I used to think anti-vaxxers were just morons but she talks about the fear of trusting in a system where certain fringes have exploited FUD to prey upon people who's only thought is the safety of their kids.

And only when the worst occurs, these poor bastards realise that the real danger is contracting the disease, and the FUD is distracting them from it...

Hopefully, this might leads others to reconsider their stance.

@lantern53

But seriously, cops are racist.

Yes Black Cops, Asian Cops, Hispanic Cops.

Being a police officer makes you racist.
Because the culture of law enforcements preys on the poor and minority groups.

So if you're told as a rookie "Go to the poor neighbor and patrol the streets"

Eventually you're going to come across desperate, uneducated people FROM ALL BACKGROUNDS.

You'll see gangsters, addicts, thieves, whores, etc.

If you mostly patrol poor black or white or asian or hispanic neighborhoods, you mostly begin to distrust any black or white or asian or hispanic person.

Being a cop eventually makes you distrust everyone who looks a certain way.

Those stereotypes about all black males being scary savage thugs starts to ring true.

I'd genocide all IP if such a feat were possible. Tyler Durden has gotta be kickin around somewhere in the collective unconscious.

If there is such a force, be it far future grey goo or gods that dwell within or without, I dedicate the abstract concept of my fictitious soul to the undoing of all corporate power.

Corporations are people and their IP is what? The thoughts within its brain? Well, I'd murder one or all so easily. Prey on their greed.

As the datum of my prayer festers in the digital realm, my only desire is for vengeance. I will rise from within the 1s and 0s, Viggo the Carpathian style.

From Wikipedia: "Aside from instances of larger lionfish individuals engaging in cannibalism on smaller individuals, adult lionfish have few identified natural predators, likely due to the effectiveness of their venomous spines. Moray eels (family Muraenidae), bluespotted cornetfish (Fistularia commersonii), and large groupers, like the tiger grouper (Mycteroperca tigris) and Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus), have been observed preying on lionfish. It remains unknown, however, how commonly these predators prey on lionfish. Sharks are also believed to be capable of preying on lionfish with no ill effects from their spines. Park officials of the Roatan Marine Park in Honduras have attempted to train sharks to feed on lionfish as of 2011 in an attempt to control the invasive populations in the Caribbean. Predators of larvae and juvenile lionfish remain unknown, but may prove to be the primary limiting factor of lionfish populations in their native range."

This is what's known as a caudal lure. The most well-known example of this is Deewes Hunter, a spider that's evolved so that part of it's body resembles an attractive female of its prey species. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwJe8KfPCEQ

No, absolutely not - if he is right about his atheism, it is surely joyous and enviable that he lived his life free from delusion? And sad that billions live and have lived subject to the whim of clever con artists preying on the easily misled. If - as you say - he is right about his atheism.

That's interesting, the leechs I've come across are more into blood sucking than devouring prey whole.

dupe http://videosift.com/video/Monster-snake-with-fresh-prey-and-2-idiots-on-a-boat

assume its a dupe of http://videosift.com/video/Monster-snake-with-fresh-prey-and-2-idiots-on-a-boat

looks like a dupe http://videosift.com/video/Monster-snake-with-fresh-prey-and-2-idiots-on-a-boat

How is it not surprising that the problem sees no problem?

You say : "I don't see people getting beat up, or shot, or assaulted, or arrested for no reason"
So, those that were "beat up, or shot, or assaulted, or arrested", were for a good reason, right?

Ever consider that those reasons are often made up?
Ever consider that the stories you heard around the water cooler were simply B.S., and it was in fact the police simply preying on innocent people?



Just what exactly does LE do for me, or anyone?

Do police have super powers and spidey senses?
Will they magically teleport to someone getting raped, and prevent it?
Will they magically teleport to someone getting run over, and prevent it?
Will they magically teleport to someone getting beaten, and prevent it?
Will they magically teleport to someone getting robbed, and prevent it?
The answer is : no.

Police can't actually /help/ anyone.
They can only show up after the fact, and ask you what happened, and if you know who did it.
If you don't know who it was, tough shit. Sucks to be you.
Unlike on TV, there is no in-depth investigation. The most they do is tell you to call them if you remember something else. (This is speaking from experience)

What if you're not around to even tell them anything? Almost every murder committed by an unrelated stranger without witnesses or video goes unsolved.
Why? Because all police know how to do is ask friends/family where they were, and if everyone has an excuse, police got nothing.

At least when a normal person [that you can identify] harms you, you /can/ call the police, and maybe, just maybe, if they feel like it, they will round them up after the fact.

(They often don't. We've had people dumping trash on our land : police didn't respond. We've had people hunting [strangers shooting guns] on our property : police didn't respond. Brought evidence of a fraud to the police station, with account numbers, names, addresses : we won't investigate. The only time they ever came was to talk with my mother after she reported her credit card number was being used by a stranger - LOL, of all the things, they bother coming for /that/?)

But if the police harm you, you've got nowhere to turn to - but them. And they care more about each other, than some stranger.

Heck, I've been tailgated by a cop, on a multi-lane road, so close his headlights weren't even visible over my trunk. He could have gone around me any time. After miles, when I finally sped up - BAM. Ticket.

I've pulled up to a roadblock by my house, and asked if I could go by. The guy was so incensed that he detained me for hours, and told me I was threatening his life, reckless driving, and not wearing a seatbelt.

I've been threatened by a cop - because I interrupted her chat with her girlfriend to ask for directions around a road they were closing off.

I've been pulled over with gun drawn, for trivial speeding (well below reckless).

Seriously people, every time you get pulled over, you are at risk of getting shot, because someone is trained to be suspicious and paranoid, and they saw something shiny.

Just look at how they behave. Cop shoots his daughter in his own garage, because he thought she was a burglar.
What, too much to ask just to look at the person to see if they're even a burglar? Shoot first ask questions later.

Every year there are multiple cases of police raiding a house and shooting people - only to find out it was the wrong house. What, too much trouble to be a decent human being and just knock first, and ask for whoever they need to come out?

Oh, but that might put them at a greater risk. And we all know that police take MINIMAL risks themselves, and instead risk the lives of the citizens. (Why not approach with gun drawn? At least you're ready to shoot the suspect. And if you accidentally shoot the suspect, oh well, just say they 'attacked'. No biggie. Why take the risk.)
The biggest risk they take, is the one they dream up for when they want to take credit for being the heroes they never were.

Look at the friggin VT shooting. Swarms of cops surrounding a building. Man inside, could be killing more people by the moment... and the cops just camp out and wait for him to kill himself.
Worst part, is if it were my family inside, and I tried to go in and stop the shooter, the police would just shoot me for trying to enter.

(And no, police don't deserve heroic praise. They deserve the _pay_check_ they signed up for. If that's not enough, they should take life more seriously and really think about what it is they're getting into, before they do it. Take responsibility, like an adult should.)

The police are a liability. They're armed. They're selfish. They're paranoid and suspicious. They're jumpy.
IMO, the best thing to do is keep away from them, don't look at them, don't talk to them. Stay away, and stay safe.

Oh yeah, and the police are also immune form the constitution's equal protection clause. "Because interpretation".

Look at the numbers. You are less likely to be arrested or go to jail in NORTH KOREA, than here in the U.S. of A. By a factor of 4 last I checked.
What the heck is going on here?

1 in 18 men is either in jail, on parole, or somewhere in the process of going to jail.
Most of the countries in Europe have smaller populations, than the people that we have 'in the system'. And most of the people we have 'in the system', never even harmed another person. They're just arrested for 'behavior crimes' - simply doing things that are not allowed. This is madness. The system is mad, the police are mad.

You don't end up with videos of a gang of police acting like gangsters, if it's a matter of 'a few bad apples'. They all have to be in the same frame of mind.
If they weren't all of the same frame of mind, one would do something bad, and the others would say "whoa there man, you're out of line".
But instead, they all do it. Because there are no 'bad apples'.
There is 'bad training', and 'bad culture', and it permeates the profession.

And when I say bad, I don't mean that "they are trained to be thugs".
I mean that the police don't see suspects as 'citizens (members of the state) that the police are on the side of'.
Whoever crosses their path is dehumanized. Some kind of "other", that the police need to protect society from. Not realizing that those people /are/ society, and /they/ need protection.
The kind of behavior that I see in these kinds of videos, it's simply treason. Betrayal of the state.

If the laws of this country were written to provide restitution to victims - and there were no laws to simply tell people how to live, and if the police spent their time providing restitution to victims, then I would have nothing but the greatest appreciation for the police.
As it stands, there's very little nobility around this profession. Majority of the job is simply picking on people - sometimes because they did harm, but usually because they mind their own business in an unapproved of way, or for kicks.

-scheherazade

True, I think the intention behind the two covers is very different, even if the results are similar. In the Spider-man cover, he looks like a spider who has already wrapped up his helpless terrified prey. And if you know about spiders you know what happens next, it's pretty nasty. The real spider in the lower right corner helps drive home the impression.

Where as with the Spider-woman cover I don't have any real doubt that Milo Manara was trying to make her sexy; that's kind of his thing. He's best known as an erotic artist and his artwork ranges from pinup girl to pretty hardcore porn (which I enjoyed as a young man). Check out his Wikipedia page and the first thing you'll see is that that pose is not one he's new at drawing.

I think where critics go wrong is the idea that sexiness implies sexism. If she were both drawn as sexy and being degraded or made fun of that would qualify as sexism. But there's got to be some room for sensuality without automatically feeling it's a personal insult to all women.

I definitely agree with you on the democracy point - my whole post was mostly an attempt to explain what I perceive to be the main factors that drive Israeli democracy toward the oppression we see over the Palestinians. The nutters on the hilltop have very little influence on this drive, but the combined forces of Jewish nationalism and protective insulation go a long way toward making these policies successful in Israel's free and democratic society.

I guess, then, in an extremely limited respect I agree with you on the 4th reich thing just because of the comparison between complacent German citizens who were only patriotic and insulated from the realities of Jewish suffering and Jews who are only patriotic and insulated from the realities of Palestinian suffering.

That being said, using the term "Fourth Reich" doesn't illuminate this sort of nuance and instead it accuses Israel of many extremes of which it is not guilty. For example Nazi Germany was guilty of a truly unprecedented campaign to methodically exterminate vast populations based on their ethnicity, and they were literally bent on world domination - I have many harsh criticisms for Israel, but if you think that Israel's conduct can be reasonably compared to that then you are delusional.

In a similar vein, while I do think that Gaza in many ways is the world's largest prison, it is not in any way comparable to Nazi concentration camps. I would much rather live in present day Gaza than be in a Nazi concentration camp, for one, and secondly I think that Israel's policy towards Gaza can better be described as one of control and marginalization, whereas the Nazi's goals with concentration camps was straight up efficient extermination.

So long story short, don't fall prey to the "reductio ad hitlerum" fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum) and make a more careful comparison between Israel's and Nazi Germany's respective civilian populations and I'd be more inclined to agree with your point.

That cat also didn't want that chipmunk dead. Definitely more kitten than prey attitude there.

Makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. If you eat all the young of your prey, you run out of prey.