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George Carlin did this bit in 2005! That's 12 years ago, and look where we are today!

I mean, you look today at American government, about what's going on with the FCC and the recent tax bill, and you see just how average Americans are getting shafted openly by corporations. At least they had the decency to do it behind closed doors before. Now people like Ajit Pai just give the American public a big middle finger and smile for the cameras while they're doing it.

This bit basically predicted the election of Donald Trump with that whole section on how idiots keep electing rich people who don't care about them.

Meanwhile, you have people like Sean Spicer unironically saying that Oprah Winfrey shouldn't run for president because she has no political experience.

We are truly down the rabbit hole here and I'm not sure we're ever getting out again.

I 100% agree, but at some point it moves from acceptable to immoral, and that point varies. That's why I gave examples that I think many/most people would not consider rape (pretending you're rich), and what I suspect is its counterpart (pretending you're their partner).

Note that I'm not arguing whether or not this was rape, I'm just making the point that there's a valid argument to be made. I know that's cravenly copping out, but I'm not confident enough to make either case 100%.

I'm a follower of the George Carlin philosophy that says you can only take offense, you can't give it. i.e. offence is in the eye of the beholder, and so any judgement needs to take into account things like intention, and should err on the side of free speech. Any psychological attack - from being cut off when driving to being told you have cancer - will damage you only to the level that you let it (which is largely out of your own control), but that doesn't stop the source of the attack from being in the wrong.

This is why I looked at this case in cost-benefit terms. We can't know for sure how this affected those involved, but it's reasonable to suspect that the woman was psychologically scarred through little or no fault of her own, and sexual violation is one of the most cruel and personal. This is amplified by the public nature of it. Yes, maybe - hopefully - she chalked it down to a bad decision, but I think it would be completely understandable if she was significantly damaged by what was unarguably a malicious action against her (even if the malice wasn't directed towards her).

That was what the late great George Carlin referred to as "a near miss".

"Oh look! They nearly missed..."

Carlin 3:16 Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.

Rather than bowing to intimidation and apologizing, Maher should have run this clip. Carlin's use of the n-word here is potentially more offensive because he used it towards an actual black person rather than Maher's self-deprecating (and frankly humorous) use of it. Unfortunately, I suspect that HBO actually threatened to pull the show if he didn't apologize, so I can see why he did.

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I don't know that Carlin's voice would be the right one, but doing so wouldn't necessarily be an issue for the character of Blaine. Seems reasonable to have a computer simulation of a particular voice rather than a voice actor specifically acting out each line. I'd argue however that if we're going to resurrect someone to voice Blaine, let's go with Alan Rickman. Just the right blend of civilized / polite and deadly serious / menacing.

Edit:
I've been a fan of the books from sometime between 3 and 4, and love most of the story. The last three books lost me some, as they felt quite different in tone. Even Wizard and Glass felt a bit of a miss, though it was a solid story in its own right. I frequently avoid watching trailers for films I know I'll see, so as to avoid spoilers and being mislead if the trailer happened to be poorly made. I plan to see this movie, and originally came here for the comments exclusively; having read them, I chose to watch it. I get the impression that the actors treat the characters well, and they feel like good interpretations. McConaughey's Walter is hard to read with what little we see here, but I've generally liked him in other things.

My biggest worry is that visuals all seem too clean, and the more sci-fi direction bothers me some. To me Mid-World always seemed like a character itself. An ancient thing, being stretched thin, fighting to hold itself together and losing. High tech doesn't feel right there, like the extreme entropy would have rendered it all non-operative. There was some tech here and there in the books, but most of it was broken or breaking down.

Blaine is a pain. But if we resurrect George Carlin to voice act him that could be fun.
I'm cautiously optimistic about this, they've clearly taken liberties, but then most of what I have seen could still fit into the lore of the books.

History Lesson:

In 1949, when only the United States had nuclear weapons, everybody was asking when the Russians would have the capability.

President Harry Truman answered the question with "I know...never"

He never clarified what he meant by those words, and those in that meeting declined to ask, but the topic would be rehashed again and again.

I really recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. Episode 59 (Blitz) the Destroyer of Worlds. A nearly 6 hour fascinating look into the period starting with the Trinity test and ending with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"Podesta's emails, and Podesta himself, show that the so-called progressive wing of the establishment is really just a neoliberal insider's club of the rich and powerful, who loyally serve their corporate masters. Podesta's emails are more than just a window into one man, but a window into how the empire's political machine is actually run."

That's one of those bits of info that are shrugged off as lunacy first by those who profit from it, only then to be shrugged off as having been known all along by the same people.

Again, back to Carlin: it's a big club, and you're not in it.

Have I mentioned how much I like reading pieces by Thomas Frank?

He had a piece in the Guardian two days ago about the Podesta emails and it's just brilliant. Excerpt:

This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids, points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she appears to think that any kind of bank reform should “come from the industry itself”. And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another’s careers, constantly.

Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the “Global CEO Advisory Firm” that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.

But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it’s all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren’t part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don’t have John Podesta’s email address – you’re out.

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