Pyroxene Stigma posted:

Bill Maher does ten minutes, an interview, then lets his panel argue until five minutes of new rules. I agree that Last Week Tonight is excellent and there needs to be a lot more of it, but that isn't the best comparison to make.

(I also wish we had more outspoken atheists like Maher, just not like Maher with his ugly anti-Islam. Better to be anti-religion, you'll either ruffle fewer feathers or more of the right ones.)

thehustler posted:

Seems to be just to hammer the point home for an American audience (as as that sounds...)

Leb posted:

If the conflict sees further escalation, as Netanyahu is suggesting, I think it would be disappointing, indeed, since this is precisely the kind of complicated, intractable issue that Oliver has (rapidly) made a name for himself by tackling.

Jack Skeleton posted:

You know, I am so tired of the internet not being able to properly describe things anymore.

Fragmented posted:

The difference is not being beholden to advertising partly. It must be awesome to joke about anything you want in a fake news format. I mean you can say whatever in standup but for some reason people pay attention to fake news.

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Yeah I liked that story about the dumb town in one of the Carolinas iirc (please hold for JT Jag's irate specification of which Carolina) where the law was every drink at a bar had to be made with airline bottles. It's silly and stupid and mocking it on television might have spurred people to change the law, but it isn't this stomach-churning intractable evil thing like so much of what TDS now covers in its reporter at large segments.

InfiniteZero posted:

Boondock Saints is an incredibly inept and bad film that really only appeals to people who don't know better. Everything it tries to do and be was done better before and after it. It tries (and hugely fails) so hard that most of the runtime induces a gigantic cringe for me. It really doesn't help that it's unlike-ably juvenile either.

I understand that people like it and I think I even understand why, but it makes me sad.

bobkatt013 posted:

Seems that John has added to the list of countries that he has pissed off.

Xoidanor posted:

Has there ever been a thing that's been better after PAC's got involved?

Solice Kirsk posted:

They could totally get rid of the skits and just run another news story and I'd be happy.

bull3964 posted:

The Puerto Rico question is tricky because so far, the majority has rejected statehood, at least tacitly.

A referendum was held in 2012. While 52% expressed disatisfaction with the current status and 61% of the votes cast selected statehood, the majority of the votes cast were blank. That meant that while statehood captured 61% of the 3 choices presented (statehood, fully independent state, or independent state with association with US), it was actually only 45% of the actual vote cast with the majority of people basically stating they didn't like all 3 choices.

bull3964 posted:

They didn't choose not to vote. They voted with a blank ballot. That's a significant difference.

bull3964 posted:

No, they voted that they were dissatisfied with the current situation They just didn't like the 3 alternatives that the change would be and left that question blank. If I were to wager a guess, they want a change that does not involve independence or statehood but gives them greater political voice in the federal government.


No, you're missing the forest for the trees. It sin't the same thing since this outcome tells us unequivocally that if there was a general referendum where the only question is "Do you want Puerto Rico to become a state?" it would fail. Only 54% of people want change in the first place and only 45% of those who want change want to become a state.

That means a general referendum on statehood would likely have an outcome of only about 25% for statehood.

quote:

970,910 (54.00%) voted "No" on the first question, expressing themselves against maintaining the current political status, and 828,077 (46.00%) voted "Yes", to maintain the current political status. Of those who answered on the second question 834,191 (61.11%) chose statehood, 454,768 (33.34%) chose free association, and 74,895 (5.55%) chose independence.

bull3964 posted:

First off, you are right, 25% was in error as I assumed those who did not reject the first question did not vote on the 2nd which was wrong. However, when taking all ballots into account including ones that were blank on the 2nd question, statehood only got 45%. You cannot ignore this data.


Say what you will about them throwing away their vote or not participating in the process. Had this been a real referendum with a binary decision on whether or not Puerto Rico should be a state, those half million voters wouldn't leave it blank or say yes. They would have said no. As of 2012, the majority of Puerto Rico did not want to become a state. The majority wants change of some sort, but they are very divided about what that change should be. This is further supported by the 1998 referendum that had 5 options including "None of the above". Satehood got 46% and "None of the above" got 50%. This time they simply eliminated "None of the above" nudge the results in a particular direction.

The governor-elect actually called for people to leave the 2nd question blank because the party wanted to retain current status and that wasn't one of the options given.

The federal government allocated funds to have another referendum vote as of last year. It will be interesting to see the results of this one will be and how the questions are framed. This is the first referendum to be funded by the federal government rather than Puerto Rico.

Zythrst posted:

They also don't get kicked out of school, because they tore their ACL's doing an activity that makes the school millions. Like if you want to say the scholarship is enough remuneration then fine whatever(I don't agree, but fine), but that doesn't deny the fact that they are providing labor for the these universities and should be eligible for workers comp.

TurboFlamingChicken posted:

Keep in mind that just because you are getting a "free education" you're not really getting an education. Many of these students are ordered to take easy courses/majors, get free passes on assignments and classes, and I remember a report from a couple years ago saying some of these basketball/football athletes graduated college illiterate; they want them to spend more time on sports and less time in the classroom. Honestly, if you aren't going pro your best bet is to study hard and concentrate on school and have a better shot in the real world and have debt than to get a free ride, learn nothing, and basically gain nothing for four years. Some pro athletes said they majored in communications because it was easy, but they found it to be pretty worthless should they have not made it pro.

Gyges posted:

She's also going to end up with an actual degree, a lack of traumatic injury, a work history, and avoid 4 years of stress from worrying about losing everything because your acl exploded. Aside from getting minimum wage for the hundreds of dollars she made the school. As opposed to the thousands\millions the athlete made the school. If the scholarship is to be worth its sticker value then the school's going to have to make sure the athletes can actually take advantage of it by cutting down on the more than full time hours the sport requires.

Dolash posted:

It kind of makes me wonder if this is what the other side of the political spectrum feels like when they're watching blowhard Fox personalities work them up into a frothy rage, except actually grounded in terrible things going on and not imagined liberal bogey-men.

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

It proves that contextualizing things in to something a guy or gal on the street can identify with is the way to get change. Conflating the head of the FCC as a babysitter that happens to be a dingo, creating an ad blitz with Jeff the diseased lung, and showing how unfettered surveillance means that the government is staring at your junk is necessary for that context.

ACES CURE PLANES posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzGzB-yYKcc

Changing all my passwords immediately to Snowden's suggestion.

Not a Children posted:

I was hoping he'd say something about how you can accurately gauge the length of patent protection by taking a look at the age of Mickey Mouse

DoggPickle posted:

DoggPickle posted:

Your anecdotes don't make any reasonable sense. If I got hurt playing sports, I'd have to take paid vacation or unpaid leave at the discretion of my boss, and that's how it SHOULD BE. Just because you type all day in someone's employ doesn't make them responsible for your entire freaking life. I'm sorry about your dad, but a grown man should have enough money saved to make it 0-3 weeks (depending on his leftover vacation) to go without pay. Beyond that, like a major illness - you can try for disability?

Paid vacation is part of your employment package. It's factored into your pay. I think you are missing something.

I'm not even the bad guy here. I'm not taking it to some crazy extreme. I said, let them have 2-4 weeks off paid (even though it pisses me off), and up to 3 months with guaranteed job security. Don't make me into some straw man republican DUDE who wants to tell chicks what to do with their vaginas. I happen to have one.

Someone made a false equivalency about old people. Well those old people payed into Social Security all their lives and would probably have had MORE money in the long-run if they'd just been able to keep it in the first place, but people are idiots- so the government takes a small percentage to make sure they don't all waste it on hookers and blow and end up penniless at 65. Probably a good plan. The fact that it's not funded and maintained correctly and requires a pyramid scheme of more and more babies is irrelevant to the original question.

My one mistake was forgetting about those few states where having a baby is NOT a choice. That's not my fault. That's those stupid rednecks' fault. Paying for contraception is a million times cheaper than paying for unwanted babies by the way, and I'm happy to do it, because I believe in a woman's right to choose, and being legally forced to carry a baby you don't want is basically a horrifying nightmare scenario. At some point though, you gotta think "Get the hell out of that idiot state and stop voting for those idiot men, or you deserve what you get". (does not apply to minors). There is an exception to every rule, but 99% of women can take birth control that is 99% effective. And in 9/10ths of the civilized world, you can still fix a mistake after that. That makes it a "choice".

So tell me - honestly - how does supporting more paid maternity leave actually HELP ME or the planet? Why is it "good"? Why would I want that? I think your answers have been mostly really trite and silly. Why would I vote for something that makes my working life harder? I think your suggestions that NOT doing it is making women have to choose between being moms or working is ridiculous. You can be a mom AND work. Everyone I know does. After the horrifying physical effects have worn off, why the hell should they get to stay home and get paid while the other people in the office (or whatever) cover for their lazy asses? That is in effect, perpetuating the stereotype that women need to stay home with their babies. It's doing the exact opposite of what you're saying. It's keeping moms HOME instead of at work.

Frankly, kids need more time away from their stupid helicopter parents these days anyways. (sorry got a little Off-topic, but even my own friends piss me off now. Let the kid BE ALONE for two seconds, JESUS)

DoggPickle posted:

Apparently there is a "norm" here now, and if you disagree, you are a troll, unless you cite your sources like some kind of wikipedia-bot. I'll stick to making fun of Japanese Mascots from now on.

Shageletic posted:

Could y'all do this, in maybe the forum that's actually about discussing politics and policy?

DoggPickle posted:

I support workers getting more leave per year, higher minimum wage, and more job security for weird emergencies. I just don't see choosing to have babies as a worker's rights issue.

Shageletic posted:

Because this five page conversation has been so useful, enjoyable, and informative. People in this thread, at least the people really trying to argue, aren't interested in evidence based statements or informative bits of data. Its a total winge-fit.

Baron Bifford posted:

This show started off strong but has lately gone to poo poo. I can't believe he dedicated a sketch to broken polar bear penises.

DivisionPost posted:

The federals just arrested the poo poo out of several top FIFA executives on corruption charges. Sepp Blatter was not among them, but if the New York Times is to be believed the people that did get hit count for something.

http://nyti.ms/1etKwQg

Rated PG-34 posted:

http://distractify.com/culture/sports/haunting-images-of-abandoned-olympic-venues/

Mr. Fowl posted:

I'm still not sure that I understand how daily fantasy works. Fantasy sports is based on the performance of players over a given period, right? So for daily fantasy, are you limited to the set of players/teams that are playing that day--if there's anything going on that day?

That's the part that really baffled me. Because otherwise it's just running off made-up numbers.

Gyges posted:

Stewart would use the comedy defense when questioned on journalistic responsibility and ethics, which was a 100% valid rebuttal. Comedy is an art that touches on many different disciplines and fields, which inevitably causes it to have some overlap with those disciplines and fields. So while comedy can have it's fingers in journalism, holding it to the mores and responsibilities expected of Journalists is foolish. Stewart and the various shows that grew out of his Daily Show are comedy using tools of Journalism, among others, not Journalists hiding behind the shield of comedy.

The Cheshire Cat posted:

Just out of curiosity, what is the rationale behind SCOTUS appointments being for life, as opposed to a fixed term of tenure (Like say, 10 year appointments, where they rotate out, so you'd get a new appointment every 2 years or something like that)? The latter would still have the same protections against political retaliation as the former, but without the problems they've had with an entrenched supreme court, where a president can indirectly exert power for potentially decades after their term ends just because someone happened to die while they were in office.

Demiurge4 posted:

There is a clear difference between being able to do something and being legally able to do something. It can be argued that if the FBI cracks your encryption, that since it constitutes hacking into the phone, the evidence was illegally obtained. If you obtain the information through a lawful court order the evidence is fully admissible. The NSA or CIA don't care since they operate outside the law, but the FBI would care a lot.

tarlibone posted:

I think the point is that with a warrant, they can force you to hand over that locked box. Now, you might have destroyed the only key, and if it's a combination lock they can compel you to tell them the combination but if you refuse, other than locking you up, there's poo poo-all they can do about it. With this iPhone situation, they can't get in without the cooperation of the suspect, who is dead.

Jaramin posted:

Why cant they just write the update, and only have it pushed to that one phone so the feds can brute force it? iOS updates come out in different regions at different times, so it's not like they don't have a way to isolate phones based on geography/other arbitrary factors.