The problem with most third parties is how they are viewed; most are seen as a one-issue party.

Take your pick...

The Green Party focuses on environmental issues.
The Reform Party focused on economic issues.
The Constitution Party focuses on social issues.
The Libertarian Party focuses on the minimization of government.
etc.

In the public's eye, the Democratic and Republican Party can't be nailed down to one particular issue - they have a well-known stance on a broad range of social, economic, civil, and foreign policy issues. This is not to say that these third parties don't hold a stance on such issues, they just don't focus on them, so they seem like a one-issue party. A single issue will never appeal to the entire population (especially a single stance on one issue), hence they remain largely unpopular.

Until a third party can become known for a strong position on multiple issues and run on those positions, they will remain unpopular.

It's really a catch 22.

Third parties are usually formed by voters who have an extreme view on a certain topic ("extreme" being a view not held by the Democratic or Republican party, since those two have the "slightly left" and "slightly right" center positions pretty much nailed). Take a look at the history of third parties in the USA - they're mostly either extremely liberal or extremely conservative; the ones that are center were mostly formed by Ross Perot in the 90's, and based on economic principles. An extreme view, by definition, is only going to be found in a minority of the population.

Therefore, until common sentiment changes (and it does...eventually...take a look at the civil rights movement or the women's suffrage movement) and public opinion sways, the Dems or the Reps will remain in power. However, even when sentiment sways it will be hard to establish a third party, as one of these major parties will just adopt the new changing sentiment and disregard their old stance, evolving with the sentiment of the people.

I agree that more accurate studies could be done. Catch 22; Marijuana must be legalized in order to conduct more accurate studies on the effects it has on the brain and on society as a whole. There is still the fact that marijuana use "...has been LINKED to ...subtle IMPAIRMENT associated with MEMORY, ATTENTION, AND COGNITIVE FUNCTION." This is not, however, my argument for why it should remain illegal (It's my argument for why marijuana users should not be allowed to debate the issue).

OH, SNAP!

^ and to budzos, new movies already suck on the whole, which is why it makes sense for some to not spend the cash just to see a lame flick. i don't know about int'l movies, but in the states bad movies are RAMPANT.

i agree that it makes a sort of catch-22, but on one hand you have movie execs with tons of money spending for the latest Happy Glimore (now featuring Tom Cruise!), marketing the hell out of it and then complaining that they just broke even thanks to all the Damn Pirates....and then there's the indy filmmakers actually making good movies that only release in Select Theatres, which not everyone can get to.....and people like me with dwindling time and money. I much prefer to pre-watch a film at home and determine whether i support it or not. if i do i will go to the theatre and see it, and later buy the dvd, although i'm not so starry-eyed as to expect that everyone does the same.

anyway, if i was the MPAA, i'd go after the people who are hawking unreleased movies on physical media...they're the ones actually making money off of other people's work....before going after the audiences themselves.

.02

The catch 22 of the restraining effect of mutually assured destruction, is that now everybody wants in on the game, which will eventually at least lead to some accidental nuclear incident, even if everybody plays by MAD rules.

The only way out is for the folks with the missiles to realize that they are useless, and to get rid of them. The fact of the matter is that nuking us into oblivion is probably worse for anybody who does not get nuked, we get fried right off the bat, and they die slowly and painfully, nukes are their own deterrent.

I forget who said it, but it has been argued that nuclear proliferation, beyond being inevitable, is also desirable. States who develop nuclear capacity become stable rational actors, both because they can play the MAD card, and because it really does not take long for anyone to realize how absurd it would be to use them.

I say we need a 2 step process

1) Stop telling nations not to build nukes

and once everyone develops nukes

2) each state can build one big doomsday device and get rid of all their missiles, thereby reducing the number of nuclear devices that may malfunction.

This will, of course, mean any country can build its own nuclear reactors, which will seriously screw the oil economy, assuming we still have one by the time everyone gets the bomb.

It's a catch-22...in order for videos to get on the list videos have to be moved off the list to open up positions. Though it does seem like a video should get to live on the list for at least 24 hours.

I opened tons of ports and even put my computer in the DMZ so it could send/receive anything unmolested. The problem, though, is not one of access, but location. No matter how your router allows the computer to communicate, there's nothing it can do to give the computer itself a public IP.

That's really the sole problem, the lack of a public IP on your computer. So you know what else I've tried: I attempted to specify my public ip on the srcds.exe commands line (-ip 111.222.333.444) but srcds will not run because it cannot bind your to that address because it is not associated with your ethernet adapter. So I manually added my public IP as an address on my adapter. Then srcds would startup and report my public IP as defined on the command line, but it could not communicate with the Steam servers. After a couple of hours I found that it was because the packets where coming from a computer reporting the public IP and not a LAN IP (192.168...).

So it's a bit of a catch 22.

Fyi, a hub is an extremely simple/cheap piece of dumb hardware. It's basically equivalent to a splitter you would use for your TV or an electrical power strip, except for CAT5 cables.

I'm torn on it too and it's a subject I've talked with people about a number of times. It's a catch 22 situation I guess.

Yes, we need to stop taking a lot of the crap we have been taking and learn to fight back, we've got every right to be angry about a lot of things and probably should be. Enraged. But for that part of the public which doesn't understand what's going on they won't understand the anger either so if we want to change things rather than make gestures we've got to focus that anger and learn how to use it rather than it use us.

I wade through garbage all the time, death rates, prison stats, been living with stuff like this for years now. Or this.

So we've got reason to be angry, but now what? Do we want to make a difference or a gesture? If we let the anger control us a gesture is the best we can hope for and we might damage the cause, just discredit it for the next activist who tries to work there. I'll toss the vid a vote after thinking about it but more because what the cop did was wrong than because he did anything right. If he makes a habit of this someone needs to get through to him, he's doing us no favors.

Catch-22 is my favorite book but from the few clips I've seen of the film, it doesn't work nearly as well on celluloid. The book is brilliantly absurdist, fairly dark, and deeply ironic (and if you can digest that sort of thing it's also really really funny). Read it, don't watch it.

Anyone know which conference this clip was filmed at?

Regarding Randi's answer to Dawkins' last question on the video, I'd say that it is really the only satisfying answer he could give. If some paranormal phenomenon could pass the JREF's testing, it would cease to be strictly paranormal and would be shown as something perinormal. Obviously here I'm assuming that the JREF's tests wouldn't be flawed. This creates the potential for a sort of catch-22 situation, in that no phenomenon could pass the tests and still strictly be considered paranormal. I'd hazard a guess that's why Randi is talking about "defining words being a risky process" as the clip ends.

Anyway, enough with my pedantry. Great clip, thanks Rembar!

No Man's Land (Bosnian: Ničija Zemlja) is a war drama that is set in the midst of the Bosnian war in 1993. The film is a parable with a tone of ironic black comedy. The film marked the debut of writer and director Danis Tanović. The film is a co-production between companies in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Italy, France, Belgium and the UK.

No Man's Land has been compared to The Good Soldier Švejk, Catch-22, M*A*S*H and Waiting for Godot for containing equal parts of irony and futility.

* Best Foreign Language Film, 2003 74th Annual Academy Awards
* Best Foreign Language Film, 2002 Golden Globe Award
* Best Screenplay, 2001 Cannes Film Festival

No Man's Land won Prix du scénario at the Cannes Film Festival, followed by numerous awards, including the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2001, while in competition with French Amélie. Tanović was presented the Oscar by John Travolta and Sharon Stone. Briefly after, Tanović thanked everyone who worked with him on the film and supported its creation. He ended his acceptance speech by saying, "This is for my country".

In total, No Man's Land won 42 awards, including the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, the European Film Academy Award for Best Screenplay, the César Award for Best Debut in 2002 and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002. It is probably the most awarded first feature film in a history of film making.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283509/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Land_%282001_film%29