Hah! This is from my hometown!

I can't NOT *promote the PI. Been there once during an Einstein exhibit, and they had giant chalkboards completely filled with mathmatic equations that made no sense to me. So, just for my own amusement, I hung behind the tour and erased 2 numbers off one of them.

I probably seriously ruined someones day

I should note, however, this specific video doesn't take place IN the PI, it's just from a random highschool.

I wish they made an add like tis about my hometown....

>> ^blankfist:

Weird. Looks like he's trying to reinvent himself. He was probably headed for director jail and knows his Mall Rats and Clerks fans are fewer these days. It looked like he tried Action/Comedy with Cop Out. I guess that didn't go very well, so this looks like another attempt to reinvent himself as a director. I hope it's good. The teaser looks good.


Actually, In either October or November, can't remember which, he came to my hometown and did an "Evening with Kevin Smith" here. One of the questions asked basically had him go completely off topic but he did talk about Red State being his final movie for a long, long time because he was tired of re-inventing himself.

He also talked about how much of a treat it is to work with John Goodman, who does all his own stand-ins for dialogue scenes where all you see is the back of his head (A job generally reserved for 'look alikes' so the stars can go sit in the corner and text.) As opposed to Bruce Willis, who generally took absolutely no direction from Kevin because he was too "Amateur" and instead actually reemed him out one day on set.

So, the fact alone that everybody in the film seems to actually enjoy what they do and like kevin enough to give their best performances hopefully means this is indeed better then cop out.

[edit] Guess RS beat me to it.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Your confusing the meaning of big. Big here is referring to scope. Like the thought experiment, the scope of the police force went from local to national...that is the size difference he was talking about.
How do you address the claim that large central government misrepresent larger portions of the populations due to their non-regional considerations?
US airports are not government facilities.
It is foolish to assume that local governments are more corrupt than distant ones. If the people right under your nose are muxing things up, how about the people 1400 miles away...how much more corrupt can they be without your constant eye? And when they are corrupt, they do it with a larger portion of pie. Granted, that pie might add up to the same pie that would be lost to local corruption of the whole system...but like the video suggests, you are more likely to catch and correct it on the local level.
Also, can you name one super large corporation that isn't also highly regulated, I can't. Microsoft is protected by intellectual property laws, the news giants all started as legal monopoly telco and cable providers, Energy has been quazi-government/private for decades, Rail roads where publicly sponsored then privately owned. Can you name one truly organic natural monopoly that arose from someones good business practices and not its status with government and regulations?

>> ^vaporlock:
I haven't finished watching this yet but hasn't everything been "getting bigger"? Our population, corporations, number of consumer products, number of food items in a supermarket, number of schools, number of airline flights, number of roads, etc, etc. Has government really grown at a rate greater than everything else? Can I really believe that my local town can regulate or even protect itself from big corporations? For example if a BP gas station leaks fuel into the water-table. Mind you my hometown has a problem even cutting the grass on the side of the highway.
I'm all for controlling how the government exploits the rest of the earth, but the airports, national parks, national laboratories, and roadways in the US are some of the best in the world. These were done partially by our "big government". You just have to look at the small governments in the South and local communities across the US to see real corruption.
OK... rant over... start video
After watching. I can say that I agree with the analysis but not the conclusion. Government is not the problem, it's corporate control over government. When you consider the growth of the military alone, his point about the growth of the government is mute. How big was the military in 1907, how big in 2007. The military is a huge percentage of the government, even bigger when you consider government contractors and corporations with contracts, etc. I'm guessing that the growth of the "military industrial complex" alone accounts for much of the 30% difference between 1907 and 2007.
Cut the military, stop f'cking with the rest of the world, guarantee civil rights for everybody, protect the environment, make sure the food and other consumer products are safe, maintain the roadways, support science and education, and I'm all for a big atheist government of the people.




I'm guessing he meant without federal funding of infrastructure our airports, for instance, wouldn't be as good as they are. example Yes, there are private options to this, but when you want to take a global edge in something at a large scale, the only option is the federal option.

The video is ostensibly true in that smaller governments are more efficient, with greater accountability in their daily minutia. However, there is a certain efficiency in extending 'good' programs to the entire country at once rather than requiring every small subsection to enact it independently. It's also pointless at this point(I'll do it anyway) to even mention that many inefficient programs are as a result of undue influence of special interest groups. Public campaign funding, greater transparency and more effective dissemination of information from watchdog groups are all ways of making the federal government more efficient. In this age, it should be possible to catch more of the bullshit happening, which the political media coverage consistently fails to do for various reasons.

Of course, there are many watchdog groups that examine the inner workings of the federal government, because it's large, centralized and presents a larger impact on the country. They often detect corruption but don't have the platform to spread their findings to the larger public unless a larger media conglomerate picks up on it. The geographic distance from a centralized government is not a significant factor in detecting corruption as it is balanced by the large number of eyes focusing on it. If you mean local populaces remaining unaware of how terrible their national representatives are, then you have a point. But this factor will hopefully be alleviated in the future through continuing improvement in getting information to the public.

Don't pretend oversight at the local level isn't without it's problems, though they tend to take a different form from the federal level.

Yes, I'm deeply concerned with the government handing out monopolies like candy. I favor copyright/patent reform.

tl;dr Government requires constant supervision and representatives should be treated like children and changed when they crap themselves. But we love them anyway because they're essential for society to continue.

Your confusing the meaning of big. Big here is referring to scope. Like the thought experiment, the scope of the police force went from local to national...that is the size difference he was talking about.

How do you address the claim that large central government misrepresent larger portions of the populations do to their non-regional considerations?

US airports are not government facilities.

It is foolish to assume that local governments are more corrupt than distant ones. If the people right under your nose are muxing things up, how about the people 1400 miles away...how much more corrupt can they be without your constant eye? And when they are corrupt, they do it with a larger portion of pie. Granted, that pie might add up to the same pie that would be lost to local corruption of the whole system...but like the video suggests, you are more likely to catch and correct it on the local level.

Also, can you name one super large corporation that isn't also highly regulated, I can't. Microsoft is protected by intellectual property laws, the news giants all started as legal monopoly telco and cable providers, Energy has been quazi-government/private for decades, Rail roads where publicly sponsored then privately owned. Can you name one truly organic natural monopoly that arose from someones good business practices and not its status with government and regulations?


>> ^vaporlock:

I haven't finished watching this yet but hasn't everything been "getting bigger"? Our population, corporations, number of consumer products, number of food items in a supermarket, number of schools, number of airline flights, number of roads, etc, etc. Has government really grown at a rate greater than everything else? Can I really believe that my local town can regulate or even protect itself from big corporations? For example if a BP gas station leaks fuel into the water-table. Mind you my hometown has a problem even cutting the grass on the side of the highway.
I'm all for controlling how the government exploits the rest of the earth, but the airports, national parks, national laboratories, and roadways in the US are some of the best in the world. These were done partially by our "big government". You just have to look at the small governments in the South and local communities across the US to see real corruption.
OK... rant over... start video
After watching. I can say that I agree with the analysis but not the conclusion. Government is not the problem, it's corporate control over government. When you consider the growth of the military alone, his point about the growth of the government is mute. How big was the military in 1907, how big in 2007. The military is a huge percentage of the government, even bigger when you consider government contractors and corporations with contracts, etc. I'm guessing that the growth of the "military industrial complex" alone accounts for much of the 30% difference between 1907 and 2007.
Cut the military, stop f'cking with the rest of the world, guarantee civil rights for everybody, protect the environment, make sure the food and other consumer products are safe, maintain the roadways, support science and education, and I'm all for a big atheist government of the people.

I haven't finished watching this yet but hasn't everything been "getting bigger"? Our population, corporations, number of consumer products, number of food items in a supermarket, number of schools, number of airline flights, number of roads, etc, etc. Has government really grown at a rate greater than everything else? Can I really believe that my local town can regulate or even protect itself from big corporations? For example if a BP gas station leaks fuel into the water-table. Mind you my hometown has a problem even cutting the grass on the side of the highway.

I'm all for controlling how the government exploits the rest of the earth, but the airports, national parks, national laboratories, and roadways in the US are some of the best in the world. These were done partially by our "big government". You just have to look at the small governments in the South and local communities across the US to see real corruption.

OK... rant over... start video

After watching. I can say that I agree with the analysis but not the conclusion. Government is not the problem, it's corporate control over government. When you consider the growth of the military alone, his point about the growth of the government is mute. How big was the military in 1907, how big in 2007. The military is a huge percentage of the government, even bigger when you consider government contractors and corporations with contracts, etc. I'm guessing that the growth of the "military industrial complex" alone accounts for much of the 30% difference between 1907 and 2007.

Cut the military, stop f'cking with the rest of the world, guarantee civil rights for everybody, protect the environment, make sure the food and other consumer products are safe, maintain the roadways, support science and education, and I'm all for a big atheist government of the people.

WTF... that's my hometown. Never seen that mean assed turkey though.

Hey! There was a cool vid showcased at the end of the tour of your hometown -- I posted it and it went to the top 15! Thanks for the power point!

http://videosift.com/video/Crazy-Prices-in-Far-North-Canada if you want to watch it.

And sorry about the prices up there. Man. That is ROUGH.

army guy is saying iraqis suck b/c they aren't occupying USA. I LOL.
"I don't see you in my hometown..."

Hey, I never thought my hometown would make it onto the Sift.

Yes, we're all nuts here.

Oh, hometown of Toledo! Will you never cease to shame me? This is why I'm in L.A. where we beat the hell out of each other for legitimate reasons, like traffic.

Hey my hometown!

Cool! Oulu (Finland), where they have the annual Air Guitar World championships (http://www.airguitarworldchampionships.com/en/event/agwc-2010) is/was my hometown!

WikiPedia: Annual world championships (full name: "The Annual Air Guitar World Championship Contest") were first held in 1996 as part of the Oulu Music Video Festival in Oulu, Finland.

I guess I should have gone to see the festival when I was still living in there!

1> I thing Clinger was a straight guy just trying to get discharged.
2> Dan savage is fucking awesome. Hometown hero.
3> I won't address the Hilter part, that accusation is too stupid to warrant a response.

I made it to my 10th but missed my 20th due to being a dirt bike accident (ripped out my knee and ACL) - No one even phoned me or stopped bye. I was back living in my hometown at the time so it wouldn't have been hard - That's when you know, "those people" really aren't your friends any more... so why go...