I never said that we should brand people living in Islamic regions as the same. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said that if you seriously follow the tenets of the Islamic religion, not casually but seriously follow what the religion says, then you will be doing whatever you can to further the spread of Islam and Sharia law.

This is somewhat of a problem in all religions, but IT IS PREDOMINANT in Islam because Islam has never stepped away from these rules and tenets. In a very sad way, Islam is still in the state Christianity was during the damn inquisition and crusades. Now you will have people that refuse to devote themselves fully to Islam and those people will not act in a fashion like I illustrated. They are truly casual worshipers that have found a way to morally work around the tenets of the religion. I have no problem with those folks. Sadly, a huge amount of evidence points towards the information that they are a minority of the religion.

As far as US involvement, I said that we do stick our nose where it doesn't belong and that we should cut the rest of the world off when it comes to requests for military aid. But lets look at the link you posted. I see about half or more of the incidents are the US providing help at the request of other countries or joining coalitions of other countries. You can't have it both ways, either ask us to back out of the world scene completely or get over it when we do get involved at your request. Do you think we just popped up and sent troops/missiles to Turkey because we wanted to? Or did we invade Jordan while sending troops to help prevent the Syrian Civil War from spilling over into their country? They ASKED us to come and help. Are drone strikes against terrorists stupid? Absolutely and they help the terrorists find new recruits, but does that make Islam any less of a violence promoting religion?

The answer is no, it does not. Nor does your attempt to veer the spotlight off of the failings of Islam and back onto something else. You can misdirect all you like, but until you can provide hard facts you are simply equivocating.

Islam promotes Sharia law. Tell me truthfully if you can, that a religion that supports the execution of a woman who left the faith to marry a man her family didn't receive a dowry from is a religion of peace. Tell me that a religion that supports the execution of Homosexuals is a religion of peace. Tell me that a religion that still promotes honor killing is a religion of peace.

Because if that is the case, by your own definition the US is the greatest supporter of peace since the Romans.

The website may be biased, but the polls listed are world recognized polls that are mostly above reproach. Christianity is not at the table on this, nobody is saying that there aren't wackos involved in any religion, but realistically how many christian holy war incidents can you list in the last 20 years? I mean real incidents, not just some random guy doing one thing to a doctor or clinic, but a group of holy christian fighters blowing up swathes of people or beheading them. It's not in the same ballpark, in fact it isn't the same league, or sport.

As far as US international policy goes, we do stupid shit a lot of the time. Other times we get dragged into shit because people complain if we don't. Personally I wish we would cut our defense budget in half and tell the rest of the world to go pound sand when they ask for help, but again it is not the issue of discussion we are looking at.

The issue is whether or not Islam, due to the nature of it's teachings, promotes certain things that lead to war and/or brutal acts. The fact is that it does, assuming you follow the tenets laid forth in the Koran and other works, such as the Sunnah and the anecdotes of the 12 Imams.

What other religion currently follows these tenets in it's religious laws?

- Leaving Islam is a sin and a religious crime. Once any man or woman is officially classified as Muslim, because of birth or religious conversion, he or she will be subject to the death penalty if he or she becomes an apostate, that is, abandons his or her faith in Islam in order to become an atheist, agnostic or to convert to another religion.
- If a person has never been a Muslim, he or she can live in an Islamic state by accepting to be a dhimmi and pay a Jizyah tax. They cannot practice their religions openly and they also do not have the same rights and legal protections as Muslims.
- Death penalty for Homosexuals
- Numerous women's rights violations and restrictions
- Child marriage
- Jihad is an important religious duty for Muslims. It is only very recently that it has started to be redefined by a small amount of Muslims as being possible to be non-violent in nature.

As it stands, Islam is not a religion of peace but of strife. Unless you are a casual follower, you will be trying to promote tenets of this religion either through non-violent or violent ways. As we can see around the world and even through the events of the Arab Spring, the violent ways are far more likely.

Yeah I gotta agree. I can see why Reza is pissed. I agree that Bill is painting with broad strokes here. But still. It's religion. Doesn't matter which religion you're talking about. Deal with it. This is what happens when you believe in imaginary friends. people take shit too far, they take "holy" writings too literal.

Americans may want to try and pat themselves on the back but there are plenty of Christian extremists out there Hitler was Christian, Timothy McVeigh was Christian. The moderates immediately go to the "no true scottsman" fallacy.

Im reminded again of the analogy I made earlier. Comparing religions is like comparing the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One may have technically caused more death and destruction than the other, but they're BOTH pretty fucking horrible.

There is this phenomenon where you have all these people who claim to be of a certain religion yet have radically different views. so they are simultaneously able to claim they're all right and all wrong at the same time, whichever is most convenient to them at any given moment.

Of course there are peaceful and extreme of every religion, but yet they all claim to be of that religion just because they don't share your particular flavor of that religion doesn't mean you get to casually dismiss them at will.

again we have the issue of religion cherry picking what it likes and ignoring what it doesn't.

I hate the premise, and I hate the term "white america". Of course racism still exists. And yes, there are racists and ignorant people who try to say that it doesn't. But saying "white america" just throws every white person into the same pool, which is racist in itself. Countless white americans have stood up and even risked their lives defending the equality of not just black people, but all races. Racism affects everyone. Ironically, and tragically, I think racism is a unifying factor. All races do it and all races suffer from it. And all races should get behind the elimination of it. It starts with balking against racist friends and family who, through societal pressure, casually compel you to blame, fear or find comfort in hating the "other".

Anyone who swears by Crom's balls as casually as this dude is OK in my book, and certainly knows their metal.

I find that question inappropriate. Like asking how much I make or how much I can bench press. Not OK to ask casual acquaintances.

This too. Especially with how efficient we are getting at archiving, sorting, and searching through information today. It is hard to become a celebrity or politician if your haters can drum up stuff like this. Art is one thing, casual photography for the sake of pronouncing your innocence against society is another.

I'm not an expert on climate change and I assume you have not devoted your life to climate science either.

From what I can ascertain, your links suggest a hiatus in warming not a reversal of trend.

To quote the BBC link:

"Prof Tung believes that whatever the cause and the length of the pause, we are on a "rising staircase" when it comes to global temperatures that will become apparent when the Atlantic current switches again.

At the end we will be on the rising part of the staircase, and the rate of warming there will be very fast, just as fast as the last three decades of the 20th Century, plus we are starting off at a higher plateau. The temperatures and the effects will be more severe."

And the LA Times link:

"Climate skeptics have pounced on this apparent discrepancy, citing it as proof that climate change isn't real, or at least that scientists don't completely understand it. But those who study Antarctic sea ice say their curious observations shouldn't shake anyone's confidence. Dramatic changes in temperature, sea level and extreme weather around the world are proof enough the planet is warming, they say; the only question is how these changes affect the Antarctic as they ripple through the climate system."

Again, I'm no expert. I don't presume that casual Internet research will enable me to properly evaluate and scrutinise academic articles and accurately assess their value within the broader rationale for acting against the purported harm caused by climate change.

Which is why I defer to organisations of scientists. If they overwhelmingly continue to believe that climate change is a threat, then so do I. If they change their views, so will I.

Why is this not the most reasonable approach?

jeez, there's more casual violence in the average flag football game than there were in my 30 years of LE experience.

Also, you don't use your gun as a club, get real.

Dying from pepper spray? Unlikely, but people have died from being handcuffed. I've seen dead people who died while taking a nap, people in their 30s. There is risk in everything. Kids die from choking on breakfast cereal. Whattya gonna do?

I remember picking up this dude at the county jail, had some kind of breathing apparatus on him. I put him in back of my cruiser and the a/c was barely working and wasn't reaching the back seat at all, real hot day. I'm watching him in the mirror and he's fading. I thought, good god, this guy could die back there. So I pulled off the freeway and opened the door. 'Get in the front!'. I put the vents on him and he started coming around and before long we were talking football.
Of course, you won't see any video of that.

you were doing so well until you resorted to ad homs again.

pepper spray can't hurt you? tell that to the people who have died from it: http://articles.latimes.com/1995-06-18/news/mn-14572_1_pepper-spray-manufacturer.

There's a reason it's called less-than-lethal. Suppose you're going to next claim a taser never killed anyone? Look, I can't blame cops for using pepper spray, the risks are far outweighed by the potential benefits, but know your facts.

once again you demonstrate that you are so comfortable with casual violence that you're indifferent to the harm you can do.

Real reason? Reality shows are cheap to make, music videos are expensive to show. But before MTV stopped playing music, they went thru phases where each iteration did bring us only the top 10 or record label promotion paid them to play their new artists, then that was mixed with reality and finally they stopped pretending and just switched on full reality tv that they can sell. MTV could see it like this parody video on their end "people are watching less and less music" but it was exactly the cancellation of Headbangers Ball, Yo Raps, Alternative Nation etc. that lead to declining numbers.. I stopped watching wh en headbangers and Alt nation stopped as it was only top hits from that point on. Everything even remotely alternative or indie was gone, there were no one selecting new music as there were no more people to host the shows, VJs were gone, it was just automated playlist that plaid literally the same songs over and over. It was an attempt to get more profit from casual music listeners but even they turned it down: it seems like you need and want to hear music you don't like every now and then to make your favorites a lot more important.. Even i wouldn't watch a music station that plays only the things i like, i need to hear one or two really awful crap every now and then just to remind me that music can be truly awful and soulless product and not everyone is Radiohead.

And mind you, those alternative shows only aired at odd hours, headbangers ball was around midnight and really hard stuff like Into the Pit was aired around 2am, it still was top 20 during the day. But it did mix it up a little, one alternative or indie video per hour. You take that one exception away and it is boring no matter what your music taste is.

I met Robin, several years back while they he was filming Jumanchi.
He was filming in my neighborhood, all filmed a block from my house.

But I met him in line a my local comic shop. He was there buying some action figures. He told me about how he tried to come into the store the day before but was mobbed in the street. He'd been looking for these specific action figures for a while and had tracked them down and had them on hold. (Wild Cats from McFarlane toys)

I was standing beside him for a bit before I even knew who he was. I remember thinking he was shorter than I'd expected. He was nice, collected and smiled as we chatted in the line to pay for our stuff. I didn't overwhelm him with questions or treat him like a celebrity. Just chatted in line like I would with anyone else.

He finished paying for his purchases and left the store. He was immediately met by body guards. who took his purchases and quickly disappeared (out of the way) as he walked up the street with his Publicist.

It was just a casual meeting. but somehow I always wanted to meet him again, so I could say, remember when we met in the comic store. I supose that will never happen now, though, it may never have happened any way.

Sorry to see such a genius mind leave us. I hope he's found his peace.

The specified related post, DOA5 Ultimate Casual Lobby Sets: Mike The Epic vs Hagaishi, is already associated with this post - bypassing related request by chicchorea.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/DOA5-Ultimate-Casual-Lobby-Sets-Mike-The-Epic-vs-Hagaishi

I have to say that I was shocked at the level of casual racism in Australia (and to a lesser extent NZ) towards the indigenous cultures.