Because I'm part of the new crowd, not part of the Golden Age of better times and better people. Kids these days just don't show enough respect when their elders take the time to dickslap 'em.

2006 must have been a magical year, filled with men who were larger than life - gods, titans - and beautiful women who knew their place, the kind of people that the robot bards and cyborg minstrels of the future will sing about.

Why did I wait until 2007 to join? Why, why, why, why!? Every night when I go to bed I gnash my teeth in anger and bitterness for missing out on the Golden Age.

*runs away crying*

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Why you gotta be so cruel, mr. kronos, why?

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
*taunt #49

the 1930s, the golden age before the nanny state.

Clearly also before Health and Safety became an issue.

Impressive? Most definately, Sensible.... not at all!

also... some of these investions... dear god... what were they thinking!

^what BansheeX said.

NetRunner:
My sources, among others, are excerpts from the best selling author Milton Friedman, the 1976 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and hailed "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century…possibly of all of it". In "Free to Choose" he writes:

"The combination of economic and political freedom produced a golden age in both Great Britain and the United States in the nineteenth century. The United States prospered even more than Britain. It started with a clean slate: fewer vestiges of class and status; fewer government restraints; a more fertile field for energy, drive, and innovation; and an empty continent to conquer"
"During most of the period of rapid agricultural expansion in the United States the government played a negligible role. Land was made available—but it was land that had been unproductive before."
"...few other government restrictions impeded free trade at home or abroad. Until after World War I immigration was almost completely free (there were restrictions on immigration from the Orient). They came by the millions, and by the millions they were absorbed. They prospered because they were left to their own devices."
"Almost every charitable or public service organization, from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals The Power of the Market to the YMCA and YWCA, from the Indian Rights Association to the Salvation Army, dates from that period. Voluntary cooperation is no less effective in organizing charitable activity than inorganizing production for profit. The charitable activity was matched by a burst of cultural activity—art museums, opera houses, symphonies, museums, public libraries arose in big cities and frontier towns alike."
"Perhaps even more surprising to us today, people were free to travel all over Europe and much of the rest of the world without a passport and without repeated customs inspection. They were free to emigrate and in much of the world, particularly the United States, free to enter and become residents and citizens."


And before you say these ideas no longer apply today...take a look at the economy of Hong Kong, home to 7 million people in 426 square miles.

Why don't people love this!? I guess our 'Golden Age' has ended.

Always remember that throughout history, even before there was written language, there were those who spoke of a glorious "Golden Age," where people had real values because they weren't corrupted by modern technology.

I guarantee you that during the Neolithic Revolution there must have been curmudgeons who decried agriculture's "softening" effect on humanity. Prophets of doom surely wandered through the villages, saying that the end was near because agriculture created free time for people to pursue other interests such as the arts, science, and literature. Their new-fangled "written" language certainly meant that they had become amoral slobs and dickless men.

Technology has changed; human nature hasn't.

lol that was great, a new Golden Age of Peace and Prosperity for All!

SHE is fake. Not the video.

The fact that she sucks money out of naive little girls by selling them porn and body image problems doesn't do her any credit either.

"but she can't be expected to sing and dance at the same t..."
SHUT THE FUCK UP!

If I remember correctly, the golden age of music didn't have talentless sluts like this at the top of the list.

Jimi Hendrix anyone?

'...it will rock your balls off.' -newsweek

'FUCK YEAH!!! EIGHT THUMBS UP!!' -siskel & ebert

'Cinema's golden age begins today, with Megaforce' -new yorker

I agree with Sarzy on the look, I always thought The Watchmens colorful 80esque pallete was a dig on the Golden Age of comics. But for a film I would go with something more gritter.

If they fuck up Rorschach's charcter I will be pissed.

>> ^kronosposeidon:
Thanks to all of you beautiful bastards. I couldn't have made it this far without the love and affection that you've showered upon me like a Tub Girl fountain. It's hard to believe that I've finally reached 500 without having to blackmail more than half of you or create more than 47 sock puppet accounts. Some of you apparently vote for my stuff because you like it. Go figure.
Things have changed a lot since I was but a wee probie. It was a Golden Age, when men were
giants, and the women told them "Oh yeah, if by 3 inches you mean gigantic then yes, you are a giant." Back then we had to hunt and gather our videos during the day, and post them at night in the shelter of our chat rooms. Then one morning a big shiny sift appeared in our midst, and before we knew we it were doing amazingly complex things, like using the asterisk key, and summoning ass gravy on special occasions.
Oh yes, how the times have changed. So now that I'm older and fatter I'll impart these words of counsel, in the hopes of growing this site and fostering a sense of community:
- Declare moral bankruptcy
- If in doubt about a video's quality, ask yourself "What would Larry Flynt do?"
- Never give a sucker an even break
- Reserve your downvotes for the worst of the worst, i.e., educational or thought-provoking videos. If I wanted my intellect stimulated I'd be well into the 5th grade by now.
- Kill or be killed
- Think before you type. There's at least 50 different ways to call someone an asshole
- Never ask to see Choggie naked, unless you've had an erection lasting more than 4 hours.
For my silver diamond privilege I'd like dag to pay my tab at the Emperor VIP Club. Just refer to me as "Client Number 1". And remember kids, keep those donations coming!


Oh Jesus Christ, no one asked for your Vagina Monologue.

Thanks to all of you beautiful bastards. I couldn't have made it this far without the love and affection that you've showered upon me like a Tub Girl fountain. It's hard to believe that I've finally reached 500 without having to blackmail more than half of you or create more than 47 sock puppet accounts. Some of you apparently vote for my stuff because you like it. Go figure.

Things have changed a lot since I was but a wee probie. It was a Golden Age, when men were
giants, and the women told them "Oh yes, if by 3 inches you mean gigantic then yes, you are a giant." Back then we had to hunt and gather our videos during the day, and post them at night in the shelter of our chat rooms. Then one morning a big shiny sift appeared in our midst, and before we knew it we were doing amazingly complex things, like using the asterisk key, and summoning ass gravy on special occasions.

Oh yes, how the times have changed. So now that I'm older and fatter I'll impart these words of counsel, in the hopes of growing this site and fostering a sense of community:

- Declare moral bankruptcy
- If in doubt about a video's quality, ask yourself "What would Larry Flynt do?"
- Never give a sucker an even break
- Reserve your downvotes for the worst of the worst, i.e., educational or thought-provoking videos. If I wanted my intellect stimulated I'd be well into the 5th grade by now.
- Kill or be killed
- Think before you type. There's at least 50 different ways to call someone an asshole
- Never ask to see Choggie naked, unless you've had an erection lasting more than 4 hours.

For my silver diamond privilege I'd like dag to pay my tab at the Emperor VIP Club. Just refer to me as "Client Number 1". And remember kids, keep those donations coming!

haha great sift. This is the golden age of the 1sttube.

Nope, this is real. It's the classic Golden Age video production look and feel to it. Elrond is saying that the tools to just walk on down "the Bridge" are right there. You just have to do it. Just put on those boots and walk through those paper-thin walls that are holding you back.

(By the way, the "Bridge" to Total Freedom means that you are on a bridge that keeps infinately spawning trolls that pickpocket your $$$$ thereby making it harder to level up)

I'm going to make my list more difficult (or maybe easier, depending on your point of view) by limiting myself to current, contemporary, living persons. This removes obvious picks like Kubrick, Welles, Kurosawa and Hitchcock who would otherwise be at the top. Here's my list, in no particular order:

1) The Coens - plural I know, but you can't have one without the other. These brothers have produced masterpieces in every genre they've attempted. Crime, drama, comedy, mobsters, whatever. Always entertaining and very deserving of their recent Oscar.
2) Paul Thomas Anderson. A not terribly prolific director, but a thoughtful one. One of the few whose movies you must attend in the theatre simply because HE made it!
3) Wes Anderson- You can count on Wes for taking you to a place you've never been before, and no matter how fucked up your family may seem to you, the families portrayed in a Wes Anderson film are more disturbed and dysfunctional. Not to say that they're not loving and well-intentioned, just misguided.
4) Clint Eastwood- He has become a master of his craft. Few others will take the time to luxuriate in a scene like Eastwood. His long cuts and deliberate pacing show a respect for the intelligence and attention span of his audience.
5) Martin Scorsese- of all the great Directors born in the new Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1970s, only Scorsese remains at the top of his game. Others such as Spielberg, Lucas (ugh), Coppola, Friedkin etcetera have left their best work in the distant past.

@snoozedoctor & arsenault (if you really care to learn why sending missionaries to Iraq stirs up so much trouble)

While I think you have made a somewhat valid point... I ask you not to forget that our great and wonderful nation of 'free-peoples' was only gained via the slaughter and removal of an indigenous population. The rationale for this removal often was that it was completely legit due to the fact that Native Americans were 'heathens' and 'pagans' and therefore not children of God blessed with all the divine rights that the good people of America were inherently imbued with... and don't forget our 'Manifest Destiny, which was essentially God's will that America stretch from coast to coast and become the leading power in this hemisphere. Historically, American armies may not have been have entered battle under the banner of a crucifix, but the justifications for their deployment have often been laced with the rhetoric of spreading 'Christian values' and thereby civilizing the heathen peoples of the world... so, even though this country is not technically a 'theocracy', which is a nation governed by a religious body who forcibly imposes one faith upon all of its citizens (which the Ottoman empire was NOT, by the way- political and ruling powers lay in the hands of the Sultan and his heirs, the Caliphate only established to give their dynasty legitimacy, and by and large the Empire was comprised of peoples of MANY faiths- it was no more a theocracy than was the Holy Roman Empire, or any of the Medieval European States, in fact, in a lot of ways, it was probably much less of one. That corsairs or an envoy operating under its aegis chose to justify their actions by using the Koran is no different than the thousands of other actions carried out by European kings, and conquistadors who chose the Bible as their umbrella), the justifications for the actions of the American military have in the past often been aligned with 'Christian' motivations or agendas (once again, see the conquest and 'taming' of North America)... and given the discourse in American politics today, I think it is hard to deny that there is a great portion of this population that would very much like to see it formally defined as a 'Christian Nation', with Bibles in the classroom and Commandments at the Court House, so the perception abroad that Iraq is a 'Christian War' is not unsurprising, its like to spring up anytime a predominantly Christian country sets foot in the Middle East.

But back to history and the motivations of international shenanigans of the more recent past.... Its not only America that is guilty of working in tandem with the motivations of religious institutions and their rhetoric... throughout the Golden Age of Imperialism foreign missionaries more often than not preceded the armies of Western nations throughout Africa, Asia and the Pacific, establishing churches and converting portions of the population. Attacks on these outposts of Western thought and culture would often then be used as an excuse for a Western nation to move in and establish a military presence before moving on to full blown colonization (see the French takeover of Indochina/Vietnam if you don't believe me).

In regards to this situation then that pattern is important to keep in mind, because I think it helps explain some of the anger that is being raised by missionary activities in the region. Given the prevailing attitude against Western influence in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries (due mostly to the experience of having been subjugated by Western Imperialist powers in the past), it should not be so surprising that these FOREIGN AMERICAN missionaries would be viewed by Iraqis as a threat to the sovereign identity they are trying to create for themselves. It is not that the Iraqis who might strike out at these people are doing so entirely because they are averse to Christianity, after all, there has been a long standing population of Chaldean Christians within Iraq that has gotten by just fine for centuries- it maybe hasn't been on top and they were pretty fairly discriminated against under Saddam but they certainly have never been outrightly persecuted for not being Muslim. Even today, despite all the turmoil in the country, those who have remained are pretty much just hanging in there and riding things out while the various Muslim factions around them blow one another up.

So, a large component of the problem is that many Iraqis ultimately feel that they are being 'invaded' by Imperialist Western influence, on many fronts, militarily, politically, and via these missionaries, religiously. So, therefore, this conflict of interest goes beyond simply just religion and it is important, I think, that Christians (missionaries and otherwise) realize this, the situation is not just Christian vs. Muslim- Iraqi Muslims are not just angry or striking out because the people of Jesus have dared tread on their sand to convert their neighbors. There are many many other factors involved in this that explain why they would not want missionaries from America to be active within their country... especially at a sensitive moment in history such as this.