I'm well for being sick since night...happier than I have the right to be though.

Synchronicity was coined by CG Jung in 1923 while penning the Foreward of a book. It basically means meaningful coincidence. Acausal based reality stuff....

I miss the Sift as well. I pop through to vote for as much as I can and find the odd deviation(s). Your mention of the Police may have sparked free association in that I, while reading your reply, considered myself more of a traffic cop here these days.

I do relish the comparison to your venerable self. I must admit, however, variance with your comparison as being simultaneously too flattering of me and certainly too self deprecating of you.

I am glad to hear life is treating you well and, therefore, you life. And that your flare for imagery is still strong.
In reply to this comment by Kevlar:
Hey there! I've heard the term synchronicity before (even outside of The Police's Greatest Hits) but I figured I should check the Wikipedia entry just to do something seemingly enlightened today. I then managed only to read as far as a distracting graph that read 'indestructible energy' at the top, so yes, I am synchronously indestructible and I thank you for the compliment.

I'm good! Busy as heck and missing the sift, but loving life. Old man moment: You remind me of myself, commenting about 'walking out of here' as though the Sift is a physical place, with you its custodian and Keeper of Awesome, clocking out nightly when the weariness overtakes the desire for dupes and bans. I then looked at your Super Duper rank - 82 - and for me to say 'you remind me of myself' is probably akin to a worm complimenting the eagle who is busy squeezing it between its talons.

Anyway, how are you?

Hey there! I've heard the term synchronicity before (even outside of The Police's Greatest Hits) but I figured I should check the Wikipedia entry just to do something seemingly enlightened today. I then managed only to read as far as a distracting graph that read 'indestructible energy' at the top, so yes, I am synchronously indestructible and I thank you for the compliment.

I'm good! Busy as heck and missing the sift, but loving life. Old man moment: You remind me of myself, commenting about 'walking out of here' as though the Sift is a physical place, with you its custodian and Keeper of Awesome, clocking out nightly when weariness overtakes the desire for dupes and bans. I then looked at your Super Duper rank - 82 - and for me to say 'you remind me of myself' is probably akin to a worm complimenting the eagle who is busy squeezing it between its talons.

Anyway, how are you?


In reply to this comment by chicchorea:
Are you familiar with the term synchronicity?

Last night I came across something of yours and it occurred to me it had been a while and to rectify that. A little while later having shut down for the night I was walking out of here thinking about your comment which I still consider the funniest I have ever encountered here.

Six hours later I find.... How are you sir?

BTW, I searched and found that quote in the fire tornado video comment stream and read it to all here to much laughter.

And, thank you sir.
In reply to this comment by Kevlar:
Mighty fine work keeping the Sift clean, Sheriff.

A mother or father owes the greatest debt of all to their child... the responsibility of being the custodian to an entire human life. Children are vulnerable in the extreme and even with all of their flaws, mistakes, shortcomings, they are still not a fully-formed, self-aware human being. They're incomplete and malleable, both in a profound way.

And the way that a parent is willing to treat their child, whose development they're responsible for, is a pretty fucking good indicator of who they are as a human being.

@JiggaJonson

I reserve my right to say "fuck you" to people who're in endorsement of brutal treatment of children or those who, like @cito , even went as far as to announce that they use a belt on their own child.

Don't try and tell me that this won't have any lasting impact on the kid.

Further, "not exactly right"? A lot of you people seem to be concentrating on the mechanics of the punishment, and not whether or not it's appropriate. Or proportionate. Or justified. You'd have a hard time convincing me that it could ever be justified, but that's not important... What's the deal? This is a moral consideration and not just a pragmatic one.

I call her a sociopath for behaving as exemplified in this video. It's not a claim I'll rescind.

I don't think I hold to that doctrine of monopoly on violence as I understand it. There are 2 issues about it that bug me. First, I don't believe in natural rights, or at least we could never know what they "really" were if they did indeed exist. It is a matter of social contract that we arbitrarily decide which ones we wish to make the foundation of our government. As such, one of those is that no person can commit an act of violence against another person. Violence is prohibited. Our government is only an extension of our own rights, as I see it. The government isn't above those natural rights we all agreed upon, it is the custodian of them. It would then hold that it has no powers greater than any individual; it would have no power of to be violent.

This might seem to create a system unable to maintain itself because of a lack of impetus to defend the rights of those in it. However, when you act out in violence, you are in breach of the contract of non-violence. Therefore you are also no longer protected by the rules of non-violence. We see this in our own system all to clear; that government does not hold the sole act of reciprocity. If you are being violently assaulted you can defend yourself, violently. Most all civil law holds that governments do not hold a monopoly on violence, in fact, there should be no such crude understanding of violence as a sole arbiter.

The distinction is subtle I admit, but it is key in the fundamental application of law and placing the role of government. Government is the enforcer of the social contract. If one violates it then he is no longer protected by it. This distinction alleviates the moral problem of a government or a person using force against a person even though force is not to be used. It also allows the for the moral position of self defense. To assume that governments are above the people; that they inherit some right that the people do not have themselves is grave.

If I have mis-characteristic the monopoly on violence, it was not my intent. But from reading what others have posted and the links provided I can definitely say that I find that moral position unassailably perilous to an overly (and overtly) violent role of government.

But I agree, it would probably be good to have a custodian for that channel.

Today it's "universal health care is a right". Tomorrow it's, "Everyone has a right to a house and car." The day beyond that it's, "Everyone has a right to a high-paying job, whether they're a brain surgeon or custodian."

Aside from the obvious, where is all this magic money going to come from?

And even if the resources existed, like the soviets having had massive Russian land and more natural resources that the USA, under the communist system they were unable to feed their own. Something is very wrong here.

When you learn how to make arguments without loaded terms like "heavy taxation", "excessive burdens" and "genocide", then maybe I'll decide to reply to one of them. Given the way you wrote, for me to make an intelligent reply would take 80% refuting things I didn't say. Which is too bad, because you do make some interesting points in there.

I have found this sort of response to be commonly employed when debaters would rather stay on the surface instead of diving deep to the root of an issue. If you really want to address the substance, then it isn't difficult. Pick whatever adjectives you didn't like and toss them. Instead of 'heavy taxation' just say 'taxation' in your brain. It isn't a tough exercise, and should alleviate your overtly stated concern which you claim prevents you from continuing to substance.

However, I disagree with your opinion that the terminology was 'loaded'. That implies that the words were inaccurate or misleading. But they were not. The US taxes ARE heavy - 2nd highest on the planet in fact. Industry IS saddled with excessive burdens, which is why they shelter overseas to reduce costs. Socialist governments DO commit genocide when they are at thier worst (which is how I qualfied it). Stalin, Lenin, Khamir Rouge, China - there is no shortage of examples. Now, you may not personally LIKE the words I chose if they do not hew to your bias, but that does not mean that I have inaccurately applied them.

Regardless of that - Lord knows people (such as the kid in the vid) who espouse personal responsibility and small government have had to put up with more than their share of 'loaded terminology' when discussing issues. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. You - for example - used loaded terms when you said 'benefits the country as a whole more than it benefits the individuals who used to have that money'. That's loaded. Who are you to say that the person who has the money isn't benefiting the country? Why is it assumed that a person who has earned wealth is somehow an unworthy custodian of it?

Starting every paragraph with "I would suggest..." and "I would posit..." doesn't make your style appropriate, and putting smiley faces after put-downs doesn't work either.

It is as I feared. You have no sense of humor. But in jest I made a good point. You claimed Canada has the best universities on the planet. Even the kindest evaluation wouldn't define Canada's colleges in that kind of lofty 'loaded' language. The QS poll lists the top 100 Universities, and Canada has grand total of four entries... #20, #34, #74, and #91. By comparison, the USA has 1, 2, 5, and 8-14, 17, and 18 of the top 20. I'm not trying to offend you. I'm just grounding you in reality.

>> ^JohnnyMackers:
Not gonna be a popular viewpoint, but I reckon she probably got what was coming to her.
People forget that cops are only human, and trying to do a job. Cue little shits who were never disciplined at home pushing them too far.
We saw her kick shoes at the cops, and take up a "You can't touch me" pose. Wanna bet she was being mouthy as hell too? Thinking she was untouchable and could use the cop as a punchingbag to talk shit at, and vent her frustration at outrageously being arrested for breaking the law.
But yeah, FUCKDAPOLICE, OMG POLICE STATE! etc etc. One cop losing his temper =/= the whole goddamn force. Get real.


No excuse.

And I'm terribly sry but "only human" is fucking bullsht and you know it. Ever been booked doing 2 km's over the speed limit? Ever had a raid go through your house at 4am in the middle of winter because an "anonymous tip"/cranky neighbour said there was marijuana dealing going on there? (note: there wasn't but we were treated like shit, not allowed to get a drink or use the bathroom for the 2 hours they tore our house to pieces).

Yeah, they have a tough job and I'm sure somedays really suck, but when you are a custodian of the law you are held to a higher fucking standard, not a lesser one...

Lock him up in gen pop, let's see what a tough guy he is when it's not 15 year old girls having a go at him...

Ultimately, the decisions that we as individuals, as nations, and as a species make on a day to day basis become matters of philosophical quandary. I sleep so that I'm refreshed for waking. I eat so that I'm nourished for activity. I work for money to maintain a lifestyle. I read this book or partake in this sport or befriend this or that individual, group, or nation because it will purportedly increase or better my (or our) position(s). The decision to go to war--to commit violence--is no different. Yet, one's philosophical perspectives on the meaning of such violence (again, as individuals and as nations) will serve under the constructs that constitute that philosophy. In other words, if we live and die for today -- with no heed to the sustainability of future generations -- then we (as other documented societies have done in the past) will outstrip our resources and secure our inevitable collapse. However, if we see life as a collective endeavor, which includes all the countless generations that preceded, and the countless more to come, such that our momentary role is to serve as custodian to one another, the planet, to life itself, then the manner in which we attack one another may take on a very different attitude, as we realize that no war has ever directly increased our "success" in this endeavor--rather, only the meaning that such "wars" have seemed to offer.

If we gain a larger perspective that sees life as ongoing and continuous, not limited by resources but only by our attachment to life working in a particular fashion, then our manner of going to "war" may be very different, indeed.

You'd expect a big bank like Chase to have strict rules about disposing of their trash, so this is probably isolated incidents of careless employees at specific branches. This kind of behaviour is more likely at shitty banks and small retailers, I'd think?

When you go into the bank, you can either talk to the teller or go talk to an associate at his desk after waiting for a bit for your turn. I assume the tellers get rid of their trash one way (probably temporary storage in a trashcan near their standing place, and it probably gets shredded according to company policy at the end of the day or at certain times) while the associates get rid of their trash in a more haphazard way, since they have their own little booths and just throw their trash into their little trashcans near their desk. It's probably the custodian's duty to take care of it from there.

Since the documents in the video mentioned are loan documents and bank statements and business credit aplications, I'd think its some customer coming to talk to a associate, and the associate should have gone to shred those extra documents, and instead just threw them into the trash. Who knows if that trash can is subject to shredding or not? The custodian doesn't dig through that stuff to determine that, he just throws the trash out all the while the associate may be thinking that ALL the trash gets shredded.

dunno im just guessing. Anybody here work at a bank and know more?

The merge idea has been bandied about and we need some real focus to make it a reality. It's somewhere on the giant list of potential improvements.

In terms of dupes, I feel that we've been pretty good about policing them - the policy, for the record, allows for a bit of slack, but this is it in a nutshell:
- earlier videos get priority
- newer postings which include part of an older video but include new content are ok
- new postings that include a micro-clip (5 to 20 seconds) of a significantly longer clip are a loophole which we have, to date, been allowing.

Ralph being a Unitard is a clear example I commented on directly:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Ralph-Wiggum-is-a-Unitard

Although I didn't go into extensive detail, the following factors need to be considered:
- you get additional enjoyment for the precise cut of the video
[the short cut either cuts through a very long video, or actually accentuates the humour/value]
- the quality is same or higher to that of the long clip

As the custodian of the MG&FAS http://OFF.videosift.com collective, I am of course interested in expanding upon the "& Friends" side of things. Posting tends to happen in waves EVERYWHERE on the Sift, with people going on a binge of one 'flavour' of video, being inspired by existing successful videos, before some intrepid souls find something else which starts a new 'herd' of sifters moving in another direction.

The fun is trying to steer the herd in a new direction with interesting, offbeat finds - you have your marching orders, now see to them!

These are clips from the French film "Leon" which was released in the US as "The Professional" (1994):


from Netflix:

Leon (Jean Reno) is the top hit man in New York -- also known as a "cleaner." When his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent (Gary Oldman), Leon becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda (Natalie Portman). Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Leon's footsteps. Gritty and unflinching, The Professional packs a powerful punch.