Sounds like you've caught a serious case of the fandomitis.

I remember having a similar conversation with this guy from a group lunch. I brought up Modern Family and how it was getting popular, and he said that he couldn't stand watching Modern Family because they were all 'fake' and their acting made him feel uncomfortable. He said he couldn't quite put his finger on it, only that he kept saying that the actors were overreacting to the situations.

I told him I felt the same way about Portlandia and how I felt very uncomfortable when the actors were being very aggressive with their ultra-liberal agendas and stop watching whenever they were about to have another fit. This was ironic because the person who didn't like Modern Family absolutely loved Portlandia and had no problem watching it.

For the record, in my subjective opinion I felt that the person I was talking with was a very giddy person, like the personalities in Modern Family, while I sometimes can be an argumentative smart mouth when it comes to certain topics.

Perhaps we were seeing a little bit of ourselves in these shows, and it was making us uncomfortable? Weird, eh?

>> ^alien_concept:

>> ^VoodooV:
I both love and hate this show.
I hate how it reinforces all the shittiest stereotypes, the flamboyant gay couple, the straight couple with the man is the bumbling idiot and the woman who he is ridiculously lucky to have.
But yeah, it is a damned funny show.

I honestly don't think they write these characters stereotypically at all! That's why I find it so hilarious, you think you know what you're going to get then they play it out completely differently. Like they're a gay couple and they do gay flamboyant things, but one is ginger and one is fat and they're certainly not the perfect adoptive parents, they fuck it up all the time. And Phil and Claire, yeah she's way out of his league at first glance, but then you realise what a complete mentalist she is, and how she's wonderful but difficult to love if you weren't a husband who understands he's punching above his weight and also autistic so can let most of her quirks go. And then there's the old rich guy with the trophy wife and the precocious step kid. I can't even think of anything usual about that routine

>> ^VoodooV:

I both love and hate this show.
I hate how it reinforces all the shittiest stereotypes, the flamboyant gay couple, the straight couple with the man is the bumbling idiot and the woman who he is ridiculously lucky to have.
But yeah, it is a damned funny show.


I honestly don't think they write these characters stereotypically at all! That's why I find it so hilarious, you think you know what you're going to get then they play it out completely differently. Like they're a gay couple and they do gay flamboyant things, but one is ginger and one is fat and they're certainly not the perfect adoptive parents, they fuck it up all the time. And Phil and Claire, yeah she's way out of his league at first glance, but then you realise what a complete mentalist she is, and how she's wonderful but difficult to love if you weren't a husband who understands he's punching above his weight and also autistic so can let most of her quirks go. And then there's the old rich guy with the trophy wife and the precocious step kid. I can't even think of anything usual about that routine

I both love and hate this show.

I hate how it reinforces all the shittiest stereotypes, the flamboyant gay couple, the straight couple with the man is the bumbling idiot and the woman who he is ridiculously lucky to have.

But yeah, it is a damned funny show.

http://videosift.com/video/Daniel-Radcliffe-Supports-The-Trevor-Project He's very bumbling at the beginning of this video, but he gets in stride. You can tell he so genuinely cares about it

In reply to this comment by luxury_pie:
>> ^alien_concept:

>> ^luxury_pie:
>> ^alien_concept:
Daniel Radcliffe is my favourite famous person right now, I LOVE him. And it helps that he looks like Elijah Wood who I also love. Both very down to earth funny bastards.
promote

Wow, my opinion is completely the opposite.
His acting in HP was excruciating. But maybe that's not his fault... the movies were shit to begin with.
And then I may be judging a book by its most famous cover, he didn't sound like a complete douchebag in this video.

Well, I never said I loved him for his acting. Even though I don't think he's bad at all, I know what you mean in the HP movies. But to be honest I don't think fantasy movies require show-stopping performances, ie Star Wars. I just like him, the person. Espcecially because of the exhaustive work he does for The Trevor Project, which is quite important to me


Wow, I did not know what "The Trevor Project" was. Now I like him more as a person. Thanks!

>> ^dag:

Lyrics per request @ant


Thanks! Nothing about bumble bees.

Nice to see Felicia not playing a bumbling idiot

Oh yeah, the Arab Spring revolts were such a NATO conspiracy. They really had to spread it, topple a couple of other dictators peacefully, all that to be able to... whatever it is they're scheming to do.


Yes, and remember that the Afghan war was all about a pipeline. Then for a little while it was about minerals. I don't remember what it's all about now. Oh, and the Iraq war was all about oil too. Obviously. Also, the Cold War was all fake.

The general WTC conspiracy (ie. it was all done by the US government) is complete nutbars. It imagines a kind of omniscient foresight and complete control that it is quite clear the US government (and all of its fantastic, bumbling agencies) lacks.

It can be an oddly pleasing little fiction to imagine hyper-intelligent, all-powerful string pullers manipulating world events. The reality is that the guys at the top are, well, guys like George Bush - aggressive, not to smart, motivated by emotion and family grudges, and born in the right place to the right people to one day end up in power.

And this video is clearly made by disingenuous douchebags. They don't acknowledge and counter the "official explanation" (and there is official explanations for this stuff, it's not new material) - they just kind of hand-wave it away. If they said "well, this is the official explanation but here's why we still think there's issues" then I'd have a bit of respect for them. Instead, they pretend this is stuff that hasn't been responded to; the same approach you see in, say, anti-evolution videos. Douchebags.

Humorously, the "1500 engineers agree" crap is also common in anti-evolution videos; similarly, I'm sure it would be easy to respond with 1500 engineers named Steve who accept the general "official" version. If they had good arguments, they should have led with them, instead of trotting out the same tired crap and hiding behind the "big numbers" of engineers they found.

Since two folks haved shared education stories, I thought I'd share.

I grew up in Jackson Mississippi, yet despite how people perceive education there, most of my teachers were phenomenal. They cared about their subjects, and cared about us well enough to push us in ways we didn't like. I ended up graduating with a few college credits, and an eagerness to learn.

I remember a science teacher assigning me a science project to enter in a local competition. I did a eighth half ass job on it, the night before. But on a school day, she drove me to the convention center and made me stand there in humiliation in front of all the other kids who actually worked on their assignments and the judges who scrutinized me and asked me questions. That embarrassment and exposure woke me up a little about the consequences of doing a low quality job.

I've also had great civics and history teachers who cared enough to seriously address me and others when we challenged some of the assumptions underlying our system of government and its history. From what others have told me of apathetic teachers, I now think this engagement is/was not so common.

I remember taking trigonometry one summer; not because I had to take it over, but because a teacher volunteered to teach an extra course for people where were interested. She showered attention and encouragement on all of the pupils, and made an intimidating subject actually fun. That allowed me to take calculus in the fall with higher confidence in my math abilities.

These experiences stand out in my memory, but the level of engagement and enthusiasm was typical for my k-12 teachers.

A "bad" teacher? Once we had a physics teacher who had recently immigrated from China. His english was terrible, and he taught the class as though we were graduate students, not high school kids. He was also fit the stereotype of the awkward, bumbling egg head; once, in a lecture, he somehow bumped into an eye washer, and drenched his pants (worn up to his upper waist). In the middle of the semester, he had visa problems and we saw little of him since. I'm not sure how we learned any thing in that class.

Our books were OK, but the teachers were never shy about using outside materials to enhance the lesson, or having us bring in things relevant to the lessons.

What, no * documentary tag?



For those who are not aware of this gem of a show, it's a mockumentary that follows three bumbling losers who live in a trailer park in Nova Scotia and subsist on usually-failing schemes to make profits from some petty crime or other. Julian is NEVER seen without a rum and coke in his hand, Ricky gets shot in the ass a lot, and Bubbles provides more naive innocence than a full season of My Little Pony. There's various supporting characters including ex-cop alcoholic Lahey who "runs" the park and hates Ricky and Julian.
=========
One of the worst tragedies of my lengthy TV-watching career was seeing some moron in the US start broadcasting this show with all of the profanity bleeped out. Often you'd get a ten second beee-e-e...eeep when Ricky got fired up.

I was deeply disappointed that Obama didn't get the US out of its disastrous wars, and I'm dumbfounded at how little has been done to address the horribly imbalanced US health care system. I think Obama's failure to deal with budget problems (mostly, again, war is the problem) constitutes the beginning of a serious threat to civilization. I'm no Obama fan.

I thought that young Bush got a lot of undeserved flak for some of his speaking gaffes. With him, it was clear he often understood issues better than he was able to articulate. There was a fairly smart guy under the bumbling. Also, I thought it was ridiculous that anyone believed the Rather-gate memos. It was sad how far Bush haters would leave their senses in order to believe something that was so clearly a forgery.

In general, I'm a Canadian with no horse in the US political race.

And to me, it's crystal clear: Palin is a moron. Not like a Bush "moron" who made gaffes (but laughed them off when correcting himself later), or a sneaky, folksy type or something (who talks like the commoners as a political ploy). No - she's just plain old stupid, and mixed with a dangerous, aggressive confidence.

The silver lining is that she is, I hope and believe, unelectable.

I don't know a damn thing about you. I don't claim that you are anything like any other religious person in existence or in history, except for one thing - a belief in a supernatural higher power that there is no real basis for believing in. And in that very specific aspect of your personality, yes, I generalize you. No matter what kind of monster you yourself try to paint me as being, I just don't feel bad about that. Sorry that I can't catalog the personal details of billions of individual believers for anonymous online discussion purposes. I'm sure you are otherwise a wonderful human being and I certainly bear you no ill will.>> ^smooman:

>> ^Sketch:
You are right, I am not going to get into an argument about semantics with you, because that would make me a complete idiot. If it helps for me to compartmentalize it for you, then yes, where your beliefs in religion, superstition and the supernatural are concerned, I actively think that you are an idiot. Does that clear it up and make you feel better? Now you can go do rocket science, or brain surgery or any number of things that probably make you a great deal smarter than me in a possibly infinite minus 1 number of subjects in peace.>> ^smooman:
>> ^Sketch:
It's not, but if that's how you want to put words in my mouth, then so be it. Smart people can, and do, believe stupid shit sometimes. It happens.>> ^smooman:
>> ^Sketch:
For the record, in my estimation, if you are religious it does not necessarily mean that you are an idiot. But it does mean you believe in idiotic superstition.

"if you are religious it does not necessarily mean that you are an idiot. But it does mean you believe in things only idiots do, thus making you an idiot"
thats basically what you said


well it does actually. the modifier of superstitions, in this case, idiotic, explicitly implies that the believers of such are by association, idiots. This is further enforced by your choice of diction indicating that all persons of religious persuasions believe in what you would describe as "idiotic superstitions". this is merely a debate in semantics but.....whatever. i think i know what you were trying to say. you just said it in the most absolute, presumptuous, generalized way


its amusing to me that you like to think you know my beliefs and my deepest convictions, or superstitions as you call them, based on the mere fact that i am religious. cuz we're all the same right? perhaps to you. by that fact, it is you who are foolish, not me.....or are all atheists the same? (hint: theyre not, and neither are we religious types)
if its more comfortable for you to paint with such broad strokes, then by all means, keep using that sweeping brush, but dont expect me to admire your haste to color all religious peoples as bumbling neanderthals clinging to ancient fairy tales and superstitions that you vehemently insist we are.

but what do i know, im just a superstitious, religious, idiot

>> ^Sketch:

You are right, I am not going to get into an argument about semantics with you, because that would make me a complete idiot. If it helps for me to compartmentalize it for you, then yes, where your beliefs in religion, superstition and the supernatural are concerned, I actively think that you are an idiot. Does that clear it up and make you feel better? Now you can go do rocket science, or brain surgery or any number of things that probably make you a great deal smarter than me in a possibly infinite minus 1 number of subjects in peace.>> ^smooman:
>> ^Sketch:
It's not, but if that's how you want to put words in my mouth, then so be it. Smart people can, and do, believe stupid shit sometimes. It happens.>> ^smooman:
>> ^Sketch:
For the record, in my estimation, if you are religious it does not necessarily mean that you are an idiot. But it does mean you believe in idiotic superstition.

"if you are religious it does not necessarily mean that you are an idiot. But it does mean you believe in things only idiots do, thus making you an idiot"
thats basically what you said


well it does actually. the modifier of superstitions, in this case, idiotic, explicitly implies that the believers of such are by association, idiots. This is further enforced by your choice of diction indicating that all persons of religious persuasions believe in what you would describe as "idiotic superstitions". this is merely a debate in semantics but.....whatever. i think i know what you were trying to say. you just said it in the most absolute, presumptuous, generalized way



its amusing to me that you like to think you know my beliefs and my deepest convictions, or superstitions as you call them, based on the mere fact that i am religious. cuz we're all the same right? perhaps to you. by that fact, it is you who are foolish, not me.....or are all atheists the same? (hint: theyre not, and neither are we religious types)

if its more comfortable for you to paint with such broad strokes, then by all means, keep using that sweeping brush, but dont expect me to admire your haste to color all religious peoples as bumbling neanderthals clinging to ancient fairy tales and superstitions that you vehemently insist we are.


but what do i know, im just a superstitious, religious, idiot

I wonder if the "sorcerer" knew he was a sorcerer. Or is it like the Salem witch trails? I picture this, tribal style.

Someone should tell that guy his balls are showing. Bumble bee tuna.

I disagree. I think you are confusing faith with deduction and inference, which is always incredibly annoying when people talk about how atheists require faith. No, all we require is evidence!

We can infer from available evidence, for instance, that the Big Bang happened, or that dark matter is likely to exist because of other observations and EVIDENCE that it does. The math involved in the physical universe doesn't quite work out without it, despite the fact that we cannot see it. This is, of course, a theory (an actual, scientific type theory), but a theory that makes sense based on the best, current, available EVIDENCE. Similarly, we once inferred that God existed because we did not have the knowledge, nor the tools with which to examine our world with anywhere close to the fidelity that we are able to today, and now we are able to throw out the God hypothesis in almost every discipline of study.

Faith, conversely, requires that you not have evidence and just believe in something without proof, or upon someone's word. Perhaps I did not take enough salt with your statement, but faith is certainly not the evidence of anything, let alone "the unseen". Evidence of the unseen, would still be evidence from which we can deduce a conclusion. If you have evidence, you are no longer faithful, you are simply informed. And as of now, there is no actual evidence outside of anecdotes like this video, the Bible itself, and emotional appeals - which are easily dismissed as not credible - for a deity.

The problem with God is that He's just plugged into areas where we don't know things, and people take it upon faith that He's real, even in areas where there is more than enough real, tangible evidence to contradict a need for a deity. That is why secularists get so irritated at young Earth creationists and the like, where a preponderance of repeatable, testable, falsifiable, and verifiable evidence shows how enormously wrong they are, yet they refuse to believe the evidence itself, because it goes against their faith in what they believe to be true. A person might have all of the intellect and powers of critical thinking in the world, but when someone takes something on faith, they abandon those powers to plug in a simple answer for whatever their personal reasons.

I don't know your story, or how you feel you've rationalized yourself into belief, whether it be through some sort of Pascal's Wager thing, or what, and I certainly don't think you are an "ignorant, bumbling Neanderthal" but to accept any of an infinite number of god possibilities, let alone the specific Abrahamic God requires faith, and an absence of logic in the absence of real evidence.

Sorry, I went on a rant there...>> ^smooman:


while that may be true, they are not mutually exclusive.
faith is the evidence of things unseen (i know thats gonna mean zilch to you so take that with a grain of salt) and i very seriously doubt you could convincingly question the critical thinking skills of persons such as CS Lewis
i dont think atheists (or non christians for that matter) are godless sinners, devoid of any morality, any more than i would hope that you not think me an ignorant, bumbling, neanderthal because im religious
we have different religious views, however this does not make either of us smarter, more critical, or better than the other because of that fact

>> ^smooman:

>> ^Ti_Moth:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I mean without faith what do you have?
>> ^smooman:
ps: shinyblurry, science has, quite conclusively, proven that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old....but thats neither here nor there. You at least recognize that it doesnt matter (as do i), as it pertains ones personal relationship with god.
The bible wasnt written to tell me how old the earth is =)



Err... Evidence and critical thinking?

while that may be true, they are not mutually exclusive.
faith is the evidence of things unseen (i know thats gonna mean zilch to you so take that with a grain of salt) and i very seriously doubt you could convincingly question the critical thinking skills of persons such as CS Lewis
i dont think atheists (or non christians for that matter) are godless sinners, devoid of any morality, any more than i would hope that you not think me an ignorant, bumbling, neanderthal because im religious
we have different religious views, however this does not make either of us smarter, more critical, or better than the other because of that fact


My apologies if you thought I was refering to you, my flippant comment was directed at shinyblury and his young earth antics. And I understand faith in principle it just seems that people have faith in whatever is the nearest religion at the time of their spiritual awakening, I mean if you were living a few thousand years ago you may well have had faith in Thor or Zeus and thats all well and good but what if Mighty Ra and his family of gods are the correct thing to have faith in? You would be missing out on Vallhalla...