Carlton was on speed given to Will by a "friend" to help him study! He thought it was .. aspirin.

Thanks for these Im having flashbacks bigtime

i really dropped off watching Home Improvement... Randy gets cancer and Brad smokes weed? Match made in heaven..

>> ^kymbos:

Ignorance?
Just jokes. But seriously, that is the craziest rule I have ever seen. You can't celebrate prematurely? An audacious move like that deserves a bit of showboating. And what's with the "In Australia, you're allowed to do this, but in College Football, this year you're not" stuff?
You Americans are crazy.
>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
..it's friggin' football.. AMERICAN football. What's more american then braggin'?
hell, i don't even like sports that much..


that weirded me out when i heard it as well. the guy who 'showboated' is Brad Wing, an aussie.

it was a pretty harsh call for just lifting his hands on the way to a great TD. hardly much of a taunt.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'michael levin, brad kremer, photography, videography, japan' to 'michael levin, brad kremer, photography, videography, japan, Royksopp Forever' - edited by hpqp

>> ^pyloricvalve:

Thanks for the reply. There were things I really didn't understand about Krugman's Hangover Theory article, especially that very point that you quote. In fact I tried to ask in a post above about this but maybe you missed it. To me it seems only natural that there is no unemployment in the boom and there is some in the bust. Both are big reorganisations of labour, it is true. However, to start with the boom is much slower and longer so adaptation is easier. Also the booming industry can afford to pay slightly above average wages so will easily attract unemployed or 'loose' labour. As it is paying above average, there will be little resistance to people changing work to it. The boom is persistent enough that people will train and invest to enter the work created by it. The information for entering the boom industry is clear and the pay rise makes the work change smooth. I see no reason for unemployment.
The bust however is short and sudden. There is no other obvious work to return to. That information of what the worker should do is much less clear. The answer may involve taking a small pay cut or on giving up things in which people have invested time and money. Many people wait and resist doing this. They may well not know what to do or try to wait for opportunities to return. Thus there is plenty of reason for unemployment to be generated by the bust.
If I hire 100 people it can probably be done in a month or two. If I fire 100 people it may be a long time before they are all employed again. For me this difference seems so obvious I have a real trouble to understand Krugman's point. I know he's a very smart guy but I can't make head nor tail of his argument here. Can you explain it to me?


I'm trying to think how to connect what you're saying to the point Krugman's making (at least as I understand it).

At a minimum, he're Caplan making the same point in less space:

The Austrian theory also suffers from serious internal inconsistencies. If, as in the Austrian theory, initial consumption/investment preferences "re-assert themselves," why don't the consumption goods industries enjoy a huge boom during depressions? After all, if the prices of the capital goods factors are too high, are not the prices of the consumption goods factors too low? Wage workers in capital goods industries are unhappy when old time preferences re-assert themselves. But wage workers in consumer goods industries should be overjoyed. The Austrian theory predicts a decline in employment in some sectors, but an increase in others; thus, it does nothing to explain why unemployment is high during the "bust" and low during the "boom."

Krugman saying the same thing in more accessible language:

Here's the problem: As a matter of simple arithmetic, total spending in the economy is necessarily equal to total income (every sale is also a purchase, and vice versa). So if people decide to spend less on investment goods, doesn't that mean that they must be deciding to spend more on consumption goods—implying that an investment slump should always be accompanied by a corresponding consumption boom? And if so why should there be a rise in unemployment?

And as a bonus, here's Brad DeLong making a similar case.

My real handicap here is that I'm not familiar enough with the fine details of the Austrian theory to say with authority what they believe. So if I misrepresent their position, it's out of ignorance.

What I gather is that ultimately the Austrian theory of boom and bust is that central banks are messing with the "natural" balance of investment and consumption goods, with a boom happening when investment is being artificially stimulated (by low interest rates), and a bust happens when interest rates eventually go back up (due to inflation, or expectations thereof).

The response from people like Caplan and Krugman is to point out that since aggregate income has to equal aggregate expenditure (because everyone's income is someone else's expenditure, and vice versa), a fall in investment should mean a rise in consumption, and a rise in investment should mean a fall in consumption. Which means we should never see an overall boom or an overall bust, just periods of transition from a rise in consumer goods and a fall in investment, to a fall in consumer goods and a rise in investment. We should never see a situation where they both fall at the same time.

But we do see a fall in both during the bust. Why?

Keynes's answer was that it happens because people are hoarding cash. Either people are themselves stuffing mattresses with it, or more likely, banks start sitting on reserves and refusing to lend out, either out of a fear of their own solvency (Great Depression), or because a deflationary cycle with high unemployment makes sitting on cash look like a good, safe investment for them (Great Depression, and now). Put simply, depressions are the result of an excess demand for money. And since money is an arbitrary thing, it doesn't have to be a scarce resource, we can always just make more...

*nsfw



"Capt. Brad Weaver, commander of special operations for the Indiana State Police, said he took the stage at 8:45 p.m. to warn the audience of severe weather.

Ten minutes later, the wind gust blew through."

>> ^braindonut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T-PXiwpN-k
This one men's highlight video? Maybe they are just cherry picking. If so, that's a dick move.
>> ^westy:
the mans version of this event was not much better , also if you watch the full and unedited video of this its not at all as bad.
the reason they were falling off allot is because it was a new type of event ( the men fell off allot as well ) and I think the riders were not accustomed to it particularly, the riders in the femail race were primarily versed in a different form of motocross racing I assume because there are far less women doing motor cross and different types of it so there is not as brad a skill set as with the male competitors ,



yah , if you wach the full woman's one its not so bad , granted the men were better than the women but the clip makes it look far worse than it was in reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T-PXiwpN-k

This one men's highlight video? Maybe they are just cherry picking. If so, that's a dick move.

>> ^westy:

the mans version of this event was not much better , also if you watch the full and unedited video of this its not at all as bad.
the reason they were falling off allot is because it was a new type of event ( the men fell off allot as well ) and I think the riders were not accustomed to it particularly, the riders in the femail race were primarily versed in a different form of motocross racing I assume because there are far less women doing motor cross and different types of it so there is not as brad a skill set as with the male competitors ,

the mans version of this event was not much better , also if you watch the full and unedited video of this its not at all as bad.

the reason they were falling off allot is because it was a new type of event ( the men fell off allot as well ) and I think the riders were not accustomed to it particularly, the riders in the femail race were primarily versed in a different form of motocross racing I assume because there are far less women doing motor cross and different types of it so there is not as brad a skill set as with the male competitors ,

Tags for this video have been changed from 'brad, nowell, lou dog, lovin, overdose' to 'brad, nowell, lou dog, lovin, overdose, sublime' - edited by DerHasisttot

*quality old school Krusty animated by Brad Bird.

I fucking love Kenny Florian. He's got his hands full in his next fight but I hope he pulls it off.

For those that don't know, Kenny and Cavalcante are both real MMA fighters and I'm pretty sure "Larry Gordon" is Brad Tate, a paramedic who became (in)famous on TUF12.

I love that they got Craig Ferguson - his excellent voice work was a high point (in a movie that was all great) in "How to Train Your Dragon".

I don't know the director (Mark Andrews, who hasn't done much apparently). But it's hard not to give him the benefit of doubt when he worked on two Brad Bird films (Iron Giant and The Incredibles). He did storyboards for those, and both those films had incredible, unforgettable scene composition. I've seen Incredibles like 4500 times (my son LOVED it) and some of the shots, even just those that flash by, are positively inspired. The only downside is that it's hard to watch a regular animated film after - so many lazy shots, cut-and-paste jobs, and so much dead time. Anyways, yeah, that's a good sign.

Also, I think being in Brad's presence melts impurities out of your soul, so this should be an amazing film.

SPOILER ALERT

Seriously, do not read further if you don't want the movie spoiled. You've been warned.

Here are my thoughts to kick this off. Today I'm a different audience goer than I was when I was first introduced to Malick's films. I remember seeing Thin Red Line in the theaters and thinking, yeah it's good but I like Saving Private Ryan more. Mainly because TRL didn't have much of a traditional 3 Act plot. Back then I also hated pretentious movies. Today I still dislike them, but not as much. I do dislike them when I feel the filmmaker is trying to outsmart me, or worse purposely trying to confuse me hoping I'll think the film is smart if I don't understand it.

This isn't the case with Malick. His films always seem genuine. As for Tree of Life, the critiques have been incredibly harsh and the one word used to describe it over and over is pretentious. In Cannes, where he won the Palme d'Or, the film was apparently met with both boos and cheers. Some have even eviscerated it for being preachy and overtly Christian. The title itself is a reference to the tree in the Garden of Eden found in both Genesis and Revelations.

I think we've become too cynical towards Christianity and religion in general. It's easy to politicize it and dismiss a very important mythology that can stand opposite of science. His reference to the tree of life, in my opinion, is a reference to creation and destruction. To beginning and ending. It's a metaphor for individual life as it is blinked into existence and then blinked right back out again. A transcendental metaphor that's smartly weaved in Malick's film. And it's not meant to preach the gospel of the bible, but to educate us on the mythology surrounding life and death.

He starts with a quote from Job that's essentially the part after god has tested Job and taken everything from him, and he speaks to Job directly after Job questions him, and god says (paraphrasing here) where were you when I created everything. In other words, Job asks "why me" or more specifically to the film "why didn't you intervene", and Job tried his entire life to make his existence what he wanted it to be, which for him was that of a pious one devoted to god. Then god smites him for no good reason outside of a game he plays with satan. When Job asks why, god answers by rhetorically questioning why Job didn't intervene when he was building the universe. It's not that he's asking why Job didn't help, but the futility of asking why things happen, as if there's no reason to it. As if life exists with loss and gains, and you have to affirm it as such. There is no why.

That's a great way to look at the film. The first hour or so takes us through a familial setup where we see a young boy's family in the 60s and his modern family today, both of which are experiencing suffering and loss, and both are questioning why, and then we see from god's perspective the size and wonder of the chaotic universe (and presumedly its creation) juxtaposed with the individual suffering of this one family. A dangerous universe. We see how all life has suffered through history (specifically focusing on the dinosaurs in the film at one point). It's all incidental. It's all without reason. It just happens, and we must affirm life this way.

Later in the film it focuses more on the 1960s family, and specifically from the perspective of one of the sons. His mother (Jessica Chastain) coddles him and his brothers while his father (Brad Pitt) is a phlegmatic and hard-nosed authoritarian that keeps his emotional distance - both the embodiment of being affected by passion and fear and emotion. At one point one of the sons dies. The boy we experience the movie through is always questioning why. He asks his mom why she couldn't save his brother. After a life of living under his father's violent authority, he asks why his father doesn't just kill him or kick him out. He suffers and then he questions why he's suffering, and then there's moments where he questions his own choices why he doesn't do things to ease that suffering - for instance at one point he considers dropping the car on his father who is working underneath it (effectively wiping out of existence one source of his suffering).

At one point in the film I felt as if Malick gave us a sneak peak at his intention for the film's message. At one point someone says something to effect of, "We should be good to everyone we come into contact with." This is the salient point. We can't control the suffering. We can't control the despair. Life comes with loss and bad things happen. We have to affirm it as such and make our moments as happy as possible, and also make the moments of other people's (and creatures') lives as happy as possible because they're experiencing the same kinds of suffering that you and me are experiencing. They, too, are incidental.

Malick truly demonstrates this point, I think, when he shows the boys strapping a frog to a rocket and sending it up into the sky. They added to the suffering of that creature even though they themselves are suffering. They didn't touch that creatures life in a way that enriched it, they only added to its suffering - and there was no justice, no penance. Their actions were considered incidental. At most they could be punished by their parents, but nothing intervened to stop them. Their actions were allowed to happen. In the end, I think that's the point of the movie. That we should remind ourselves that we have precious few moments on this earth, and instead of questioning why and giving into bad emotional cues (fear and anger) and acting out on those bad impulses, we should enjoy those few moments and ensure that we make them for those around us (animal and human alike) good as well. It's the classic path to enlightenment that surrounds the story of the Fall (Garden of Eden) where in order to get back into the Garden we must all transcend fear and desire. We must affirm life with suffering.

Anyhow, that's my two cents. Use it to buy a stick of gum.

So, listening to it myself, I gotta say I'm in total agreement with Frum on this one.

To make my own personal observation, even to a pro-Hayek ideologue, don't you notice that he doesn't actually propose any economic theory at all? Not a hint of "I think if X happens, Y will result"? The only things he says are the usual political demagoguery of "if government does something, we're all doomed!"

The bumper-sticker version of Keynes's theory is that if a recession comes about from a slump in demand, government should try to step in and create demand by spending money. The Hayek answer given here is essentially "we don't understand economics," with the full meaning being "so when a major depression or recession hits, just bend over and take it like a man."

Keynes essentially says that economics is worthless as a science if it can't tell us what to do in crises like the Great Depression. In fact, that's the meaning of his "In the long run we are all dead" quote, when read in proper context:

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.

As for the constant accusations of Keynes being a central planner, this too is based on ignorance. Read Brad DeLong, and this except from Keynes's General Theory.

For the most part, I gotta say that even in a video produced by people who clearly side with Hayek, Keynes comes away looking more rational, and more vindicated by history, while all Hayek does is sputter right-wing red meat, without presenting any rationale or evidence to support his views.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
Yeah, everyone knows his position is that less regulation is better for everyone, somehow that would avert things like the BP oil spill. His positions on these things are demonstrably false, but his supporters are too stupid to recognise them for what they are and I generally try to avoid arguing with stupid people. There's simply no point.
Over and out.

Riiiight. Good stance. I take it you are against all of his positions us dumb people believe in? Things like being anti-war, anti-torture, anti-imprisonment without trial (a'la Brad Manning), and so on.
You're right. There's simply no point.


Didn't you know he's the quintessential expert on everything from Government to 9/11? And a closet Physicist too! And if you disagree with his opinion then you're just stupid and not worth talking to.