Best show on TV, yet. I am 100% serious there has never been a TV show of higher quality yet. Louie is writing, directing, editing the best show that has ever been on TV. So true, so emotionally on point in every second, important issues, recognizable human moments... Just nothing else like it.

Yeah, I don't see how you can interpret what Cenk is saying to be "blaming" Republicans. He says, around 5 min mark "There is hope, but ain't it the Democratic Party ..." Seems knee jerk to me, to assume Cenk is supporting the Dems, recently he's been coming down pretty hard on them.

Also, look at the video posted yesterday (I think) where he praises McCain for being one of the only politicians who he thinks is right on campaign finance reform, over Obama. He even goes as far as to say, since he (Cenk) thinks campaign finance reform is the most important issue that touches everything else, it almost would have made sense to vote for McCain over Obama if McCain could actually succeed in passing some sort of reform...lot of conditions in that statement, but I think it's a valid point, in a hindsighty sort of way.

The question should not be austerity vs spending. It should be who gets to issue money and charge interest on it, the people or the banks? The power to issue a nations money is the single most powerful economic tool it has, and the banks have shown they clearly cannot be trusted with it. It is what gave them the power to cause the mess we are in now. Everything else is a distraction which amounts to choosing how quickly we all get in to complete debt servitude to them.

I suppose it is hardly surprising that in a world run by banks such a fundamentally important issue never gets so much as a mention in the media or by mainstream "experts" like Krugman.

The behavior of the Republican party makes dealing with important issues, especially this one, impossible.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The Republican primary fight has distracted us from more important issues, like this one.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The Republican primary fight has distracted us from more important issues, like this one.


oooooh shinies!

The Republican primary fight has distracted us from more important issues, like this one.

No doubt ADSR would produce some great science, but it wouldn't address chemistry issues, or any other important issue any better than a LFTR project. It seems to me that it just introduces large amounts of extra complexity and cost. Particle accelerators are big unreliable machines, hence the need for 3 of them for redundancy and they could well reduce safety if something goes wrong. They are not even particularly suited to breeding, as they produce protons which as the name suggests are charged and so need to be very high energy to hit a nucleus and cause fission. The cynic in me says the whole idea was cooked up by the nuclear energy industry to ensure costs could be kept high, and so turn them and their friends in other energy industries a bigger profit (or even just a profit?). My understanding is also that between the various stockpiles of fissile we have, and high breeding ratios from early LFTRs startup fuel should not be a big issue.

I wish you all the best in your learning, I can think of few endeavors more worthy of changing your life's direction >> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^Spacedog79:
The ADSR or "Accelerator Driven Sub-critical Reactor" is unfortunately a massive waste of time. Why not build a properly configured LFTR reactor and it does just the same thing and you don't need to build 3 large particle accelerators to do it.

I agree in one sense, but in another, the chemistry of the LFTR might prove impossible to solve (though this is hardly even a fear atm), so divesting in a "less" effective way to fission isn't a complete waste. Also, you could use this just to breed thorium which would be handy if you hand thousands of thorium generators to start up (you need a good deal of U233 to start the reaction as Thorium is only fertile, not fissionable). This also would be a good way to burn up waste before we get a highly functional LFTR's with the ability to siphon in fission products. In the end, no road should be left uncharted when the end result maybe the salvation of the energy crisis and a life like star trek
I play to dedicate most of my laymen efforts over the next couple of months in learning more about fission for use in determining if I want to drop my life for what is it now and pursue nuclear physics. Pretty sharp turn from where I am now, but I almost feel morally compelled to do so.

I'm very happy we're focusing on these important issues.

Of course trolling Newt is the most important thing.

I'm so glad that this is what they're getting fired up about, instead of less important issues.

He didn't say the war had nothing to do with slavery, though. He said that he didn't agree with the public schools teaching that slavery was the ONLY factor involved in the war, which is a significant difference. He even goes on to say that "you can't deny it wasn't an important issue". However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

>> ^packo:
because things like religion, abortion, immigration... while important to people, aren't important to politicians who use them as "look over here, don't look there" tactics...
they don't want you to focus on how they are blatantly working against the average American citizen's economic interest for their corporate and financial masters
they want you to fight over issues they themselves deem unimportant while feigning concern
they'll use semantics to confuse issues rather than take action
they'll wrap themselves in the flag, all the while ushering in fascism for their own short term social/economic benefit
these people aren't patriots, they are committing treason, and should be hounded through the streets until they can no longer run due to exhaustion; then made public examples of
public servants? the only people they are servicing are themselves
these aren't the departments of this or that I'm talking about... I'm talking directly about the people elected by the citizenry to represent them
they're selling your future, and the future of your children... for the right to suckle at the tit of your new corporate and banking masters


I agree with a lot of what you're saying here but you also make a lot of common mistakes.

first of all, the "important issues" that "matter to people" that powerful people cloak themselves in. Things like abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, terrorism...are wholey fabricated by those same politicians. They're not just using these issues to disctract you, they're creating these issues and convincing you that you care about them to polarize you against fellow Americans. Obama's gonna "tik ur guuuuns" right? Because liberals don't like guns? Bullshit. Of course there are liberals that don't believe in guns, but liberals on the whole split about evenly with the rest of America on the issue. It's a fabricated issue.

Why aren't teapartiers supportingthe OWS movement? Isn't the movement founded on the same frustration that got all those conservatives to load up on the Fox news busses? Oh wait! It's because OWS is against Wallstreet and Teapartiers are against Government! Bullshit. The citizens of America, in the course of serving their own corporate masters have been manipulated once again.

You give politicians too much credit. There is not vast conspiracy to sell out to corporations. Politicians are merely narcisists who are taken by the delusion that their own ideas are important enough to matter to the country. or their narcisists who believe they're own unique personal attributes make them qualified to lead other people. They're not driven a plan to sell out to corporations, they're driven by massive egos. And this is what makes them susecptible to corporations. Big money finds ytheir flaws and draws them out. Politicians succumb to whatever weekness drives them, money, power, sex altruism...big money can give you anything you want.

This is not a problem with liberalism, conservatism, politicians, corporations...this is an issue of human nature. How do you fix that?

If you figure out a way, please let the rest of us know. In the mean time, stop getting sucked into the argument that your corporate masters have duped you into. They know what drives you, they know your weaknesses...and they're playing you against your fellow americans the same way they play politicians against themselves.

>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^NetRunner:
Paul defines honesty in starkly ideological terms. You're "honest" if you agree with him, or attack people he disagrees with. But if you believe in liberal causes, or support Democratic politicians, you are by definition some nefarious agenda-driven hack who doesn't care about the truth.
Do you mind if i interrupt to ask where he's said that?
This isn't a jibe or challenge. I just like a man who doesn't give fucking slippery answers and this dude seems to be the first politician i have seen in my life who doesn't give slippery answers. You're implying he's slippery, and i don't want to fall for it, so i would appreciate enlightenment.


I took that from this, starting around 0:53:

The more liberal stations some of them wouldn't dare want to talk to me because their agenda is Democratic party politics and they're not for liberty, they're just for Democratic party politics and big government. But even on those stations, you will have a few very honest people.

Which is followed by his comments about Stewart being "honest" because "when the left really messes up, he loves to go and get 'em." Because apparently it's rare that liberals ever deviate from just toeing the line on "Democratic party politics".

Because, you know, nobody like Olbermann, or Maddow, or Cenk Uygur, or Ed Shultz, or Lawrence O'Donnell, or Sam Seder, or Thom Hartmann, and nobody on blogs, or anywhere else has ever "gone after" Democrats for screwing up.

Granted, I didn't get my entire view of Ron Paul from this video alone. I've been listening to this guy off and on for years now.

I guess I know Paul best from the Campaign for Liberty e-mail list. See, way back in 2007, I used to think Paul was a different kind of Republican -- a softer, kinder, more honest sort, who would be willing to work with liberals on important issues, so I signed up for his e-mail list. Back then, the e-mail he sent out matched that first impression.

At least, they did right up until Obama became President. Ever since it's been 3 years of pure vitriol and hatred. Here's some highlights from one from earlier this year:

Fellow Patriot,

Big Government took a huge leap forward in 2010. And you and I will suffer the consequences unless we take action today.

You see, the statists look for every opportunity to gain more power over our lives – and they found another one in the ObamaCare scheme.

It is a huge step toward a full takeover of our personal medical decisions, as well as a massive tax increase and a huge loss of liberty. It will also cause further destruction to our already fragile economy.
...
Please read the email below from Campaign for Liberty President John Tate. Campaign for Liberty has a great plan to help me win this fight, but they are going to need every Patriot in our Revolution to join them.
...
[Letter from John Tate that Paul wants us to read]
Dear NetRunner,

The ObamaCare scheme is designed to do two things statists love more than anything else: vastly increase the size and power of government and give our federal masters more control over our personal business.

Power over our very lives.

It's getting harder and harder for them to conceal their true intentions - and people are waking up to it.

You and I saw the results of this in the recent elections, giving us an opportunity to take action.

Ron Paul has a plan to fight back and END THE MANDATE, but Campaign for Liberty needs your help today to get the battle really moving.

You see, the debate over nationalized health care isn't about what Congress wants to "give" Americans.

It's not even about health care at all.

It's about power.

It's about what THEY take.

It's always been about what they take.

And their "take" is staggering.

Delightful bunch of two-faced psychopaths, if you ask me.

In the end, I generally agree with you, but I don't think it's accurate that the debt crisis is resolved by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Tax increase would obviously help, but it won't solve it alone.

The debt crisis was born of a few factors:

-Stimulus package (temp, self-correcting since it's ending)
-Massive increase in federal spending in the 2000's bread by two wars, homeland security, senior drug benefit, medicare, medicaid
-Tax revenue declines due to Bush tax cuts
-Sudden sharp declines in income and capital gains tax revenues due to economic collapse

We can't solve the whole thing by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. In fact, I would argue the first step in resolving it is get the economy back on track to increase income tax revenues naturally as the unemployment rate would fall, and pay would increase. I would also argue that we're gonna have to massively cut defense spending at some point. This could be done many different ways, such as pulling out of Iraq and/or Afghanistan, etc. But it's gonna have to be done at some point, although it maybe difficult to do in the short run. That leaves us with what is currently being debated by Congress and the President. I'm actually pretty perplexed that they're prioritizing the debt issue without first remedying the economy. I think the debt is a very important issue, but I also don't believe it will be resolved until unemployment returns to more normal rates, unless we're refusing to acknowledge what leaders may already know - it ain't gonna get better for a long long time regardless of what the gov't does, so we might as well stop adding to the debt.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^MarineGunrock:
What we really need is a law that says no member of congress shall be allowed to receive any money from any lobbying firm, business or individual who is a high-level employee (board member type guys) of any large company worth over "x" amount of dollars. Loopholes need to be closed, but social programs also need to be cut or seriously re-vamped. What REALLY needs to happen is to close behemoth and redundant federal offices that are better left to states or that sates already have.

Well, I'd definitely love to see some sort of reform aimed at the outright bribery we see going on in government. I'm not sure how we get that to happen, though.
As far as the debt goes, my opinion is that all the Congress can do in 2011 is set the budget for 2011 and 2012. Come 2013, it'll be a new Congress, and possibly a new President. There will be another new Congress in 2015, and another in 2017, plus a definite non-Obama President in the White House.
A little mentioned fact about this debt "crisis" is that all we need to do to balance the budget is for Congress to do nothing. No more Doc fixes, no more AMT patches, no more extension of the Bush tax cuts, etc. If we just let current law play out as it was written, the budget problem will no longer be an issue.
Even if congress doesn't do that, fixing our health care system has always been the real problem with the long-term budget. If we could get our medical costs down to just the level of the second-most expensive country in the world (Germany), then we'd be seeing big budget surpluses year after year. Maybe the HCR bill passed will do that once it's all in effect (in 2017!), but it's way too early to be putting those into the budget estimates. Maybe by 2020 we'll find out that we've actually put ourselves on track to be cheaper than Germany, and our budget picture will look really awesome.
I say we just focus on getting people back to work right now, and worry about the long-term debt in the long-term, especially since it might not actually be a problem in the long-term.

>> ^Mazex:

>> ^ForgedReality:
The ad at the end to sell memberships and silver kind of makes me wanna take the whole thing with a grain of salt...

So true.. MUST GO BUY SOME GOLD AND SILVER so I can join the higher people and gain entry into the promised land after the world economy collapses.
There are some reasonable opinions in this video, but like most one-sided documentaries about important issues, they throw in a load of bullshit too.


If all these companies selling gold and silver honestly believed the dollar was going to be worthless soon, why would they be exchanging precious metals for it? Wouldn't they want to keep as much of it as possible for themselves rather than trade it for worthless money?

Making money off of suckers will never go out of style.

>> ^ForgedReality:

The ad at the end to sell memberships and silver kind of makes me wanna take the whole thing with a grain of salt...


So true.. MUST GO BUY SOME GOLD AND SILVER so I can join the higher people and gain entry into the promised land after the world economy collapses.

There are some reasonable opinions in this video, but like most one-sided documentaries about important issues, they throw in a load of bullshit too.