I don't see how it's a poor comparison at all. Anti-gun people seem to think that banning guns will significantly reduce violent crime. This isn't really the case, as the statistics show. If your logic was valid, then Florida would have a higher violent crime and murder rate than DC simply because it's much easier for criminals to get guns. However, the factors that lead to violent crime and murder extend far beyond the availability of guns, so trying to ban all guns is kind of missing the point. It's like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.

As for your drug analogy, I'm not really sure what you were trying to say. I think your attempt at sarcasm overshadowed the clarity of your message. That said, it's a good thing you brought up narcotics because they also kill significantly more people than guns. They are also banned, yet drug-related deaths and crime continue unabated. It's amusing that the same people who decry the War on Drugs are so quick to demand a ban on guns when the former shows how ineffective bans actually are. If a junkie can get his hands on drugs, a homicidal sociopath can get his hands on guns, legally or otherwise.

Violence, death and danger raises the stakes of a narrative and triggers the production of adrenaline in the minds of the viewer. Our ancient ancestors got the same rush by outrunning a grizzly bear. Luckily, we can tap into this brain narcotic with much less risk.

There are films that do seem to pointlessly revel in gore and suffering, most notably Saw 1-26, but Quentin certainly isn't guilty of this kind of torture porn. Steven Spielberg killed at least as many Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark as Quentin killed racist confederates in Django, but Spielberg never gets criticized for it. The violence in both films serve the dual purposes of making the bad guys really bad, and making the catharsis of revenge in the end really good.

Violence in media is a reflection of violence in culture, not the other way around. Quentin didn't dream up slavery, lynchings, torture, mutilation and the other types of racial violence in his film. That stuff really happened.

And to Spike Lee: Django blowing racists to hell with TNT is how Tarrentino deals with race in cinema. Mookie tossing a garbage can through the front window of Sal's pizzaria is how you deal with race in cinema. Both are great films with the same perspective on race done in completely different styles. Get over yourself. If you want to criticize a film about race directed by a white guy, do 'Crash', that movie was a patronizing pile of shit.

Every paragraph you write to me lately is simply stringing the same three ad homs together in a different order (you are a dogmatist, you dont understand science, you dont engage with critical thinking).

They're not ad homs. They're what I see. They're substantiated by fact. "Crackhead" would be an ad hom because I have no reason to believe that you are addicted to illegal narcotics. But it's empirically true that religious canon is dogma and you believe religious canon, that you repeatedly speak in non-scientific ways, and that you jump to convenient conclusions as part of your argument style rather than investigating the claims you're making.

You say you've inquired about my views. I don't remember that happening, except when you were baiting me into a certain admission that you had a prepared answer for. But then you didn't listen to my response to your answer, at least not in an open-minded and critical way. You regularly claim to have the answer. It's only when forced into a corner based on the fact that you're human and fallible that you ever admit you technically could be wrong. You just proved it again, BTW. "Your PoV is apparently blah blah blah." There's all sorts of possible PoVs that I could have, but dogmatically believing in everything a scientist says couldn't be one of them. As a scientific person, that's not a possible position for me to hold. You haven't accepted that you have lost credibility due to your lack of scientific understanding. You never ask how your understanding is wrong. If you wanted to learn, there's all sorts you could learn, but you retreat into playing the victim. If you've got nothing left, you claim you're being attacked. I'm arguing against you, and then honestly explaining why I'm not putting in any more effort; I'm not attacking. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm telling you mine, my opinions about you, what those opinions are based on and what they entail for the limit of where I'm willing to go in our conversations.

I may or may not understand the basics of your current argument about uniformitariansim, and so forth, but I sure understand the basics of scientific thought, and that comes first. I can read a book or watch a lecture and learn about uniformitariansim, but when I come back, you still won't understand how to talk scientifically. That's why I'm not going to bother talking to you about science except to hear your reasons for claiming something in modern science is pseudoscience (If I were dogmatic about science, I wouldn't even ask you), and if I think your argument is strong enough, I'll get interested and maybe learn something. I have learned some things, but none that overturn the science you claim it does. The fact that you think you have presented enough information to overturn anything in science shows how little you understand science.

So, you wanna be openly curious about my religious views, I'm here for you. I'll talk about that as long as you want. You want to have a real conversation about science? You have to accept that you don't understand what science is first. Are you humble enough to admit you might not understand it? As always, curious, open-minded and willing to be surprised.

Yeah, sad that the cop would ask about narcotics because of a joint. what year is this again? Insurance companies would like cannabis to be a sign of a good driver because that is what their data shows. People who are less likely to cause accidents than sober people today get treated the opposite which reverses who should be paying higher or lower premiums, etc.

I guessed randomly that Zimmerman may not have been hurt at all from the beginning, go look what I wrote on day one and you'll see I guessed right. The thing that made me think this might be so was the behavior of the police. They were acting suspicious, sending a narcotics officer, not arresting Zimmerman, not compiling any witnesses, etc...

It's almost like they had a connection of some kind with Zimmerman and somehow this was paramount to what happened. I even guessed then that we might be looking at a probe into an entire police department over this. I guess we'll see.

I guessed that there may have been some sort of cover-up due to the suspicious actions of the police. The constant lying, denials, and story transformation seems to make this more true everyday. WTF is going on down there...!?

How can Martin not be 100% innocent? I don't get how you think he could be at all culpable.>> ^Porksandwich:

To be clear on this. I don't think either Zimmerman or Martin is 100% innocent in this. I just feel that Zimmerman is the one who caused the whole event to happen.
There are some articles where police admit they have about a 1 minute window of where they don't know what happened.
There is Trayvon's girlfriend who said she was on the phone with him where she heard some specific questions asked by both parties and then some pushing or other something and the line went dead. If her story is true, they can verify it by cell phone logs as to when the line went dead and if she was on the phone with him when she claims.
If they can verify she was on the phone with him, her story actually lines up with what some of Zimmerman says. But they have not released what Zimmerman said the exact conversation was. He claims that Trayvon said something like "You got a problem?" and zimmerman said "no" and trayvon said "well you got one now" and hit him. Girlfriend says nothing like that was said, but the line may have been dead by then. So does Zimmerman admit to pushing or that Trayvon pushed him? Do the questions they asked each other line up with what the girlfriend heard? Does the girlfriend think Trayvon was scared/concerned/pissed/whatever?
What was the orientation of the fight? Zimmerman says Trayvon was beating his head and slamming it into the ground. How was Trayvon standing over him? Was he straddling him? Was he off to the side? Was he above Zimmerman's head? Was he sitting on his chest and beating him?
How did Zimmerman shoot Trayvon and not end up underneath him when he collapsed? Report says he fell with his arms underneath him face down in the grass. You could assume he grab for his chest when he was shot, but how did Zimmerman avoid him? How did Zimmerman not end up with blood on him? Do his clothes match with what he said happened when you look at it again and look at the clothing? The grass stains do, but does the blood?
We are to believe that Zimmerman was on his back and drew his gun from his waistband holster (they don't specify when he kept it). So his access to this gun is going to be impaired if Trayvon is sitting on him pounding his face. Plus he's going to be on his back when he shoots unless Trayvon let him up.
Far too many questions for Zimmerman to not be kept for the 48 hours they are allowed to hold someone while they investigated the case. They questioned him and let him go. Perhaps they answered all this and never released it. But then you have Zimmerman not being tox screened and them sending a narcotics detective instead of a homicide detective to do the investigation (according to http://abcnews.go.com/US/neighborhood-watch-
killing-911-tape-reveals-racial-slur/story?id=15966309).
I'm not saying crucify Zimmerman or that he needs to have a bounty on his head. But the questions and no answers or address to them is not a positive sign that this crime was investigated properly. And since it has been weeks after the fact when the federal investigators were brought in, the chance of determining it given the iffy police work up front is going to be a lot less possible. That still does not mean Zimmerman's accounting is accurate until they exhausted possibilities. Not just go with what seems most apparent. If Zimmerman were fabricating, he'd pick the best explanation given the scene if he had planned or taken anytime at all to make something up. Plus his recollection of events are going to be driven out his natural bias in the situation, any person's view point would be.
Also in a gated community with a rash of breakins, I would think there would be some home security and other security cameras installed to try to curtail it. Especially on the "clubhouse" Zimmerman references in his 911 call.

To be clear on this. I don't think either Zimmerman or Martin is 100% innocent in this. I just feel that Zimmerman is the one who caused the whole event to happen.

There are some articles where police admit they have about a 1 minute window of where they don't know what happened.

There is Trayvon's girlfriend who said she was on the phone with him where she heard some specific questions asked by both parties and then some pushing or other something and the line went dead. If her story is true, they can verify it by cell phone logs as to when the line went dead and if she was on the phone with him when she claims.

If they can verify she was on the phone with him, her story actually lines up with what some of Zimmerman says. But they have not released what Zimmerman said the exact conversation was. He claims that Trayvon said something like "You got a problem?" and zimmerman said "no" and trayvon said "well you got one now" and hit him. Girlfriend says nothing like that was said, but the line may have been dead by then. So does Zimmerman admit to pushing or that Trayvon pushed him? Do the questions they asked each other line up with what the girlfriend heard? Does the girlfriend think Trayvon was scared/concerned/pissed/whatever?

What was the orientation of the fight? Zimmerman says Trayvon was beating his head and slamming it into the ground. How was Trayvon standing over him? Was he straddling him? Was he off to the side? Was he above Zimmerman's head? Was he sitting on his chest and beating him?

How did Zimmerman shoot Trayvon and not end up underneath him when he collapsed? Report says he fell with his arms underneath him face down in the grass. You could assume he grab for his chest when he was shot, but how did Zimmerman avoid him? How did Zimmerman not end up with blood on him? Do his clothes match with what he said happened when you look at it again and look at the clothing? The grass stains do, but does the blood?

We are to believe that Zimmerman was on his back and drew his gun from his waistband holster (they don't specify when he kept it). So his access to this gun is going to be impaired if Trayvon is sitting on him pounding his face. Plus he's going to be on his back when he shoots unless Trayvon let him up.

Far too many questions for Zimmerman to not be kept for the 48 hours they are allowed to hold someone while they investigated the case. They questioned him and let him go. Perhaps they answered all this and never released it. But then you have Zimmerman not being tox screened and them sending a narcotics detective instead of a homicide detective to do the investigation (according to http://abcnews.go.com/US/neighborhood-watch-killing-911-tape-reveals-racial-slur/story?id=15966309).

I'm not saying crucify Zimmerman or that he needs to have a bounty on his head. But the questions and no answers or address to them is not a positive sign that this crime was investigated properly. And since it has been weeks after the fact when the federal investigators were brought in, the chance of determining it given the iffy police work up front is going to be a lot less possible. That still does not mean Zimmerman's accounting is accurate until they exhausted possibilities. Not just go with what seems most apparent. If Zimmerman were fabricating, he'd pick the best explanation given the scene if he had planned or taken anytime at all to make something up. Plus his recollection of events are going to be driven out his natural bias in the situation, any person's view point would be.

Also in a gated community with a rash of breakins, I would think there would be some home security and other security cameras installed to try to curtail it. Especially on the "clubhouse" Zimmerman references in his 911 call.

Getting hung up on particulars is what the legal system is for. People all over the world expressing interest in this are losing site of the main point: Zimmerman shot an unarmed seventeen-year-old in his own neighborhood. The confrontation was a result of an unofficial neighborhood watch volunteer doing everything that a neighborhood watch volunteer should never do.

He should have been arrested, no question.

Oh, there was one eyewitness? Great, release the suspect pending trial and let the witness take the stand at the appropriate time. The actions of the police in sending a narcotics detective to a homicide scene, and their statement that Zimmerman (who had been arrested for assaulting a police officer previously) had a "squeaky clean record", are reason enough for officials to have listened to the pleas of the family to arrest the suspect.

Are you always this nervous when you're trafficking narcotics?

I thought I'd chime in too. Great work on the sift lucky, I hardly recognize it from nigh six years ago when I found it, then months later I made an actual account to get slightly involved. But, mostly I joined so that I could support VideoSift as it was a unique site and something I visited daily; I basically stopped going to youtube and various other video sites because the sift, voted on, and decided what were the videos to be seen. This process is still working great and helps us sort out the mediocre on the Internet and allow people that visit to find the best of the best in videos.

You of course lucky have made great strides in the interface and inner workings of the sift since those early days. Now, whether I use the sift on my PC, my cell, or my iPad--it works seamlessly and well. If it happens to be your birthday, then happy birthday as well!!!

To VideoSift and its future success and to @lucky760 !

P.S.- I don't know if you're responsible for setting it up or helping, but the "Dark" mode (which of course changes the background to black and makes it in general easier to see in different conditions) is an option that was created that I use all the time and if you created it, I want you to know how much I appreciate it--and I appreciate it in a way that you may not even suspect! I suffer from debilitating migraines that at one time were only present a few time in a week (easy enough to handle). Along with this I also have Cluster headaches (at that time I had them maybe once a month), which are...essentially extremely bad headaches (if anyone reading is interested, when they start they fire of in the brain and give the same indications that a seizure would give--neuroscientists literally have no idea what causes them), the Clusters can play games with your nervous system causing odd symptoms, like uncontrolled tearing of the eyes usually accompanied by a runny nose or up to the extreme of losing all the feeling on the left side of your body (I've seen both and many other things in between)--the Cluster headache is strong enough that it's even difficult to think while it's fully active, sometimes time is the only cure--narcotics tend to be like a drop of water in a well, they do nothing (the best relief comes from high-flow oxygen at around 12-14 LPM O₂). I ended up getting the Swine Flu (or Influenza Type A) back in 2006. It unfortunately got to my nervous system and beyond the other damage that it did that i now have problems with, it changed the nature of the headaches. The migraines became daily, sometimes they are unrelenting--they never leave, for days. Worse of all the Clusters became much more prevalent hitting twice a week on average.

Then VideoSift changed their setup, allowing for a "darkroom" environment. The headaches and their intensity are related by light in a room; for example if I want to help myself out going to a dark room with some cool air helps the most. To tell you the truth a small change, like the one VideoSift made, and it may not have been completely all your doing, but either way I wanted you to know this IN DETAIL so that when I thank you it means just that much more! So now you know just how much a small change to the environment and viewing area has had a profound change on me and my web-surfing experience. I can view VideoSift much easier now, as the previous pure white scheme literally hurt to look at. If you've ever wondered if the smaller features are worth it, this is a testimonial that explains why it is. So, once again @lucky760 thanks for everything you have done here at VideoSift and continue to do!

//I know that was a bit long and involved, but I hope it makes you realize how appreciated you are here!

As Schedule 1, cannabis cannot be even considered for clinical trials. The government refuses to allow the medical field to even question its pros and cons. No wonder the California Medical Association is calling for legalizaiton.

>> ^Xaielao:

Indeed, gotta keep up the back door slavery.. er the prison populations. And of course the more poor they can keep from voting by pumping out the felonies for possession, the better.
Pot as a schedule 1 narcotic is the biggest slice of bullshit pie I've ever been spoonfed.

Indeed, gotta keep up the back door slavery.. er the prison populations. And of course the more poor they can keep from voting by pumping out the felonies for possession, the better.

Pot as a schedule 1 narcotic is the biggest slice of bullshit pie I've ever been spoonfed.

http://www.wpxi.com/news/28755358/detail.html

Some STELLAR reporting on JWH consumption (allegedly)..

"
Narcotics agents said the substance [Spice] has been linked to deaths across the country and it's just beginning to be sold in large amounts in Western Pennsylvania.
The Rices said their son smoked the substance out of a Pez dispenser.
"You can smell the chemical in it but it's a potpourri that these kids are smoking. It's crazy. I'm sure the Spice had a lot to do with it, but he also inhaled a lot of plastic," Ray Rice said.

"

Devil, details;;

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

Second, Ron Paul disagrees with the Tea Party on many more issues than you note, and many issues you would SUPPORT. Drugs and the lack of "war" on them, war itself, debt (Yes, he disagrees on debt. The Tea Party says we should destroy Medicade and medicare, and social security, Ron Paul says that is not possible 'right now' but he would privatize it to only those who wish it. See if the Tea Party agrees with him..."
Let'see, as you said, gay marriage...that's four huge issues right there...habeas corpus... another huge one that Bush disregarded; that the Tea Party would like to see fucked..sorry for the language... five...abortion...let the states handle it (I.e., legalize it for most states...) six...what else?
Besides these SIX HUGE ISSUES, I DON'T know...

Ahh, but here's where the rubber meets the road -- I don't really believe him about most of those.

Would Paul actually try to lead an effort to legalize gay marriage? An effort that would almost certainly divide the Republican party, or possibly even unite them against him?

I don't really believe Paul on Social Security and Medicare. Here's why.

I'm not sure what you mean by Paul "disagreeing" on debt. Paul was against raising the debt ceiling, and even sent out whip e-mail to ask people to call their congressman to tell them to vote against the deal that passed.

I don't believe him on abortion, and in any case "let the states handle it" is not my position, nor is it current law. It should be safe and legal everywhere, and supposedly that's how it is today.

I suppose I could see him relaxing enforcement of drug laws, so I'll grant you that. Thing is, I don't know how well he'd do in persuading congress to actually change the drug laws, or change popular opinion on legalizing serious narcotics like heroin.

Here's the thing though, my big three issues going into 2008 were the wars (and associated civil rights issues), health care, and the environment. Paul was with me on one, and radically against me on the other two.

If I had to pick my three core issues this time, I mostly want to see more stimulus, see the Bush tax cuts expire, and a passionate defense of union rights. Paul is vehemently opposed to all of those.

The long and the short of it is, there's nothing that I think Paul could deliver that would be worth all the damage he'd definitely inflict to countless things that I care about.

I'd rather vote for some random Green or Socialist candidate than vote for Paul. But moreover, I'd rather put what little weight I have behind Obama, because it's basically going to be him, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, or Mitt Romney who's gonna be President.

Now, if we had instant runoff voting, I could easily be persuaded to put a Green as my first choice...

there are other, non narcotic, ways to alleviate pain in the chronically ill. unfortunately, minarchists dont think health care is a right, the prescription drug industry doesn't want alternatives to dope accepted as legitimate practice, and i can't afford to work for free all day.