>> ^Psychologic:

>> ^Gallowflak:
Oh, come on, dude. The issue here is making people almost deliberately uncomfortable, claustrophobic and immobile for the sake of some extra profit. It's not a matter of taste, or people thinking every design should suit them/their physiology, it's just fundamentally horrible design.
I was relieved to hear that it's only for flights of two hours or less in duration. The idea of being in that position for 22 hours on the Birmingham/Sydney route is almost as terrifying as a waterboarding session.

It's optional. As far as I can tell, no one is being put in that situation against their will (that would be fairly dishonest).
Bicycles aren't exactly comfortable either, but people choose to spend hours on those. You may not want to, and that's fine, but I'm glad the option exists.


With the condition that it's optional, then there's surely no problem. However, an important consideration is what percentage of seats will be comprised of these new designs in the airlines that install them.

I should also say that I have no idea what bicycles have to do with anything.

>> ^Gallowflak:

Oh, come on, dude. The issue here is making people almost deliberately uncomfortable, claustrophobic and immobile for the sake of some extra profit. It's not a matter of taste, or people thinking every design should suit them/their physiology, it's just fundamentally horrible design.
I was relieved to hear that it's only for flights of two hours or less in duration. The idea of being in that position for 22 hours on the Birmingham/Sydney route is almost as terrifying as a waterboarding session.


It's optional. As far as I can tell, no one is being put in that situation against their will (that would be fairly dishonest).

Bicycles aren't exactly comfortable either, but people choose to spend hours on those. You may not want to, and that's fine, but I'm glad the option exists.

Oh, come on, dude. The issue here is making people almost deliberately uncomfortable, claustrophobic and immobile for the sake of some extra profit. It's not a matter of taste, or people thinking every design should suit them/their physiology, it's just fundamentally horrible design.

I was relieved to hear that it's only for flights of two hours or less in duration. The idea of being in that position for 22 hours on the Birmingham/Sydney route is almost as terrifying as a waterboarding session.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'birmingham escorts, sexy, girls, hot girls, escorts, escort girls' to 'spam redacted' - edited by KnivesOut

>> ^Ryjkyj:
I upvote all of these clips for the simple reason that the word: ambalamps finally made some sense out of that "black betty" song. Goddamn I love the internet sometimes.


She's from Birmingham, ambalamps, way down in Alabam', ambalamps!

One morning 3 Alabama good old boys and 3 Yankees were in a ticket line at the Birmingham train station heading to Atlanta for a big football game. The 3 Northerners each bought a ticket and watched as the 3 Southerners
bought just one ticket among them.

"How are the 3 of you going to travel on one 1 ticket?" asked one of the Yankees.

"Watch and learn" answered one of the boys from the South.

When the 6 travelers boarded the train, the 3 Yankees sat down, but the 3 Southerners crammed into a bathroom together and closed the door. Shortly after the train departed, the conductor came around to collect tickets. He knocked on the bathroom door and said, "tickets please." The door opened just a crack and a single arm emerged with a ticket in hand.

The Conductor took it and moved on.

The Yankees saw this happen and agreed it was quite a clever idea. Indeed, so clever that they decided to do the same thing on the return trip and save some money. That evening after the game when they got to the Atlanta train station, they bought a single ticket for the return trip while to their astonishment the 3 Southerners didn't buy a single ticket!

"How are you going to travel without a ticket?" asked one of the perplexed Yankees.

"Watch and learn", answered one of the Southern boys.

When they boarded the train the 3 Northerners crammed themselves into a bathroom and the 3 Southerners crammed themselves into the other bathroom across from it.

Shortly after the train began to move, one of the Southerners left their bathroom and walked quietly over to the Yankee's bathroom. He knocked on the door and said "ticket please"!

Back in 2003, when the war in Iraq was imminent, I was working in a high school in Chicago, and several students came to me, telling me that they were staging a walk-out, to protest the war. This being an American high school, I could imagine that quite a few of the 'protesters' were walking out just to get the rest of the day off. They asked me if I supported them. I told them that I supported the Constitution of the United States of America, and those actions taken to create, uphold and defend that document. They took this to mean that I supported them, and headed off to do a little civil disobedience. To their credit, they walked an astonishing distance, from high school to high school, picking up a throng as they walked, a la Boys Town. They ended up downtown, and several of our students were front and center in the pictures taken at the rally.

The next day, several of the students who had organized the walkout discovered that they were given out of school suspensions for their actions. They ran to me, expecting me to howl in righteous indignation, and go to the administration to demand that they not be punished. They were quite surprised when I said, "And...?" I didn't have one jot of sympathy for their plight. Instead, I retrieved a copy of Letters from Birmingham Jail, Common Sense, Civil Disobedience, and several other books of a similar bent. I told them to use the time off wisely, to discover the rich heritage civil disobedience has in our nation. It it is, I think, the expectation of 'getting away with it' that has neutered our protests. The fact that 'free speech zones' exist at all is an affront to the Constitution. I told my students that it was the punishment they received that gave their protest meaning. Accept it willingly, because by accepting it, they were saying, "This inconvenience is nothing compared to the great injustice we stand against. We suffer it willingly, if it means that others might not suffer in the future." They got it, served their time without grousing, and actually learned a little something about being a citizen.

Phil Juiptus: What kind of a hellish quiz is this?

Stephen Fry: Fair point.

Pj: What one is the odd one out? None of them! bahahahhahah.

Sf: Aren't we clever.

Sf: Hey, is that me?

Pj: That's you.

Sf: Ohhhh bugger you. I don't sound like that.

--New scene--

Sf: Would that it where.

Pj: would that it where stephen, would that it where?

Sf (interjecting): Going all rob.. robinson, are would that it where, would that it where, oh sushen ticthen(?)

Pj: one for mother and only son.

--New scene--

Pj: You'd be rampaging through down town Tokyo, "BAHAHHAH", "no a museum!"

--New scene--

Pj: Stephen what are you doing in that bathroom? "I'm putting it to go one way, I'm putting it to go the other. I'm the master of the bath, hahahahah"

--New Scene--

Pj: Stephen doesn't have beer googles, he has madeira pas nez. (madeira glasses)

Pj: "Oh your a cracker, more madeira?" "a small sherry?"

--New scene--

Sf: Your the ones who suggested coins, I'm saying a kettle for example, or any other cooking...

Pj (interjecting): One one has a kettle like that! what you plugging? Look at it. We don't all live in a fluffy Duffy Dickensian world of charm like you.

Sf: well,

Pj: Oh there goes the kettle, and on the aga.

Sf: Its a perfectly sensible way of cooking food and preparing meals, and it keeps the kitchen warm.

Pj: No wonder fucking twinnings had you pal.

Sf: I feel a man...

Pj: of proper kettles, and porcelain tea, bahahh, china. England! Cricket!

Alan davies: Can you do an advert where you're cleaning a kettle with some brown sauce.

Sf: I jolly well will now.

Pj: Stephen fry, for HP, bahahhahaha

--New scene--

Sf: so we have had two blueffs, I should do that shouldn't I? ahah

Pj: would that it where Stephen, would that it where.

--New scene--

Sf: thats not the kinda thing I like...

pj: he actually had a bentley skateboard made of tea tray, "fine, original Birmingham wheels"

Sf: I had a space hopper. Well I did.

Pj: Baha baha baha baha, "nearly to (a place even I can't make out)" Baha baha baha. Mother, a bicycle next time for the love of god.

Pj: Your like nine feet tall!

Sf: well...

Pj: Your knees must have been here, bahaha.

Sf: Not when I was 8.

Jimmy Carr: Turns out it was just a terrible hemroid..

--New scene--

Sf: When I went to university, me and my friend hugh laurie shared a house, and we had a bit of work doing, and our plasterers, do you know who they where?

Ad: Cannon and ball.

Sf: Charlie higson and Paul whitehouse where our plasterers.

Ad: and you where there inspiration, for so many characters.

Pj: steven the fellas in the hall are awfully funny.

Sf: Right, I'm telling, you're bad.

Pj: what do you say we listen in on them, and, err, nick a few jokes.

So where's my power point for translating from English to English?

Wow so can I say that I initially limited myself to books I've discovered only in the past 6 years or so, and that currently influence the way I read, write and see the world (not to mention kick stupendous ass), but EDD's mention of Winnie the Pooh made me wish I'd done the reverse. So since I started it I'm going to post another list.

First I am allowing all of you to rag on me/sympathize with me now because I was one of the few people on this planet who didn't read or have read to her any of the LOTR books as a child. Any monetary donations to make up for my deprived childhood are welcome. I suppose until I get assigned to it in class (or get my degree, whichever comes first), I will need to add all these to my goodreads account.

So my (other) list:

1. Milne - Winnie the Pooh
2. Cormier - The Chocolate War
3. Raskin - The Westing Game
4. Smith - White Teeth
5. Plath - The Bell Jar
6. Thompson - Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
7. Marquez - A Hundred Years of Solitude
8. Bantock - Griffin and Sabine
9. Mitchell - Gone with the Wind (I skipped class to finish this, and have yet by my own volition to see the movie)
10. Curtis - The Watsons Go to Birmingham

>> ^quantumushroom:
If a terrorist attack occurs that could've been prevented by waterboarding intel from a captive, all blame goes to the American people who elected Obama who selected a bureaucrat for a job requiring different and specific experience.


Wiki on torture:
One well documented effect of torture is that, with rare exceptions, people will say or do anything to escape the situation, including untrue "confessions" and implication of others without genuine knowledge, who may well then be tortured in turn. That information may have been extracted from the Birmingham Six through the use of police beatings was counterproductive because it made the convictions unsound as the confessions were worthless.

This is why its not been used prior to bush and co. seeing how sucessful it is on 24. Cause its utterly fucking worthless, provides unsound intel, and can lead to false arrests and misallocation of resources chasing an endless rabbit hole of trails.

JACK BAUER IS NOT A REAL DUDE!!

"Imagine Birmingham..." - I pee'd myself!

Seem like a nice enough chap, but i did a little research...



'He fully acknowledges giving financial support for Muslim combatants.

A police search of his home reportedly found night vision goggles, a bulletproof vest, and extremist Islamic literature.

He was again arrested in 2000 under British anti-terrorism laws during a raid on the Maktabah Al Ansar bookshop in Birmingham, which he had founded. The British government retrieved encrypted files from his computer and ordered Begg to open them, but Begg refused.

in 2000, his store was found to offer such titles as The Virtues of Jihad and Declaration of War. In 1999 the store commissioned and published a book which said such things as "Terror works and that is why the believers are commanded to enforce it by Allah.


A Summary of Evidence memo of the following allegations against him:

a. The detainee is a member of al Qaida and other affiliated terrorist organizations.

1. The detainee recruited individuals to attend al Qaida run terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
2. The detainee provided money and material support to al Qaida terrorist training camps.
3. The detainee has received extensive training at al Qaida run terrorist training camps since 1993. He has been trained on the AK-47, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), handgun, ambush theory, detection of land mines and he manufacture of improvised grenades.
4. The detainee provided support to al Qaida terrorists by providing shelter for their families while the al Qaida members committed terrorist acts.
b. The detainees engaged in hostile acts against the United States or its coalition Partners.
1. The detainee was armed and prepared to fight on the frontlines against US and allied forces alongside Taliban and al Qaida fighters.
2. The detainee retreated to the Tora Bora Afghanistan along with other Taliban and al Qaida fighters.
3. The detainee engaged in these hostile actions while neither he nor his fellow fighters wore distinctive military emblems on their clothes, not followed a typical chain of command.
4. The detainee provided support to Usama Bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network with full knowledge that Bin Laden had issued a declaration of war against the United States and that the al Qaida network had committed numerous terrorist attacks against the United States and its citizens.

Begg's known and suspected contacts with extremists:

Shahid Akram Butt
* Leader of the 'Lynx Gang', in Birmingham, England known associate of Begg arrested in Britain for fraud and in Yemen on conspiring to cause death and destruction
Khalil al-Deek
* lived in Peshawar, Pakistan while Begg lived there;
* invested with Begg
Abu Zubaydah
* an associate of al-Deek;
* Begg claims never to have met Zubaydah, but United States Department of Defense (DoD) says he admitted to it during interrogation.
Richard C. Reid
* DoD suspects links
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi
* DoD suspects links
Abu Qatada
* DoD suspects links
Dhiren Barot
* Wrote a book that was commissioned and published by Begg's bookshop'




Just saying...

(Did you expect people in extremist groups to be big scary green monsters?)

>> ^Trancecoach:
Republicans. Catering to lynch mobs since 1850.


I think most of the southern slave states, and those behind the segregation that required the the deployment of the National Guard to Birmingham, were Democrats or Dixiecrats.

On the other hand the Dodgers used to play in Brooklyn.

This is believable and expected. The demographics clearly invalidates the Birmingham mayor's point; that "The Word of God" helps against crime. Of course, it doesn't.

To be scientific about it, you have to consider that this may be a fluke. The data may be misleading, and as such this area could use further study. In any case this does show a disturbing tendency between the number of churches and the high crime rate. This is also an area that could use further study. Perhaps if the churches were removed, the crime rate would go down? I'm not nearly pompous or self-deluded to know that I hold the answer to that question, but certainly a consensus could be reached, and maybe the experiment could be tried.

After all, if we try it and we're right, Birmingham gains everything and if we try it and wrong, Birmingham stays the same.

i never tire of base jumping vids..

would love to do it someday.

That tower in Malmo... kinda sticks out a bit... doesn't really fit with the rest of the city.

Sadly, whilst I absolutely adore Sweden (my most favourite country).... Malmo isn't a nice city... kind of like the birmingham of Sweden... sprawling, soul-less and not at all attractive.