>> ^Hex:
was that dawkings near the end?


Yes. This is a clip from 'Beyond Belief 2006' a conference where several scientists including Dawkins participated in

http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival

The tax increase on tobacco is beyond belief.
I roll my own cigarettes and the tax per lb. on RYO tobacco is jumping from about $1. per lb. to almost $25. per lb.
For the stuff I buy (which costs $12. per lb) that makes the amount of the tax more than double the amount of the product I'm buying.
That's just crazy. When the tax is more than the product something is fucking wrong.
I'm all for paying my share, and yes .. I shouldn't smoke. But honestly, this is ridiculous.

Bale has apologized for his outburst: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/06/bale.apology/index.html

"I was out of order beyond belief," Bale said. "I was way out of order. I acted like a punk. I regret that."

This sort of thing has been known about for a long time, but as usual, the government doesn't really care to protect you... otherwise they would have gone a more effective route... they'd have also worked out the problem with identity theft and BS associated with social security and credit reporting.

The system is broken.. and it seems they want it to be broken. Why? Who knows. Either that, or they are incompetent beyond belief. After the Bush years... that would make that theory quite believable.

Oh come on, I'm not trying to drag his name into the mud, what shits me beyond belief is biased and emotive reporting.

Rather than reporting the facts, and as many of them as there are to hand (what was actually going on that caused them to be pulled out of the train etc.), they paint the victim as a saint.

I'm in NO WAY trying to say he deserved to be shot, not at all, or make him out to be a bad person. What I'm saying is that I hate any reporting of a story like this that skews itself so far one way or the other.

If you're going to tell us that he has a 4 year old to a girlfriend and was 'trying really hard' of late to be a better person, how about you also enlighten us as to what he was doing before hand that made him have to become a better person. OR... just don't tell us any of that superfluous information at all, and maybe tell us MORE about what happened during the incident rather than all this extraneous bullshit.

You are firmly of one belief without knowing all the facts. YES I can't see any other reality other than this guy was VERY, VERY in the wrong. But in what way, we don't yet know... (yes, he shot him, but was it some serious anger management, a mistake, having a real issue with fear, what?) and if he somehow actually avoids any trial then that is seriously fucked up and wrong on so many levels.

So, I'm not trying to make the victim out to be a bad guy, but painting inaccurate pictures of either party doesn't help matters at all.

In reply to this comment by joedirt:
Also, spoco, you got some nerve trying to drag the dead guys name into the mud. It doesn't matter if he was a saint or an ex-con. Police Officers should do their jobs and treat people properly based on the situation.

It doesn't make it right to shoot someone (on purpose or accidentally) or even attempt to use lethal force (point a gun at suspect) in this situation. The only possible justification that will come out of this was Mehserle thought he patted down a weapon.

It is still manslaughter for such gross negligence in this video. The dead man did have a child and the coverup and lack of response by the BART police is relevant.

I'm upvoting plastique's comment because he somehow turned a scene from an American cinematic farce into a weather rant, which as I am well aware is a Canadian pastime.

Add in the obligatory "you young fellers / walked five miles to school / uphill both ways / had to shoot a prairie walrus for dinner to survive and weren't they tough to hunt / picked my teeth with the tusks" segue, and I'd be homesick beyond belief... er, if I weren't home, that is.

Evened that up for you legacy0100... such lucid observations don't deserve to be in the negative.

Singapore and Korea have greatly benefited from Western imperialism (English and American). They inherited our knowledge to build sustainable economies around our economic theory and sound legislative backgrounds. As for Saudi-Arabia, US geologists first discovered the oil under their feet in the 1930s but Americans waited at least 20 years to really start pumping it out.

It is not to say that Westeners are totally responsible for these success stories, but we sure as hell had a hand in getting them started. As for Africa, what most upsets me is that many people fell guilty at their failure. Africa has been offered a multitude of opportunities for growth and stability but have wasted them all away.

Ultimately, their fate lies in their hands. We should stop all aid to Africa.


>> ^legacy0100:
Africa needs to start from basic agricultural and clothing/household item manufacturing environment.
Why don't they have these industries? Singapore started out from Malaria ridden jungle to one of the richest, highest GNP economy in the world, without Africa's natural resources.
South Korea was a war torn, bombed down wasteland and within 50 years it is now top 10 economic powerhouse of the world.
Saudi Arabia was a bumblefuck nowheresville desert with fiefdoms and petty tribes dotted randomly in the sand, until they found out their natural resource pitched a high price to the westerners. And now their kingdom is the richest and most politically influential nation in the world.
Did anybody ORDER them to learn new technology from the westerners? Did anybody TEACH them to strive for better quality in life?
No, they fucking decided that for themselves!!!
So what the fuck is up with Africa, seriously? Is it seriously lack of information and education? Seriously? They just don't know where to start? But then how the hell would they know you can get precious metals from burning them?
ANd like Pprt said, why wouldn't they simply just ply out the parts? They're too impatient to do that? Smashing it is more 'efficient?'
Africa pisses me off beyond belief. Why the hell would they do this to themselves? Why would they be contempt? Why can't they rise up, demand something better, start waging war for the purpose of 'CONQUERING' more resources and not petty politics like 'your daughter is a witch' or something?

Africa needs to start from basic agricultural and clothing/household item manufacturing environment.

Why don't they have these industries? Singapore started out from Malaria ridden jungle to one of the richest, highest GNP economy in the world, without Africa's natural resources.

South Korea was a war torn, bombed down wasteland and within 50 years it is now top 10 economic powerhouse of the world.

Saudi Arabia was a bumblefuck nowheresville desert with fiefdoms and petty tribes dotted randomly in the sand, until they found out their natural resource pitched a high price to the westerners. And now their kingdom is the richest and most politically influential nation in the world.

Did anybody ORDER them to learn new technology from the westerners? Did anybody TEACH them to strive for better quality in life?

No, they fucking decided that for themselves!!!

So what the fuck is up with Africa, seriously? Is it seriously lack of information and education? Seriously? They just don't know where to start? But then how the hell would they know you can get precious metals from burning them?

ANd like Pprt said, why wouldn't they simply just ply out the parts? They're too impatient to do that? Smashing it is more 'efficient?'

Africa pisses me off beyond belief. Why the hell would they do this to themselves? Why would they be contempt? Why can't they rise up, demand something better, start waging war for the purpose of 'CONQUERING' more resources and not petty politics like 'your daughter is a witch' or something?

"Not much else to explain here..."

I beg to differ, before the subtitles start the reporters say that this man, has been given only 40+ years in jail but that he MAY get out in 3 years. Why? well because Colombia's justice system is fucked beyond belief. I know because I am Colombian. But then again, this case is quite old so perhaps they have re examined the case and given a proper sentence.

His name is Luis Alfredo Garavito, and he not only killed 140 children but he also raped and mutilated them. Most were homeless kids or kids that were street vendors. He would trick them by giving them money, or dressed as a monk, or even pretended to be a street vendor like them. Anything to gain their trust.

He is an alcoholic who was raped as child, and consequently entered a state of depression. I suppose this is when Hitler's life and words as well as Satanic ideas influenced him. So labeling this with the 'religion' tag is kind of misleading, since this person experienced other things of psychological nature BEFORE his obsession with Hitler and Satanism. The title of this makes it seem as if this guy picked a Hitler book and a satanic bible one afternoon and *poof* just like magic he became a murderer.

The authorities found a massive grave of about 40 corpses in a Colombian town, that is when a full investigation across the nation to find the murderer began and a couple more graves were found thereafter.

btw, he confessed to 140 murders but as far as I know he has been linked to about 190

forcing you to pay for fire, national defense, police, or legal systems (despite being legitimate roles of government) is coercion and thus, unacceptable. i never once said anything about forcing you to pay taxes. taxes collected by force are not a part of a free society. there are many ways to set up a voluntary tax system-you just have to be more creative.

and when speaking about a voluntary tax system--if the only role of government is protection of individual rights (i.e. property rights) who has the most property to lose? the millionares, billionares, and CEOs will have a very large interest (an amount of interest equal to their bank accounts most likely) to secure their assests by providing money for national defense, a police force, firefighters, and a legal system in which to seek compensation for prosecute theft and vandalism. ironically, it is this system, where the lower and middle class will likely pay almost nothing--as what property do they have to lose to theft, be it by criminals or invasion? However, the upper 5% will be extremely motivated to pay their share.

Our current system--bloated beyond belief--requires $2-3 trillion a year to sustain. Now imagine if we are slashing all those programs, and only police, fire, national defense, and a legal system remain (and we aren't invading and occupying soverign countries)--how much would that cost? Lets assume we could get by on say, 25% of our current budget (a pretty generous figure I think)--that would be $625 billion. If everyone paid an equal amount that would be roughly $2,000 per person. How much does even the lowest income family currently pay in taxes?

Now recall the poorest people would not be very motivated to donate, while the billionares will be. If only the top 10% paid taxes, that would be 30 million people. The amount per person would then jump to $20,000 per person--yet 270 million americans would be getting a free ride. If that top 10% all are all millionaires, this would represent a mere 2% or less of their income. Not a bad overhead for the protection of your assets, huh? Thus, regardless of income, everyone's wages raise between 21-43%. People don't have all the "free" programs they did before--but with a free market and 39 cents for every dollar freed up on corporate profits, the cost of living plummets--and suddenly people can afford education, healthcare, groceries, and housing. But most importantly--nobody is forced to do a thing.

However--thats not the end of it--that is only an analysis of the strictly voluntary donations. There are other ways to tax goods and services such that they are completely voluntary and without penalty--ayn rand provides one such example which, for the sake of brevity, I will not reproduce here.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
So forcing me to pay for an arson spree is acceptable coercion?

In reply to this comment by imstellar28:
thats not true, because fires can be the result of arson. thus, the fire force serves to product against the destruction of personal property--similar to how the police responds to vandalism.

Geeze you have issues in the way you view the world.

Don't we all?

--
Weak people cannot be trained to be strong. People do not change. I like people who are honest with themselves and know exactly who they are, even if their reality is a distorted view of society. I don't necessarily condone their actions in all circumstances, but I understand their motivation.

>> ^spoco2:
Sorry Thinker, but your logic and adoration is all skewed beyond belief to me.
To have respect and admiration for people who have 'charisma' such as Manson, Koresh and Hubbard is pretty warped. You say yourself the only people that follow them are the weak and easily lead, so really, what are you applauding them for? The ability to be so self centered that they take advantage of the weak and pathetic for their own hedonistic and then violent needs?
Yeah, there's something to applaud.
I'd much more applaud someone who saw these people, saw how easily fooled and led they were and used their charisma and knowledge to, oh, I don't know... perhaps HELP THEM. Perhaps take the time to listen to them, to teach them the power of rational thought, to teach them self respect, to teach them respect for others, and perhaps teach them that they don't need some 'leader' figure to make their decisions for them. But be a big enough person that they don't NEED the adoration of others to feel any self worth in themselves. To be a complete enough person to be HAPPY when they stop listening to them and thank them and head out on their own to do better in the community.
I will never idolize, congratulate or think highly of any of the complete dicks you list as people you're fascinated by. Every one of them has serious personal issues and finds that the only way to feel good about themselves is to have hoards of gullible fools worship them.
You seem to be all about the personal responsibility and that if someone listens to someone else and does something bad, well, that's their own damn fault because their weak and foolish. Yeah, well, perhaps you should put some higher standards on those people who are learned, who do see how things work, and perhaps you should be far more annoyed at those people abusing the power and knowledge they have for personal sick means.
Geeze you have issues in the way you view the world.

Sorry Thinker, but your logic and adoration is all skewed beyond belief to me.

To have respect and admiration for people who have 'charisma' such as Manson, Koresh and Hubbard is pretty warped. You say yourself the only people that follow them are the weak and easily lead, so really, what are you applauding them for? The ability to be so self centered that they take advantage of the weak and pathetic for their own hedonistic and then violent needs?

Yeah, there's something to applaud.

I'd much more applaud someone who saw these people, saw how easily fooled and led they were and used their charisma and knowledge to, oh, I don't know... perhaps HELP THEM. Perhaps take the time to listen to them, to teach them the power of rational thought, to teach them self respect, to teach them respect for others, and perhaps teach them that they don't need some 'leader' figure to make their decisions for them. But be a big enough person that they don't NEED the adoration of others to feel any self worth in themselves. To be a complete enough person to be HAPPY when they stop listening to them and thank them and head out on their own to do better in the community.

I will never idolize, congratulate or think highly of any of the complete dicks you list as people you're fascinated by. Every one of them has serious personal issues and finds that the only way to feel good about themselves is to have hoards of gullible fools worship them.

You seem to be all about the personal responsibility and that if someone listens to someone else and does something bad, well, that's their own damn fault because their weak and foolish. Yeah, well, perhaps you should put some higher standards on those people who are learned, who do see how things work, and perhaps you should be far more annoyed at those people abusing the power and knowledge they have for personal sick means.

Geeze you have issues in the way you view the world.

^Har har, I've been to Dodge City, yup, it's bad, the flies are just the icing.

These are cows, not machines, their milk is already fucked up beyond belief. Let them all die out, peacefully.

>> ^e_spam:
Beyond belief. I'd like to see his skill at the real keys.


Problem is, on a real piano, each key has a certain sound and you learn to associate the key with a sound, this game, like Guitar Hero, just for the most part randomly assign colors to notes, but not always the same note. So you never learn the sound association. So yeah, as fleetze said, it's just rote memorization. I have a hard time at Guitar Hero because I know how it SHOULD be played. :-p

I'm not saying the protesters were anything but peaceful, but what I am saying is that without any warning to the police, how are they supposed to know it's a peaceful protest? It's not like they're mindreaders.
Getting a permit for a protest isn't just about getting permition to voice your freedom of speech, a permit as I see it is first and foremost for making sure this doesn't happen, to make sure the police knows it's a peaceful protest and can in advance prepare to let it continue as best as possible. The same holds true for getting a bonfire permit, a mass rally permit, an inner city race permit and just about anything else that will cause havoc if unannounced. However, if the protesters did intend on turning their march into some kind of stunt and set up the police for bad publicity, this would surely be the way to do it.
I think we're forgetting that the police officers in this video are ordinary people doing their job just like us, and to suddenly have a huge mob of people causing havoc will surely stress someone out beyond belief. Then if the mob didn't intend on causing havoc really doesn't enter into it if you're the police officer in charge of maintaining order in that district, with no prior notification you'd be damn hard pressed to get things under control with no time to go and get information as to the nature of the approaching mob.
What I saw in this video concerning the policemen's behaviour is overreacting, yes, but surely not any real abuse of power. With the risk of sounding like a pessimistic jerk, how sheltered must we be to see this as police brutality? The harbour policeman is one thing, this is not the same in any stretch.
They lost control of the situation, and the taunting and heckling barrage from the protesters sure didn't help. The police officer making the verbal threats did apologize apparently as honestly as possible when the situation was starting to get under control, which is yet another reason why I'd be inclined to side with the police in this matter.
If indeed they didn't get a permit, it's incredibly irresponsible to first set up and execute such a large protest without mentioning it to the authorities, as it not only would interrupt the flow of the day for the city populace, but also intentionally make things harder for the authorities to do their jobs.