I am absolutely advocating forced population control.

@RedSky

I look forward to sharing my nothing with everyone else's nothing according to the infallible dictates of the market. Your scenario is one in which an ever increasing number of people compete for ever-dwindling resources. Wouldn't it be better to just leave one another a little space?

There's only so much energy, only so much land, only so much fresh water, only so much food (the very least of our concerns), only so much supply of rare minerals, only so much capacity for the environment to absorb pollutants. There are other problems. We may be happy to share what we have with others, how nice, but where do we acquire the right to impoverish everyone else with the burden of our excess offspring? Our share is shrinking all the time due to the actions of criminals who can't keep their legs crossed.

I don't recognise the mild and temporary problem of an aged population as being within two orders of magnitude of all the multifarious harms caused by overpopulation.

@Sniper007

It is my job, it is everyone's job, to police the world. If you're attending a party and you see another guest setting fire to the curtains you do not say,
"Well, it's not my job to stop them. I'll just stand here controlling my own activities, teaching the virtues of not setting fire to the curtains while the house incidentally burns down around me."

I know I'm posting to an old thread, but I created an account just to weigh in on this.

Part of the magic of The Far Side is each cartoon can be taken slightly different by each person b/c of how they perceive it or their own life experiences and still be funny. My take on this particular cartoon is the man owned a pet bird. If anyone has ever owned a parrot they've experienced shades/curtains/windows all destroyed (chewed up) by the bird. This man has had enough and decided to make a meal out of the creature.

5 minutes on youtube will tell you that Cracked is full of shit...again. Dude puts shower curtain to prevent blood spatter. Silencers do work in a tactical situation, an are used in them.

Automatic rifles can be shot continously for several minutes, most military grade fully automatic rifles are chain fed, so if you got the time, you got the ability to shoot for a long time..and no the barrel won't explode...accuracy goes to shit, but it will still fire. Full automatics are used for supressive fire techniques so accuracy is not crucial anyway. So their premise that fully automatic shooting only takes place in a matter of 4 seconds is bullshit.

You still need to chamber a round...so yes you need to "rack a round" for both pump actions and semiautomatics. and no the bullet dosen't fly out of the first racked round because it gets placed into the chamber.

Basically this whole video is total bullshit, and I think they did it on purpose so people will comment on the utter and complete ignorance of the guy who produced it.

So, she says it's time she goes
But wanted to be sure I know
She hopes we can be friends
I think, yeah, I guess we can say I
But didn't think to ask her why
She blocked her eyes and drew the curtains
With knots I've got yet to untie...

What if I were Romeo in black jeans
What if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth
Maybe she's just looking for
Someone to dance with

See, it was just too soon to tell
And looking for some parallel
Can be an endless game
We said goodbye before hello
My secrets she will never know
And if I dig a hole to China
I'll catch the first junk to Soho

What if I were Romeo in black jeans
What if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth
Maybe she's just looking for
Someone to dance with

Sometime from now you'll bow to pressure
Some things in life you cannot measure by degrees
I'm between the poles and the equator
Don't send no private investigator to find me please
'less he speaks Chinese
And can dance like Astaire overseas

What if I were Romeo in black jeans
What if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth
Maybe she's just looking for
Someone to dance with

With all the crashes seen on the internet, that takes some serious balls. One cable snapping or something going wrong, and it's curtains for everyone involved.

Not so much a hologram. "Water curtain projection" would be more accurate. Seems pretty effective!

One day lad all this will be yours. What the curtains?

Don't you have a/c?? Thick curtains??

That's a late lunch. How bout I feed you some chocolate covered ants?

Sure, there is no need to speak in terms of civil war. Unless you're one of these guntoting, armed to the teeth nutjobs who think it would be a good idea. You know, the kind of people who buy an *assault rifle* for self defense.
However, no matter how well trained your riot police is, their less than lethal tactics are only useful up to a certain amount of people, they can become rather useless if the crowds get too big to contain or simply too violent themselves. That's when it gets interesting, that is when protest can turn into riots.
When the cops face huge, somewhat peacful crowds, they might enter Tiananmen Square. At what point would american cops or military personnel start thinking that it's unwise or inhuman to start firing into the crowd? Before the first shot? After the second magazine? On day three?
It's not the 1960s anymore but the sixties are not forgotten. Not by those who faced police officers willing to fire into the crowd. You know, black people. The kind of people whose parents and grandparents are still alive to tell them about their fight against oppression. This is still alive in the american concious, it shaped your country and it won't go away soon. Just ask Barak about his birth certificate.
Civil unrest is part of your recent history, the seed is there. Even under a President Stalin all you'd need go from isolated, contained riots to complete and irreversible shitstorm is a Martyr, a Neda Agha Soltan or a Treyvon Martin. No matter what ethnicity (although african american would be nice), that would present a tipping point.
Your police can bring out the tanks on Times Square if they want but if half of NY shows up, these guys inside the tanks might want to get out ASAP.
The Erich Honecker regime of the German Democratic Republic was basically brought down by somewhat peaceful demonstrations of people shouting "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore" in east german accents.
The StaSi, the Ministry of State Security, who was efficient enough to make *every* citizen a potential informant in the eyes of their opposition, ran from the protesters like little girls. They used to imprison and torture people who spoke up.
The east german border used to be the most secure in the entire world. It was protected by minefields and guards who shot and killed anyone who tried to cross it. Before David Hasselhoff even had a chance to put on his illuminated leather jacket the government caved and just fucking opened it. People just strolled through Checkpoint Charlie and bought Bananas as if it was Christmas.
This was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. You know, the guys who lost over 20 Million people in WW2 and still kicked the Nazis in the nuts.
Nobody brought a gun. All the east germans had was shitty cars and lots of anger. They tore down not just a dictatorship, they tore down the iron curtain.
And they didn't even have a Nelson Mandela. Or Lech Walesa.
I still stand by my point: strength in numbers, not caliber.

Fake. It would be easy to tell that there wasn't really a crowd out there even before the curtain raised..

Reality TV is anything but...

edited --

I don't want to see the endless and interminable posts that puff up around shinyblurry like Pigpen in a Peanuts cartoon. They bore me. They slow down my ability to read posts that I enjoy.

I have a slick tool to use. I am using it.

That isn't censorship or cowering behind a curtain.

It is free will.

what a profoundly sad thread this has become.

i am not referring to the most excellent posts by @Chairman_woo and his discourse with @shinyblurry.

no.

it is the ignore function use i am talking about.
what an intellectually weak and vapid excuse to not engage with those who you may disagree with or (gasp) not actually like.

are your tender sensibilities so fragile as to not survive scrutiny of one who may disagree? or is it the manner in which they disagree?
is THAT the measure of how you judge anothers ideas?
words?
and you find this to be a valid reason?
this makes sense in your world?

well allow me to point out that without the dissenting voice challenging your preconceptions and only allowing those that parrot the same homogenized,pastuerized vanilla-same cloned vomit will only serve to create a stagnant pond of lifeless banality.

but as long as you are safe in your little bubble world in which you are always right and the circle-jerk perpetuates a lackluster and flaccid worldview.then thats ok right? as long as the echo chamber reflects how RIGHT you are.

@chingalera offends you?
good! because maybe you needed to be offended.

@VoodooV we have to apologize to @bareboards2 for derailing her thread?
no we fucking dont.
human discourse is by its very nature an ugly evolving creature.so get over yourself.love your commentary,hate your high horse..so get the fuck off it.

@bareboards2 is a very nice and sweet woman,and sometimes can be sensitive but she is a big girl and i dont think we will find her weeping in a dark,curtains drawn room.in fact i am willing to bet she loves the fact her video got such a great discussion going.so who are you to judge? or tell us what we should or should not do for that matter?

this brings me all back to my main point.
the sift used to have a vibrant community that discussed,argued and debated.the arguments were legendary and we still see old skool sifters refer to these people with fondness,even if they disagreed with them vehemently.
they were passionate and had something to say.
the list reads like a funeral march to those great voices who have passed and no longer engage in the sift:@MINK,@rougy,@choggie,@thinker247,@joedirt

what do we have now?
bunch of panty waist pussies who will only jump on the band wagon because other people join in the carnage.jumping on @BoBknight,@shinyblurry,@Lantern.
its like a bully convention with free crystal meth.
these folks might as well be black living in mississippi in the 1800's.
look! a chrsitan fundamentalist!
a conservative right winger!
lets lynch em......

and those tired pussies dont even have the courage to choke on their own hypocrisy.
wont even acknowledge that those in the minority have some serious balls to post comments on a secular left site.
this hasnt become a self-masturbatory thread.
its one big circle jerk.

so to those old skool peeps that i know still lurk here on the sift.
please come back.
for the love of god come back.
because these pussies are to busy sucking each others dicks.

im going to get some fresh air because you fuckers have sucked all the vibrance out of the air and left it stale with your own hubris.

and for the love of christ.get the fuck over yourself.

Mathematics

He says
"those god damn pakistanis and their goddamn corner shops
Built a shop on every corner took our British workers jobs
He says those godamn Chinese and their goddamn china shops
I tell him theyre from Vietnam but he doesn't give a toss
I ask him what was there before that damn Japan mans shop
He stares at me and dreams a scene of British workers jobs
Of full time full employment before the godamn boats all came
Where everybody went to work full time every day
A British Business stood their first he claims before the Irish came
Now British people lost their jobs and bloody turkish are there to blame
I ask him how he knows that fact he says because it's true
I ask him how he knows the fact he says he read it in the news
Everytime a Somalian comes here they take a job from us
The mathematics one for one, from us to them it just adds up
He bites his cake and sips is brew and says again he knows the spot
The godamn Carribeans came and now good folk here don't have jobs
I ask him what was there before the goddamn Persian curtain shop
I show him architectures plans of empty godamn plots of land
I show him the historic maps
A bit of sand, a barren land
There was no goddamn shop before those pakistanis came and planned
Man
I'm sick of crappy mathematics
Cos I love a bit of sums
I spent three years into economics
And I geek out over calculus
And when I meet these paper claims
That one of every new that came
Takes away ones daily wage
I desperately want to scream
"Your maths is stuck in primary"
Cos one who comes here also spends
And one who comes here also lends
And some who comes here also tend
To set up work which employs them
And all your balance sheets and trends
Work with numbers not with men
And all your goddamn heated talk
Ignores the trade the Polish brought
Ignores the men they gave work to
Not plumbing jobs but further too
Ignores the ones they buy stock from
Accountants, builders, on and on
And I know it's nice to have someone
To blame our lack of jobs upon
But immigrations not as plain
Despite the sums inside your brain
As one for one, as him or you
As if he goes, they'll employ you
Cos sometimes one that comes makes two
And sometimes one can add three more
And sometimes two times two is much much more
Than four
And most times immigrants bring more
Than minuses.

Something that I don't get about Tywin (book or movie version):

He's cold, logical, practical, intelligent, cunning. His relationships with his children mostly make sense given the way he operates.

Cersei advanced his family name by marrying King Robert, which was good. But she makes stupid decisions, takes unnecessary risks, and arrogantly thinks that none of this will catch up with her. Tywin correctly identifies her key weakness being that she thinks she is much more clever than she actually is.

Jamie could be a reasonably useful chess piece in Tywin's arsenal, but by Lannister standards he isn't as cunning and "big picture" intelligent as Tywin is, or even Cersei. I'd say Jamie knows his own limitations in that regard way better than Cersei though. During the Targaryen reign, his position in the Kingsguard would have been potentially useful, but that turns for the worse when he sullies the family name by becoming the "Kingslayer", even if his actions were justified. His Kingsguard position and skillset in general become much less useful during Robert's rule, which further hurts his relationship with Tywin. All still makes sense from a cold, calculating perspective.

Then you get to Tyrion. Tywin has an antagonistic relationship with Tyrion, and seems to refuse to see that Tyrion is the best bet to take over the reins of House Lannister after Tywin himself is gone. I know that it is suggested that Tywin's bias against Tyrion comes from the combination of A) him "killing" his mother in childbirth and B) being born a "freak" dwarf. I have a hard time with that because I see Tywin as being too cold, logical, and pragmatic to let either of those issues cloud his judgement.

So Tyrion "killed" his mother (Tywin's wife). Perhaps that event had a profound effect on Tywin, but considering the way he plays his children as pawns on his chessboard, it seems more in his character for him to have viewed his wife that way also. Especially considering the normal state of noble marriages being primarily chosen to maximize political gain in the setting. Plus, mothers dying during childbirth probably wouldn't be an exceptionally uncommon thing in the setting either.

And Tyrion being a dwarf? So what -- Tywin only cares about what you can do to advance the family name. Tyrion could easily be groomed to take over as family mastermind while keeping Cersei, Jamie, or one of Cersei's children as the public face of the family. Pay no attention to the man, er, dwarf behind the curtain.

I guess I just find Tywin's relationship with Tyrion to be the one thing about his character that feels ... off, at least to me. I feel like Tywin would be more ready to give Tyrion some opportunities to prove himself, and less subjective about judging his performance in those situations.

I found my twin and we are totally cute pool cleaners separated from birth by the orange curtain -- one of us went to a family in like Santa Ana and the other went to a family in Santa Monica. Totally weird, huh?

And like way too far away. How will we be able to raise money and see each other? Can I just be like Kobe and fly a helicopter to see her... him? I hate driving. Raise money for my helicopter.