Guys, it's the vendors. They pay for that "free" loan and a lot of the benefits. And the credit card companies lobbied it in by making it illegal for a business to charge a different price for cash than plastic. That's recently (last 5 years or so) been overturned. If you've ever had the distinct pleasure of navigating the byzantine and maddening world of credit card clearance fees, you would know that not all cards take as big a bite out of your transaction with the consumer. And it just so happens that the juicier benefits cards cost the vendor even more. That's a minimum of 1.8%, usually 2.5% and as high as 4%. That means the bank floats you the $ for 30 days average at 2.5% = 30% APR. It's quite a racket. There's a reason you get 3 very expensive mailers with fake cards and whatnot a week.

Ya had to bring up Yarmouk, didn't ya? Too soon, man. Too soon. I had a lotta money riding on those Byzantines, man.

@artician
im gonna have to disagree with you.

the comparisons this film makes with rome are a tool to illuminate the structure of empire itself.
at romes true beginning to romes ultimate fading were longer than 250 years.
you are correct.
you are also correct of the existence of a 2000 year long empire.
which of course was the egyptian empire.

what you DID not post was that the waning years of the rome empire was concentrated in constantinople and was called the byzantine empire.you further weaken your argument by not pointing out that the egyptian empire was not one long single stretch of domination but rather a series of rises and falls of that empire.

now,by your own argument you have failed your own propaganda test.

this film makes an argument.
you can agree/disagree with its conclusions.
but to dismantle the delivery of that argument based on circular logic drowns out the argument itself.

this is a criticism of our current system.
a valid criticism in my opinion and i didnt find it delving into boogah boogah land.
it was rational,reasonable and possibly a bit too heavy on the power point presentation.

but considering i had read most of the books by the authors being interviewed (the "sources" you claim were lacking),i found it a fantastic movie for people who may not be aware of whats going on.

not everybody has the time or patience to consume information the way you or i do.
and i rather liked how this film lays out our current situation.

i guess you didnt.
fair enough.

So much of what you are saying here is not terribly accurate.

Fleeing in this case is easier to sympathize with on account of the US's recent history of locking up and torturing whistle blowers for years on end.

You do live in a country where you pick and choose which laws to follow. Constantly. Like most people. Did you have a drink before you were of age? Have you rolled through a stop sign? Did you tear a label off a mattress? Have you smoked weed? Average people break the rules when they think that the rule is dumb and deserves to be broken, or when they think following the rule would be a greater wrong than breaking it. I expect the latter case applies to Snowden.

Turning himself in is hardly win/win. Maybe he's not interested in being locked up and abused for years on end for what he considers a service he did to the US people. It's not everyone's sole goal in life to die of old age.

His case isn't that much stronger if he turns himself in. He's not some rhetorical genius or a mastermind lawyer waiting to uncover his byzantine court strategy. He released some information regarding serious infringements by the US govt, and that's it. His motives are easy to see, and anyone could pick up and argue his case for him. It's just not that deep.

You're right that the outcry didn't follow. People are getting rather well conditioned to being spied on in pretty much everything we do. To me, the much more important revelation was that the US govt had a collection of secret laws that only it knows about, and that it acts based on it. Privacy is just the tip of the iceberg.

To play devils advocate:
the problem I have had trying to convince other people to try board games is simply learning the rules. Often they have a bewildering set of rules that must be learnt and enforced to play the game. This leads to arguments over interpretations of rules and so on.

Which is were video games win, because if there is one thing computers are good at, it is interpreting and enforcing byzantine rules.

I got here a little late for the long page of text to be relevant, so I defer back to the context of the video. The term "Christian" isn't really a new thing as far as history is concerned. And it hasn't only been used to unify, but for discord as well. Just the other day, I was listening to old debate of "Are Catholics really christian?". One might imagine the same conversation about eastern Orthodox Christians. Conversely, back in the first crusade, Catholics defended the Byzantines (Whom were Orthodox), then killed Catholic Christians that lived among certain Muslim comunites. The term is simple, but its use is not. Just like when you call someone black. Black means a color, but it CAN mean much more. Like, that guy talks black. Black, of course, refers to something more than just color...and likewise, the term Christian takes on many different meanings given the context. It isn't new, nor is it unique, nor is it insidious by nature; rather, it is the general nature of language itself and man wanting to group things together, even if the word itself is a poor choice to do so (see again: talking black). So, while I sympathize a lot with the heart of Peen's message, I think it isn't exactly accurate.

A MORE interesting conversation is a warping of the founding fathers as some kind of super christians. Many of them would fail the "Good Christian" tests of today, like Jefferson and his Big Black Bible Blotter, erasing all the things he thought silly. A Christian of today would find that highly dubious, even demonic (as per the warning in revelation).

I too, @shinyblurry detest this new "anti-theism" movement, or as I dub it, the Angry Atheist Alliance. While I hold that the ideas in the bible are flawed and incomplete explanation to the answers of life, I don't hold that you have to be a great asshole about it, which seems to be the modicum of the day. You aren't a good atheist, it seems, unless you are being mean spirited about all matters of disagreement. If I have offered up this attitude to you, then I am shamed and offer my apologies. I can be quite curt if I feel someone is being hostile or unreasonable, and if they weren't then I come off as being that which I detest...an irony from my own position, and a hypocrisy from others.

If anyone has an interest in the Byzantine Empire here is a great podcast. http://www.12byzantinerulers.com/

first time i heard this, i made fun of it by singing "get byzantine".

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

If people feel very strongly that this is something that we don't want to lose- the best practice would be to discard this video and post it from someone else.

I know it seems bureaucratic- but by keeping any precedents for self-links out of the system we're aiding the Sift.

Have a random browse of the self-promoted content on *any* other site and you will have to agree that our byzantine little system of social engineering is effective.

Denial? We're all very aware of our rich history. At least my arguments aren't boring and cliched. You can surely do better. I mean as soon as the Simpsons pull an example (the Crusades) to support an argument, you've got to reconsider the ammunition you're using.

Geez, the Crusades. If your holiest places were taken over by others, wouldn't you want to liberate them too? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

The Catholic Church is guided by the Holy Spirit but it's composed of humans - and humans make mistakes - we're not perfect. This paragraph epitomizes the effect of this:
"Another factor that contributed to the change in Western attitudes towards the East came in the year 1009, when the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre destroyed. In 1039 his successor permitted the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it.[6] Pilgrimages were allowed to the Holy Lands before and after the Sepulchre was rebuilt, but for a time pilgrims were captured and some of the clergy were killed. The Muslim conquerors eventually realized that the wealth of Jerusalem came from the pilgrims; with this realization the persecution of pilgrims stopped.[7] However, the damage was already done, and the violence of the Seljuk Turks became part of the concern that spread the passion for the Crusades.[8]"

Salem witch trials - example of what happens when a bunch of religious wackies get out of control - they were rather opposed to the Pope - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

Or witch hunts in general - yes, again, people made horrible evil mistakes, but attributing it all to the Church is again another outlandish and ignorant statement. Here's some light reading:
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/werror.html

Okay, and the Inquisition - closely linked to the witch hunts/trials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
"Although many states allowed the Church to use the death penalty, initially it was not frequently imposed, as this form of punishment had many ecclesiastical opponents.[2][3]"

From a pro-life perspective, if you have the capability to imprison criminals you shouldn't kill them either. And of course have differing opinions isn't a reason to criminalize people, but it should give you pause when people make it sound like the fear of 'thought police' is a new development.

As usual, something which may have had some higher purpose was corrupted by people with a baser intention - "studies showed there was an initial burst of activity against conversos suspected of relapsing into Judaism, and a mid-16th-century pursuit of Protestants - but the Inquisition served principally as a forum Spaniards occasionally used to humiliate and punish people they did not like: blasphemers, bigamists, foreigners and, in Aragon, homosexuals and horse smugglers"

You know what we hate worse than hateful comedians, eh? Those damn horse smugglers.

Two other fun thoughts before getting some rest
- remember that Pope Benedict was, in his previous post, the head of the Inquisition? It's still around, only it's called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Lovely group. It's so good to have a Panzer Pope.
- nutty things were of course done through the ages - the "Index of Forbidden Books" is one of my favourites. Even in the late 19th century you'd hear Popes speaking of the dangers of "liberalism", whatever that means.

Yeah, people make mistakes, but Maher's blowing things out of proportion and being nutty about it himself. It's like he's creating his own "Index of Forbidden Groups" or something.

I would say this definitely involves *worldaffairs, and economics is a social *science. And the *spookymusic made the information even scarier.

Great video, flavioribeiro. I've known for a while that Americans (and I'm one of them) are living in a declining empire. No military or economic superpower can remain that way forever. Just ask the Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Mongols, Mughals, Ottomans, British, Russians, Klingons.....

That's a simplistic argument to make, that Russians 'tried' democracy and it failed. The fact is that Russian's never got to experience democracy at all, with the coming of Yeltsin into power the centralized market system was thrown out overnight for a capitalist economy, workers were issued shares for the companies they worked in, the Russian currency collapsed, pensions were stopped, all due to western economists (who arrived in droves) believing that the spirit of entrepreneurship would suddenly infect the souls of people who lived under communist rule for over 60 years.

But what happened was that some individuals within that system started buying out the shares from the workers who needed to sustain themselves at that point, seizing massive control of various industries, thus creating the oligarchs. The same people who now own various football clubs in the UK.

The people as a whole felt robbed, they blamed democracy for that, failing to see how the economic reforms worked against them, instead of blaming the transition many more people assumed it was democracy that was at fault. What should have been a long term phased switch into a market economy like the one seen with China was rushed within the space of a few years, incomes and welfare of course fell. Look at how gradually China introduced free market zones, by cordoning them off to small regions, then allowed foreign direct investment there. The whole motto of their capital development was "import 1st product, assemble 2nd product, manufacture 3rd product".

The current Putin government is full of KGB cronies who have muscled their way into acquisition of the most important sectors of the economy, most significant of them being the oil sector, which is wholly responsible for the economic boom in Russia. The war in Iraq and possible war with Iran has seen the Oil price soar year on year since 2000 and Putin's coming into power and the economic boom in Russia, that's not coincidental. This is why Putin visited Iran, instability in the Middle East sustains the high oil price and Russia's development.

Putin did give something to the Russians, and that is pride in their nation, a seeming return to the heyday of the Soviet Union with it's planting of flags in the Arctic, stance against the American government and nuclear armed patrols that hark back to the Cold War era. But it also came with government control of oil resources, elimination of civil rights, elimination of freedom of press, state control of media, needless military expansionism, Byzantine rule of government, political oppression through assassination of those who oppose the government.

Just this past month he imposed a collective freeze on food prices until after the elections sometime in January, this was done so as to keep the appearance to Russia's poor that the economy was doing well when in reality food prices across the world are rising, once elections are over they can remove the freeze.

A good article on "Why Putin Wins" is Sergei Kovalev's article , who gives a realistic breakdown of Russia as it is now and what is its future. As Scott Horton says in "What Putin Wants":

The challenge will be for America more than for Russia. In America, there is still a hope that the democratic process can work to effect a rollback of creeping authoritarianism and a restoration of the beacon of hope that the land once held up to the world. In Russia, all sight of that beacon is lost.

Your argument that non-democratic states like Kingdom of Saudi Arabia offer a higher standard of living is ridiculous, most of the population lives in poverty as the wealth is concentrated in the Royal family and even then only through the continual oil production, almost everything it produces is sustain through government subsidization, much more of its products are simply imported. Jordan differs because they possesses a technocrat King who believes in development, that doesn't mean tomorrow a tyrant will take power.

And am sorry but slave like hours on minimal wage for 90% of the population making Nike shoes does not translate into a higher standard living for the Chinese as a whole, not to mention that development is confined to the coastal areas, while inland China lives in poverty due to lack of investment and encroaching desert taking away valuable agricultural land. China possess an incredible amount of income disparity, firms are still mainly controlled by the Chinese government. It is true that there is slowly an emergence of a middle class, that is being educated abroad and not going back to mainland China, because opportunities in the west are much better.

The argument that ANY government policy has a potential to achieve strong economy is simplistic, the market system works because various agents start to develop products and services to supply a demand of other agents. That requires freedom of enterprise, the ability to freely form business solutions. That means reform laws that actively invite business activities to take place. Communism or centralized market economy does not lead to a strong economy because the demand and supply signals do not exist, the government decides what is important to produce and does it. It leads to a mis balance and a concentration of power in the hands of the few, this is why the USSR failed, and why China started to put in place free market reforms in the 80s. States in the Middle East still sustain their perverse development through oil money, without which all of them would quite realistically fail, as they are overly reliant on foreign labor and are not actively developing their skilled labor force, not to mention the sheer amount of corruption that occurs between those in high office and citizens.

Your mention of a few democratic states that are in poor shapes is simplistic again, they are not failures of democracy but rather a lack of proper reforms and rule. Brazil is doing rather well now actually even though government corruption is still rife as is political instability. Nepal is constitutional monarchy, where the King has assumed emergency powers and holds all executive power so I have no idea why you lumped it in there. Albania on the other hand has had successive government instability with the neighboring war, socialist, democratic governments in succession, the economy however is steadily developing even though stability has been hard to attain since 1990.

The idea behind democracy is that citizens can have a say in where their nation is heading, being elected to government doesn't make saints out of people where they suddenly selflessly try to achieve economy development for the people as a whole. The African nations where strong armed authoritative ruler one after the other prove this, as does Hugo Chavez who after winning the trust of the poor is now concentrating all executive power under his own control, as does Iran where Mahmoud's promises to the poor for oil revenue sharing amounted to nothing but continuous tensions and sanctions from the west.

I think you need to further broaden your understanding of the complexities of government rule and policy with regards to economic development as they are rather basic right now.

Excellent choice of music

Anyone remember what this track is called? I have it on my byzantine hard drive but I can't recall the name