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Self-inflicted football injury

Oil Industry Trying to Silence Gasland Director

AnomalousDatum says...

>> ^MarineGunrock:

Also, that man's speaking is so labored. Why is that his job? HOW is that his job?


Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has a condition called Spasmodic Dysphonia. I listened to an interview a few years ago he had with Diane Rhym on NPR who somewhat famously has it as well. They treat it with direct injections of botox which works for a while, so it varies. He didn't apparently know he had the condition until someone suggested it into his late 30s. It turns out sounding like you're constantly on the verge of tears helps one sound passionate in their various causes.
Why does he have this job? He's a Kennedy and wants it?

The Coming American Caliphate

Finger Fitness. What is it?

AnomalousDatum says...

I just spent 10 minutes doing his exercises (from his book) then did an advanced 600 word typing speed test. Well, I set a new personal best at 69 wpm from 65 on this particular test typing cold, and I haven't tried it for the better part of a year. More importantly however, my left hand usually aches after typing strenuously, but doesn't now. I broke my wrist and ulna in a few places in high school and lost some range of motion and complex tasks usually causes it to ache. Looks like I'm doing these exercises every day.

This is anecdotal, I can't really tell if it was the warm up exercises that had the majority effect or not. The book basically just has pictures of hand positions and basically says, do this. Meh, I'm sure if I practice this it would increase finger independence. I can't do all of the exercises without my left hand hurting, but we'll see. I subjectively feel like I have quicker, freer finger movement at least. And generally if you think you can do something better, you can for as long as you think it. Yay for placebo.

Jumping into snow fail

Firefox has Encountered An Unexpected Problem with Windows

Can You Spot The Sniper?

The Truth About Big Government

AnomalousDatum says...

>> ^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.

Bill O'Reilly still doesn't get the tides

AnomalousDatum says...

Fox news is lucky to have such a knowledgeable individual. Never has there been such a paragon of critical thinking, we are all but pinheads to this great intellect. It is obvious that God has blessed this man with the wisdom of Buddha and Einstein's intelligence. It's much more likely he is a popular television personality for these reasons than the dumb luck that comes with being a selected as a shill for baseless conservative propaganda.

Resistance is futile against the "Star Trek Girl" song

AnomalousDatum says...

Bah, she states her desire to be the first officer, but she's wearing 4 pips! Then again, taking a demotion to stay with your favorite crew is a common enough theme, so that's alright I guess.

The Wet-Dog Shake - The physics behind wet dog shaking



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Beggar's Canyon