Haven't watched the video yet, but... Have you ever watched contemporary Canadian films? You know, ones based in modern times?

We seem to produce two types of films. Excellent, factual, and interesting documentaries...

and semi-intellectual fap fuel that blurs the line between edgy art house celluloid and hardcore porn.

So... the whole "thinking about sex" thing?

@EvilDeathBee Gotz my X-Large Mocha sipping away... less than half the price of the new MacD's Cafe crap, don't want to say HOW much less than Starbucks...

I would argue that one of the most powerful evolutionary advantages we have as a human species is human potential. By human potential, I mean traits like creativity, motivation, artistic talent, critical thinking, communicative ability, etc. It is a weird and nebulous thing, but we do know that it is not unique to any particular group of humans. It is not unique to men, nor is it unique to aryans, and it is not even unique to particular families.

I think that a decent argument can be made that creating a hospitable and reasonably equitable environment for all of these groups will maximize the percentage of humans who excel at these useful traits, creating a better world for everyone to live in.

So if your system oppresses any significant segment of the population, then there is a good chance that you will be less successful. I think that the Jewish brain drain from Nazi Germany is actually a very good example of this principle in action.

I should note that this is an evolutionary principle that is well established within certain groups. It is a massive evolutionary advantage to look out for people within your own group (tribe), which incidentally is why we have a long history of it being totally ok to kill other people's toddlers but not your own (see the Old Testament for examples). I think that now in these modern times we are realizing the benefits of extending that same principle of tribalism equity to the whole human community.

But yea, it's ultimately just a survival strategy. I have never claimed that my view of human morality has any absolute standard or guarantee of success. I can only be thankful that the society I live in has won out over the other ones.

Mind you, I still think it needs improvement - and leaving my little stamp on it is going to be a hell of a journey by the time it's over.

So why did God seem to think it was OK to murder toddlers and enslave people under certain circumstances? I thought that his absolute gold standard of morality was the only thing that was keeping us from devolving into such chaos.

And i think matriarchal society is waaayy better than patriarchal. But ff course we can't know, we haven't tried a true matriarchal society in modern times and never in large scale..

Posting a link here may be the hardest thing I ever tried, just search this string:

Feeding Machine scene from Modern Times

Now maybe?

http://videosift.com/video/Feeding-Machine-scene-from-Modern-Times

And the truth is, is that these Congressmen and Senators will sooner or later find out that the only people they actually agree with are themselves and their co-workers back at their individual Houses of Representation.

So, the real problem here is: Who in the hell keeps voting these apparent superficial and moreover possibly sociopathic to psychopathic sounding boards of disgrace, fringe notions, biased and prejudiced, myopic, centrifuges of idiocy, spoiled brats? They almost all have the same calling card, it's so abundantly true, we all know it. It's ridiculous, but somehow the denizens of the deep who are still registered "non-brain" using voters, that vote for the same thing every time, whether that be a R. or a D. or perhaps just a name--but, we all know were the majority of concern is coming from, it's the Republicans. Every concern in this piece came from them or their Tea Party: Republicans, since they can't run as the Tea Party because no one would drink their kool-aid, but they must run so they hide behind the almighty R. for the Republicans... I should know they do it here in Utah as well and they all think it's a grand sport; meanwhile, once in power they put stakes through the hearts of old-fashioned republicans and take full-power of the party in name as well.

There seems to be a large outbreak of near sociopathic (or anything matching its psychological destructiveness) mentality amongst many politicians; I don't know where they are learning it, but don't try to tell me it doesn't seem that way. They constantly lie, take money, vote whichever way they want--not which way their constituents would want, they are literally acting out of their minds... And for some reason that I cannot fathom it seems to me like very few people care, or even notice the behavior. Now, that it's landing on each individual's states doorstep as well--maybe that will ignite a fire from the bottom up. Even in Utah this year they tried passing laws that pissed off Utahans?!? To me that says you've gone way too far.

Ridiculous. When can we vote "no confidence" again? Basically, the reset button.
--------
As to the rest and Obama. I'm more proud of Obama in many ways more than of many presidents in our modern times. I TRULY do believe he wants to help our country at every turn, even when we don't quite succeed. This is exactly what I mean by that, he took it upon himself to change the rights and privileges of those that did not once have them. In contrast to the men I speak about above, Obama isn't even in the same building as them, in fact those above will NEVER know what it means to think the way Obama truly does as I think he does indeed have only good intentions for us. His actions speak volumes and his words back them up. Most of the reasons we haven't been helped although Obama has tried to help us has been at the hands of the people I talk about above. That is also why I will not vote for a Republican right now; I literally think it's too dangerous.

/a little corny, but it's true...

>> ^jonny:

A man of religion with a humanitarian attitude? What is the world coming to??


heheh they are less scared to come out in modern times, so to speak.

The laws in Leviticus do not apply to Christians; they were for Israel, for that time and place only. That was the Old Covenant, and Christians are under the New Covenant. In the New Testament, Romans 1:24-27, I Timothy 1:10, I Cor. 6:9-10, and Jude 7 clearly identify homosexuality as a sin. So, immediately his diatribe about shellfish and menstration is a strawman, because none of that applies to Christians in the first place.

In regards to slavery, Dan is purposefully misreprenting the bible, because it does not endorse it. In the Old Testament, there are rules that govern the treatment of slaves in Israel, but in Israel, slavery was not the same thing as it was in modern times. Slavery there was essentially a kind of profession, where people would sell themselves into slavery to have daily food and shelter in exchange for their labor.

Dan is also deliberately misrepresenting what the New Testament says about slavery. For one, Paul did say there are no slaves:

Colossians 3:11

Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all

The bible says that every person has intrinsic worth and value. It says that all people are made in the image of God and He doesn't love the poor man any less than the rich man. In fact very often it condemns the rich man.

Dan also deliberately misrepresents what Paul wrote in the letter to Philemon, because it is the exact opposite of what he implied! Paul told Philemon to let his slave go, and if need be, Paul would compensate him out of his own pocket. Paul told Philemon that his slave had far more value as a free man, and what he said was actually a command to let him go.

Philemon 1:14-21

But I was willing to do nothing without your consent, that your goodness would not be as of necessity, but of free will. For perhaps he was therefore separated from you for a while, that you would have him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much rather to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

If then you count me a partner, receive him as you would receive me. But if he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, put that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self besides). Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even beyond what I say

As far as the reactions from some of the people in this thread go, it's very typical of the sift. The fact is, many of its most vocal members are self-admitted anti-theists. The sift loves videos that bash Christians, and loves anyone who says nasty things against the bible or Christians in general. It doesn't matter if its true, or if it even makes any sense; people who bash Christians and the bible are instant heros here. A pretense of tolerance and equality is brought up when these subjects come up, but hypocritically Christians are always exempt, and often there is a "string em up" mentality as we see in this thread. That the sift denies this was inappropiate, especially at a conference about anti-bullying, is the least surprising thing I've seen today.

Let's face facts..if it were a Christian speaker saying things in a similar tone and manner to a group of homosexuals, it would be as if the world had ended, and many here would be calling for the speaker to be crucified.

I think they should have kept the setting more contemporary. The whole "cultural mainstays of yesteryear in modern fish out of water situations" is a comedic dead-horse to me. I mean, Snooky, really?

I also sort of get annoyed when they take things from the past and stick them in a clearly 'current time' setting. My overall preference is for a movie to be designed in such a way as to be relatively 'timeless'. When you make a movie in such a way that it constantly spotlights a subject or idea from a very specific modern time period then it becomes VERY obvious and then the show becomes dated very quickly as time goes on. The end result is that a good movie that would have otherwise been a 'classic' ends up seeming very cheesy. I think the Stooges movie would have been better off avoiding that kind of thing. Just have the Stooges there, keep the setting vague and non-specific in terms of its period, and let the hijinks ensue.

That being said - I loved seeing Snookie get poked in the eyes... Give her a few triple-slaps while you're at it, Moe.

I've done biomedical research on animal subjects...it takes a huge emotional toll.

The idea that these animals are tended to by 'heartless scientists' is usually quite fallacious in modern times. There are some famous cases done more than 50 years ago, at a time where science really was cruel and heartless to human and animal subjects alike.

In academic settings and in modern protocols, the animals are required to be treated as ethically as possible, and third parties are usually present to enforce the ethical treatment. First, it's just not possible to do research on an animal that is not used to human interaction. They need to be as comfortable as they can be with humans; they need to respond well to being handled, or else people can't realistically perform tests on them. Long periods of time are initially spent just handling and playing with the animals.

Human ethics have really come a long way from the time when hippies really did have something to complain about with animal cruelty.

Dude, stimulus does not immediately kick in. It takes time to take effect.

Yes - so far it has taken over 2 years and STILL hasn't 'taken effect'. (rimshot)

And considering the economic data that suggests that this was the worst economic downturn in since the Great Depression, where unemployment reached 25%, how is it "balderdash" unemployment would have climbed into the teens?

Where is the evidence that 'proves' unemployment WOULD HAVE reached 13% or 17% or 25%? Depends on who you are talking to of course. There are indicators that US unemployement is indeed more along the lines of 17% when you take away 'book cooking' techniques such as not counting people who aren't looking for jobs anymore, and so forth. Regardless, there is no substantive economic evidence that unemployment as traditionally measured was going to keep increasing beyond the plateau it reached.

You also failed in your economic analysis.

It isn't my economic analysis. It is the economic analysis of economists. Argue with them. Just because you disagree with them doesn't make you right. It just makes you one of millions of people with an uninformed opinion.

"...the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in August that said the stimulus bill has '[l]owered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points' and '[i]ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.'"

I already talked about the CBO report - which is one of the most 'generous' interpretations possible and is based on fuzzy facts and a bunch of imagination. Other analysis is far more critical, and has a lot more concrete data to back it up.

"most economists believe"

Nope - you don't get to pull an Obama tactic here. When Obama says bullcrap like this he skates away because the media doesn't call him out. I'm different. I'm calling you out. Define your claim. "Most economists"... What economists? Name names. Name the organizations. Name the time. Name the place. Name the report. Name the data. Supply your proof to your claim that 'most economists' say the bill wasn't successful because it wasn't big enough. The only economnists who say that kind off garbage are prog-lib Keneysians - who aren't worth the powder to blow them up. There are HOSTS of economists who completely, unequivocally, and thoroughly disagree with that highly questionable position.

Again, I challenge you to show me a recession in modern times that was not ended after a period of deficit spending. You can't name one, can you?

Your position is spurious because for the past 70 years the US government has been on a constant deficit spending binge. I can with equal validity claim the following...

"I challenge you to show a recession in modern times that was not PRECEEDED by a period of deficit spending. You can't name one, can you?"

When the baseline of government is constant debt spending, for anyone you to claim that all 'positive' events are the result of deficit spending is nonsense. The chart proves nothing expect that the government has been debt spending 95% of its existence. It sort of also proves that that the recessions in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and this recession were preceeded by deficit spending.

there's no other way to explain it

Yes there is and I just showed it to you. Only people who are mired in a narrow, biased, bigoted, and blinkered Keneysian world-view can say there is 'only' one explanation. Reality and facts prove otherwise.

we've ALWAYS ended recessions with deficit spending

And this is why you are proven to be narrow-minded, biased, bigoted, and blinkered. Private sector growth is what ends recessions - not deficit spending. If deficit spending 'ended' recessions, then why are we still in a recession? Obama Jerkface the First has engaged in more deficit spending than any president in US history in raw terms. Why aren't we in an economic boom right now after 3 years on his debt steroids? If debt got rid of recessions, then we'd never go INTO a recession because we've been debt spending 95% of the time. Your analysis is so simplistic, so flawed, and so moronic that it begs the question whether you even think about what you write, or if you are just so steeped in leftist propoganda that you have abandoned free-thinking completely.

So what was WWII?! What were the 1980's?!

WW2 was a world war that was followed by a post-war private sector boom of increased private spending and greatly decreased government debt spending. The 1980s was a period of time when private businesses grew as a result of decreased government taxation - caused by a conservative president forcing a liberal congress to cut entitlements somewhat.

Explain how in the world deficits prolonged the Great Depression!

Like many prog-libs, you lack historical knowledge. FDR engaged in massive debt spending and public works long before WW2. The creation of public works based on deficits created an environment where government was a 'job creator', not the private sector. When the government is actively involved in setting wages, being the 'job creator', and otherwise setting a baseline of economic activity, then the private sector holds back its capital, jobs, and other activities. The reason is simple - the private sector cannot compete when the public sector is artificially manipulating costs and prices. It creates an atmosphere of massive economic uncertainty, and the private sector is unwilling to take risks, make bold moves, or otherwise do anything that might be jeopardized by a sudden decision by government to move in that direction.

So when government is subsidizing construction workers (such as with public make-work crap), it interferes with the private constriction industry. They are not going to hire workers at $20 an hour when government workers are getting tax-subsidized $30 jobs. They can't compete with that. So they don't hire anyone, and they fire people they already have, and they also have people quit because government is hiring at higher than market value wages. Then in a year when those jobs dry up, the private sector is flooded with workers who expect a 30 an hour job, but the job environment is full of employers who only pay 25 (or less), and who are scared to hire anyone because they have no idea if government is going to go on another bogus debt binge or not. The only time the private sector steps up in in periods of time when they know the government is NOT going to be rocking the boat with arbitrary decisions for a while. This is why there was a big boom AFTER the war (when government activity decreased) and in the 80s. Recessions are ended when the private sector has CONFIDENCE - and that only happens when government is NOT doing anything.

I could go on a long time, but I doubt you care to hear it. Prog-libs who believe only the Keneysian model don't care to hear how thier precious philosophy screws up the world market, prolongs economic downturns, and basically is the major cause of suffering, poverty, and economic unrest.

I don't for the life of me understand why people like you will literally argue the sky isn't blue if it fits your ideological narrative.

Pot - meet kettle. Your world view is 100% backwards. You are the one calling the sky green. You are the one saying the moon is made of cheese. We in the real world await your arrival some day when you're ready for it.

Dude, stimulus does not immediately kick in. It takes time to take effect. And considering the economic data that suggests that this was the worst economic downturn in since the Great Depression, where unemployment reached 25%, how is it "balderdash" unemployment would have climbed into the teens?

You also failed in your economic analysis. To say that the stimulus jobs created 1 job for every $200,000 is the most absurd thing I've ever read. First off, it assumes that the only jobs created are the jobs of people it directly contributed to hiring without taking into account the residual effects of said hiring, or the results of whatever goods and services produced from the work they did. How many jobs are created or preserved by building infrastructure? How many jobs were created or preserved by providing all workers hired through stimulus programs, which in turn spent that income on goods and services produced by private sector workers? What about workers producing goods and services necessary for these programs that wouldn't immediately show up?

"...the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in August that said the stimulus bill has '[l]owered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points' and '[i]ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.'"

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/09/did-the-stimulus-create-jobs/

The economy is cyclical in nature. Stopping the bleeding is a big deal. And most economists believe the stimulus bill wasn't as successful as it should have been is because it wasn't big enough, not because it was too big or was done at all.

Again, I challenge you to show me a recession in modern times that was not ended after a period of deficit spending. You can't name one, can you?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/include/us_deficit_100.png

So there's completely DUH obvious undeniable, there's no other way to explain it, basic US historical fact that we've ALWAYS ended recessions with deficit spending. How can you possibly argue that "when government steps into the market, it creates an artificial bubble that PROLONGS an economic downturn." So what was WWII?! What were the 1980's?! You have no factual claims to stand on! Explain how in the world deficits prolonged the Great Depression! We deficit spent quite a bit leading up to WWII, still didn't get out of the Great Depression, massive record deficit spent, THEN got out of the Depression. It is undeniable that's what did the trick.

I don't for the life of me understand why people like you will literally argue the sky isn't blue if it fits your ideological narrative.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

You can't say it didn't work before because unemployment was skyrocketing and then stopped when the stimulus kicked in.
The facts...
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
Unemployment started going up a bit in May of 2008 (5.4%). By February of 2009 (Stimulus bill passes) the rate was 8.2%. By October of 2009, unemployment was 10.1%. +2%. After. The. Stimulus. Unemployment hit 9%+ in May of 2009 and has stayed in that zone ever since.
Unemployment did spike a total of +4% between May of 2008 and May of 2009. 60% of that spike took place before the stimulus, and 40% of the spike took place AFTER the stimulus. In order for anyone to claim that the stimulus 'stopped' unemployement from rising, they would have to conclusively prove that unemployment WOULD HAVE RISEN to 13.4% by May of 2010, then to 17.4% by May of this year without the passage of the stimulus. Balderdash. Unemployment hit a natural free market peak in late 2009, and it was going to do that with our without the stimulus.
Let's assume the stimulus DID 'create jobs'. Is that backed up by facts?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/13/us-usa-campa
ign-stimulus-idUSTRE78C08R20110913
http://web.econ.ohio-state.edu/dupor/arra10_may11.pdf
Economic data is open to debate. On the one side here we have the CBO which gave the stimulus a very generous amount of credit (based on some very questionable interpretations of job 'creation') for 'creating or preserving' 3 million jobs. Then we have an OSU study which uses statistics to prove the stimulus 'created' 450,000 government jobs and KILLED a million private sector jobs.
I personally I think the OSU study hits the nail on the head. "ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than directly boost private sector employment." That is a statement that reflects reality. The stimulus mostly plugged up budgeting gaps that had nothing to do with employment. In fact, the CBO itself freely admitted, "it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.” QUOTE!
But let's be really nice and use the CBO's figures - even though they are highly questionable. 3 million jobs were 'created or preserved' by the stimulus bill. Even in this very rosy scenario, the stimulus made 1 job for every $200,000 dollars. It can be credibly argued that doing NOTHING would have generated a better result in an overall analysis compared to spending $200K for 1 job.
But for the sake of discussion let's take a good hard look at the jobs that were 'created'. After all, 200K a job might make sense if they were GOOD jobs...
http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/11/did-the-stimulus-create-jobs
They weren't. Most of the jobs were government jobs. And most of them were temporary construction jobs or other seasonal gigs for make-work projects scheduled to complete in a year or less (at which point they are fired). The private sector - where jobs are needed most - got virtually NO boost from the stimulus.
I could keep on going for hours, but suffice it to say that the stimulus didn't 'stop' unemployment. There is solid, real, credible evidence that the government's interference in the free market did far more harm than good. That's what happens. When government steps into the market, it creates an artificial bubble that PROLONGS an economic downturn.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Deano:
I will say though that he's wrong to blithely dismiss the case for underlying truth. "So what" is not a reasonable response. IF it was a conspiracy born in the darkest hearts of the U.S government or some branch thereof, it would be the biggest story in modern times.

I don't think he's saying it wouldn't be a big story. I think he's saying given all the terrorism we commit around the world, this doesn't measure up and would be a mere footnote if it wasn't done to us. Because this was the one time terrorism went the other direction it's significant, other than that it wasn't really as huge of a deal as what we did to numerous countries during the 20th century.

So, America has regularly targeted civilians on purpose, and declared it a warning and magnificent act worthy of great praise?
I understood American wars and black ops to have killed a lot of civilians. I wasn't under the impression that there was wide spread practice of specifically singling out civilians for murder. Even the horrific boastful body counts of 'Nam and the carpet bombing of Cambodia had the flimsy pretense of evil done to prevent a greater evil. Which I add I condemn as one of the most evil acts done in recent history, but even that pales to what would be American officials deliberately killing everyone on 9/11 to get the policy changes they want.

Yes they deliberately ordered the attacks of "Soft Targets" in Honduras. Places like schools, hospitals, and churches but the rebel forces they trained and supported with arms. That's just one example...south and central america are littered with bodies that the US intentionally went after. Also Cambodia and Vietnam itself is a way greater crime than 9/11 ever could be. Estimates as high as 4 million dead...that's extreme.


Don't misunderstand me. I hold no argument that Cambodia and many other American atrocities were far greater crimes than 9/11.

What I am saying is from the view of an American President, killing a million people with aerial bombings in a foreign country during a war(declared or not) is one thing. Even if you did it in secret, when the secret comes out your administration might survive it by saying something about necessity. Killing 3000 American civilians, solely to trick the rest of America's civilians to support a war you want to start though, when that comes out it's worse. They are both crazy, but the important distinction is the later is also suicidal.

Which is Chomsky's point. America has done lots of horrible things, but being caught responsible for 9/11 would be far worse for the leader and party than pretty much anything in American history, ever.

9/11 may be a much lesser crime than Cambodia, but as far as picking one to be found out as responsible for, EVERY American politician will stand up and claim Cambodia as their choice before ever letting it be thought they were behind 9/11. At least Cambodia leaves the more acceptable lie of killing foreigners to protect Americans.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Deano:
I will say though that he's wrong to blithely dismiss the case for underlying truth. "So what" is not a reasonable response. IF it was a conspiracy born in the darkest hearts of the U.S government or some branch thereof, it would be the biggest story in modern times.

I don't think he's saying it wouldn't be a big story. I think he's saying given all the terrorism we commit around the world, this doesn't measure up and would be a mere footnote if it wasn't done to us. Because this was the one time terrorism went the other direction it's significant, other than that it wasn't really as huge of a deal as what we did to numerous countries during the 20th century.

So, America has regularly targeted civilians on purpose, and declared it a warning and magnificent act worthy of great praise?
I understood American wars and black ops to have killed a lot of civilians. I wasn't under the impression that there was wide spread practice of specifically singling out civilians for murder. Even the horrific boastful body counts of 'Nam and the carpet bombing of Cambodia had the flimsy pretense of evil done to prevent a greater evil. Which I add I condemn as one of the most evil acts done in recent history, but even that pales to what would be American officials deliberately killing everyone on 9/11 to get the policy changes they want.


Yes they deliberately ordered the attacks of "Soft Targets" in Honduras. Places like schools, hospitals, and churches but the rebel forces they trained and supported with arms. That's just one example...south and central america are littered with bodies that the US intentionally went after. Also Cambodia and Vietnam itself is a way greater crime than 9/11 ever could be. Estimates as high as 4 million dead...that's extreme.