>> ^Lawdeedaw:

Hey Net, I agree with you and am in pretty much the same area as you... I would like, however, to point out what runs your opponents' mindset. Fear.

I get that. But...I generally give people the benefit of the doubt about being able to engage their rationality and quash their fears. Get people to think about what they're reacting to a little more, and see if it really makes sense.

Obama has the codes to launch America's nuclear weapons. Obama is, as President, Constitutionally immune from prosecution of crimes -- he could go on a mass murdering spree, and all we could legally do is impeach him. He's allowed to negotiate and sign treaties on our country's behalf (though it won't necessarily have the force of law without Congressional approval).

This has been true of every President since Truman (and before that we just didn't have the nukes).

Presidents wield lots of power, but less than most Prime Ministers from other countries. In other countries, there is essentially perfect party discipline, and flat majority rule. No vetoes, no filibusters, no unanimous consent, nothing.

Being able to use pure influence as the head of state to negotiate a voluntary agreement seems perfectly kosher by any standard. If BP gets denied redress via courts, believe me, we'll hear about it!

Hell, if someone gets screwed by this ICF, we'll hear about it!

It's one of the built-in benefits of having a Democratic president -- their critics always get easy access to a media megaphone. The scary part happens when Republican presidents get the media to systematically silence dissent...

it was all perfectly kosher

Ahh yes, because the video showed he was clearly just some klepto-cop making a failed attempt at stealing private property. I wouldn't suggest that he should be given a free pass because "he failed" at snatching the phone, but I think that it is rather significant to note that he didn't ever actually remove the phone from the possession of the owner.

I figure that in the heat of the moment he made a split second decision to take the phone and turn off the camera (likely he would have then given it back, or given it back after he issued the ticket; but that is all fairly pointless speculation). I'll 100% fully agree that was a bad decision, and one that should result in major consequences if he actually followed through on it. However, probably because he himself realized that it was not a kosher thing to do, he backed down. I'm still all for there being consequences to the policeman even though he did back down, but they should be measured and have the goal of improving his reactions in similar situations in the future.

As for him trying to bully them into following a false law, you'll note that I never suggested that he "wasn't doing anything wrong" -- quite to the contrary I said it was a mistake. However the magnitude of that mistake is mitigated by lots of factors. For one, yes he told them to turn off the camera, but he never specifically said that they were legally required to do so, and when they asked (as though to confirm if it was a legal obligation or a personal request) he gave up on it. There is definite slippery slope potential there to attempt to get away with worse instances of this in the future, which is why I said it was a mistake. So again, let there be consequences directed towards future improvement.

If he had thought up a lie to cover for it, or simply lied and suggested that yes they were legally required to turn it off, again it would be something that there should be major consequences for -- but he didn't do that. Presumably not because he was too stupid, but because he realized that would have crossed a much more significant line.

I'm not defending this officer "because he's stupid, clumsy and slow". I don't think that there is really enough evidence in this <3 minute video to make a very compelling argument that he is any of those things. There is enough evidence to show that he made some mistakes, and came pretty close to making much bigger mistakes. However, he is a human being doing a fairly difficult job in stressful situations that will often require him to make important decisions quickly. Again, I believe that police should be held to very high standards, but we have to realize that mistakes are going to be made. Making sure than an individual officer makes fewer mistakes of lesser magnitude as they get more experience should be a priority.
Hopefully this officer can do exactly that. If this is early in his career, I figure he should get a verbal reprimand and be required to explain what he did wrong and how he can improve. If it has happened before, a written warning in combination with further consequences could be warranted. And if he has a history of making mistakes like this and hasn't improved, being suspended or even fired might be necessary. But those calls aren't mine to make, particularly on the basis of 1 brief video. I just figure things need to be kept in perspective.

>> ^dannym3141:

^ So your defence of a police officer illegally trying to snatch someone's private property off a person under the guise and umbrella of law enforcement and legality is "he failed."
So he isn't breaking the law because he's a BAD phone snatcher?
...

@Throbbin: These are all rocket-testing videos:

http://videosift.com/video/Plasma-Rocket-Testing
http://videosift.com/video/Ares-Rocket-Test-Fire-At-Corrine-Utah-9-10-09
http://videosift.com/video/Nasa-methane-gas-engine-test
http://videosift.com/search?q=rocket+test

That's mega-combustion in all cases. Would they fit, yes or no? And like I said, cars have internal combustion engines. There are mini-explosions genuinely taking place inside of each cylinder in them. Now you might think it wouldn't come up, but I guarantee you, sooner or later it would. Like in the case of this video:

http://videosift.com/video/Actual-footage-from-inside-a-4-stroke-engine-Wow-cool

So if that were added, then one might legitimately claim that anything involving engines would be kosher for the Combustion channel. So it's not as common-sense as you might think.

Look, people sometimes debate shit about what belongs in all of these channels:

Femme
Lies
Terrible
Viral
Sexuality
Eia

And others. So is it so terrible to ask for clarification, or to even suggest that maybe a combustion channel might be too broad?

And the last part of my comment is tongue-in-cheek, esse. It was meant to show that I'm not being overly serious about anything. I trust that most sifters would understand that - you may not.

Now I know why "certified Kosher" catering cost twice as much...
those Special K ovens ain't cheap!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'thinking, atheist, Jewish, Kosher, Oven, work, Tweaker, You Gotta Be Shittin Me' to 'thinking, atheist, Jewish, Judaism, Kosher, Oven, work, Tweaker, You Gotta Be Shittin Me' - edited by kronosposeidon

Holy divinity batman!!

Sarah Palin wants to make the entire country Kosher and to avoid eating meat with milk??!!

http://videosift.com/video/Don-t-boil-that-baby-goat-The-10-commandments

"I'd give $100 for one that didn't say "in god we trust".

What the fuck do you cae gwhix, yer Icebound-You just can't stand the the ruse ya heathen fucktard!
But f YOOOOOD thought of it...well, wag a Krugerand under his nose and he'll suck yer member, kosher or otherwise!

@burdturgler, gonna have to respond to that one in detail later, for some reason I can't get the clip to play more than the first few seconds while I'm at work. Looks like they're taking old clips of Obama drawing distinctions between himself and Bush & Hillary (they're polarizing 50-plus-one types, and I'm a big-majority bipartisan guy) and conflating that with commentary on the budget reconciliation process.

@My_design, it's true that Democrats passed one bill in the Senate, and a different bill in the House, and until the same bill passes both houses, Obama can't sign it into law. The House could just pass the Senate bill, and we'd be done. The House doesn't want to do that, because there are provisions of the Senate bill they want removed or adjusted. Normally you'd have a conference committee, and try to pass the conference report through both houses again, but with Republicans committed to voting against HCR no matter what, Democrats aren't going to do that.

Instead they're going to pass a separate bill that modifies the Senate bill under reconciliation. They're going to write it to meet the restrictions of reconciliation, which means not much will change, essentially just the tax & subsidy portions will be altered.

Once that smaller bill has passed both houses, the House will pass the Senate bill, and send both to the President, who will sign the original Senate bill into law first, then the reconciliation "sidecar" second.

All that is kosher under the Senate rules (and the Constitution). IMO, it's cool with me that the Senate passes everything by majority vote from here on out, even if the Republicans regain control (but that's the real "nuclear option").

Now, accusing Democrats as being hypocritical on reconciliation is a bit better grounds, but I think you're trying to draw an equivalence that isn't justified. Republicans have used reconciliation time and time again to pass their agenda. Democrats didn't like that, and certainly spoke out against it then.

Difference is in what they said about it. Republicans are saying that this has never been done before -- which isn't true. Republicans are saying that Democrats are trying to pass the whole bill under reconciliation -- which isn't true. Republicans are saying that the filibuster is some sort of Constitutionally-mandated thing -- it isn't, and just a few years ago they argued that the Constitution said the reverse.

Now, what you quoted Obama as saying was "I think we need a full debate", not "you shouldn't be allowed to pass this without approval from my party (which we'll never give, so stop trying already), and if you do it'll be the end of democracy itself!"

When Democrats opposed the Bush tax cuts, they said reconciliation was meant to balance the budget, not explode it. That, as opposed to what Republicans are saying, is actually factually accurate, and it's not inconsistent with what they're planning on doing with reconciliation now.

Hence, no real need for Rachel to trash Democrats for "lying", unless she was a) a right-wing ideologue creating political cover for Republicans or b) wants to try to be "neutral" and misrepresent things so Democrats and Republicans look equally guilty.

>> ^entr0py:
Sure "assassination" is illegal under US and international law. But "extra judicial targeted killing" is different entirely. Just like what Israel did in Dubai; totally kosher. I admit sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between assassination and extra judicial targeted killing. But I find it's a good rule of thumb to ask if they're Muslim. As everyone knows, Muslims can't be assassinated.


I feel where you are coming from. When considering assassination, though, I usually consider that a combatant covertly killing a non-combatant. If a soldier kills a soldier, that isn't what I would consider an assassination. Likewise, if some group of deep-covert military people went in and killed a bunch of war targets in the thick of the night, I wouldn't consider that assassination either.

I will digress as I know nothing of what Israel did in Dubai, just offering further conversation

Sure "assassination" is illegal under US and international law. But "extra judicial targeted killing" is different entirely. Just like what Israel did in Dubai; totally kosher. I admit sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between assassination and extra judicial targeted killing. But I find it's a good rule of thumb to ask if they're Muslim. As everyone knows, Muslims can't be assassinated.

I don't understand how they could be eating spaghetti bolognese anyway, it's corrupt western food and the meat is most certainly not kosher-- er, I mean halal...

I think it will be pretty hard to prove that he was as rabid an anti-semite as urban legend will have us believe. As some have stated, he definitely came from a MUCH less un-pc time than now, you just have to look at the portrayal of minorities in the older Disney flicks to see that they are certainly dated (not necessarily racist unless you choose to judge them by TODAY'S standards). Along these lines, one could easily say that it is likely he probably would not be 100% Kosher so to say...

... That said, he was rabidly anti-communist, to the point of having testified in the "unamerican" trials. He was one of those who "named names" and such.

So in summary, I'm sure Disney was an asshole if nothing else, whether a true anti-semite or not, it will be hard to prove since I doubt there are no accurate records of his private conversations which would make us think so...

As much as I dislike the act, if the courts have deemed it kosher than I would tend to defer, assuming there wasn't some kind of political trickery behind it. Amendments are not absolute and I think in general the Constitution is always going to be read in the context of the time in history in which it is being read. For example, we have freedom of speech, but not absolute freedom of speech. I can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater or threaten to kill the president, although the first amendment read literally would not explicitly deny me this right. Actually it says that the congress can't make laws restricting my right to speech, which really would suggest that such restrictions are unconstitutional in the first place. However, we can all see the merit, and I expect that's why such laws exist.

I think it's because you're to afraid to use your mind. You would prefer to fall in line with the rest of the racist sheep instead of being a pioneering poet in the world of racism. Step out on a limb and give a stereotype nobody has thought of before. Write a limerick about the laziness of mexicans or the poor credit score of blacks. The world is your inferior oyster ready to be made fun of. You see, dag's not challenging our freedom of speech, he's challenging our creativity. He wants his site full of the most rich, authentic, original racism. This isn't youtube, faaaaaaaaaaaaaag

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
i completely reject this statement.
maybe thats the difference between me and a jerk like you. i have the courage of my convicttions. coward.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
no no no...shhhhhhhhhhh. You can't actually USE derogatory names. That's the line you have to walk on you stupid cunt.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
im disappointed in you. everyone i ever met in california called them beaners. in texas we call them wetbacks.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
Circumcision is both to promote cleanliness and to reduce sexual sensation...

...you know 2 things Mexicans don't practice, cleanliness and abstinence

Dag would be mad at how insensitive that is to Mexicans, but everybody knows Mexicans don't have the internet yet...or running water...or a cure for polio

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
i knew you were a fucking jew when you tried to gyp me on the price of the blowjob.

ps. im leaving this crass racist offensive message on your profile in hopes of getting in on some of this hot bdsm handcuff action.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
I'm kosher baby, so "L'Chaim"