It's been in some television shows too. I think Southland had an episode where some kid would throw his bike on the ground and make like the people hit him or someone had hit him. Then they'd either take the car or steal whatever they could out of it while people were checking on the kid.

Kid really can't be prosecuted since he's a minor, and.......good luck on the rest.

Soon as it's on TV, it seems like you start to see those kind of crimes in the news. Not sure if it's new awareness of it, a surge in the crime, or it catching people's eye because it seems kind of fantastic since it was on television.

And there's another less obvious crime that this video made me think back to with the guy in the street being on crutches.

People faking disabilities for quick cash. Homeless people do it.....I've got a funny story about this I'll stick at the end of this comment. And there are people who go around with these little US flags with a piece of paper on it that shows sign language, and it might be legitimate in some cases. But they show up in fast food joints and go out to the tables, throw out some sign language and point to the paper and another that asks for donations...then give you a little plastic flag and leave quickly. They don't have any kind of charity affiliation that you can see....

And the homeless guy story. My dad and his cousin worked at the GM factory. The cousin used to give guys money because they'd claim they didn't have enough money to eat (lunch money basically) because they didn't make enough. And even after my dad pointed out that they make the same or more than both of them do, he still felt sorry for them. Well this changed when my dad showed him the "homeless" guy that would sit out in front of the plant during their shift changes. He was older maybe 50-60 and would tell them how bad it was for him and probably get 10-30 bucks each shift change, in the early to mid 70s. One day the cousin gave him a buck and my dad laughed at him, and this cousin is kind of a hotheaded guy so he accuses my dad of being a heartless prick, etc. So my dad gets him to walk with him to the edge of the building and he points out a nice caddy sitting there idling WITH A DRIVER, and tells him to check for that car every day that "homeless" guy is around. The days he wasn't out during shift change, the car was not there. The days he was there, car was sitting out there idling. The guy made enough money by panhandling at the GM plant to hire a driver to drive him around and was there nearly every day the plant was open....getting money from the workers and very few ever caught on. Got some other "homeless" people stories, but this one is by far the best I've ever heard.

"And in other news today, NAMBLA is reporting a 215% surge in new membership applications."

>> ^lantern53:

Yeah, ALL the (R) contenders are crackpot.
As are all the gullible lemmings who vote against their interests and support them.

>> ^lantern53:

Yeah, ALL the (R) contenders are crackpot.
Obama, on the other hand, who was raised in a madrassa, who's father is a socialist, who's pastor is an anti-semite, who's buddies are marxist (Frank Marshall Davis) or former terrorists, who comes from the Chicago political machine...
yeah, he's perfectly normal!


Wow! That guy sounds really interesting!

>> ^vaire2ube:

You spelled Bigot wrong in the tags.
Ron Paul non-racist quotes appear about 2 min in and continues... and Cenk's issue? He purports that Ron Paul says we should have anarchy. What a wierd thing to say.
Really? A vietnam era Air Force flight surgeon, physician and statesmen just wants the system to fall down on us ... yea.
ok.
so why does he fight so hard to change things in a legitimate, lawful fashion? to trick you all?Keep talking but really... research


Did you even watch the video? Cenk says that Ron Paul is a black-and-white libertarian. He says that what Ron Paul wants is almost anarchy, and he's right. Libertarianism shares many of the same ideals as anarchism. Problem is that it just doesn't work in the real world, where most people understand that we are constantly faced with "lesser of two evils" decisions, and that one cannot blithely apply a simple good/bad proposition to everything.

As for your videos, the first one is Ron Paul claiming he is electable and can win the 08 GOP nomination. I think he's pretty self-evidently wrong on that one. I would be willing to bet good money that he won't win this time either.

"Santorum surges from behind" is the best headline I've seen.

Santorum and Huntsman are the only two candidates who haven't been in the lead. I'm not sure why Santorum is surging, I guess because he's not any of the other candidates. It's kind of funny to see the media knock the candidates down like a whack-a-mole while the voters just keep switching. Pick a candidate and stick with it!

@quantumushroom:

Obama does suck, and I don't have time to go through your bullshit point by point, but you could at least call him out on things that he has actually fucked up.

I need to address the gas price thing, though. You've mentioned this before. Gas was cheap when Obama entered office because the economy had just recently tanked. Oil/gas producers had not had time yet to cut their production to stabilize prices around where they wanted them. The price increased because the economy improved and production was cut.

Between $3 and $4/gallon is where the producers want the price to be, and that's where it's going to stay absent huge surges or dips in demand.

Go here, and look at the five year chart. http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx

Do you see that huge collapse of gas prices? That is the economy collapsing. And that's what you're comparing the present prices to.

>> ^HaricotVert:

Although QI has a ton of fact checkers and are typically correct, there are some problems with the study they quoted. Radiolab discussed the findings of the "cat terminal velocity," and had Neil deGrasse Tyson on as a guest to dispute the study based on that it was working from a biased sample. That is to say, the study would have a disproportionately high number of cases where cats fell from heights of X feet, yet sustained non-life threatening injuries, and then were brought to vets by their panicked owners to get them checked out. The vets only have those cats that owners actually brought in to document the height from which they fell.
Cats that are obviously dead after falling from any height (whether 2nd story or 30th) are typically not brought in to vets. They're buried.
>> ^messenger:
According to QI, any higher than 7 stories, and a cat's skin will spread out like a wingsuit and it will glide to the ground.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l7Uq1s-gts


Good call. I have the same problem with people who talk about "Surges in violent crime". The instances of violent crime aren't surging, it's merely the reporting of them. A police department can show success against crime merely by making it harder to complain.


Also, while I don't think violent video games CAUSE violence, it is possible you will get fewer reports of violence from people inured of violence, hence the false idea of "violent video games reduce violent acts".

Oh, and I totally laughed out loud at the cat.

I remember seeing it on MTV back in the late 80s when there was a huge PF surge due to the release of the Division Bell (which I didn't particularly care for in the end). Something really really unsettling about this video. It just creems me out for some reason and really really matches the feeling the song always left me with... just pure ennui.

As to the video itself, I think Penn may have poorly stated the part about the unification of Christians, but he's still on to something. The different sects used to be less cooperative than they are now. Just look at the mistrust of JFK during his election. Now, clearly it wasn't too strong or he'd have lost, but you don't see that sort of thing as much now. It's still there; just look at the statements about Mormons by other Christians during the last and current election cycles; but most of the churches stand more or less together now.

The thing I really disagree with in this video is the Hitchens quote; the part about this being the death throes of religion. If anything, I see a power surge in religion since 9/11. Yes, the critics are louder now than ever and they are growing in "power", if you will, but I think religion is growing in power just as much. The balance is not shifting, we just have lots of previously neutral people picking sides.

If anything, I feel we're well on our way to a new Crusade with a not-insignificant portion of US Christians calling for the extermination of Muslims and a small but not-insignificant portion of Muslims calling for the extermination of Americans.

Depending on how things pan out, I would not rule out a major religious war in the next 50-100 years. Depending on how that goes, it could destroy or embolden religion in the US. If it's a long, hard-fought war, I could see people becoming disillusioned. If, as I suspect, the United States of Christianity simply blot out the "heathen uprisings", then I could see this being taken as an affirmation of the faith.

>> ^budzos:

Oh, fuck off.
Have you ever been assaulted by multiple people? It tends to give you a bit of an adrenaline surge. I can't stand this notion that if someone attempts to assault/murder you, you're obligated to stop defending yourself at the perfect moment as observed by some uninvolved third party.

>> ^petpeeved:
She tried to stop a sadistic act of violence with forceful language(and it was sadism. The body language of the male with the stick at the end was pure ego and no longer could be remotely considered self-defense.)


Oh, fuck off? I've been a member happily on this site for years but I can't recall a time when I've felt the level of discourse had dropped to general YouTube comment levels. The lack of respect for differing opinions is new and distressing.

Oh, fuck off.

Have you ever been assaulted by multiple people? It tends to give you a bit of an adrenaline surge. I can't stand this notion that if someone attempts to assault/murder you, you're obligated to stop defending yourself at the perfect moment as observed by some uninvolved third party.


>> ^petpeeved:

She tried to stop a sadistic act of violence with forceful language(and it was sadism. The body language of the male with the stick at the end was pure ego and no longer could be remotely considered self-defense.)

Helluva story. Here's the whole thing from Wiki:

The Christie Pits riot occurred on 16 August 1933 at the Christie Pits (Willowvale Park) playground in Toronto, Canada. The riot can only be understood in the context of the anti-semitism, Swastika clubs and parades and resentment of "foreigners" in Toronto, and the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany in 1933.[1]

The riot, which lasted six hours, broke out after a quarter-final baseball game at Christie Pits Park between two local clubs, Harbord Playground, predominantly Jewish, and St. Peter's, a baseball team sponsored by a church at Bathurst and Bloor.[2]

The riot occurred soon after Adolf Hitler took power in Germany and in the midst of the Great Depression. The Toronto papers, including the Telegram and the Toronto Star, as well as the Yiddish journal, Der Yiddisher Zhurnal, reported on how Jews were being dismissed as lawyers, professors, teachers, etc. in Germany, as well as incidents of violence against them. Thus to Jews the swastika represented degradation and physical violence against Jews, and was inflammatory.[3]

At that time, the Jewish community in Toronto was predominantly poor and working class. They were also the subject of discrimination and were excluded from summer resorts outside of the city. Jewish families and youths in particular would therefore cool off during the hot summer months by staying in town and going to the predominantly Anglo Beaches area in order to swim. This resulted in complaints and resentment from some local residents. Some of the locals formed "Swastika Clubs", which openly displayed the Nazi symbol to express their displeasure and make Jews feel unwanted.[4] The leaders of the Swastika Club initially insisted that the swastika had nothing to do with Hitler. They said they merely wanted to keep the Beach clean. After a meeting with Jewish leaders backed by City officials, the Swastika club agreed to drop its symbol and its name. At that point, several of the members joined the Swastika Association of Canada that was much more open about its links to Hitler.[5]

The night of the riot was the second game between Harbord and St. Peter's. Two nights earlier, at the first game of the series, a swastika had been displayed. Police were warned that there could be trouble at the second game, but those warnings were ignored. After the final out of the second game, Pit Gang members displayed a blanket with a large swastika painted on it. A number of Jewish boys and young men who had heard about the previous Swastika incident rushed the Swastika sign to destroy it, supporters of both sides (including Italians who supported the Jews) from the surrounding area joined in, and a fight started.[6]

The Toronto Daily Star described the event the next day:
“ While groups of Jewish and Gentile youths wielded fists and clubs in a series of violent scraps for possession of a white flag bearing a swastika symbol at Willowvale Park last night, a crowd of more than 10,000 citizens, excited by cries of ‘Heil Hitler’ became suddenly a disorderly mob and surged wildly about the park and surrounding streets, trying to gain a view of the actual combatants, which soon developed in violence and intensity of racial feeling into one of the worst free-for-alls ever seen in the city.

Scores were injured, many requiring medical and hospital attention... Heads were opened, eyes blackened and bodies thumped and battered as literally dozens of persons, young or old, many of them non-combatant spectators, were injured more or less seriously by a variety of ugly weapons in the hands of wild-eyed and irresponsible young hoodlums, both Jewish and Gentile".[7]
”

No one was killed in the riots. There was criticism of the police for not being ready to intervene, as they had been during previous potential problems in the Beach area.[8] After the riot, Mayor Stewart warned against displaying the swastika and there were no further riots.[9]

The riot revealed the xenophobic attitudes toward Jews and other non-Anglo immigrants among Anglo Canadians. Jews represented the largest minority in Toronto in 1933 and were thus a target of xenophobic residents.

In August 2008, a Heritage Toronto plaque was presented to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the riot.

I want to repeat first your original claim is the US outproduced the rest of the world many fold from 1700 to 1900, which as I stated is absurdly false.

Percentage of increases is NOT total GDP. Just because we grew more doesn't mean we outproduced another country. Higher GDP = higher production.

Right now, China's economy is growing faster than the US economy. Does that mean their GDP is higher? According to you, apparently, the answer is yes, but it's not. US GDP is higher than China.

Of course, this also doesn't take into account that population impacts GDP, as the larger your population, the more labor resources you have to produce goods and services. GDP per capita also comes into play in factoring relative productivity.

Using your own link, Great Britain's total GDP was higher than the US all the way up to 1913. Therefore, sometime between 1870 and 1913, the US GDP surpassed Britain and every other country on earth in raw amounts, but to claim we did from 1820 - 1913 is by your own data patently false. We outgrew everyone else, this is true, but we did not outproduce everyone else that entire time. In fact, for most of that time, we were outproduced by several Western European countries in raw amounts.

Then there's the question of GDP per capita.

In 1913, US population is estimated to be about 100,000,000. 517,000/100000000=0.00517

In 1913, the British population is estimated to be about 45,000,000. 225000/45000000 = 0.005.

IE, RIGHT ABOUT around 1913 the US began to be more productive per capita than Great Britain, but for most of 1870 to 1913 (and prior), Great Britain outproduced the US per capita. Therefore, your assertion the US outproduced every other country on earth per capita is wrong, and Great Britain outproduced the US in raw amount in 1870.

As I said, most historians do not consider the US an economic superpower until at least WWI. There's ample explanation for this. Great Britain industrialized before the US did. The US also suffered a massive interruption in economic production due to the US Civil War in the 1860s. This is plain as day fact, even with your own data you're providing.

And btw, what were the contributing factors to the US surge in production? Industrialization coupled with massive immigration. To discount the role of immigration into the US as a key contributor and say it was all about free market economics is ridiculous. Are you suggesting we need to allow Mexicans and anyone else to immigrate into the US again?! We also cashed in on imperialist gains at the expense of Mexico, gaining a massive amount of natural resources in the Mexican Cession. You don't honestly think the US Industrial Revolution would have been as wildly successful as it was without that massive resource of various metals, do you? So we're supposed to start taking land from other countries because it's god's will?

And now, to my absolute favorite part of your analysis. You attempted to show the US's slowing economic growth in the 20th century compared to the previous century, because that central banking and regulation we got post 1913 apparently really hurt us.

1820 - 1870 = 50 years
1870 - 1913 = 43 years
1913 - 1950 = 37 years
1950 - 1973 = 23 years
1973 - 1998 = 25 years

So how much did we grow comparing 1870-1913 vs 1950 - 1998, over a comparable time span?

526% vs. (7394598-1455916)/1455916 = 407%

Considering how unproductive humans were before and after industrialization, improving on top of that another 407% is EXTREMELY impressive. On top of that, US economic output was severely reduced because of the Civil War in the 1860s and had not recovered from it by any stretch of the imagination, so simply recovering from that would fuel a massive percentage increase. By 1950, we had already recovered from the Great Depression, and we STILL managed to grow the US economy 4x in the next 50 years.

Now, on top of that, keep in mind that with smaller numbers, percentage growth gets exaggerated compared to bigger numbers. IE, it's easier to double when you start with 1 than 1,000,000.

From 1820 to 1913, US GDP went from 12,548 to 517,383. From 1913 to 1998, we went from 517,383 to 7,394,598! That's less successful?! OH POOR US!

Compared to the rest of the world, we didn't grow as fast percentage wise from 1950-1998. We did however grow the most in raw amounts. By your analysis, Mexico has done a better job growing their economy from 1973 to 1998 than the US did because of percentage growth. Uhh, seriously?! growing 279,302 to 655,910 is more impressive than 3,536,622 to 7,394,598?! Then WHY ARE MEXICANS TRYING TO IMMIGRATE HERE!?

Why is Africa, Asia, etc. growing so much faster than we did? Because they are industrializing, which results in percentage gains greater than the switch to info tech because they're starting from a very low number. That doesn't mean they're outproducing us. It means they have more low hanging fruit to improve their productivity than we do. You're also cherrypicking another historically convenient time. Europe and Asia in 1950 were still recovering from the destruction of WWII, where entire cities were leveled. Simply rebuilding from that would give a massive boost. US industrial capacity was never threatened during WWII. Therefore, we won't start suddenly artificially lower in 1950 compared to a Japan, China, Germany, Britain, France, or Russia.

Your historical analysis is laughable. I have never seen anyone claim that the US economy was better off from 1800-1900 than they have been from 1900-2000. Kudos for attempting to provide statistics for your crackpot retelling of American history.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^heropsycho:
Except you're completely, utterly, 100% wrong about when the US became an economic superpower.
Most historians do not recognize the US as a global economic or military superpower until at least WWI, and it's hard to argue that even then because the US paled in comparison to the likes of Britain until WWII, so your claim we outproduced every other country many times over from 1700-1900 is absurdly and patently false. The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 (just prior to WWI), which allowed constitutionally for the first time a federal income tax. The Federal Reserve Bank was also established in 1913, which I guess is what you're referring to as "central banking". The US was undoubtedly recognized as a global Superpower, both economically and militarily, by the end of WWII, some 30+ years later, and it's been one undoubtedly ever since, with the FED and the federal income tax in existence that entire time. During that time, the US has outproduced economically every other country on earth with the dreaded "central bank" and federal income tax you think is destroying our economy.
You might actually want to look stuff up before you say something that grossly incorrect.
>> ^marbles:
>> ^raverman:
... Let me introduce you to the period of history from 1700 - 2000.
Specifically the industrial revolution, the breaking of the class system in the UK, the empowerment of the middle class as both consumers and producers.
...
Look a little bit closer, like 1700-1900, where there was no tax on production (i.e. income tax) and limited periods of economic central planning (i.e. central banking). The US became an economic powerhouse, outperforming the rest of the world many times over.
Imagine that, economic freedom leading to economic prosperity. What a fluke, right?


Don't let facts get in the way of your clouded thinking.
http://www.theworldeconomy.org/MaddisonTables/MaddisontableB-18.pdf
We were the most prosperous country in the world prior to income taxes and the federal reserve.
In 1820, US GDP was less than 2% of the world's GDP. By 1913, US GDP was more than double any other country and 1/5 of the world's. Funny thing about freedom, it works.
From 1820 to 1870, US GDP increased 784% while the world GDP had only increased 59%. From 1870 to 1913, US GDP increased 526% while the world GDP had only increased 246%.
Period, Increase in US GDP, Increase in World GDP
1820 to 1870, 784%, 59%
1870 to 1913, 526%, 246%
1913 to 1950, 281%, 197%
1950 to 1973, 243%, 300%
1973 to 1998, 209%, 210%
And if you do the math per capita, the numbers are even uglier for the US 20th century.
But not surprising one thinks that printing money to pay for bombs and tanks makes a country prosperous. How's that government stimulus working out present day? Funny we still haven't paid off that debt from WWII stimulus. We've being paying the interest on it though.
Did expanding the monetary base (i.e. inflation) make us richer? The father of the theory that government stimulus is the way to fight severe downturns, John Maynard Keynes, famously said about inflation:
By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.