i have to agree that when the election was nearing the end,and it was time to vote.the choice was pretty clear.

i never liked the "lesser of two evils" argument,but when faced with a choice of:

soft fascist,narcissistic used car salesman,who spoke in bombastic and racially charged rhetoric,but really said nothing.

or...

a war-mongering corporatist,who never saw a war she didn't want to send your kids to go die in,or a corporation she didn't want to extract donations from for political favors and who basically said nothing as well.except for 'well,at least i am not that THAT guy"--->points to trump.

i am still gonna say...go with the corporatist.

because in the end,at least on domestic policy,hillary would have been adequate.oh she would have signed the TPP,and fucked millions of american workers,and she would have most likely expanded the drone campaign,and continued with the american empires policy of "regime change",but she had/has the knowledge and capabilities to actual lead a government.

hillary knows how to politic,and understands how shit gets done in washinton,and things would have remained relatively unchanged here in america.maybe..maybe.... some incremental change due to the political pressure the sanders campaign brought.

so i get it,and maher is not exactly wrong per se",but i think he is missing the bigger picture that so many in the beltway have missed,and CONTINUE to miss,because they reside in their own,tiny and insulated bubble.

the american people were desperate for change,and they have been for decades.after obama's campaign of 2008,and his "hope and change" platform,which ignited the american people,only to see,not "hope and change" but rather "more of the same".

and what was hillary offering?
a new message or vision? a new path for america that would include everybody to blaze a new path of invention,creativity and imagination to create an america everyone could be proud of? and feel a part of?

nope..she was offering "more of the same".

well,americans had already had their fill of "more of the same".they had lost faith in a system that appeared to no longer represent them.so they chose the nuclear option for change.terrifying and horrifying change.

so go ahead and blame the "bernie bros".feel free to slap responsibility on those "uneducated and redneck hillbillies".cry and whine and point the finger at those liberals who refused to abandon their principles,and by all means bask in the glory of your own self-righteous moralizing,and condescendingly condemn anyone who voted for trump,or who refused to vote at all.

you can sit in a small room with everybody else who voted for hillary,and self-righteously smell each others farts and call it a rose,because you are obviously a better quality human being than the rest of us.

and by all means,refuse to examine the fact that hillary ran a shit campaign,and had no real message,vision or path to the future.ignore the corruption and blatant,and politically motivated shenanigans of the DNC.god forbid you experienced a moment of honesty.

is trump going to be a disaster of presidency?
well,it sure is shaping up to look that way isn't it?
but we have survived horrible presidents before,and we shall survive trump.

and on a positive note:
trump has brought many people out of their apathetic slumber,and they are scrutinizing everything he does with a fine toothed comb.the amount people who are becoming politically engaged is quite impressive.

there is nothing in our representative democracy quite as powerful as people gathering together to put pressure on our elected representatives.

town hall meetings,that used to be wastelands,are now being packed to over-flowing.with citizens calling out their representatives..to their FACE..on how unhappy they are.

so go ahead and ridicule those who voted for trump,but it is due to trump that so many have gotten off their couches and are taking it to their congressmen and senators.

just a non-controversial,and easily predicted side effect,when you put someone like trump in power.

man,the politics in my country is getting really fucking interesting!i cannot WAIT to see what happens in the next episode!

what do you guys think?
/end rant

*promote

@ChaosEngine
that article was utter shit.

"friend zone" is a term used to shame women?
how can that possibly be considered an even remotely true statement?

she makes a valid point in that women are not binary creatures,and are mutli-faceted,nuanced and complex.well of COURSE they are,but the "friend zone" is from the guys perspective,not a woman's!

do you know why the majority of some men end up in the "friend zone"? or should we just change that term to be more accurate "i am not interested in you because you put all your cards on the table in the first five seconds,so while i think that is sweet,i no longer am curious about you,because i already got you".

you know..the "friend zone",or as chris rock put it "emergency dick,just break glass".

the problem here is that while relationships are a long slog of compromise,negotiation and mutual respect to work towards a common goal.romantic courtships are akin to a game,a playful dance fueled by curiosity,intrigue and of course:lust.

the men who who get relegated to the "friend zone" do not understand this very basic tenant of courtship.they reveal all their cards up front,and while that may be the most honest approach,and one that women have been openly asking for,it ignores that underneath it all,a woman wants romance,mystery and a sense of discovery that will continually peak their interests.

they want to be woo'd,they want courtship and romance.
when a man shows all his cards he takes that way from the woman,and now that she knows she can "have" him.he no longer interests her.

and what the author of this article so callously ignores is that the "friend zone" is not really a friend at all,but a surrogate for a boyfriend.having a bad day?she calls her "friend".feeling bloated and unattractive? has her "friend" come over to make her feel better about herself.needs a date for her company christmas party and doesn't want to go alone? get her "friend" to come along.

so it should not be a surprise that some men find this hurtful and degrading.

but she has a point,the woman owes them nothing.the woman was honest and forthright and it is the man who has put himself in this position.

and let me be clear before i am accused of being a misogynist pig.

some men do the exact same thing,and i am guilty of it myself.

i grew up with three sisters,so i tend to be more aware and sensitive to women's choices,and i respect their space.i have never been one to push myself on any woman.i was never the one to pursue or as this article describes "persistent",because i saw that as a bit "stalky".

so if i was interested in a woman,and that interest was not reciprocated,i shifted to "friend" mode with no issue.to me it was a win-win.ok,so she was not interested in me in that way,but she is super cool,and interesting and now i have a really interesting and intriguing friend.

now here is an interesting thing that happened maybe half of the time.my new friend and i would hang out,go to pubs,clubs,movies and sometimes just make dinner and watch movies.friends right? she was upfront and honest with me that she was not interested in me in that way,and i can respect that.

and then one day she would have her college friend over for dinner (this is a true story btw,one of many).her friend was cute,smart,witty and had a sick sense of humor.yep,i was digging on my friends college friend,and we were flirting up a storm.we were vibing hard,clicking like we knew each other for years.

now what do you think happened?
i bet you can guess.
and you would be right.
my friend,who was honest with me about not being interested,started to get real shitty with me.like offensive shitty and i really did not understand why.it came out of nowhere,and now she was acting like some jealous girlfriend.

so i pull her aside and i am like..what the fuck is wrong with you? you are being an asshole!

you know what she said to me? and i can remember this clear as day "watching my friend flirt with you,and seeing how much she is into you.i began to see you in a different light.i can see how she sees you,and that you are amazing but you are MY steve! not hers!".

and then she tried to kiss me,which was just awkward,because to me? she was in the "friend zone",and had been for over 6 months.i didn't want her that way.the irony here is that she could not handle that,and our friendship dissolved.which just fucking sucks.

this scenario has played out in my life quite a few times.so while anecdotal,i suspect women have had similar experiences.

so the "friend zone' may be considered a woman's thing directed at men,but in reality it is non-gender specific.most likely because woman are pursued more than men,but both men and women can be put in the "friend zone".

so what can we learn from this?
don't be a sap.
have some self respect and do not allow another person to use you for their own well being and sense of self.
if they are not interested? move on.
if they just want to be a friend? then be a friend,but do not expect anything more.if you cannot handle that,then move on.

pining away from a distance in the slim hopes that the focus of your affections will one day change their mind,is just pathetic.

and for fuck sakes,stop blaming that person for your heartache.
you put yourself in that position,and you can pull yourself out.

and the term "friend zone" is not used to shame women,that is just fucking stupid.the "friend zone" is a place that you put yourself in,because of flawed sense of romance,and you allowed yourself to be used for the betterment of another human being.so while you may be hurt and angry,you only have yourself to blame.

respect yourself yo.
/end rant

Taping foreign diplomats is, unfortunately, the norm these days (and for decades or longer), and anyone with 1/4 of a brain would know (keeping in mind that Carnivore came to light decades ago, and Snowden clued us in to far worse surveillance of ordinary people daily) that calls to and from Russian diplomats would be recorded, and the fact that he was 1. surprised his team's conversations with numerous Russian agents were recorded, 2. didn't understand that when you call someone who's obviously going to be under surveillance you will also be recorded, so you shouldn't lie about it, and 3. jumped directly to making a specific unsupported and outrageous accusation directly against Obama that could not be true as he described it shows, at best, a criminal level of naivete and a tenuous grasp on reality or, more likely, a sociopathic penchant for lying to distract from his self serving illicit actions. (Wow, nice run on sentence, huh?)

I won't address the sad state of news, but it is impossible to deal in fact without contradicting Trump's daily 3am rants complaining about things he clearly doesn't understand, so "anti-Trump" is really pro-fact, something even faux can't completely ignore, try as they might.

The Pachelbel Rant - Never look at the Canon in D the same has been added as a related post - related requested by CrushBug.

And who can forget the classic...

*related=https://videosift.com/video/The-Pachelbel-Rant-Never-look-at-the-Canon-in-D-the-same

Sorry in advance, I just had to rant about ads while they were on my mind.

I don't mind ads, if it's a good ad. Keep it simple and short, like: This is our product, this is what it does, here are some uses you could have for it, thank you for your time. I hate ads that try to be catchy, clever, or seem targeted at idiots. They basically follow the opposite formula for what I consider a good ad above. They start off by telling you that you have a problem, why you have the problem (your an idiot) and then tell you that have to buy their product to fix your problem, and usually go on way too long.

There are too few good ads, so I just don't watch ads anymore, anywhere. Advertisers have brought this on themselves. I don't watch much TV anymore, but for the few things I do still watch, I record on my DVR and skip ads. I use an ad blocker on my browser, but I will white list sites that I regularly visit if the ads are reasonable.

I don't mind paying a reasonable fee for ad-free content. I subscribe to Netflix and Amazon video (but fucking Amazon is now putting ads in for their own shit). I have a one-disk subscription with my Netflix account, but I'm only watching about one movie a month. I used to watch the trailers once so I could see if there are any up-coming movies I might want to see, but movie trailers are becoming too damn long now. And fuck you if you make your ads unskipable on the disk, I won't watch them out of principle. I've gotten to the point now where I just put the disk in 10 minutes or so before I'm ready to watch it, leave the sound muted and when I come back with my popcorn and beer the movie is ready to watch.

Good rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpc5MD7137M

My point is that we have become accustomed to these dangerous escalations because of bad training, so much so that they are getting predictable, not justifiable. Even so, I still think there are elements we can't see about the situation from this single point of view video.

Pardon me for trying to have some nuance. Next time I'll rant about crooked cops and avoid implying that the issue might not always be perfectly clear.

you don't like dore?
i can't help it,i like him.i like anybody who rails and rants against 'the man" LOL.

and i also happen to agree with his criticism of the democrats.

I did actually say that.....Gotta read more than the first sentence before you get triggered and go on a hyperbolic rant mate ;-)

You also didn't read the studies he's referencing, clearly shows meat/dairy being a factor.

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Goddamn I love a good ol'-fashioned melt-down, followed by an incoherent, spittle-flecked rant!

That said, I woulda been off that Boeing so fucking fast there would have been a sonic boom.

His rant on Brexit was on point. It even foreshadowed Trump's presidency.

@Payback: Forgot to say, because I was on a Jean-Pierre Jeunet rant, but David Fincher directed Alien 3, so *thumbs up* -- it wasn't that boring of a film, with some strange elements of a monastic lifestyle among criminals. I thought it was more thought provoking than Prometheus.