Nice of you to say, but I’ve got real important issues to solve, not just cats stuck in trees and hysterical women like Superman rescues…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEvv4xeh7M4

Out of curiosity, what is BLM's stance on all the black lives being lost to gun violence in places like Chicago? I see no mention of this serious issue on blacklivesmatter.com or blacklivesmatterchicago.com. Heck, it's not even listed on BLM Chicago's "10 Demands of BLMCHI": https://www.blacklivesmatterchicago.com/10-demands-of-blmchi/

With all of the media attention BLM is getting, funding through donations, and general momentum behind the movement, why not focus on things that might actually make a difference? Instead of pouring energy into removing statues, put that effort into PSAs, social media, etc about how terrible the gun violence is in some of these cities. Try and come up with ideas to address it. Invest those resources into getting to the root of the problems that face these communities. I guarantee statues and police brutality are probably pretty low on the list of *real* issues facing the black community. What about poverty/homelessness, lack of economic opportunity, gang activity/influence on youth, guns, drugs, the challenges of low income single-parent homes, etc. Those seem like more important issues for a well funded organization like BLM to be focused on.

Sam B is carefully stepping around a more important issue than geography here---income inequality. Rural areas are more likely to have a lower incomes, and be without proper coverage in a for-profit system.

Years ago I saw 'The Business of Being Born,' and found it pretty shocking how hospitals treated childbirth as an opportunity for profit. It is a well done doc, if you're curious.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995061

@eric3579
agreed,and i suspect most people struggle with this,but i think he made a really important point that we all need to address,and that is our own bias.

too many people for far too long have sought information that aligns with their own narrative,their own,personal and subjective understandings.we see those who identify as conservative reject anything that does not adhere to their own,narrow worldview,and we see those who identify as progressive do the exact same thing.

and yet if challenged,BOTH will stubbornly declare that their information is solid and without reproach.this is statistically impossible.

another great point he makes is how some people have been conditioned to accept opinion and conflict as somehow being "news".

he also makes a point on how some news outlets have done shoddy and poor work,but we should not throw the baby out with the bath water.while this may be true,i feel he was far too lenient on those who profess to be journalists.he gives them a pass for doing mediocre work,because that is what many journalists do in this new climate of:partisan hackery,access and propaganda.

so when we talk about "mainstream media",we are talking about only a few,monolithic corporations who DO have an agenda,and that agenda is PROFIT.

so we can look back to the run up to the iraq war,and see how phil donahue was fired from MSNBC for being critical of the war.the highest rated show on that network at that time.so if PROFIT is the model,then donahue being fired makes no sense..UNLESS you consider that the owners of MSNBC were general electric,who at that time were heavily invested in military contracts on the dawn of a new war.

so the profit was not from advertising from donahue's show,but rather the billions in defense contracts general electric was poised to receive from the impending iraq war,and donahue's criticisms of that war had the possibility to affect the profits of general electric.

and that is the one point that is missing from mr green's take on the mainstream media:their inability or outright refusal to criticize the current corporate establishment,and how many journalists kneel at the altar of their corporate masters.

so while he makes a lot of great points.that particular glaring omission is disturbing.

speaking only for myself i tend to only consume independent media,and focus on journalists who have earned my trust.

ultimately it is up to us to decide who we trust and who we are suspicious of,and to discuss those important issues among ourselves to better refine our understandings.

Strangely, the thing that seems to be most important in stopping nuclear war with Russia is Trump's outrageous friendly relationship with Tsar Putin, because he's already made it clear that he has no qualms about using nukes against those he thinks are enemies.

Do you have to demonize a man who assassinates his enemies and expands his country? There's no question that he's done those things, so I don't get his point at all. You don't have to demonize a demon.

How does he think he knows what classified proof there may be? His statement makes him seem silly, he's complaining he hasn't seen this proof, knowing he shouldn't be able to see it.

Russia incontrovertibly militarily and financially supports our enemies and attacks our allies. That alone makes them threat #1. Period. They are also expansionist on multiple fronts, which is hyper threatening.

It's only unwise to build up Polish border forces if you want Poland to be Russian.

Be clear, Putin didn't "put Trump into the whitehouse", but he certainly helped. The argument that he didn't just install him is a red herring, designed to distract from the legal and illegal things Russia did to effect the election, a plan that worked better than they ever hoped.

Fake news hysteria?!? Fake news is one of the most important issues today, because it denies progress on ANY other issue by confusing the facts, making negotiation impossible.

I hate hearing about Bakers "promise"....it wasn't in writing, it wasn't from America or NATO, it wasn't binding in any way even then, and thinking we should stand by it in the face of Russia breaking treaty after treaty is just insane and naïve. Remember, Russia promised to never invade Ukraine (including Crimea).

I don't really think Aleppo was liberated....there's nothing left to liberate there but rubble.
Really, he's claiming that when Mosul was "liberated", Iraq just let the enemy drive away? That's bullshit. We have bombed the fleeing militants, and the Iraqi have fought them with vigor this time.

For a professional on US, Russia relations, he's got some strange ways of seeing things.
I do agree with him that, to Russia, bolstering Assad IS fighting terrorism. I think we failed miserably when we didn't take Assad out after he gassed the populace AND support/safeguard the local populace (if not their militias)....no question in my mind, that's when we lost Syria. Once Daesh and others were allowed to take over the anti-Assad side, there was no "winning" that war.
I also agree, with our current leaders, the nuclear safeguard is no safeguard at all, it's a sword of Damocles, not a shield.

I pretty much completely agree with you, but to play devil's advocate:

"Wasting resources and alienating our neighbors and allies with no tangible benefit." -- Stopping or even reducing illegal immigration would be a tangible benefit. I personally have no problems with immigrants, refugees, etc. coming in to the US, working (legally) and getting benefits like emergency and other health care, etc. But illegal / undocumented immigration can be a real problem.

I don't think the wall is a reasonable answer to that real problem, but it is part of the package that Trump sold to voters to get them to vote for him. As a result, he pretty much has to at least pretend like he's going to try to actually build it.


"I wish Republicans (since they have the purse strings) who bemoan the state of the country, would put fixing it first." -- A bunch of the people who voted for Trump consider illegal immigration to be a very important issue. Not all for racist reasons, either. Anyway, those people see the wall as Trump attempting to fix that issue -- something that other politicians haven't done.


I'd massively prefer Trump creating a giant jobs program by repairing interstates, railroads, and other transportation, building lots of solar and/or nuclear power plants to meet future demands with cleaner energy, etc. But Trump didn't run on those kinds of promises; one of the few concrete things he ran on was the border wall.


I really don't mean to defend the idea of a border wall, which I agree is extremely problematic for many many reasons. However, it wouldn't be the most egregious and pointless waste of taxpayer dollars. We spend *way* too much money on the Military-Industrial Complex, although that isn't entirely a waste (merely 75% wasteful ). And the TSA, which I mentioned in the previous post, is set to cost us $7.6 billion in 2017 alone -- half to a third of what people suggest the wall would cost to build in total. And the TSA sets the bar for pointless, in my opinion. Absolutely nothing of value would be lost if it was eliminated, and actual travel security would probably get better by simply reverting to how things worked before Bush inflicted it on us.

Yes, Jesus is 1/2 human, but not the half by which our sin nature is passed down. The sin nature is inherited from the father and not the mother.

God is eternal. He is uncreated, having no beginning or end. In other words, He isn't subject to time, time is subject to Him because He created it. It's impossible to really wrap our minds around that, being finite creatures who are subject to time. It should then therefore go without saying that how an eternal being not subject to time deals with time is beyond our understanding.

Whether we are able to fully comprehend it or not, the important issue is that to God, Jesus' sacrificial death was justice for all sin. That is good news for us! That means that we can be forgiven and receive eternal life.

I am also not sure why you are saying the infinite room idea is a fallacy; do you think this is a religious concept? This is a paradox postulated by mathematicians, not theologians:

"Hilbert's paradox is a veridical paradox: it leads to a counter-intuitive result that is provably true. The statements "there is a guest to every room" and "no more guests can be accommodated" are not equivalent when there are infinitely many rooms."

It is a logically valid idea according to mathematicians.

You should read what Trump supporting veterans say about him: Belligerent and entitled; a shame to military servicemen. No joke, in the fucking comments of the USAT article.

Some people even had the gall to say this veteran's shameful actions will harm Chili's business and that he shouldn't have fought over the meal. He should have been the bigger man and left without a free dinner, because military people don't sweat the small stuff -- you know, the small stuff, like human rights violations.

See what I'm doing? I'm breaking the influence of your echo chamber so you can hear the reasonable arguments from the Trump supporters you've been ignoring while you remain clueless talking with all your liberal friends about propaganda.

Come on, the reasonable qualities of racism are important issues largely being ignored by the left. At least listen. lolllllllllllll

If the "Liberal Elite" within the Democratic Party hadn't been so pigheaded and worked against Bernie at every turn, and maybe accepted him as a candidate, then maybe this interview would be with President Sanders.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz being immediately appointed to the head of Clinton's campaign after the Wikileaks revealed how she was undermining Sanders behind the scenes showed just how out of touch the party had become. Without realizing it, the "Liberal Elite" of the Democratic Party chose Trump to become the next president.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Lessig---who was running on the single most important issue facing American Democracy today---couldn't even get on the ballot during the primaries.

First, since this is your SOLE focus, and so you inappropriately insert it into every conversation you participate in, you are preaching about it. No one likes to be preached at, and that methodology always ends with the preached at becoming opposition to the preachers. That means that the way you go about trying to convince people of your point is working against your goal and is creating adversaries rather than cohorts.
Second, most people strongly disagree with your base premise, that all life is equal. Have you ever taken medicine or other steps to get rid of a disease? Ever slapped a mosquito? If so, you are an uncaring, hypocritical, torturous and murdering bastard! You killed billions of living micro organisms, and likely thousands of macro organisms. If all life is equal and it's cruelty to kill, period, then all life is evil because it's impossible to live without killing.

That some people can't see that their pet cause is not the most important issue facing the planet and/or that their viewpoint on a particular topic might not be rational is the root of all that's wrong with the world.

I get the issue, but at the same time, is it not just as racist to say that all the characters should be Asian because the source was Anime? I don't think these people are "endearing" or oblivious to important issues... they are just reasonable and level headed.

She seriously went all "blah blah blah" on national "news" in regards to important issues and details? Nice. I still had a glimmer of respect for TV news ...yada yada yada ...jump up their own ass.

Sorry @newtboy, gotta downvote this one on the basis that Cenk is making a big deal out of nothing.

Michigan didn't make sodomy and oral sex illegal, it's ALREADY illegal in Michigan. (Hell, it was illegal to swear in front of women and children until 2002, when they were forced to repeal the law after a man fell out of a canoe, swore, got arrested, and then was represented by the ACLU.)

But here's the thing, the ban is unconstitutional and therefore, unenforceable.

Now, should it be removed? Of course.

However, the idea behind this bill was an amendment to the existing bill to create an animal abuser database, and the guy who proposed the bill (Republican Senator Rick Jones) decided that it simply wasn't worth the effort to fight to get this removed when it's already unconstitutional anyway.

In other words, he took a pragmatic approach to fixing an important issue (animal abuse) by ignoring something that doesn't matter (an unenforceable law).

To his credit, he actually suggested another bill that would automatically strike unconstitutional laws from the state (which kinda seems like something that should be happening anyway).

"The minute I cross that line and I start talking about the other stuff, I won’t even get another hearing. It’ll be done....
Nobody wants to touch it. I would rather not even bring up the topic, because I know what would happen. You’d get both sides screaming and you end up with a big fight that’s not needed because it’s unconstitutional." Rick Jones

http://www.inquisitr.com/2775741/michigan-was-not-trying-to-ban-sodomy-with-logans-law-it-was-simply-not-un-banning-it/

Yes, it's fucking stupid, but "fucking stupid" seems to be the defining trait of most of the US system of government (two party system, electoral college, tacking on stupid amendments, etc)

I've been snorkeling loads of times, and while I don't really have any problems with the standard/basic equipment, this looks like a cool idea and definitely easier for first-timers.

I don't think it looks difficult to maintain -- with a normal mask, the secret that often goes untold due to sanitary reasons I suppose is that the best way to clean them and to prevent fog-up is to spit in there, rub it around, and then give it a quick saltwater rinse. If the anti-fogging mechanism of this works well, then you could just skip that step. If it doesn't work as advertised, well, I guess the spit technique would still hold up just fine.

As for maintaining/cleaning the breathing lines, I would imagine that they can be flushed with water. I don't think I've ever worried about that with a normal snorkel, I don't really see why this would be different.

The issue with increased difficulty in pressure equalization (since you can't plug your nose) is a problem, but I'd say the target audience for this product is newcomers to snorkeling, and they are probably not going to be the type to do much diving down past the 6-12 foot depth where that will be an important issue.

The only other thing that I can think of is that with a normal snorkel, clearing water from the tube is pretty easy with a big exhaled blow. If water gets into this thing, for whatever reason, I dunno if it is possible to clear it without surfacing and taking the whole thing off.

Have to double post: both sides greatest fear is "i don't know". Both sides attack that different but result to the same. Science revels on "i don't know" and willing to change their minds on new evidence. Except when it comes to God. Religion solves that with "god knows all". Result is the same: problem seemingly solved. Agnosticism just accepts "i don't know" and move on to more important issues. I'll never know so why think about it at all.