>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^Crosswords:
I imagine the male version is when guys start up with their BS braggart routine.

Yup, this is it. If you sift it, I would vote for it


Done and done: http://videosift.com/video/He-s-Talking-Again-Henry-Philips

>> ^Crosswords:

I imagine the male version is when guys start up with their BS braggart routine.


Yup, this is it. If you sift it, I would vote for it

I imagine the male version is when guys start up with their BS braggart routine.

I'm registered Republican in California. It makes me feel dirty. But I only did it to vote in their primaries. I've thought about switching to independent, then when the GOP debates start up with jackasses like Romney or Bachmann, I realize I made the right decision.

I'm voting this up pretty much purely because I want to see the discussion on this, not so much because I agree with him.

There are truths in what he says, that those who partook in the riots are self involved, self pitying shits who have no justification for doing what they did.

But... this whole 'how/where you were brought up is no excuse for the way you are' line of thinking is rubbish.

It's much easier to have a sense of worth and see that work = reward equation when you've been brought up in a supportive environment where all your basic needs are taken care of without thought and time is then spent on your self esteem and treating other with respect etc.

If you were brought up in a low income environment with parents who don't have any self esteem themselves and pass on that feeling to their children. If time after time you try to do the right thing or work hard and yet are shot down by negative others in your environment or just otherwise shown that cleaning up or doing work doesn't change your situation much... then yeah, you can start getting a world view that doesn't include making an effort because you've never seen it work, you've never been told that if you try you could actually accomplish something.

Sure you can wheel out examples of hugely successful people who dragged themselves out of such situations, but they are BY FAR in the minority, and come from either pretty exceptional character traits in themselves, or you may find that they had one or two mentors who made a huge difference in how they lead their lives.

So Pat's rant about it all being their fault is not entirely true. It's a case of society as a whole not having in place ways of breaking the shitty cycle of poor, self abusing, self loathing parents = the same type of kids.

If programs of one sort or another can be introduced that can show those kids that hard work can make a difference, that they are worthy, and give them opportunities to use any skills they may have productively, then you CAN stop this sort of mentality. You CAN instil a feeling of pride in your neighbourhood, you CAN reduce this ME ME ME thinking.

Pat's thinking doesn't help anything. To help things he could be starting up some centres to start these things moving in the right direction, he could be volunteering for groups that I'm sure already exist who are trying to do these things, but I'm sure are woefully understaffed.

But no, he'd rather just call them all scum and pretend it's entirely their fault and that his upbringing and education have nothing to do with him living comfortably.

I can really appreciate the first part of your comment. I think that people have babies at the drop of a hat, and I also think that helping to put a cap on overpopulation (through education, and maybe even tax reform) would help fix a ton of the problems we have, from the economy to the environment, and hunger and a million other things.

But the government guaranteeing 3 months of unpaid leave is not an incentive to have children. And it is certainly not a "racket". If money is a problem for someone who's had a baby, then they're not going to be able to take that time off anyway. Very very few people, especially the ones struggling, are not looking forward to three months without income. A "racket" brings in income. No income = no racket.

The fact of the matter is, it's cruel to expect a person who has just gone through the trauma (whether personal choice or not) of giving birth (not to mention gestating a human for ten months) to return to work immediately or lose their income permanently. The sad part is that we need to make laws like this in the first place. That time people use for recuperating and connecting with their child can be the most important part of their development. So again you arrive at "hurting children", only from this end it's all so an employer can save a few bucks on not having to screen a temp. It's totally ridiculous.

If an employer is not ready to treat their employees like human beings, then maybe they shouldn't have started up a business in the first place.

>> ^gorillaman:

Society has a limited capacity to provide for and eductate its youth. Once that threshold is crossed every excess birth makes every other child poorer and dumber. Those of you who support policies that allow for explosive population growth are actively harming children.
The short-sighted, entitled attitude of the modern parent will drag us into poverty and squalor. It's necessary for compassion to be grounded in reason.

@SDGundamX

#1 apology: sorry for misinterpreting and misrepresenting your praise for the officials.

#2 apology: sorry, but the hyperlinks I input do not seem to appear (even despite a re-edit...). Below for reference in all their raw glory:
Gov't withholds radiation data: .
Gov't awards contract to agency to monitor internet (tweets and blogs) for nuclear radiation related comments: .
Gov't contract scope description: .
Comment from Tokyo Bar Association member: .

Agree that the organizations involved should not have re-edited the video to serve as propoganda.

About Kyushu Electric, I could not read the article you linked (blocked by a paywall). Is it about the employees doing the email campaign to influence the start up of the reactors?

cheers,
goemon

@goemon

I think you misread what I said. I wasn't praising them for showing up, I was praising them for their calm response to 2.5 hours of grandstanding by a bunch of groups that clearly showed up with the intent of trying to make the government look as bad as possible so they could make this misleading video and further promote their agendas. I was also praising the genuine compassion that several of the representatives showed in response to the few local people who actually stood up to tell their stories.

Do you have links to the statements you made above? Nothing in your post seems to be hyperlinked...and Japanese-only is fine. If you're up on current affairs in Japan, then you're aware of the scandal involving Kyushu Electric and its shady campaign to get the nuclear reactors down there started up again. I haven't seen anything credible yet though about the government covering things up.

Why should the meeting have been locals only? Well, the meeting was entitled "Negotiating the rights of Fukushima disaster victims" which implies that the people doing the speaking should have been the locals and not a bunch of anti-nuclear groups looking to make a name for themselves. The "outsiders" weren't there to negotiate, they were there to record themselves making speeches against these government representatives and then edit out the representatives' replies later on. That's what pissed me off about this clip.

Again, I'm not saying Fukushima people don't have anything to be angry about. But shady tactics like this by people who aren't even in the disaster area are not helping things at all.

Below is an explanation of why it is both fair and logical for the rich to pay more taxes. Taken from http://www.zompist.com/richtax.htm The website also has an argument against the flat tax.

It was written a while ago (90s I'm guessing) but most of the points are still valid today.

For more than a century it's been generally recognized that the best taxes (admittedly this is an expression reminiscent of "the most pleasant death" or "the funniest Family Circus cartoon") are progressive-- that is, proportionate to income.

Lately, however, it's become fashionable to question this. Various Republican leaders have trotted out the idea of a flat tax, meaning a fixed percentage of income tax levied on everyone. And in their hearts they may be anxious to emulate Maggie Thatcher's poll tax-- a single amount that everyone must pay.

Isn't that more fair? Shouldn't everyone pay the same amount?

In a word-- no. It's not more fair; it's appallingly unfair. Why? The rich should pay more taxes, because the rich get more from the government.

Consider defense, for example, which makes up 20% of the budget. Defending the country benefits everyone; but it benefits the rich more, because they have more to defend. It's the same principle as insurance: if you have a bigger house or a fancier car, you pay more to insure it.

Social security payments, which make up another 20% of the budget, are dependent on income-- if you've put more into the system, you get higher payments when you retire.

Investments in the nation's infrastructure-- transportation, education, research & development, energy, police subsidies, the courts, etc.-- again are more useful the more you have. The interstates and airports benefit interstate commerce and people who can travel, not ghetto dwellers. Energy is used disproportionately by the rich and by industry.

As for public education, the better public schools are the ones attended by the moderately well off. The very well off ship their offspring off to private schools; but it is their companies that benefit from a well-educated public. (If you don't think that's a benefit, go start up an engineering firm, or even a factory, in El Salvador. Or Watts.)

The FDIC and the S&L bailout obviously most benefit investors and large depositors. A neat example: a smooth operator bought a failing S&L for $350 million, then received $2 billion from the government to help resurrect it.

Beyond all this, the federal budget is top-heavy with corporate welfare. Counting tax breaks and expenditures, corporations and the rich snuffle up over $400 billion a year-- compare that to the $1400 budget, or the $116 billion spent on programs for the poor.

Where's all that money go? There's direct subsidies to agribusiness ($18 billion a year), to export companies, to maritime shippers, and to various industries-- airlines, nuclear power companies, timber companies, mining companies, automakers, drug companies. There's billions of dollars in military waste and fraud. And there's untold billions in tax credits, deductions, and loopholes. Accelerated depreciation alone, for instance, is estimated to cost the Treasury $37 billion a year-- billions more than the mortgage interest deduction. (Which itself benefits the people with the biggest mortgages. But we should encourage home ownership, shouldn't we? Well, Canada has no interest deduction, but has about the same rate of home ownership.)

For more, see Mark Zepezauer and Arthur Naiman's informative little book, Take the Rich Off Welfare.

How about social spending? Well, putting aside the merely religious consideration that the richest nation on the planet can well afford to lob a few farthings at the hungry, I'd argue that it's social spending-- the New Deal-- that's kept this country capitalistic. Tempting as it is for the rich to take all the wealth of a country, it's really not wise to leave the poor with no stake in the system, and every reason to agitate for imposing a new system of their own. Think of social spending as insurance against violent revolution-- and again, like any insurance, it's of most benefit to those with the biggest boodle.

What the fuck was it with the music? just randomly starting up part way through then going away!

Cooling down an organ or organ system doesn't mean its dead. We ship cooled donor organs all the time. Cooling something down just means things happen slower, and at a certain point too slow for cells to operate normally.

Also, the CNS is a particularly protected system, a system that can't really be shut down and started up again, so its the last thing to loose blood flow. In other words I am in no way awed by someone being very cold, surviving the ordeal to the degree that they are communicative, and remembering the things that happened.

>> ^Trancecoach:

So you take the position that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain and that consciousness does not exist outside of the mechanisms of the central nervous system? If so, then how do you reconcile the "Hard Problem" of consciousness? I suppose the accounts of individuals who recall events that occurred during periods of documented "brain death" are uses mere telepathy to find out what happened while their brain and body has been cooled to temperatures below 24 degrees celsius.

>> ^Ornthoron:

I felt a lot of the same as @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Morganth" title="member since March 25th, 2008" class="profilelink">Morganth watching this video. The story is supposedly set 3500 years before the events of the original movies, yet everything looks almost exactly the same. I will admit that I know very little Star Wars lore, but were the culture of the Old Republic really that similar? Among the things that looked almost exactly alike in this video were
-Stormtroopers
-Star Destroyers
-Tie Fighters
-smuggler ships
-door control panels
When I think of the Old Republic I want something old-fashioned and exotic, not the same stuff that I've seen hundreds of times before.


Yep, basically all content is ancesteral to Ep 4/5/6. Same schtick Lucas did with Ep 1, 2 and 3.

The thing that bothers me is that they keep trotting the exact same scenarios out.

-cocky smuggler a carbon copy of Han, check
-standard "enemy can't hit for shit" when a main character is striding in to combat with them
-freighter is 'fastest in sector' and 'looks like junk'
-ppl in the gun turrets ala New Hope
-Asteroid chase ala Empire
-Flying up the belly of a SD ala Jedi
-Flying through superstructure ala New Hope/Jedi

as if it's something new and fresh... The characters in this are infinitely more likeable than Ep 1/2/3 (although the smuggler character just annoys me) but the whole thing is so damn derivative it's like they're going down a checklist of homages they have to hit... I didn't hear a Wilhelm but I'm guesssing there's probably one of those in there somewhere as well.

I'm honestly surprised the hyperdrive didn't conk out and the smuggler started up "It's not my fault!"

>> ^Reefie:

>> ^westy:
not that good but not bad ether would expect more from a business i have seen better work from start up companies and students.

Aww, you just need a hug!


well the video says this in its comment "A seriously amazing abstract art piece"

granted it might be amazing to some , but if you watch allot of animation or work in that field then you will probably come to the conclusion that this is not amazing but just slightly above average and could certainly have been done better.

>> ^westy:
not that good but not bad ether would expect more from a business i have seen better work from start up companies and students.


Aww, you just need a hug!

not that good but not bad ether would expect more from a business i have seen better work from start up companies and students.