Oh man, they're infiltrating your phone lines now? Jesus, that scares me. Over here as i'm sure you're aware, we just don't have anywhere near the same level of religious nutfucks impinging on our lives. I was discussing it with a friend a couple of weeks back, why that could be. And she had heard somewhere that the biggest reason is that here, religion is still very old-fashioned, they haven't brought it into the 21st century whatsoever. We're still having church fetes and the vicars continue to be relatively poor. So no-one is really interested in it, they aren't able to drag people away from their own interests and offer them anything better than what they already have. Interesting theory anyway...

I really loved that sift post too! I think the run up and since the election had caused such divides, in general all the things going on in the world have got so many people heated, and it seems to have forgotten the community spirit a little bit. It's just nice to try and bring a bit of fun back and I will continue to aim for this. Was getting a bit disheartened with it all, but then it's like, well if you're feeling pissed with it, and not doing shit to change stuff, then why the hell should anyone else? So, i'm regaining the old me back a little bit. We'll see how it goes

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Yeah, what the fuck, eh? Doesn't God do the judging? As Christians why can't these people spend their energy doing something positive with in the name of the Magic Sky Man?

I just received a "robo-call" from this orginization last night asking me if "I voted" and then if I thought marriage was defined as "only between a man and a woman". I don't think it registered my response because of all the invective. They're trying to see if they have enough support for a ballot initiative, it seems. Everybody I know got one too. Pray for brains, assholes.

btw, that was a great talk post. I have to go back and finish reading some of those stories. You're so good for the Sift, AC.

Yeah, what the fuck, eh? Doesn't God do the judging? As Christians why can't these people spend their energy doing something positive with in the name of the Magic Sky Man?

I just received a "robo-call" from this orginization last night asking me if "I voted" and then if I thought marriage was defined as "only between a man and a woman". I don't think it registered my response because of all the invective. They're trying to see if they have enough support for a ballot initiative, it seems. Everybody I know got one too. Pray for brains, assholes.

btw, that was a great talk post. I have to go back and finish reading some of those stories. You're so good for the Sift, AC.

>> ^netean:
Sigur Ros are one of those rare bands that come along every few years - genuinely differnt, genuinely brilliant.
It never ceases to amaze me how the English speaking world generally ignores music that isn't in English, yet somehow bands from Iceland (rightly) get through the shield.
Considering also that pretty much every Icelander speaks perfect English (as all Scandies do!) they choose to sing in Icelandic and are the better for it (IMO)
superb band. I like them a lot!


i hate to bring it to you, but i interviewed them the first time they played outside iceland and found out that only the bass player spoke english. the other 3 didnt speak a word of english. being icelandic myself, i was a little shocked. i couldnt think of a cave that was so isolated from society back home, but they must have found it, and stayed there for awhile. not many people are aware of that, but their 'hopelandic' is brilliant, just a little more forced than orginal, as most people think.

Getting information about a presidential candidate in this day and age is like playing the game telephone; only in this case it's being played by 300 million people. It's bad enough when the oringinal message is true and gets distorted, but when the orginal message is false to begin with, like say if it's coming from fox or any other major network for that matter, and then gets passed down and distorted... well that's when you get people saying things like this.
just an uneducated observation though...

>> ^imstellar28:
^therealblankman,
A person should be convicted on the evidence against them, not on the prejudice of the jurors. Whether that prejudice is based on race, gender, religion, clothes, profession, fame, or appearance. Many jurors, for example, would probably be biased if they saw a defendant who had tattoos, was unshaven, and looked pretty mean. A persons appearance (age, gender, style, race, etc.) should have no bearing on the trial, so why even include it as a variable?
Likewise for the name of the accused. Who you are should have nothing to do with your guilt or innocence. In this case, OJ is associated with murder, and no matter how impartial a juror tries to be, that prejudice is going to exist. If the defended was obscured from view and his name hidden, jurors would be forced to consider only the evidence and not whatever personal biases they may have.
When a juror doesn't know if they are convicting an old grandma, a 19 year old minority, an NFL football player, or a middle aged white guy, they would be forced to consider the evidence more carefully.
Also: when I said "not really how the justice system is supposed to work" I meant people shouldn't be punished more harshly because the juror thinks they "got away with" a previous crime.


It is kind of hard to orginize a public trial with all those conditions

I am a fan of justice, but perfect justice can never be had, just have to get as close as we can.

Oh and I agree that my video should be discarded and its embed used to replace the one in the orginal sift. Since the original one has been fixed more than once chances are is was originally the exact same video as the dupe.

While you do a good job pointing out some perceived flaws, am curious to find out what you would do to reverse this trend? I think alot of what you mention is actually sociological and natural in our society. What you are pushing for is as DjSunKid said an extremist stance of feminism.

While there are women who strive to be the leaders in their profession and achieve something for themselves, there is a large segment of the female population that is quite alright with fitting in the stereotype of being female, of dressing up, of being sexy, of being chased, screeching when they see a mouse and looking for a big strong man. There is a entire industry centered around this. This is a standard that has been psychologically upheld by society as a whole, and women themselves. Something I see alot in the society where I live, the Arab world, very few girls try hard here because why should they? They are going to marry a Arabian Istallion and have kids and shop in Gucci and Versace. They are perfectly happy in that role.

I think some of that is social, some of it is psychological from media exposure, the barbie dolls, the princess stories and so on that build up a psychological outlook that some connect with and accept as their own and some reject.

For example look at someone like Ayn Rand.

I talked to a lot of medical students, some of them were female, most of them were heading to OBYGN and pediatrics, both deal with kids and children. They choose to do so. You will hardly find many women in the role of surgeon for example. Is this discrimination?

Back in University I had a chance to befriend a woman in her 50s who was doing adult education, she looked and acted alot like a man. Probing her previous profession she told me she was a construction foreman. She explained that for co workers and clients to take her seriously she had to adopt a hard exterior, or else no one would have obeyed her as a boss or took her seriously managerially. But she had no quams about this, she said certain businesses require male standpoint, not to mean the sex but the qualities, hard, aggressive and stubborn.

Look at how Hillary Clinton tried to meld her campaign, did it pay for her to play on her female side? did it pay for her to become more manly? Then look at someone like Margaret Thatcher. She was asexual as far as am concerned in her politics.

The equality of sexes has been reached, and there has been large progress since the 1800s and the suffrage movement. Women have the right to vote, work, enter politics, and professional occupations. There is still inequality when it comes to pay scale but I believe this is balancing out now in the world economy because administration and business is gender neutral most of the time. Results are far more important.

But does it mean the higher echelons of power are male dominated? Not at all. Germany, Bangladesh, US and many other nations have females who reached high levels of power. There is an abundance of strong female role models.

With regards to the comments on this website, this is the internet the demographic of this website is in the 18-25 range most are students, many are lonely introverted types. Most are male, some are here before or after being to a porn site. This goes a long way to describe the "Omfg shes hot" type of comments.

With regards to cinema and the like, its business. Its marketing and demographics, one shouldn't read too much into it.

The problem Hollywood has with creating female heroes is that they work on base levels so they push a hard women, which is psychologically constructed in such a way as being Bitchy. This is frankly because people in Hollywood think on those levels, they never deal in complicated characters. They need standardized themes, of conflict, and love and very often a strange sex scene where you didn't expect one.

Take the example of Lara Croft that was made into two films. The video game portrayed her as a smart intelligent royal who did tomb raids. Instead of vividly exploring this, by way of Batman orgins where she say fell into a cave and explored and developed into a tom boy and found a ancient dagger or something, they instead went simply with telling the audience that she is that way because her daddy was like that. Because Hollywood producers are idiots and they are desperately trying to connect and hit that 15-20 year demographic that needs to see a tit.

This scene was borrowed from What Do You Say to a Naked Lady, and the orginal was less exploitative (you don't get to see the upskirt) and far more revelatory about the human condition. Plus it lacked the caddish announcer who apparently narrates EVERY show on Fox Reality.

Eguilibrionist, just out of curiousity how do you evaluate future sexual partners, purely physically speaking? Are you really confused about why people look at asses? It's a sign of physical virility, it's an evolutionary indication of fertility and for some it's a source of sexual pleasure. To each their own, but it's not like we're talking about foot fetishism here.

>> ^JAPR:
I'm pretty sure this is a dupe.


Your right...it is a dupe...and it is a fake...the orginal shows that this is from a Sprite commercial. *discard
http://www.videosift.com/video/A-slingshot-in-the-pool-prank-gone-wrong

I'm going to go on my old man rant. I sifted this a long time ago and got nothing. Note to self, keep title simple.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Falling-Slowly-Orginal-Award-Winning-Song-from-Once

Hands down the best musical of 2007.

yeah, this video is probably responsible for more pill-popping than anything. The effects of such efforts usually end up working counter to the orginal intent. Case in point...

http://www.videosift.com/video/Tiny-Toons-One-Beer-The-Evils-of-Alcohol

In reply to this comment by Ivegotthebends:
Excellent. I love it. But this tempts me to finally break into my parents medicine cabinet. Deliriousness sounds like too much fun.

^yeah, this video is probably responsible for more pill-popping than anything. The effects of such efforts usually end up working counter to the orginal intent. Case in point...

http://www.videosift.com/video/Tiny-Toons-One-Beer-The-Evils-of-Alcohol

That was in the orginal version hate to spoil it for all those people who grew up on the shitty TV movie version.

I apologize for the really, really crappy quality of this video. It's the only one I could find after it was declared dead. Believe it or not this is the orginal footage, but with a bunch of crap added to it. This video earned my diamond status.

upvote for sheer orginality and the tags