Looks so awesome. Everyone looks exactly as I was guessing/remembering.

I look forward to another Sift Up before too long. Anyone coming to southern California any time?

*quality

The point I get from this video is not that his speed was a problem but the seeming fact that he saw a potential driver who could make a life endangering decision, yet he ignores it because he "isn't at fault". Just because you're not at fault, doesn't make your action correct. I'm guilty of this personally, but then again, the roads are absolutely mad in southern california -- I feel like every moment is potentially this, especially with wildly changing 5+ lane traffic. Sometimes one lane will be fast and then it's slow and the next lane is fast, so almost every moment is this moment. So drive 30 MPH for 20 miles or go 50-65 when you the opportunity presents itself and hope no one makes a mistake. LOL

My brother in-law grew up in southern California but has since lived in Indiana, Singapore and now Texas. Everytime he comes to visit the first nights dinner is always at the local Round Table Pizza.

I think most of the country is not as uptight about pizza as NY and Chicago are. But especially in California we just don't have rules when it comes to good pizza other than "does it taste good"?

I also believe there are more good cops than bad cops. The issue is the concentration. In most large cities, almost all the cops are/can be bad cops under certain circumstances.

One of my friends in Southern California had multiple members in the Long Beach PD; his dad, and his younger brother who'd just joined. My friend told me how his brother came home during his first week and told him this story:

"We went to this guys house to talk to him and found him in the garage. My superior said 'this is how we get compliance. it also helps to blow off a little steam'. He shut the door to the garage, pulls out his club, and starts repeating 'Stop resisting! Stop resisting!', as he goes to town on the guy. Guy wasn't doing anything other than being uncooperative."

Events like that were something everyone in the area laughed off as being part of life there.

The job also attracts a certain kind of person. When I lived in San Francisco I had an ex-coworker who'd lost his job, and applied to the police force with the absolutely-serious reason of "I want a free-pass to beat the living shit out of people". He was a dark guy really full of hate, and I eventually cut off ties with him. Happily he was never accepted to the Academy.

Can't speak for the rest of the country but I've never heard of Purdue Chicken/Farms here in Southern California....at the very least we never had these commercials featuring Frank Purdue.

If anyone wants to read more about Stephen and LGBTQIA youth, here is the NYT article.

The New York Time's

Generation LGBTQIA

By MICHAEL SCHULMAN

Published: January 10, 2013

STEPHEN IRA, a junior at Sarah Lawrence College, uploaded a video last March on We Happy Trans, a site that shares "positive perspectives" on being transgender.

In the breakneck six-and-a-half-minute monologue - hair tousled, sitting in a wood-paneled dorm room - Stephen exuberantly declared himself "a queer, a nerd fighter, a writer, an artist and a guy who needs a haircut," and held forth on everything from his style icons (Truman Capote and "any male-identified person who wears thigh-highs or garters") to his toy zebra.

Because Stephen, who was born Kathlyn, is the 21-year-old child of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, the video went viral, garnering nearly half a million views. But that was not the only reason for its appeal. With its adrenalized, freewheeling eloquence, the video seemed like a battle cry for a new generation of post-gay gender activists, for whom Stephen represents a rare public face.

Armed with the millennial generation's defining traits - Web savvy, boundless confidence and social networks that extend online and off - Stephen and his peers are forging a political identity all their own, often at odds with mainstream gay culture.

If the gay-rights movement today seems to revolve around same-sex marriage, this generation is seeking something more radical: an upending of gender roles beyond the binary of male/female. The core question isn't whom they love, but who they are - that is, identity as distinct from sexual orientation.

But what to call this movement? Whereas "gay and lesbian" was once used to lump together various sexual minorities - and more recently "L.G.B.T." to include bisexual and transgender - the new vanguard wants a broader, more inclusive abbreviation. "Youth today do not define themselves on the spectrum of L.G.B.T.," said Shane Windmeyer, a founder of Campus Pride, a national student advocacy group based in Charlotte, N.C.

Part of the solution has been to add more letters, and in recent years the post-post-post-gay-rights banner has gotten significantly longer, some might say unwieldy. The emerging rubric is "L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.," which stands for different things, depending on whom you ask.

"Q" can mean "questioning" or "queer," an umbrella term itself, formerly derogatory before it was appropriated by gay activists in the 1990s. "I" is for "intersex," someone whose anatomy is not exclusively male or female. And "A" stands for "ally" (a friend of the cause) or "asexual," characterized by the absence of sexual attraction.

It may be a mouthful, but it's catching on, especially on liberal-arts campuses.

The University of Missouri, Kansas City, for example, has an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Resource Center that, among other things, helps student locate "gender-neutral" restrooms on campus. Vassar College offers an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Discussion Group on Thursday afternoons. Lehigh University will be hosting its second annual L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Intercollegiate Conference next month, followed by a Queer Prom. Amherst College even has an L.G.B.T.Q.Q.I.A.A. center, where every group gets its own letter.

The term is also gaining traction on social media sites like Twitter and Tumblr, where posts tagged with "lgbtqia" suggest a younger, more progressive outlook than posts that are merely labeled "lgbt."

"There's a very different generation of people coming of age, with completely different conceptions of gender and sexuality," said Jack Halberstam (formerly Judith), a transgender professor at the University of Southern California and the author, most recently, of "Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal."

"When you see terms like L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.," Professor Halberstam added, "it's because people are seeing all the things that fall out of the binary, and demanding that a name come into being."

And with a plethora of ever-expanding categories like "genderqueer" and "androgyne" to choose from, each with an online subculture, piecing together a gender identity can be as D.I.Y. as making a Pinterest board.

BUT sometimes L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. is not enough. At the University of Pennsylvania last fall, eight freshmen united in the frustration that no campus group represented them.

Sure, Penn already had some two dozen gay student groups, including Queer People of Color, Lambda Alliance and J-Bagel, which bills itself as the university's "Jewish L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Community." But none focused on gender identity (the closest, Trans Penn, mostly catered to faculty members and graduate students).

Richard Parsons, an 18-year-old transgender male, discovered that when he attended a student mixer called the Gay Affair, sponsored by Penn's L.G.B.T. Center. "I left thoroughly disappointed," said Richard, a garrulous freshman with close-cropped hair, wire-framed glasses and preppy clothes, who added, "This is the L.G.B.T. Center, and it's all gay guys."

Through Facebook, Richard and others started a group called Penn Non-Cis, which is short for "non-cisgender." For those not fluent in gender-studies speak, "cis" means "on the same side as" and "cisgender" denotes someone whose gender identity matches his or her biology, which describes most of the student body. The group seeks to represent everyone else. "This is a freshman uprising," Richard said.

On a brisk Tuesday night in November, about 40 students crowded into the L.G.B.T. Center, a converted 19th-century carriage house, for the group's inaugural open mike. The organizers had lured students by handing out fliers on campus while barking: "Free condoms! Free ChapStick!"

"There's a really vibrant L.G.B.T. scene," Kate Campbell, one of the M.C.'s, began. "However, that mostly encompasses the L.G.B. and not too much of the T. So we're aiming to change that."

Students read poems and diary entries, and sang guitar ballads. Then Britt Gilbert - a punky-looking freshman with a blond bob, chunky glasses and a rock band T-shirt - took the stage. She wanted to talk about the concept of "bi-gender."

"Does anyone want to share what they think it is?"

Silence.

She explained that being bi-gender is like manifesting both masculine and feminine personas, almost as if one had a "detachable penis." "Some days I wake up and think, 'Why am I in this body?' " she said. "Most days I wake up and think, 'What was I thinking yesterday?' 

"Britt's grunginess belies a warm matter-of-factness, at least when describing her journey. As she elaborated afterward, she first heard the term "bi-gender" from Kate, who found it on Tumblr. The two met at freshman orientation and bonded. In high school, Kate identified as "agender" and used the singular pronoun "they"; she now sees her gender as an "amorphous blob."

By contrast, Britt's evolution was more linear. She grew up in suburban Pennsylvania and never took to gender norms. As a child, she worshiped Cher and thought boy bands were icky. Playing video games, she dreaded having to choose male or female avatars.

In middle school, she started calling herself bisexual and dated boys. By 10th grade, she had come out as a lesbian. Her parents thought it was a phase - until she brought home a girlfriend, Ash. But she still wasn't settled.

"While I definitely knew that I liked girls, I didn't know that I was one," Britt said. Sometimes she would leave the house in a dress and feel uncomfortable, as if she were wearing a Halloween costume. Other days, she felt fine. She wasn't "trapped in the wrong body," as the cliché has it - she just didn't know which body she wanted.

When Kate told her about the term "bi-gender," it clicked instantly. "I knew what it was, before I knew what it was," Britt said, adding that it is more fluid than "transgender" but less vague than "genderqueer" - a catchall term for nontraditional gender identities.

At first, the only person she told was Ash, who responded, "It took you this long to figure it out?" For others, the concept was not so easy to grasp. Coming out as a lesbian had been relatively simple, Britt said, "since people know what that is." But when she got to Penn, she was relieved to find a small community of freshmen who had gone through similar awakenings.

Among them was Richard Parsons, the group's most politically lucid member. Raised female, Richard grew up in Orlando, Fla., and realized he was transgender in high school. One summer, he wanted to room with a transgender friend at camp, but his mother objected. "She's like, 'Well, if you say that he's a guy, then I don't want you rooming with a guy,' " he recalled. "We were in a car and I basically blurted out, 'I think I might be a guy, too!' "

After much door-slamming and tears, Richard and his mother reconciled. But when she asked what to call him, he had no idea. He chose "Richard" on a whim, and later added a middle name, Matthew, because it means "gift of God."

By the time he got to Penn, he had been binding his breasts for more than two years and had developed back pain. At the open mike, he told a harrowing story about visiting the university health center for numbness and having a panic attack when he was escorted into a women's changing room.

Nevertheless, he praised the university for offering gender-neutral housing. The college's medical program also covers sexual reassignment surgery, which, he added, "has heavily influenced my decision to probably go under the Penn insurance plan next year."

PENN has not always been so forward-thinking; a decade ago, the L.G.B.T. Center (nestled amid fraternity houses) was barely used. But in 2010, the university began reaching out to applicants whose essays raised gay themes. Last year, the gay newsmagazine The Advocate ranked Penn among the top 10 trans-friendly universities, alongside liberal standbys like New York University.

More and more colleges, mostly in the Northeast, are catering to gender-nonconforming students. According to a survey by Campus Pride, at least 203 campuses now allow transgender students to room with their preferred gender; 49 have a process to change one's name and gender in university records; and 57 cover hormone therapy. In December, the University of Iowa became the first to add a "transgender" checkbox to its college application.

"I wrote about an experience I had with a drag queen as my application essay for all the Ivy Leagues I applied to," said Santiago Cortes, one of the Penn students. "And I got into a few of the Ivy Leagues - Dartmouth, Columbia and Penn. Strangely not Brown.

"But even these measures cannot keep pace with the demands of incoming students, who are challenging the curriculum much as gay activists did in the '80s and '90s. Rather than protest the lack of gay studies classes, they are critiquing existing ones for being too narrow.

Several members of Penn Non-Cis had been complaining among themselves about a writing seminar they were taking called "Beyond 'Will & Grace,' " which examined gay characters on shows like "Ellen," "Glee" and "Modern Family." The professor, Gail Shister, who is a lesbian, had criticized several students for using "L.G.B.T.Q." in their essays, saying it was clunky, and proposed using "queer" instead. Some students found the suggestion offensive, including Britt Gilbert, who described Ms. Shister as "unaccepting of things that she doesn't understand."

Ms. Shister, reached by phone, said the criticism was strictly grammatical. "I am all about economy of expression," she said. "L.G.B.T.Q. doesn't exactly flow off the tongue. So I tell the students, 'Don't put in an acronym with five or six letters.' "

One thing is clear. Ms. Shister, who is 60 and in 1979 became The Philadelphia Inquirer's first female sportswriter, is of a different generation, a fact she acknowledges freely, even gratefully. "Frankly, I'm both proud and envious that these young people are growing up in an age where they're free to love who they want," she said.

If history is any guide, the age gap won't be so easy to overcome. As liberated gay men in the 1970s once baffled their pre-Stonewall forebears, the new gender outlaws, to borrow a phrase from the transgender writer Kate Bornstein, may soon be running ideological circles around their elders.

Still, the alphabet soup of L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. may be difficult to sustain. "In the next 10 or 20 years, the various categories heaped under the umbrella of L.G.B.T. will become quite quotidian," Professor Halberstam said.

Even at the open mike, as students picked at potato chips and pineapple slices, the bounds of identity politics were spilling over and becoming blurry.

At one point, Santiago, a curly-haired freshman from Colombia, stood before the crowd. He and a friend had been pondering the limits of what he calls "L.G.B.T.Q. plus."

"Why do only certain letters get to be in the full acronym?" he asked.

Then he rattled off a list of gender identities, many culled from Wikipedia. "We have our lesbians, our gays," he said, before adding, "bisexual, transsexual, queer, homosexual, asexual." He took a breath and continued. "Pansexual. Omnisexual. Trisexual. Agender. Bi-gender. Third gender. Transgender. Transvestite. Intersexual. Two-spirit. Hijra. Polyamorous."

By now, the list had turned into free verse. He ended: "Undecided. Questioning. Other. Human."

The room burst into applause.

Correction: January 10, 2013, Thursday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of this article and a picture caption referred incorrectly to a Sarah Lawrence College student who uploaded a video online about being transgender. He says he is Stephen Ira, not Stephen Ira Beatty.

Source NYT

Fair Use

I think I know exactly where that intersection is in San Diego (if I'm right, near Balboa Park and the exit to the zoo)...
Is this a Southern California driver in a powerful rear drive car with barely siped tires not anticipating the loss of traction in the rain?
Sure looks like it...

There was a case somewhere in the States, my feeling is a large southern California city, where the legal system was found to be discriminatory. The evidence in a nutshell was the low number of cocaine prosecutions vs. the high number of crack prosecutions. The only significant factor separating the two was the demographics of the groups who used the drugs: affluent whites using cocaine, and poor minorities using crack.>> ^longde:
I somewhat agree, but I think that if drug possession and sales laws were enforced uniformly across demographics, you'd see those stats equalize quickly. Drug enforcement alone accounts for most of the 'criminality' on record anyway.

Southern California

>> ^longde:

Not all colleges in California are as expensive and exclusive as Florida. You have many community colleges or 2nd/3rd tier regional universities. So, while it is not free, college is accessible for all.
Choose a prudent field of study, and your investment will go far.>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Peroxide:
Not everyone should go to college.
But NO ONE should not be able to go because it's too expensive.

http://videosift.com/video/Noam-Chomsky-Education-For-Whom-and-For-What


Here Chomsky talks about how going to a City college in Mexico is free. In California, one of the richest places in the world it totally isn't.



No I'm sorry this just isn't true. I am well versed on this because I just had to move from Southern California to Washington just to get the classes I need to finish my degree. I was stuck for two years not able to get classes cause they cut them in half. There's not enough classes because all they're looking at now is the bottom line.

So college isn't accessible to ALL, and in the wealthiest nation on earth it should be FREE...it isn't, not even close.

EDITED for spelling cause I haven't finished college

Cora's comeback: www.facebook.com/pages/Cor­as-Comeback/112768512176396

Cora was a stray wandering a local Walmart parking lot. She was reported to ICARE on Tuesday (11/8) and finally apprehended on Thursday morning (11/10).
She gave many ICARE volunteers a great cardio workout for two days trying to get her (others, including Animal Control attempted to catch Cora for a few days before ICARE got involved) . Finally with the help of Eldad Hagar & Lisamarie, she was safe and on her way to the vet for a check up on Thursday morning. At this time she checked out fine aside from being filthy, flea infested and nearly emaciated.

A week later I took Cora in for a check up because one of her eyes was weepy and she was still sleeping a LOT more than I would expect her to be a week after her ordeal. Well, her eye was fine...she checked out great. Turns out all the sleeping was just a side effect of her PREGNANCY! Yep, Cora was about 1 month away from delivering puppies. She was so underweight and malnourished, the vet was doubtful she would be able to deliver naturally--but advised us to be hopeful and not plan for a definite C-section.

On December 15th, Cora delivered THREE beautiful and healthy puppies naturally and within only 3 hours. She was an absolute pro...it is likely this was her second pregnancy. She has been a phenomenal mommy and everyone is so proud of her. As a matter of fact, she is pretty darn proud of herself too, and it shows!

Cora is an approximately 1 year old Chiweenie. She will be available about 10 weeks from the date she delivered. She'll need time to rear and then wean her pups. After her pups are weaned she will be spayed and then all ready for her furever home ♥

If you live in SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA and you'd like to adopt Cora or any of her pups, please email I.C.A.R.E. Dog Rescue for an adoption application:
rescue@icaredogrescue.org
(they are taking applications now)

For more about Cora...check out my Foster Dog Blog:
https://allysadoptables.wordpress.com/

>> ^Hive13:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Hive13:
This happened over four years ago. Joe Horn was cleared by a grand jury in 2008. Both men were shot on Joe Horn's property and by Texas law he is within his state rights to defend his property.
Now, I am not saying that what he did was right or justified in any way, but, if two men ran onto my property after I personally witnessed them robbing my neighbor, I'd be reaching for a gun. I wouldn't be looking for a fight like this guy was, but I'd sure a shit defend my property.

No ones attacking property...they're taking it. If they had guns and were firing on your property then I'd understand. However taking your bullshit TV and knick knacks just doesn't mean a fucking thing which it comes to peoples lives period.
Now if you were say in a position where all you had was some food to live and they were stealing your food then I'd say you'd have the right to defend your life with deadly force. But this scenario would most likely have to play out in Africa or some post apocalyptic wasteland that people seem to wish would come around so they could shoot people on a whim.

So, I should just let convicted felon illegal immigrants with a vast criminal history just walk into my house and take whatever they want, in the presence of my wife and four children? What fucking planet do you live on? There are many people out there that would kill you and anyone in your house for $50.
The right to defend your property is an American right from the very beginning of this country. It isn't about property in the material sense....who cares about that? It is property in the sense that my wife and kids needs to feel safe and secure in their own home in their own beds.
In this case, I would have watched them from inside my home, called 911 and waited. If they headed toward my house, you had better believe that there would be one of my several guns in my hand ready to stop them from entering my house. If they did actually enter, they would get one warning and then they would get shot. Period.
If you don't live in America, I don't expect you to understand, but we have a lot of bad people here with bigger guns and no issue at all with murdering an entire family, kids and all, for an Xbox.


WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?!? It wasn't his home...his neighbors weren't fucking there. They were absolutely NO THREAT. Are you just making shit up to get mad about or something?

Also yes I live in America, I've lived in some of the worst areas of Southern California. Never had a problem because this epidemic of bad people coming into your home and murdering you doesn't exist.

LA doesn't have wind generators like what they show, the only place in Southern California that's known for them is out near Palm Springs. The shot with the hikers and the mountains makes me think of Big Bear or Yosemite>> ^EMPIRE:

Even though I think they only showed Los Santos (LA in the GTA universe) I do hope this is just like San Andreas, and we have the whole state (well.. 3 cities at least) to travel around. The shots of mountains gives me some hope about that.

>> ^Yogi:

How do you not plan how much gas you're going to need? I refuse to watch this movie that will possibly contain the answer...someone must tell me the answer and THEN I'll watch the movie.

"It seems some MMA websites have reported on the story, posting up that I might die out in the desert, or that it might be my greatest opponent yet, etc. Come on, guys. It's really common down in Southern California to go out to the off-road recreation areas in the desert about an hour away from LA and San Diego.

So my plan is to go out to the desert, do some camping, ride the motorcycle, and shoot some guns. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. A lot of people do it. This isn't a version of 'Into the Wild.'" -Evan Tanner

"I plan on going so deep into the desert, that any failure of my equipment, could cost me my life. I've been doing a great deal of research and study. I want to know all I can about where I'm going, and I want to make sure I have the best equipment."

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

In addition to 'teaching', an educator also needs to be a leader, a negotiator, a salesman, a disciplinarian, a politician, an administrator, a motivator, a receptionist, an advocate, a librarian, a manager, a public relations agent, a psychologist, an entertainer, an accountant, and for some students, a parent. If you are a music teacher, you get even more hats - arranger, copyist, bus scheduler, event planner, fund raiser, critic, graphic designer, contractor etc. (Running a high school band is like running a business, complete with a board, fundraiser income, expenses, employees, audits, etc.)


And yet I wonder why these super geniuses settle for teaching instead of using just some of the myriad of skills you listed and become the next big inventor, or the next great physicist, or the next big whatever. Yet instead, even with those over-qualifications (if we're to take your word for it), they choose to work so much harder for fewer rewards (again if we're to take your word).

Sounds totally legit.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I know you grew up in a region of the country that does not have high educational standards (and cruel stereotypes that reinforce these low standards), so I don't doubt that you've had more than your fair share of bad teachers.


Emphasis mine. Trolololo. Actually this is classic elitism. To you my geographical location, specifically that I grew up in the South, makes me inferior in every respect to people like you who grew up near richer Metropolitan areas. I know you're trying to goad me, but I also think you really believe some of that. It's the priggish nature of the elitist.

You can try to disassociate yourself from the Southern school system because of how people like you look down on them, but at the end of the day that system is still a product of your ideal one-size-fits-all Prussian school model no matter the location. To mock any part of it is to mock all of it.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I grew up in middle class Southern California, with teachers that were paid fairly, schools that were well funded and parents that involved themselves in the academic lives of their children. (3 of the biggest factors in student achievement). Out of the 40+ teachers I had from K-12, I can think of two that were bad.


Still, here in Los Angeles the charter schools and/or private schools tend to perform the best. Even with all the unions and heavy spending that goes on, the public schools just cannot outperform the charters/private schools. That's got to sting a bit for those in support of public schools and teacher unions.