Maybe, but I'm not paid well with extraordinary benefits and authority or charged with public safety. They are. I don't have paid therapy to get over the treatment they give and I receive, they do. I don't have immunity from consequences, they do. I don't have a gang willing to lie, cheat, steal, threaten,etc on my behalf, they do. I don't fight tooth and nail for my right to lie to you for my benefit and your detriment, they do.
My cynicism doesn't destroy and end lives with accusations, lies, and bullets...theirs does.

It was hardly early afternoon, and my cynicism is a constant. ;-)

Nothing is going to change. I was a helpful, hopeful person until reality made me change, my helpfulness and optimism about people never changed a cynical one into an optimist, but they sure changed my optimism to cynicism. I've too often seen open hearted 'benefits of a doubt' be exploited, and it's exceptionally rare it's been earned or rewarded. I would say if you aren't cynical about humans in general, and authorities without exception, you aren't paying attention and you'll end up regretting it.

That said, I'm not saying don't be helpful, just be careful about it or prepared to pay for your good deeds. Edit: I am saying don't put yourself in jeopardy to help cartel gang members. They don't warrant the risk.

Unfortunately in an individualistic capitalist system the guy who's feeding his family by pouring shit in the river will fight you tooth and nail irrespective of what it means for the planet. Every other asshole is doing it why should he starve? This is why the more socially minded countries are the ones who can control themselves, as everyone feels they have a stake in it and they know they won't starve.. unfortunately the big rich countries are by definition plunderers running on greed and desperation.

Bob.
Stop being stupidly catty. Many investigators are Republicans including Mueller.
<1/6 of the Clinton investigation over a legal real estate deal, which found zero, amounted to zero, and you want to reopen it and investigate a private citizen with another special council with no target or budget limits...but this investigation was over treason and a felon filled administration that's committed uncountable (and been convicted of uncountable) felonies since Trump was elected, run by Trump appointees he only called Democrats when they wouldn't illegally do his bidding, then ended by two Trump sycophants that said it should be quashed before being appointed.

And you still whine like a little bitch. WTF, man, grow up. Your children are more adult. I bet they don't whine and pout when they get what they want.

Trump underhandedly won a single legal round, out of how many? He's almost as exonerated as Jussie is, which is barely at all legally and only that because of special treatment, and not a bit factually.
The report said they found no proof of illegal "collusion" with Russia and Trump directly over the election interference his friend Putin undertook for Trump's sole benifit, but also said he committed obstruction, but Mueller was instructed he could not indict Trump himself, and his bosses who told him that they must be the one's to indict blatantly prejudged the investigation publicly long long ago, it's why they were chosen for the positions, so there never was jeopardy, yet Trump fought tooth and nail against it making it take 4 times longer, wasting far more than necessary because he simply can't ever testify without perjuring himself dozens of times, not even to clear himself. He simply cannot tell the truth, or even avoid lying for an entire sentence, so we had to investigate his actions, and will again.
Sad, very sad.

Now he's tossing another promise and going after pre-existing condition protections like he repeatedly specifically promised to never do....and you love it I'm sure. So very very sad.

The revolution will come when the US elects the sort of government they used to have before Murdoch, Fox and the Bush era GOP. Simply going back to 50's-60's (Republican!) tax policy will feel revolutionary and solve most problems. But many of the powerful will fight tooth and nail.

Sadly, it's because these "good cops" all but never police their criminal brothers in blue, and the excessively few who have stood up are almost always threatened until they are run out of law enforcement.

Right now police departments are fighting tooth and nail against a new California law requiring them to disclose records of criminal misconduct committed by police and the investigations of that misconduct, and they are terrified that information is about to be public....only one reason for that.

When they catch a gang member who didn't pull any trigger but stood with those who did, alibiing them and hiding evidence for them, driving the getaway car and being a lookout, they gleefully call him a bad actor and charge him like the rest. Turnabout is fair play.

Don't get me wrong, I do not advocate murdering police, but I understand why many people would. They do not resemble the people who protect and serve all too often, and far worse imo the "good ones" ride or die with the worst ones. I only advocate avoiding them as much as possible, and if stopped, answering any question with "Am I suspected of committing a crime? Then kindly ask my attorney, I have nothing to say." as my brother's lawyer taught me, and trying to not be murdered...you can always sue over the civil liberty violations later.

I also believe 1000 good deeds don't erase one criminal one as they often argue....especially when it's your job.

That's why....but hey man, it's just, like, my opinion, man.

Brown dog has sore tooth, black dog pre-chewing because it's heart is so huge.

We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.

I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
If I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

If the singular is this and the plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be named kese?

Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose;

We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.

The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim!

So our English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the craziest language you ever did see.

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?

Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.

And dead; it's said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!

Watch out for meat and great and threat;
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there,
Or dear and fear for bear and pear.

And then there's dose and rose and lose,
Just look them up, and goose and choose.

And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.

And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five!

Of the screwy stuff that went down this election, the technicality of not having a full accurate count of mail in, military, provisional, and even still uncounted early votes within 30 minutes of polls closing barely rates mention if not for Republicans fighting tooth and nail to invalidate thousands of votes due to slow clerical work by unpaid volunteers and accusing those volunteers of fraud with with no evidence beyond biased supposition.

Don't believe the unofficial details you hear/read on Fox, they aren't news, they're entertainment (to some)....you know this....notice the url includes the disclaimer "opinion" so they can be fact free.

Compared to the Texas voting machines changing straight party democrat ticket votes to Cruz, Broward county's issues are nothing. There's certainly not any infraction there that merits denying tens of thousands of citizens their right to not only vote, but to have that vote counted.

@newtboy,
"Yeah, that's honest, move to a profession where one single specific type of performance is the entire job..."

Take any highly competitive field and you've got similar professional grading based upon excellence in the field. Legal, Medical, Engineering, the same kind of professionals can be found hunting for top tier talent in any of these, no different than the NBA. Their criteria can be every bit as colour blind and there is strong economic incentives to do so to boot.

"Side note: there have been some who suggested affirmative action in sports, requiring a certain number of white players on teams. Indeed, there were white leagues that fought tooth and nail to not let even the most talented non whites participate. Just sayin...."
And that would be racist, and it was wrong, and it's something we should be glad to be rid of.

Just sayin....

"Race is considered, period."
Reasonable, non-racist people are going to disagree with you. They are going to, correctly, call your policy racist.

Can you really not see the other side that thinks fighting racism with racism is the wrong approach?

You mentioned SAT scores, no? They clearly DO benefit one group, rich whites.
You said "If one has a color blind computational method of creating a qualification score for candidates, how do we most fairly use that score to choose candidates." I pointed out that we don't have any such method, offered some of the reasons why the SAT is biased, and made suggestions of some things that must be taken into account to create one.

Edit: any method that ignores the exceptional efforts required in overcoming the pitfalls of being non white in America in order to be color blind, by definition, cannot be used fairly.

Yeah, that's honest, move to a profession where one single specific type of performance is the entire job, then claim it's possible to rate other jobs the same way. If the job can be boiled down to something as simple as how many times you can score a basket in one hour and NOTHING else matters, that works. There are very few professions like that, and educational opportunities should be nothing like that, especially when there's no unbiased test to determine intelligence, educational ability, and work ethic.

Side note: there have been some who suggested affirmative action in sports, requiring a certain number of white players on teams. Indeed, there were white leagues that fought tooth and nail to not let even the most talented non whites participate. Just sayin....

Race is considered, period. The argument is that being non white should be considered as a positive, an obstacle being overcome, rather than a negative, a biased excuse to deny opportunity.

I think the primary problem would be 100% of the force is transmitted to one tooth at a time, not many like a chain does. Wear will be a problem.

To me, the video sorta oversells the difficulty in identifying / escaping from "ridiculous claims", at least in comparison to my personal experiences.

I grew up in a very religious (Christian, Methodist) family / city / state / country. I was questioning the indoctrination at an early age (younger than 10), and rejecting it due to never receiving satisfactory answers to those questions by ~12. Actually, one of the most significant pushes for me was the ultimate reward/punishment thing. Zero consistency and open contradictions between different religions / sects / sources, etc. In symbolic logic, contradictions mean that one of your premises is wrong. Reconsider what you "know" and try again.

With regards to atheism vs (a)gnosticism, technically I'm an agnostic because I don't know with absolute certainty that there is no god / gods out there. However, in practice, I easily and comfortably would rather self-identify as an atheist. Why, when I don't know for certain? Because I also don't know that there isn't an Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Loch Ness Monster, or Leprechauns, yet I don't feel compelled to tell people that I'm "agnostic" about those things. No. They are pretty clearly human-invented bullshit, with readily apparent human motivations behind their invention. Sounds like religion to me.

That's basically Russel's teapot.

Bravado goes a long way when your opponent isn't equipped with tooth OR claw.

Well under 18 months in and already 5 times more administration convictions over Trump administration/Russia collusion than there were unfounded charges against the administration under Obama in 8 years. Jesus Bob, can you not get a single fact right?

Let's not ignore the Trump tower meeting with Russian officials where the repeatedly and clearly stated reason for the meeting (after the lies denying it ever happened fell apart) was to collude with Russia against Clinton by getting more Russian supplied dirt against her, or the unending lies and forced corrections the Trump camp has trotted out to deny, obfuscate, downplay, and finally admit but excuse the meeting.

You're also totally wrong about the 13 Russians indicted, those are about interference in the election, and not low level bean counters, they're mostly Putin's inner circle.

Those "boatloads" were gone over for years with fine toothed combs and serious bias and still nothing illegal found, not a whit, and zero evidence of anything nefarious from the FBI or CIA besides the timing of the baseless FBI attack against Clinton's reputation by publicly announcing they were still investigating her (while hiding the far more serious investigation against Trump).

He lied to you about being wiretapped, just like he lied about 3 million illegal alien votes for Clinton, and unlike the illegal hush money he's now finally admitted he paid his mistresses it simply never happened. Remember, he's plead guilty to being a massive fraud, and he's quite proud of his ability to lie and get away with it but you still believe his obvious lies and never investigate yourself anywhere less biased than Faux or Jones.
Sad and willfully gullible.

I agree with every point made here... and 5, maybe 10 years ago, I would happily engage in refuting any argument for god.

But it feels like society has gone backward since then.

OF COURSE, there's no god. There's no Santa, there's no tooth fairy and there's no Zeus. Thor was in an awesome movie, but so was fucking Batman (to be clear, I'm talking about the Dark Knight, not that DCEU shite). Doesn't make either of them real.

We've all made all the same logical coherent arguments for atheism, but at this stage it's so blindingly obvious, it's ... boring.

Is there a possibility of god? Uh, fine, I guess... but it's about as likely as me being the reincarnation of Elvis.

At this stage, I no longer have the energy or the motivation to debate people who still believe. Wanna believe in god? Eh, knock yourself out, as long as you don't try to push your fairytales onto my life or the lives of others, I really don't care anymore....