Bikie could have had a cramp....or a heart attack, or a stroke, or a momentary vision issue....youve no idea why he stopped, the point is, it does not matter one iota.

They were going SO slowly to begin with, the only reason the cop could have hit him is if he was RIGHT up his ass, or paying NO attention to the road...both instances makes him an asshole up front, let alone negligent in his duties to drive safely.

It's in Thai. One thing that I and most other foreigners I've talked to living in Thailand have noticed about the culture here is that Thais are very averse to confrontation. Based on that, my guessed explanation of this is as follows:

Dude comes to class every day and plays on his phone, causing frequent interruptions. Rather than calling him out the first time it happens and telling him he'll get booted from the class if it ever happens again, confrontation-averse professor lets it slide. For weeks. Devoid of any repercussions, the dude gets ever more brazen and annoying. Eventually, that escalation plus perhaps a bad day in general for the professor combine and result in this ... snap.

In further typical Thai fashion, the professor is ashamed of her momentary snap and lapse in protocol, so she just slides back into routine as though nothing happened.

As a teacher here, I see this kind of thing (in various situations) quite frequently. My guess is that it is "real", but I can easily understand @KnivesOut feeling like it looks fake because the cultural influences on behavior here often make Thai's reactions seem wooden, stiff, or otherwise strange from a Western perspective. I could certainly be wrong, but I've seen enough similar real incidents firsthand here that I doubt it.

SREDNI VASHTAR

Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who counted for nearly everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian, and in his eyes she represented those three-fifths of the world that are necessary and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in himself and his imagination. One of these days Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary things---such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out dulness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago.

Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him ``for his good'' was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome. Conradin hated her with a desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian, and from the realm of his imagination she was locked out---an unclean thing, which should find no entrance.

In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that were ready to open with a message not to do this or that, or a reminder that medicines were due, he found little attraction. The few fruit-trees that it contained were set jealously apart from his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind blooming in an arid waste; it would probably have been difficult to find a market-gardener who would have offered ten shillings for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten corner, however, almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found a haven, something that took on the varying aspects of a playroom and a cathedral. He had peopled it with a legion of familiar phantoms, evoked partly from fragments of history and partly from his own brain, but it also boasted two inmates of flesh and blood. In one corner lived a ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy lavished an affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the gloom stood a large hutch, divided into two compartments, one of which was fronted with close iron bars. This was the abode of a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in exchange for a long-secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe, sharp-fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession. Its very presence in the tool-shed was a secret and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin. And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a week at a church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers in their season and scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient side of things, as opposed to the Woman's religion, which, as far as Conradin could observe, went to great lengths in the contrary direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg was strewn in front of his hutch, an important feature of the offering being that the nutmeg had to be stolen. These festivals were of irregular occurrence, and were chiefly appointed to celebrate some passing event. On one occasion, when Mrs. De Ropp suffered from acute toothache for three days, Conradin kept up the festival during the entire three days, and almost succeeded in persuading himself that Sredni Vashtar was personally responsible for the toothache. If the malady had lasted for another day the supply of nutmeg would have given out.

The Houdan hen was never drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar. Conradin had long ago settled that she was an Anabaptist. He did not pretend to have the remotest knowledge as to what an Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that it was dashing and not very respectable. Mrs. De Ropp was the ground plan on which he based and detested all respectability.

After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to attract the notice of his guardian. ``It is not good for him to be pottering down there in all weathers,'' she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced that the Houdan hen had been sold and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted eyes she peered at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow, which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said nothing: there was nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a delicacy which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also because the making of it ``gave trouble,'' a deadly offence in the middle-class feminine eye.

``I thought you liked toast,'' she exclaimed, with an injured air, observing that he did not touch it.

``Sometimes,'' said Conradin.

In the shed that evening there was an innovation in the worship of the hutch-god. Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, tonight be asked a boon.

``Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.''

The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god he must be supposed to know. And choking back a sob as he looked at that other empty comer, Conradin went back to the world he so hated.

And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom, and every evening in the dusk of the tool-shed, Conradin's bitter litany went up: ``Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.''

Mrs. De Ropp noticed that the visits to the shed did not cease, and one day she made a further journey of inspection.

``What are you keeping in that locked hutch?'' she asked. ``I believe it's guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away.''

Conradin shut his lips tight, but the Woman ransacked his bedroom till she found the carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down to the shed to complete her discovery. It was a cold afternoon, and Conradin had been bidden to keep to the house. From the furthest window of the dining-room the door of the shed could just be seen beyond the corner of the shrubbery, and there Conradin stationed himself. He saw the Woman enter, and then be imagined her opening the door of the sacred hutch and peering down with her short-sighted eyes into the thick straw bed where his god lay hidden. Perhaps she would prod at the straw in her clumsy impatience. And Conradin fervently breathed his prayer for the last time. But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe. He knew that the Woman would come out presently with that pursed smile he loathed so well on her face, and that in an hour or two the gardener would carry away his wonderful god, a god no longer, but a simple brown ferret in a hutch. And he knew that the Woman would triumph always as she triumphed now, and that he would grow ever more sickly under her pestering and domineering and superior wisdom, till one day nothing would matter much more with him, and the doctor would be proved right. And in the sting and misery of his defeat, he began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn of his threatened idol:

Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.

And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and drew closer to the window-pane. The door of the shed still stood ajar as it had been left, and the minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but they slipped by nevertheless. He watched the starlings running and flying in little parties across the lawn; he counted them over and over again, with one eye always on that swinging door. A sour-faced maid came in to lay the table for tea, and still Conradin stood and waited and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart, and now a look of triumph began to blaze in his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of defeat. Under his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began once again the pæan of victory and devastation. And presently his eyes were rewarded: out through that doorway came a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees. The great polecat-ferret made its way down to a small brook at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment, then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight in the bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar.

``Tea is ready,'' said the sour-faced maid; ``where is the mistress?'' ``She went down to the shed some time ago,'' said Conradin. And while the maid went to summon her mistress to tea, Conradin fished a toasting-fork out of the sideboard drawer and proceeded to toast himself a piece of bread. And during the toasting of it and the buttering of it with much butter and the slow enjoyment of eating it, Conradin listened to the noises and silences which fell in quick spasms beyond the dining-room door. The loud foolish screaming of the maid, the answering chorus of wondering ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps and hurried embassies for outside help, and then, after a lull, the scared sobbings and the shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy burden into the house.

``Whoever will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life of me!'' exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the matter among themselves, Conradin made himself another piece of toast.

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

So, are you timing out trying to reach dag.videosift.com right now, or was it just a momentary thing?
In reply to this comment by marinara:
timeout, so there is no http error.
also i can't ping dag.videosift.com, but i can ping www.videosift.com
PING dag.videosift.com (216.18.199.34) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
lemme guess, that's not your ip. no?

In reply to this comment by dag:
What's the actual error returned to your browser?
In reply to this comment by marinara:
i'm getting timeouts on some of your domains like dag.videosift.com. (maybe some of the others)
the problems continue, so its not on my end.

In reply to this comment by dag:
Just don't touch EZTV for the love of all American expats who still want their cheesy American sitcoms.

I have visited Belgium and picnic'd near a wood fenced idyliic pasture, filled with the Belgian steroid cows. I was attacked but managed to capture a momentary photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/internationalmaskfestival/959897401/

Good sportsmanship is great, and a good thing to encourage. However, this rule doesn't punish "bad" sportsmanship, unless your standards for "bad" sportsmanship are so ridiculously hair-triggered that you'd prefer to watch all sports being played by Robots versus Vulcans.

It is possible to be a gracious winner and yet remain visibly happy that you won. What does any any Olympic athlete do after winning a race, landing a tough jump, setting a new record, or having any other momentary success? They give themselves a little fist-pump, grin like idiots, puff out their chest and hold their head high -- and that is probably the bare minimum for even the most stoic competitor ever. Is that bad sportsmanship? No.

What happens at the end of every World Series, Superbowl, or Championship of any sport ever played? One team jumps up and down in a mass hug, acting like schoolgirls and completely unashamed of doing so, while the other team has their arms at their sides and stares blank-faced at the ground 3 feet in front of their feet. Is that bad sportsmanship by the winners? No.

I love the tradition in NHL hockey where at the end of any playoff series, the entire roster of both teams lines up and shakes hands with every member of the opposing team. This can happen after 7 games fueled by hatred and bad blood, bench clearing brawls, or whatever. They put that aside, line up, shake hands, and congratulate each other on a well-fought series. Is that good sportsmanship? Yes!

Encouraging good sportsmanship makes sense. Coming up with punishments that can potentially alter the outcome of games for some behavior that is arbitrarily decided is "bad" sportsmanship is crazy.

I pretty much agree with @SpaceOddity; I think it is easy to misinterpret this guy's candor and his phrasing from his perspective as a trader, causing him to appear like a dude cleaning his monocle, waxing his mustache, and evilly laughing as he stomps on Joe Sixpack.

Basically, here's what I took away from his statement instead:
The market moves in short-term cycles on top of long-term cycles. Sometimes you can make a lot of money by shuffling around paper; stocks, foreign currencies, etc. Sometimes that stuff crashes and you will need to concentrate on more real, physical assets to stay ahead of the game; gold, major commodities, land, etc.

He thinks that Europe is approaching that 2nd sort of situation in their long-term cycle. So, his advice is to first nail down your ownership of any physical assets that you have. Your house, land, and other physical property. If/when the crash hits, physical assets can be traded to accumulate more tradable assets in the same way a trader would normally do with stocks and other less tangible assets.


...Either that, or he is just trying to incite some momentary fluctuations in the market that he is in a position to take advantage of. But honestly, I didn't get that read from listening to him.

I don't think spanking in general is "wrong" in all situations. Parents need to have freedom to decide what they think works best with their children in terms of rewards, punishments, and other systems of encouraging or discouraging specific behaviors.

I'd wager that anyone from the baby boomer generation or older probably grew up experiencing some corporal punishment / spanking along the lines of what the book author was describing. I think that is pretty much the far end of acceptable severity for today, and well beyond what I would do myself, but considering that so many people were exposed to that in previous generations it would be illogical to suggest that it is unacceptable or too extreme.

But like @rottenseed said, I don't think it is reasonable to blame that guy's book. These bastards beat their kids for hours. They beat them not to cause momentary pain, but to cause injury. The willingness to commit that sort of act doesn't come from reading a book and saying "hey, that sounds like a good idea"; there has to be some sort of screwup in their mental wiring. A screwup that is exacerbated by wacko fundamentalist bullshit, sure. But I think they are just wacko enough in general that they'd probably have been doing the exact same disgusting stuff whether they ever read that guy's book (or hell, even the 'spare the rod' tripe in the Bible) or not.

So the good news is that they can rot in jail. Far outweighed by the bad news that it took far to long to toss them in there, and a child died as a result. Disgusting.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It wasn't immoral, it redeemed creation, his argument shows no understanding of divine providence. chris chooses to espouse this simplistic viewpoint based on a shallow understanding of His life and work...in no way was it immoral, not under any definition. Jesus said this, that the greatest love is that of someone willing to lay down their life for their friends. Jesus did that because He loves us all, to him we're all his friends. chris's argument is missing the point entirely. We can't get there on our own. There is no on righteous, not one;. Chris is a sinner, and he doesn't want to join God in paradise, he would rather be seperated from God forever..so when God gives him what he wanted you say its immoral. make up your mind
>> ^hpqp:
@shiny: So Jesus Christ is the only one to have allegedly died, nay, sacrificed himself, for others? Wow, that makes him soooo much better, and Christianity the pinnacle of morality!
/sarcasm
Watch and learn:




Jesus is just another avatar for God. How can an omnipotent, omniscient being who CREATED THE ENTIRE FRICKING UNIVERSE possibly be sacrificing ANYTHING or teaching some valuable lesson about living morally by killing a mere material manifestation of himself? It'd be like an adult person impressing an infant by doing the "Gotcher nose!" trick and then expecting, no, DEMANDING the child to be just as sycophantically impressed when he becomes an independent, free-thinking adult.

And why the FUCK would he decide to do this only after humanity has ALREADY had an incredibly harsh, scrounging, feral existence (while he sat on his ethereal ass, no less, watching his beloved creation unfold) composed of much abject suffering, hunger, and violence for the roughly 400,000 years of human development prior? Did an omnipotent god have a momentary (from his perspective, of course!) loss of control? What the fuck kind of interventionist God is he to chose THAT time specifically? Came down with a case of Mondays, maybe? Or did he just not care and decide to mix things up out of boredom? What a narcissistic, manipulative, cynical, uncaring, and abusive asshole your god is if your doctrine is to be believed.

You do not need a god, specifically the Christian god in your case, to be moral. Our continued existence and success as a social species has borne this out. We continue to progress in spite of the hamstringing influence of these unimaginative, sadomasochistic ideas, not because of them. Ideas of flawed and all-too-obviously human minds; superstition and utterly incomprehensible and self-contradictory religion. No divine being had ANY hand in that jumbled mess of a book you revere much. No self-respecting divine being would. Us humans, on the other hand...

The opening to A Momentary Lapse of Reason is alright, but nothing compares to Shine On You Crazy Diamond parts I-IX.

>> ^ghark:

Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but it ties in beautifully with the album, one of my favourite lead-ins from any album I've listened to.

omg could those birds talk over each other more?! jesus, theyre all just anxiously waiting for the other person to have a momentary break in dialogue so they can word vomit

except louis of course

Yeah, very much ditto on the 'nice effect, shame about the lack of tension or feeling of flow. There are many parts where there's a momentary lull where they pause between their moves. They never seem to be angered or tense or in fear. Demonstrates that it's not as easy as people think to make a good fight scene.

I completely disagree with the call for a green screen though, doing as much with physical things is always better... use your environment, ground it in reality and it'll always be better.

ROFL! I think the reactions to the shot are more awesome and hilarious than the actual shot itself. I want to join in on their momentary insanity!

I remember hearing this joke a few years ago and thinking, "damn that's a great joke! too bad it'll only be useful for the time being - when Sarah Palin is enjoying this momentary fame. Surely she'll just go back to Alaska and never be heard from again after Obama wins the election..." >> ^ridesallyridenc:

What he should have said was, "You know the difference between Sarah Palin's mouth and her vagina? Not everything that comes out of her vagina is retarded."
Now /that/ would have been offensive.

This man ends a life that he feels is of less worth than a momentary adrenaline rush.

The lack of empathy is staggering.

Not saying hunting is wrong or evil if done out of need but the act of killing for pleasure makes me a bit queasy, to say the least.