@Mordhaus, yeah, good points. Thanks for the clarification of what lies behind the soundbite (nobody has time to explain what they really mean these days, do they?)

However (isn't there always a "however"), I don't agree with "valid to question the integrity of the second vet." Integrity? Pretty loaded word.

It presumes that someone can be gungho about something in the abstract but when confronted with the reality, can't learn something about the world and themselves they didn't know before.

You're right that he didn't know he was CO before. He learned he was.

It isn't integrity to turn away from a learning situation. To me, it is the utmost in integrity.
There are different types of bravery. The bravery to go into battle. And the bravery to decide in the closeknit world of "band of brothers" that you can't be in that particular band anymore.

Maybe it was cowardice in the face of death or maiming that he learned and he ran away. I would say, in this particular case, he honestly came to a new understanding. Otherwise he wouldn't be speaking up, right? He'd be hiding at home? Knowing what soldiers who stayed are saying about him?

War is hell. So many casualties, both physical and mental.

Please explain yourself. What point did lawdeedaw address that you agree with? I see none.

Yes, the video is pure snuff as I see it, as it contained zero educational value, no information at all in fact. Also because it's a graphic depiction of both murder and violent killing. It fits every portion of 'snuff' as described in the rules...and I'm fairly pissed off @Lawdeedaw for posting it at all, and disturbed that he's defending it so angrily.
I (and others) don't come here for faces of death, and that's ALL this was in my opinion. Because one of the multiple dead people was heroic makes absolutely zero difference.

And to address the red herring, videos of cops killing citizens is also snuff, and I have labeled many of them as such and seen them be removed, and I have also refrained from posting many videos that I thought were extremely relevant and informative BECAUSE they included a graphic murder/killing, far more informative than this video and with a far less graphic murder or death than the two this video contains.

If this is deemed 'not snuff', many will likely leave the sift. People come here because the rules keep videos like this one out. If I randomly find murder videos here, there's no longer a reason for me to be here....and I'm sure I'm not alone in that....that's why the rule exists.

I suspect that for some cyclists that's actually part of the appeal.
If they couldn't weave through traffic laughing in the face of death there would be nothing in it for them.

not much 'avoiding' going on....Better title for yas, oh princess of human tragedy...

Near Miss: Faces of Death Ruskie-Style

My reaction was: "Okay, that's it. I'm done with this show. I'll never watch Game of Thrones again and I'll never read the books, because the plot has gotten too repetitive and therefore extremely annoying!¹ It continuously uses the same pattern over and over again. Why should I bother watching the show if I know that every interesting and/or likable character (except Tyrion) will face certain death at the next best opportunity (George R.R. Martin said so himself, but I didn't expect him to do this every damn time) just as a means to shock the audience/readership and an attempt to make the plot seem unpredictable. But you know what? If you kill off the most likable and interesting character(s) every season/novel, this is very predictable. It's just lazy and unimaginative storytelling."

That's why I had already expected this to happen, although I really hoped it wouldn't, not only because I liked the character, but because this pattern is really starting to get old. Therefore, I just found it severely annoying, since it seemed so predictable and repetitive. However, I have come to terms with this outcome since then and I'll most probably keep watching the show, but I may never get invested in any character's fate again, because it can be easily predicted.

¹I'm not usually one to stop watching a show for any reason, except if it's really badly written and executed, and even then I give it at least several episodes to make up my mind. So I'm not one of those who say "If [insert character name] dies, I'll stop watching the show."

Here's the thing. What people are upset about is the fact that the video states "22 Dead" right in the title. Test yourselves out honestly. Would you have watched it if the video had a different title? Something like, "Terror on the Russian roadways! Don't go when the light is Green!!!" I don't know if anyone remembers really the faces of death/red asphalt videos, but there was no "evidence" of death (brains, blood, pools of liquid, dropped health packs...) here.

Yep-Doesn't belong here because like myself, a buncha folks can't stand that faces-of-death shit for the sake of entertainment or spectacle....it's fucking twisted as far as I'm concerned and deleterious otherwise to the psyche and soul to meditate on the same, voyeuristically-speaking....reflects a general lack of healthy socialization and higher-cortical function.

Get a fucking life, stop watching ambulances and listening to television news stories about the carnage, fires, wife-beatings and human suffering in your local area, and have a NICE goddamned day

Can I down-vote this fucking shit that's not snuff but sucks huge, bulging moose cock yet??

Anyone here old enough to remember 'Faces of Death' on VHS? This kinda reminds me of that, except now apparently we should cheer as tragedy strikes.

>> ^thumpa28:

Oh wow i see what you did there, its like prison minus the torturing to death bit! Wait, i got one too!
I wonder if the people facing the death penalty in Texas can blink 'electric chair'1!!!
Ohohoh i love Videosift for its deep socio political comment and talking cats.
>> ^Payback:
>> ^honkeytonk73:
What I got from his Morse code message was 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in use', not 'torture'.

Ya... I wonder what the Gitmo detainees call their little home-away-from-home.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58&sns=em

Oh wow i see what you did there, its like prison minus the torturing to death bit! Wait, i got one too!

I wonder if the people facing the death penalty in Texas can blink 'electric chair'1!!!

Ohohoh i love Videosift for its deep socio political comment and talking cats.

>> ^Payback:

>> ^honkeytonk73:
What I got from his Morse code message was 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in use', not 'torture'.

Ya... I wonder what the Gitmo detainees call their little home-away-from-home.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

promote
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/In-Memo
riam-Christopher-Hitchens-19492011
gets teary eyed


Thanks for the promote Jigga, I didn't see this one the 1st time around. I'm gonna miss the Hitchslaps...

A friend of mine found this quote from Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife, after he died. Found it pretty inspiring:

"When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me - it still sometimes happens - and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous - not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous and so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time… That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it's much more meaningful…

The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful."

@direpickle I think they're something like, "death + not otherwise newsworthy = snuff". It's to stop Faces of Death style vids, not news events. If that airplane had just crashed into a mountain with no spectators to see it, it wouldn't be acceptable here, is my understanding.

>> ^bcglorf:

You do realize you just admitted that if a country's people need a "less worse life", then America and a few of its allies should move in the planes and bomb them to 'improve' things.
Because bombing Gaddafi's forces as part of a UN mandate, and thus stopping their genocide of the rebels, was indistinguishable from deliberately dropping bombs on civilians. You don't seem capable of understanding the difference between the two. You shouldn't get so vested in things you can't seem to comprehend.
You're also making the assumption that Libya is going to be better off.
Gaddafi promised to commit genocide against Libya's people, that has been stopped. It is not an assumption that they are better off, it is a fact. If that will translate into a long term gain is an open question. I don't see how suffering a genocide under Gaddafi, and his further consolidating his power would improve Libyan's long term prospects. Can you explain how there is any ambiguity at all on this?
Is Iraq better off than before America invaded?
Yes. You seem to be among the ignorant majority that know enough about post-war Iraq to see how horrific it is, but know nothing about Saddam era Iraq to compare it to. It's hard to grasp, particularly given how hard it seems for you to grasp the previously mentioned simple concepts, but it is possible to be worse off than Iraqi's are today.
Iraq's Kurdish people(about 20% of Iraqi's) no longer fear extermination. Iraq's Shia(about 55%) no longer fear for their lifes as well. The remainder of Iraqis may now print pamphlets and voice political ideas without facing the death penalty. Saddam spent decades dividing the nation, sowing discord and letting everything in it fall apart or rot so long as his secret police and iron rule remained in tact. The country's infrastructure was in ruins and it's people were fractured and divided against one another from decades of Saddam's depravations. Iraq isn't a mess today because of the American invasion, it's a mess from decades of abuse and devastation under a tyrannical dictator. America's sin is not removing Saddam, but taking so cursedly long to finally go in and do it.


Look I admire the fact you're giving this a go and putting on your thinking cap, I really do; but let's look at each of your points.

So firstly in terms of Iraq, rather than get subjective let's examine some of the facts:
Iraq's infant mortality rates are currently the highest amongst Arab countries
Iraq's life expectancy has declined (by about 7 years) since the US invasion and is the lowest amongst Arab countries.
Iraq has the second lowest purchasing power of any country in the region, only Yemen is worse,
Child malnutrition has stayed pretty similar, while education has improved.
70% of Iraq's GDP now comes from oil, it's industry and farming sectors have pretty much been destroyed.
http://www.epic-usa.org/node/5620

Overall - the economy is worse, it has next to no industry or farming, health outcomes/life expectancy are worse, while education has improved. So even with this brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, the country was doing better in many areas than it is now, and this is not even looking at the subjective elements such as the hundred thousand dead civilians at the hands of US soldiers and assorted explosive devices. However even though things were perhaps marginally better with Saddam in power, I do agree that his dictatorship was brutal, and things were pretty horrific for many in Iraq. But guess what? Saddam's Ba'ath Party was put in power by the CIA - this is a well documented fact, feel free to look it up. America objected to the fact the previous ruler wanted to nationalize it's own oil reserves. So as horrific as Saddam's reign of terror was, it was because of America that he was allowed to be in power in the first place, and even then things were better than they are now by many measures.

In terms of Gaddafi, you're arguing into the wind, I've never said I thought he was the better option, I'm simply saying that going by the atrocities committed by or for America in recent decades (in Chile, Vietnam, Iraq, Palestine to name a few countries), they are the last country that should be getting involved in any sort of democratization process. All that is assured by this 'victory' is that Libya's natural resources will be plundered, some rich elite will make a killing, the masses will suffer and the new leadership will be just as corrupt as the last.

Lastly, if you're so convinced that America is in Libya to save lives (subvert Gaddafi's genocide) you're being extremely naive. There are far better ways of saving lives than invading a country with bombs, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

You do realize you just admitted that if a country's people need a "less worse life", then America and a few of its allies should move in the planes and bomb them to 'improve' things.

Because bombing Gaddafi's forces as part of a UN mandate, and thus stopping their genocide of the rebels, was indistinguishable from deliberately dropping bombs on civilians. You don't seem capable of understanding the difference between the two. You shouldn't get so vested in things you can't seem to comprehend.

You're also making the assumption that Libya is going to be better off.

Gaddafi promised to commit genocide against Libya's people, that has been stopped. It is not an assumption that they are better off, it is a fact. If that will translate into a long term gain is an open question. I don't see how suffering a genocide under Gaddafi, and his further consolidating his power would improve Libyan's long term prospects. Can you explain how there is any ambiguity at all on this?

Is Iraq better off than before America invaded?

Yes. You seem to be among the ignorant majority that know enough about post-war Iraq to see how horrific it is, but know nothing about Saddam era Iraq to compare it to. It's hard to grasp, particularly given how hard it seems for you to grasp the previously mentioned simple concepts, but it is possible to be worse off than Iraqi's are today.

Iraq's Kurdish people(about 20% of Iraqi's) no longer fear extermination. Iraq's Shia(about 55%) no longer fear for their lifes as well. The remainder of Iraqis may now print pamphlets and voice political ideas without facing the death penalty. Saddam spent decades dividing the nation, sowing discord and letting everything in it fall apart or rot so long as his secret police and iron rule remained in tact. The country's infrastructure was in ruins and it's people were fractured and divided against one another from decades of Saddam's depravations. Iraq isn't a mess today because of the American invasion, it's a mess from decades of abuse and devastation under a tyrannical dictator. America's sin is not removing Saddam, but taking so cursedly long to finally go in and do it.

>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^packo:
>> ^sme4r:
here's the atheist's Pastor's website:
http://www.howardstorm.com/Howard_Storm.html
There are no atheists in foxholes - meaning that in the face of death most people are all of a sudden spiritual.

Christopher Hitchens is a good example of this...
oh, wait... no he isn't
its good to know I can lead a life full of sin, and will be given the opportunity like everyone else to shout out "Jesus" in fevered dreams and be saved
or wait, maybe not like everyone else, because that would sorta be a cop out
maybe this guy is just special... but i thought everyone was in "His" eyes...
well then maybe he works in mysterious ways, and this guy can't convey to you his experience, like the love Jesus felt for him as he carried him... and thats the proof... see?
no? but he wrote a book
no? but the universe is sooo complex, it needs a designer...
no? but everyone believes when they are in a fox hole

Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion

just curious, are you just picking the parts of the book that back your arguement, or the whole book?