Notorious RBG!

Good point, but remember, we have no way of knowing if they're actually suspending it (actual missile and bomb tests excluded), and they're notorious for not keeping their word. Time will tell.

That said, the praise Trump heaps on other dictators for power grabs (Xi), and his lack of actions against them for direct attacks on us and allies (Putin) indicates that the temporary suspension of nuclear tests might not be the main factor in the decision.

The screening tests are readily available online:
https://psychology-tools.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

It wasn't till I was married and raising kids that it even occurred to me to check. I was just the notoriously shy kid growing up who would as soon play beside his friends as with them. I took the pre-screening tests though and my score there landed my in not just the range to test further, but the almost certainly going to be on the spectrum.

I've looked more at Aspergers now since and in very, very many ways it looks much like just a more extreme form of the 'male' dominant mind. A greater interest in things than in people. In many ways it's just exactly as the video presenter alludes to. People are just different, and this is a classification of a particular kind of difference. Our differences make some things easier and others harder and such is life.

Your video, News team drops slick tribute to The Notorious B.I.G., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

On what @SDGundamX said, before I read his post I was going to say that passion industries are generally known for notoriously long hours, bad pay and horrible treatment. I was actually going to mention game developers (especially what I've read about crunch time before release), also chefs who often get paid less than the waiter staff, and of course most creative jobs where job insecurity and poor pay abounds.

It's simple economics. These industries know that these people are willing to put up with more to do what they love. There may not even be a conscious decision on an individual level for a given employer looking to hire, you simply know that you can find employees for X profession at X level of pay and can't really offer more if you want to stay competitive with your competitor. Meanwhile there are people streaming in who don't consider the pay or conditions beforehand and are just adding to a surplus of workers.

That's not to say that people can't be successfully, job secure or wealthy in these sectors but we know most notably from the arts that most of the money accrues to the top actors, top musicians. I do agree that when you see these people giving motivational speeches about 'never giving up' or 'always chasing their dreams', there are dozens who put in just as much effort but never got their lucky break.

The arts may be one of the worst examples, but I think this is true to a lesser extent for all 'passion' industries. It's textbook selection bias and our tendency to lionize success. On a related point, it's like how we idolize successful entrepreneurs and think their autobiographies contain the holy grail to success when perhaps the hypothetical book by a failed entrepreneur detailing their failings might actually be more beneficial to our lives.

Even if you could buy your own debt it may not save you. Like they said earlier, their record keeping is notoriously bad, someone could still come after you for debt you don't actually owe anymore. You could probably send them packing with enough time and effort but but it might wind up costing you anyhow.
Wonderful system we have here, I could fix it, with a few nukes.

The answer is obviously no because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

Also, for a terrible moment I thought your comment was an ironic jab at my apparently awful grammar, with which several people obviously agreed. Please tell me this isn't so because truly it would devastate me to be a) so bad at grammar it is notorious b) so lacking in self awareness.

ps. teehee the apostrophe broke the link.

Its an American television show intended almost entirely for American consumption. You yourself acknowledged you don't know very much about him. It is clearly not intended to introduce him as a candidate to someone who was previously unaware of him, it is after all a comedy sketch.

Trump has a notorious and long history of having an extremely thin skin and reversing his position multiple times. He actively and very publicly campaigned on some of the issues in that video, and now onto the general, realizes they make him (hopefully) un-electable.

The clip is meant to highlight the comical policy shifts and pandering, not introduce him to people who arn't familiar with him.

That's certainly your choice. I'll roll the dice any day if it means bacon. I respect your right to take or avoid the risks you wish until you try to remove my right to make my own choice.

It would be nice, but no, wild boar are notoriously dangerous and aggressive, and also incredibly destructive and fertile, I don't think a sterilization program would work for many reasons. What they really need is a huge, repeating, mass hunt with big prizes (to get enough people to join for a clean sweep) so they actually eradicate them. Leaving them alive in the wild, even if neutered (which I don't think could work on pigs, since one missed female can repopulate so quickly) means years of horrendous destruction of the already endangered habitats in Hawaii.
BUSTED!!! I knew it. I've wanted to ask one of you...do pigs know what to say to someone who says to them "When pigs fly"?
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A: 2009 buddy....swine flu.

@Jinx

hey thanks for keeping this conversation going and not just making assumptions and allowing us both to come to a better understanding.

though i am not really surprised,i am gladdened.

in my opinion,i think this situation may be a problem with indentifying with labels and maybe putting too much weight on them to convey complicated and complex human interactions.

i would call myself a social justice warrior,but i would never identify as those who behave is the extremists do.but to imply that the responsibility is on ME,or any other critic,to redefine these radical social justice warriors as somehow not being representative of the majority,is a false dynamic,because that is how they define themselves.

basically the "No true scotsman" fallacy.which is employed ad-nauseum by these extremists.that somehow if you do not adhere to their radical agenda you are somehow not qualified to label yourself:feminist,anarchist (this has been directed at me),socialist, etc etc.

this is just a silly and binary way of breaking down peoples complex human perceptions and understandings to fit a narrow,and restrictive narrative,in order to achieve an agenda.

so while we all viewed GW bush's "if you're not with us,you're against us",as an inane and utterly stupid statement.how come there is little push back when the EXACT same tactic is used to silence someone who may not be 100% on board with a certain agenda?

does me posting this video automatically translate to me being "anti-social justice warrior"?

of course not! that is just silly,but in todays climate that is exactly how some people view complex situations,and it HAS to stop!

you brought up police.
good.
lets use that as an example.
the fact the americas militarized and dysfunctional police force has accounted for more police shootings than soldiers have died in iraq.do we REALLY need to be told that it is not ALL cops.

of course not.again,that is silly but it DOES mean that maybe there is a problem within the institution that needs to be addressed.

here is a perfect case for social justice warriors to bring this corruption and rot to the surface,and here we have black lives matter.which is receiving mixed coverage in the media,but they have gotten people talking and even some incremental reforms in the woks AND,just recently..6 cops fired from a cleveland precinct for shooting civilians.this is where social justice warriors are not only necessary but vital!

but what if.....

those cops who were feeling threatened,or intimidated by the criticism and examination of their institution coming from black lives matters decided to use a tactic right out of these extremists playbook?

maybe some doxxing?
exposing personal information about the protesters?
how about a few false accusations of rape?
maybe personal harassing calls to friends and family members of the black lives matter movement?
how about some false charges of harassment and sexual discrimination?

that would effectively shut down the black lives matter movement within weeks,and how would we respond to that kind of underhanded tactics?

we would be outraged.
we would be furious at the absolute abuse of power.a power bestowed by the state.

and our outrage would be justified.

do you see where i am coming from here?

in the example i have given,which may or not be the best analogy.we can easily see the abuse of power as a form of bullying to get a group that is a dissenting ideology..to shut..the fuck..up.

freedom of speech is NOT just speech you or i agree with,or happen to support,but it also speech that we may dislike,disagree and even find offensive.

but by allowing those we dislike or disagree to say their piece,allows us and everybody else to examine,discern and ultimately discard as ridiculous.or,converesly,find some merit that was previously hidden from us,due to our lack of knowledge or understanding.

i realize i am reiterating my previous point,but i think it is so very important.

free speech allows the free flow of ideas and dialogue and allows good ideas to be absorbed into the body politic and the bad ones discarded into the trash bin.

but there MUST be the allowance of the free flow of thought!

so when i post a video such as this i am not ridiculing actual socially conscious people.i am exposing bad ideas,supported by narrow minded people who wish to impose THEIR sense of how a society should be and attempt to circumvent the very slow process of discussion,argument and debate by hijacking the conversation and shutting down all dissent and disagreement with the most fascist tactics possible.

up until a month ago i was fairly ignorant to things like gamergate and whatnot.i thought i had a pretty fair understanding of what a social justice warrior was,and even included myself as one.

but then,quite by accident,i fell upon a few stories that highly disturbed me.one ,in particular was the case of greg allen elliot who was being criminally prosecuted for harassment on twitter.

now the case was finally resolved,and elliot was found not guilty.
so hooray for justice right?
free speech won in the end right?
or did it...did elliot actually win?
i am not so sure.

you see.
he was a web designer.
and once he was charged 3 years ago,he was banned from any internet use.so effectively he was jobless.
on top of that his defense cost 100k.
sounds like a loss to me.

now let us examine stephanie guthrie.a prominent toronto feminist and tedtalk speaker:
1.she made the accusation of harassment and brought the charges.
2.even though this all started with a man who created a game where anita sarkesians faced was punched,and was the supposed imetus for all this fuss,guthrie never laid charges against the creator of the game.though she did,along with her followers harassed and bullied this man until he closed down his account.so chock one up for feminism? i guess?
4.what guthrie found so reprehensible about elliot was that he had the audacity to question guthries rage and called for a calm interaction.(mainly because there are literally 100's of face-punching games).
5.guthrie and her followers found this call for calm offensive and doxxed elliot and proceeded to harass his employer,his family and ffirends.
6.elliot lost his job.his employer could not handle the harassment.so feminist win again? i guess?
7.when guthrie blocked elliot on twitter she continued to publicly accuse him of misogyny,bigot and even a pedophile.
8.she then brought accusations against elliot for criminal harassment,and that she "felt" harassed.
9.guthrie has paid ZERO for her accusations.she has suffered no accountability nor responsibility.

now the court case is over,and elliot has been vindicated and free speech is still in place for today.

but lets look at the bigger picture.
and let us imagine how easily this situation could be abused.
can we really look at guthrie vs elliot as ANY form of justice? or is it MORE liekly that guthrie was abusing a court system to punish a man she happened to disagree with?with ZERO consequences.

now maybe you agree with guthrie.
maybe you are one of those people that believe in your heart that words are weapons and people should be held accountable for those words.they should be stripped of wealth,work and home..they should be punished.

ok.
thats fine.
maybe you agree because it is a matter you support?
a racist pig loses a job for saying racists things.
or a bigot gets kicked out of his apartment for being a bigoted asshole.

but how about this..
hypothetically:
a devout chritian woman is protesting an abortion clinic with her children in tow.

and lets say a pro-choice atheist comes over to her and starts to berate her i front of her children.ridiculing her for her beliefs and saying jesus was a zombie.that she is a horrible person for believing in such a tyrannical deity,that this so-called all-loving entity punishes all no-believers in a lake of fire for all eternity.that as a mother,teaching her children to worship such a god is tantamount to child abuse.berating her so badly that her children begin to cry?

now what if that interaction was filmed?
then posted to youtube?
what if a "social justice warrior" of the religious flavor decided that berating person needed to pay for his words?
what if that person got doxxed?
and the end result was he loses his job (because corporations are notoriously controversy allergic),and maybe his landlord is notified and he is kicked out of his apartment?

would you be ok with all that?
because that is the EXACT same metric that radical social justice warriors use!

and what about false accusations?
you dont even have to be actually offended and /or harassed,you just have to accuse and the rest takes care of itself.

are you ok with that kind of creative abuse?

so when i bring things like this to the forefront and attempt to expose the underlying idiocy.what i just wrote is where i am coming from.

and yes.these radicals and their underhanded tactics need to be exposed and all the attention brought to them the better.

why? because what and how they are behaving is anti-democracy anti-freedom and anti-liberty.

and i am all for debating specific issues,and will gladly do so..with glee,but i will not and cannot respect what the radical elements are doing to an otherwise worthy cause.

and YOU should be calling them out as well.

i know this is long and i probably lost the plot somewhere,but this is very important,becuase it threatens all of us and if we simply ignore these nimrods they will just become even more entrenched,self-righteous and arrogant in their own little bubble worlds.

that bubble needs to be popped,and soon.

anyways.thanks for hanging (if you made it this far)
there will be danishes and punch in the lobby!

@radx

I tend to see controlling the quantity of money along with the interest rate as a valid way for central banks to influence the economy when necessary but I admit in or after crises they are generally almost useless. Economics being a social science is always going to be notoriously unreliable in both prediction and in isolation the causes of a prior event, some would say almost useless.

Controlling purely the interest rates on overnight bank deposits for banks at the central bank (what setting the rate is, as opposed to the commonly held belief that the central bank dictates lending and borrowing rates) is if anything of little impact. These rates can be at 0% and if banks consider economic prospects poor, that will not cause them to lend any further.

Such was the case in the US in the immediate years after '08. i would argue the only action to have real economic impact was the buying up of distressed mortgage securities by the Fed. The parts of QE1, 2 that involved injecting money into the banks basically just led to them investing in low risk securities and earning interest (effectively just sitting on it) because they were not willing to risk lending it.

While I'm not a big fan of ceding authority to a largely independent organisation, I have to admit that since central banks have become independent, inflation in those countries has become a thing of the past. Now granted they get things wrong (e.g. Greenspan inflating the '08 bubble) but their main advantages is being willing to take measures that cause short term pain but long term gain. I don't think any elected politician would have been willing to take the measures Volcker did to curb inflation for example. In fact, while he was at the Fed, Reagan's government effectively inflated the Savings and Loans bubble.

@Drachen_Jager

thats a pretty piss poor analogy.
while i can agree (and did in my original comment) that the militia is,by definition,engaging in terrorism.

i cannot agree to killing these men.

and to compare them to ISIS is a bit of a stretch.

1.they are american citizens.they are sovereign.ISIS are not.
2.while there has been an occupation of land,there has been no evidence of violence nor brutality.ISIS is notoriously brutal and violent.
3.while violence may be implied.they have consistently called this a protest against government over-reach and do not seek a violent resolution.ISIS not only threatens violence but engages on a daily basis.
4.when we consider incidents such as waco or ruby ridge,where there WAS government over-reach with tragic results.the federal governments tactics of standing down makes sense,and is fairly non-controversial and prudent.these nimrods are about to be run out of town by the very community they are proposing to be standing up for.

so how would YOU propose to deal with the situation in oregon?

You know, in rainy weather, one could expect maybe traffic cones or barricades in a parkade that is "notorious" for flooding.

Yeah, you could say he's been keeping busy.

2016 Alice Through the Looking Glass (post-production)
2016 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (post-production)
2015 Goosebumps (completed)
2015 Before I Wake (completed)
2015 Tulip Fever (completed)
2015 Avengers: Age of Ultron
2015 Fifty Shades of Grey
2015 The End of the Tour
2014 Tales from the Crypt (Short)
2014/I Big Eyes
2014 Mr. Peabody & Sherman (music by)
2013 American Hustle
2013 The Unknown Known (Documentary)
2013 Epic
2013 Oz the Great and Powerful
2013 Captain Sparky vs. The Flying Saucers (Short)
2012 Promised Land
2012 Hitchcock
2012 Frankenweenie
2012 Silver Linings Playbook
2012 Gun Test (Short)
2012 Men in Black 3
2012 Dark Shadows
2011 Real Steel
2011 A Conversation with Danny Elfman and Tim Burton (Documentary)
2011/I Restless
2010/III Do Not Disturb (music by)
2010 The Fight for the Last Cookie (Short)
2010 The Next Three Days
2010/I Alice in Wonderland
2010 Ooozetoons! (TV Movie)
2010 The Wolfman
2009 The Dollar (Short)
2009 Taking Woodstock
2009 Terminator Salvation
2009 Notorious
2008/I Milk
2008 Hellboy II: The Golden Army
2008 Wanted
2008 Standard Operating Procedure (Documentary)
2007 The Kingdom
2007 Meet the Robinsons
2007 Arkham Asylum Fan Film (Short) (score music)
2006 Charlotte's Web
2006 Nacho Libre
2006 Deep Sea (Documentary short)
2005 Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight - Dark Side of the Knight (Video documentary short)
2005 Corpse Bride
2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (music by)
2005 No Experience Needed (Short)
2004 Spider-Man 2 (music by)
2003 Big Fish
2003 Hulk (music by)
2002 Red Dragon
2002 Men in Black II (music by)
2002 Spider-Man (music by)
2001 Planet of the Apes
2001 Mazer World (Short)
2001 Spy Kids
2000 The Family Man
2000 Proof of Life
1999 Sleepy Hollow
1999 Anywhere But Here
1999 Instinct
1998 A Civil Action
1998 A Simple Plan
1997 Good Will Hunting
1997 Flubber
1997 Men in Black (music by)
1996 Mars Attacks!
1996 Extreme Measures
1996 The Frighteners
1996 Mission: Impossible (music by)
1996 Freeway
1995 Dead Presidents
1995 To Die For
1995 Dolores Claiborne
1994 Black Beauty
1993 The Nightmare Before Christmas (original score by)
1993 Sommersby
1992 Batman Returns
1992 Article 99
1990 Edward Scissorhands
1990 Darkman
1990 Dick Tracy
1990 Nightbreed
1989 Batman
1988 Scrooged (music score by)
1988 Face Like a Frog (Short)
1988 Hot to Trot
1988 Big Top Pee-wee
1988 Midnight Run
1988 Beetlejuice
1986-1987 Pee-wee's Playhouse (TV Series) (4 episodes)
1987 Summer School
1985-1987 Amazing Stories (TV Series) (2 episodes) )
1986 Wisdom
1986 Back to School
1986 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) (1 episode)
1985 Pee-wee's Big Adventure
1980 Forbidden Zone

The problem with white culture is.. @lantern53, @newtboy & @AllWhitePeople

White Privilege insulated you from the reality of your advantages and the true suffering of others who aren't white

Hell, white people include if poor uneducated.

(I asked a white friend.
He said that white people just see other white people as strangers.
Makes sense now I guess)

You live in this White Privilege Bubble where "everyone's equal cause this is AMERICA!"

Everyone in your bubble has bootstraps. A safety net.
Reliable job opportunites and call-backs.
No fear of being harassed and/or murdered by police.
The general unconditional trust of society



In the bubble of impoverished black culture, however.. having a chance at leaving that poverty is a pipe-dream.

I know, because I live in Atlanta.
A place notorious for lots of poor black communities.

My girlfriend was born and raised in it.

Her parents were addicted to crack.
(Funny how crack possession carries a harsher sentence than cocaine possession, considering their the exact same drug.)

She saw a dead body in the street when she was 6.
(Gang violence is present when decent jobs and summer camps aren't)

She had Police SWAT invade her home & hold a gun to her head around the same age.
(Because busting potential drug dealers is more important that entering the correct house.)

Her cousin, who was probably a prostitute since 12 or 13, is currently very happy that her new "boyfriend" doesn't beat her.
(She feels like that's a win. Hell, my girlfriend was herself convinced that she'd "grow up to be a prostitute."
You know, the norm.)

For the last 5 months, my girlfriend has lived with a 21 year old prostitute (started at 14 when homeless) and her much older "boyfriend"/pimp because that was the only "affordable" housing near her work.

(She mentioned that earlier this month, there was a new girl there some mornings who was definitely probably 13 or 14.
She literally just moved out today and happened to spot her ex-roommate working her corner near West End Mall. )

So yeah, white people assume - No, righteously assert - all black people are just a equal as white people.

Because you all think:

"I've got bootstraps & dignity & great opportunites & everlasting hope.
Stop whining and take personal responsibility."

The reality is starkly different.

Black people are reminded of that difference LITERALLY EVERYDAY.

We're remind everytime an unarmed black youth is murder, just for "looking threatening".

Even with civil rights laws, even with a brown president.

You'll never know what it's truly like to be non-white..

Because White Privilege prevents you from even having to acknowledge these issue.

Just call it all even and blame the rest on personal responsibility.