Let's ignore the anti-obama trolls here. lantern and thorns don't give a shit about drone strikes and are really only annoyed because it's not a republican president ordering them.

@VoodooV, I'm afraid I can't agree with your analogy either. If there's a guy with his finger on the button of nuclear missile about to blow up LA, then by all means drone strike his ass. That's extraordinary circumstances.

My problem is that these are not extraordinary circumstances. It has become routine. The USA (and let's not pretend it's just Obama) has legitimised assassination, because they can.

It turns out that drones are an incredibly effective tool of killing with zero risk to soldiers. Bad guys dead, good guys home in time for dinner... political win all round!

And right now, the USA has pretty much a monopoly on the whole drone technology thing. But that's not going to last, and short of repeating the hypocrisy of nuclear weapons ("no nukes for you! only WE get nukes!"), in 10-15 years time, everyone who wants one has drones.

So at that point, what's to stop whatever country from drone striking whoever they feel like? After all, we've accepted that assassination is a valid political tool now. It probably always was, but now we're open about it, which makes it a lot harder to decry.

In theory, I guess you could accuse me of employing the slippery slope fallacy, but I don't think I'm extrapolating by much. The technology is simple and available, and the legal barriers are being removed. It's just a question of how widespread it becomes.

It just begs the question: How did you come across this video to begin with?

The submitter has just the one video and it was just submitted today. Under what extraordinary circumstances would a total stranger find a brand new YouTube member's very first video in the first few hours of existence then be so overwhelmed by it they'd decide to sign up on some random video aggregator to share it?

Unless there's some earth-moving evidence to the contrary, I call bullshit.

*Ban for ostensibly violating the posting guidelines.

No, they were not put rest. To prove that the terabytes of data Snowden stole did not end up in the hand the Chinese and Russian intelligence agents is actually what requires the extraordinary proof.

Your two reasons seem really naive.
-So what he has told the truth so far? He has an ocean of stolen secrets, all of which are true to draw from. This guy who has lied and stolen and sold out his country is now some trustworthy figure? OK.

-Snowden has actually proved quite sloppy and stupid. He was an IT contractor, not some mastermind or strategist. That's why he indiscriminately grabbed all the data he could and scrammed to the two paragons of freedom and human rights: Russia and China. What a careful thinking genius Snowden is.

He could have allowed the press to do it's job without disclosing a much of what has been released.

Lastly, I wouldn't expect a non-american to care about the harm he's done to my country. Just try not to be so gleeful about it.

-

And here I thought the claims around his four laptops were put to rest in July of last year or, at the very latest, after his meeting with Ray MacGovern, Jesselyn Radack and Thomas Drake in October.

There was nothing of substance on those laptops and to suggest otherwise with any credibility demands extraordinary proof.

Why?

Because of two primary reasons, as far as I am concerned:

- Any of Snowden's claims has yet to proven false. The entire apparatus is trying and they failed miserably so far. Probably because Snowden actually knows what he's talking about, unlike such cranks as Rep. Peter King.

- Snowden spent years working within the intelligence industry (CIA, NSA, private contractors) and he has proven to be careful and meticulous. Unlike the public (or the British MoD), he'd know better than to transport any sensitive information on a device like a laptop or a smartphone. Or an external harddrive. Or a disk. He'd use flash memory, possibly a thumb drive, probably an SD card -- the less embedded controllers a device has, the better. Heavily encrypted, of course, and if anyone doesn't believe that crypto works... tough luck, I'm done trying to convince people otherwise.

So, the only people who received data from him are Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. American journalists reporting on American issues, just like he said.

As for the the revelation of "tons of national secrets and techniques": he has revealed nothing. Let me say that again: Snowden has revealed nothing.

He has empowered members of the press, the fourth estate, to do their bloody jobs and fullfil their role as watchdog over the government, something they failed at miserably in this particular regard. All revelations happen at the discretion of those journalists who are now the sole proprietors of the Snowden-documents.

If, however, you don't subscribe to the notion of a free press as a line of defence against government abuse, then I can't change your mind.

By the way, "putting American lives at risk" should have received a trademark by now, the way it has been waved around to kill uncomfortable conversations. I vividly remember how desperate they were to find proof that the Afghan/Iraqi War Logs and the Gitmo Files were endangering lives. As far as I know, they never found any. And as far as I know, all releases based on Snowden-documents were carefully chosen and redacted where neccessary to protect the identity of human assets. All claims to the contrary need to provide evidence.

But I'm glad to see that the "American industry" has found its way into the argument. At least we don't have to pretend that this is solely about terrorism anymore. Industrial espionage, diplomatic advantages and... keeping your own population in check.

Yay! It's just like the old days.

Oh wait, I forgot. My country has been under full scale surveillance by the US, the British and the French since the late '40s, so it's actually business as usual.

I won't reveal it in a comment, but if anyone's curious how it's done watch:

http://videosift.com/video/Man-Stabbed-With-a-Sword-Extraordinary-footage

You learn a lot here.

Wow... that was like two weeks ago... yeah was WAY off on that 'overly sensitive' bit...

I admit i stopped reading at about 'untold suffering throughout the world'.... give me a break i'm trying to cut back...

Honestly hypocrisy, ignorance, drama-queen nonsense... and extraordinary delicate sensibilities... suffice to say we have nothing more to discuses...

Between guys like this, and Simon Posford's last two Younger Brother albums, they've really rejuvinated my interest in electronica. Just the right amount of pop-appeal and sexy synth.

@Deeno, if you dig this guy, check out Younger Brother's album "Vaccine". Truly extraordinary.

Extraordinary!

Not so, slavery in the U.S. was historically unique in it's brutality and scope and the descendants of slaves live in another form of subjugation under the guise of rights under the law and equality. The system in place now insures that black people in the U.S. will be treated to inordinate scrutiny as citizens and extraordinary rendition in the form of profiling, imprisonment both physically or economically, and an unsurpassed recidivism in the Petri dish of criminals which is, the U.S. Prison Corporation, ltd., which only serves to justify more prisons to warehouse undesirables.

Except for perhaps Chinese dynasties during the construction of the wall other examples of slavery in history, even biblical slavery...Rome, Greece, these societies did not treat their slaves to the hopelessness we in America treated the Africans to.

If you consider slavery 'wrong' you might want to look at how well maintained your own existence has become-Slavery has simply become your indentured duty to invisible masters as you pay-to-play the game of life.
The slave masters of today do not carry whips or pistols but he still works you for long, unending hours and enjoys the fruits of your labor at day's end.

This is pretty extraordinary *promote

I watched a live version which was outstanding. Odd that I've heard of her but never really knew much about her music. Takes a recommendation from a friend to sort that out.

@cosmovitelli, I'm still not seeing any hard facts from you. Yes, those are all awful things, but you are alleging that these people are demonstrably worse than Hitler (systematically killed at least 6 million Jews, arguably responsible for the largest conflict the world has ever seen), Stalin (murdered, tortured and deported .... well, no-one knows, but estimates range from 3 to 60 million) and Genghis Khan (killed a sizeable percentage of the worlds population at the time).

Also, you are aggregating the acts of every US president since Truman vs the acts of 3 individuals.

That's an extraordinary claim, and I think you need to provide some facts and figures to back it up.

For a while it was thought that Strassman's claim that DMT production in the brain comes from the pineal gland was false. Even Strassman tried to redact this as it was not scientifically proven.

3 or 4 months ago scientists discovered that rats pineal gland's DO produce DMT.

DMT containing plants are all around the globe and have been throughout time. Do you really think it was just tribesmen in the Amazon using it all of this time? I think not.

Like McKenna said, "DMT is not a secret it is THE secret."

I think it is very important that people know, partake and let the boundary dissolve. It is so important that I want to tell my parents, "before you die, you NEEEEEEED to do this!!" But, I can't because of the benign restrictions of this society. Life is about experiences, and this is an experience quite extraordinary, why not take 5-10 minutes and see what is there?

I can agree with that. However, the thing that makes this so interesting for me is the idea that the human being is a fundamentally unnatural creature, and the idea that modern technology more and more allows us to be an essentially modular animal, with endless possibilities.

As we innovate, we constantly redefine what it means to be a human being - clothes are so ubiquitous and culturally deep-seated that they can almost be seen as just another layer of skin, and allow us to inhabit vastly different climates, where most other animals really only function in a single setting. The same can be said for telephones and the internet, two inventions that vastly improve our ability to communicate with each other.

And what Beardyman shows us here is an example of this modularity. The "natural" human being can only produce one tone. Through cultural innovation, we can learn to sing with two tones. Through technological innovation, we can even learn to create an entire orchestra by using the input of a single man's voice.

To me, that is pretty extraordinary.

Somewhat ironic: Aslan is Turkish for Lion, and is also the name of the Lion in C. S Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, a character who represents Jesus, at least in parts. COINCIDENCE? probably. but still!

I think the outrage is not that it paints Jesus poorly, but that the implication is that he is "merely" an extraordinary man rather than the Son of God and our Saviour. You know, kinda like how calling a stick figure Muhammad somehow diminishes his glory.

While she definitely throws much faster than I do, I don't think you could say that she has anywhere near the same power that a male pitcher has. The GBoWW record for a woman is 65mph [1], and 101[2] for men. In MLB, the only pitchers who can't throw faster than 85mph have extraordinary control over the ball.[3] (and, granted, the fastest pitch is under contention for both sexes, but it's approx 2-3mph that is being argued over, not enough to affect this comparison)

The pro female (softball) pitcher threw very well... especially since her specialty is an underhanded pitch. But she doesn't generate anywhere near the power that a male pitcher can generate.

1) http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-6000/fastest-baseball-pitch-(female)/
2) http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/3000/fastest-baseball-pitch-(male)
3) http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_pitching_speed_in_MLB