I will concede this much: my response was emotionally laden and insulting. But attacking what very clearer appears to be MRA misogynistic BS is not "white knighting", despite my perhaps overly heavy-handed manner. Or does one have to follow specific guidelines in order for their challenge of your comment's apparent ideas to be taken seriously? If you had a valid point to make with that comment, I think it's fair to say you failed miserably at getting it across. So instead of accusing me of "comment noise" because you don't like what I say, why don't you come and clarify what you meant? It's unfair and rather shameful of you to call my response petty and wildly assuming; your comment does not allow many other interpretations than the one I made. The only mere assumptions I made were to your gender and ethnicity, based on the fact that the MRA movement is almost entirely the resort of white males.

Come back to the thread and provide in clear language what you meant by your sarcastic lyrics, and if I was wrong in my interpretation thereof I will be quick to apologise publicly for getting you wrong.

(I am taking this off "private" setting because as a continuation of an open sift discussion I believe it should be available to anyone involved. I stand by my words, and I am sure you do to.)
In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Look, I don't know what emotional baggage you're carrying or what possesses you to go so overboard with white knighting, but you're behaving childishly and if you can't talk to someone you disagree with, or you think you disagree with, without starting to infer your preconceived notions onto them and insult and cuss them out, you are no better than any of the other comment noise that plagues youtube. If you want to rise above such pettyness, apologize for drawing wild conclusions, insulting and accusing me on the basis of those wild conclusions and maybe we can have a discussion about what my post was actually saying about that person's video.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
>> ^Kreegath:

How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬


Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.

Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.

I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant

*quality song btw

I don't know which parts of FTB you haunt(ed), but I still read Pharyngula, Greta Cristina and (to a lesser extent) Blag Hag, and all have a pretty appropriate and ethical attitude when it comes to misogyny and co.

(I don't know what the comments look like though, "I only read it for the articles" )
In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
In fairness, a lot of them are. I've given up on Freethought blogs for instance.>> ^hpqp:

>> ^Kreegath:
How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬

Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.
Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.
I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant
quality song btw

You know what else is fucked up, everyone in the world lashing at this comment immediately jumps to imagery of forceful rape. However, an 18 year old that has sex with a 17 year old is considered rape all the same. Or, a person who has sex with a mentally retarded adult is also considered statutory rape. In california, if two minors have sex with each other, they are considered to have raped each other. Further, the act itself is its own evidence of guilt, meaning that the accused individual(s) have no defense.

Before people blow off their cannon MRA junk, note that I never brought gender into this. Guys and girls are equally screwed by this law (in court AND in jail).

>> ^EvilDeathBee:

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^Kreegath:
How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬

Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.
Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.
I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant
quality song btw

You know what's fucked up? Yesterday I learned that 31 states in the US can make the mother of a rape conceived child to allow visitation rights of the father/rapist, they can even get custody! WTF??
http://youtu.be/hdSIHzeFPgo

In fairness, a lot of them are. I've given up on Freethought blogs for instance.>> ^hpqp:

>> ^Kreegath:
How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬

Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.
Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.
I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant
quality song btw

>> ^hpqp:

>> ^Kreegath:
How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬

Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.
Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.
I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant
quality song btw


You know what's fucked up? Yesterday I learned that 31 states in the US can make the mother of a rape conceived child to allow visitation rights of the father/rapist, they can even get custody! WTF??

http://youtu.be/hdSIHzeFPgo

>> ^Kreegath:

How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬


Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.

Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.

I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant

*quality song btw

The question is moot..

WOrds on this video were utterly moot. Upvote anyway.

>> ^shuac:

Rape an exception? No, sir. There are no exceptions because everything's on the table when you have the First Amendment. Your example set in France was sweet and everything but it is utterly moot when there's a land across the pond where no topic is verboten in debate, discussion, and/or comedy.
Let me put it this way. In a country where the Westboro Baptist Church is protected for doing what they do by the highest court in that country, you better goddamn believe that we'll joke about rape when and if we feel like it. Bank on it.
Don't like it? Great. Your like/dislike, approval/disapproval is not a hurdle the First Amendment has to jump. Debate about the merits of the joke and/or topic all you want. The outcome of that debate will also present no impediment to the First Amendment. Short of libel and slander, feel free to demonize the participants if you feel you must. That's a right you have and a right I'll die defending.
In conclusion, rape is not an exception because exceptions do not enter into it.
That is all there is to say.


You're arguing against a strawman. I'm pretty sure that when hpqp said rape is an exception he/she didn't mean it should be a legal exception. The argument is not that comedians making tasteless rape jokes should be fined, so nobody is attacking the First Amendment here. The argument is that certain sort of rape jokes should not be considered socially or morally legitimate. I think racism shouldn't be considered socially or morally legitimate, but I don't think the government has any business punishing racists.

So yeah, nobody disagrees with what you're saying here as far as I'm aware.

Rape an exception? No, sir. There are no exceptions because everything's on the table when you have the First Amendment. Your example set in France was sweet and everything but it is utterly moot when there's a land across the pond where no topic is verboten in debate, discussion, and/or comedy.

Let me put it this way. In a country where the Westboro Baptist Church is protected for doing what they do by the highest court in that country, you better goddamn believe that we'll joke about rape when and if we feel like it. Bank on it.

Don't like it? Great. Your like/dislike, approval/disapproval is not a hurdle the First Amendment has to jump. Debate about the merits of the joke and/or topic all you want. The outcome of that debate will also present no impediment to the First Amendment. Short of libel and slander, feel free to demonize the participants if you feel you must. That's a right you have and a right I'll die defending.

In conclusion, rape is not an exception because exceptions do not enter into it.

That is all there is to say.

You could tax the rich out the ass, take all corporate profits and still not be even close to solving the debt issue. You are a fool to believe otherwise.

Comparing the USA to other counties is a moot point. Who cares about other countries. Each country solves its own issues. What look towards Greece and Spain as model socialized societies? Fuck that they are a sinking ship. Germany is the most financially secure country and that's because of their thrift.


Obama is the most leftest liberal this country has ever had. To make his presidency worse he has turned his back on Israel and given the wink and nod to the radical Muslim brotherhood to rise up and take over some countries in the middle east.

Domestically had has done shit except given everyone a large personal tax called healthcare. Everyone will have to pay up. Employers will bail out of providing insurance and we will have to pay it all.

Jobs What jobs The US is running negative. More jobs are lost than created. His policies have failed.

The unemployment would be a lot higher if they counted those who have stopped looking altogether.

A lot the money he has given out were to state labor unions and to useless failed green jobs.


>> ^RFlagg:

This. No matter what Fox and Rush and all the other screw over the working class so 1 or 2% of the population doesn't have to pay an extra 3% tax people say, Obama isn't a Liberal. He campaigned as one, but aside from bringing this country in line with every other country in the world except the communists and Islamic ones by ending Don't Ask Don't Tell (which even McCain said he would support when the military said it wanted to end it, but then didn't support it when they asked), he hasn't really done anything liberal.
I love how some on the right say even Liberals don't like Obama... yes, because he isn't the liberal people voted for, he's a centralist/left leaning Republican, at best a far right leaning Democrat. Now how much is Obama's fault is hard to tell. It could be he is a far right leaning Democrat, or he could just lack the balls to stand up the Republicans (likely), or he could be a victim of the promise the Republicans made when he won in that they would never negotiate and never give in and never let him win, that they would do everything they could do make sure his Presidency was a failure (even more likely).
I.

@Yogi No, you kind of are supposed to look at the logic if you are the Supreme Court. The result is really Congress' worry.

@GenjiKilpatrick The issue is how do you constitutionally keep Michael Moore (or some union) from running political content simply because he has the means to do so without allowing the government to stop the New York Times from running political content. A photo of Barack Obama on the front page could easily be construed as a "campaign contribution." It's certainly donated capital of some sort depending on the nature of the coverage. Currently there is no cleanly legislated delineation there. So yea, Yogi, they were worried about results. They were worried about the negative liberties result more so than the positive liberties result. This is one of those instances where I get that viewpoint.

Regardless, I'd like to see data that electoral success is a linear correlate with campaign spending regardless of absolute levels. I suspect there is an asymptote at some point. It might all be moot anyway.

@bareboards2 Sorry, being the grassroots viewpoint means working from the grassroots. Besides, the way to fight this is to just not be dumb, and convince a few others not to fall for baseless political pandering. Drop a pamphlet about how the world works out the window and you'd be doing it far more good than squandering what few resources you have on an action like this.

I just think it would have been a better game if they had simply separated the single player from the multiplayer. That way you have a choice in the matter. Gamers like choices and hate it when you take those choices away. D3 isn't a MMO no matter how hard Blizzard tries to convince people it is. The only reason they made it into this forced co-op game is they were greedy and figured that was the only way they could stop piracy.
Problem is the people who were gonna pirate the game weren't ever planning on paying for it in the first place. So they weren't going to lose a dime to those people. Notch said something to that effect about Minecraft piracy I don't remember the exact quote but Notch could care less if you pirate Minecraft, hell he gives away the beta snapshot versions for free.
And if they hadn't forced multiplayer to be always on all these hackers wouldn't be exploiting that very same system to steal items and gold from people so they can then sell them for cash in their idiotic real money auction house. Which will be a disaster if they ever open it because the hackers will flood the market.
And then even though people paid $60 bucks for the game they expect you to shell out another $10 for a physical authenticator in order to hopefully keep your account secure. Even though they don't allow strong passwords on Battle.net.
Which is a moot point because these hackers aren't even hacking passwords in the first place there stealing session id's or forcing themselves onto buddy lists somehow that's why people can still log into their accounts after they have been jacked for everything their worth. But Blizzard is suspiciously in denial when someone brings that up.

All in all their choice to force online access to play their game has resulted in one of the most embarrassing disasters in the history of gaming. Which is sad because it really is a good game. It's just run by greedy idiots.

>> ^lampishthing:

I think Thumper was saying that Diablo 3 is clearly a multiplayer focused game and that Mr. Yathzee Esq. should not expect it to be excellent in single player. Being a games reviewer surely he should have given more attention to the multiplayer as this was the intent of the game etc. I really don't think that Diablo 3 can be blamed for shoving stuff down your throat. That's more your desire to play Diablo 3 shoving it down your throat.>> ^Auger8:
Maybe because some people actually like single player games.
And maybe he's the guy who doesn't need 15 people to go "hey nice backswing on that axe you got there" 50 million times like some attention seeking whore.
Or there like me and don't want their entire party to sudden scream like banshees if I decide to get up and take a leak or grab a snack or simply decide I don't want to play through the entire campaign in a single night.
That's not to say I don't enjoy Multiplayer I simply enjoy not having it shoved down my throat like D3.
>> ^Thumper:
How in the hell can you play Diablo 3 without playing multiplayer. He's the person you never go see a movie with because they ruin it with their trite non-conformity misery. Oh wait that's how, if no one wants to play with you. What a fucking tool.

My point is in the end, it doesn't matter what the gov't spends borrowed money on in the slightest. I get what you're saying, but the wars, corporate subsidies, etc. happened regardless if you borrow money specifically for that, or don't borrow money and raid the Social Security trust fund. Assuming said wars and corp subsidies happen regardless, which is better, borrow sooner by not raiding the Social Security trust fund which is heading for insolvency anyway and pay more interest, or borrow later by raiding the Social Security trust fund. It doesn't matter once you're headed for a path of unsustainability. Even if Social Security lasted another several decades, it was headed for insolvency. And once the federal government headed for unsustainability, does it matter which folds first - social security or the rest of essential gov't programs? No.

If you raid the trust fund as a tactical mechanism in conjunction with other policies to make the federal gov't and Social Security solvent, it's a smart move because you'll save some interest by not borrowing as much money, or paying down already existent higher interest debt. That's sorta my point - the gov't reversed course under the Bush administration and didn't do that. That's the real problem here, not raiding the Social Security trust fund. Even making some allowances for needing a deficit during the recession, and revamping for intelligence and military apparatus to fight the war on terror, it didn't stop there with keeping the Bush tax cuts, the prescription drug benefit, and opening an unnecessary war with Iraq. But we can agree to disagree.

But honestly, the question about if it was right to raid the Social Security trust fund is moot in the context of this discussion because even without borrowing against the fund, the Clinton administration still ran surpluses during his second term. Republicans, desperate to prove Democrats are fiscally irresponsible, try like heck to say he didn't, but he did.

"But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while...

Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years."

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

The Clinton Administration ran a surplus, period.

>> ^bmacs27:

@heropsycho
I couldn't disagree more. First of all, interest was still being paid on that same debt. The mechanism of using the social security surplus to finance the general fund was to purchase interest bearing treasury securities with the payroll tax. Now, people like you talk about those securities as though they aren't bonds at all and that interest isn't owed on that debt. That's the problem. The working class bought into a higher tax rate under the auspices that it was a retirement savings plan. Now public perception is robbing them of their interest because of Clinton's biff. If the payroll tax contributes interest-free to costly wars, corporatist subsidies, and theocratic pandering, then fold it into the progressive income tax and we can have a real conversation about paying our fair share.
You can probably smell that I'm a progressive, and thus would be inclined to support the Clintons. I just think this was one move where Reagan's scheming scored one for his team.