This one was all about a ready made and proven solution, it's return-free filing.

We just need to spread the word about what people are missing out on, and try to convince congress that the good will this could generate among constituents is more valuable than the bribes the tax prep industry can offer.

Care to give the context? Because I can only read it as the "good of the bad ones that behave", but his complaint nonetheless seems to be that the prison will lose valuable labour NOT that these particular inmates release will pose a danger to the public.

Whether or not worse things are happening to better people is a non-argument. No matter what happens to anyone, something worse is always happening to someone better.

I have no idea how common they are, especially in the US.

As to the stupidity of signing the contract, I dunno. Her major problem is that she's only valuable while people are listening to her. If she goes away for 6 months, she'll probably find that no-one is interested in hiring her then.

True. It's the diamond cartels (actually it may just be one now) that control how many diamonds are allowed onto the market each year, which is the only thing that keeps them valuable. There are diamond mines in the world that actually produced so many uncut diamonds, that they piled them up on the floor of the mine and then sealed the entrances with concrete, putting local miners out of work.

Sincere thanks for that, @enoch.

While I am too ignorant of the situation to be completely convinced by either side of this, I must admit that it does seem fishy for Assad to use such weapons now. AND, the CIA and other US agencies / forces have a really long track record of doing shady things to "protect US interests" with proxy wars, false flag operations, etc. etc.

The US funding Syrian "rebels" that are an offshoot of Al Qaeda doesn't shock me much considering that the roots of Al Qaeda itself pretty much come from the CIA funding the Mujahideen in Afganistan...


Anyway, I can see and understand your reasons for choosing to downvote the video. That being said, I don't personally regret upvoting this because it does seem to be a good introduction / refresher to the situation in Syria, at least with respect to the standard media take on it. For someone like me, it gets me the broad strokes in 6.5 minutes, which has some real value.

But your post here (and a PM from eric) are equally valuable to me for pointing out bits where that "broad strokes" intro is controversial or potentially misleading (if not flat out BS). So again, sincere thanks to both of you.

Quoting Sniper007:

" A child is put at a tremendous disadvantage when they are taught that they can not learn anything except through formal schooling."

-- I completely and 100% agree with this, except . . .

" This is the inevitable life lesson all children are taught in schools (public or private)."

-- Reeeeealllly? Can I get some kind of cite on this? FWIW, I attended public schools -- good and bad -- and never came away with this lesson at all. Nor do I know anyone else who has. In fact, I'd say my view is the polar opposite of your own: as a self-made man, the most valuable lessons I've learned have come from experience (better known as The School of Hard Knocks).

"But for those who do wish to so delegate the sacred honor of teaching one's own child to a third party government agent(...)"

-- So you can't do both? You can't have trained educators teaching your child important fundamentals like math, science, languages and arts while you teach them social skills and whatever form of ethics and mores you want to instill them? To do the first is the cede the second?

Here's a little anecdote on my experience with home schooling:

My sister, now 30, was home-schooled by my parents. Her entire work history, up until now, has been a disaster. Lost jobs, conflicts with managers and co-workers, absenteeism -- everything shy of stealing from her employer. Why? Because she expected the world to revolve around her once she had her GED. She thought she was smarter than everyone else because she never had the social experience of encountering different levels of competence. Because home schooling catered to her needs and wants, she figured employers should do the same. Because she never had to learn classroom structure, she never learned to play nice with authority and know her place and work within it.

This is an anecdote and therefor does not equal data. But I think had my parents decided to send my sister to a public school, she'd be a lot farther ahead in her work-life than she is now and she would have had an easier road getting there.

Your mileage may vary, and hopefully will.

Mmmm.... bait....bait.....why do some people love baiting other people....oh, wait....i think it has something to do with the other kind of 'bating...also, I've been coming to this website everyday since wimp.com used to be just a grey page and yourdailymedia was still a thing sooooo for those who have obtained some sort of valuable information by hovering over my name you can go bake yourself a pie. And perhaps explain to a poor mute fool like me how to add a url to a post without it being dedacted like an idiot.

29 comments, most of them rather long and more-or-less well reasoned, yet none about the content.

I get if you don't trust RT. It's a propaganda outlet of a foreign government, after all. But RT is not Chemical Ali style of propaganda: it is solid, well-researched reporting on many topics, subtly slanted on others, and completely balls-to-the-wall denial of reality on others again.

You want to take that as a reason to ignore it entirely? Knock yourself out.

I won't. Which isn't saying much, because I prefer text over video.

Anyway, they regularly offer a valuably "Korrektiv" with regards to reporting in the mainstream media. Of course I would prefer if I could get that from a less-dubious outlet like, maybe, the Indepedant, or the NZZ, but I can't.

Let's talk about the content of this clip, shall we.

Hedges references the Prop-or-Not pieces run by the WaPo. Does anyone here disagree that those were a total and utter smear job? Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive. Yves Smith and Glen Ford as mouthpieces of the Kremlin... my ass cheeks.

On the other hand, quite a lot of journalists in the US seem to have embraced the Red Scare with open arms, seeing as it gives an excuse as to why their previous HRC lost against the orange-skinned buffoon. Kyle illustrated it nicely with Rachel Maddow.

Second point: they had James Clapper present the report. Seriously? The fucker was caught lying under oath during the initial stages of the NSA revelations. Wasn't the fuckface also in charge of the satellite reconnaisence prior to the Iraq war, who could have presented imagery that debunked the claims of WMD "factories", and decided not to? He is just as trustworthy as Chemical Ali, but less entertaining.

Third: half the report was about RT. Why? I thought it was meant to outline how they "hacked" the election? What does their propaganda outlet have to do with that? And the critique they presented... has anyone read the passage about the "alleged Wall Street greed"? They are having a laugh, and people take it seriously.

Fourth: it distracts from the aspects of HRC's loss they don't want to be a subject of public discussion: class issues. They offered nothing for the working class, who got a shoddy deal over the last decades, and tried to focus entirely on identity politics, completely denying even the existence of class issues. Which is also why it's now the "white, male worker" who is to blame. Nevermind that >50% of white, female workers also voted Trump. Nevermind that significant portions of non-white working class folks also voted Trump. Can't be. According to the narrative, these people are minorities first, working-class second, and identity politics always trumps class politics. Except it didn't.

All this rage at the "deplorables", the "less educated"... it just reeks massively of class bigotry. Those plebs decided to vote for someone other than our beloved Queen HRC? How dare they...

And finally, RT's own part of this segment, about the credibility of the intelligence community's claims. Any disagreement on this? Anyone? Anyone think the torturers at the CIA are trustworthy enough to take their word without hard evidence?

Here's the rub....
Shep Smith on Fox does some good work, and also some awful work for his propagandist bosses either spreading their lies or remaining silent in their face.
Maddow on MSNBC also does some good work, and also is incredibly biased and slanted and gladly omits or glosses over important facts if they don't fit her narrative.
CNN-I honestly don't know, I don't watch them either, but I gather they are also quite biased and guilty of lies by omission.

Hedges had other options. He was not relegated to RT, he chose to work there. Granted, they may be his most profitable option, they are not his only option.

Is RT a Russian propaganda channel, yes, absolutely. Does that mean Hedges is a Russian propagandist...yes, yes it does. He doesn't have to spread their lies and tow their line to be one, just his presence as an attempt to give their propaganda machine validity means he's a valuable tool they are using to spread lies. Let's see him do a story that accuses Putin or Russia of malfeasance....won't happen. That makes him a tool, even if he never lies for them.

I'll bite. (needless to say, spoilers)

The characters certainly had motivation.

Jyn's motivation, much like Rae in FA, is simple, daddy issues. She isn't so much invested in the rebellion as she is in enacting vengeance for her father. She is stunted emotionally and is not idealistic, but I think she uses that as a vehicle to push other characters along with her. Her last moments with Cassian aren't driven by any great romance, just the solace of two people who don't know if what they did will make a difference, but they succeeded in what they set out to do. I suspect she understood before she left Yavin that she was not going to get out of it alive, which sort of fits with her fairly nihilistic view of the universe.

Cassian was entirely driven by the fight against the Empire. He was willing to do anything, and was completely ruthless at the start, but he does mellow towards the end as Jyn makes a point of saying that he was like a stormtrooper. He is a zealot, a true believer, and is willing to sacrifice everything, even his humanity, for the cause.

Orson, the imperial commander, is a mixture of patriotism and self interest. He's a fervant believer in the imperial ethos of bringing order to the galaxy, but he is also deeply interested in recognition and commensurate rise in rank. He is so motivated that he risks his life directly to try and stop the rebels (not something you typically see bad leader types do outside of superhero movies, that's what henchmen are for) at the end.

The droid is all programming, but his comedy relief is explained by the dialogue that slicing an imp droid can affect it's personality. He is the one of the few light hearted notes (and consequently gives us a pretty poignant note when he says goodbye and get's shut down) in what is a fairly depressing movie. His bluntly honest statements are perfectly ironic and as such really do deserve the laughs they get.

The monk and the warrior were guardians of a temple but are now displaced. While it's couched in the monks mysticism, I think honestly they were happy to stand up to the big bad guys who wrecked their temple and extract some form of revenge. I think it would please both of them to know that it was worth it in the end.

The imperial defector seems to have little motivation, but he has already taken the dangerous step of defecting and getting the ball rolling for the entire plot etc, he's obviously completely displeased about the empire and willing to risk his life to do something about it.

Saul has been driven mad by the fight. The rebel leadership all seem to fit well within their established roles in the canon, as do Tarkin and Vader. Random rebel and imp personal are placeholders and who really gives a fuck what their motivations are? X D

/shrug As far as character development goes, it's certainly not a work for the ages, but to say these characters are going to get a thing because they need to get a thing seems to be nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking.

Oh yeah, and in regards to AT AT's, it's a strategic imperial world and heavily garrisoned. Likely a staging point for excursions around the galaxy as well. It has major shielding, AA and fighter complements, Star Destroyers standing guard etc. Sure, fan service is a thing (although the homages in R1 are far less clunky than FA, including things like the Hammerhead, references to the cartoons etc), but as an imp commander, I would certainly release AT AT and AT ST vehicles against an attacking force of unknown size, particularly when you see a whole bunch of landing pads explode simultaneously. Are their 10 commandos or 1,000? 10,000? Yeah, go lowball and wait for them to walk out in the open right? \= |

It's not like the AT AT's were stomping all over the archive looking for a guy hiding behind valuable Imp data infrastructure, they are roaming the outer regions and are fairly proof against ground troops. Makes sense to me.

Dunno, I think the RLM reviews are generally entertaining and thoughtful, but in this case whoever writes Plinkett has let his acerbic dislike of "new" Star Wars cloud his objectiveness imo. It was an enjoyable flick and certainly one I intend to own. I don't think it's anywhere near the best sci fi (although I kinda like it on par with Empire) movie out there, but it's far better than RLM gives it credit for, imo.

It seems odd to suggest that people shouldn't take life lessons from someone that happened to end their own life.

That said, I don't disagree on the video. On top of that, he doesn't seem to be connecting much of what he's saying to Wallace in any direct way. Based off of one quote that I googled and am now drawing too many conclusions from (link below), Wallace seemed to think that irony was a very valuable backlash to the 50's and 60's but that it ran its course.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/165289-irony-and-cynicism-were-just-what-the-u-s-hypocrisy-of

Wow! That whole thing made me smile so much. Congratulations! I'm sure everyone has told you how much you do and how valuable you are and how effortlessly you help bring this community together. So I'll just add that I think you're great and see if I can't figure out how to fix my 500 dead videos!

Well, some times you have to draw a line.

I'm a speciesist.

Specifically, I am a human supremacist. I even feel strongly about it. I actually believe it is morally wrong to not hold up human life as inherently more valuable than that of any and all other species.

I don't find it hard to believe that people disagree with that. I'm not even surprised there are people that would want to liken that to being a racist. I am surprised that I begin to see society on the path to where my view becomes a minority view and I could potentially be looked down upon for being so backwards and closed minded.

Mr. Whiskers, it's time to up your game: they send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue!

Whatcher gonna do is sneak into Hipster McFuck-Face's room when he's lying on his back, sound asleep. Then you're ever so gently going to lay a deuce right along the gap between his upper lips and his nose. After that, you're going to tickle his nostril with your whisker so that he reaches up to rub his nose with the back of his hand . . . and he learns a valuable lesson in why you don't fuck with cats.

"Vengeance is thine," sayth the Cat God. And then he licked himself and had some Friskies.

Or, indeed, anything that you'd like to see again...

It's not like it takes a rocket scientist to work out that you shouldn't leave buckets of valuable stuff unattended on the back of a van....