Why are BP and the President handling something that is clearly the courts responsibility?

This. Whatever liability BP is on the hook for should be handled 100% through the courts, not by the Executive branch. There is a separation of powers for a reason.

it just means there's a government-run escrow being set up to ensure that BP has set aside the funds to pay claims

You say the words GOVERNMENT RUN ESCROW and still no alarm bells go off in your head? The executive branch does not have the power to do this. The Constitution plainly states you appeal to congress for a redress of grievances – not the President’s personally appointed toadies. Now Obama’s ‘pay czar’ is the one people bow & scrape before for redress – a guy who has no oversight, answers to no one, didn’t have a single vote by Congress, and doesn’t have to face an approval process. No chance for abuse there, eh?

but no real sign that any of those people want to deprive Obama of the power to detain terror suspects indefinitely without trial

The president has no constitutional right to collect monies from private organizations of any kind for any reason - real or fancied, freely or begrudged. The president DOES have a constitutional right direct the military and defense of this country and that includes treatment of captured enemy soldiers. See the difference?

Just as a final note – I’m not saying BP should be ‘off the hook’. I’m of the opinion that when anyone screws up, they should take responsibility for their actions. When a company screws up, they should pay for the damages. BP has been cutting corners & playing dangerously to save cash and the mess is their fault. They should do the right thing and step up & fix it. That includes paying for legitimate damages and cleanup.

That’s not the same thing as saying they should just write a black check and hand it to the government and walk away. There is certainly no onus on BP to pay all the lunatic claims that will inevitably result as the greedy vultures start circling over this 20 billion. BP isn't responsible for lower tourism revenues, or dropping home prices. The only people that should be getting money are people who have actual PHYSICAL repairs or clean up costs due to oil. All the other stuff is 'act of god' stuff and sometimes that just happens and you have to deal with it.

Obama’s ‘BP stash’ is designed by nature to be an irresponsible, unanswerable, politically motivated vote-machine. Why should we believe Obama is going to run this clean when he hasn’t run a single ‘clean’ political effort in his lifetime? At what point has government EVER been a responsible entity for the distribution of cash for damages? Never. This is the tobacco settlement fiasco just waiting to happen again.

QM, you think the death penalty is a good thing? How barbaric and archaic.

First, it costs taxpayers big bucks. It is also the biggest form of government power ever. For the state to take a life...everything else is small potatoes in comparision.
Second, it nets those innocent as well as those guilty. Think of 13 video sifters judging whether you committed a crime. Imagine being guilty just for being black. Imagine many things...
Third, it is not punishment enough for this monster to have his arm swabbed with an alcohol pad and be put down humanely like some dog. Let his self-crippled ass sit in a cell, watch the paint peel, and later die of kidney failure on his own. Your pussy ass method sucks.

And don't argue to make the death penalty harsher. Even hanging lasts only a second. Firing squad? Minutes perhaps...


>> ^quantumushroom:
Executions in Washington State
Since 1904, 77 persons have been executed in Washington, none of whom were women.
Executions by Ethnicity
Caucasian - 65
Black - 7
Asian - 2
Hispanic - 2
Eskimo - 1
Chances are this turd will die of old age.
It's amazing how every single inmate in the prison system was set-up, framed or wrongly accused. Hell of a coincidence.
PS. Eskimo?

From an audioporncentral.com post:

The top 25 most popular hit songs of 2009, according to Billboard Magazine:
The Black Eyed Peas – BOOM BOOM POW
Lady Gaga – POKER FACE
Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O’Donis – JUST DANCE
The Black Eyed Peas – I GOTTA FEELING
Taylor Swift – LOVE STORY
Flo Rida – RIGHT ROUND
Jason Mraz – I’M YOURS
Beyonce – SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)
Kanye West – HEARTLESS
The All-American Rejects – GIVES YOU HELL
Taylor Swift – YOU BELONG WITH ME
T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake – DEAD AND GONE
The Fray – YOU FOUND ME
Kings Of Leon – USE SOMEBODY
Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo – KNOCK YOU DOWN
Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain – BLAME IT
Pitbull – I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO)
T.I. Featuring Rihanna – LIVE YOUR LIFE
Soulja Boy Tell ‘em Featuring Sammie – KISS ME THRU THE PHONE
Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne – DOWN
Miley Cyrus – THE CLIMB
Drake – BEST I EVER HAD
Kelly Clarkson – MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU
Beyonce – HALO
Katy Perry – HOT N COLD

and now a story-

When I was in boot camp there were 2 guys named Smith. One of African heritage, the other of European. So, since people in boot were busy enough, they did not bother to learn the Smiths first names and they just called the "black smith" (which is also funny in another way, but that seemed lost on the group) and "white smith". This offended some of the guys and to show their offense they decided it was necessary to prefix everyone's name with their skin tone. Since their were many of us and we were from many different back grounds, it turned out their were a myriad of colors to go around. I was Olive Grey Gaz, my best friend in the group was dirty tan Ghazal, another was chalk white Stubbs, and yet another was pinkish Sheer. I thought it was quite illuminating to hear each and every persons EXACT skin tone (as is it was interpreted by a bunch of young guys) attached to them as a label. To me, it really pin pointed how stupid the whole color thing is. Nearly everyone is a different color and it really does not matter what that color is.

Thanks, Ollie! That did the trick.

See you at the next Bilderberg / Illuminati meeting ol' chum!

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
I'm pretty sure the embed for the video 'Esoteric Agenda' you sifted is dead, as it's just showing a black screen for me. Here's a new embed. And if you're still interested in that kinda stuff check out Ben Stewart's (the maker of the film) sequel to it, which I just submitted.

I'm pretty sure the embed for the video 'Esoteric Agenda' you sifted is dead, as it's just showing a black screen for me. Here's a new embed. And if you're still interested in that kinda stuff check out Ben Stewart's (the maker of the film) sequel to it, which I just submitted.

Observe how he just ignores the black guy, the EMT.

*dead, I think. It just shows me black for a few seconds then related videos.

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine - who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle - I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

"O! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it, sir."

"Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!"

"Pip. Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man. "Pint out the place!"

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself - for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet - when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you ha' got."

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

"Darn me if I couldn't eat em," said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, "and if I han't half a mind to't!"

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.

"Now lookee here!" said the man. "Where's your mother?"

"There, sir!" said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"There, sir!" I timidly explained. "Also Georgiana. That's my mother."

"Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your father alonger your mother?"

"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; late of this parish."

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering. "Who d'ye live with - supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?"

"My sister, sir - Mrs. Joe Gargery - wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he. And looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you know what wittles is?"

"Yes, sir."

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

"You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And you get me wittles." He tilted me again. "You bring 'em both to me." He tilted me again. "Or I'll have your heart and liver out." He tilted me again.

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, "If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more."

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weather-cock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:

"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a-keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?"

I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.

"Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!" said the man.

I said so, and he took me down.

"Now," he pursued, "you remember what you've undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get home!"

"Goo-good night, sir," I faltered.

"Much of that!" said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. "I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!"

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms - clasping himself, as if to hold himself together - and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.

When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy, or the tide was in.

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered - like an unhooped cask upon a pole - an ugly thing when you were near it; the other a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But, now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.

hmmm. it says the embed is valid but I just get a black screen

Bush proved that Americans need to pay very close attention to politics. And once they did, they made a liberal black guy the Preznit.

Deal with it.

No one paid any attention at all. No one in the media scrutinized the man himself, they skimmed an image and symbol. Obama is not just another "liberal black guy"; from what little we know of him he's an ultra-leftist radical and we'll ALL be "dealing with it" as this would-be dictator attempts to overthrow the real America in favor of his corrupt vision of an all-powerful government and dependent population.

QM, I'll admit I was wrong with who I voted for when you admit you were wrong about who you voted for...bush sucked and it looks like Obama is puttin' gasoline on the fire bush lit.

Look at what the left ran against Bush: in 2000 a pathological liar/egotist/Clinton protégé and in 2004 a European-leftist gigolo who lied and betrayed his country's military.

Bush made plenty of mistakes, but he didn't consider himself the center of the universe like The One.

No one was "wrong" to vote for Obama. Uninformed, dazzled, angry or addicted to novelty, yes.

Just because the black people who voted for prop 8 couldn't (or wouldn't) see the unique mirror perspective that particular situation put up, doesn't mean that the mirror wasn't there. The analogy between the persecution that gays have had to live with as well as the racial discrimination is so blindingly obvious, the mere idea anyone couldn't see the similarity is astounding.

Hell, at least Racial discrimination is against the law, there's nothing to protect anyone from sexual discrimination for the most part. Technically speaking, a black man actually has MORE rights than a gay person in this country. The idea that the people voting for Prop 8 were perfectly happy with neo-nazi skinhead aryan brotherhood supporting bigots getting married... but not gays. Surely not.

Any hateful, despicable, murderous, thieving, corruptible, deceitful, lying, scum of the earth poor excuse for a human being... ANY of them can get married assuming they can find a woman/man of the opposite sex who can put up with it. I'd say anyone fitting the above description getting married is a MUCH larger "threat" to marriage than any amount of gay love. No gay marriage wouldn't be perfect either, but at least it would be equal. And for proponents of so called civil unions, I refer you back to Separate But Equal. It was bigotry then, it's bigotry now, just a new name.

its either dead, or my comp doesnt like it, OR its supposed to just be a black screen, in which case maybe its pure genius?

Typical liberal hypocrisy. Obama is just a half-black version of Bill Clinton. Instead of lying constantly, screwing everything with two legs, and screwing up foreign policy for the next several generations, Obama will instead simply turn our country into a Communist police state. He's been in office for a week, and it's already started. Be afraid, kids, be very afraid...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

The question is whether we should automagically update all of the VideoSift embeds to display in the new ratio. The vast, vast majority though will just have big black blocks on both sides because they weren't uploaded at that ratio.