largest media empire. GE is so left leaning it is falling over. Its so large, its over 120 Billion larger than it #2 competitor Walt Disney who only did 36 Billion in revenues.. Fox is owned by News Corp who only did 30 Billion in revenue. Sounds like the left is the king of slant.
2009 revenues: $157 billion GE
2009 revenues: $36.1 billion Disney
2009 revenues: $30.4 billion News Corp ( FOX)
2009 revenues: $25.8 billion Time Warner
Who owns what in Media link

does the car company sponsorship make this *viral?

His wing-suit, parachute, and the clothes he's wearing while talking to the camera, are all covered in Red-Bull sponsorship logos - should this be tagged viral/commercial or something?

Upvote for putting the glory of the early space age above punks (albeit brave punks) with bikes and Red Bull sponsorships.