I'm not sure what I think of them rebooting the canon yet. I was pretty stoked on them exploring the expanded universe.

The briefest explanation, seeing stormtroopers doesn't mean they're clones. They're still the foremost troops for the empire. The lore is a lot differnet now since disney took the rights, all post ROTJ canon has changed now, or basically not canon anymore.

And for the Falcon, freighters have atmospheric maneuverability, though the Falcon is highly modified anyway.

I think we agree completely with Sam Harris in that Islam is in desperate need of a reformation. I won't bring Reza Aslan into this as I haven't read him, and it seems to be tangential at best.

But, acknowledge what you just said when you said that Islam is in need of reformation. You are saying what Sam is saying: That Islam contains some horrible ideas, and people are acting on those ideas, and we need to find a way to marginalize those ideas within the canon of Islam.

We could end the disagreement right there, except for where we stand in history at this point. If Christianity had undergone its reformation in a post nuclear arsenals world, who knows where we would be. It is because of this that it behooves everyone to encourage this reformation of Islam, and potentially to limit their access to apocalyptic weaponry until such a reformation has taken place. That's a different discussion though.

I think Sam's position is that one of the potential motivations behind suicide bombing is martyrdom and jihad. Real belief in those particular dogma alone is sufficient to justify suicide attacks. There are definitely plenty of terrorist actions that take place for completely non-religious reasons, and I bet that the bulk of them combine the two. But that doesn't refute Sam's point.

As for your last bit about literal interpretations, I don't agree there either, at least not entirely. How could you possibly explain the inquisition without resorting to what one would now consider to be fundamentalist readings of the texts? The same fundamentals you're saying weren't in vogue until 100 years ago is the very propaganda used to recruit soldiers to the caliphate's armies centuries ago. In any case it seems unrelated to the discussion when scriptural literalism came about, the fact is that it exists, making it more important that some books contain really bad ideas.

The point at issue isn't 'is islam bad', though obviously it is; but 'is it possible to generalise about large numbers of people who are in the same club and believe the same things' well yes of course it is. As for corroborative evidence, this is not an assertion that requires it. To the extent that it's possible to generalise about anything, it must be possible to generalise about people who have voluntarily signed up to the same ideology.

What's more the actions of individual muslims aren't important. You can't judge any ideology by the actions of its supporters because mostly they will act from, for example, biological imperatives, personal temperament, cultural factors independent of religion and so on, regardless of what they profess to believe. Which is not to say religion isn't influential and dangerous. To assess the merit of an ideology you have to look at what it actually says, what are its core tenets, what are the principles it espouses, and if you do that and ask the question 'does islam promote violence' the answer is an unequivocal 'yes'. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with promoting violence, but it's not my fault these people can't structure a proposition clearly.

Let's build some consensus. I'm sure everyone here can agree that islam's claims are unfactual, that there is no allah, that mohammed was a liar and that all muslims are idiots. These things are obvious, but given these certain truths wherefore do we defend these delusional maniacs? Certainly none of them is innocent. These are creatures who have signed up to follow the example, the whole point of islam is to follow mohammed's example, of a notorious murderer, slaver and rapist (historical and canonical facts); whose rambling, repetitive book is riddled with threats of eternal torture for unbelievers and exhortations to the faithful to slay those unbelievers, hastening them to that unjust end. Guilty, every one.

If you oppose bigotry, you oppose islam.

@moonsammy At 1:52 and 2:42 you can see it's just an off the shelf Canon DSLR. I'm assuming it has some sort of filter that only allows UV light through.

@jmd I don't think those are hot pixels. Notice the spots aren't always in the same place, and in some scenes aren't there at all. In the last scene the spot only shows up as the UV filter slides over, so it's possibly dust on the lens, filter or sensor.

Works for me. What IP address does your name server give for the cdn host?

I get:

# nslookup cdn.videosift.com
cdn.videosift.com canonical name = cdn.siftpartners2.netdna-cdn.com.
Name: cdn.siftpartners2.netdna-cdn.com
Address: 108.161.188.129

What happens if you put in a hosts entry with that address?

The pitches played at 4:20 don't match what's written!!! Also, Pachelbel's canon sucks the donkey. Other than that I like it

Looks like a cheaper DSLR style camera. That's terrible terrible jello effect. And considering at the end I can see one guy with a Canon C100 and Rode VMP, I'd assume they had access to something a bit more modern than an old Nikon or Canon which had TERRIBLE jello effect. That C100 wouldn't exhibit anywhere near that amount of jello unless it was added in post for effect. (Seriously, the camera being used could be a C100 with the handle and mic port detached, but it's too grainy and motion blurred for me to see for sure.) No idea why they would do that either unless, like you stated, they really wanted to bring the quality down.

No, that would be literary device facilitating whatever the writers want. If it's not a hero or villain, it's an object of power or a dimensional force. Or some other meaningless pseudo-scientific babble. The concept of "cosmic consonance" and the forces which balance the Marvel universe use whatever means necessary to maintain it.

Our job in the 21st century is to dismantle our obsessive desire to take root in humanity's collective canon of B.S. You'd think internet savviness would usher in this understanding, but it seems to exacerbate the emotional attachment and selfish need to require "explanation" in a fantasy world where anything can be explained with anything.

(P.S. I love comics -- just not the tendencies it creates in the readers, who see comics as words of minor gods.)

The deviation from source was actually quite minimal. All the big elements of the mythos used in the movie are drawn from established canon. The major problem most people have is Superman snapping Zod's neck at the end when Zod was demonstrating his intent to kill every human on earth with his newfound powers. I'm not a big fan of the writing putting Superman into a corner like that, but it does represent a lesson learned and a starting point for the character to grow from. He was clearly anguished by being forced to take deadly action. This is a contrast to the Chris Reeve Superman who first arrived in Metropolis and revealed himself to the world as a fully formed superhero with full mastery of his powers.... who killed a *de-powered* Zod and the other Kryptonians at the end of Superman II by tossing them down a frozen chasm, then laughed about it.

So the devil's antics are based in human years? I don't understand how the greatest of ALL angels gets "willier" over the course of 2000 some years when his existence is outside the restraints of time and space.

Same thing with God and His evolution of ideals. The law and then forgiveness and blah blah blah; slaves, no slaves; anathema, no anathema; burn shit to the ground for sins, don't stone the "prostitute". It doesn't make sense. None. At all.

Unless God ISN'T omnipotent, omnipresent, and/or benevolent. He can't be all of those things and yet so ignorantly rule creation within the context of human civilization pre-information age. Sorry, but if you don't see this pattern, you're living in denial. Either that or the idea of these beings is true and the Bible is the Devil's work.

Oh SNAP, didn't think about that in all of your squabbling, did you? The arguments over what to canonize; burning of Biblical apocrypha; human courts judging anathema over naysayers who were believers in God themselves; King James' toying with the text; and the list goes on and on. Lies! If God be love, Jesus saves and by faith be known, these historical truths makes your "holy" text anathema!

My bet is that the Devil knows the Bible because the Devil orchestrated it. If I believed in that sort of thing, that's what would make the most sense to me. But I suppose reason plays no part in the smoke and mirrors of gods and monsters.

Now you have enough bits and pieces to create a stimulating, surreal piece of folk art. Getcha some super glue and turn that passion for meditative deconstruction into, Canon Conglomerate #7! (hoping you're not disassembling Leica und Hasselblad, jah?!)

Why no down range view? I want to see what that shoulder canon does to 2" steel plate.

This thought just occurred to me "Maybe he is just training his belly to be a canon ball target."