Witness Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 18, Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano and André Previn with the London Symphony Orchestra.
OMFG!!!! What a fucking blows one away performance!
I. Moderato

II. Adagio sostenuto

III. Allegro scherzando


I just love Rach music!

That is if you haven't been banned. It is becoming a badge of honor to be banned from there.

I did not think so until I was banned and the banning message invited a PM which I sent and was ignored.

No wonder the candidate groups, especially the Hillary Clinton group have so many DUers banned. They don't care.

The candidate groups serve absolutely no purpose but to divide us. It is on that basis that I recommend that they be disbanded immediately.

United we stand; divided we fail. And as anybody here knows, there is no uniting with the candidate groups. They are universally petulant children who even the least bit of outreach across the aisle results in the boom being lowered. And no discussion about ones intent is allowed.

The candidate groups divide us. I don't know how we'll win in November like this. Especially the Hillary Clinton group which seems to have a nuclear bomb of banning. I tried to get along there. It didn't do any good. That the hosts won't even respond to my pleas attests to their ideological steel walls. And then they are fixated on BernieBros, and Jane abuse, and complaining about Bernie or Bust. Well, they banned a Hillary ally who supports Bernie.

Good work, Hillary group. If -- and I DO mean if -- Hillary gets the nod, don't you all wring your hands when you have a hard time getting the BernieBros, Jane abusers, non-black voters, etc. (all of which have been hideously used against us) to go to the polls and pull the Hillary lever.

I will. But don't cry to me if many won't.

You made this bed. You sleep in it.

As soon as the nominee is confirmed at the convention, GD.P and all the candidate groups should be killed. I would vote now. We unite or we lose. And the TOS should be enforced.

You are doing a great job here, far more than is required.

Have a Valentine heart, my good friend!

You have well earned it.

Which alone should warrant him being struck off the roles.

If you don't know who John of God is, well he's a kook, faith healer who does an old carny trick called psychic surgery and bilks people for their money claiming that they are healed, when he is just doing carny tricks, long ago debunked, as documented here and here.

And even on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show,

by James Randi. Amazingly, the NBC operators were flooded with calls that night with requests to get in touch with the psychic surgeon, in spite of the fact that Randi exposed it as an utter fraud.

That's how scammers and frauds like Mehmet Oz, and Peter Popoff, and John of God, and Benny Hinn and idiot homeopathists and chiropractors and all the eastern mythos new age kooks all get away with it, and get rich, peddling their quackery. They have nobody to hold them accountable. All this stuff is unregulated. The quacks have free reign.

That is, unless somebody holds their feet to the fire and shows their frauds.

I post this here without comment, and invite DUers to consider that these words were said by the head of the FCC, Newton Minow, on May 9, 1961.

When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

There are few bright lights. As it has ever been, even in 1961.

Not yelling.

I love the Everly Bros. They were always classy.

Pass easy, Phil.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-superfast-transport-system-powered-by-passenge,33468/

Some good levity from The Onion. N.B., this is satire.

I post this without comment for discussion. It's Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris. Filmed at Hitchens' home in DC, with obligatory Martinis on the table and yes, Hitchens is smoking.

It is an interesting discussion. If you have never seen this, you may find it interesting.



BTW, it's almost two hours long.