CatBus

TV’s Frink said:

Suddenly there’s a lot of sense coming out of Arizona. Jeff Flake wrote this today:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/31/my-party-is-in-denial-about-donald-trump-215442

It was we conservatives who, upon Obama’s election, stated that our No. 1 priority was not advancing a conservative policy agenda but making Obama a one-term president—the corollary to this binary thinking being that his failure would be our success and the fortunes of the citizenry would presumably be sorted out in the meantime. It was we conservatives who were largely silent when the most egregious and sustained attacks on Obama’s legitimacy were leveled by marginal figures who would later be embraced and legitimized by far too many of us.

I wonder if Jeff Flake is owning up to his own role in all this, or if this is his way of pretending he’s one of those “good conservatives” who doesn’t do such things, as a prelude to needing to keep his Senate seat in 2018.

On a question about Republican leaders’ refusal to hold confirmation hearings for Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, Flake said the move was not without precedent. A man in the audience shouted, “Bulls—!” as the crowd chanted “shame on you.”

Bullshit indeed.

TV’s Frink said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-sheriff-joe-arpaio-convicted-of-criminal-contempt/2017/07/31/26d9572e-7620-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.7ea8b765b3fe

Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff whose extreme stance on illegal immigration made him a household name, was convicted Monday of criminal contempt of court for ignoring a judge’s order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.

U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton wrote that Arpaio had shown a “flagrant disregard” for the court’s command, and that his attempt to pin the conduct on those who worked for him rang hollow.

“Not only did Defendant abdicate responsibility, he announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise,” Bolton wrote.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Arpaio faces up to six months in prison at his sentencing, which is scheduled for October 5. Arpaio’s attorney said he would appeal in order to get a trial by jury. He had been convicted after a trial in front of Bolton.

Lock him up! Lock him up!

You’re using the masculine pronoun in an exclusively feminine accusative phrase. The masculine form is: Pardon him! Pardon him!

Now, write it out a hundred times, and don’t do it again!

It’s clearly Luke. He’s holding a lightsaber. And badly, too–the nerve endings must have given out in his robotic hand.

Teletherapy. It may add a sometimes-annoying barrier between you and your counselor, but the increased options may be beneficial enough to outweigh that. Admittedly I’m coloring your current counselor situation with how I’d react in a similar situation, but I’d say it’s worth exploring.

suspiciouscoffee said:

Good news: I am finally getting counseling or whatever.

Agreed with the rest, you appear to have gotten “whatever” when what you really need is “counseling”.

There are lots of Christian counselors who would not think to insert religion into their counseling. There are also lots of Christian counselors who may insert religion into their counseling, but would refrain from doing so if you made it clear you did not want that. Make sure you didn’t get someone from the second group by stating what you consider to be out of bounds in your counseling. And then there’s the third group, where the correct response is to run.

Why not go full surrealist?

Jeebus said:

CatBus said:

moviefreakedmind said:

TV’s Frink said:

I seem to remember Jeebus cheering on WikiLeaks during the run-up to the election. Wonder how he feels about them now?

I don’t know about him, but my thoughts were always that we shouldn’t ignore the shady stuff exposed by WikiLeaks purely because it came from WikiLeaks.

Unless it’s shady only because they trimmed out the context that would have revealed that it was normal (like their Mueller hit job)

It wasn’t though, the context was all there. Sure, the tweet was dishonest, but they didn’t remove contradicting information. They fooled only the people who look at the tweet and take it at it’s word; anybody who cared even remotely to follow up the information looked at the actual document. My point is, there may be reason to doubt the contents of the leaks in the future; but this isn’t it.

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.”

moviefreakedmind said:

TV’s Frink said:

I seem to remember Jeebus cheering on WikiLeaks during the run-up to the election. Wonder how he feels about them now?

I don’t know about him, but my thoughts were always that we shouldn’t ignore the shady stuff exposed by WikiLeaks purely because it came from WikiLeaks.

Unless it’s shady only because they trimmed out the context that would have revealed that it was normal (like their Mueller hit job), or if it’s shady only because the stuff they exposed had been altered by Russian intelligence before they released it (like their Macron hit job). With WikiLeaks you get so many options!

yhwx said:

Finally, if Democrats win the House in 2018 (which they have a good shot of doing)

Nitpick: that link shows Democrats with a just-under-8-point national lead. Both 538 and RCP consider an 8-9 point national lead to be the bare minimum Democrats need in order to break even in the House, taking gerrymandering into account. So that really shows Democrats gaining seats in the House but failing to win a majority, and of course that doesn’t take into account the voter suppression and Russian interference which we can safely assume will be much more aggressive this time around.

TV’s Frink said:

CatBus said:

TV’s Frink said:

I seem to remember Jeebus cheering on WikiLeaks during the run-up to the election. Wonder how he feels about them now?

Well, there was a time when it wasn’t clear WikiLeaks had an agenda or even a record favoring any particular nation or institution, and people could be forgiven for taking them at their word.

In the fall of 2016?

Point conceded.

TV’s Frink said:

I seem to remember Jeebus cheering on WikiLeaks during the run-up to the election. Wonder how he feels about them now?

Well, there was a time when it wasn’t clear WikiLeaks had an agenda or even a record favoring any particular nation or institution, and people could be forgiven for taking them at their word. That was, after all, the whole point of the operation – to build up a reputation for neutrality and truthfulness, so that they would be a better channel for distributing Russian propaganda than RT, Sputnik, and Pravda, which would be (and still are) more easily dismissed by Western audiences.

It’s basically the reputation equivalent to money laundering – reputation laundering. Obvious Russian state propaganda goes in, plausibly neutral news appealing to a conspiracy-minded Western audience comes out.

In case there was any doubt remaining that Wikileaks is/has become just another pro-Russian propaganda mill.

dahmage said:

It’s only 3.5 years to go.

1. Congress needs to start working together
2. Achieve some things directly against Trump’s wishes
3. Public opinion sways to see how much better things could be without Trump.
4. Congress can actually impeach and get rid of Trump

One out of four ain’t bad. Wait, no, one out of four is terrible.

Until Congress gets it’s shit together in a bipartisan way, most people will assume that a change of president is not going to do much.

So that’s a given, then.

Okay, I’m done. Aside from the clinking chain noises and the mixing levels Jerjerrod dialogue thing, to me it sounds pretty much like the 83 stereo mix with less dynamics. Maybe the Jerjerrod dialogue thing even qualifies as a “smoking gun”–present in ROTP and not in the 83 mix. If so: Worst. Smoking. Gun. Ever.

I don’t normally post long video links, but this is really worth it IMO:

William Browder, CEO of the Hermitage Capital Management Company, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Hermitage was the employer of Sergei Magnitsky, the auditor who uncovered Russian corruption and was later murdered, triggering the Magnitsky Act, which is central to the Trump-Russia affair.

NeverarGreat said:

The silver lining is that, freed of the reliance on established media sources, more and more people are able to aggregate quality information and discuss methods of minimizing their own biases.

That’s not really much of a silver lining. Aggregating information, researching, fact-checking, comparing multiple sources, consulting with subject matter experts–that’s a full-time job. Specifically, it’s the full-time job of someone who works in the media (whether or not they actually do that job is beside the point for the moment). While the “old dead tree media” may very well get replaced by the “new Internet media”, the whole idea of media organizations of all stripes disappearing entirely and getting replaced by a network of crowdsourced volunteers is frankly appalling to me. It’s this very thing that would allow, say, a foreign intelligence service to much more easily slip propaganda into the news stream of another nation’s population. Sure, I get that the old corporate monolith system also allows rich corporations to ensure that all media organizations have different degrees of the same conservative bias, and so it’s not like the old media networks like CNN and whatnot don’t suffer from this. But at least with that system you can usually pretty easily identify who’s peeing in the pool.

Different mixing levels sometimes reveal small dialogue details–this happened in the mono mix of Empire a lot, where the words at the beginning of sentences were buried in the stereo mix, but completely audible in the mono mix. I’ve only seen one case like that in Jedi, and it’s not very exciting:

When Jerjerrod says “I tell you, this station will be operational as planned.”, the mono mix reveals what’s either a stutter or a partially-enunciated “that” so that it sounds more like “I tell you, th-this station will be operational as planned.”

Not enough to even bother changing subtitles for, sadly.

yhwx said:

CatBus said:

yhwx said:

TV’s Frink said:

“In God We Trust” shouldn’t be on official currency anyway but don’t get me started.

I’d like to hear your argument on that. Not necessarily that I disagree. I’m just curious.

The text was added in the 50’s (along with “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance) as a way of distinguishing our nation from the godless Communist menace presented by the Soviet Union.

So first of all, it’s an anachronistic holdover from the Cold War–so even if you agree with the logic that put it on our currency, that foundational reason no longer exists. Secondly, it’s a poor descriptor of our nation, which our founders explicitly stated is not a Christian nation. And thirdly, even at the time, it was a bad way to distinguish us from the Soviets–belief in God was a much less distinguishing characteristic than the freedom to believe or not believe in God as you chose. Or democracy. Or other civil rights.

I know all the history behind it, I just don’t really care either way. I wouldn’t be too phased if it went away, and I wouldn’t be too phased if it didn’t go away.

Must… not… gaa…

Fazed. It’s fazed.

But yeah, it’s small potatoes in the whole state establishment of religion problem we have in this country. There are much bigger fish to fry. I imagine this comes up a lot because everyone’s seen it, the history is so unambiguously unconstitutional, and nobody stands to gain financially from it being the way it is, so the number of people willing to spend billions on lawyers to keep things the way they are should be low. Contrast this with tax-exempt status for churches or the Hobby Lobby decision.

yhwx said:

TV’s Frink said:

“In God We Trust” shouldn’t be on official currency anyway but don’t get me started.

I’d like to hear your argument on that. Not necessarily that I disagree. I’m just curious.

The text was added in the 50’s (along with “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance) as a way of distinguishing our nation from the godless Communist menace presented by the Soviet Union.

So first of all, it’s an anachronistic holdover from the Cold War–so even if you agree with the logic that put it on our currency, that foundational reason no longer exists. Secondly, it’s a poor descriptor of our nation, which our founders explicitly stated is not a Christian nation. And thirdly, even at the time, it was a bad way to distinguish us from the Soviets–belief in God was a much less distinguishing characteristic than the freedom to believe or not believe in God as you chose. Or democracy. Or other civil rights.

Just listened to Yub Nub, and I think the mixdown/less dynamic range/lo-fi quality all conspire to make that harder to distinguish in ROTP that in the 83 stereo mix. I’m not sure the levels are any different except in the sense that with lower dynamics all noises are closer to the same volume, and those vocals sound like they may even be clipping a bit, which certainly can’t be helping matters.

Confirmed those chain noises–and only those chain noises–seem to be excluded throughout ROTP, including other scenes where those sounds should be prominent like the Jabba strangulation scene, R2 cutting Leia’s chain, etc. Still haven’t listened to the whole thing.

FWIW, I’ve also PM’d hairy_hen in case he can provide an expert opinion. Because so far I’m not thinking we’re likely to get a more audible difference than the “Soon you will learn to appreciate me” scene.

Yes, that would be the smoking gun. But we do have some (admittedly quiet) hard-panned clinks disappearing, as well as some centered louder clinks. I’m thinking the most plausible explanation for that is now that it’s a different mix. Other explanations are still worth exploring.

Going into this, I was assuming it was a stereo mixdown unless indicated otherwise. Now, I’ve flipped my stance–I’m assuming it’s a unique mix unless indicated otherwise.

Yeah, Puggo’s suggested location (~29:56) is a much clearer, louder, and centered example of this. Someone simply failed to add the clinking chain sounds to the mono mix–it’s a different mix. I’m pretty certain of that now.

So in the “No bargain” section, I checked the panning. The initial clinks are indeed panned hard left, nothing at all in the right channel, so the mixdown method could explain those disappearing. However, the clinks immediately after he says “No bargain” are pretty well centered. I’ll listen to the spot Puggo mentioned too, but I’m still inclined to believe it’s a different mix.