>> ^marbles:

With AA, being any minority is a significant advantage.
No it is not. If we lived in some egalitarian society where race had not been a massive limiting factor for centuries, and where decisions like going to college took place in a fairy land where money, the schools you went to, the opportunities you had earlier and familial obligations play no part, then you might have a point. We don't live in that world.
>> ^marbles:

Opportunity isn't distributed.
Yes it is. If its more than twice as hard to get a job because your skin is dark (it is), if your family doesn't have money to allow you the freedom, to have a safe environment in which to grow up, to allow you to get a good education or to start your own business because they too have suffered financially and socially from the legal and social forces that distribute the power to choose, then you are being denied opportunity for non-meritocratic reasons, and those opportunities are being given to others, for non-meritocratic reasons.
>> ^marbles:

Just like every other social problem in the past century, the government's solution has done more harm than help.
Sure, property rights and national defense are terrible impositions on personal sovereignty, and if we dispensed with both of them then AA would probably not be needed, but I don't really care about fairyland politics, I'm only concerned with reality and how to realistically address problems within it
>> ^marbles:

Anyway it's not the role of government to be distributing anything.
Um... except that they distribute EVERYTHING. Property is a government system that codifies the distribution of resources. They set land boundaries, they arbitrate disputes, what the hell are you talking about?
>> ^marbles:

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
Social Convention is not reason or eloquence either, it is force just the same. I would rather the bullies fight each other, then just let the less accountable one loose to beat the shit out of us.
>> ^marbles:

Better solution? Stop subsidizing poverty and end drug prohibition would be a good start.
"subsidizing poverty" I presume is a reference to social programs that allow poor families to have a stable enough environment that their kids can have some opportunities. How exactly does trapping future generations in poverty solve the disproportionate racial distribution of class privilege?

drug prohibition is only tangentially related, consider:

1) All classes do drugs at similar rates
2) poor people get caught more often
3) non-white people get convicted more often

The double whammy of historical poverty and racist jurisprudence are the problem. The insane "war on drugs" certainly has racist consequences, but they are symptomatic of a larger problem that decriminalization will not solve.

lol!! wow this is truly classic.

Maybe you should actually read the articles you're providing as evidence from your desperate google search to disprove me.

Do you know what slaves he freed? The Jews. That's right, Gods chosen people.
How do we know this? The bible. Getting a sinking feeling yet?

Isaiah 45
1 “This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
2 I will go before you
and will level the mountains[a];
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
3 I will give you hidden treasures,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name

Ezra 1
The Proclamation of Cyrus
1(A) In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia,(B) that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so(C) that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:
2"Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and(D) he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel—(E) he is the God who is in Jerusalem. 4And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem."

5Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites,(F) everyone whose spirit(G) God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem. 6And all who were about them(H) aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, and with costly wares, besides all that was freely offered. 7(I) Cyrus the king also brought out the vessels of the house of the LORD that(J) Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. 8Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of(K) Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to(L) Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. 9And this was the number of them:(M) 30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 1030 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and 1,000 other vessels; 11all the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.

So lets get this straight..to dispute me you are providing evidence which is biblical, from the very same God that I am saying is responsible for it. You're technically correct, this was outside the Christian west. I reeeeaally don't think it helps your case though. Apparently the bible is sufficient evidence for you now, so now please let me urge you to turn away from your sins and give your life to Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior, who takes away the sins of the world and gives men eternal life. I know its hard to admit when you're wrong, but now I would say the evidence is overwhelming.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Christians are the reason we abolished slavery. There has never been an abolitionist movement anywhere besides in the Christian west.

Your first sentence is false, non-Christian humans have been abolishing slavery for millennia, see here.
You, of course then back peddle by talking about a "movement". I'll counter that the only reason that a movement was necessary in the US was because Christians so bitterly opposed abolition that a great amount of political force (and a massive war) had to brought to bare against them. Civilized societies, on the other hand, seem to dispense with it much more easily.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Christians are the reason we abolished slavery. There has never been an abolitionist movement anywhere besides in the Christian west.


Your first sentence is false, non-Christian humans have been abolishing slavery for millennia, see here.

You, of course then back peddle by talking about a "movement". I'll counter that the only reason that a movement was necessary in the US was because Christians so bitterly opposed abolition that a great amount of political force (and a massive war) had to brought to bare against them. Civilized societies, on the other hand, seem to dispense with it much more easily.

Blankfist that is an excellent reposte! That is so much better than the expletive filled shoutyness I would have gone with, one of those days, and 9:30am on Monday is not the best time to be dealing with stuff anyway.

Your right Spoco, funny how I'm getting grief from the directors when they are the people who dispense the cash!

Anyway this is Ireland, a subsidiary of the IMF and ECB, at this point we are probably lucky to still have electricity

@blankfist, ahh I see. Read the definition of the word company, meaning #2 to be specific.

Also, see the part titled "Synonyms"? There's only one word listed there: corporation.

Since you've basically double-hijacked your own thread, I'll at least toss out a path back to the main topic -- the legal recognition of corporations isn't the problem. The problem is that they get huge amounts of special dispensations from the government, like limitations on the legal liability of the people who actually own and operate them for the things they do.

If one of the chief planks of some right-wing party was to truly eliminate "corporatism", they'd be talking about ending corporate personhood and their limited liability privilege. Instead, they mostly talk about putting limits on what the government can do to police corporate activity, which should rightly be seen as a pro-corporatist move.

@Matthu

I am not a chemist. However, I think I have an approximation for you on fluoride. Prozac is composed of Fluoxetine. It's chemical formula is C17H18F3NO. The approximate mass of the fluoride is about 8% of the compound. If you take the recommended daily dose, it puts you at about 1.6mgs of fluoride a day. The Daily Max for ANY weight of human is 10mgs. The average daily consumption from water is around 1mgs as well. This is about 2mgs a day from just these 2 sources. This is a hazardous level for infants and small children. In addition to tap water and medicine, food is usually processed with tap water and therefore has trace levels of fluoride. In addition, so do some sodas, juices, teas, wines, ect. Also, some salts, and interestingly enough, cigarettes ( anaesthetic methoxyflurane, isoflurane). So once again, it isn't a once source problem. Water, specifically tap water, is used in nearly every facet of food production. It's the snowball problem. This wouldn't be a problem if we just opted for personalized tap fluoride dispensers, or some other local, "toggalable" option. And really, why ingest something that is supposed to be topical? Should I start eating deodorant next?

I want book dispensing washing machine too.

I gotta make one point, now I see it, it's hard to ignore.

If you visualize the script as it appeared in print, it really isn't that rank.
It's the actors tapping on the keyboard like it would dispense food pellets that ruins the scene.
Line by line, the dialogue isn't really all that ignorant.

I wonder if with new medical technology, we could eventually transplant unwanted fetuses into anti-abortionist bellies. Win/Win, right? Would you be willing to give up 9 months of your life to bring an unwanted baby to term in order to save its life? Or would you let that baby die? >> ^Jesus_Freak:

Ah, yes. God dispenses wrath and judgment on nations, so He must be pro-abortion. He's either sovereign to judge ALL nations, or He's subject to being judged by your own intellectual evaluations. Good luck with that.
If the God talk is tainting your emotional objectivity, choose from an array of secular arguments. Look at what the Nazi's did to the mentally handicapped via medical experimentation after they were deemed not fully human. How about the pre-emancipation notion that slaves were a fraction of human value. How did our humanity stack up in those cases? Saying an unborn baby <> a mother as long as they're making physical contact with the birth canal is a slippery slope of morality. I just don't understand how few of you see that.

Ah, yes. God dispenses wrath and judgment on nations, so He must be pro-abortion. He's either sovereign to judge ALL nations, or He's subject to being judged by your own intellectual evaluations. Good luck with that.

If the God talk is tainting your emotional objectivity, choose from an array of secular arguments. Look at what the Nazi's did to the mentally handicapped via medical experimentation after they were deemed not fully human. How about the pre-emancipation notion that slaves were a fraction of human value. How did our humanity stack up in those cases? Saying an unborn baby <> a mother as long as they're making physical contact with the birth canal is a slippery slope of morality. I just don't understand how few of you see that.

Kalle -

I would discourage your mocking use of my "magic book" to support your arguments unless you actually understood what's in it.

You shall not kill/murder is number 6, for starters. This is also a commandment of personal conduct. The very same section of the Bible outlines various capital crimes, almost none of which carry the penalty of death in this day and age. I'm just pointing out that the sixth commandment does not preclude capital punishment. I should not personally seek revenge through a crime of passion, but society was granted recourse at that level. See also Romans 13, particularly verse 4. Governing authorities have not been given "the sword for no reason."

Please, dispense with the shrill atheistic arguments of breaking the Sabbath being a capital crime. The whole point of the law, from the Christian perspective, is to illustrate that we all fall short of it. The penalty for sin...all sin...is death. You're talking to someone who has been spared from the death penalty through the sacrifice of my savior. I am not a "hang 'em high" proponent of the death penalty. In all cases, I would prefer grace.

You managed to completely circumvent the entire point of my argument. Instead of addressing the injustice of killing innocent life, you chose to dilute the need to punish criminals to normalize the difference between the two.

Wait'll they get the bill! Hope there's an on-board espresso dispenser.

It's generally poor taste to laboriously dispense details about one's sexual escapades.

Revering those who eagerly and enthusiastically chase after sexual thrills lends to the belief that this type of behaviour is desirable. An anthropological detachment from the novelty of this kind of talk is lost on most people.

While there's nothing intrinsically wrong about discussing sex, one easily finds many civilizations where overt sexualism has been detrimental. Sex talk fine, idolizing and trivializing sex is dangerous.

This probably comes off as being a stuck-up old fart's opinion (I'm actually in my early twenties), but consider how the environment we have today has gives children the urge for intercourse even before they are physically ready for sex. We've allowed ten year old girls and boys to be perfectly comfortable in a world where hypersexualisation is normalcy.>> ^SveNitoR:

>> ^Pprt:
Making sex talk like this a banality is a horrible trend...

Why?

Yah. This is why I don't upvote NatGeo videos. That and the overdramatic presentations. At least this episode dispensed with the cable news suspense music.

Nice, I hadn't seen yours though. But this is, as you said, the completed version. I like the dispensers and cake at the end of this, it's a nice touch.

>> ^Hybrid:

Neat, he finished the song. I had previously posted the beginning bit that he'd done...
http://videosift.com/video/Portal-s-Still-Alive-played-in
-Minecraft-using-note-blocks