Being from Kansas, I was taught that this (right lane except to pass) was the law so I have always done it that way. As backwards as Brownbackistan can be, I guess we got that one thing right -- and it seemed to work, I rarely had any issues with having to weave around slow traffic in the left lane.

I did notice that it was a more common problem driving elsewhere in the country, but I didn't know that it isn't actually a legal requirement elsewhere.

Now, living in Thailand, I break the rule all the time (although it isn't a rule here, or at least it is *never* enforced if it is). The slow lane (left lane because they drive on the left over here) is the de-facto "motorbike lane", so 90% of car traffic stays in the right lane all the time. I drive faster than most locals, which ends up meaning that I stick in the fast lane all the time *except* when I want to pass a slowpoke by switching to the slow/motorbike lane.

Exactly. Oswalt calls it "kicking upwards."

Comedians are at their best when they expose something true about the world, and they lay bare the lies of the entitled and the vicious.

Lindy West discusses this in her new book Shrill. Great book. I think she even uses the phrase "kicking upwards." It is lazy joke writing to trade in stereotypes. It is lazy joke writing to kick people who are "down."

Louis CK tells a funny rape joke. Oddly enough, on the page it probably reads terrible, just as Jim Jeffries says about this particular bit of his. The difference is, for me, that Louis lays bare in no uncertain terms EXACTLY what a rapist does and so exposes the brutality and utter selfishness of their entitlement. It's brilliant.

Mr Jeffries doesn't do that. He isn't "kicking upwards" enough for me. Not in this rape culture world. (And good on him for weaving the criticism into his bit, in an attempt to do what Louis CK does.)

*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 think people, everyone, takes for granted how mobile bikes are. Just because you can bob and weave somewhat easily doesn't mean you should when someone invades your space. He was against a double-yellow line and the back of a truck.
Where are the cops when you need them? Right there, for once!

Bernie should have gotten more delegates.

Hillary been around the block and know hows the game goes and knows how to duck and weave ( bribe) herself to victory.

Don't forget the 47 dead bodies Bills womens.

Please stay on topic of the video. Weaving veganism into any and every video is just annoying. You only do your cause a disservice by bothering people with your preaching.

Yeah, i dont trust a single fuck with a badge or a gun or both and a uniform. That wasnt always so. At one time i was a pretty lame introverted nerd with the world as my oyster. Listening to Rage Against the Machine made me concerned, because it was too extreme. And then the iron fist of law enforcement thought theyd fuck with me and make me suffer for what was not my burden. And then it just gets worse and worse, a downward spiral of constant legal battles, jail time, mental illness, etc. etc. etc. Its all the same to me, govt, law enforcement, human resource representatives, executives, redcoats. Oppression creates terrorism. Always.

During the Philippine-American war, the events which lead up to our own soldiers commiting acts of genocide started with our disregard of the indigenous people, oppression, and penchant for disrespecting local men and harassing their women; as well, our ignorant and well documented philosophies of Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism. The family of the abused rise up and attack their oppressors. Terrorism will always be so as long as the mighty refuse to respect all ways of life and seek instead to instill their systems of government and create puppet governments whoch fail, destablizing entire regions.

Because now the game is bigger. You dont simply destablize a region: when you oppress people, you destabilize an entire zeitgeist, affecting far more people than ever before. People in America rise up to join forces that provide promises of liberty that America no longer offers. Even if those terror groups themselves lie, the broken people see it as a hope. The oppressed will crawl out of the woodwork and kill. There is no precise pattern when frank castles of the world do their deeds. Its just like the 4000 deaths per year from semitrucks, the trucking industry says 70% (debatable, likely a lower number) of accidents are caused by noncommercial vehicles. Impatient people weaving in and out of traffic and cutting off truck drivers oppresses them and sometimes even they to rise up and do terror.

So simple answer: Love, peace, and good will are what the government should promote. Of course, that would simply open them to being taken advantage of... so, we are fucked, always and forever. But maybe even if we cant promote true peace, perhaps we can at least avoid creating the terrorists we fear.

Weaving through traffic on a motorcycle is one thing. Dangerous, of course, but for a car to shockingly keep up in pursuit, that requires a hell of a lot more reckless and dangerous driving.

Today I found a "bespoke water" video, which came to mind after the recent "bespoke toilet paper" video. I decided to sift it, but I see that you beat me to it about 8 months ago (I'm usually late to the party):
http://videosift.com/video/Artisan-Water-The-Timmy-Brothers

However, I see that it never got enough votes to actually get sifted. I think given the success of the TP video, now might be the time to try again. I don't have privileges so I can't invoke * related to link the two (other one is at http://videosift.com/video/Rustic-Weave-Artisanal-Bespoke-Toilet-Paper), but I think I could * promote your video.

However, I think it would be better to just give you the power points to do that yourself (I have essentially no use for power points myself), IF you feel like it is a good idea. If you think that video had its shot and would rather not use them to promote it again, that is fine too -- in that case consider them a gift for you to use at your discretion since I thoroughly enjoyed the video.

So, have a couple power points and do whatever you like with them.

Your video, Rustic Weave Artisanal Bespoke Toilet Paper, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Well, cheers for sticking with it anyway, I really appreciate it.

It's a one hour talk on the deficit in particular, and most of what she says is based on MMT principles that would add another 5 hours to her talk if she were to explain them. With neoclassical economics, you can sort of jump right in, given how they are taught at schools and regurgitated by talking heads and politicians, day in and day out. MMT runs contrary to many pieces of "common sense" and since you can't really give 10 hour talks everytime, this is what you end up with – bits and pieces that require previous knowledge.

I'd offer talks by other MMT proponents such as William Mitchell (UNSW), Randy Wray (UMKC) or Michael Hudson (UMKC), but they are even less comprehensible. Sorry. Eric Tymoigne provided a wonderful primer on banking over at NEP, but it's long and dry.

Since I'm significantly worse at explaining the basics of MMT, I'm not even going to try to "weave a narrative" and instead I'll just work my way through it, point by point.

@notarobot

"Let's address inequality by taking on debt to increase spending to help transfer money to large private corporations."

You don't have to take on debt. The US as the sole legal issuer of the Dollar can always "print more". That's what the short Greenspan clip was all about. Of course, you don't actually print Federal Reserve Notes to pay for federal expenses. It's the digital age, after all.

If the federal government were to acquire, say, ten more KC-46 from Boeing, some minion at the Treasury would give some minion at the Fed a call and say "We need $2 billion, could you arrange the transfer?" The Fed minion then proceeds to debit $2B from the Treasury's account at the Fed (Treasury General Account, TGA) and credits $2B to Boeing's account at Bank X. Plain accounting.

If TGA runs negative, there are two options. The Treasury could sell bonds, take on new debt. Or it could monetise debt by selling those bonds straight to the Fed – think Overt Monetary Financing.

The second option is the interesting one: a swap of public debt for account credits. Any interest on this debt would be transfered straight back in the TGA. It's all left pocket, right pocket, really. Both the Fed and the Treasury are part of the consolidated government.

However, running a deficit amounts to a new injection of reserves. This puts a downward pressure on the overnight interest rate (Fed Funds Rate in the US, FFR) unless it is offset by an increase in outstanding debt by the Treasury (or a draw-down of the TT&Ls, but that's minor in this case). So the sale of t-bonds is not a neccessity, it's how the Treasury supports the Fed's monetary policy by raising the FFR. If the target FFR is 0%, there's no need for the Treasury to drain reserves by selling bonds.

Additionally, you might want to sell t-bonds to provide the private sector with the ability to earn interest on a safe asset (pension funds, etc). Treasury bonds are as solid as it gets, unlike municipal bonds of Detroit or stocks of Deutsche Bank.

To quote Randy Wray: "And, indeed, treasury securities really are nothing more than a saving account at the Fed that pay more interest than do reserve deposits (bank “checking accounts”) at the Fed."

Point is: for a government that uses its own sovereign, free-floating currency, it is a political decision to take on debt to finance its deficit, not an economic neccessity.

"Weimar Republic"

I'm rather glad that you went with Weimar Germany and not Zimbabwe, because I know a lot more about the former than the latter. The very, very short version: the economy of 1920's Germany was in ruins and its vastly reduced supply capacity couldn't match the increase in nominal spending. In an economy at maximum capacity, spending increases are a bad idea, especially if meant to pay reparations.

Let's try a longer version. Your point, I assume, is that an increase in the money supply leads to (hyper-)inflation. That's Quantity Theory of Monetary 101, MV=PY. Amount of money in circulation times velocity of circulation equals average prices times real output. However, QTM works on two assumptions that are quite... questionable.

First, it assumes full employment (max output, Y is constant). Or in other terms, an economy running at full capacity. Does anyone know any economy today that is running at full capacity? I don't. In fact, I was born in '83 and in my lifetime, we haven't had full employment in any major country. Some people refer to 3% unemployment as "full employment", even though 3% unemployment in the '60s would have been referred to as "mass unemployment".

Second, it assumes a constant velocity of circulation (V is constant). That's how many times a Dollar has been "used" over a year. However, velocity was proven to be rather volatile by countless studies.

If both Y and V are constant, any increase in the money supply M would mean an increase in prices P. The only way for an economy at full capacity to compensate for increased spending would be a rationing of said spending through higher prices. Inflation goes up when demand outpaces supply, right?

But like I said, neither Y nor V are constant, so the application of this theory in this form is misleading to say the least. There's a lot of slack in every economy in the world, especially the US economy. Any increase in purchases will be met by corporations with excess capacity. They will, generally speaking, increase their market share rather than hike prices. Monopolies might not, but that's a different issue altogether.

Again, the short version: additional spending leads to increased inflation only if it cannot be met with unused capacity. Only in an economy at or near full capacity will it lead to significant inflation. And even then, excess private demand can easily be curbed: taxation.

As for the Angry Birds analogy: yeah, I'm not a fan either. But all the other talks on this topic are even worse, unfortunatly. There's only a handful of MMT economists doing these kinds of public talks and I haven't yet spotted a Neil deGrasse Tyson among them, if you know what I mean.

Who is this woman and why did I give her an hour of my time?

I listened to the whole thing.

I don't disagree with everything she said. She's right that supply side tricklenomics doesn't really work that well, and she does a good job outlining problems. But the narrative she weaves is all over the place when she starts talking about solutions. "Let's address inequality by taking on debt to increase spending to help transfer money to large private corporations." (I'm paraphrasing.) Increasing debt transfers power to the lender. Will they borrow from big banks? The Rothschilds? China? What's that quote? "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."

And "lets pay our debts by just printing more money." What kind of solution is that? The Weimar Republic called. They'd like to have a word with you about hyper-inflation.

And her "angry birds" analogy was insufferable.

Weaving the Bridge

Looking forward to seeing how they weave the trade channel into the story.

This is the BEST (doom) metal video ever produced. Fourth wall breaking and sinister! My favorite era of Candlemass.

The lyrics of the song are played out in the music video and go beyond the fourth wall into the sinister rhythm of metal music itself -- head banging and dancing in place are the effects of an entranced metalhead now "Dancing and singing to my fiddle".

Brilliant song. Brilliant video -- especially in October. *horrorshow

All hail the Messiah Marcolin!

*promote

Can't you see the devil in me
Just take a look in my eyes
I will play for you this wicked melody
It's magic will reach for your soul

It burns inside, no place to hide
This strange tune possesses your mind
It comes over you and the nightmare is true
You'll enter the realm of the dark

You are bewitched
You are bewitched

Bewitched, be delight, you'll reach the night
Dancing and singing to my fiddle
So take my hand, and understand
That no one will see you again

You are bewitched
You are bewitched

I am the master of the enchanted tune
I'll play for your joy, for your soul, for you doom
My fingers they dance upon the strings like fire
Weaving a spell of my burning desire

Sing with me, meet your destiny
Set yourself free to the magic
So come with me, my kingdom to see
Believe me you're captured my friend

You are bewitched
You are bewitched
You are bewitched
You are bewitched