Hahahahahaha.

Leave it to Zack to pull a Godfather reference from an Upworthy video.

I r amuzed.

The show’s producers addressed some of the contrivances.

The Lannister army doesn’t just “show up” in Highgarden. They simply show the snippet of the formed army approaching the castle and then the aftermath of taking it. They felt and I agree that simply watching them go through the expensive motions of taking out patrols and sacking the castle wasn’t germane to the story. The point was that the Lannisters gave up Casterly Rock for the gold in Highgarden to pay the Iron Bank. It was pure strategery.

As for the fleet being found at night, it’s not that. It’s possible that they found them during the day or days off, figured out where they were going and sailed an intercept course based on known navigation, staying over the horizon to prevent being seen. At that point, it’s simple seamanship of which the Iron Fleet is unrivaled.

Some of the really important drama was muted because unlike King Joffrey’s demise and the Red Wedding, this wasn’t a surprise. The taking of Highgarden was, but we knew Diane Ladd was going to die and we already knew because she told her daughter that she poisoned Joffrey. So we can’t share in Jaime’s shock and horror because that was old news to us.

As for ZN’s question, yes, Aunt/Nephew is definitely incestuous and would be seen as such by medieval peoples like those in Westeros.

I honestly don’t know if they go to that well again.

As for it being rushed, I think part of it is that the author of the original material isn’t young and isn’t in the best of health and they don’t want to not have him as a resource.

We’ve already seen as the show strays further from the source that it doesn’t have the same punch. Without GRR Martin, I fear the show would devolve into a level of spectacle and petty intrigues that would bore us all to death.

Btw, I’m still getting over episode one. Sam Tarly in his “servitude” was gut-wrenchingly awful. I still shudder at the thought, although kudos for the producers not shying away from the cringe-worthy montage. It added a real weight to episode three.

I still hate this. I’m terribly impatient when it comes to waiting for content which is why I waited so long to start (I watched as season 6 was about to start). This waiting a week between episodes as opposed to just the 9 second logo on HBOGO is infuriating…

It’s basic math.

Medicare for all = total health care costs + <4% administrative costs including advertising and salaries for administrators.

Private insurance = total health care costs + >20% administrative costs including advertising and salaries for executives, agents, and administrators.

The math gets more complicated when we factor in the built in cost controls of Medicare versus the collusion between providers and suppliers that takes place in a private insurance system.

It’s only more complicated in that it’s hard to estimate how much more is saved with Medicare for all with its current cost controls and further how much would be saved if it became a national system with total bargaining control with respect to the supply side.

All that said, it’s basic math.

If we only address non-health care related costs, moving to medicare for all saves in excess of 16% of total systemic spending.

Considering that health care is 16% of our GDP, even without any additional cost controls (of which there are MANY) that means saving 2.56% of GDP.

2.56% of 2016 US GDP of $18.569T = $475.37B

Thus, the ability to save $475 BILLION simply by removing the profits seems like a no brainer. And again, with cost controls the savings would easily eclipse $600 Billion which rivals total book spending on Defense.

Even if we just paid down the debt (I would rather see us invest it all in infrastructure, but as with anything political, there’d be the need for compromise on that and paying down the debt is important), that would mean as much a $125B going to direct payments and an infusion into the economy of $475B of which was all actually spent money within the system. Businesses would save and consumers would have those monies to spend. True, it wouldn’t be a linear correlation, but the overall would likely be close to the initial figures (more of some, less of other monies and some source changes)

Point being that this isn’t like physics where the farther you drill down, the more different things become (differentiating between Newtonian physics and Quantum Physics). Basically, the numbers don’t change radically from the over-simplified numbers and once all the full details are accounted for.

Which for purposes of discussion make this an easy math problem. Maintain the status quo (which doesn’t just screw consumers, but also screws providers like rural hospitals and many doctors who go unpaid for extended lengths) or convert to a system which does almost everything better and saves $475B.

The question for defenders of the status quo is this: What do US Citizens get for that $475B by having the most inefficient and costly Health Care system in the world?

I left the Dems. I was only nominally a Dem because Florida is a closed primary state (I’d say I was essentially caucusing with the Dems, like Bernie).

So, I walked into my Country Registrar and change to “No Party Affiliation”.

I’m with you all. I’m DONE, sick and tired of the corporatist neoliberal bullshit.

If the Dems want my vote, they can run candidates that EARN my vote. Their guilt schtick is meaningless to me. If they can’t earn my vote, they don’t GET my vote.

You know… DEMOCRACY.

I still say that Dems even more than Reps, don’t believe in democracy.

Reps might want to fix elections, but they still want to have them.

Dems don’t even want that. They want the party elites to be able to appoint people and have the party agree in lockstep with the appointment without dissent or question.

Sorry, that’s not me. Principle and Policy over Party… P + P > P

Even in a math sense, the Dems are doing it wrong in thinking that Party is greater than Policy and Principle.

I dunno. The last time they were banned or restricted, it devolved into a massive clusterfuck over the definition over what constitutes an “assault” rifle and the NRA so lobbied Congress so that what defined a gun is only ONE part, the lower receiver, and thus, very small changes which individuals can overcome change the definition.

We’ll see.

On a lighter note, think the NRA will say that Trump is coming for their guns?

I mean, if this ruling came during Obama’s Presidency, it would have been considered the final proof, irrespective of the whole “independent judiciary”…thingy… that Obama was “comin’ for mah guns!”

Great thread, I’ll get back to ya, Billy. Migraining at the moment. Hard to make some of these points while not making it sound like I’m advocating for Trump in any way.

Cuz, yeah, that’s not happening. At all.

Not numb.

And I understand how the Trump voter came to be. What Mark Blythe was talking about is SO TRUE. The neoliberal damage from NAFTA was far more profound than many in either political sphere were willing to admit. It took Trump to tap into that. Not that I think he ever gave a damn about the actual people that were hurt, but he was the first to openly call bullshit on neoliberalism in a Presidential campaign. So, while you had Dems slam Trickle Down, and rightly so, you’d never had anyone so easily and quickly dispatch the moral and economic bankruptcy of neoliberalism.

And let’s not forget that a great many of his followers were told that he would “PIVOT” from his bombastic, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc ways after the election and pivot to being Presidential and run the country like a professional CEO…decisive, in control, appointing experienced people from outside Washington not beholden to the typical influences.

Well, many of us knew how much bullshit that was, but his voters BELIEVED it. Many still do.

So, I find myself seeing us at a crossroads.

We are at a crisis point where the President was elevated by Clinton with the help of a complicit MSM to the tune of $2B. We can’t forget that BEFORE Trump could become a target for the Russians, he was put out there…by Clinton, the DNC and the MSM. They were too clever by half figuring that they could essentially fix the election without having to actually fix it by simply drowning him in coverage and that Trump would kill his own campaign, but not until he’d wrecked the Republican field.

Except… he only got stronger… and the corporate soulless sellout fucks on the Dem side had no idea that people actually WERE paying attention to all their…inattention…and what the Dems had done that did actually hurt working people and the poor. And while it was unfortunate that the alternative was a completely malignant narcissistic shitbag, Trump hadn’t been at the epicenter of a system that had been openly and belligerently screwing them while lying to their face about that very screwing for decades. So, even for those who realized en toto who Trump was, they simply weren’t going to vote for the “screwing they knew” any more.

As for this crisis point, it’s what scares me.

The malignant narcissistic shitbag is truly a potential dictator and Bannon and Miller are really and truly running the Hitler playbook, right down to repeating his rallies after getting elected. I’m actually surprised Trump hasn’t uttered the word, Lugenpresse by mistake.

At this point, I think it’s 50/50 that the progressives and principled people among independents and conservatives rise up and actually impeach Trump and much of his Administration for the crimes already committed (too numerous to go into) which either allows for the ascension of Pence and the escalation of the Progressive movement or perhaps we even have a revote due to the unprecedented electoral intrusion OR… we’re sitting here after the 2018 elections knowing that there won’t be elections in 2020 because at some point Trump directly or through some agency will declare martial law.

I honestly don’t know which way it will go, but I think we’re are really on the brink of decades of fascism and I mean REAL, Nazi Germany level fascism.

But I’m not numb tho. I’ll go to as many rallies and protests as I can, advocate as much as I can online as I can and if it all goes south, I’ll question myself knowing I probably could have done 10x more.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Mackeyser.

Well, if the belligerent level of stupid is accelerating as fast as warming… we won’t have to suffer through this too much longer.

Considering that we have outperformed every worst case scenario (even the outlier case scenarios),

Is the over/under on civilization 8.5 years?

Every vote like this is going to just kill the Reps in 2018. Trust me, people are keeping track.

This is called “taking enough rope to hang themselves”. I mean we’re not even in the position to give it to them. They’re taking it.

The ONLY thing that can stop that is if the Dems go all “super cute DLC”.

If they just stick with traditional ground game, progressive stuff… ya know… run 3 times at the 22 to go up by 11, then game over.

If the Dems don’t screw this up, they have the chance to not only take back the Senate, but potentially take the House. We’re talking landslide stuff here.

But.. BUT… the Dems can’t let Pelosi, Schumer and the DLC Dems fuck it up.

And so help me, DWS needs to eat shit. Fuck her AND her sticking up for Pay Day Lenders.

I feel like Animal from the Muppets…. pretty good on the drums, but not great at dinner parties…

Damn, that whole video was so good.

I’m in a quandary with this and the public education debate.

I TOTALLY support public education. I’m not in principle a huge supporter of charter schools. And yet, all four of my kids went to one, Manatee School for the Arts.

My eldest son is high functioning autistic, my youngest son is asexual and my youngest is non-binary trans.

Neither the highly rated public middle school or high school in Culver City, CA or the HS here were willing to see my son as a student. He was a “special ed” student (more money), but not in that he actually got more attention or services or help. No, he got dumped in day classes with students with everything from retardation to Downs to severe emotional and physical needs. And no one teacher and TA could possibly keep up with that class. Worse, the administrations at both schools lied to us telling us that he was on track to get an actual diploma when he was actually set to get an “attendance certificate”.

Because of being dumped in day classes, he had to repeat a year, but he graduated with a regular HS diploma, he is a BJJ Youth coach and had his blue belt from RMNU BJJ (that’s a big deal…if you don’t know the BJJ world…it’s a big deal. That a high functioning autistic person is doing high level grappling? That’s like someone with a fear of heights graduating from the Wallenda School of High Wire Walking). He wasn’t always capable of moving with and even past the limitations of his autism, but none of the public schools saw him as anything other than a problem. And while they were happy to take the money the states gave them for his needs, they were gonna be damned if they spent it on him.

Public school was failing my kids. All of them. This school was the alternative school where they thrived. This county has like 4-5 HS and they are all modeled the same as opposed to having a Science HS, Performing Arts HS, General HS, VoTech HS, etc that could incorporate some of what the speaker was talking about. I realize that the segmentation is part of his critique. I get that, but it’d be at least an interim step to address the integrity of the content.

As well, we spent 17 years talking to schools about how since the end of WWII, people have been getting doctorates in Ed, coming up with new ideas on how to educate or reforms or all manner of improvements to education. How much of that do we see actually make it to improving our children’s education in 2017? Almost none.

At MSA, the start time is 9:40. That’s almost TWO HOURS later than the city High Schools. As a school devoted to the arts, the whole point of the school is inclusivity and collaboration. There is even encouragement for interdisciplinary expression and for the acknowledgment of the different modalities of learning.

Seriously, try getting THAT in almost any public school.

So…I’m in a quandary.

I believe deeply in public school. That said, I know that my kids were saved by one of the few secular, successful, public, arts focused charter schools that specifically leverage the available data (like the much later start times and block scheduling) that this charter school provided and the public schools my kids first attended outright refused to provide.

Moreover, in most instances, the schools were hostile and antagonistic about even being challenged to change at all, even when they admitted something weren’t working…at all.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Mackeyser.

I agree… Foucault that mess. And Foucault those corporate douchebags who think we have to market ourselves in order to further our existence.

Dammit, wv…git outta mah head!!!

For real, that was all good stuff.