Pffft... 2$/Gallon Gasoline? If I'M elected The streets will be paved with gold.
By the way, here in Portugal gasoline is 6euros/Gallon (around 1,59 euros per litre)

Agreed. Culture adapts more quickly than evolution.

Now the deserts are paved and irrigated, and little boxes made of ticky-tacky dot the hillside. All with AC and all just the same. Culture can adapt again.

>> ^dag:

I think it could be that STDs have evolved quicker than us. Therefore we use culture as a way to beat their faster microbial evolution. The same goes for dietary laws. There were probably pretty good reasons for not eating shellfish, if you lived in the desert without refrigeration. >> ^notarobot:
I've never understood the argument that a normal body part, found on pretty much every mammal species on earth, evolved over millions and millions of years is flawed.

There's a strong possibility that these candidates are using the extremist political groups and their eye-twitching issues to simply build their own personal brand. The way has been paved by Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who are always on the cusp of a serious campaign, but never really take a serious run. See: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/newt-gingrich-win-make-money/story?id=13840722

Self-driving cars designed by Google will soon be a reality on the roads of Nevada.

State legislators have passed a bill that requires the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to draw up rules for driver-less vehicles.

Assembly Bill No 511 paves the way for Google's automated Toyota Priuses and Audi TT to be operated legally in the Silver State.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I'm terribly late to the party, but I can't resist commenting here. This is a wonderful post with loads of great ideas and comments. I'll go bullet style like all the cool kids are doing.

* Taxation of individuals, and more to the point enforcement of individual tax laws, comes down to prioritization. Morally, it may feel better to want the IRS to tackle the super rich, but financially, it is in fact more beneficial to audit those less capable of evasion. If the IRS can spend $5k to get $10k from several individuals, that is fiscally more useful than spending millions going after one individual that can indefinitely avoid settling up. Corporations, on the other hand, are another matter entirely. Corporations are given the rights of citizens, like free speech, due process, etc., but are not expected to fulfill the same obligations in terms of taxes, being honest with law enforcement, being eligible for military service, voting, etc. That's a whole other can of worms opened up by the SCOTUS back in the 1800s. The answer lies in removing the citizen like rights of corporations, but that's not going to happen in our lifetimes.

* Welfare serves the dual purpose of helping those who have been screwed over by circumstance and those who have been screwed over by the system. It is something that the vast majority of right wingers will claim is better served by private charities, which are invariably faith based. Even AA is a religious organization. And every person that subscribes to a faith of one sort or another will tell you that nearly all charities are faith based. You know why? Because its virtually impossible to get non-profit status and wide recognition for an organization unless it is faith based. That historical/cultural bias is reason enough for me to justify a secular/communal charity system.

* Conventional nuclear power is great, assuming it is done safely. That's the problem, though - is it economically viable to maintain conventional nuclear power plants safely? None of the arguments I've seen on either side of the issue really deal with that aspect. It basically comes down to a matter of risk management, which TEPCO clearly failed at. Implementing conventional nuclear power safely requires a really absurd amount capital, but it may be economically smart at a large enough scale. Figuring out the economics of safe nuclear power is way above my pay grade. Ultimately, I believe it is something humans are quite capable of doing, but is there enough political will to do it properly?

* Free markets are awesome! Don't confuse free markets with capitalist bullying, though. A free market assumes that everyone in the market has the same information as everyone else. That's the only way it can actually be free. As soon as one party manipulates the information available to others, the market is no longer free. That applies to everything from snake oil remedies to irresponsible mortgages. A free market doesn't mean a market free of regulation, it means one in which everyone has equal access to the marketplace, producers and consumers alike.

* Small government, or even no government, is ideal because ideally everyone thinks like you do, and has exactly the same minimal requirements that you have. In the real world, the needs of individuals in very large social groups are immensely varied. You may live your whole life without ever needing the services of a fire department. You may not ever need to protect yourself from a psychopathic killer. Hell, you may run your own website from your home and never do more than walk your kids along a deer path to a private school near you. But you are a part of a society. Your kids' teacher may live 50 miles away and need to travel along paved roads to get to that wonderful school. The web of internetworked computers upon which your income relies was first conceived by people working at public institutions. The smallpox vaccination you got as a kid was developed by a tax funded group of doctors. The nuclear power that you want to support would never have been possible without vast amounts of federal funding. Bureaucratic and corruption waste is not unique to government, and any properly organized system can minimize waste. It's not the idea of government, but its implementation that makes it wasteful. Corporations are no more immune to that waste than any other collective. It's true that waste is easier to identify and possibly eliminate in smaller systems, but very large organizational systems are required for big results like space travel, vaccinations, and imperial domination.

* Do not confuse religion with spirituality. Religion is about dogma and social control. Spirituality is about one's connection with the universe. If your neighbor believes in a grey bearded man in the sky that created everything 6000 years ago, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with his desire to eliminate the teaching of evolution from public schools. He may use the former to justify the latter, but the two are not really connected. If someone comes to your door offering a deeper connection with the universe around you through Jesus, you can listen politely, tell them that you are already plugged in, or whatever. If someone comes to your door to tell you that you and your family need to behave in a certain way, you can tell them to fuck off with a quite clear conscience.

I don't think any of these ideas are young or old, but it does take some time to refine them into something coherent. I'm 41 and I barely know what coherent or consistent means. One last thing to remember is that you are not who you were 10 years ago, or even 10 seconds ago. Every moment fresh water flows over the fall - it might look the same, but the rocks are never touched twice. (oh - now I'm just getting pretentious)

I think I should clarify a little here.
1) The c-punching in question is here: http://videosift.com/video/The-new-Olympic-sport-Cunt-Punching

2) the "malicious" downvoting was a direct response to http://videosift.com/video/The-new-Olympic-sport-Cunt-Punching?loadcomm=1#comment-1204756 because I was annoyed that you votewhored so explicitly solely because it was a controversial video getting many views. It was not really fair to do it, so I'm sorry for that one.

3) The escalating talk against anyone who said they didn't like the C punch was nothing of the kind - it was escalating talk against the people who had nothing against the video. "All you people who like this video are bad people blah blah" I don't like people downvoting my videos, but that is their prerogative. I don't say they're bad people because of it.

I think it's interesting that you get all up in arms on behalf of the site. That seems like an excuse to remove things you don't like. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Oh the terror in having a boob on the front page. It's NSFW, it's hidden for people not logged in. We have had a legitimate video on the front page that was a straight up vagina shot (http://videosift.com/video/The-ins-and-outs-of-a-Vagina). Now, I'll certainly agree that, that thumbnail was a bit too much - like I said in the comments, if I could have changed the thumbnail at the time, I would have.

In any case, the sift is business as usual, so if something's crossed the line for you, maybe you've just moved the line. Anyways, I'm not gonna dig any deeper into this particular grave. I hope you get over it and come back reinvigorated to improving the sift one video at a time. You're a good sifter and you're good to have around here.

>> ^bareboards2:

What prompted this post wasn't the C punch, or the malicious downvoting of a vid of mine, or the escalating snarky talk against anyone who said they didn't like the C punch...
It was the promoting and qualitying of a vid with a naked woman, seated on a chair, head obscured. A bewb shot. On the front page. For the million plus visitors per month, or whatever we are at to see first.
I don't care about bewb shots. I have a pair.
It was the conscious decision to troll the whole site that I found offensive. It was meant to be demeaning. I felt demeaned. And it was meant to punish the site. And I'm sure it has cost the site.
Look, I have been here for years. I see sexist stuff ALL THE TIME that makes me cringe. I say nothing, because there is nothing to be said. It just ... is.
But something has happened in the past two days that crossed a line for me.
I'm still trying to figure out what it is. I just know something isn't okay.

>> ^bcglorf:

I have troubles cheering a guy who declares the better solution was never go at all. Gadhafi would currently be finishing off the genocide he promised to commit against the opposition if that advice were taken. I have issues with anyone calling that 'better'. Doubly so when the reason it is better is because stopping that genocide created more anti-western Arab sentiments than allowing it would have.

The road to hell is oft paved with good intention.
-Saint Bernard of Clairvaux,Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Søren Kierkegaard, and Karl Marx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with_good_intentions

I think that the more important question here is why Libya? Why not Bahrain? Why not Yemen? Why not Syria? Why not any other number of countries where there is revolution?

The problem with becoming involved in Libya is that the risk of Blowback is much more dangerous than actually helping. Which is what the gentleman, former CIA analyst, is saying.

No, the better choice would be to stop all of the mass killings that are taking place everywhere, but that is unrealistic; meaning not the better choice. Indeed, the better choice is to leave well enough alone.

I think I see what you mean: It's hard to compare Mercalli readings from different places due to the differences in structural integrity, population density, etc. ie: a mercalli intensity of VI in one place could be read as II for an earthquake of the same magnitude in a less populated area.

Similarly, an earthquake with magnitude 7 may not even cause any damage (though unlikely in a populated area).



>> ^DerHasisttot:

I mean: The Scales are almost meaningless at the point when human beings are in danger: The released energy denoted in the antiquated Richter scale can have immensely different effects from place to place. The Mercalli-scale measures damages at one specific point, if referred to in the media. (And the media often forgest to say which scale is being used.)
For example, the Christchurch earthquakes: The first earthquake had the same amount of points as the catastrophic Haiti earthquake, and was compared by the NZ media, which enraged me at the time: The quake's proximity to densely populated areas, the geology, ground water-levels and building-density+height were not taken into account. Additionally, for example, paved roads, gas-lines and other infrasctructure weigh immensely on the aid-efforts and damages.
To give accurate information using the Mercalli-scale, the media would have to tell the exact place and radius of the referred number. If they tell the Richter scale, it's only relevant for seismologists and scientists, the actual damages and consequences vary too much.

I mean: The Scales are almost meaningless at the point when human beings are in danger: The released energy denoted in the antiquated Richter scale can have immensely different effects from place to place. The Mercalli-scale measures damages at one specific point, if referred to in the media. (And the media often forgest to say which scale is being used.)

For example, the Christchurch earthquakes: The first earthquake had the same amount of points as the catastrophic Haiti earthquake, and was compared by the NZ media, which enraged me at the time: The quake's proximity to densely populated areas, the geology, ground water-levels and building-density+height were not taken into account. Additionally, for example, paved roads, gas-lines and other infrasctructure weigh immensely on the aid-efforts and damages.

To give accurate information using the Mercalli-scale, the media would have to tell the exact place and radius of the referred number. If they tell the Richter scale, it's only relevant for seismologists and scientists, the actual damages and consequences vary too much.

>> ^residue:

what do you mean by "soil, humidity and other factors outweigh the scale accuracy?" the richter scale is just the quantitative product of readings from seismometers. mercalli scale records qualitative damage from structures
>> ^DerHasisttot:
My news-sources say 8.8, previously 8.9. Although the (I guess) mercalli-scale is not sooo good either. In the end, soil, humidity and other geological factors outweigh the accuracy of such a scale any day. AS seen here vis-vis tsunami. But if you give me a source i'll change it of course.

Well my question to this is, is the bandwidth actually as advertised at all hours of the day and do they guarantee it will be available at that rate at all times in the future under the terms of the agreement?

For instance, Time Warner in my area was consistently fast at all hours of the day when I first got it....much better than the DSL I had prior. And it slowly got a little slower...a few more outages a year...more "massive outages"... plus other problems unrelated to speed like them cutting off my net connection because they can't read a street address properly so they killed my net access when they installed my neighbors "business class"...that took me 2 days of calling to straighten out and total of 5 days to fix.

So the conclusion I can draw there is, his business class plus the other subscribers signing up in my loop drastically affected my bandwidth. Yet they claim higher bandwidth offerings with "Roadrunner Boost"...and I've got that...it's almost as fast as my connection was back when I first got it maybe a little better late at night.

So their claim of higher speeds is technically true, only because they've gotten slower. And the minimum speed they offer is pretty appalling although I don't remember it off the top of my head...I think it was like 125 or 250 kbps down.

Killing off non-digital television was supposed to give more bandwidth on the line for better internet speeds and better digital programming, except you have to pay for both...and the internet speeds aren't guaranteed until you step into business class. And for them to guarantee those speeds on a loop they would have to throttle residential users on the same loop.


I am not aware of DSL being improved upon. I know they offer the Fios and what not offerings through some of the phone companies, but they are not offering in this area. And you have to research them to see if they have hidden download caps or other nasty little things in the works to stick on their network to create artificial speed bumps to their own offerings.

Beyond that you'll have to direct to me to the information you speak of.

As for cell phones, I don't use data plans on them, but my parents have a property that has cell towers located on them...and I've been able to catch a couple of the guys and ask them some questions. Even without asking them...there's a screwed up little story related to these towers.

About 10 years back they got hot and heavy about putting in towers, for 3-5 years they were renting lots of land off people and installing these towers. My dad did some work for them paving the roadways, got to know one of the head guys in charge of the project. And while my information is not going to be perfect I know a few things affected their installation and their coverage.

Many of the cities and burbs wouldn't allow them to install towers that would be consider eyesores, in some cases they decorated the towers or put something on them to mask them being a tower...maybe the city name or some kind of design. Many of the "perfect" spots for towers people would not rent the land, so they had to pick imperfect places as close as they could get. So this led to problems with the coverage areas and causes some towers to bear more burden than they should, which Im taking a stab here and saying this really affects big cities network speeds. Within the last 3 years they upgraded the tower on my parents property by installing fiber landlines to the towers, presumably to speed up their network and alleviate some of the congestion.....however....the tower on the property has 2 "boxes" (equipment rooms with racks of network gear and the like) it feeds signals into...and I believe each ring or triangle of receivers transmitters is another cell phone companies signal range...so it services at least 3 networks. Meaning all 3 of those networks shares that one fiber line they installed to the tower unless they have multiple lines in the cable to be split, not very familiar with fiber cable.

Now the weird thing here is...Verizon did the majority of the tower installs I'm familiar with..as soon as they finished all of the towers were taken over by a company called "American Tower". They service the towers, you call them when you see a problem... I called them once about their air conditioner unit running all the time (it has 2 and one was running morning noon and night every time I got close enough to hear it). Two or three months later I thought I'd check to see if they fixed it, I could hear it running as I approached it...and when I got to where I could see it..it was frozen solid. This was in the Fall a year or two back, like 50 degrees or so outside with Winter coming. So they obviously don't pay very close attention to their equipment. AC failing in the summer means their shit cooks, and engineer said stuff in there is easily 100 grand worth of equipment.

So what I gather is, Verizon sold the towers, and rents from them....and now the other carriers rent from them. American Tower is in charge of maintaining the property and the building, but probably not the equipment since I see the various company engineers show up from time to time. They also provide power generators, there's a diesel powered unit that sits near these buildings and turns on from time to time.

I was also told the height of a tower limits it's usefulness. The tall towers can host more companies various signals versus the short towers. So For some reason they put in a bunch of short towers but they have limited utility and are just as ugly as the tall ones...so I dunno why in the hell they did that.


But for them to offer less congestion and higher speeds in high population areas they need more towers so they can break the area up in smaller coverage areas to limit the number of devices hitting any one tower. I have not see them put in a new tower since American Tower took over. I have seen them remove tower locations, probably due to cost of operation/replacement being high due to people hitting them with vehicles or breaking in.

In my opinion, cell phone pricing is a little better than it was but I am not happy with how Verizon handles their plans. For instance, if you want just a voice plan..no data no text. Your phone selection is terrible, I mean basic basic phones...most generally being flip phones with poor external screens and OK internal screens. If you want a better phone, you have to buy a text or data plan. Because if you buy specific types of phones, Verizon assumes you will be using that phone for what they specify that phone is. Take the EnV line of phones, I hate texting, but I like having the keyboard for typing in contacts and just general moderate to heavy usage it's easier to use than a flip phone keying in alternative. If I wanted that phone, I need a texting plan. If you get into smart phones you need a data plan...you can't activate one on your account without the plan. I don't know if the phones need the data plan to even function or not, but texting phones don't need texting plans to function...that's Verizon's plan offerings to maximize their earnings.

And texting in general is cheaper to the phone company than any voice call will ever be. Except texting is almost universally in ADDITION to voice packages....yet texting costs them very little in transfer costs compared to transmitting voice.

I hope some company out there is actually trying to implement new technologies and improve transfer speeds and push down prices. But if they are, they are taking their sweet time doing so...because if it was a big push...the other companies would have to react to that. Right now the only thing I see them all doing is trying to push through contract changes, shutting down government implement ISPs, and influencing laws that help keep us in the stone age.


>> ^deathcow:

> Everything except their networks seems to increase in size and capability, which is an odd thing.
All the ISP's I'm aware of have RADICALLY increased bandwidth and package offerings. It's called survival.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Though we disagree about the worth and viability of socialism, I admire your commitment to your principles.

The conservative who opposes change is just as vital to the republic as the liberal, especially because 99 "new" ideas out of 100 fail.

And I meant what I wrote about Gitmo: if torture has no value, why bother capturing and warehousing these jihadists?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
No excuses or apologies here. He promised to shut Guantanamo down, end the war in Iraq and give us universal health care, and none of those things have happened. The criticism is fair.
I'm disappointed in Obama and the democratic congress. I expected much more from them. The most depressing aspect of my problem with Obama is that he was the best option in 2008, and will almost certainly be the best option in 2012. If I vote for him again, I risk sending a message that I condone the continuing corporatization of the democratic party and allow it to further shift to the right in its futile attempt to triangulate. If I vote against him, I pave the way for a government that is even worse. If I don't vote at all, no one will notice or care.
I think we, the people, (as Chris Hedges says) need to revitalize the radical left, to put social justice back at the top of the priority list. The radical left is our moral compass. Most of the positive change that has taken place in this country started with the people, whether they were unionists, suffragettes or civil rights activists. Only after reaching critical mass did the politicians take action. We need to build a movement.



If you keep talking there will be doom. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!

Though we disagree about the worth and viability of socialism, I admire your commitment to your principles.


The conservative who opposes change is just as vital to the republic as the liberal, especially because 99 "new" ideas out of 100 fail.


And I meant what I wrote about Gitmo: if torture has no value, why bother capturing and warehousing these jihadists?



>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

No excuses or apologies here. He promised to shut Guantanamo down, end the war in Iraq and give us universal health care, and none of those things have happened. The criticism is fair.
I'm disappointed in Obama and the democratic congress. I expected much more from them. The most depressing aspect of my problem with Obama is that he was the best option in 2008, and will almost certainly be the best option in 2012. If I vote for him again, I risk sending a message that I condone the continuing corporatization of the democratic party and allow it to further shift to the right in its futile attempt to triangulate. If I vote against him, I pave the way for a government that is even worse. If I don't vote at all, no one will notice or care.
I think we, the people, (as Chris Hedges says) need to revitalize the radical left, to put social justice back at the top of the priority list. The radical left is our moral compass. Most of the positive change that has taken place in this country started with the people, whether they were unionists, suffragettes or civil rights activists. Only after reaching critical mass did the politicians take action. We need to build a movement.

No excuses or apologies here. He promised to shut Guantanamo down, end the war in Iraq and give us universal health care, and none of those things have happened. The criticism is fair.

I'm disappointed in Obama and the democratic congress. I expected much more from them. The most depressing aspect of my problem with Obama is that he was the best option in 2008, and will almost certainly be the best option in 2012. If I vote for him again, I risk sending a message that I condone the continuing corporatization of the democratic party and allow it to further shift to the right in its futile attempt to triangulate. If I vote against him, I pave the way for a government that is even worse. If I don't vote at all, no one will notice or care.

I think we, the people, (as Chris Hedges says) need to revitalize the radical left, to put social justice back at the top of the priority list. The radical left is our moral compass. Most of the positive change that has taken place in this country started with the people, whether they were unionists, suffragettes or civil rights activists. Only after reaching critical mass did the politicians take action. We need to build a movement.

they actually managed to dig down to the paved road...
but wait until that wall of snow collapses