I'm gonna upvote the immediate bystander help! Good Samaritans FTW!

hey wait a minute, when hannity mentions that the soilders putting their lives on the line for the country i first presumed he meant USA, then i realized he ofcourse meant Irak. yay! good samaritans (if they're not in it for the free ipods)

not that i support the "angel-of-death" lady, she is the proof of a wrathfull god. (i dont really know how to spell wrathfull)

Its a good thing the cops aren't as harsh as this guy, chasing you around yelling at you for a parking infringement. I mean seriously, he's clearly no good Samaritan, more of a pedantic nutter.

By elaborate scenario, do you mean the notion of the top thug putting the smack down on junior thug? I didn't mean that to be taken as fact, or even likely, only that there is nothing in that video to suggest that the guy was some kind of hero either. There is simply not enough information there to make any kind of reasoned judgement call. My point was, given that lack of information, I was a more than a little disgusted how nearly everyone seemed to be sucked in by the America's Most Wanted style commentary of the good samaritan doing the right thing. Short of the editorial voice-over, we have _very_ little knowledge of what's going on in that video.

(I'm not nearly convinced of this story either, but given what I saw, the most plausible scenario I can come up with is that our original bully was in fact out for one person - the guy he kept kicking in the head - and hit the others pretty much just when they got in his way. If he was really just being a dick, why not knock down red sweater boy too? Seemed an easy target for him, but he initially pushes him out of the way so he can get a clear shot at the guy he wants. If he was out for one guy, it seems pretty clear that there is a back story of which we know nothing. Maybe the kid in the black jacket raped his sister. Maybe he owed money for drugs. Maybe he was gay and our bully was out for a bash. Who knows? Not us, that's for sure.)

As for equating nations and people - I did not initiate that metaphor, just ran with it. But I think it's not entirely without merit. The point I was trying to make is that the view of who is a bully and who is the hero very much depends on where you're standing. Small scale - If that was my little brother that guy dropped, even had I known what my brother had done, hero would be going in for knee surgery. Large scale - if I had witnessed the most powerful nation on earth continually coercing or out right invading other weaker countries, I'd probably not view that powerful nation as the one that gave a bully his comeuppance, no matter how much I hated what one particular weaker country may have done.

I think the camera-person did at least think about helping... right before the good samaritan takes this first whack at the dog you see the camera move up close and a left hand reach out to pet the pit bull. I wonder if the owner would have gotten even less than 6 months had it not been for the video.