Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Yeah, why the fake subtitles? I would love to know what's really going on here - the truth would be more interesting than someone trying to make a lame funny. I'd love to visit this kooky place before it crumbles.

So let me get this straight - the premise is that an unlikely hero, after facing a crisis moment, fights crime by breaking all the rules aided by inventive and comical weaponry and a kooky side-kick?

Well, it's never been done before, but I guess it could work.

>> ^Djevel:

>> ^Gallowflak:
Uh... Is it possible that I'm missing something, or am I just foreign dotard?

I just thought it was funny/quirky. I never watched the Tim & Eric show before. Paul Rudd is one of those kooky everyman personality types I wish I could get away with in my own little slice of reality. haha.


Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the oddball humour, but it has a lot more votes than I would've expected, which made me think it was related to something else.

>> ^Gallowflak:

Uh... Is it possible that I'm missing something, or am I just foreign dotard?


I just thought it was funny/quirky. I never watched the Tim & Eric show before. Paul Rudd is one of those kooky everyman personality types I wish I could get away with in my own little slice of reality. haha.

I don't see anyone else complaining about honest criticism or tone. You assume too much in my pointing out your own none-too-transparent hypocrisy. I didn't even upvote this because personally I'm not too keen on this type of stuff, I did however upvote a few comments that I agreed with.

Sorry to shatter your hastily constructed preconceptions (filtered through your own kooky prejudices) of me and other atheists but we are certainly NOT homogenous except for one tiny niggling little detail.

Well that took forever and was tedious as crap to type on an iPod...worth it? Maybe.

Fuck 60 minutes. This is such a BS fluff piece where the "two sides" presented in the debate are a TSA official and a kooky college professor looking guy. A whole goddamn section was dedicated to the reporter asking TSA agents if people get mad at them and what kind of wacky things they've seen. There was only 1 minute of actual news here when she was asking the TSA official about the large percentage of IED devices that are missed by screeners.

AND she takes the TSA dudes word about the full body images not being pornographic and being deleted after a few minutes. What a crock.

Anyone that isn't shaking with fear understands that the TSA is theater that that is a direct affront to personal liberty.

60 minutes is news for old people that don't want to know the truth.

>> ^Deano:
I haven't heard of them but isn't it odd to pose with cereal? I bet they're kooky.


The cereal seems to be a running gag: http://www.videosift.com/video/September-Earth-Wind-Fire-cover


Oh, and I just realized I had one more question:

6. Are they familiar with Lasse Gjertsen? Is the video editing inspired by him? They seem to use some of the same techniques as in i.e. Amateur and Hyperactive.

I haven't heard of them but isn't it odd to pose with cereal? I bet they're kooky.

I'm really fascinated by this reaction. I mean, Christians don't get up and walk out of the room when you ask them about the benevolent zombie which they practice cannibalism and vampirism in order to resurrect every Sunday...

... All jokes aside, my characterization of the Christian story is an example of how you can take a religious belief and make it hyperbole by stating it in a non-traditional way. So if we take that as a model for a reason why this Scientology representative might be offended by the mis-characterization of the Church's deepest beliefs, it would still beg the question as to why he storms off instead of just correcting the reporter's way of putting things.

Are they embarrassed by their own belief? Hard to say...

Let's take it at face-value for a moment. Let's say that the scientologists only "get to know" this stuff after they've been through the previous "levels" or whatever because it is designed to make them understand fundamentals before revealing something which is hard to believe without proof. They show you all this other stuff, which potentially makes your life better and "works" and then, only then, do they tell you about the deep secret which involves something other-worldly...

I still just don't get why they would get offended if asked about it. Look at the Raelians, who follow a total nutjob who is absolutely convinced of a lot of silly stuff just as kooky as the allegations of what the scientologist believe and they have no problems chatting about it. Neither do Mormons, or Christians, or whatever.

So, what's the deal? If you are asked about something and it is wrong, wouldn't you just say "no actually, we don't believe in that." It kind of reminds me of asking someone if they are a virgin and them getting all pissed off and storming off; chances are they probably are a virgin. I'm just surprised that they haven't found a better reaction to this yet. You'd think with all the money, legal advisers, and resources someone in their organization would have come up with a more efficient way to deal with these questions.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, Scientology is no different than any other religion. Some guy came up with some story about how the universe was formed and now they want people's money and attention. Does scientology hurt people? I'm sure it hurts some... so did Christianity during the inquisition. Jehova's witnesses prevent blood transfusions and Christian Scientists forego medical attention altogether... are they hurting people?

Finally, I'll say that Scientology will likely catch on that this type of reaction is not good press and come up with a more effective way of dealing with these problematic aspects of their "faith." We need to take a step back and realize that they are the perfect metaphor for religion in general. If you have a problem with scientology, you need to realize that you have a problem with ALL religion.

^ ^lawl. kooky mormon apologist alert!^ ^

The problem I have with faith, most religions for that matter, is that the stupidest people seem to be attracted to it.

I'd argue that what you are seeing is not a factor of the religion, but a factor of projecting the behavior of a radical minority onto the innocent majority. Those who have 'religion' are a far larger group than the 'non-religion' folks. There's literally billions more of them. So it is easy to cherry-pick the fringe kooks and portray them as the majority. But while there are a large number, the kooks are a statistical outlier compared to the far huger group of normal, quiet, everyday people of faith who aren't anywhere near as controversial (and therefore get no attention).

Imagine that there were 5 billion atheists and only a few hundred thousand theists on the planet. How hard would it be to could come up with videos of kooky atheist behavior? Not very. That's not because atheism 'made' people stupid. It would be because so many stupid people were atheists. See?

Getting a bit tired of persistent attempts to say atheists are on level ground with theists when it comes to debate. It sounds noble, but it just simply isn't true. The burden of proof is quite the load to carry.

'Debate' about what? You'll have to be more specific. Your statement only has potential validity if you specify your topic.

Since the argument goes to the desirability of religion (whether or not it is a negative influence), rather than the truth claims of religion, it is perfectly valid to talk about ways in which members of that religion may or may not be influenced to behave well or poorly.

I fail to see how that does not apply equally to atheist advocacy pieces such as this video. My original argument (above) was regarding the INTENT of this guy in doing this vid. Was it shadenfrued, prosoletyzing, money, attention, or what? How is he any different than the religions he is attacking? Not very much from what I can see. If it is argued that 'religion causes influences people to behave poorly' then it is perfectly valid criticism to examine how this guy's atheism is influencing HIM to behave poorly. Therefore your argument that it is an 'ad hominem' attack to examine THIS guy's behavior, but it is merely 'inductive reasoning' to examine how religion influences people negatively must be rejected as specious and biased.

Charities

Since the entirety of your set of accusations against churches 'charity for conversion' has been admitted to be wholly anecdotal it cannot be discussed rationally. I can't discuss Muslim practices as I've not witnessed them. Nor Bhuddist or Hindu.

He's wearing a tie and zany antennas! He's wacky! What will those kooky animals not do to amuse us?! Nothing, I say. Nothing.

I'll use Saul Alinsky tactics for radicals here and describe what is really going on here in language that neolibs can understand and appreciate. Let's call this whole issue one of "Seperation of School and State"...

It is interesting to hear neolibs call political opposition to Obama out of control, unfair, racist, et al... Personally, I didn't care beans about Obama's speech. If Presidents want to do this kind of stuff, fine by me. But I understand and appreciate that there are others who are opposed to anything smacking of political favoritism in our schools.

In 1991, Bush Sr. made a speech in schools that wasn't much different than Obama's. The Democrats of the day conducted a congressional investigation on it. They didn't want him turning the school into a campaign commercial because that would be BAD. There was nothing in Bush's message that was worth of such paranoia. And yet they did it anyway because they opposed him and they were very strongly against even the APPEARANCE of Bush 'indoctrinating' the kids.

Now it's 2009. Lather rinse repeat. You would think that the Democrats who were so paranoid of the appearance of impropriety in 1991 would be a bit more supportive of the concerns of parents worried about the appearance of indoctrination... But no - of course - when THEIR guy is the one doing the indoctrination then they're all for it... :eyeroll:

So for you neolibs - just think of this as an issue of "Seperation of School and State" and you'll understand it a bit better. No matter how kooky, hypersensitive, or ridiculous the opposition may seem to you... You just have to accept that there are those who are very against the notion of the government stepping into schools for the purpose of 'establishing' a state party. Much the same way you are opposed to even the vaguest, most innocent appearance of religion in school might somehow offend people, or 'establish' a religion.

It's the Web page. Example: http://www.videosift.com/video/First-Modern-Warfare-2-Video-Shows-Killstreaks-gameplay or any videos with embedded YouTube videos. It seems like older Web browsers like SeaMonkey v1.1.17 and Flashblock v1.3.14 extension have this problem and not the newer ones (e.g., Firefox v3.5.1 and Flashblock v1.5.11).

For now, I will mark videosift.com in my whitelist.


In reply to this comment by lucky760:
That's the kooky thing. As far as displaying videos goes, nothing changed in the upgrade... Is it only the full video page that has problems or is it when you also expand videos in listings?

Tell you what I'm gonna do. I'll install Flashblock myself and do everything in my power to figure out why it refuses to work. Maybe I'll get lucky.

...

I'll let you know as soon as I have more info.

In reply to this comment by ant:
Then how come before v4, it worked fine? What was changed between the last one and v4 to cause it? Yes, I do need FlashBlock because I don't want the videos to show up right away until I tell it to do. I load like 10-50 tabs on VS to watch videos later.

That's the kooky thing. As far as displaying videos goes, nothing changed in the upgrade... Is it only the full video page that has problems or is it when you also expand videos in listings?

Tell you what I'm gonna do. I'll install Flashblock myself and do everything in my power to figure out why it refuses to work. Maybe I'll get lucky.

Until then, a nice alternative, which is something I myself do, is to create a private playlist titled like "Videos to Watch". Add to it videos you want to check out later, then when you have time you can just go through them all on one easy page instead of 50 tabs.

I'll let you know as soon as I have more info.

In reply to this comment by ant:
Then how come before v4, it worked fine? What was changed between the last one and v4 to cause it? Yes, I do need FlashBlock because I don't want the videos to show up right away until I tell it to do. I load like 10-50 tabs on VS to watch videos later.