In order to be insulted, I'd actually have to care and it's been a long time since I even remotely considered giving 4/5s of a fuck what Maher has to say.

The difference is Louie CK is actually funny. He does witty and original stuff and can make even something as horrible as child abuse screamingly funny (all without picking on the victims).

He's also self-deprecating, which is a trait common to most of my favourite comedians.

Whereas Maher is a self-aggrandizing knob end, who happens to at least be on the sane side of the political spectrum.

I'm happy to laugh at myself, but only when the material is actually funny.

Warning, this is long. It's a general reply to bob, but really it's a rant about the reality of this country, origins, issue, and where we are headed... Like they say in Horace and Pete, at this point we just might deserve a president like Trump (especially because we are stupid enough to vote for HIM, and for so many Senators AND Congressmen like him or even far worse)...

Reply to bob at the top...


I hate to tell you, but "SHALL", according to the times in which the founding fathers wrote this IS indeed the utmost highest form of that period meaning that you "HAVE TO" do something.

Go ahead and let your own party change what grammar and vocabulary meant from that period--or simply not have enough brains to know what it really means (though most of us know by now their assistants have let them know what it means, they just refuse to believe reality and instead insert their own collective psychotic delusion).

Typically when it says SHALL (BTW, NOT doing that job should be getting them in HUGE amounts of trouble as well), they should be doing everything they can TO nominate a new judge into the open position in their next open session (not a session one year away, so Trump or Hillary has to do it).

If they want to complain about the nominee they CAN, just while they are under scrutiny to go up for the vote. But, they simply are NOT supposed to do nothing and furthermore say they WON'T do anything...

I'll have to look up what the penalty is for not doing this, but it could be a full "boot" from their job. Simply what has been referred to by Republicans in the past as Impeachment. But, then the Senate has to start that (I'm not sure if anyone else can; hence, this is why I said I'd try to see if there is anything else that can be done)

I believe they can also do it at the state level... BUT ALL of this requires for our government officials to do their fucking jobs! PLUS, the citizens that voted them in to give a shit!
----------


We REALLY, REALLY, do not deserve a country like this...it is BARELY alive and well. We are just a few presidential terms away (plus senators and congressmen) before we grind to a complete halt.

Then we can finally watch everything implode on CNN and FOX while REAL extremists take over and then the real fun starts. True extremists taking control with minimal bloodshed and shouting matches, civil war with outcomes that grant us either the NEO-United States (the U.S.A. V:2.0, which might be good), to the Neo-Confederacy (since that is what it all amounts to on the FAR right's spectrum). OR we simply just dissolve and become something entirely new.

Hey, bob did you know that your party used to be JUST like the Democrats of Lincoln's age. The Republican's were more like the Democrat's of our age. Weird right. THAT conservative party died out with Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party; then all of the citizens decided that they simply liked the name "Republican" more (since they'd always voted for that name, right...it'd be weird to change it). That is where the Republican's became a FAR different party than they had been (though they still had a few more GREAT leaders before their schism drove them all, sadly, into madness ). The "Democrat's", they thought slavery was just peachy at first, and now they vote for gay-rights. NEITHER party remembers it's roots and the citizens of the United States have had their idiotic teachers and parents tell them all sorts of stories about how great either party WAS, but never telling them what they are like NOW. We all need to vote for our president, nowadays, without even LOOKING at their part's affiliation. It doesn't do any of us any good. Because none of them have ANY real lineage or links to the old presidents of these United States--they're full of shit.

Just remember, Republicans and their party were formed basically to try and abolish slavery--now they are more likely to put it back into action; a complete reversal of their direction, progressive and liberal!

Democrats tried to keep things the same as it was and to even expand slavery--now they want to allow marijuana to be legal, allow gays to have rights, and essentially pick up many progressive and liberal causes... They too have utterly reversed the direction they were at and taking during Abraham Lincoln's time. Conservative on many topics and wanting to expand the states' rights and abilities. Now they are the ones that would abolish slavery and even have Lincoln on their ticket if he ran...

Our parties in these United States are abysmal, a joke, a farce, and shouldn't even be used... The Founding Fathers would be dismayed over so many issues it wouldn't be even funny. They would more than likely throw OUT the Constitution and start a new draft, simply due to the amount of changes we've made in the WRONG direction and the fact that they weren't able to see the future far enough ahead to imagine gigantic empires made only of Business (with a mere handful of people, not hundreds, thousands, and many more like it was in their times) and how News would become so powerful it is essentially as powerful as the president of the United States--and if watched by enough people it is even FAR more powerful than him/her (like in Russia; The Internet being the ONE thing the Founding Fathers would pat our country on the back over and it's what can restore balance to the people who watch or only can gain information from these entities; a new type of "University" where anything can be shared; truth and facts obtained at every man's fingertips nearly instantly at any point on this planet; it IS the world's greatest WONDER ever made).

Lastly, they would absolutely abhor our parties and how they are used--internally and externally (how our politicians...how all the issues interconnect together; all politicians that receive outside money, they would likely want to have them all impeached, same with those that USE the media; they would HATE parties--but they know they'll always exist, you just have to get rid of the things that LET parties abuse we the people and also the government, and those things are: money and media...).


/length

I'm a little annoyed he'd equate apples to poptarts in the spectrum of healthy eating.

John Cleese is hardly new to this. When he and the python troop made Life of Brian, more than 35 years ago, church leaders tried hard , and in many locations succeeded in getting it banned.

Back then he did the circuits talking with religious leaders defending that he had the right to still say something even if they disagreed with it. It's worth noting, much of his support came from within Academia were young students were eager to push back against the religious leaders controlling what people should and shouldn't say in a film.

Fast forward 35 years to today, and now a new batch of young students from Academia are making the exact same fight against what should and should not be said. Professors and administrators who don't get on board are getting fired. Students who don't get on board are being expelled.

Where the religious leaders used to try and shut down criticism of their views on religion, abortion, sexual identity and other subjects, today it is SJWs trying to shut down criticism of their views on religion, abortion, sexual identity and other subjects.

Cleese is at least being even handed with calling actions out on both ends of spectrum regardless were he sits on it. It's tragic that the notion of critical thought and argument is done better by comedians than supposed leaders of thought both 35 years ago and still today.

Well then yes, we respectfully disagree.
As I saw it, she had already aggressively touched him with his back turned, and then raised her fists as if to hit him again, so he could easily think he had to strike to keep from being hit again.
I wouldn't say it's the 'right' thing to do, I would say it's an acceptable thing, but I certainly agree it's on the 'wrong' end of that spectrum of acceptability.
Mr Miaggi was right, the best way to win a fight is to not be in one....but that's not within everyone's capability. No training coupled with lack of self control makes that impossible for some. They are not bad people because they lack those skills, IMO, and they have a right to their imperfect reactions up to a clearly legally defined point without being told that, because they didn't do the best thing, they did the wrong thing.
You are free to think differently, I don't need to agree with you 100% to like you.

Paul was the only real "liberal" candidate in recent times.

I mean that with the dictionary definition of liberality - not the political definition.

He was a 'live and let live' person, not interested in shoving the ideals of either end of the political spectrum down the entire nation's cumulative throat.

Fanboys of either end of the spectrum can't support anyone like that. They inherently want their way to be everyone's way, which a voluntarist like Paul isn't about.

His willingness to let persons on either side live freely how they personally want to, and be free to dislike how others live, made him atypical, and hence fringe by definition.

To me, he is a person of most excellent character.
I wish his son was more like him (rather than swinging off the born-again crowd's nuts).

-scheherazade

I would like this more if the liberal view was just as fringey, and the kid hit the Adele button for both ends of the political spectrum.

And I like it.

More like, why piano tuning methods need to be brought into the modern level of technology. Slap a spectrum analyzer on it, and tune each string absolutely.

Please don't keep switching back to saying that what the cops did was wrong and making it seem like that's what we're in disagreement about. I'm fully in agreement with you that what they did was wrong and illegal in Virginia, and would be in a little more than half the country. In all the 24 states with stop and identify requirements, their actions would have been legal, but not in VA. I'm not arguing that what they did was correct, professional, or legal - I've never said that. This is why I asked you to consider what this guy would be like if he hadn't been arrested, to take their behavior out of the equation for just a sec.

(to be fair, if we take the extreme opposite scenario into consideration - if somebody had driven a truck full of explosives into the FBI building the day after, and the media finds out that a lone white man with a gun holster and a camera, who's on the terrorist watch list*, had been standing in full sight and filming the federal reserve and the FBI all day before, the cops would most likely get pilloried for not detaining him)

The only place thing that we disagree is on his personality, which I aver leans towards the 'tool' end of the spectrum. He can be right and a tool. He went out of his way to provoke a reaction, in what he and his peers call a "first amendment audit," and tried to make cops nervous to see if he could catch them overreacting. That kind of behavior is what drives the implementation of harsher anti-citizen legislation.

*I doubt he's actually a terrorist; he's just on the watch list.

- In Merkel's defence, she's never been elected for her track record of empathy.

- Your gulag is the envy of the "civilized" world. Out of sight, out of mind. Quite frankly, between letting people rot on godforsaken islands and marauding bands of Nazis setting their shelters on fire, I think our two nations got the entire spectrum of despicable behaviour covered.

- 14k on airfares per person, almost 5k for ground transport -- just what did they travel in? Then again, that picture looks like she's desperatly trying to fit in with the blue blooded elites.

- I don't get Abbott. Steven Harper neither, for that matter. How can a reasonable people float this kind of person to the top? There are plenty of loonies around, but always with a solid base of loonies behind them (eg Berlusconi or Cameron). But not Abbott & Harper...

You asked Ulysses a question and he answered it. Stale humour, he did not find it funny. Curiousity sated.

You escalated from there.

Perhaps offended was the wrong word, but you seem driven to prove that non feminists, particularly the male variant, seem to be colourblind to Schuler's humour, it's something they can't possibly find funny because their attitude or lack of understanding blocks out the spectrum where the funny wavelength is in this particular comedic light source. Basically any other reason than a good old fashioned, totally subjective "I didn't find that funny".

I agree with you that the video doesn't tell the entire story. I do have a low opinion of some police and have questions about the value and purpose of the police in general. I'll admit it does really aggravate me when I see videos like this. I also do believe that most cops are trying to do a good job.

As far as the police apologist part of my comment, I was asking a question. It was pointed, but there are at least a few people that I would call police apologists on the sift (and some on the other end of the spectrum). I was curious if I could actually get a thoughtful answer from the original commenter.

Unknown.

If the ECB pulls ELA, the Greek banking system goes belly up. Again, consequences unknown, but Deutsche Bank for instance didn't seem particularly stable during the last months, so the denial of any contagion risk might have been premature. Additionally, Draghi is tasked with maintaining the stability of the Euro and taking away Greece's last lifeline might just be too far out of his mandate, even for him. Keeping ELA up without increasing the limit will achieve the same result within days though.

If Greece fails to make its payment to the IMF tomorrow, it's at the discretion of Lagarde whether she pulls the plug. Info has been somewhat contradictory, but there should be a 30 day window before the board has to call it a default.

If a default is triggered this week, it's up to the ECB and the EC again. They have shown unwillingness to let things go bust, all the recent months of muddling through should be testament to that.

They cannot have a failed state within Europe without feeding right into the anti-European parties on both ends of the spectrum; they cannot throw Greece out of the EZ; they cannot revitalise the Greek economy without doing a 180 against their own ideology; they cannot let Syriza pull Greece out of the shit without encouraging Podemos. It's an impasse alright.

Should the Greek people vote against the proposal, a proposal that is no longer on the table, it'll be back to negotiations. Should they vote in favour of it, and should it still be available to them at that time in the first place, Tsipras might even get a majority for it in parliament, but Syriza will blow apart right then and there. The left wing cannot agree to further enslavement.

If, however, everything goes sour and Greece does indeed exit the EZ, introduce a new Drachma, the whole shebang, then we're in uncharted terrorities. The situation in Greece would deteriorate even further, given how much they rely on imports, especially of fuel. And the EU, already shaky from the tens of thousands of bodies floating in the Med, the falling standard of living for tens of millions and the sustained unemployment of an entire generation; this fecking union cannot turn the cradle of democracy into a failed state and survive. The governments might be ok with it, but the French people would rip this shit to shreds one way or another, and rightfully so.

@dannym3141,
tl;dr is always the risk when trying to also provide actual backing to something complicated, I understand the temptation, but by skipping over what I've said you've not understood me.

On the IPCC scenario, I used the RCP4.5 scenario, the one that is most widely quoted by them as their best estimate. It also the estimate they use when comparing model projections to observations, and the observations track well within it's error margins, albeit on the lower end of the RCP4.5 spectrum.
The IPCC says on temperatures by scenario in Chapter 12 of AR5:
global mean surface temperatures for 2081–2100, relative to 1986–2005 will likely be in the 5 to 95% range of the CMIP5 models; 0.3°C to 1.7°C (RCP2.6), 1.1°C to 2.6°C (RCP4.5), 1.4°C to 3.1°C (RCP6.0), 2.6°C to 4.8°C (RCP8.5). Global temperatures averaged over the period 2081–2100 are projected to likely exceed 1.5°C above 1850-1900 for RCP4.5
My sighting of 1.5C for 'best' from IPCC is derived from classing the 4.5 scenario as their best guess and I disagree with you that I'm materially misrepresenting or understanding them on it.

You also said:
... let us not pretend that the IPCC are above the skepticism...
Then later
I don't apologise for not reading the entire thread
I understand the thread is long, if you go back though you'll find I've made numerous references to additional peer-review journal articles backing and corroborating claims from the IPCC to make sure I'm not just cherry picking what might have been a politicized summary or assessment. So forgive, me but when you conclude with :
when you've cherry picked one quarter of a conclusion from one source
You are simply put, flat wrong.

Would you mind weighing in with your own position rather than a simply sitting on the fence calling us both too far on either side? I've been here refuting the notion that the scientific evidence tells us we face catastrophe prior to 2100, and even from some posters claims, catastrophe by 2050. I'm merely taking the stance that the science's best guess as approximated in IPCC RCP4.5, we aren't facing catastrophic collapse worthy of an action movie by 2100. I've said multiple times up thread we are facing problems, it's the severity I claimed by others that I am calling out for not being supported by evidence.

Depression and self-harm are not part of the autistic spectrum; they are consequential symptoms that result from the reality of having to live in a world that is not tolerant of people who are "wired differently".

If you spent your entire life feeling that you were messed up compared to everyone else and confused as to why other people didn't understand you then you'd be depressed and hate yourself too. I know this only too well - I live with these symptoms every day. I don't harm myself any more but the desire to punish myself because my self-esteem is non-existent is still very much there.

I understand your concern that autism is becoming some sort of designer diagnosis, but the reality is that most people can relate to one of the many facets of autism and can feel empathy towards those who experience many of the facets. Therefore it is easy for people to feel that they have a touch of autism, and in reality they just might. It's not that uncommon.

It is more than just a condition to be misunderstood.