CatBus

I don’t get George’s lesser blame either. Studios and publishing houses don’t have the best record of respecting the wishes of the creator before something becomes a hit, but afterwards, they tend to follow the most ridiculous art-destroying notions as long as they can even theoretically be tied to the creator’s intent. So George doesn’t even have to contractually force Disney to keep the OOT off the shelves – all he has to do is clearly indicate the way he’d prefer them to be dealt with, and studio deference will take care of the rest, even long after he’s gone.

But IMO there is a difference between cashing in on an available property (Star Wars merchandising and tie-ins pre-1997), and cashing in on the fading collective memory of a property that nobody can actually have anymore (Star Wars merchandising and tie-ins 1997 and onward).

Mrebo said:

The Democrats would be a more liberal party if the electorate were more liberal.

IMO the positions of both parties have drifted right to attract donors, which are unfortunately worth quite a bit more than voters.

DominicCobb said:

CatBus said:

chyron8472 said:

TV’s Frink said:

I don’t care about the metaphor. He said he won’t watch any new Star Wars until we get the OOT.

But we did get the OOT. Just not in a purchasable form from official sources.

I don’t see how the argument of not having the OOT yet makes sense at this point, given that the “guerilla restorationist” himself even actively posts on these forums.

Again, just taking the metaphor and running with it…

Let’s say your beloved Barbara became a zombie. You have memories of Barbara, photos, letters, even videos that can remind you of her. You got a chance to know Barbara, and for that you are forever thankful.

But the neighbor kid down the street just got eaten by Barbara. The only Barbara he ever knew was the zombie Barbara.

So when you’re asking if “we” ever got the true Barbara, that depends if you’re just talking about yourself or are including the neighbor kid down the street.

TL;DR: The OOT is more than just unavailable commercially. As far as the general public is concerned, it’s been replaced.

Except it’s more like Barbara is still alive but just got some work done, and she never did anything like eat anyone, she just acted a little rude a few times.

The old Barbara was the real monster. She’d shoot people just for nothing more than being moments away from killing her. Now she doesn’t fire back until after she’s given her would-be assassin a sporting chance. And it’s of enormous help to her when dodging to have the partially detached zombie neck.

Quite possibly. But if Democratic Party voters overwhelmingly support one position and their elected officials overwhelmingly support another, which is the position of the Democratic Party? I’d say the latter.

Meanwhile, the shithole deepens.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/trump-election-fraud-commission-bought-texas-election-data-flagging-hispanic-voters/2018/01/22/2791934a-fd55-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html?utm_term=.1355463b6141

Disagree. IMO media has lots of biases, and they all affect political coverage:

1. Laziness: Analysis is hard, transcription is easy. Got a divisive topic? Call up representatives from both sides and repeat what they said. Even if one or both sides are provably lying, don’t call them out on it. Let the audience decide. The audience you’re helping them misinform.
2. Corporate: Most media organizations are also big businesses. Why run a story that would destroy a major sponsor or shareholder, when you could bury it and live to report another day?
3. Story: Stories are more interesting than lack of a story. So if something happens that turns out to be inconsequential, should you drop it, or should you spice it up and run it anyway?
4. Access: Stories depend on access to sources. If a government figure blackballs you, you lose all those lazy transcription stories. Will you defer them or stand your ground?
5. Tabloid: Got a sex or sleaze angle? It doesn’t matter if the story has any consequence, or even harms public debate. Run it.
6. Underdog/horse race: If you see an uneven competition, side with the loser, and try to make it a horse race by calling it neck-and-neck even when it’s not.

Some of these conflict with each other, but that’s how biases are. I’d say given these, and the types of stories the media’s been running for the past few decades, the major media tend to have a solidly conservative bias (disagree with Mrebo), one that often but not always aligns with the Democratic Party (agree with Mrebo). Media with more of a corporate (Wall Street Journal) or tabloid (Washington Times) lean will have an more pronounced conservative bias, and align more closely with the Republican Party.

But that was all before Trump. Now you’d have to go to something more like The Crusader to represent where Republican elected officials are today, and since the Democrats have also lurched right, they are probably now getting 50/50 favorable coverage from the WSJ.

chyron8472 said:

TV’s Frink said:

I don’t care about the metaphor. He said he won’t watch any new Star Wars until we get the OOT.

But we did get the OOT. Just not in a purchasable form from official sources.

I don’t see how the argument of not having the OOT yet makes sense at this point, given that the “guerilla restorationist” himself even actively posts on these forums.

Again, just taking the metaphor and running with it…

Let’s say your beloved Barbara became a zombie. You have memories of Barbara, photos, letters, even videos that can remind you of her. You got a chance to know Barbara, and for that you are forever thankful.

But the neighbor kid down the street just got eaten by Barbara. The only Barbara he ever knew was the zombie Barbara.

So when you’re asking if “we” ever got the true Barbara, that depends if you’re just talking about yourself or are including the neighbor kid down the street.

TL;DR: The OOT is more than just unavailable commercially. As far as the general public is concerned, it’s been replaced.

TV’s Frink said:

CatBus said:

TV’s Frink said:

They voted for a budget extension in exchange for a non-binding promise to just keep talking?

Ah, there’s the spineless Democratic Party I know!

I think it’s more of a matter of holding a finger to the wind and changing their position when it doesn’t seem to be popular. Same conclusion.

The New York Times and MSNBC were laying the blame pretty squarely at the Democrats’ feet, though.

Hey wait, I thought Mrebo proved that all media were just Democratic Party lapdogs though.

Maybe he just reads different articles. There’s lots of Op-Eds out there. Also, there was an infuriating amount of meaningless “Who will the voters blame?” articles, which leaned toward the Republicans without the media having to take a position at all.

TV’s Frink said:

They voted for a budget extension in exchange for a non-binding promise to just keep talking?

Ah, there’s the spineless Democratic Party I know!

I think it’s more of a matter of holding a finger to the wind and changing their position when it doesn’t seem to be popular. Same conclusion.

The New York Times and MSNBC were laying the blame pretty squarely at the Democrats’ feet, though. Maybe that’s an audience demographic they just couldn’t afford to alienate.

Reminds me of some friends of mine who were roommates once. A co-worker of theirs was insinuating that they were a couple, and another co-worker stepped in to put a stop to it. She said “Can’t two gay men be roommates without people just assuming that they’re a couple?”

The punchline is below:

Neither of them are gay.

Warbler said:

Mrebo said:

Well said, ender.

Particularly how certain views take on a popularity that shuts out dissent.

As for ignoring important issues, this caught my eye.

If the Republicans want me to judge them fairly, they need to stop supporting Trump.

Agreed. At some point, praising the 1930’s German pension system, even if based entirely in objective fact and genuine policy analysis, is a distraction. If the policy argument truly has merit (and I think the FISA one does), you can still make it after the Nazis have been defeated.

Wait, so nobody’s killing anyone with a shovel? Is that what we’ve concluded now?

Mrebo said:

CatBus said:

https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/954739322388930562

Not enough facepalms in the world. I don’t know what’s worse: that after a US Senator was informed he was personally helping spread Russian propaganda, the Senator’s first instinct was to pretend he wasn’t just personally implicated and yell “Fake News!” at the media, or that, for his followers, that’s probably a good enough reaction.

Favorite Twitter response to his suggestion that “the Press” in particular needs to work to avoid spreading so much Russian propaganda on Twitter:

Funny. Most people only use one “s” when abbreviating “president.”

I don’t see any allegation of “Fake News!” here.

“All of us need to step up to meet this challenge, especially the Press”

Emphasis mine. So he’s saying the press are more susceptible to Fake News than others, even when the evidence was just handed to him about who needs to take the most care.

We should keep in mind what counts here as “personally helping spread Russian propaganda”: something as small as liking a tweet that might have been put forward by a Russian agent. I don’t attribute lots of blame to a person who likes a tweet, worse retweets it, or horror-of-horrors follows the account that says stuff that sounds good.

Might have been put forward by a Russian agent? Might? Hm. Liking and following add legitimacy, especially when you’re a public figure who supposedly knows enough to distinguish facts from propaganda.

I think these kinds of attempts by foreign powers are feeble.

It doesn’t matter if they can’t fool people who know their ass from their elbow (on the left and right), it matters that they can apparently fool certain Senators and Presidents with ease.

PM sent.

https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/954739322388930562

Not enough facepalms in the world. I don’t know what’s worse: that after a US Senator was informed he was personally helping spread Russian propaganda, the Senator’s first instinct was to pretend he wasn’t just personally implicated and yell “Fake News!” at the media, or that, for his followers, that’s probably a good enough reaction.

Favorite Twitter response to his suggestion that “the Press” in particular needs to work to avoid spreading so much Russian propaganda on Twitter:

Funny. Most people only use one “s” when abbreviating “president.”

Check your PM’s.

yhwx said:

Some federal employees get some days off. The actual economic and long-term political effect is actually minimal.

Depends how long it goes. A few days is a holiday weekend. A few weeks or months and it’s a different story.

TM2YC said:

Your Government shutting down your Government is f**king insane no matter the reason, explanation, or persons to blame. Just checking that y’all know that.

Sanest thing it’s done in the last year. But yes, still fucking insane on an absolute scale. Grading this government on a curve is a mistake.

Mrebo said:

CatBus said:

Mrebo said:

CatBus said:

Mrebo said:

TV’s Frink said:

Good. Democrats need to stand up for what is right, since Republicans never will.

During the 2013 shutdown, Chuck Schumer said:

I believe in immigration reform. What if I persuaded my caucus to say I’m going to shut the government down, I’m going to not pay our bills unless I get my way. It’s a politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis.

It’s fun to find examples of hypocrisy like this, even if one thinks Schumer is/was wrong.

Luckily Schumer has no power to shut the government down. Even if he convinces every Democrat to go along with him, the Republicans can keep the government running, if they want to. Such is the power of the minority party, post-filibuster.

The filibuster still exists. That’s why the funding bill isn’t progressing.

Ah forgot they hadn’t axed it yet for spending bills. But then, if they can remove that filibuster with a simple majority vote just like all the filibusters they’ve already removed, you wonder why they’re not just doing it like they did any time they got tripped up with any of the others.

I think some still believe in the Senate as an institution, the value of compromise, or just fear the future of Democrats using unfettered power in the future. It is strange we’re not hearing much on the filibuster in this context. I had honestly forgotten the state of the filibuster too, but the predominant story in the media is that its all Republicans fault because they’re the majority party.

IMO plenty of news outlets seem to be pinning this on the Dems. Most of the places I see “blaming the Republicans” is in meta-blame pieces about who the voters are likely to blame, which is really different than actual blame.

Mrebo said:

CatBus said:

Mrebo said:

TV’s Frink said:

Good. Democrats need to stand up for what is right, since Republicans never will.

During the 2013 shutdown, Chuck Schumer said:

I believe in immigration reform. What if I persuaded my caucus to say I’m going to shut the government down, I’m going to not pay our bills unless I get my way. It’s a politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis.

It’s fun to find examples of hypocrisy like this, even if one thinks Schumer is/was wrong.

Luckily Schumer has no power to shut the government down. Even if he convinces every Democrat to go along with him, the Republicans can keep the government running, if they want to. Such is the power of the minority party, post-filibuster.

The filibuster still exists. That’s why the funding bill isn’t progressing.

Ah forgot they hadn’t axed it yet for spending bills. But then, if they can remove that filibuster with a simple majority vote just like all the filibusters they’ve already removed, you wonder why they’re not just doing it like they did any time they got tripped up with any of the others.

Mrebo said:

TV’s Frink said:

Good. Democrats need to stand up for what is right, since Republicans never will.

During the 2013 shutdown, Chuck Schumer said:

I believe in immigration reform. What if I persuaded my caucus to say I’m going to shut the government down, I’m going to not pay our bills unless I get my way. It’s a politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis.

It’s fun to find examples of hypocrisy like this, even if one thinks Schumer is/was wrong.

Luckily Schumer has no power to shut the government down. Even if he convinces every Democrat to go along with him, the Republicans can keep the government running, if they want to. Such is the power of the minority party, post-filibuster.

Now if the Republicans can’t even convince themselves that they should keep the government running, that’s another thing entirely.

TV’s Frink said:

hairy_hen said:

I pretty much checked out a while ago and haven’t seen any reason to check back in. As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing can only ever be a zombie franchise until the movies that actually made it what it is - namely, the original unaltered films - are given justice. The longer it continues in this zombie state, the more irrelevant it becomes.

This makes no sense to me.

I dunno, maybe you need to dive down further into the zombie metaphor to get it. “Zombie franchise” describes a franchise that keeps shuffling along after the thing that gave it life and soul is simply dead, gone, and no more. Seems apt so far. The more numerous the zombies become, and the longer they are around, the easier it is to dismiss it as just another irrelevant monster, forgetting that it once had a life and soul of its own. Still very true. And the only way to kill it is with a shovel to the neck. Yeah, okay, I admit that part could use some work. But it’s still way better than a car metaphor.

Giving up is relative. I stopped going to see Star Wars films for myself after AOTC (and that was as a “they can’t all suck that bad!” gambit rather than a genuine desire), but I’ve seen some of the films after that anyway.

ROTS I saw because a friend had two free tickets and we had a history of going to see really crappy films together (Alien vs Predator, etc), and he wanted me to go, as a sort of lark. So I stupidly said “Sure” and man was that a step down from Alien vs Predator. We did not even get ironic enjoyment from that one.

Now I’ve got kids, and so I go when they want to go. What I’ve seen of the sequels hasn’t made me want to go back for myself, but I’ll likely go back one way or the other. Although if the sequels ever get anywhere near as bad as the prequels, I’ll probably just opt to wait in the lobby while the kids watch.

“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

Personally, I wouldn’t do what I do if I thought there was a very realistic chance these films would be preserved via normal channels at any point in our lifetimes. So everything I do here is under the assumption that we are the only preservationists these films will see for many, many decades.

Because we’re acting in an unofficial capacity, we can’t do as much as official channels can to preserve this content. However, one thing that’s relatively easy to do is distribute it broadly, to increase the chances it will survive. In biological terms, because we’re not strong enough to be K-strategists, we are instead r-strategists.

Project Threepio in many ways was designed to amplify this strategy for other preservation projects. To make existing projects have more appeal beyond the English-speaking world than they already did, increasing distribution outside the linguistic and legal boundaries of the English-speaking world, with the goal of long-term survival of these films on a global scale, even if legal forces manage to effectively erase them within certain regions.

I’ve designed Project Threepio as a “torch-passable” project. While I’m certainly still engaged in maintaining it, I’ve also fully documented my processes and made available all of the tools I use to do everything in the project. It would be fairly easy for someone, years from now, to download Project Threepio, dig into the gory details, and become the next CatBus.

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

So… government shutdown, anybody?

A government shutdown isn’t a very big deal. That’s why Democrats feel like risking it over one (non-budget) issue. I’m mostly put off by the media’s disparate treatment of Democrats threatening shutdown compared to the Republicans in 2013.

Very much agreed. In 2013, the Republicans held the House and the Democrats held the Senate (albeit with the Republicans having filibuster power, so some degree of Republican buy-in was needed there, too), so the 2013 shutdown could be fairly characterized as a failure of the parties to compromise (blame may not be apportioned equally, but still). The media gave all the blame to the Republicans.

But today, the Democrats don’t have the power to shut anything down (the filibuster is dead and gone), all they can do is not bail the Republicans out when the Republicans shut down the government, but the media is very much treating it like the Democratic Party has the final say in the matter. “Elections have consequences” cuts both ways, and doubly so after you throw out the filibuster – when you control every branch of the Federal government and a huge majority of the state governments as well, blaming the other party is never going to sound exactly credible. But the media’s still carrying that water.

PM sent.