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niktemadur's Comments
Re: MSNBC Countdown - Beauty pageant debacle
Miss Harris-Lacewell:
"In this case, she (Carrie Prejean) feels bad because she's being stigmatized based on an expression of her sexuality, she is being judged because she is part of a group that is generally stereotyped (pageant winners), and she's finding that her morality is being brought into question because of a set of personal choices that she's made".
"It ought to be causing empathy on the part of Miss California for gays and lesbians who are simply trying to live a life of full equality in the Unites States, and are being judged and abused in all of these ways that she is now personally experiencing".
"In this case, she (Carrie Prejean) feels bad because she's being stigmatized based on an expression of her sexuality, she is being judged because she is part of a group that is generally stereotyped (pageant winners), and she's finding that her morality is being brought into question because of a set of personal choices that she's made".
"It ought to be causing empathy on the part of Miss California for gays and lesbians who are simply trying to live a life of full equality in the Unites States, and are being judged and abused in all of these ways that she is now personally experiencing".
Re: Ron Paul: Don't Panic Over The Swine Flu
...and also right here, on M&C:
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/129218/detail/
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/129218/detail/
Re: Hedge Funds and the Banking Collapse
Because I don't believe the "shadows on the wall in front of me" analogy applies to attempting an analitical study of subjects and events conveniently obscured and dismissed in discussions within the mainstream media.
Because I believe that a man has the ability to both walk and chew gum at the same time.
Because to understand the present and fine-tune the future, one needs to understand the past.
BTW, I saw in full your submission "Obama gets spanked", a combination of fact and speculation glued together with weasel words.
I understand you're extremely angry about this whole situation. So am I, this is no picnic for anybody you or I know. We just cope with it differently.
Instead of this documentary guy from Texas, a radio host who has made some pretty outlandish predictions in the past (which never came to pass), please let me recommend another alternative, an anti-fascism journalistic radio show called For The Record, hosted by Dave Emory, homepage here (http://spitfirelist.com/) and shows archived here (http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/DX).
Because I believe that a man has the ability to both walk and chew gum at the same time.
Because to understand the present and fine-tune the future, one needs to understand the past.
BTW, I saw in full your submission "Obama gets spanked", a combination of fact and speculation glued together with weasel words.
I understand you're extremely angry about this whole situation. So am I, this is no picnic for anybody you or I know. We just cope with it differently.
Instead of this documentary guy from Texas, a radio host who has made some pretty outlandish predictions in the past (which never came to pass), please let me recommend another alternative, an anti-fascism journalistic radio show called For The Record, hosted by Dave Emory, homepage here (http://spitfirelist.com/) and shows archived here (http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/DX).
Re: Hedge Funds and the Banking Collapse
Not only that, it's also a fairly clear overall view of mechanisms and loopholes in the stock market system, as well as how they've been massively exploited and abused.
It's become a goal of mine to understand how this whole mess came to be. First I tackled and assimilated the concepts around the housing mortgage fiasco, knowing my next step was the short-selling and naked short-selling aspect of the system. This video, along with one of the links mentioned in the video (http://www.businessjive.com/), go a long way towards reaching my goal.
It's become a goal of mine to understand how this whole mess came to be. First I tackled and assimilated the concepts around the housing mortgage fiasco, knowing my next step was the short-selling and naked short-selling aspect of the system. This video, along with one of the links mentioned in the video (http://www.businessjive.com/), go a long way towards reaching my goal.
Re: Daily Show: Jim Cramer vs Jon Steward Unedited
Curious that I'm watching this from Mexico and have access to the USA video link from Comedy Central, while Canada has to rely on another link. Not that I'm complaining, though.
Re: James Randi Speaks: Questioning the Bible
Well said. Another way of stating what you just did is that Mr Randi embraces skepticism. Curiously enough, this is also what Penn & Teller (also magicians by trade, curiously enough), are doing with their show. I may not agree with every position that Penn & Teller take on issues, but I truly respect their attitude of questioning everything.
In the seventies and eighties, Mr Randi was quite content to zero in on people like Uri Geller, but why now Religion in general and Christianity in particular?
Here's my two cents of calculated speculation: The rise of Bible "literalists" to a position of strong political power within the United States, the fact that they have systematically organized themselves as a voting block and obtained considerable influence in the shaping of public policy, has compelled Mr Randi to push back and put his drop of water in the community bucket of discourse, so to speak.
On a humorous note, did anybody else feel a little uneasy about Mr Randi speaking ill of his doppleganger, Santa Claus? Even though I'm not a kid anymore, I was feeling a strong urge to pull on that beard just to see if it's real.
In the seventies and eighties, Mr Randi was quite content to zero in on people like Uri Geller, but why now Religion in general and Christianity in particular?
Here's my two cents of calculated speculation: The rise of Bible "literalists" to a position of strong political power within the United States, the fact that they have systematically organized themselves as a voting block and obtained considerable influence in the shaping of public policy, has compelled Mr Randi to push back and put his drop of water in the community bucket of discourse, so to speak.
On a humorous note, did anybody else feel a little uneasy about Mr Randi speaking ill of his doppleganger, Santa Claus? Even though I'm not a kid anymore, I was feeling a strong urge to pull on that beard just to see if it's real.
Re: Cyadonia
Great, by clicking on the link, 2 weeks of my life have gone "poof!" in a puff of smoke, thanks a lot!
Seriously, though, this is a fantastic, highly addictive game, approach at your own risk.
Seriously, though, this is a fantastic, highly addictive game, approach at your own risk.
Re: The Crisis of Credit Visualized
To say that it's a buyer's market out there today would be a gross understatement. Detroit being an extreme example, you could buy a house there for under twenty thousand dollars, right now. But then you would be surrounded by an almost abandoned neighborhood.
Now I haven't seen the numbers, but I'll speculate that if you take a fancy suburb in, say Phoenix, Arizona, a house that would have set you back four hundred thousand bucks several years ago, you might now snag for two hundred thousand, maybe less.
To get a feel for how things are in your community, check the local periodicals to see what offers are out there, maybe forsaken homes are on auction by banks beyond desperate to get rid of them.
Now I haven't seen the numbers, but I'll speculate that if you take a fancy suburb in, say Phoenix, Arizona, a house that would have set you back four hundred thousand bucks several years ago, you might now snag for two hundred thousand, maybe less.
To get a feel for how things are in your community, check the local periodicals to see what offers are out there, maybe forsaken homes are on auction by banks beyond desperate to get rid of them.
Re: The Crisis of Credit Visualized
(quote) Who benefits from this? (unquote)
While I agree that this is merely a symptom (no mention in the video about "short-selling and "naked short-selling", Google it up), I don't think anybody benefits in the long run here.
Who could possibly have a vested interest in seeing Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC, Santander and the rest severely deflated? GM and Toyota, to cite a couple, suffer serious body blows? Heck, even Rupert Murdoch has lost a truckload and a half of money in the last year. This IS the damned Establishment, the vested interests personified. Some very big fish indeed have fallen (Lehman Brothers, for example).
To boot, infrastructure projects depend on investment/credit to reach completion, and approval for this has swung from one extreme of the pendulum to the other, almost everything is deemed "too risky" suddenly. The biggest money-go-round in history has ground to a halt for the time being.
No single entity has a grasp, let alone control, of a beast such as this. Keeping in mind the motto "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity", I'd say it was a sequence of poor decisions (on several different fronts) leading to a short-sighted feeding frenzy, lubricated by the fancy doublespeak of financial terminology.
Exactly like Michael Milken's "junk bond" invention in eighties, the sub-prime mortgage fiasco was created in the United States and exported to the rest of the world, which decided to also drink the Kool-Aid 'cause the getting was good at the time. Like they say, man is the only creature that trips over the same rock more than once.
While I agree that this is merely a symptom (no mention in the video about "short-selling and "naked short-selling", Google it up), I don't think anybody benefits in the long run here.
Who could possibly have a vested interest in seeing Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC, Santander and the rest severely deflated? GM and Toyota, to cite a couple, suffer serious body blows? Heck, even Rupert Murdoch has lost a truckload and a half of money in the last year. This IS the damned Establishment, the vested interests personified. Some very big fish indeed have fallen (Lehman Brothers, for example).
To boot, infrastructure projects depend on investment/credit to reach completion, and approval for this has swung from one extreme of the pendulum to the other, almost everything is deemed "too risky" suddenly. The biggest money-go-round in history has ground to a halt for the time being.
No single entity has a grasp, let alone control, of a beast such as this. Keeping in mind the motto "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity", I'd say it was a sequence of poor decisions (on several different fronts) leading to a short-sighted feeding frenzy, lubricated by the fancy doublespeak of financial terminology.
Exactly like Michael Milken's "junk bond" invention in eighties, the sub-prime mortgage fiasco was created in the United States and exported to the rest of the world, which decided to also drink the Kool-Aid 'cause the getting was good at the time. Like they say, man is the only creature that trips over the same rock more than once.
Re: Monty Python: Undressing in Public
Ah yes, it's a man's life taking one's clothes off in public. Any Python is wonderful, but to keep the ball rolling, here are a few suggestions:
1. Blood, Devastation, Death, War & Horror, featuring a man who speaks entirely in anagrams.
2. The Ideal Loon Exhibition, featuring Italian priests in custard, discussing vital issues of the day.
3. Whicker's World, "who some may say... are losing a winning battle, waiting for the... inevitable interview".
4. The scientific method explained through penguins, those funny, web-footed little bastards.
5. The Agatha Christie sketch. "Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Chief Inspector Tiger, I must ask that no one leave the body in the room... with them in it".
1. Blood, Devastation, Death, War & Horror, featuring a man who speaks entirely in anagrams.
2. The Ideal Loon Exhibition, featuring Italian priests in custard, discussing vital issues of the day.
3. Whicker's World, "who some may say... are losing a winning battle, waiting for the... inevitable interview".
4. The scientific method explained through penguins, those funny, web-footed little bastards.
5. The Agatha Christie sketch. "Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Chief Inspector Tiger, I must ask that no one leave the body in the room... with them in it".
Re: Harold and Maude
First time I've posted in here for a while, I've been either sick (damn flu season), busy (catching up on work because I was sick) or drunk (happy new year, hic).
It's not just this film, Hal Ashby was a timeless director. Off the top of my head, I can think of three other straight out classics by the man:
The Last Detail, with Jack Nicholson as a seasoned Navy veteran doing shit detail duty, escorting a young sailor (Randy Quaid) who stole twenty bucks up the east coast to the Marine prison, but showing him a good time along the train route.
Coming Home, with John Voight as a paraplegic Vietnam vet in San Diego, involved in a love triangle with a woman (Jane Fonda) married to a career army officer (Bruce Dern). An organic, humane and occasionally shocking masterpiece that gives Robert Altman a run for his money. BTW, the soundtrack is fantastic!
Being There, a prophetic piece of work with Peter Sellers as Chauncey Gardener, a simpleton who's done nothing but watch TV all his life, hailed as a wise sage by the power elite, including the president of the United States.
It's not just this film, Hal Ashby was a timeless director. Off the top of my head, I can think of three other straight out classics by the man:
The Last Detail, with Jack Nicholson as a seasoned Navy veteran doing shit detail duty, escorting a young sailor (Randy Quaid) who stole twenty bucks up the east coast to the Marine prison, but showing him a good time along the train route.
Coming Home, with John Voight as a paraplegic Vietnam vet in San Diego, involved in a love triangle with a woman (Jane Fonda) married to a career army officer (Bruce Dern). An organic, humane and occasionally shocking masterpiece that gives Robert Altman a run for his money. BTW, the soundtrack is fantastic!
Being There, a prophetic piece of work with Peter Sellers as Chauncey Gardener, a simpleton who's done nothing but watch TV all his life, hailed as a wise sage by the power elite, including the president of the United States.
Re: Noam Chomsky: What Next?
As much as I agree with Chomsky's criticisms of economic neo-liberalism, and appreciate skepticism as a healthy mechanism in a democracy, I would take his comments here with a grain of salt. After all, he did predict this year that McCain would win the presidential election, because racist attitudes in America yadda yadda yadda.
Now that his pessimistic prognostication has been thoroughly deflated, here he comes again with some more rationalized cynicism that keeps shifting, belatedly and predictably reacting with a never changing outlook every step of the way.
Case in point, I paraphrase: "Obama's Army is what you would expect from a population comfortable with dictatorship". Gimme a break, please, that's an attitude I would expect from Fox News, neatly ignoring the shouts of "muslim" and "kill him" at McCain-Pallin rallies.
Instead, how about stating that the country is looking for leadership, and Obama's cool attitude in the face of adversity, as well as his clean, dignified and incredibly well-organized and focused campaign, has proven that he's worthy of the benefit of a doubt, at least until he enters office and probably a little bit beyond.
Another point that I paraphrase: "You would have expected this election to be won by the opposition party by a landslide, and that was not the case".
Instead, how about recognizing that there is a deep cultural divide within the country, where irrational and faith-based worldviews drives a massive electoral block. Despite this, as well as concerted republican efforts to purge voting rolls and the presence of Diebold/Sequoia voting machines, any attempt at electoral fraud was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of voter turnout, and historical red states have turned blue. In this context, absolutely the electoral results are the contemporary equivalent of a landslide.
I never thought I'd say this, but Mr Chomsky, this time around your tinfoil hat is evidently showing.
Now that his pessimistic prognostication has been thoroughly deflated, here he comes again with some more rationalized cynicism that keeps shifting, belatedly and predictably reacting with a never changing outlook every step of the way.
Case in point, I paraphrase: "Obama's Army is what you would expect from a population comfortable with dictatorship". Gimme a break, please, that's an attitude I would expect from Fox News, neatly ignoring the shouts of "muslim" and "kill him" at McCain-Pallin rallies.
Instead, how about stating that the country is looking for leadership, and Obama's cool attitude in the face of adversity, as well as his clean, dignified and incredibly well-organized and focused campaign, has proven that he's worthy of the benefit of a doubt, at least until he enters office and probably a little bit beyond.
Another point that I paraphrase: "You would have expected this election to be won by the opposition party by a landslide, and that was not the case".
Instead, how about recognizing that there is a deep cultural divide within the country, where irrational and faith-based worldviews drives a massive electoral block. Despite this, as well as concerted republican efforts to purge voting rolls and the presence of Diebold/Sequoia voting machines, any attempt at electoral fraud was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of voter turnout, and historical red states have turned blue. In this context, absolutely the electoral results are the contemporary equivalent of a landslide.
I never thought I'd say this, but Mr Chomsky, this time around your tinfoil hat is evidently showing.
Re: BBC Horizon: The Hawking Paradox
Maybe Hawking did jump the gun by making his announcement before bringing in any detailed explanations for peer review, but time is running out for him, and he knows it, so he's getting it out in the open, and I'd rather have that, than have the general brunt of his new vision go to the grave with him.
Also, just for the fact that he predicted spinning and evaporating singularities, both valid concepts regardless of the Information Paradox, he deserves a high spot on the annals of twentieth century cosmology.
Then consider Einstein, who not only refused to accept Quantum Mechanics, but also dismissed the possibility of black holes as a weird mathematical glitch, an impossible event in reality. Nobody's right all the time.
What does bug me is the whole notion of Hawking's unfortunate circumstance pushing the folkloric, mythological buttons of society, turning him into a sacred albino unicorn. This smacks of the time of Voltaire, when people thought they were enlightened, yet women paraded in costume as The Goddess Of Reason, to great applause. In other words, they were the same superstitious peasants as before, but now with pretentiousness.
Finally, I've read Hawking's books and enjoyed them, and IMO, Alan Guth's "The Inflationary Universe" is the best of the popular cosmology lot, give it a spin.
Also, just for the fact that he predicted spinning and evaporating singularities, both valid concepts regardless of the Information Paradox, he deserves a high spot on the annals of twentieth century cosmology.
Then consider Einstein, who not only refused to accept Quantum Mechanics, but also dismissed the possibility of black holes as a weird mathematical glitch, an impossible event in reality. Nobody's right all the time.
What does bug me is the whole notion of Hawking's unfortunate circumstance pushing the folkloric, mythological buttons of society, turning him into a sacred albino unicorn. This smacks of the time of Voltaire, when people thought they were enlightened, yet women paraded in costume as The Goddess Of Reason, to great applause. In other words, they were the same superstitious peasants as before, but now with pretentiousness.
Finally, I've read Hawking's books and enjoyed them, and IMO, Alan Guth's "The Inflationary Universe" is the best of the popular cosmology lot, give it a spin.
Re: Sarah Palin Interview on Fox News
Don't forget Texas, the land of Bush:
Where a vice-president can shoot his fellow man in the face while drunk and shooting captive quails "for fun", then the local police give the asshole a full day to sober up before interviewing him.
Where the former first lady feels all fuzzy inside because Katrina refugees are crammed into the Astrodome, and expresses fear that "they" might like it so much, "they" might decide to stay.
Where one of the biggest douchebags of them all, Tom Delay, still whines about some great left-wing conspiracy tarnishing his virtous self.
Where self-styled patriots deliberately run their pickup trucks over the individual crosses of each fallen soldier in Iraq, named and placed in Cindy Sheehan's camp.
Where "the gays" and "the blacks" are chained to the backs of pickup trucks and dragged to their death.
All I'm saying is don't forget Texas, is all. The land of humanoid excrement like Alberto Gonzalez.
Where a vice-president can shoot his fellow man in the face while drunk and shooting captive quails "for fun", then the local police give the asshole a full day to sober up before interviewing him.
Where the former first lady feels all fuzzy inside because Katrina refugees are crammed into the Astrodome, and expresses fear that "they" might like it so much, "they" might decide to stay.
Where one of the biggest douchebags of them all, Tom Delay, still whines about some great left-wing conspiracy tarnishing his virtous self.
Where self-styled patriots deliberately run their pickup trucks over the individual crosses of each fallen soldier in Iraq, named and placed in Cindy Sheehan's camp.
Where "the gays" and "the blacks" are chained to the backs of pickup trucks and dragged to their death.
All I'm saying is don't forget Texas, is all. The land of humanoid excrement like Alberto Gonzalez.
Moderator