"[Snowden] is seeking refuge in countries with abysmal human rights records"

... - and that should tell you all you really need to know.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Le-Grand-Journal-de-Canal-a-Cannes-coups-de-feu

I still didn't hear any shots on a second viewing, but did see the courageous Michel Denisot take refuge under the table.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/autistic-man-left-toothless-dentist-pulls-teeth-article-1.1312501

This dentist know he's fucked-When the press came for a statement he called the cops from the refuge of his strip-center office on Route 3 near the pig farm-

Look people, your bullshit-dentist radar should have gone up when you saw the name of the place: Amazing Family Dental clinic...WTF, Illinois??!

Did this idiot see the chart and mistake the extractions for good teeth???...I think so! I'd have the fucker's practice.

They did once suggest a crackdown, but backed away from it.

It's facebook that requires it, G+ is the refuge for the pseudonymous

How can we have a substantive conversation if you're not willing to put in any effort to actually understand the subject matter, either for or against? If you're content with your blind faith in whatever scientists tell you, then you're just as dogmatic as you accuse me of being. The video I provided is very good and it chronicles the history of deep time, as well as the science behind it, in exacting detail using the methodology of geologists. You could watch 10 minutes of it, and if you decided you didn't like it, you could turn it off.

As far as the paradigm shift goes, here is a quote from the father of uniformitarianism, Charles Lyell:

I am sure you may get into Q.R. [Quarterly Review] what will free the science from Moses, for if treated seriously, the [church] party are quite prepared for it. A bishop, Buckland ascertained (we suppose [Bishop] Sumner), gave Ure a dressing in the British Critic and Theological Review. They see at last the mischief and scandal brought on them by Mosaic systems … . Probably there was a beginning—it is a metaphysical question, worthy of a theologian—probably there will be an end. Species, as you say, have begun and ended—but the analogy is faint and distant. Perhaps it is an analogy, but all I say is, there are, as Hutton said, ‘no signs of a beginning, no prospect of an end’ … . All I ask is, that at any given period of the past, don’t stop inquiry when puzzled by refuge to a ‘beginning,’ which is all one with ‘another state of nature,’ as it appears to me. But there is no harm in your attacking me, provided you point out that it is the proof I deny, not the probability of a beginning … . I was afraid to point the moral, as much as you can do in the Q.R. about Moses. Perhaps I should have been tenderer about the Koran. Don’t meddle much with that, if at all.

If we don’t irritate, which I fear that we may (though mere history), we shall carry all with us. If you don’t triumph over them, but compliment the liberality and candour of the present age, the bishops and enlightened saints will join us in despising both the ancient and modern physico-theologians. It is just the time to strike, so rejoice that, sinner as you are, the Q.R. is open to you.

P.S. … I conceived the idea five or six years ago [1824–25], that if ever the Mosaic geology could be set down without giving offence, it would be in an historical sketch, and you must abstract mine, in order to have as little to say as possible yourself. Let them feel it, and point the moral.”

As you can plainly see, Charles was scheming to deceive the church into accepting his uniformitarian theories even though he knew they contradicted scripture. He wasn't interested in a scientific investigation of the facts:

From a lecture in King’s College London in 1832

I have always been strongly impressed with the weight of an observation of an excellent writer and skillful geologist who said that ‘for the sake of revelation as well as of science—of truth in every form—the physical part of Geological inquiry ought to be conducted as if the Scriptures were not in existence

He had an agenda and his bias is plain to see. He completely excluded the testimony of scripture apriori before he even began. That is the beginning of why there was a shift in geology as the intelligentsia embraced his theories and began to teach it at Universities. There was no spectacular confirmation of any of this; in fact the evidence he gave about Niagra Falls to supprt his theory has been completely falsified.

Haha, I actually tried that for a little while because yeah, it bothered me how insincere the whole thing can be and I hate doing that whole dance. Thing is if you unload fully on your partner then it puts them in an awkward postion because they feel they have to reciprocate your full disclosure when perhaps they don't trust you sufficiently. At least thats the way I see it (and its why I stopped being a dick to people who were just trying to be polite )

The worst small talk? 1st year of university. You meet a lot of new people which I was mostly fine with. What bothered me endlessly was the same few questions. Where are you from. What course are you on etc etc. Maybe its selfish of me, but first I got bored of asking them and then I got bored of answering. Eventually I started asking people what their favorite flavour of icecream was (lemon sorbet btw) just to, you know, break routine. I guess you might call it an ice(cream)breaker and tbh, it worked quite well. Oh, and if somebody answers vanilla then you need to keep that person close. They are the best kinds of people (and there aren't very many vanillas). Maybe I don't really have a problem with small talk, I just have a problem with boring small talk

Interesting to note that "How do you do?" is traditionally reciprocated with another "How do you do?". I mean, its seems totally absurd, its almost like the question is rhetorical - it certainly doesn't expect an answer. Its just a polite courtesy and to do anything but show the same courtesy back would be considered rude - how self absorbed of you to actually answer! The conversation might evem bloom into discourse on the state of the weather (the last refuge of the unimaginative .

Oh, and it kind of is stupid though SveNitoR. Don't worry, I don't consider myself stupid or somehow broken in this regard, but I really can't see how anxiety serves any purpose. Obsessing over the tiny details of a conversation only serves to make me look stiff and robotic, like some sort of psychopath trying to remember how to smile with their eyes. I've heard theories that the reason alcohol is so embedded in our society is because on some level we actually sort of need it to overcome this inhibition. Unfortunately I don't drink, although I have found a sort of vicarious empathy - I inherit the same hibition if I am with people who are a bit buzzed, just none of the memory loss (a blessing ang a curse). Anyway, thats quite tangental. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm quite comfortable being an introvert and while anxiety certainly bothers me and stresses me out more than I'd like I don't let it paralyse me.

Ok, I'll start with a few things that most people would probably agree with, but the police force currently would fight like hell to avoid. How about we decide to actually punish cops who break existing rules and laws. Use testing to weed out unbalanced power hungry or corrupt types from becoming cops. QUIT hiring COMBAT veterans to become PEACE officers. I'm sure there are many things that could be done to fix the problem with the police, its just that it's not being done because the police think the only problem is that we, the lowly people, dont always follow ALL commands,and sometimes we need to be put in our place. >> ^shveddy:
False dichotomy, among other things. There are innumerable intermediate steps between "allowing them to do whatever they want to you" and "shooting the motherfuckers." I'll admit that there is a point where armed resistance is warranted, but if you think that we have arrived anywhere near that point with enough frequency to warrant armed resistance, then you are crazy.
Yes, there are plenty of instances of people's rights being violated - but in 99.99% of those occasions, I think the problem can best be solved through other means.
Do I think that the students who got peppersprayed at UC Davis had their rights violated?
Yes, I do. But this guy seems to suggest that the proper response is for the students to pull guns and start a shoot-out. Let's imagine what that would look like for a second:
One of the students peers through the caustic mist with righteous fury and a wet t-shirt over his mouth. He can feel the comforting weight of his Barretta, held close to his heart in a chest holster, and he knows that this is the moment to act. He stands up tall despite the onslaught of bright orange asphyxiation, reaches for his piece and takes aim. Somewhat startled, the officer is suddenly defenseless with his canister and it is not long before he crumples to the ground in an ever expanding pool of blood. He basks in a brief moment of clarity before chaos reigns. His fellow students are quick to bear arms themselves, but the training, body armor and poise of the officers allows them a significant head start and the students suffer heavy casualties in this initial volley.
Not to be deterred by the deaths of their friends, the occupy movement takes up refuge in the life sciences building which, designed in the late sixties with a brutalist aesthetic, is mostly concrete and as such is a perfect fortress from which to outlast the ensuing siege and inspire innumerable citizens on the outside world to take up arms as well. Guerrilla warfare is the only tactic effective in such asymmetrical circumstances, and after a few weeks of violence the powers that be succumb to international pressure and agree to negotiate with the 99%...
...or we could launch an official investigation, fire the guy as a scapegoat after an admittedly long, expensive and cumbersome process, and let the public outrage that ensued lead to a more cautious approach to future student protests. Bloggers and editorialists collectively write millions of words on the subject, increasing awareness and generally shaming the agency that allowed it to happen.
Not perfect, but a whole hell of a lot more civilized.
Any time you use guns against a government entity in he US, you will eventually be caught and put in jail. Period. The only way to avoid this is to be a small part of a large popular movement that eventually overthrows the US government, and I don't see that ever happening with citizen gun-owners unless it involves guerrilla tactics. Imagine gunfights erupting at your local municipal buildings. Imagine pipe bombs at your local police station. People need to realize that this is what they are advocating when they argue for second amendment rights as a fourth check and balance.
If you disagree with that statement, feel free to fill in a reasonable sequence of events to span the gap between "guy whose fourth amendment rights are violated guns down cop" and "said guy is vindicated, and massive changes are made to our law enforcement policies." I suspect that we are far more likely to see a greater militarization of the police in response.
I humbly propose that we join the civilized world and come up with more creative ways to correct our problems.

False dichotomy, among other things. There are innumerable intermediate steps between "allowing them to do whatever they want to you" and "shooting the motherfuckers." I'll admit that there is a point where armed resistance is warranted, but if you think that we have arrived anywhere near that point with enough frequency to warrant armed resistance, then you are crazy.

Yes, there are plenty of instances of people's rights being violated - but in 99.99% of those occasions, I think the problem can best be solved through other means.

Do I think that the students who got peppersprayed at UC Davis had their rights violated?

Yes, I do. But this guy seems to suggest that the proper response is for the students to pull guns and start a shoot-out. Let's imagine what that would look like for a second:

One of the students peers through the caustic mist with righteous fury and a wet t-shirt over his mouth. He can feel the comforting weight of his Barretta, held close to his heart in a chest holster, and he knows that this is the moment to act. He stands up tall despite the onslaught of bright orange asphyxiation, reaches for his piece and takes aim. Somewhat startled, the officer is suddenly defenseless with his canister and it is not long before he crumples to the ground in an ever expanding pool of blood. He basks in a brief moment of clarity before chaos reigns. His fellow students are quick to bear arms themselves, but the training, body armor and poise of the officers allows them a significant head start and the students suffer heavy casualties in this initial volley.

Not to be deterred by the deaths of their friends, the occupy movement takes up refuge in the life sciences building which, designed in the late sixties with a brutalist aesthetic, is mostly concrete and as such is a perfect fortress from which to outlast the ensuing siege and inspire innumerable citizens on the outside world to take up arms as well. Guerrilla warfare is the only tactic effective in such asymmetrical circumstances, and after a few weeks of violence the powers that be succumb to international pressure and agree to negotiate with the 99%...

...or we could launch an official investigation, fire the guy as a scapegoat after an admittedly long, expensive and cumbersome process, and let the public outrage that ensued lead to a more cautious approach to future student protests. Bloggers and editorialists collectively write millions of words on the subject, increasing awareness and generally shaming the agency that allowed it to happen.

Not perfect, but a whole hell of a lot more civilized.

Any time you use guns against a government entity in he US, you will eventually be caught and put in jail. Period. The only way to avoid this is to be a small part of a large popular movement that eventually overthrows the US government, and I don't see that ever happening with citizen gun-owners unless it involves guerrilla tactics. Imagine gunfights erupting at your local municipal buildings. Imagine pipe bombs at your local police station. People need to realize that this is what they are advocating when they argue for second amendment rights as a fourth check and balance.

If you disagree with that statement, feel free to fill in a reasonable sequence of events to span the gap between "guy whose fourth amendment rights are violated guns down cop" and "said guy is vindicated, and massive changes are made to our law enforcement policies." I suspect that we are far more likely to see a greater militarization of the police in response.

I humbly propose that we join the civilized world and come up with more creative ways to correct our problems.

Big damn bear. I've had black bear come out on the road behind me when walking from McCarthy to Kennicott or back. Took refuge in (someones!) parked car once.

I'm sure a similar laundry list of accomplishments far and wide could be made about any president. America will be feeling the positive effects of the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act and proposal for a new refuge for wild mustangs for years to come.

Mind you, this the best Obama can do with 90% of the media unjournalists taking his side, never vetting him, never asking hard questions or questioning policy...

Where it counts, this President doesn't cut it. And why is there still no budget? It can't be because of the Republican minority in Congress.

Hey, I could be wrong, and the mob will decide in November that government dependency and not working are now more rewarding than the opposite.


As for why the current problems persist:

"The endless proliferation of anti-business interventions by government, and the sight of more of the same coming over the horizon from Barack Obama's appointees in the federal bureaucracies, creates the one thing that has long stifled economic activity in countries around the world -- uncertainty about what the rules of the game are, and the unpredictability of how specifically those rules will continue to change in a hostile political environment." --T. Sowell









>> ^KnivesOut:

Yeah, what has Obama done anyway aside from put up with all this ridiculous nonsense?>> ^quantumushroom:
Don't y'all wish you could simply point to Obama's successful record instead of resorting to this?
Higher taxes and demonizing the rich (who pay the lion's share of income taxes while the bottom 50% pay nothing) haven't worked.
Massive government spending hasn't worked.
Weak, indecisive leadership in dealing with our enemies (and allies!) hasn't worked.
The only reason there aren't riots over Obamacare is the new taxes are on a delayed fuse.
Obes doesn't deserve a second term, and didn't deserve a first term (neither did McLame, but the lesser of two evils...)

>> ^hermannthegerman:

Three comments already, and I am the first to notice:
THE FLOOR IS LAVA...!


Oh my god, the lava is burning up the couch I've taken refuge on! Someone save me! Allah admiral ackbar!

If everybody can agree that the show, its essence notwithstanding, has new characters in new situations then it becomes difficult to sustain the idea of theft. I'm just glad that whatever happened we got some cool content out of it.
In reply to this comment by kymbos:
Really, short of stealing the actual gags to the letter, they've couldn't steal more than the exact concept replicated in a new Olympic city. I read comments from Clarke that they saw it as lifting the essence of The Games, and he saw it as a theft in spirit, even if he couldn't prove it in law. I tend to agree with this. And while I take your point, I really think the 'in defence of art' argument is the last refuge of the one-eyed.

Really, short of stealing the actual gags to the letter, they've couldn't steal more than the exact concept replicated in a new Olympic city. I read comments from Clarke that they saw it as lifting the essence of The Games, and he saw it as a theft in spirit, even if he couldn't prove it in law. I tend to agree with this. And while I take your point, I really think the 'in defence of art' argument is the last refuge of the one-eyed.
In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
Well, we can start with the understanding that faux-documentaries are now fairly common, and that the olympics as a huge public event is very attractive to satire. So two different shows being produced along these lines isn't completely unlikely, and once you have those two shows then there are always going to be similarities.

I don't know much about the idea that The Games was being pitched to the BBC and who from those meetings went on to produce Twenty Twelve. There is a suggestion that the makers of The Games had gone so far as to lend the writer of Twenty Twelve DVDs of their show before he went off and wrote his, which is pretty hilarious.

Regardless I think it's fair to say Twenty Twelve isn't a direct copy of The Games; it had its own tone and told its own jokes. (Whether you think those jokes are funny or not.) Stealing the general idea 'satirical mockumentary about the olympics organisers' would actually be totally legit - that happens all the time and is pretty much how art advances, by building on earlier ideas; stealing lines and situations wouldn't be, but I don't see that happening. If I were plagiarising The Games the genetically-engineered horse and 94m 100m track would have gone straight into my script, for starters.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
Ok, I've only watched one episode, but the similarities were overwhelming to me. How is it different?

I support this, though most people won't see their accomplishments. People need to go with the hype and at least it will bring most awareness to the Deep Web. 4chan is like some dork dada experiment - the deep dark web is deep, dark & stank. Complete anonymity is awesome when people are just & righteous, it unfortunately goes both ways though and there are plenty of Child Porn sites on the deep web that are fucking huge. More than likely your Republican senator or your priest at church are the gross fucks posting this shit.

I don't want Tor to be reverse engineered but I hope Anonymous can take down those sites and bring attention to Tor. You're either a political activist seeking refuge, a paranoid weirdo, buying drugs or uploading/downloading child porn. People should know.


Support anonymous, upvote this shit!

what you said at the end, that i think is the real issue. youve got a documentary crew filming bullying on a bus and yet the officials (whoever that lady was, principal i presume) are in complete denial instead of looking into it further and taking appropriate disciplinary action.



by and large children are products of whoever raises em, whoever their adult influence is. you could take virtually any "bully" look at his parents and find the root cause (most of the time anyway). i know a lot of the boys who bullied me in jr high and high school i later came to find out almost all of them had no father figure. do you really think anti bullying rules or something is gonna stop that? the problem is deeper than that, much deeper. do you think bullying stops after high school? do you think it doesnt take place at work, at college, at a park, at the movies, at anywhere?

i think overall the point im getting at is it really doesnt matter what we do or dont do, we cannot prevent bullying. it will happen, it always has and it always will, and thats not a "swept under the rug" answer to the issue, its the reality. so how can we resolve it? by changing not only our mindset as adults, but positively influencing the mindsets of our children as well.

as a side note, as far as the 24-7 thing is concerned, i was bullied at school and at home almost a full decade before the internet and looooong before myspace and facebook. i had an older sister who was such a tomboy growing up she was practically another older brother. but i mainly got picked on by my older brother who was just a year apart from me. i got shit from him and his friends at school, i got it from him and his friends when we'd play in and around our neighborhood and i got it from him at home. in a way, thats infinitely more invasive and inescapable than e-bullying. i lived with him, and for a number of years i had to share a room with him. so ya, to me, it isnt different at all. and while my testimony may be a special case, its far from being unique and youd be naive to think so.

if teen crime rates are declining and bullying is pretty much a constant, that certainly doesnt suggest bullying is becoming worse or even that its a "huge problem". all that suggests is what ive been saying; bullying isnt anything new, and it will always be with us.

maybe im not articulating myself in a compassionate way. im certainly not advocating turning a blind eye to bullies or bullying. i squash it pretty quick when it happens in class, and whenever appropriate i try to talk to the bully one on one in hopes that i may discern what the issue really is. is he picking on that kid cuz he's just a shitty kid? or is he lashing out over emotional/mental issues he's unprepared to cope with? or is he compensating for severe self esteem issues? those are the things we should be addressing to "prevent" bullying, not creating this bizarre subculture war where its us vs them.
>> ^SDGundamX:

>> ^smooman:
>> ^berticus:
what? no comment yet from someone saying how bullying "toughens you up and prepares you for the real world"? COME ON!

ok i'll start. im all for moderate measures to be taken to monitor and disrupt bullying (man, that almost became full alliteration). that being said, the bullying scandal and the myriad documentaries and specials and exposes on the subject are just redundant. as someone who works in the school system bullying really isnt any different than when i was in school, or when my parents went to school, or their parents, etc. bullying isnt anything new. calling it an epidemic is laughable and just plain absurd.
does my heart go out to individuals who have been bullied? absolutely. i myself was constantly bullied growing up (both at school and at home). now berticus, what you said is true even if you were being facetious. being bullied forced me to quickly develop social skills needed to diffuse confrontations among other things. it sharpened my wit, even as an adult. the point isnt that we need bullies to make men out of our children. the point is bullies arent anything new, and they will always be with us. react accordingly

I downvoted your comment and I just wanted to explain why.
First off, while you may technically be correct in that the amount of bullying has not changed over time, technological advances (i.e. the Internet) allow that bullying to continue 24-7 so that there is no refuge from it, even after you get out of school. In other words, while the rate of bullying may not be changing the severity and impact is--it is more invasive, harder to escape, and therefore is NOT the same as when you were a kid.
But even disregarding that, I think the term "epidemic" is appropriate when you look at the fact that over the past 50 years crime among teens has consistently been decreasing in the U.S. (according to FBI statistics a drop of over 44%) and yet the rate of bullying appears to remain the same. To me, that says there is a huge problem that is not being addressed by either our society or our school system. And taking the attitude that "bullies aren't anything new, and they will always be with us" does not seem to me to be the way to go about solving that problem. Rather, it virtually guarantees that in the next 50 years we will see bullying to continue at the same rate as bullies find ways to circumvent the "moderate measures [...] to monitor and disrupt bullying" that you advocate.
Documentaries like this are critically important because they expose just how deep the problems are--you have school officials claiming the bus is perfectly safe while the documentary filmmakers are capturing multiple acts of violence and bullying on the bus. We need more documentaries like this and much more research into how bullying manifests and how to prevent it because we're clearly doing a piss-poor job of it right now.