I'd say that's more an indictment of the schooling he's received than a statement of his abilities as a composer. (Symphony No. 5, to me at least, is more or less indistinguishable from some of the symphonies written by the "great" composers of the last century or so.)

Sadly, the classically harmonious qualities (including the "progression," the "building of emotion," the storytelling) that many of us appreciate in, say, Mozart or Beethoven or Chopin are no longer in vogue (and haven't been for quite some time). Contemporary composition—and the same could be said of most contemporary painting, sculpture, writing, et cetera—aims more for fragmentation, disruption, and discord. The audience isn't meant to feel harmony; we're meant to be dislodged.

This could become a pretty serious rant, I guess, but I'll hold back. I will say, though, that the brief clips of his early compositions (5:52–6:12) sounded quite pleasing to me, if a little imitative. And the part where he inverted the Beethoven sonata was pretty darn cool. (It reminded me, in a roundabout way, of the scene in Amadeus where Mozart plays the piano while lying upside down.)
>> ^TheFreak:
Try listening to Jay Greenbergs Symphony no 5. It's horrible.
It's an unorganized cacophany. One moment it sounds every bit like an action movie score then immediately it swings the other way and you'd think you were listening to the music from a 30's cartoon. There's no rhyme or reason behind any of the sounds you hear, no progression, no building of emotion, no story being told, no subtlety or purpose...just great big sloppy swipes of an oversized lyrical paintbrush.

And, IMO, the worst part of the American political system is partisan politics, and its grown to a level of extremism that it could only hope to be challenged by a well established and respectable 3rd party (perhaps a party of the 99%... food for thought?).

The addition of a third, 4th, 5th, or 10th party would do nothing to resolve partisan politics. A lot of people think the 2 party system is poison, and multiple party systems are some sort of nirvanah. A 1 second analysis of parlimentarian political entities dispells that illusion. Systems with more parties - if anything - become even more contentous, fragmented, and full of partisanship than ever. The amount of skullduggery is amazing. The common man becomes even more distant from the political system, because the dizzying level of alliances, promises made/broken, and other shenanigans that take place to engineer a 'majority' on a vote essentially render any one party non-existent.

This is a bubble that really needs to be popped. I'm not saying the 2 party system is good. Quite often I feel very disenfranchised by the 2 party system because my perspective as a fiscally conservative, socially liberal, libertarian leaning, constitutional constructionist are rarely represented to my tastes. But the opinion that the addition of a 3rd party would in any way address the rancorous nature of US politics is simply incorrect.

@blastido_factor:

There's an old Jewish proverb that runs something like this:

"A fool can throw a stone into the water that ten wise men cannot recover."

Your stones, fortunately, aren't irrecoverable. I'll offer some counterpoints to a few of your claims, and I'll leave it up to you to fish for the truth about the others.


- The alleged masterminds of 9/11 have never been produced and never put to trial, despite having supposedly been captured in 2001/02

I don't know what you mean by "produced," but here's something I do know: I started a case in small claims court earlier this year (in New York City, nonetheless), and I was told I'd have to wait at least four months to appear before an arbitrator. (It's likely that I'll have to wait longer, if, for example, I opt to appear before a judge.) Simply put, trials take time. Given the complexities of a trial involving the masterminds and perpetrators of 9/11, ten years is hardly cause for conspiracy.


- Total failure of the air defense system. The Pentagon was struck One hour and Twenty minutes after the attacks began, yet there was no response from Andrews Air Force base, which is just 10 MILES away and supposed to be in charge of defending the capitol."

The North Tower was struck at 8:46 AM, the South Tower at 9:03 AM, and the Pentagon at 9:37 AM. By my math, the Pentagon was hit fifty-one minutes after the first plane hit the WTC and thirty-four minutes after the second plane hit. The 9/11 Commission estimated that the hijacking of Flight 11, the first plane to hit the WTC, began at 8:14 AM. It's misleading, in this context, to consider the hijacking of Flight 11 as the beginning of the attack (I assume this is what you meant); it wasn't until the second plane hit the WTC that the nature and the scale of the attacks became evident. Could the communication between the FAA and NORAD have been more prompt, and, thus, more effective? Yes. (Rightly so, this is one of the major criticisms lobbied against the agencies responsible for responding to the attacks.) Is the delay of thirty-four minutes cause for conspiracy, given the lack of precedence in handling such a coordinated attack and the confusion surrounding the events of the attack? No.


- The remains of the twin towers were quickly carried off and buried before any forensic investigations could be done.

Your use of the word forensic is categorically flawed. (The first and third definitions of forensic, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, are as follows: (1) "belonging to, used in, or suitable to courts of judicature or to public discussion and debate, and (3) "relating to or dealing with the application of scientific knowledge to legal problems.") NIST's reports are chock-full of forensic analyses; have a look for yourself: http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/index.cfm. Forensic investigations also led to the identification of a significant number of victims. According to Wikipedia: "Within a year, medical examiners had identified the remains of 33 victims who had been on board Flight 11. They identified two other Flight 11 victims, including the lead flight attendant Karen Martin, after body fragments were discovered near Ground Zero in 2006. In April 2007, examiners using newer DNA technology identified another Flight 11 victim. The remains of two hijackers, potentially from Flight 11, were also identified and removed from Memorial Park in Manhattan." The methods used to identify these victims (DNA testing, in many cases) were nothing if not forensic.

You're also neglecting the simple fact that the removal of debris was necessary from a health standpoint. Again, according to Wikipedia: "The thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers contained more than 2,500 contaminants, including known carcinogens. Subsequent debilitating illnesses among rescue and recovery workers are said to be linked to exposure to these carcinogens."


- Of all the cameras around the pentagon, including the security tapes taken from local gas stations, only one blurry clip was released.

Three videos, not one, were released. According to Wikipedia: "A nearby Citgo service station also had security cameras installed, but a video released on September 15, 2006, did not show the crash because the camera was pointed away from the crash site. The Doubletree Hotel, located nearby in Crystal City, Virginia, also had a security camera video, and on December 4, 2006, the FBI released the video in response to a freedom of information lawsuit filed by Scott Bingham. The footage is 'grainy and the focus is soft, but a rapidly growing tower of smoke is visible in the distance on the upper edge of the frame as the plane crashes into the building.'"


I don't fault you, or others like you, for wanting to "think twice" about the explanations given for certain of the events surrounding 9/11. I do fault you, though, for spending so little time on your second round of thinking, and for so carelessly tossing conspiracy theories to the wind.

There's this guy that rides his chopper up and down my street at all hours of the night setting off car alarms. I would definitely do this to him...but I'd hit him. Then I'd burn out on his skull, rooster-tailing bone fragments and grey matter into the faces of his loved ones while they're forced to watch.

Susan Lindauer:
...
I got indicted for protesting the War in Iraq. My crime was delivering a warm-hearted letter to my second cousin White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, which correctly outlined the consequences of War. Suspiciously, I had been one of the very few Assets covering the Iraqi Embassy at the United Nations for seven years. Thus, I was personally acquainted with the truth about Pre-War Intelligence, which differs remarkably from the story invented by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

More dangerously still, my team gave advance warnings about the 9/11 attack and solicited Iraq’s cooperation after 9/11. In August 2001, at the urging of my CIA handler, I phoned Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private staff and the Office of Counter-Terrorism to ask for an “emergency broadcast alert” across all federal agencies, seeking any fragment of intelligence on airplane hijackings. My warning cited the World Trade Center as the identified target. Highly credible independent sources have confirmed that in August, 2001 I described the strike on the World Trade Center as “imminent,” with the potential for “mass casualties, possibly using a miniature thermonuclear device.”

Thanks to the Patriot Act, Americans have zero knowledge of those truths, though the 9/11 Community has zoomed close for years. Republican leaders invoked the Patriot Act to take me down 30 days after I approached the offices of Senator John McCain and Trent Lott, requesting to testify about Iraq’s cooperation with the 9/11 investigation and a comprehensive peace framework that would have achieved every U.S. and British objective without firing a shot. Ironically, because of the Patriot Act, my conversations with Senator Trent Lott’s staff got captured on wire taps, proving my story.

You see, contrary to rhetoric on Capitol Hill, the Patriot Act is first and foremost a weapon to bludgeon whistleblowers and political dissidents. Indeed, it has been singularly crafted for that purpose.

The American people are not nearly as frightened as they should be. Many Americans expect the Patriot Act to limit its surveillance to overseas communications. Yet while I was under indictment, Maryland State Police invoked the Patriot Act to wire tap activists tied to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group dedicated to wind power, solar energy and recycling. The DC Anti-War Network was targeted as a “white supremacist group.” Amnesty International and anti-death penalty activists got targeted for alleged “civil rights violations.”
...
I cannot forget. I cannot forget how I was subjected to secret charges, secret evidence and secret grand jury testimony that denied my right to face my accusers or their accusations in open court, throughout five years of indictment. I cannot forget my imprisonment on a Texas military base for a year without a trial or evidentiary hearing.

I cannot forget how the FBI, the US Attorneys Office, the Bureau of Prisons and the main Justice office in Washington — independently and collectively verified my story— then falsified testimony to Chief Justice Michael Mukasey, denying our 9/11 warnings and my long-time status as a U.S. intelligence Asset, though my witnesses had aggressively confronted them. Apparently the Patriot Act allows the Justice Department to withhold corroborating evidence and testimony from the Court, if it is deemed “classified.”

I cannot forget threats of forcible drugging and indefinite detention up to 10 years, until I could be “cured” of believing what everybody wanted to deny— because it was damn inconvenient to politicians in Washington anxious to hold onto power.
...

Fixed! Thanks for reporting!

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
Got another one for ya... this one quite minor.

To reproduce:
Post a comment
Immediately edit that comment
Upon saving you are returned to the front page (with a mess of a URL) rather than back to the comment itself.

It seems to have something to do with having a fragment identifier in the URL when you click edit, but that's all I've been able to discern.

I've had that happen too, but haven't worked out exactly what triggers it.... and no test case, no bug report (well, for such a minor thing, anyway).>> ^xxovercastxx:

Got another one for ya... this one quite minor.
To reproduce:
Post a comment
Immediately edit that comment
Upon saving you are returned to the front page (with a mess of a URL) rather than back to the comment itself.
It seems to have something to do with having a fragment identifier in the URL when you click edit, but that's all I've been able to discern.

Got another one for ya... this one quite minor.

To reproduce:
Post a comment
Immediately edit that comment
Upon saving you are returned to the front page (with a mess of a URL) rather than back to the comment itself.

It seems to have something to do with having a fragment identifier in the URL when you click edit, but that's all I've been able to discern.

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."

– Norman Thomas, American socialist

I don't EVER cross at those shady blinking-yellow-lights crosswalks. Seen too many near misses involving mothers with strollers. Don't use them...they shouldn't even exist because they give a false sense of security. Just spend the money on a pedestrian bridge.

edit: I realize this is riddled with sentence fragments>> ^longde:

In my town, we have an crosswalk that is frenquented by kids going to a park. This cross walk has yellow lights embedded in the road and on street signs for crossing pedestrians. And still you have assholes gunning past people who activate the lights.
I think drivers should absolutely always yield the right of way. I get annoyed too at slow walkers, but I figure I will get to where I'm going alot faster than they will half the time.
>> ^sixshot:
>> ^chilaxe:
She needs a new brain, but so does the pedestrian. A rationalist could never get hit by a car like that.

The bitch swapped lanes (or was that she went into incoming traffic lane to pass), which lead to hitting that elderly man. Sure the old guy should have looked one last time but that's besides the point. Reckless driving inevitably leads to shit like that.
I've seen assholes behind the wheel out on the roads all the time. And they do the most dumbest shit out there. Though I have yet to witness the result of their stupidity, it's only a matter of time when they get what they deserve.
At the same time, people who cross the street frequently needs to be more goddamn courteous. I've seen people who cross the street with no fucking regards to themselves or to whether or not it is even safe to cross. And that alone pisses me off as a driver and makes me hate the pedestrian law we have in America (whereas any vehicular hit to a pedestrian results in the driver being at fault 99% of the time). People like that makes me want to run 'em over Grand Theft Auto style. And in today's day and age of techno-gadgets, people are more prone to getting hurt due to not being attentive enough to their surroundings.

>> ^rychan:

^ There are fragments of truth in those articles weaved together into a completely incorrect and paranoid narrative. Here's one of the articles you linked:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030868_vaccines_autism.html
Paranoid ranting along the lines of "Oh noes! Table salt contains poisonous Chlorine and Sodium!". The "sources" don't reinforce the narrative of the article, at all.
You have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe these things. Why would medical researchers conspire in this manner? So that they can sell cheap vaccines instead of very expensive medicine to treat disease outbreaks?


Conspire in what manner? Researchers don't sell vaccines. The article says nothing about a conspiracy.

There is no narrative either.

Why waste your time arguing with conspiracy theorists? You should be doing something about your failure at reading comprehension.

BTW "fragments of truth" and "completely incorrect" are contradictory statements.

^ There are fragments of truth in those articles weaved together into a completely incorrect and paranoid narrative. Here's one of the articles you linked:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030868_vaccines_autism.html
Paranoid ranting along the lines of "Oh noes! Table salt contains poisonous Chlorine and Sodium!". The "sources" don't reinforce the narrative of the article, at all.

You have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe these things. Why would medical researchers conspire in this manner? So that they can sell cheap vaccines instead of very expensive medicine to treat disease outbreaks?

I was watching a NOVA, or some such program, special on nuclear bombs the other day and they actually explained a few things about fallout. With nuclear bombs the fallout is the product of the radioactive substances fusing with earth, bomb casing fragments etc in the superheated explosion. Ground explosions cause more immediate fallout because there is more matter for the material to fuse with, while air explosions can send the material higher into the atmosphere, also dependent on explosion size. Nuclear power plants apparently use substances with a longer half-life which would make the fallout more dangerous, however I would assume there would need to be a big enough explosion to vaporize and fuse earth and other substances with the radio-active material, and to propel it further into the atmosphere thus increasing the fallout area.

Okay wiki to cover my inaccuracies or inadequate explanations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_out
The reporter seems to be pushing for some bomb like explosion that'll blanket the world in lethal radioactive fallout, and my understanding is that's unlikely to happen. Its unfortunate the media blows things like this out of proportion, I think it distracts from the real problem. When inevitably these things don't come to fruition and there's not fallout in people's backyards they tend to think the issue is done with.

Bloody hell, I hate how fragmented all the South Park shit has become over the years. I'll try the Dutch domain once they have the new clips up. For now, it's back to YT again.
In reply to this comment by Hybrid:
Your new embed doesn't work for me... Keeps saying "Video is not available".
In reply to this comment by radx:
Thanks for the notice, I replaced it with the "proper" clip for now. Lasted considerably longer than I expected.

In reply to this comment by Hybrid:
*dead

You are more than welcome You have a very nice taste in music very unique!
Your avatar looks really interesting,what kind of animal is it?


In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
Thanks for the promote I have a few more of these to post, coming soon to "unsifted".

I like your new avatar, too.
In reply to this comment by LadyDeath:
*promote,really nice!