>> ^burdturgler:
discuss the ongoing abuse of privileges


Who's, yours? No, I don't believe this should have the Islam tag, as it's not related to the content of the video. I think CP will have to accept that, but I can't help but wonder how much of this is directed at him personally.

Yes, he's disagreeable. Yes, he wants attention as much as we all do. No, he doesnt' see the world the way the majority of the Sift does.

He's the willing bogey man. He has been vilified and made the target of all our hate. We become exactly what we deplore when we deal with him, call him all sorts of names and downvote his videos without even watching them, I've seen you do it. You know you have. And I've found that he brings out our worst, the spite we pretend we don't have. The comments to him have been as abrasive and acrimonious as his.

You want angels to laud and devils to decry. This is what someone used to call "linear thinking". If you want to be surrounded by only the like-minded, the Sift is not for you. I recommend church.

So the tags of now are...

dick, cheney, indicted, indictment, willacy, gonzales, lucio, lopez, prison, corruption

And the channel assignments are...

1sttube
Lies
Politics
News

Seems okay to me, provided it stays that way. Can we get a * return and send CP's top rated video back to the main page? Can we be big about it?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Bush golf lies Iraq war terror lies bogey bunker Olberman Countdown birdie' to 'Bush, golf, lies, Iraq, war, terror, lies, bogey, bunker, Olberman, Countdown, birdie' - edited by lucky760

The Taliban being aided by the Iranians is the dumbest shit faced lie ever pushed out by these talking heads.

Post collapse of the USSR, the US interest in Afghanistan evaporated, the aid ceased and the country was left without a concrete head of state owing to the Soviet-Afghan war. Warlords arose each vying for power, Pakistan got heavily involved in the Pashtun regions and cultivated the growth of the Taliban via it's Afghan War ISI connections, a Pashtun state influenced by Pakistan would be a lucrative accomplishment for such a strategically located nation.

Support also came from Saudi Arabia as they supported a creation of a Islamic Sunni Sharia state regardless of how flawed the Taliban interpretation of Islam was. Iran being a Shia state was not comfortable with such a development, and supported the warlords of the North and the previous government. To a lesser degree other Central Asian nations got involved.

Afghanistan could lead to lucrative Oil and Gas pipelines from the former Central Asian Nations to ports in Pakistan or Iran.

What happened over the next few years was a great game being played between the Central Asian States, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Each trying to influence the Taliban or the warlords depending on who was aligned with their interests. However the Taliban listened to no one really, while basically taking over the entire country through constant war.

Iran supported more moderate or rather alternative forces to the Taliban (one can't claim any real democratic force was in play). Post 9/11 and the incursion of US forces, Iran also provided ample assistance to the Karzai government, a fact rarely reported on by the media or Washington because it dismantles the war driving narrative.

Iran never supported the Taliban.

To claim such a thing shows either a remarkable misunderstanding of the situation on the ground within its historical context or bold lies being pushed to create a larger bogey man out of Iran.

I believe it's a combination of both.

PS: If you desire a deeper understanding of how the Taliban developed and Afghanistan in the early to late 90s, I recommend Ahmed Rashid's Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia.

Well, I can't really disagree with that. Though I think I'd have McQueen at number one if I were to do a list like that, Bogey would definitely be a close second.

^ You may be right. Willem Defoe is easily the most controversial person on the list, and while I think he is cool, he isn't as cool as McQueen. Consider the list amended, although for my own part, Bogey would come in #1.

Of course one has to mention that the hasty decision to redirect US military assets to Iraq pretty much assured the job would not be finished, and Osama Bin Laden who was US enemy target number 1 post 9/11 suddenly became irrelevant and was allowed to reconstitute his operations in Warizstan and Southern Afghanistan.

caveat; Not that capturing Bin Laden is of any importance to the administration really, he's the bogey man they can always rely on to pacify dissenting voices, that and 9/11.

Hi Choggie,

I disagree with your comment on one major point. Beyond that I'm going to make a couple of comments that, if I read the deeper meaning to your statement correctly, we may actually agree on.

First,
A jew is like a black man, you can't scrub the jewish off him.....an Atheist, has developed and adopted a system of beliefs, just like a Christian, which is NOT like a Jew

Jewish is not a race. This is a common misconception. The misconception was compounded in the US by a SCOTUS ruling in the 80's. The ruling stated the Jewish can be considered a race for purposes of anti-discrimination laws. Many Jews were very upset by this because they felt that it misrepresented what a Jew was.
(Watch me tip-toe around this mine field.... Just to be clear I think the SCOTUS decision was good if it prevents discrimination)
Not to belabor the point, but because it is such a commonly held belief that Jewish is a race I want to make sure I'm clear. Jews come from many different places. There are Arab Jews, Russian Jews, African Jews. They are not all descendants of the ethnic group that most people commonly associate with Jews (Ashkenazim), nor are they recent converts.
Here is a picture of a married Jewish couple:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/6/6b/200px-Ashk_mizrahi_couple.jpg
He is a Ashkenazim Jew (The group we most associate with Jews) and she is a Mizrahi Jew.
What do you think, same race? Same culture/religion absolutely, same race I don't think so.

I hope I've shown that a Jew is like an atheist or Christian.

I think however that your argument does have merit. You would have been on a more solid foundation if you had used my comparison to women as your challenge of my statement. Women definitely can't "scrub" it off. If I read your opinion correctly (and please tell me if I'm not) you feel that there are different degrees of bigotry/discrimination and that ridicule on the grounds of race is worse than on the grounds of ideas or beliefs. I'm going to assume that you also feel that bigotry based on sex is also worse than basing it on ideas or beliefs.

Well I agree! I think basing bigotry on something that someone can't change is worse that basing it on something they can change/hide.
Allow me to give you an example:
I live in Japan and have faced numerous instances of racism and bigotry. One of the worst and most recent was when I was looking for a new apartment. The vast majority of apartment owners (over 90 percent, and this is in Tokyo, much worse in smaller areas) would not rent to me because I was not Japanese. I can't hide that I'm not Japanese, it's as clear as the white skin on my face. However if they were going to discriminate on the grounds that I was an atheist, well that would be easy enough to hide. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I could do it if necessary.

So in short; Yes I think you have a valid point. Not all discrimination or bigotry is equal.

However in my defense, it was never my intention to suggest that bigotry towards atheists is equal to bigotry towards Jews or women. (I realize now that it could come across that way but it really wasn't my intention). I do happen to believe that had the same things been said about Jews it would have been worse. Basically because of the tragic history of the Jews and the resurgence of anti-Jewish feeling around the world. I do think that they are in a much more precarious position in the world than atheist are.

There are many different things you couldn't say on television without being challenged in the strongest terms. The reason I posted the comment about replacing the word atheist with the word Jew or woman was just to draw attention to the fact that I found it hypocritical that it seems OK to say whatever outrageous things you'd like about atheists, but when it comes to many other groups pundits would think long and hard about saying the same things. I never meant to put the overall situation of atheists on equal footing with Jews or women.

As well please don't think that I feel atheists or atheism is a sacred cow. I would have had very little problem with the pundits attacking the ideas/beliefs of atheism or atheists. That's fair game, but that was not what they were doing. They were obviously completely uniformed and were taking wild swings at the big bad bogey man that they believe atheism to be. Not once in their ranting did I hear a reasonable criticism or debating point, it was all just broad generalizations, hence why I felt it was bigotry.

I hope this rather obscenely long post clears things up.

PostMortem.

I don't understand what exactly we are arguing on here? At the end of the day it's solely up to the patient to make a decision about how the doctors will treat them. Saying that doctors act as bogey man scaring patients into carrying out Cesarean sections is just ridiculous, undertaking unnecessary surgery is not something doctors love to do, especially in a litigious society like the US. One botched surgery and his career can be finished. I don't see how someone can be forced to make a decision about their wealth fare when every statue in medicine protects the patient over the doctor.

As far as am concerned this a NON-issue which comes down to conjecture about how the mother feels and the how the child feels. My parents are both doctors and I was delivered in a medical hospital naturally, the same is with everyone I know. Yet I can't seem to see how such an event has affected me or other people's development negatively.

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

I think it's a question of pick your poison. We have irational fears of nuclear power thanks to movies like China Syndrome and Silkwood. Because radiation is inivisible - it has a real bogey-man quality.

But seriously, coal based reactors are very bad - belching out heavy metals that fall into our oceans, and get into our seafood, causing real poisonings.

I have been reading up on the new generation of light-water reactors- they produce an incredible amount of power with very minimal waste. For me, it's the best from a bouquet of evils.

I'm in favour of a two pronged approach of nuclear and conservation. Just replacing all bulbs in the uS with the compact flourescents would have a large effect.

If you look carfully at 22 seconds before the end, you can see one tire detaching from the dune bogey.

mushroom - did you ever stop to notice that most people write comments where the topic is either the video, or their reaction to the video.

you, in contrast, tend to write comments where the topic is us other people.... 'You' is the most common subject of your sentences, and the predicate is usually some generalized slur against the bogey-liberals.

here's a challenge. instead of attacking those around you, whom you do not even know, why not comment on the video? i'm mistaken in my perception, you claim? use the vid. show me.

of course, you are not obligated to do so. it would just be much more productive, for everyone, than vague angry ramblings.