I think that by standing with Hillary instead of with Bernie, she signaled that she's willing to play ball with the party establishment that Hillary was a product of. That is, a party that would prop up a candidate who would "say anything, and change nothing," and govern for corporations and the wealthy, etc.

The Democratic Party imploding in on itself over Bernie's popularity was a major factor in getting Trump elected. In a way, Trump could never have become president without Hillary....

I really like Warren, but I worry that the DNC would neuter everything they can from what she's stood for and spoken out about during her political career; I worry that they would make her words hollow.

This is disgusting. I can't believe they would show this on TV, it's utterly immoral.... who serves scrambled eggs without toast?!?

Also, Louis CK really doesn't get enough props as a dramatic actor.

Pfft. Bird of prey might be sexier, but I reckon real props for speed should go to ducks or pigeons. You ever see a duck gliding? No, nor me.

Props to @eric3579 for pointing this out.

There is so much wrong with this video I don't even know where to start. First, there are only two types of aircraft engines, piston and turbine. When a turbine is used to drive a propeller, it's called a turbo prop. When he is talking about turbo props, he shows pictures of a piston driven propeller aircraft (Cessna 41x), and piston engines are the most common type of engine used on propeller driven aircraft, not turbo props.

He mostly gets it right about turbo jets, except again, every aircraft he shows when talking about turbo jets uses a turbo fan (the F-15 and F-16 both use afterburning turbofan engines). They get their thrust from the hot expansion of exhaust gasses, but he gets it wrong with turbo fans, which get most of their thrust from the bypass air from the fan.

God forbid they ever put a prop on upside down.
You racers know what I mean...

Donald Trump is whatever he needs to be to get your approval right now. He's not a man of conviction who can be relied upon to stand by his beliefs. He's an adolescent with a twitter account who needs more followers to prop up his ego. He's a thin skinned, vindictive narcissist who cares more about the appearance of popularity than committing to the hard work required to earn true respect. He's a child in the middle of the room who's suddenly realized everyone's paying attention to him, so he hams it up and makes silly faces to hold the attention. His relentless need for praise and zero integrity allowed him to shape-shift into anything that would get the highest ratings. He is whatever the desperate and disenfranchised wanted him to be, so they voted for him. But he still only cares about the cheering section, even if he has to bring his own with him. So he will never do what's hard to fulfill his promise. He'll put up the facade, sign the papers in front of the cameras, bask in the glory, move on and blame someone else when he fails to follow through. There are people who need what he promised and I feel sorry for them that the only one saying what they needed to hear was a sad little man who's universe does not extend beyond his own ego. He will self destruct, because he always does.

I'm wondering if that noise is a design feature. I would assume that the ideal would be silent, if for no other reason it implies greater efficiency. Since they only have the one electric prop, I can't see why they would have to make that noise.

I think the props are either intentionally designed to make that whine or there is another bit on there making noise like the siren on a Ju-87 dive bomber. If so, that would imply that they are intended from the outset to be used as terror weapons.

In this case I don't think I have an issue with that. If you have a bunch of hostile folks holed up somewhere, and you can put the fear in them with these and thus make them surrender, that's fine. I just don't like to imagine the future when they have hours or days of endurance and they're used on civilian population centers, and that's surely the long term goal for little drone swarms like these.

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?

I hate disagreeing with you, but I come at things differently. When I find an individual or new outlet is willing to wilfully obstruct and manipulate the truth, I stop trusting them and rarely waste my time with listening to it anymore. In the rare instance they have a story that seems important that isn't sourced anywhere else, or something otherwise unique I'll sometimes look, but always fact checking what is said. The amount of time that can be wasted on fact checking is why I largely dismiss strongly biased sources.

Fox and MSNBC are good examples, but RT puts them to shame.

Chris Hedges I was only familiar with in name, and not reputation. The fact he was speaking on RT was enough for me to dismiss him out of hand. The fact you seemed to think he was a lone credible individual got me to look further.

On looking further I'd encourage you to read Hedges own work form Nov 8, 2001:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/08/world/a-nation-challenged-the-school-defectors-cite-iraqi-training-for-terrorism.html

Despite the fact he's appeared earnest and genuine in the instances you've seen him, and despite him seemingly bravely standing against the American administration and it being an act of character to speak out against the war, the above article seems to reveal Chris Hedges true nature. He was a paid lackey of American propaganda to prop up the lead in to the Iraq war, but at some point afterwards Russia paid better and now he's singing the tune of the current highest bidder.

I wish I could say I'm surprised to find it, but an RT report or opinion piece on why Russia is innocent of something turns out to be being forwarded by somebody clearly willing to be completely two faced when the money is good.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Thank goodness for Alec, he's basically propping up all of SNL - just finished watching, and the best thing was this and Sturgill Simpson - the rest ... well, Trump might have a point. Could we just get 90 minutes of Alec doing Trump, and the Putin character?

Ok. Thank you for clarifying.
I feel you have now invited action against you by moderators AND verbal retaliation from fellow sifters.
You are welcome to your opinion, as disgusting as many may find it, but you are NOT welcome to use blatant racist hate speech when explaining your theories, not here. The rules on that subject are clear, and you have blatantly, repeatedly, and unapologetically violated them.
I do give you props for standing behind your words, that's far more adult than hiding from them and pretending you didn't mean it or were just joking.

Btw, calling you out on your inappropriate actions in no way equates to condoning Obama's inappropriate actions.

The whiny camera dude needs to rethink his negotiating strategy: Leading off with asking the repairman to put his truck in a driveway is about the same as asking him to commit suicide by idiot. Props to the comcast guy for not smacking him upside the head.

I don't doubt that the conage is substandard, but the level of driving shown is abysmal. Don't they have plow trucks in driveways and kids playing by the side of the road in Indiana? What are those drivers thinking?

When I become king, drivers like that will have their dented vehicles ceremonially crushed before their faces, and their driving privileges revoked until a solid week, Sunday to Sunday, elapses without the temperature going below freezing. 55F for anyone who was driving a black pickup.

Yeah, I think he pretty much nailed it.

If you are dismayed by what has happened, please consider:

* Perhaps some of your anger should be directed at the Democrat party brass. They pulled hard for Hillary from day one. They have superdelegates because they don't trust Democrat voters to choose "correctly". All of them swung for Hillary, without even seriously considering any alternative. The brass dismissed Sanders as unelectable and nutty. Oops.

If there were no superdelegates, and the party hadn't consistently propped up Hillary as their highly favored candidate, the primaries would likely have been very different. And my contention is that Trump vs Sanders would have ended in a landslide victory for Sanders. Because Sanders would have appealed to these "blow up the system" people too, AND been much more palatable to people on the fence than Trump.


I think Trump is an idiot blowhard. I think he will make a terrible president (not apocalyptically terrible, but terrible). BUT, I am willing to give him a chance to prove me wrong. I would have been willing to give Hillary a chance if she had won, too.

Outside of the immediate setback that this represents to the Democrat party, I think the future of the party is actually extremely bright -- IF they learn the lesson that they need to from this election. Choose candidates that people like. People that are actually worth voting FOR, rather than propping up someone that you hope will be seen as the "lesser of two evils".

That is without a doubt the best chase scene ever filmed in a nature documentary. Props to BBC and the Planet Earth 2 team for capturing it.

*doublepromote