i have two ears and they are ready to listen. Help the sift and you? let's hear it.

I'd be interested in hearing more about it here before it was brought up in Sift Talk or anything due to the drama Fedquip mentioned above. I do sympathize about the crowd over on the AOL boards, I've browsed it a couple of times and I don't think I could deal with them on a regular basis myself. They'd test my temper too much I'm sure.

Qruel - Bookmark this post - I'll update all with the idea here if I get the go-ahead.

And your right Drattus, they have tested my tempter and I almost snapped after going a long period of being called a liberal fascist of all things.


With that said, if there are sifters who love arguing with wing nuts - If you do so on my AOL blog, your doing it in front of an audience of thousands. There are some normal commentators there, but far too few.

I'm all for something that will help out the Sift AND your AOL blog. I'll continue to check in.
And fuck those Power Line assholes. Assrocket's ingnorance is only exceeded by his narcissism. Between Power Line, Little Green Footballs, and Townhall, they form the Axis of Assholery.

in the immortal words of rodney dangerfield, "i'm not a fighter. i'm a lover."

but, as we all know, sometimes? love hurts.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Bookmarked. I'm intrigued- what's your plan?

Bookmarked and awaiting orders, Sir!

So can we unite 300 Sifters?

THIS IS SIFTA!

thought this would be a good place to start looking at the above-mentioned, very controversial, Dinesh D'Souza.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Daniel-Dennett-debates-Dinesh-DSouza

dynamic. delicious. delovely.

Awesome, getting lots of responses... good, good. I think the title helped.

By no means do I plan on marching armies of Sifters to AOL to battle retarded Neo-Con commentators, although I won't stop you. My idea is much more elaborate, one where hopefully every type of sifter can get involved, not just those who like a heated discussion thread.

Dag keep an eye out for an email.

I am relieved to see 11 bookmarks within 4hrs. I have briefed Dag on how this idea makes him rich, or at least makes me poor. So for the intrigued ones remember, bookmarking this thread will ensure you receive a notification of further updates.

Building an army, are ya Fedquip?

VIVA LA REVOLUTION !!

No,no, maaaaaaaaaybe.

at least I would be less hesitant now, knowing I got MarineGunrock on my side.

As always I look to my sifting brothers and sisters first when I need web support.

Now, this might be my last chance to salvage this AOL blogging position, I must use this opportunity to spend the money I earn online towards greater goals then my own. Which Is why I hint at helping monetize the sift, but this Idea is going to be mainly about supporting international charities... Not with sifters money, but with my money. Sifters won't have to change a single habit.

Fed, you post too often. You gotta hold it in and strike like a cobra.

^that's kinda true.

you don't have to win every battle, heck you don't even have to fight, these people are retarded. but i am up for a bit of retard poking, for a laugh.

Increased exposure goes hand in hand with idiotic commentary.

Case study - Youtube.

Discuss.

Granted youtube is full of children. I remember my yahoo chat days as a 16 year old...I am sure I wrote a lot of idiotic comments.

The idiocy I experience on a daily basis comes from voting age Adults.

Otherwise I agree, the more traffic that reaches you, the more likely you are going to receive sane and insane comments.

Politics has the ability to turn alot of voting age adults into idiots.

I mean take the concept of a political blog, most subscribe and follow those that appeal to their particular stances, they basically end up isolating themselves from alternative viewpoints.

Its very rare someone in their mold actually concedes to an alternative viewpoint, Andrew Sullivan of Daily Dish and John Cole of Balloon Juice are two examples I can cite personally where the posters reconsidered their political support. Cole supported Bush and is against him now, Sullivan is the same and is supporting Obama now while citing that conservatism is hollowed out by the last 7 years of Bush Co.

Also balkanization takes effect, this is seen in alot of right wing and left wing blogs, the usual - "LOOK what this liebral/wingnut/cunt said! go poop on him" posts package certain information in a skewed way meant to incite pre-conceieved stances against someone's viewpoint, by that time those who come to comment post utter garbage without really rationally looking at what someone is saying, or even attempting to deconstruct something logically.

heh. personally, i'm not looking to "go poop on" anyone.
my suggestion, that i pm'ed to fedquip this morning, was that since D'Souza makes such poor arguments, throughout this debate? and in other clips and citations i've scanned, since reading this post?

i've got a feeling that, were his audience simply taught to recognize some tools of the bullshit trade, Mr. D'Souza would find his following, less & less devoted.

critical thinking skills tend to do that.

Personality I don't care too much about Dinesh, although his community does spill over onto my blog. I recently felt inclined to help people learn about the theory of evolution.

Although I tend to blog a lot about politics, My AOL blog is for Current events, news, culture, science, religion, activism, environment, war..you name it.

The problem I've been having is that after nine months sans TayTV I've forgotten what type of videos I'm looking for and I've forgotten how to present them to an audience. The Neo-con commentary is only a small portion of my daily problems with this blog. I find myself censoring my posts to avoid mass hysteria and a trip to an American gulag (yes, i've been threatened with that.)

I remember when people asked why I started the video blog I would say "You can do a lot more with 30 minutes on the internet, then you can spending 30 minutes in front of a TV."

No matter how low they price the next HDTV the younger generation has abandoned TV, viewership worldwide has already started to decline, people don't want to spend a third of their down time watching programmed television commercials. I've felt we can be doing more productive things with our time. This consumer culture I grew up in is out of control and the internet feels like the right place to start fixing it.

I remember when people asked what I planned to get out of TayTV I would say, "the opportunity to work online, so that I never have to return for another shift at my day job" - The labour I put into online video sharing, possibly combined with my lunacy, landed me this golden opportunity quicker then I expected. However I may have squandered it. Which is why I have come out and started this blog topic. If I'm to fix this I will need help of the sift, which I will only accept after it is thoroughly discussed and we find a way for the Sift to benefit and grow from this experience.

yeah critical thinking should be taught in schools, but then kids would realise that school is bullshit, and the teachers would be out of a job.

so, i am not holding my breath on that one.

School is bullshit? Care to back that one up?

i been a sometime presence on the hannity.com forums so i like to think my ability to handle the garbage-spewers is sharper than the average bear. i'm gonna mosey over and sample the audience you're talking about... whatever you've got planned though, if it involves "debating" neocons, I'm there.

Fedquip, reaching out to the members here is a great idea but if this stuff is getting to you it might help to reach out to like minded activists as well. That's always been one of my biggest weaknesses, never figured out how to do that myself so have dealt with a lot of crap the hard way when it might have been easier with some support. Depending on the subject most have blogs or community forums which might be useful for venting or finding a different way to deal with a difficult time.

MarineGunrock, yeah, school these days is garbage, at least in US primary schools. Teaching to the test and too much politics is the easiest way to put it I'd guess. According to the following article the US has slipped from #1 to #7-9 in areas such as high school graduates and that's in spite of our spending being the second highest among ranked nations. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/13/national/main838207.shtml

Break it down into subject areas such as math and current students and we look even worse. We're slipping and it's going to hurt us over time. According to UNICEF we rank 18th overall out of 24 industrialized nations. That's a long and fast fall from where we used to be. http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52

We're great fans of politics as usual and policies which sound good but we're not so hot these days about checking the results and adjusting when those great ideas turn out to be not so great after all. Someone would have to admit they were wrong for that, and that price is more than our current or recent leadership is willing to pay. Better they think to sacrifice the kids, and eventually the future of the nation.

yes we all know American education is slipping...Doesn't matter I was a horrible student who went through a pretty good Canadian system in the 90's. I was distracted by technology (and girls, drugs and alcohol) easily... I can only imagine kids these days. I feel I turned out alright.

But yes Drattus, I hope this idea attracts activists or at least unleashes the budding activist out of many sifters.

I can't help voting for cute bunnies, but I remember a time when there was more equality between interesting and entertaining clips on the sift.

your real dilemma lies in finding yourself.... Get out more, breath some air not so self-polluted, and fer crissakes, read some old stories that won't tax your brain, like the kid that had to hold his finger in the dike, just cause he saw the leak....you responsibility is to yourself...WTF can you hope to gain from a few carrots in the mail, if you look backward after say 5 more years, and see only your dim reflection in the monitor when you tilt yer head just right???

Go back to college.....Join the peace corpse...Ever try match.com?????

you are a sponge..make it work for you..

Yes Choggie, I am sure I should "find myself" Thanks for the tips....always stealing my thunder eh.

You actually might want to stay tuned, because this upcoming segment might just tickle your fancy.

oh, and choggie?

don't forget about the sunscreen.

be the ball.

So...my entire hyped up plan has been sidetracked, Just today I accepted a full time job at Mahalo.com. It's poised to be a google killer, and what I earn will solve a lot of my problems.

But it creates others...For now the videosift idea is going to have to be put on the back burner. Since posting this I've read tons of supporting emails, I can't thank you all enough, if I was crazy I would print out the emails and paste them all over my walls with baby blood. If I was crazy.

Needless to say, I need to redraft the idea that I meant to present in this post. The new job is shift work, and the third freelance gig I'm juggling...Fuck I should have just kept on watching TV eh.

The idea will have to modified but I don't really want to give up on it. Basically, I wanted to give Interested Sifters access to the big and crazy AOL audience that I'm currently blogging for, by featuring posts from the Sift on AOL. There are hundreds of important political, cultural, religious, scientific clips that need to be posted for this huge audience.

I wanted to sponsor a contest that will allow me to repost Interested Sifters blog posts from Videosift onto AOL. In return for the work of writing, I offer the sifter a prize and a donation from myself to the sift.

Ergo.

By participating in a contest on the sift, You win a prize and earn the sift some cash.

I suppose I'm glad I waited 3 days (I know, an ETERNAL LIFETIME OF WAITING in internet time) to see how this turned out before wading in any deeper. Congrats on the new position and whatever this idea was, I'm sure some good will come out of whatever you end up doing.

So you're saying that we get you to sponsor our gold-sifter icons, assuming you use content we find/generate?

"So you're saying that we get you to sponsor our gold-sifter icons" - thats another way to put it. But yeah if I'm using the sift to find volunteers to post on AOL, the best way would be to make the arrangment a charitable one.

Somewhat predictably, I'm a week late to the party.

Yes, sorry for all the hype, the AOL blog as been retired.

http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/02/18/jeff-hoard-blog-to-be-retired/

^ comment # 5, there, jeff.

*discard

Discarding this post - discard requested by original submitter Fedquip.