>> ^tedbater:

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
You do know that the bible calls for similar things right?
All religion is bad.

Really? Where?
Please back statements like this up.


Are you even slightly serious?

If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)

Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children. (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)

This is just a sampling, should I go on?

Great. I never thought anything would make me feel sorry for ants.

Now i'm worried about 20 terrified and confused drone males, sent in the mail for days without air food or water, then trapped in a fiercely illuminated blue light.

They scream and panic at first, then they try to dig to find their queen to save them, only to find they are surrounded by impenetrable transparent walls. They're forced to eat a weird glowing synthetic gel, slowly getting dizzy as the oxygen levels drop.

Finally going mad and dying of lonely despair in their alien prison.

...Makes a magnifying glass seem merciful.

[Rev 18:2] And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

[Rev 19:97] And I heard as if it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Trolololo: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, saying, Trolololo.

I see what you're saying. I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm not gonna say the world is all tulips and butterflies, but as someone who used to be in a pretty dark place myself and think there was no point to anything, I guess the only thing I can offer is the hope that maybe you won't feel that way forever. In my case, I realized a lot of the assumptions I was making about other people were just plain wrong. They were based on the fact that I'd been hurt pretty bad when I was younger by people I trusted, and I kind of developed this self-defense mechanism of just assuming everyone is an asshat. If you don't ever get close to anybody, they can't ever hurt you right?

I can't say it was any one thing that changed me in the end. Over time I started to become aware of inconsistencies in my perceptions. People I thought were total assholes turned out to be all right. And other people that were actually assholes... I came to understand why they acted that way. Sometimes, knowing how they got there, I couldn't blame them. Plus, I was pretty miserable too believing the worst in people all the time. So I decided to change.

Anyways, I hope you can change your mind someday too.

In reply to this comment by NinjaInHeat:
You're right, about pretty much everything you said, but there's no better or worse here, there's a person and his willingness to make "his world" better. Will I receive less support when I need it most if I turn my back on most people in my community, of course, that is unfortunately not reason enough for me to not do so seeing as I hate my community. I can be a "better" person, I can say hi to my neighbors, I can help people out, I can do lots of shit, I just don't want to in most cases. It's not some fierce ideology, it's just me as a person reacting to how I feel about my fellow man (which is usually disgust). Don't get me wrong, I don't go out of my way to fuck people over, and I'm not an asshole generally, but I will go out of my way to remain passive, just the thought of associating myself with other people in some common goal makes me sick. Human kind is a mass of retarded flesh from which occasionally there gets spewed a decent chunk, a free thinker, someone I can respect. Ignoring everyone but those few can be considered childish, but in my eyes it's not an option, it's either that or to be constantly consumed by rage and frustration, the world of tomorrow doesn't really enter the equation...

Wow those California gurls are undeniable - Fine, fresh, fierce, they got it on lock. Westcoast represent! Now put your hands up - BAHT BAH BAHBA BAHABAB BHABA AHHhhhHhHh

Oh, ouch.

You're right, about pretty much everything you said, but there's no better or worse here, there's a person and his willingness to make "his world" better. Will I receive less support when I need it most if I turn my back on most people in my community, of course, that is unfortunately not reason enough for me to not do so seeing as I hate my community. I can be a "better" person, I can say hi to my neighbors, I can help people out, I can do lots of shit, I just don't want to in most cases. It's not some fierce ideology, it's just me as a person reacting to how I feel about my fellow man (which is usually disgust). Don't get me wrong, I don't go out of my way to fuck people over, and I'm not an asshole generally, but I will go out of my way to remain passive, just the thought of associating myself with other people in some common goal makes me sick. Human kind is a mass of retarded flesh from which occasionally there gets spewed a decent chunk, a free thinker, someone I can respect. Ignoring everyone but those few can be considered childish, but in my eyes it's not an option, it's either that or to be constantly consumed by rage and frustration, the world of tomorrow doesn't really enter the equation...

In reply to this comment by SDGundamX:
Your "world," like mine, is probably composed of friends and relatives. That is what I meant by "world," your personal world. And yes, the "world" (your friends and family) will come and help you when you're in a pinch if you've taken the time to carefully forge those connections (and they won't if you haven't). And in fact the greater world at large may come and help you too--but certainly not if you've been turning your back on it and free-riding the whole time.

I'm not asking you to fix society. I'm simply telling you if you want to live in a better "world" (in the personal sense), you can start making changes right where you are. You could say "hi" to your neighbors and get to know them better. You could help clean up trash in your neighborhood. Basically, you can improve your "local" world. Do something. Do anything. Get other people to do something with you (friends or family). And encourage them to get others to do something. Like I said, doesn't have to be huge or take a lot of time. The thing is, it's those collections of individual choices on a grand scale that shape our society. By improving your local "world" you in fact help improve the world at large as well.

As an aside, there's nothing wrong with being egocentric. That was the whole point of my post. If you truly are egocentric you'll realize your happiness in fact rests a great deal on the stability and happiness of the community in which you reside. It's in your best interest to make sure things don't go down the shitter. And (you'll just have to take my word for this) it actually turns out to be a lot more fun than whatever it was you were doing by yourself.

In reply to this comment by NinjaInHeat:
SDGundamX: The "world" doesn't back you up when you're in a pinch. And yes, individual actions do matter, and the world won't become a better place if people sit around and do nothing. I guess all I have to say is that
a: lucky thing the entire world isn't like myself
b: if you're willing to spend time and energy towards making this world a better place to live in (mostly for future generations as actual change takes bucketloads of time), good for you, I'm not, again, I have more egocentric things on my mind, and I lack the will to try and fix a society I feel completely alienated from.

Bill Withers is the man. He's had many hits that are still popular today in their original form...covers...rap artists sampling him, etc. Not to mention a captivating voice. Pretty fascinating career too, battles with record companies and such.

I've always loved his lyrics...simple and right to the point, but still somehow colorful and emotional. Best. I love when people try to sing his songs on American Idol (what, my little sisters watch it) and the judges all shake their heads because they fail at reproducing the soul of the song.

You've also gotta respect his outlook on life:

COX: So, I want to ask you to look at the choices that Bill Withers has made in his life to now and tell us which choice you made was your best choice, and which one you made was your worst?

Mr. WITHERS: Let's make it a generalization thing. The best choices that I made was when I was - when I accepted who I was and was honest with myself and went about things how I believed it, without worrying about whether I was going to impress somebody or not. And the worst choices that I made was when I was trying to gain somebody's approval rather than choosing on principle. And every time I compromise one of my principles, the price is fierce for that.

From:
Songwriter Bill Withers And A Career Cut Short
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7236327

These P&T tamping machines (4:04 onwards) are fierce. They mostly use the P&T Unimat 09-16/4S over here and you can feel the ground shaking for several hundreds of meters.

Two years ago, they had a train around that renewed two tracks simultaneously, both rails and railway sleepers. Huge fucking thing. Attracted quite a crowd, too, even though they only used it at night to minimize downtime.

God bless this man for saying what needs to be said, in such a fierce and cutting-to-the-core sort of way.

It's hard to hear the truth sometimes, isn't it, downvoters?

>> ^MarineGunrock:

Duh. You make a very good point there. But at least none of those people think they belong to a "community" or "culture"


Oh, man... yeah they do...

Here in Australia the two largest versions of this are Ford vs Holden (now owned by GM), people will seriously beat the hell out of others based on liking the wrong car brand.

I completely don't get it... my first real car that I bought when I was 20 or so was a Holden Commodore, and then the first car my wife and I bought when we became a serious 'family' as such was a Ford Falcon

So, yeah, not limited to Apple whatsoever. People like to show that they are 'Apple' overtly as a 'sticking it to the man' against MS I would say. And the fierce arguments between both sides is very similar to the fights between people with different consoles. A lot of it comes down to fear that you've backed the wrong horse... at least I reackon when I was a kid with a ZX Spectrum it was... 'Nah, the Spectrum is better than the C64... yeah... is... nerrr'

My distaste for Apple as a company is their smarmy fricken attitude and those vs ads predominantly. IF they had been doing ads about how great their machines are all this time without the bullshit pissing on MS then I'd be far more happy for them.

Oh... I know another thing that gets me riled up... the users themselves. We have a couple in our company, and they're forever trying to convert you over to Apple... Argh. Shuttup. Be happy with your Apple, and I'll be happy with my PC.

So that's where my bleating comes from, others trying to tell me how wrong I am to like Windows.

Hell, I LIKE Macs. Last two laptops I bought I wanted them to BE Macs but could not come at the huge price difference.

Still... that doesn't mean I can see the point in the iPad still Useless lump that it is

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

Unless you are going on a small handful of issues, I don't see how progressive types could form a coalition with the Libertarian minded. Just seem to be way too many fundamental philosophical issues. However, I think the US would be served by a multi-party system that required factions to seek allies on key issues. The duopoly of the major parties really does exist.

The fierce jousting you see on TV is the greatest show on Earth, and a farce. They all go to the same country clubs and eat from the same pork troughs. Throw the bums out.

I looks like they do just that, they lock onto the throats and try to puncture it with their talons. It looks like in some cases the Mongolian hunter comes in and helps finish the job as well.

>> ^ghark:
Wow at first i thought it was a semi-suicide mission for the eagles as the wolves were clearly bigger, heavier and fighting back pretty fiercely, but the eagles always seemed to come out on top. I'm curious as to how the eagle actually makes the kill, do they lock onto the throats and try and strangle the wolves?

Wow at first i thought it was a semi-suicide mission for the eagles as the wolves were clearly bigger, heavier and fighting back pretty fiercely, but the eagles always seemed to come out on top. I'm curious as to how the eagle actually makes the kill, do they lock onto the throats and try and strangle the wolves?

>> ^aceofkidneys:
>> ^Simple_Man:
As a Canadian and a Vancouverite, I am embarrassed that this happened. What has happened to my Canada?

Amen brother, as a fellow vancouverite I have never felt more shame for my city and my country. I hope we don't win a single medal on our own soil (again), due to all the horrible karma stirred up from this situation, taking billions of our tax dollars, not letting other countries practice on the turf THEY WILL BE COMPETING ON, and now this blasphemy, it makes me so disappointed and mad. Fuck you Vanoc, fuck you both provincial and federal government, and fuck you olympics in general.
There called olympic GAMES, not olympic I'm better then yous.


This comment makes me ashamed to be a Canadian.

It's the Olympics. A couple weeks will have passed and the only thing that'll happen is a few countries will gain a small amount of national prestiege and in 4 years, it'll be forgotten in everything but the Olympic History book.

You're still a Canadian, As am I. Born and raised in Ontario, and i'll probably die here, too.
Americans may be known for fierce patriotism, but god knows Canadians are right behind them. I'm proud of my Country, viewed by the world as peace keepers and neutrality.

Sure, we're pulling a dick move with these games, and I agree that it should be rectified, but I would NEVER betray my own country by wishing it does badly. Now, as far as I understand, it's mostly Americans that are shocked over the lack of us allowing them to come train with us. Truthfully, lets think of this for a minute. In terms of "Dick Moves" I think the Americans have quite a bit more racked up then we do, however I understand "An eye for an eye." and still agree, that its not right.

However, This article basically explains it all, better then I can ever say here.
There's an advantage. There always has been, and there always will be, however, maybe it's our turn to actually use it for once.

Fat and stupid...religious and mean. Fiercely patriotic.

Possessive. "This is not your country, it's ours!"

Who does that remind me of?