So

I don't know how it is in the states, but in this country if you want to go through gender reassignment you will get it for free on the NHS. Its a long road, it isn't easy, they make it hard etc, but like anything else that poses a risk to somebodies health it is paid for by the state. I feel like a lot of people consider reassignment a sort of frivolous sex thing but being unable to escape the body in which you are born is, you know, desperately depressing. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that surgery and hormone treatment are potentially lifesaving, and certainly greatly improve the quality of life in most cases.

Couple of things I don't understand - Is this the military saying they will no longer pay for treatments associated with gender reassignment, or is this a blanket ban on transgender men and women from serving in the military? One wonders why the military can't spend even a fraction of the amount is spends on toys on its servicemen/women...

Anyhoo. It's a distraction. Not trying to suggest that it is a minor thing for those affected, but I really think this is to divert the left and win back support from the right. It sucks dreadfully that a minority group is again used as target for political maneuvering and it is worthy of resistance but I can't help but feel we are playing into their hand by doing so.

@bobknight33 I pity you.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

It was a long road to travel , but it really paid off, kind of? I'm being told I need to watch the Spiritual Granola episode.

From the interwebs:
"Nixie isn’t going to be on this Christmas’ shopping list and is simply a concept at this stage."
and
"The Nixie prototype, as it is now, looks like it could break at a moment’s notice, and resembles more a school science project than the next big wearable."
and
"Nixie is currently in prototype stage and as an idea, was born only ten days before the deadline for the competition. But despite having a lot of work to do, the team's pitch convinced the judges not only that the product is brilliant, but that the team has a viable business plan and can make the product, quite literally, take off. Prize money will be used for improving the propellers, motors and object navigation, as well as miniaturisation of the whole product."

I still think Intel got conned.

What this tells me is that everybody sees potential but that what they showed in the video was pure concept design. They have a very long road ahead of them still. My key issues are and remain:
Getting the booms to bend around the wrist so as to bring the motor pods back together.
Fitting the electronics into a format that will fit onto a wrist.
Maintain an acceptable level of performance for an acceptable level of time.

Funny thing is that they mention all of the things I've commented on:
Propellers, miniaturization, and navigation.

I would add form factor and battery life. But Props will be a key issue as getting efficient props at this size is very difficult and maintain tolerances in production.

*promote the master!
welcome back @blankfist
ya'all need to start taking notes.

this guy was super entertaining,i thought he was gonna have an embolism at the halfway mark.

hiiiiilarious!!!

look,no matter which direction you approach this situation the REAL dynamic is simply:power vs powerlessness.

we also should establish which form of libertarianism we are speaking.cultofdusty criticizes the bastardized american version and this dude come from a more classic libertarian (sans the unbridled capitalism).so there should be no surprise they are at odds in their opinion.this man is defending a libertarianism that cultofdusty may not even be aware of at all.

libertarianism has little or nothing in common with the republican party.

so when this dude posits that the corporation is the fault of government,while not entirely accurate,it is also not entirely wrong.corporations in the distant past were temporary alliances of companies,with the blessing of the people (government) to achieve a specific job or project and once that project was complete,the corporation was dissolved.

it was a cadre of clever lawyers,representing powerful interests who convinced the supreme court that corporations were people and hence began the long road leading us to where we are now.

so it was partly the government that fascillitated the birth of the corporation.

i do take issue with this mans assessment of public education.his commentary is the height of ignorance.while i would agree that what we have now can hardly be called 'education".his blanket and broad statements in regards to public education TOTALLY ignores the incredible benefits that come from an educated public.he ignores the history of public education,as if this system has been unchanging for 100 years.

that is just flat out...stupid..or more likely just lazy,regurgitating the maniacal rants of his heroes without ever once giving that 100 years some critical study.

so let me point to the the late 50's and 60's here in the USA where our public education was bar-none the best in the world.what were the consequences of this stellar public education?
well,...civil rights marches,anti-war movement,womens rights movement and a whole generation that not only questioned authority and the entrenched power structures but openly DEFIED those structures.

this absolutely petrified the powered elite.
during the height of the anti-war movement nixon was forced to baricade the white house with school buses and was quoted as saying to kissinger " henry,they are coming for me".

again,the fundamental premise is,and has always been -power vs powerlessness.

so over the nest few decades public education was manipulated and transformed into a subtle indoctrination to teach young minds to tacitly submit to authority.

which this man addresses and i agree,i just disagree with his overly generalized non-historically accurate puke-vomit.

my final point,and its always the point where libertarians lose their shit on me like an offended westboro baptist acolyte (its actually two points) is this:
1.if we can blame the government for much of the problems in regards to concentrated power and the abuse that goes with that power,then we MUST also address the abusive (and corrosive) power of the corporation.many libertarians i discuss with seem to be under the impression that if we take away the symbiotic relationship between corporations and government that somehow..miraculously..the corporation will all of a sudden become the benign and productive member of society.

this is utter fiction.
this is magical thinking.
many corporations have a larger GDP than many nation states.this is about POWER and there is ZERO evidence any corporation will be willing to relinquish that power just because there is no government to influence,manipulate or corrupt.

which brings me to point number 2:
my libertarian friends.
you live in a thing called a society.
a community where other people also live.
so please stop with this rabid individualism as somehow being the pinnacle of human endeavour.im all for personal responsibility but nobody lives in a vacuum and nobody rides this train alone.the world does not revolve around YOU.

but i do understand,and agree,that the heart of the libertarian argument is more power to the people.i also understand their arguments against governments,which directly and oftimes indirectly disempowers people.

i get that.its a good argument..
BUT...for fucks sake please admit that the corporation in its current state has GOT TO FUCKING GO!

because if you dont then ultimately you are trading one tyrant for another and in my humble opinion,ill stick with the one i can at least vote on or protest.

there aint nothing democratic about a multi-national corporation.they are,by design,dictatorships.

so i will agree to wittle the government down and restrict its powers to defense (NOT war),law and fraud police,if you agree to dismantle and restructure the seven headed leviathan that is todays corporation.

deal?

I don't get it if you want to be better off then go figure out a way and drive toward it. Quit bitching about " those rich bastards".

I suppose I could just watch TV all night and complain like everybody else with and have my hand out for some government cheese or for the government to strip the rich of its earnings and hand out more cheese.

I want to be better off and working toward making it better. Its a long road but I believe I will get there.

Today I made a $1000 bucks and last month I made 38% on my money.
I also buy and sell motorcycles for some extra spending cash. I'm always trying to better myself financially.

My dad lost everything he had when he was in his late 30's in 10 years he had it back. He is retired and living well. I wouldn't call him rich but his money will outlast him. He did it, a high school educated man.
.

America is still the best country You can make you own mark. It's up to you and you alone.

This may run long, so bear with me.

Law Enforcement employees tend to come from two specific groups of people. The first group is going to consist of people who actually joined up to try to protect people and make things safer for them. They are idealists who may grow jaded over time; because realistically if your only input on what being a LEO is the internet and reality TV, you are not prepared for the type of mental assault you will endure day in and day out. I'm not talking about angry people, but stuff like drawing circles around little chunks of brains on the highway from a teenage girl that went through a windshield.

As an officer at any level (except maybe a small town), you are going to see the absolute worst side of humanity on a daily basis and you aren't on a tour of duty like the military. You don't get to 'rotate' home and put it behind you. This will wear on anybody who is not a sociopath, it will grind you down to a nub. You could see professional help for this, but I will go into that later.

The second type of person who goes into law enforcement is someone who likes authority, a sense of power over someone else, a bully. This person is in the job because it gives them power over others and the law will protect them because it is vaguely worded in SO many cases. This person will shrug off the effects that cripple the first type over time, because they feel in charge of every situation. After a while, if they don't tone it down, they will get caught. Thankfully the cell camera and the internet tends to be helping clean them out due to their own incapability to see they can't ALWAYS be in charge, but it will be a long road because this group is the BULK of the ones that join LE organizations.

Now why do these two groups tend to be the ones that you are going to run into on a consistent basis? The simple, hard answer is that we pay our front line LEO's very little compared to other services that risk their life or experience the mental grind. Your average patrol officer is going to pull a median salary of about 35k with comparable benefits to someone working in a office job. A firefighter is going to pull around 45k and scales up much quicker, not to mention their benefits are beyond good. EMT's make about the same as patrol officers, but their benefits are also very good and they don't have the same stressors. I know that ranges will vary and State LEO's are very well paid on average, but we are talking about the people you are going to encounter most often.

If you have to choose between a job where you are going to be considered a 'hero' or a job where everyone is going to be biased towards you being a 'villain, and the hero jobs pay better, which would you logically choose? Assuming of course that you are not sorted into one of the two groups I described, most are going to run away from serving in LE. In fact, this is why more of the 'bullies' tend towards LE and the 'idealists' don't. So you already have created a situation where the 'stormtrooper' mindset is going to prefer this job and haven't considered options to rectify it. The people you don't run into that much are going to be the people that took college and got pushed through the ranks quickly. If you didn't take college or just took an Associates Degree, you have to beat these people out. It is extremely hard to do that, even if you do your job much better than they did.

The final factor that runs into this is the mental issues I mentioned earlier. If you seek help from your employers for mental stress, they are going to handle it differently if you are a LEO. You are going to find out quickly that you are expendable. If you seek help and get classified as PTSD, you set a chain of events in motion that is inexorable. You will be rotated to a desk. You will see a Psychiatrist who will prescribe anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication. This person will meet with you for around 15 minutes 3-4 times a week, ask you questions, and ask if the medication is helping. If you return to functional status in a month or two, you get put back on duty. If you don't, they put you on short term disability for up to one year. Your visits drop to once a week, then once a month. One year later, your employment is terminated. They hire a new recruit and start the cycle again about the same time that you start your short term disability. You get to try to salvage your career in anyway possible, hopefully you paid through the nose for long term disability, or you can try to find a smaller department that doesn't bother to dig too deep on background checks.

Other related fields like firefighters/emts comprehend PTSD and work with their people much harder. They have better benefits so you they can see outside therapists as much as needed. There is less stigma if you have a problem, because they understand. You go on the fritz as an LEO and you will overhear people who used to respect you call you weak or a pussy. Sadly this type of thing happens at all levels of LE, even as a State Trooper you are expendable.

In any case, the point to this essay is that the system is flawed and is going to drive out the good LEOs and save the bad ones to protect itself from litigation. Protect yourself at all times with video, be advised of the laws and loopholes in them that bad LEos will exploit, and don't force confrontation with a LEO if there is a loophole. If the man had stepped outside and talked calmly, the incident would not have escalated as it did. In this case he did not inform himself of the loopholes correctly and got tasered (which was improper, they didn't warn him correctly or anything), and the LEOs look like villains again.

>> ^Unsung_Hero:

Road trip with his dog = No eating, drinking, changing CD's, picking nose, or crotch adjusting.


Yeah I love my dogs, but I would try sticking him in the backseat or somewhere else to try to get him comfortable. You really DO NOT want to reinforce that behavior, good for a few videos and trips though.

Both my dogs on LONG road trips I stick in the flat bed of the back of the SUV, with the back seats down too. Usually there is a bunch of camping gear and various other stuff back there off to on side and they get the other, but they really like walking around on a flat area with some blankets below them for cushion and the Lhaso Apso needs a stuffed animal to be happy (he's like a 4 year old kid--I must admit it's a bit like this behavior, but it doesn't bug anybody and he seems to feel far more safe with his plush buddy...it's cute). The Terrier could give a rats ass about what is happening in the world, but he just wanders around to the various windows watching, he LOVES looking out the back window. Eventually the Terrier goes to sleep and that lets the Lhaso relax and he snuggles up against the Terrier and they go to sleep cuddled up, should throw a pick up.

Anyway, I really just wanted to talk about my dogs on car trips, but long story short: don't coddle them too much. You got to choose your moments. Hell watching the dog whisperer taught me a lot about dog psychology. It also shows HOW absolutely wrong "dog experts" are ALWAYS wrong about them--like putting down dogs that have been rescued from bad homes because they "puppy-guard" their food and are INTENSELY aggressive about it, they put these animals down. The Dog Whisperer EASILY modifies their psychology and STOPS it.

This guy should watch a few shows. Luckily my parents had parents that had some farm backgrounds, so animals were a must and how to handle them. So I've always been able to train my dogs and get them to do what I want. My friends can be oblivious, but really a show like the Dog Whisperer is perfect for people that have a dog and WANT to teach them to do other things or things they do differently.

I love dogs though, all types. Mans best friend, bar none. Smart enough to be useful (and some even save your damned LIFE) and their psychology allows them to be incredibly affectionate and wonderful, but YOU as their master MUST BE as well!

/I've said too much!

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^bcglorf:

I'm not entirely a layman. I'm basing my opinion on searches through peer reviewed journals, ones like this. If you go and take a look, you'll find it is a pretty much bullet-proof decimation of the statistical methods used in the infamous hockey stick graph. It's not a run and gun hit job by hacks funded by big oil either. Mann's team that generated the original hockey stick graph already came to the same conclusion(with gentler wording) in their own most recent work.
Read Mann's article for yourself, he's one of the most vehement of those claiming the science is 'settled'. His most recent paper's calculations with different statistical methods though show that the earth was just as warm(or warmer) twice before in just the last 2k years.
The science that is settled is that the planet has been warming for the last long while. The science is settled that the planet has been warming over just the last 100 years that we've had instrumental record. The science is settled that mankind is inputting measurable and even significant levels of CO2 into the atmosphere. The science is settled that CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect. The science is settled that CO2's overall contribution to the greenhouse effect is less between 5-15%, while water vapor accounts for 60-90%. Science is well agreed that the role of water vapor in long term climate change is very poorly understood.
I challenge anyone to dispute the above assessment of the current state of scientific understanding, as my searching of peer-reviewed journals shows the experts in each relevant field agreeing with the above statements. Putting those together doesn't exactly add up to 'time to panic'. The only smoking gun that every was considered was the hockey stick graph that appeared to show that the last 100 years of warming was abnormal and unusual. The evidence for it is being thrown out though, and the newly recalculated data, even by the original team, suddenly looks a lot less worrying and much more normal.

That's probably the first rebuttal to climate change I've ever read that doesn't spout nonsense and lies. Kudos to you.
Out of interest, you say you're "not entirely a layman". May I ask if that means you have studied climatology or simply that you read the papers?
As for water vapour, it's not really a "forcing agent", it's reactive. It's better explained here.


My background is computer science but that requires a strong math background as well. When doing any manner of computer simulation of a complex and unknown system, the purely theoretical models are rarely sane. The reason being you can't model the bare physics of a complex system, so you have to essentially estimate(fake) the macro effects and properties. You get good computer models by comparing the results to real data and iterating back and forth until your model starts doing a better job of reflecting reality. The big red flag for me with climate models is the really limited real world data available to compare models to. I don't models aren't worthwhile, scientists are building them because they are useful. The trouble is what they are useful for. By definition, the models have to be treated as less reliable than the raw data we calibrate them against and run our sanity checks against. Neither does it matter how many different models we run, all that gets is closer to the same reliability as the real world measures that we have.

That ties into the article I linked, where the climate guys trying to rebuild temperature data to calibrate computer models from where themselves not strong enough in statistics to notice very significant flaws in the methods they were using. Flaws that systematically produced the results they initially deemed significant. Without a strong grounding there, I have to assess we are still left with a long road to go before really saying we understand this.

As for water vapor being reactive, I would very much disagree. Any climate scientist trying to tell you that is trying to simplify things for you to the point they are no longer being accurate. Ice caps melting, oceans rising, and cloud cover doubling is going to drive climate. It is going to force climate more strongly than anything else. The big unknown is just what parameters water vapor works under, it's simply not well understood yet. Computer models don't even know what sign to assign it as a forcing agent for pitysake. Most likely because it can act as both positive and negative based on environmental factors which are dependent on temperature among other things. When it comes to what kind of forcing H2O does the honest answer is that it's role is so complicated we just simply do not know. What we DO know is that currently, it contributes to 60-90% of the overall greenhouse effect. That tells me it's role in forcing is a much more worthy area of focus and study than CO2 and it's a crying shame so many more dollars are spent on CO2 than H2O when what we really need is to understand the whole system in order know what is really going on.

ha!

well, let's just put this in perspective then...
26 of our 50 states took the obama healthcare initiative to our highest court.
wouldn't this be the same conflict of interest if any state funds were used to host any activity to which our supreme court justices were invited and attended? (by any measure, they are the plaintiffs in this case.)

answer: yes, by your very myopic and obtuse assessment... it would.

take a deep breath, pull your heads out of your behinds, and realize A. that this is one-sided reporting of a bipartisan pasttime, and B. that the members of our SCOTUS are selected because they are the premier interpreters of our nation's constitution, and therefore given the benefit of the doubt because of the long road and fractious appointment process that has brought them to their positions.

frankly, i don't care which way they vote on this issue - i live overseas. but if i were a betting man, i'd wager that we see a 5-4 / 6-3 split, both against the constitutionality of the current plan. this will clearly disrupt your shortsighted view of political partisanism.

seriously, don't bother to respond to my comments if you don't understand the issue, or are too lazy to do your homework.

rachel maddow is figuratively the unwanted offspring of a beck / limbaugh coupling, where they then pissed on the infant and put her up for adoption.

simply put: she inherited their style but has an axe to grind with their politics.

It is a long road that has no turning.

Dear Flawless Leader,

May I ask your impression(s)...

http://videosift.com/video/Elgkoden-norwegian-music-video

http://videosift.com/video/White-Snow-A-crazy-long-road-trip

Posted at http://videosift.com/video/Elgkoden-norwegian-music-video#comment-1189816
which is a submission of Arashik herein describe as "this poster."

Guttorm, member as of 042211, and this poster would seem to be the same individual or associated. This poster's only other submission, http://videosift.com/video/Lena-Satellite-the-ring-tone (http://www.youtube.com/user/erlendhskjotskift#p/a/u/1/DZnTDfvcxzQ on YT) was posted by YT account holder erlendhskjotskift who also posted Guttorm's submission on YT 040611 and has 40 views on YT which is here, http://videosift.com/video/White-Snow-A-crazy-long-road-trip.

Guttorm, today, has voted on both of the Arashik submissions the most current of which was posted on YT on 042111 and had only 7 views there when I watched. It and his other sybmission evoked a self link response. I questioned his first submission 7 months ago.

An IP comparison might be interesting.

Do you smell something? I think I smell something banning.

Guttorm, member as of 042211, and this poster would seem to be the same individual or associated. This poster's only other submission, http://videosift.com/video/Lena-Satellite-the-ring-tone (http://www.youtube.com/user/erlendhskjotskift#p/a/u/1/DZnTDfvcxzQ on YT) was posted by YT account holder erlendhskjotskift who also posted Guttorm's submission on YT 040611 and has 40 views on YT which is here, http://videosift.com/video/White-Snow-A-crazy-long-road-trip.

Guttorm, today, has voted on both of the Arashik submissions the most current of which was posted on YT on 042111 and had only 7 views there when I watched. It and his other sybmission evoked a self link response. I questioned his first submission 7 months ago.

An IP comparison might be interesting.

Do you smell something? I think I smell something banning.

@messenger, @Sketch

I don't disagree with your sentiment at all; I find it quite frustrating at times as well, but I stand by my assertion that it won't help to be confrontational. I expect this shift will literally take generations to come about. Arguing with individuals in an effort to "convert" (perhaps de-convert) them rarely works, regardless of how sound your reasoning is.(as you have both noted) Everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to make up their own mind. For a lot of adults, it's quite simply too late to make such a radical change in their concept of existence. The young aren't as rigid, however, and this belief structure can diluted from one generation to the next. I assert the most effective way to change minds over time is to change our culture, and we're well on our way. The beacon of truth shines brightly on its own, while lies take significant maintenance. The more (effectively) open our society becomes the more difficult it will be to spread the influence of obvious lies. This will require work on our part, however, to call out specific, organized and systemic deception efforts over the course of our lives. We've got a long road ahead of us, but it should be interesting if nothing else.

That ad campaign is interesting; that's the sort of effort that we can aspire to in our daily lives. Not confrontational, but when the situation arises, let others know they're not alone with their doubts. Movements need leaders, and we're all capable of that role if we can be disciplined and patient enough.

I don't normally do quotes because it's easy to take someone out of context for your own purposes, but I especially like this one as I interpret it to pertain to this situation:

"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." -Sun Tzu

Edit: Example of more constructive, (in terms of construction and delivery) yet just as scathing (in terms of content) criticism. Starts @ 8:07... man I envy the Hitchslap ability...