The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Stinger
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The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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bannination
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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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That's absolute poetry!

Best speech I've heard.... PERIOD.

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Leo Lyons
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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Made me cry.

Stingers mouth, Vrede's ideology.

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mike
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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Stinger wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw

What say you?
That is awesome, Stinger!

To be fair, I do believe in Angels and my disabled neighbors think I am one.

Of course, I'm not. However, I've seen my share of them in my own life.

An Angel takes different shapes and forms depending on one's needs at the moment.

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Stinger
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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Someone posted it on Facebook. From a year or so ago, I think.

"Beginning scene of the new HBO series The Newsroom explaining why America's Not the Greatest Country Any Longer... But It Can Be."

I don't watch TV. Anyone ever catch the show?

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Leo Lyons wrote:Made me cry.

Stingers mouth, Vrede's ideology.
Facts. Should have figured you'd have a problem with them.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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I can't help but notice a few things that have happened "since" America was the greatest country in the world:

The civil rights movement happened. For both women's rights and racial rights, America set the standards. Can anyone here imagine a non-white President or Prime Minister of Britain? Germany? France? Spain? Italy? Russia?

The computer revolution happened. The US created it. Look at the top few microprocessors each in 1977, 1987, 1997, 2007 and today, and probably all of them originated in the United States. Look at the top operating systems and platforms in that time: CPM. DOS. Various flavors of Unix. BSD. Apple II. Commodore 64. Amiga. MacOS. OS X. PowerPC. OS/2. Windows 2, 3, 9x, NT, XP, 7, 8. All from the US. (Despite Torvalds' role, Linux is mostly American too.)

Programming is simply dominated by languages originating in America.

Inventions that revolutionized computers: Transistors. Microprocessors. Mice. GUIs. Laser printers. TCP/IP. All from America.

The Internet revolution happened. The US created it. Not just through standards like TCP/IP and ASCII. Almost every file and web server on the planet has run an OS originating in the United States: Novell Netware. AOLserver. Solaris. Apache Server. Windows NT, Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008 and 2012 - and the various versions of IIS. IBM HTTP Server. Almost every SQL server on the planet originates in the United States: Microsoft SQL server. Oracle. PostGreSQL.

The very openness of the Internet is by American design.

A few years ago: AOL. American. CompuServe. American. Yahoo. American. MySpace. American.

Now: Google. American. FaceBook. American. Twitter. American. Instagram. American. Etc. Etc. Etc. And all with products created by that "worst. generation. ever." in the NewsRoom rant.

The cell phone revolution happened. The vast majority of phones sold today have either iOS or Android, originating in the US. Way in the back are Windows Mobile (US) and BlackBerry (based on Canada's QNX, which has a strong American Unix pedigree.)

On the environmentalism front, America stayed out of the Kyoto Accord. In hindsight we can divide Kyoto Accord countries into three groups:
1) Those that didn't have to cut emissions because were given exemptions.
2) Those that didn't have to cut emissions because of the timing involved.
3) Those that simply failed to cut emissions. (Like Canada!)

For REAL leadership on emissions cuts, look to America. More specifically, to California. Cars around the world have OBD ports and give emissions warnings because of American rules. Hybrid and zero-emissions vehicles were only rare prototypes until California forced auto makers into production. Small engines in lawn mowers, leaf blowers and other power equipment around the world are now MUCH cleaner, because of California Air Resources Board rules. Power equipment here in Canada comes with CARB certificates.

America didn't become the world's cop, but the world sure calls on them when we need a SWAT team. Which is often, and they're damn good at it. The world knows, more than ever, yes even under Obama, not to piss off America.

The Newsroom rant mentions reaching for the stars as if it's a thing of the past. Yes, the massively expensive programs like Apollo and the Shuttle are over. That still leaves America more active, doing more space exploration, than the rest of the world combined.

SpaceX has flown its Dragon spacecraft three times, resupplied ISS twice, with a ship that while unmanned, WILL be manned, and would have returned any passenger safely to the earth on all three flights. Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft/Atlas V and Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spaceplane/Atlas V have been hitting milestones and will be launched in the next few years. Blue Origin is working on their own launcher. And of course Bigelow Aerospace has two prototype space station modules in orbit, may launch a much larger one to ISS, and will launch full space stations once manned Dragon/CST-100/Dream Chaser flights start.

Europe has the same GDP, population and level of technology as the US. No manned space program, public or private. China is repeating America's 1960s milestones, at a MUCH slower pace. Russia is still using its launchers and capsules from the 1960s, largely with American funding. While Russia and China and the EU often publish plans for sending people beyond Low Earth Orbit, America is the one country funding such plans, and often building and testing hardware.

Look at the operational space probes all over the solar system, and the vast majority are American. "Since" America was the greatest country, mankind explored the solar system. And by mankind we almost entirely mean America's space probes.

No other country could pull off something like the Mars Curiosity Rover landing. Nor even the entire EU combined.

Over the four-and-a-half-billion-year history of Earth, few events have truly mattered: There was the advent of single-celled life, multi-celled life, the development of plants, then animals.

The next step - the first big step in 540 million years - is the extension of life to another planet. A few people here on this forum will probably live to see it. Think about that.

That next step is not looking like a race between America and the EU, Russia or China. It's a race between a big American government space program and American private industry. Not the greatest country any longer...?

As a programmer and space buff, I may pay more attention to those areas than others. But that's the view from here in Canada.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Very well put, rstrong ... Image

Much to digest in that post and, again, I (for one) thank you for it. Image

Thanks, also, rstrong, for reminding me of the things I too easily forget. Image

Actually, I think what you posted is pretty much golden and, again, I thank you, rstrong.

Still, it's not like we're not without our faults.
It is in working those out and continuing to grow (such being the reason Stinger, I think, posted the vid and why I found it quite insightful) where we excel. :)
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Dryer Vent
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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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We started watching The Newsroom on On Demand. We saw that episode last week. It was brilliant.

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Leo Lyons
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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Vrede wrote:
Leo Lyons wrote:Made me cry.

Stingers mouth, Vrede's ideology.
Since it's factual and I agree with much of it, that must mean that your ideology is one of greed, incarceration, amorality, cynicism, jingoism, fear, prejudice, repression and self-delusion. I like my ideology more, perhaps it comes from traveling to 35 or so countries and each continent. Humanity is too vibrant, diverse, imaginative, creative and adventurous to say any one nation is the "greatest".
I didn't say I disagree with it. The language reminded me of Stinger, (and most liberals I've encountered over the years) the subject reminded me of you.

I can see the Virgin Mary in your new mane.
List it on ebay.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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mike wrote:Much to digest in that post and, again, I (for one) thank you for it.
You're welcome!

It's easy to forget that just because America doesn't have a commanding lead any more in say, medical research, that does NOT mean that America is doing worse than in it used to. It often simply means that other countries have modernized and are doing better than THEY used to.

For example America is sitting out the race for the tallest skyscraper. But then so is every other western democracy. The race seems to be among very recently second-world countries with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. America is content to simply send their engineering firms to build those skyscrapers and megaprojects for them.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Vrede wrote:That would be sacrilege, holiness is never about money. :lolno:
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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Riverside students witness science projects aboard SpaceX capsule launch to ISS
That'd be that "worst. generation. ever." not reaching for the stars right there.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Stinger wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw

What say you?
I say, give me a break. That's one of the sappiest pieces of filmmaking I've ever seen.
Wing nuts. Not just for breakfast anymore.

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Bungalow Bill
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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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Jeff did get a little worked up there. A country only has to be the most powerful
in the world to make the 'we're the greatest" claim. Since all countries are very
imperfect, I doubt there ever can be a great country.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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rstrong wrote:No other country could pull off something like the Mars Curiosity Rover landing. Nor even the entire EU combined.
The Mars Curiosity Rover just completed it's first Martian year - 687 Earth days - today. It's accomplished the mission's main goal of determining whether Mars once offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life, along with plenty of other discoveries.

Meanwhile, the New Horizons probe has almost reached Pluto. It has just over a year to go.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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rstrong wrote:Over the four-and-a-half-billion-year history of Earth, few events have truly mattered: There was the advent of single-celled life, multi-celled life, the development of plants, then animals.

The next step - the first big step in 540 million years - is the extension of life to another planet. A few people here on this forum will probably live to see it. Think about that.

That next step is not looking like a race between America and the EU, Russia or China. It's a race between a big American government space program and American private industry.
Congratulations on the successful test of the Orion spacecraft! :thumbup:

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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BBC: Fifa scandal: 'God Bless America,' football fans say

I wonder if the average American realizes how much America is being celebrated today.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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America continues to "no longer reach for the stars." Tomorrow the Cassini probe will again dive through a geyser plume of Saturn's moon Enceladus, passing just 48km over the surface at 30,600kph.

And for course pictures continue to stream in from Pluto, two Mars rovers are still going strong, and dozens of other spacecraft continue to send back data from across the solar system.

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Re: The Most Honest 3 Minutes in Television

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SpaceX. Wow.

America doesn't just have a space program. It has at least five.

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