You know me, gotta swim against the current.

Ok....we hadn’t set any rules. Honestly I thought it didn’t count because there was no shine from that sun. ;-)
....so....I’ll go from a dark sun song that makes me happy to the most upbeat happy sunshine song that makes most people feel ill!

No...the gift of being violated is not precious. The gift of mistrust might have kept me out of trouble to some extent, but I could and would have learned that lesson without a gun to my head and knee in my neck, and without the threats to my freedom if I told on him.

I don't KNOW....I said I would bet. Please read more carefully before making assumptions and accusations. It's far more likely he's not remorseful, I said why I think that.

They wouldn't take a report or complaint, and I don't remember his name. That makes checking in on the thug a bit difficult. Your suggestion is like asking someone to look up their uncaught mugger to see if they feel bad decades later. I would love to face him as an adult, but he's not my white whale like you want him to be....he's just one more dangerous whale in a sea full of them, he just happens to be the one that bit me, they all bite. Nothing special about him.

I have zero need to give him forgiveness nor to take away the mistrust. I don't care a whit about him. Hate implies he's important to me, he's just not except as an example, an instance where I learned some harsh reality, that police are not there to serve and protect citizens as I had been taught.

Please don't presume to tell me what I need or how I feel. I find it insulting. You obviously don't know me a bit or you would never take that path. Assuming I'll react, think, or feel like an average, normal person is about as big an insult as I can think of.

I'm no cop. I'm not assaulting those I'm charged with protecting and serving. I'm not abusing anything by having an opinion.
Just stop, please, you're becoming dismissively insulting with your naive assumptions. Love isn't all you need...obviously....or you would be in line for your lobotomy right now and happily spend your life loving whatever you see without thinking. Remember, the group that told you that lie was broken up by love.

You're a little sorry now that you pinned that nerd up against his locker back in freshman year, aren't you. I know. Me too.

Lol.
I do get to say what constitutes American values in my opinion, an opinion informed by civics class, something it seems most people were deprived of. Those values are honesty, fairness, and equality under the law.....honoring one's word/agreements, helping the needy, standing up for right not just maximum profit internationally. These are historically the values America held dear....but no longer, at least not officially.

Fox does not honor those values, it rarely gives them lip service and never more.

Well, the boy cried wolf 1000 times this year, and twice there were wolves, you go ahead and drop everything and keep running, pitchfork in hand every time he cries out, I quit listening to him the second time there was no wolf, only a boy laughing at us. Call me emotional and dismissive, I disagree but that's fine. You don't want to know what I think about you and that boy.

Good reporters would not associate with those zealous, hyper biased, hypocritical blatant propagandists, so no, there aren't good reporters there. Maybe some who occasionally tell some truths, that's not enough by far to be "good", and as a network they've squandered any chance they had for redemption as a legitimate news organization with zeal and glee repeatedly.

Yeah.....you know me so well. I don't watch any Trump bashing sessions, they were boring before he was elected. I haven't had my tv on CNN in years, not that they're solely Trump bashing sessions, but they do host some.
You seem to think any news not stroking his ego is a bashing session, quoting him, out of bounds bashing, discussing his new policies, out of bounds emotionality, discussing his recent court losses, out of bounds schadenfreude, pointing out constant stream of blatant self serving lies, out of bounds emotional garbage. Only positive spin is real news...Fox is real news with real reporters, not >80% hyper biased hosts spouting opinion as fact. No thanks....Homie don't play dat.

Ok, I, and almost all non right wingers disagree. CNN and Faux are no where near the same level. CNN may have some bias against the man who actively encouraged right wing terrorists to attack them as enemies of America and continues to do so....that's perfectly reasonable and professional.
What they don't do is make up stories out of thin air like Faux, edit video to create false impressions that are diametrically opposed to reality, hire mostly frauds who have been caught falsifying reports, repeat obvious lies because their preferred candidate/politician said them, or go on the campaign trail with candidates not to report, but to speak on their behalf. Your conflation of the two is either disingenuous, outrageously ignorant, or insane, you choose.

I watch more than enough Faux to know what they are, pure propaganda. You can deny it all you like, that only makes you look ignorant or dishonest. I'm certain I watch more Faux than you watch CNN, yet you've made similar (but less honest) claims about them, you must not watch it enough to know of what of you speak, you just take a convicted frauds word that they're liars as gospel and never investigate it seems.

You don't know me, sir, or you wouldn't make such a spurious claim. I gather information from multiple opposing sources. How could I debunk the lies from Faux and OAN if I don't watch them spout those lies?

Then how about what Trump himself did?...turnabout is fair play, so in this instance two wrongs might make things more right, at least more balanced. The left playing fairly, honorably, and attempting to avoid even the appearance of impropriety got us Trump, who has no such qualms. I hope Democrats don't sit on their high horse and complain that Trump doesn't play fair while he destroys our democracy and union....it's well past time to start tossing the steaming shit back at them.

Trump raped his pre-teen daughters on film and bragged about it, that's why he won't show us their long form medical and financial records.....that's far truer than his birther claims.
Also, his kids are all illegals, born to non citizens as anchor babies, (all his baby mommas are immigrants/invaders) when he tries to remove birthright citizenship they should be deported immediately. ;-)

No, none of those people are good at reporting news, not one can separate their rabid hyper biased opinions from fact, although Smith is doing better lately......but slightly better than god awful isn't good.
Fox is a joke, period. They don't have reporters, they have hosts. They're an opinion/entertainment/propaganda network, not a news network. It's really sad that you watch them but don't understand that basic fact, and you defend them as offering good reporting while also admitting they aren't even news...WTF, man?

The thing there is the news media is not being unprofessional, Trump is, but you're listening to him as if he wasn't an impudent infant and believing the nonsense that reporting on his constant vitriolic foibles is unprofessional. It's simply not.

Trump is the leader of the nation, not CNN, not his advisors, not Hannity. He is not being led to the right, he's dragging centrists far right or attacking them if they refuse to go along.
How about maybe he tries to lead towards civility and professionalism instead of impetuously attack any detractors like a spoiled brat, blaming them for his own actions?

I'd give my HOUSE for a packet of coffee. It's... it's like they know me.

I don't expect you to believe or not believe anything, I don't know you, you don't know me, but I do try HARD to not make blanket statements about anything without caveats, because invariably they are wrong and usually exclusionary.
Details matter.

My best friend in preschool was a thalidomide baby, and had 2 fingers per "hand", so yes, I would definitely say "most people have 5, but not all." or "which person?"
I'm usually totally infuriatingly specific like that. I have a wide, uncontrolled 'newtboy ruins everything' streak. Teachers hated me because I would interrupt them any time they ignored the outliers or exceptions to the rules they were teaching, but a few also loved me because I was clearly paying attention.

I have the "gall" to admit it that she inspired me in high school. I know numerous people who were as well. None of them are antisocial assholes. I'm perhaps a bit anti-social in the respect that I'm very much an introvert, but people who know me generally don't describe me as an asshole.

It wasn't accidental. Advocating for reason, science, individual rights, critical thinking, trying to be good at what you do, being unafraid to think differently than others, none of that makes you automatically an asshole.

I don't think she was evil. I think her case is complicated as many philosophers were. There's good and bad to it. That's like saying Che Guevara is ipso facto being a fan or somehow on some plane similar or equivalent of being a fan of Stalin, and therefore it's offensive.

Just... no... that's just factually and logically not true.

One way to resolve the issue might be to redirect some of the immense intelligence focus from Islamic terrorism to domestic terrorism.

That is what this is, domestic terrorism. It may not always have a manifesto behind it, but that is not relevant. There were numerous people who said this person was probably a school shooter in the making. He was doing things with white power groups and militias. Why didn't our mass spying that we do catch that? Because it wasn't an Islamic group.

We can ban assault rifles or put limits on them, we can make mandatory psych evals required for gun purchases, or we could do any number of things. While we look into what we can legislate, we should also be looking into how we can use resources we have in place to STOP JUST THIS SORT OF THING.

As anyone who knows me knows, I am a hardcore supporter of the right to bear arms. I am not an NRA member, because they aren't really concerned about the right to bear arms, just that they keep getting money from gun manufacturers. I still think we can keep AR type rifles, but we should have a national mandate on clip size, number of clips allowed, and we should have a mandatory psych eval required if you plan on purchasing anything other than a hunting rifle. Yes, that includes handguns.

I've found that Mexicans (especially outside of major tourist areas, but even there) LOVE it if visitors attempt to speak Spanish with them, even just a few words.

Thailand is pretty similar. I've lived here for ~10 years and can speak Thai fairly well. So, many locals know me and aren't surprised when I speak Thai with them, but if I travel I get a lot of smiles just like this video.

I guess French people are stereotypically less patient/pleased to deal with visitors trying to use the local language, but I don't know if that's true. Never been there, unless Quebec counts (where it didn't seem true).

I never even thought to question why I've had to solve so many captchas of late, even on sites that should know me by now... but now that he mentions the fact they do all involve click on cars, click on street signs, click on storefronts (as seen from street view)... it starts making more sense. I'd guess it knows 98% of the ones it presents, but then thinks image 43 might be one, so it presents it, and when 99% of the people click it, then it adds that to the database of confirmations... and so it learns more...
*promote the future of AI and even more automation.

The thing is, it's actually pretty abnormal to be in the majority on everything.
I don't think anyone that knows me would call me normal, no matter how many times I fall on the majority side of the data set.

I hope by now people know me well enough to know I am far from a Trump supporter.

But we would be missing out on a huge opportunity here if we didn't highlight that 99% of what politicians say is different looking, but equally foul bullshit.

I'm not joking. If you actually look into the 'facts' and 'statistics' that are used to push and promote the different policies, they are all based in falsehood or manipulation of meaning, a few off the very top of my head:
- Austerity - based on a study that was discredited not long after it was used to strip assets and cut funding for those who need it most
- Immigration caps - Theresa May talks big about reducing immigration now, saying what a problem it has become but she was *home secretary*, responsible for handling immigration policy
- Benefit caps - for years they have painted benefits cheats as the great drain on the British welfare system with TV shows and press releases, but the majority of the benefits bills go towards subsidising low pay (working tax credits, people in full time work that doesn't pay enough to live on) and paying rent to private landlords (rents which are unregulated, landlords who are already privately rich).
- Greater autonomy for local government - sounds great, we get a better say about things that affect us locally, except when we say that we don't want fracking in Lancashire, they over rule us and say we WILL have fracking in Lancashire. Greater autonomy only meant "we're not giving you any more money."

I'm barely getting started. You can go on and on - tax policy when it comes to big multi nationals who don't pay their fair share, but we let them haggle and pay a tokenistic amount - but the reason we don't have enough money is because of the burden of benefits cheats and immigrants??? We paid for the damage done by the financial crash, but the same people are still in charge and now they're taking billions in bonuses too - why don't we get any of it back!??

I can turn on the news at any time and within 30 seconds find something that is skirting with the truth or outright pulling the wool over our eyes.

The entire political system is fucked up in America and in the UK, it's not just Donald Trump. Donald Trump is like a huge fist sized bubble in a strip of freshly laid wallpaper. We don't just need to fix the big obvious bubble; we need to change the way we put wallpaper up because when you look at the rest of the wall, there are thousands of smaller bubbles that amount to the exact same problem of a fucked up wall.

Donald Trump is the dead canary in the coal mine. He's the clear and obvious indicator that something is horribly, horribly wrong. Getting rid of the canary's corpse does not solve the fucking problem.

The blowback from the alt-right, these vicious people spouting nationalism and racism and sexism. AND the constantly bickering and clamouring SJW lefties who want to dominate free thought and free speech. Both these sets of people have been pitted against each other intentionally so that they don't turn on the people at the top. It is the oldest trick in the book - don't blame the guys in charge, blame each other, it gives us longer to get away with it. Divide and conquer. Spread hate, spread war, spread fear, spread anger and people gravitate to the extremes... they are easier to control at the extremes.

...rant over i guess

TLDR
If you found this boring, if you didn't want to look into it, you're part of the problem. You're contributing to the environment in which Trump can flourish.

There is no scrutiny, there is no being held to account. There is only the court of Rupert Murdoch and the Barclay brothers.

I have also linked this in the description, so people don't have to read the comments to find this link:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/6/1534962/-The-daunting-and-powerful-statement-a-Stanford-victim-reads-to-her-rapist-in-court-goes-viral

Here is part of the full statement that was excised for time -- part of where she responds to the defendant's statement, point by point:

You said, Being drunk I just couldn’t make the best decisions and neither could she.

Alcohol is not an excuse. Is it a factor? Yes. But alcohol was not the one who stripped me, fingered me, had my head dragging against the ground, with me almost fully naked. Having too much to drink was an amateur mistake that I admit to, but it is not criminal. Everyone in this room has had a night where they have regretted drinking too much, or knows someone close to them who has had a night where they have regretted drinking too much. Regretting drinking is not the same as regretting sexual assault. We were both drunk, the difference is I did not take off your pants and underwear, touch you inappropriately, and run away. That’s the difference.

You said, If I wanted to get to know her, I should have asked for her number, rather than asking her to go back to my room.

I’m not mad because you didn’t ask for my number. Even if you did know me, I would not want be in this situation. My own boyfriend knows me, but if he asked to finger me behind a dumpster, I would slap him. No girl wants to be in this situation. Nobody. I don’t care if you know their phone number or not.

You said, I stupidly thought it was okay for me to do what everyone around me was doing, which was drinking. I was wrong.

Again, you were not wrong for drinking. Everyone around you was not sexually assaulting me. You were wrong for doing what nobody else was doing, which was pushing your erect dick in your pants against my naked, defenseless body concealed in a dark area, where partygoers could no longer see or protect me, and own my sister could not find me. Sipping fireball is not your crime. Peeling off and discarding my underwear like a candy wrapper to insert your finger into my body, is where you went wrong. Why am I still explaining this.