>> ^kronosposeidon:

Batman is probably my second favorite superhero, right after the Amazon princess. I don't compare superheroes with characters from other genres, like horror, science fiction, etc, because they're apples and oranges. He's not my second overall comic book character, but he's still high up. Do you read the new Batman & Robin, with Dick Grayson as the new Batman? I think it's pretty good.
And I read The Dark Knight Returns, and thought it blew. I can't stand Frank Miller, especially his Batman comics. Read this amusing critique of one of his Batman series. He deserves every bit of scorn heaped on him in that scathing review. >> ^Sarzy:
Batman is the greatest comic book character of all time. Of all time!
Yeah, that's right, I said it.



I actually haven't stepped foot in a comic shop in well over a year. Mostly because I'm absurdly broke at the moment, though I am starting to feel the itch to start picking up at least a few comics again.

I completely agree about the Dark Knight Returns, which I found to be kind of shockingly bad, given how revered it is by pretty much everyone. I did really like Batman: Year One, though.

Batman is probably my second favorite superhero, right after the Amazon princess. I don't compare superheroes with characters from other genres, like horror, science fiction, etc, because they're apples and oranges. He's not my second overall comic book character, but he's still high up. Do you read the new Batman & Robin, with Dick Grayson as the new Batman? I think it's pretty good.

And I read The Dark Knight Returns, and thought it blew. I can't stand Frank Miller, especially his Batman comics. Read this amusing critique of one of his Batman series. He deserves every bit of scorn heaped on him in that scathing review. >> ^Sarzy:

Batman is the greatest comic book character of all time. Of all time!
Yeah, that's right, I said it.

I was going to say this is making a mockery of wrestling, but wrestling is making a mockery of wrestling.

Did you skip your history class?

Dark Ages referred to the period of time ushered in by the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

The decline of the Roman Empire refers to the societal collapse encompassing both the gradual disintegration of the political, economic, military, and other social institutions of Rome.

To be sure Christians have done their good part in making a mockery out of religion. This doesn't make the Bible wrong. Just piss poor examples that do more harm than good.

The irony of this is that our 21st Century world is no less dark. It is an individual darkness, which multiplies and grows as those who reject Gods walk. Our age is characterized by every intellectual and technological advance but our morals have turned backwards.

From 2 Timothy 3
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

The Book of 2 Timothy was written in approximately A.D. 67 which is interesting that for something written so long ago appear so timely today.

I guess that if Nostradamus wrote it more would probably give it more credit.

>> ^TheGenk:

Didn't we have a christian dictatorship on this planet already? What was it called...? Ah yes, the fucking DARK AGE!

@Yogi

Last time I checked the website wasn't a complete monarchy, and was a community. Therefore I believe I'm allowed to state my opinion on things. I didn't throw this in discussion, or do anything unnecessary, I just voiced my thoughts.

and @JiggaJonson Basically, what Dan00108 said. Coming into this I expected something comedic, and made the bad choice to watch the video since I was already here. Essentially clicking the play button and having a half smile instantly fade from my face.

Quite frankly I see your title and description as conflicting. On the one hand, you say you don't agree with posting snuff on videosift, and on the other you make a mockery of it by giving it a comedic title.

Maybe the title wasn't meant as such, but it's obviously easy enough to misinterpret.

Paul Krugman in the NYT:

Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P. And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

Of course, the likes of Mr. Beck and Mr. O’Reilly are responding to popular demand. Citizens of other democracies may marvel at the American psyche, at the way efforts by mildly liberal presidents to expand health coverage are met with cries of tyranny and talk of armed resistance. Still, that’s what happens whenever a Democrat occupies the White House, and there’s a market for anyone willing to stoke that anger… the purveyors of hate have been treated with respect, even deference, by the G.O.P. establishment. As David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, has put it, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.” So will the Arizona massacre make our discourse less toxic? It’s really up to G.O.P. leaders

Sorry to bust your mockery there.
In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I read the bible and now I'm an Athe.

edit: gwiz665's title change made this comment irrelevant. Move along. Nothing to see here.

I have to say... as an outside spectator of the charade that is TSA and privacy in general in the USA, I find this subject quite frightening.
If the American people are able to withstand all the humiliation and mockery, I really begin to see how dictatorships are possible.
I never understood how a whole nation is able to accept whatever their leaders tells them and always assumed the nation in question was/is weak and unstable (like many of the Eastern European or Asian countries). It seems that even people in "advanced" countries are just as gullible as anybody else. Even with all the freedom of speech and information, people are still easily deceived.

With this in mind, the future looks quite grim.

PS: sorry for the long post.

When I was teaching in Sweden we had problems with mostly foreign students cheating. It's possible that everyone was cheating equally much but the Swedish students didn't get caught as often. I got it explained to me that foreign students had a lot of pressure to do well and they always took as many courses as they could simultaneously which inevitably led to them "having" to cheat.

I also had it explained to me that the foreign students were the ones keeping the school afloat since every course they got through and every education they finished brought in money for the school. Some courses were a joke, they made them easy just to keep the throughput high.

The blame can be spread far and wide. Students were lazy etc (I was lazy too sometimes). Planning new courses could be a nightmare. The formula went like this: Out of 100 students applying to a course, only 50 would finish the course (or even show up) and only 25 would get a passing grade. Still you needed lecture rooms and equipment and everything else for the 50+ people. If you made the course too hard and not enough people passed, the school took a hit.

I taught a course in programming that was initially intended for around 30 people, but almost 200 people signed up and over 100 showed up. Panic. I was officially only a teaching assistant but the main teacher didn't really know programming (she was a doctorate and dumped the whole course in my lap) and now suddenly I was lecturing a class of 100+ students, mostly foreign, with little or no computer experience (they dont have the same amount of equipment abroad apparently), most of them studying 150% and studying for re-exams at the same time. I think in the end around 20 students passed (I wrote the exam and the course responsible cleared it without reading it and realizing I'd made it "too hard"). I know it sounds like I'm just making this stuff up. But it really happened. In Sweden (!).

I guess I don't have a moral of the story, I'm just venting Seeing things from the other side I realized what a mess education could be.

>> ^Porksandwich:

I was a computer science major in my 4th year...so I was in a lot of classes with graduate students. They had a few extra things on exams and projects they had to do for their graduate portion of the class. What was hilarious is that most of them were Indian and most of them came in to class with what looked like a xerox copy of each others work with their name signed to it, and this went on all quarter. On the last exam one of them sat next to me and was obviously trying to cheat off my exam, so I spent awhile writing down false answers and making them very easy to read because this whole Indian group of students seemed to ride on each others work and no one called them on it. While I saw undergraduate US citizens being busted for the same thing (I can only assume this was motivated by money and enrollment/scores).
So after I knew I wouldn't have enough time to keep up the false answers, I hurried up and changed all my work hunched over my test so he couldn't read it anymore and finished. Turned it in and told the professor that he was copying off me and the two Indians in front of us were sharing answers with him. I mean you'd have to be blind to not see the guys turn around during the test multiple times.

And on my exit interview for the school I ranked it down and told them that I was pissed that those Indian students were never punished, since them cheating off undergrads makes it appear that undergrads are the ones cheating if you just look at the data and assume graduate students should know the answers. Plus I marked off some things for other stuff. And the dean of my school changed my numbers scores to higher scores because he would question me on something and I'd say "Maybe, but I feel my personal experience warrants that score." He would say something like "But isn't that too harsh, so maybe we should......" and I'd disagree, but he'd still change the score.
It's kind of a shame when you like the subject you study but the people teaching it to you make a mockery of the university by having double standards for the various grads/undergrads and ethnic groups. They still call me up and want alumni donations, and I tell the people calling my story and why I won't ever donate to that university...and why they should transfer out ASAP. Assuming they don't have a heavy Indian accent....

I was a computer science major in my 4th year...so I was in a lot of classes with graduate students. They had a few extra things on exams and projects they had to do for their graduate portion of the class. What was hilarious is that most of them were Indian and most of them came in to class with what looked like a xerox copy of each others work with their name signed to it, and this went on all quarter. On the last exam one of them sat next to me and was obviously trying to cheat off my exam, so I spent awhile writing down false answers and making them very easy to read because this whole Indian group of students seemed to ride on each others work and no one called them on it. While I saw undergraduate US citizens being busted for the same thing (I can only assume this was motivated by money and enrollment/scores).

So after I knew I wouldn't have enough time to keep up the false answers, I hurried up and changed all my work hunched over my test so he couldn't read it anymore and finished. Turned it in and told the professor that he was copying off me and the two Indians in front of us were sharing answers with him. I mean you'd have to be blind to not see the guys turn around during the test multiple times.


And on my exit interview for the school I ranked it down and told them that I was pissed that those Indian students were never punished, since them cheating off undergrads makes it appear that undergrads are the ones cheating if you just look at the data and assume graduate students should know the answers. Plus I marked off some things for other stuff. And the dean of my school changed my numbers scores to higher scores because he would question me on something and I'd say "Maybe, but I feel my personal experience warrants that score." He would say something like "But isn't that too harsh, so maybe we should......" and I'd disagree, but he'd still change the score.

It's kind of a shame when you like the subject you study but the people teaching it to you make a mockery of the university by having double standards for the various grads/undergrads and ethnic groups. They still call me up and want alumni donations, and I tell the people calling my story and why I won't ever donate to that university...and why they should transfer out ASAP. Assuming they don't have a heavy Indian accent....

I understand that you believe I'm holding some sort of double standard because I accused you and Rachael Meadow of "unjustified smug certainty" while dismissing your admittedly silly reply with my "No, not really". I can see how that could come across as smug, but it doesn't express any kind of certainty - only that I didn't think your reply was as relevant as you thought it was, which is to say I don't think it's relevant at all.

You should know that when you said-
"By the same logic you're using, we should be deeply skeptical that vaccination works."

- that the 'logic I was using' was a mockery of the 'logic' I saw Rachael's using.
I guess it wasn't your intent at all, but showing the ridiculousness of this actually strengthens my point.
"No, not really" means no, I don't really think that refutes the point I made at all.
You haven't really changed tack since this whole thing started, so my response is still essentially "no, not really", just with the number of words used to explain why increasing as I type this.

If you want to show me that you two aren't just engaging in ideologically driven gloating, show me evidence and reason. I would appreciate it if you didn't place me 'on the other side of the isle' just because I question the justification for your views, albeit in a sarcastic way.

(edit: more newlines)

Shut your filthy fuckin' mouth. You're a complete and utter asshole, whatever the fuck your actual name is.

Don't assume you know a goddamn thing about me or my friend.

He's probably the most kind-hearted and forgiving person I've met and I WON'T have your sorry ass make a mockery of all his hard work and generosity.

His only wish was to own a small business.

Tho since the no-good lyin' sack of shit that sold the pizzeria to him falsified documents, he was unaware the income was overstated until the first quarter was up.

By then, she had disappeared.

He sacrificed sleep, his performance at his day job, and his sanity to keep his investment afloat.

Most months he was lucky to break even.

He took out a second mortgage on his house.
Sunk in $300,000 in additional loans over 4 years.
Exhausted all his resources and back ups.
Yet never saw a goddamn cent in return.

Despite ALL of this, he still paid me well over minimum wage for a year and a half.
Right out of his own pocket essentially

So next time, before you go mount your sure-as-shit high horse of righteousness.

Make certain you know what the FUCK you're talkin' about, alright.


>> ^joedirt:

Your pizzaria guy is just a jerk. Yes minimum wage did go up, do he is paying more.. But in reality he was paying way too little for like 10 years. So, yes minimum wage goes up in step functions while cost of living and inflation go up linearly. So for like 5 years min wage employees are getting screwed and for like 2 or 3 years employers are paying more than "usual". But no, jerkoff pizza guy didn't magically have to shell out extra thousands of dollars. (which is probably like 1/2 the profit from a few weeks)

Shut your filthy fuckin' mouth. You're a complete and utter asshole, whatever the fuck your actual name is.

Don't assume you know a goddamn thing about me or my friend.

He's probably the most kind-hearted and forgiving person I've met and I WON'T have your sorry ass make a mockery of all his hard work and generosity.

His only wish was to own a small business.

Tho since the no-good lyin' sack of shit that sold the pizzeria to him falsified documents, he was unaware the income was overstated until the first quarter was up.

By then, she had disappeared.

He sacrificed sleep, his performance at his day job, and his sanity to keep his investment afloat.

Most months he was lucky to break even.

He took out a second mortgage on his house.
Sunk in $300,000 in additional loans over 4 years.
Exhausted all his resources and back ups.
Yet never saw a goddamn cent in return.

Despite ALL of this, he still paid me well over minimum wage for a year and a half.
Right out of his own pocket essentially

So next time, before you go mount your sure-as-shit high horse of righteousness.

Make certain you know what the FUCK you're talkin' about, alright.





In reply to this comment by joedirt:

Your pizzaria guy is just a jerk. Yes minimum wage did go up, do he is paying more.. But in reality he was paying way too little for like 10 years. So, yes minimum wage goes up in step functions while cost of living and inflation go up linearly. So for like 5 years min wage employees are getting screwed and for like 2 or 3 years employers are paying more than "usual". But no, jerkoff pizza guy didn't magically have to shell out extra thousands of dollars. (which is probably like 1/2 the profit from a few weeks)

Hi again, I know its been some time, but I've been really busy with my real-life stuff lately, but I wanted to give a reply to your last reply. Since your post was somewhat longish, I've extracted some quotes, but keep in mind I have read and considered your entire text.

"You seem to blame religion for people's tendencies to want simple answers and to blindly follow authority, but I blame human nature for that."

Well, let me put it this way: I blame human nature for the existence of religion

"I think you'd see a lot more of the positive things that religion can bring to both individuals and society(...) If believing in something supernatural helps people take that message to heart, I'm not convinced it is such a bad thing."
Does religion really "bring" the good stuff, tho? Thats what I'm questioning, really. God would have to have been pretty darn sadistic to make more than one religion, so i think we can agree that atleast all except one religion is manmade. It is the thinking apes first and (in my opinion) worst attempt at understanding, and putting in order, the world around them. Morality is also a human construct, so is science, so is money, so is reason, community, logic, laws, politics etc. Its all man-made, and theres nothing wrong with man-made constructs, or, at least, there doesnt have to be. One of the problems of religion tho, is that it acts like a parasite on all these other constructs and concepts, and you seem eager to give it as much credit as possible whenever something goes right, and exempt it from any blame whenever something goes wrong. Take its affiliation with politics, for instance, and compare it to philosophy. How many advances in politics have been made because of religion, how often has religion been the deciding factor for GOOD whenever there is a shift in the moral zeitgeist.

No, the vast majority religious people are not blind dogmatists, but thats hardly anything religion should get credit for, is it? It's not the ayatollahs or the priests or the bibles or the qurans that are pushing to make people think for themselves, is it? Why should it? after all, religion is born out of revelation and dogma, and it depends on FAITH for it's survival. Its very existence depends on its followers ability to restrain their use of critical thinking.

The fact that religion can make otherwise extremely smart people believe claims that are indistinguishable to fairytales is yet another example of how religion manages to make exceptions for itself, by making it acceptible behaviour to brainwash children and excluding itself from rational discourse. It then goes on to hijack morality, compassion and love to claim as its own, while accepting no blame for the countless times it has done nothing but making a mockery out of all such concepts.

The truth is that we can do fine without religion. in fact, strike that, we can do better without religion, and history is a testament to this fact. Religion has proved to be an utterly unreliable source for knowledge about everything:

Creationists are mad to take its claims about nature and history seriously
Literalists are mad to take its claims about morality and law seriously
Conservatives are mad to take its claims about sexuality and abortion seriously
Moderates are mad to cherrypick and distort its claims about nature, history,morality,law,sexuality and abortion, And I would be mad to take them seriously

>> ^robbersdog49:

>> ^qualm:
It's just too bad that the racist scumbag guy with the camera had to ruin an otherwise brilliant vid for me with his despicable mockery of a First Nations person at 2:44.

I'm sorry, I just don't understand. At 2:44 he says "At first I thought he was joking".
I'm really sorry if I'm missing the joke, but how is this racist?


I think he's trying to say that the guy was mocking American Indians with the way he spoke, but I think he was just talking normally.

The only problem I see here is qualm's outright accusation, like he's constantly on the lookout for stuff like that. There is a term for people like that, which I can't recall at the moment, but essentially, it amounts to someone, who he himself is a racist, by expecting it, and projecting it onto others, as if perpetually fearful of it. As a result, they attack first, often incorrectly accusing others.