Channeling a little Kristen Bell I believe.

https://videosift.com/video/Kristen-Bell-meets-a-sloth

Sequentially we just saw; an average member of the public certain that a bill would stay, followed by someone who works in media who said that she had utmost faith in the bill staying.

Am i Lord Stupid of Stupidville for thinking that there might be a connection there which should make sirens and alarm bells go off in our brains?

With respect to the senior correspondent at Vox, how in the name of Zeus' arsehole did someone so naive get to be in that position?

If she was so sure and casual about it, then probably the articles and/or people that she oversaw would have been just as flippant in their reporting, which in turn gave the reader the impression they didn't have to be concerned with keeping what they needed.

And there are plenty of white people stuck in terrible situations who don't take the "bus."

There is a concept out there in pedagogy land about the importance of "grit." A teacher noticed who made it out -- those who had grit.

So there has been some movement to teach kids to have "grit."

Turns out it isn't that easy.

Full disclosure -- I do NOT have "grit." I get knocked down, I stay down. I am leveled by some of the smallest events.

I DO have tremendous luck. Born with good health, good brains, an addiction to food and not to something that wipes out my brain like some drugs, Depression-era parents who were frugal and determined that their children would not suffer what they suffered, easy access to college in the early 70s when tuition and rents weren't hugely expensive.

I wouldn't be sitting in relative ease right now if I hadn't had that string of luck. Because had I had to climb over serious obstacles, I am 99% sure I would not have done it. No grit, you see. Just luck.

Frosts my beehind that this racist tool who criticizes social justice advocates with that first clip of Freeman saying "stop talking about race" don't have the intellectual and emotional intelligence to understand what he is saying. It is clear as a bell -- but this tool is tone deaf. As is the sifter who posted this (I say that with clarity, based on years of reading his posts before I started ignoring him as a lost cause.)

Here is the problem, Mr. Schlosser is a journalist, not a Nuclear Scientist. He does not understand, or has chosen to ignore for propaganda reasons, that an unarmed warhead is EXTREMELY unlikely to perform the exact sequence of events that need to take place to have a nuclear reaction happen.

Yes, he is fully correct in that we have had numerous 'butt-clenching' moments in which we could have started WW3 due to a malfunction or human error. But in the other cases he mentions, such as the bombs that landed on Spain, the lightning bolt on the tower, and the wrench on the rocket, the chance of the warhead going up while being unarmed is infinitesimal. They simply don't go 'boom' because of a collision or explosion. Now you could have a 'dirty bomb' type incident where the radioactive materials could be spread and come into contact with humans, but that is about it.

The cases that have been officially listed as Broken Arrows were because they involved an active bomb, like the one in Florida. Everything else he mentions in this video is his 'belief' and is conjecture.

Now, before I get unloaded on, I wish we didn't have nuclear weapons. I don't agree with Trump that we should renew the arms race, I think he is nuts since we have more than enough weapons to blanket the cities of the world more than a couple of times. If you add all the nukes from the Big 3 (USA/Russia/France...yes, France) there are enough to cover every single inch of the world.

The problem is, who bells the cat? If we give up all of our weapons, we are at risk. I wish we weren't, but we would be. If we bring down our numbers gradually, there are still other countries that may not, like North Korea. How do we trust the other country is actually following through? In a perfect world, we would all lay down our weapons and sing kumbaya, but as Heinlein wrote: "...Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."

PS...Yes, I know Starship Troopers is a controversial novel with overtones of Militarism and Fascism. However, there are quotes that ring true no matter what 'ism' people attach to the overall story. If you doubt that, look at the utter disbelief and depression that overcame liberals when Trump won. "He simply was supposed to, it was impossible, not like this, we have no hope, etc" were the feelings of the people who gave him no hope of winning. I, having lived and read enough to get a fair picture of how fucked up we are as a species, had little doubt he could pull it off. We elected a former Wrestler as governor, a former actor as governor, and a former actor as President. We overlook mass genocide in other countries. We ignore climate change. We spend hundreds of billions on defense and less than 10 on space exploration, all the while living on a planet that is already critically overpopulated (and is growing almost exponentially).

*ban
Eric Allen Bell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3tTSkcmxG4

My absolute favorite version of Carol of the bells. *doublepromote

I'm your only friend
I'm not your only friend
But I'm a little glowing friend
But really I'm not actually your friend
But I am

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

I have a secret to tell
From my electrical well
It's a simple message and I'm leaving out the whistles and bells
So the room must listen to me
Filibuster vigilantly
My name is blue canary one note spelled l-I-t-e
My story's infinite
Like the Longines Symphonette it doesn't rest

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

I'm your only friend
I'm not your only friend
But I'm a little glowing friend
But really I'm not actually your friend
But I am

There's a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free
Though I respect that a lot
I'd be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts
Bluebird of friendliness
Like guardian angels its always near

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

(And while you're at it
Keep the nightlight on inside the
Birdhouse in your soul)

Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch (and while you're at it)
Who watches over you (keep the nightlight on inside the)
Make a little birdhouse in your soul (birdhouse in your soul)

Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch (and while you're at it)
Who watches over you (keep the nightlight on inside the)
Make a little birdhouse in your soul (birdhouse in your soul)

Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Theoretically, science works great. However, as has already been noted, in the real world in certain fields, the pressure to publish something "substantial" combined with the inability to get grants for certain experiments because they aren't "trendy" right now causes scientists to self-limit the kinds of research they undertake, which is not at all great for increasing human knowledge.

Another problem is the "expert opinion" problem--when someone with little reputation in the field finds something that directly contradicts the "experts" in the field, they often face ridicule. The most famous recent case of this was 2011 Nobel Prize winner Dan Shechtman, who discovered a new type of crystal structure that was theoretically impossible in 1982 and was roundly criticized and ridiculed for it until a separate group of researchers many years later actually replicated his experiment and realized he had been right all along. This web page lists several more examples of scientists whose breakthrough research was ignored because it didn't match the "expert consensus" of the period.

Finally, in the humanities at least, one of the biggest problems in research that uses a quantitative approach (i.e. statistics) is that researchers apply a statistical method to their data, such a as a t-test, without actually demonstrating that whatever being studied follows a normal distribution (i.e bell curve). Many statistical tests are only accurate if what is being studied is normally distributed, yet I've seen a fair share of papers published in respected journals that apply these tests to objects of study that are quite unlikely to be normally distributed, which makes their claims of being "statistically significant" quite suspect.

There are other statistical methods (non-parametric) that you can use on data that is not normally distributed but generally speaking a test of significance on data taken from a normally distributed pool is going to be more reliable. As is noted in this video, the reason these kinds of mistakes slip through into the peer-reviewed journals is that sometimes the reviewers are not nearly as well-trained in statistical analysis as they are in other methodologies.

So you do now see why I thought you were calling him an immigrant? It certainly reads that way. Glad to know you didn't mean it.

As for killing gays in the name of Allah -- turns out not so much, now that reporting and information gathering has had time to happen.

A man who lives in America, being told on all sides that being gay is an abomination and sinful -- by some Christians, Muslims, good lord how many different sources -- who hangs out in gay bars in what pit of self-loathing because of the messages he received during his life....

A perfect case of internalized homophobia. Do a google search to find out how many of the most virulently anti-gay people turn out to actually be gay.

When this first happened, my first thought was to go up those who say gay people are sinners, take them by their lapels, look them in their eyes and say, "The blood of these people is on your hands. Your attacks on the humanity of these people who were made as God made them, have led to this horrific event."

So a hint back at you -- it isn't just sharia law that led to this. It is old fashioned religious bigotry and fear of the "other" -- very few religions are free from this crap. Certainly not Christianity. Westboro Baptist Church ring a bell?

Donald Trump is unfit for the office of the Presidency of the United States of America. This is a fact.

@bobknight33 --

I continue to agree with you on a lot of what you're saying (but not all).

Trump and Sanders are both riding a wave of frustration in the people, as you say. Their current popularity, even if both only go downhill from here, has already partially sent that message to both parties. I don't think Trump would make a good president, but if he wins the election I think that really hammering home that message of frustration could be a significant positive outcome. Same goes for some hypothetical scenario resulting in Sanders getting elected, although I personally feel quite positive about the other stuff that I think Sanders would bring to the table, unlike how I feel about Trump.

If there's one area where I think the government could stand to get *bigger*, it's in oversight, evaluation, and accountability. Being under the microscope and heavily scrutinized perhaps isn't a recipe for optimal efficiency, but I think we desperately need more of it in government AND the private sector.

Early in my lifetime, a large corporation that had a relatively benign monopoly by today's standards was considered a big enough deal for the government to step in and break it up. AT&T / Bell got split into the "Baby Bells". Corporations now are vast juggernauts compared to that, but since they make gigantic profits I guess we collectively see them as bastions of Capitalism. But I think that in reality they are doing much more harm to Capitalism with their monopolies, collusion, and corruption.

I think Sanders is the candidate most likely to even *try* to do something to roll back that shift, and bring back oversight and accountability to government. Hillary sure as hell wouldn't do it. And I don't think Trump would either -- he is the literal face of a gigantic Corporation himself, after all.

I had high hopes for Obama. He didn't live up to them, but to be fair I think the lion's share of that is on the Legislative branch. That taught me to be careful about putting much of any stock into Presidential campaign promises, particularly about things outside the scope of what the Executive branch can actually do.

I think Trump and Clinton both put *themselves* first, ahead of all else. I don't think Clinton gives a flying fuck about any of us plebs, beyond attempting to pander to large demographic blocks of us just enough to secure our votes. Maybe Trump cares more for Joe Average than Clinton, but only incidentally -- as a Capitalist he needs Joe Averages to buy his products, and buy into his image.

I don't get the same read from Sanders. I think he actually does give a shit. A lot of his agenda would require a cooperative Legislature, which he wouldn't get -- just like Obama. So in terms of changing the status quo, perhaps his biggest impact would simply be in sending the establishment a loud and clear message that we are no longer content with business as usual in Washington. A message very similar to what electing Trump would send.

It would/ will take me some soul searching, but assuming that Hillary gets the Democrat nomination over Sanders, a desire to send that message might be enough to get me to vote for Trump. But voting for a reasonably tolerable option from a minor party might serve that end just as well. Say Jesse Ventura running as a Libertarian, or Jill Stein from the Green Party. Stein has the very distinct advantage (from my perspective) of being the only current candidate who has said that she would grant a Presidential pardon to Ed Snowden (although Ventura would too, IF he runs). Pardons are one of the few things that a President can actually *do* unilaterally -- and that makes that a pretty damn good "single issue" prompt for my vote, in my opinion.

I could listen to this guy all day. Voice as clear as a bell.

"The pinnacle of motor sport met the pinnacle of winter sports" and jumped the shark on Red Bull's retarded string of perceived amazing stunts.

Next up... A trans turtle space fairing balloonist vs. the world championship BLT sandwich making Badminton player in a duel of wits as they race to the top of Olympus Mans on the red planet. The first competitor to the top must chug a jar of pickled mushroom bell bottoms to claim the prize of most inane competition.

Join us on Sunday with Marv Albert in his lingerie to take in this one of a kind Redbull bullshit competition.

Seriously, this is starting to feel like the strange crap Wide World of Sports put out in the 70's.

And see, this is what makes you a great person. Just imagine if you HADN'T been there to roll joints for your friends -- sorta like It's A Wonderful Life. Without you, your friends would have been trying to make a pipe out of a plastic bottle, a Bic pen, some tinfoil and Elmer's Wood Glue. They might have succeeded, too, much to everyone's horror when the foil rips and they inhaled burning coals of pot directly into their lungs, leading to them dying terribly! But they never built that hellish contraption because YOU were there to roll joints for them instead! And teacher says every time a bell rings, some stoner just tried to make a pipe out of an apple. See? It really IS a Blunt-er-ful life!

I'd just like to say a word about dabs and the partaking thereof: Jesus Christ these things are like getting kicked right in the third eye by one of those horses from My Little Pony. Like maybe the blue one or something. I dunno, I'm pretty high right now, but I'm sure there's a blue one. Anyway, yeah, dabs . . . fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

It's a lovely day in Ballarat
I'm kicking back, thinking of you
I hear that you've been poorly
I am sorry that you're feeling blue

I know what it's like when you feel a little shitty
You just want to curl up and have an itty-bitty doona day
But a lot of people here really miss ya, Georgie
They really think you oughta just get on a plane
(Just get on a plane)
We all just want you to...

Come home, Cardinal Pell
I know you're not feeling well
And being crook ain't much fun
Even so, we think you should come

Home, Cardinal Pell
Come down from your citadel
It's just the right thing to do
We have a right to know what you knew

Couldn't you see what was under your nose, Georgie
Back in '73 when you were living with Gerry?
Is it true that you knew but you chose to ignore
Or did you actively try to keep it buried?

And years later, when survivors, despite their shame and their fear
Stood up to tell their stories, you spent year after year
Working hard to protect the church's assets
I mean, with all due respect, dude, I think you're scum!
And I reckon you should...

Come home, Cardinal Pell
(Cardinal Pell)
I know you're not feeling well
Perhaps you just need some sun
It's lovely here, you should come

Home, you pompous buffoon
(Pompous buffoon)
And I suggest do it soon
I hear the tolling of the bell
And it has a Pellian knell

I want to be transparent here, George, I'm not the greatest fan of your religion
And I personally believe that those who cover up abuse should go to prison
But your ethical hypocrisy, your intellectual vacuity, and your arrogance don't bother me as much
As the fact that you have turned out to be such a goddamn coward

You're a coward, Georgie
(You're a coward, George)
Come and face the music, Georgie
(Face the music, George)
You owe it to the victims, Georgie
(You owe it, George)
Come and face the music, the music
Hallelujah, hallelujah
If the Lord God omnipotent reigneth
He would take one look at you and say:
(One look at you and say)

"Go home, Cardinal Pell
I've got a nice spot in hell
With your name on it and so
I suggest you toughen up and go

"Home, Cardinal Pell
I'm sure they'll make you feel wel-
Come at the pub in Ballarat
They just want a beer and a chat"

Come home, Cardinal Pell
(Cardinal Pell)
I know you're scared, Georgie-Poo
(Come home)
They have a right to know what you knew

Your time is running out to atone, Georgie
I think the Lord is calling ya home, Georgie
Perhaps he could forgive even you
If you just let them know what you knew

Oh, Cardinal Pell
My lawyer just rang me to tell
Me this song
Could get me in legal trouble

Oh well, Cardinal Pell
If you don't feel compelled
To come home by
A sense of moral duty
Perhaps you will come home and frickin' sue me