Thanks for this very long response! I think this was my favorite line: Take away everything someone has to live for, and he'll find a cause to die for.

I will remember that line, because I think you are absolutely right.



Thanks.

In reply to this comment by kagenin:
>> ^Avokineok:
I live in The Netherlands. Everytime I'm on Videosift, I get a sense of how bad it must be to be an American.
I see some great entertaiment with all the late night shows, but I feel bad for all of you who have to live in a country that has so many people taking everything said at Fox "News" ("Gossip" might be more appropriate) so seriously..
It seriously makes me said and makes me believe Amerika is not the land of opportunities; it's a land where people with a lot of money tell other people what think.


Who do you think were those first pilgrims from Europe were? Puritans - People who wanted nothing more than to lecture others on the poor choices they made. (If you've ever been to a good Renaissance Faire, they're the street actors wearing almost all black, and almost always carrying their bibles with them. Hang around one long enough and you'll want to tell them to go take a long walk off a short pier too, if they're in good character. That's basically how they made everyone else living at the time feel. Look at modern day puritanicals such as Pat Robertson.) The ones who colonized America had enough money to sail half-way around the world, which isn't terribly cheap.

Paying for the sins of our forefathers is something every culture does. Just look at television and video games. Here in the States, you can put some pretty violent imagery on TV and maybe even some drug use in your video games, but holy hell if you show a nipple, or touch on ANYTHING of a sexual nature. Releasing a game in the three major English speaking markets (US, UK, and AU) means subjecting your content to three different review boards, with differing notions about what is good and decent for the consumers of their country. Sex, violence, drug use - the disparity between opinions on what is acceptable for only adults to see, even among countries with common language, can mean what get's a Teen rating by the US's ESRB can get an "Adult Only" in the UK, and even be banned outright unless edited for an Australian market.

Despite all this, I remain hopeful because of the fact that those like ol' Noun-Verb-9/11 Rudy are in the minority. The fact that he's so focused on using terms like "Islamic terrorist," or "islamist" displays a blunt ignorance, and could be interpreted as flat out racism. Let's remember that he put the NYC Emergency Command Center, setup after a failed World Trade Center fertilizer bombing in the 90's, was picked by Rudy to be put in the World Trade Center, a place that had recently been the target of a terrorist attack (by attackers who were brought to justice within the same judicial system that handles our parking tickets - we didn't need the post-9/11 military tribunals then, and we don't really need them now, despite certain anti-American Right-Wingers who lack requisite faith in the system they serve). It's like he refuses to learn from history or something, and unfortunately it's not an uncommon condition among modern conservative talking heads here in the states.

The fact that our president didn't use words like "islamist" or "islamic terrorist" or any permutation thereof is because he understands that the greater threat to our nation is a foreign policy that takes away everything from poor young brown-skinned people living in the cradle of civilization and gives them nowhere to turn to but bombed out countries, crumbling infrastructure, and eager suicide bomber recruiters. Take away everything someone has to live for, and he'll find a cause to die for. Dealing with the symptoms is one thing. End the root cause, and then you have the potential for peace.

Take the issue with rampant piracy around the waters of Somalia. Sure, everyone's talking about the latest tanker to be overtaken, but how many stories have delved into the root cause? The polluted waters that have killed off all the fish in the region? The fish who fed the people on the land? The fish that drove the local economy? All dead. The Indonesian Tsunami caused a tidal wave of wretched filth to wash up ashore, tainting the land and water supplies, causing pestilential illnesses. If you're a poor Somali 20-something with your family boat, and you can't make an honest living with it, what are you going to do? Grab some weapons, recruit a crew of close friends in the same situation you're in, and take your chances on the shipping lanes within striking distance... yeah, that would seem like something someone EXTREMELY desperate would do. It's happening right now. The Somali Government can't do jack, they can barely govern an area the size of my rural hometown. Sure we can bust out the snipers when someone important gets kidnapped, and we can applaud the heroes who put their lives on the life to ensure the safety of others. But that won't stop the next motley crew of fishermen with nowhere else to turn but terrorizing the high seas.

I've only spent about 4 days total in the Netherlands. What I saw was beautiful. Amsterdam was breathtaking, both figuratively and literally - man, those canals can really wreak in the summer . I hope to visit again soon. Didn't get to check out much of the television, but what brief moments I was allowed rest in front of a TV on that trip was pretty cool. A lot of stuff just wouldn't get past the FCC here without some serious fines being levied for sexual content, and that's a damn shame...

But, like I said, I'm still hopeful. Wow, that was long If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

>> ^Avokineok:
I live in The Netherlands. Everytime I'm on Videosift, I get a sense of how bad it must be to be an American.
I see some great entertaiment with all the late night shows, but I feel bad for all of you who have to live in a country that has so many people taking everything said at Fox "News" ("Gossip" might be more appropriate) so seriously..
It seriously makes me said and makes me believe Amerika is not the land of opportunities; it's a land where people with a lot of money tell other people what think.


Who do you think were those first pilgrims from Europe were? Puritans - People who wanted nothing more than to lecture others on the poor choices they made. (If you've ever been to a good Renaissance Faire, they're the street actors wearing almost all black, and almost always carrying their bibles with them. Hang around one long enough and you'll want to tell them to go take a long walk off a short pier too, if they're in good character. That's basically how they made everyone else living at the time feel. Look at modern day puritanicals such as Pat Robertson.) The ones who colonized America had enough money to sail half-way around the world, which isn't terribly cheap.

Paying for the sins of our forefathers is something every culture does. Just look at television and video games. Here in the States, you can put some pretty violent imagery on TV and maybe even some drug use in your video games, but holy hell if you show a nipple, or touch on ANYTHING of a sexual nature. Releasing a game in the three major English speaking markets (US, UK, and AU) means subjecting your content to three different review boards, with differing notions about what is good and decent for the consumers of their country. Sex, violence, drug use - the disparity between opinions on what is acceptable for only adults to see, even among countries with common language, can mean what get's a Teen rating by the US's ESRB can get an "Adult Only" in the UK, and even be banned outright unless edited for an Australian market.

Despite all this, I remain hopeful because of the fact that those like ol' Noun-Verb-9/11 Rudy are in the minority. The fact that he's so focused on using terms like "Islamic terrorist," or "islamist" displays a blunt ignorance, and could be interpreted as flat out racism. Let's remember that he put the NYC Emergency Command Center, setup after a failed World Trade Center fertilizer bombing in the 90's, was picked by Rudy to be put in the World Trade Center, a place that had recently been the target of a terrorist attack (by attackers who were brought to justice within the same judicial system that handles our parking tickets - we didn't need the post-9/11 military tribunals then, and we don't really need them now, despite certain anti-American Right-Wingers who lack requisite faith in the system they serve). It's like he refuses to learn from history or something, and unfortunately it's not an uncommon condition among modern conservative talking heads here in the states.

The fact that our president didn't use words like "islamist" or "islamic terrorist" or any permutation thereof is because he understands that the greater threat to our nation is a foreign policy that takes away everything from poor young brown-skinned people living in the cradle of civilization and gives them nowhere to turn to but bombed out countries, crumbling infrastructure, and eager suicide bomber recruiters. Take away everything someone has to live for, and he'll find a cause to die for. Dealing with the symptoms is one thing. End the root cause, and then you have the potential for peace.

Take the issue with rampant piracy around the waters of Somalia. Sure, everyone's talking about the latest tanker to be overtaken, but how many stories have delved into the root cause? The polluted waters that have killed off all the fish in the region? The fish who fed the people on the land? The fish that drove the local economy? All dead. The Indonesian Tsunami caused a tidal wave of wretched filth to wash up ashore, tainting the land and water supplies, causing pestilential illnesses. If you're a poor Somali 20-something with your family boat, and you can't make an honest living with it, what are you going to do? Grab some weapons, recruit a crew of close friends in the same situation you're in, and take your chances on the shipping lanes within striking distance... yeah, that would seem like something someone EXTREMELY desperate would do. It's happening right now. The Somali Government can't do jack, they can barely govern an area the size of my rural hometown. Sure we can bust out the snipers when someone important gets kidnapped, and we can applaud the heroes who put their lives on the life to ensure the safety of others. But that won't stop the next motley crew of fishermen with nowhere else to turn but terrorizing the high seas.

I've only spent about 4 days total in the Netherlands. What I saw was beautiful. Amsterdam was breathtaking, both figuratively and literally - man, those canals can really wreak in the summer . I hope to visit again soon. Didn't get to check out much of the television, but what brief moments I was allowed rest in front of a TV on that trip was pretty cool. A lot of stuff just wouldn't get past the FCC here without some serious fines being levied for sexual content, and that's a damn shame...

But, like I said, I'm still hopeful. Wow, that was long If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

No, a bunch of executives did. A bunch of executives do not represent a company, the shareholders do. Unless you have evidence that a majority of the shareholders endorsed the commercial then you can assume any more than what I stated.

You also have no evidence they used a racial stereotype intentionally. I had never heard of this stereotype until I came across it on VideoSift.

I'm not aware of your example but what you're describing is racist. If it was designed to entertain white people at the expense of mocking black people as a racial group then it was racist.
>> ^longde:
I think this is a valiant effort to rationalize something that is cut and dry. KFC did endorse this commercial (obviously, since it's their ad); and the aussie ad team did intentionally use a racist stereotype to sell chicken.
And I disagree that intent is at the core of what makes something racist. The sambo stories are offensive to blacks, but when they were produced, the intent was to entertain whites, not to offend blacks. They didn't care what black thought.
>> ^RedSky:
I think the notion of racism needs to be brought back to the core.
It's not racist unless it's purposely meant to be offensive to a particular racial background. It's clear that no company, least of all a fast food chicken company, would walk off a cliff willingly like this and put on an intentionally racist ad.
At worst it was produced by a bunch of employees that want to play up on a racial stereotype but was in no way endorsed or acknowledged by KFC. At best, and to me most likely, the ad was produced by an Australian marketing team unaware of the stereotype. Cenk to me seems correct, they're not rowdy, they looked like they were generally having a good time at the game. As for the whole 'awkward situation' phrasing relating to being surrounded by a bunch of black people, well yes it's a fact that even now people from different racial backgrounds tend to have more trouble getting along. There's no harm is stating that evolution has made us innately mistrustful of those that look different to us, there's nothing offensive about admitting that.
Point is, regardless of which it is, it's overblown and diverts attention away from actual examples of racial hate.



It comes down to how you define it, and yes I agree that ignorance with no hateful or prejudiced intent can be harmful but I wouldn't think of it as racism. The point where you draw the line is definitely fine though. Being wilful ignorance as a form of denying your prejudiced views is not the same as simply being unintentionally offensive. Being culturally acceptable is also of course not a defence either. Jokes about Aborigines are common place around here unfortunately, although I can definitely say I've heard less of them since I left high school.

It also doesn't help that it's virtually impossible to separate the two. We will never really know if the people who made this ad were purely ignorant or racist. Looking from the point of view of a minority I can see that perhaps past experience would gravitate you towards assuming the latter but I think it's an important distinction to make.

>> ^Throbbin:
RedSky - racism doesn't have to be intentional to qualify as racism. Ignorant/inadvertent racism is just as harmful, maybe even more harmful than intentional (hateful) racism. At least with hateful racism it's easy to isolate, identify, and mock/ridicule the racists. When it's ignorant/unintended racism it's tacitly accepted by society, and thus harder to isolate and rectify.
I don't buy the 'Australia doesn't have the same stereotypes of black people that Americans do' line. Aussies consume just as much American media as Canadians do, and all of the stereotypes about black people I encountered came from American media. In general, I have heard that Australia is an exceptionally racist place - I heard this firsthand from Aborigines (and Maori from NZ). I have even even heard it from 'white Aussies' themselves. One Aussie was trying to congratulate me (us? as in Inuit) for having our shit together much more than the good for nothing Aborigines down under. I shit you not.

I think this is a valiant effort to rationalize something that is cut and dry. KFC did endorse this commercial (obviously, since it's their ad); and the aussie ad team did intentionally use a racist stereotype to sell chicken.

And I disagree that intent is at the core of what makes something racist. The sambo stories are offensive to blacks, but when they were produced, the intent was to entertain whites, not to offend blacks. They didn't care what black thought.

>> ^RedSky:
I think the notion of racism needs to be brought back to the core.
It's not racist unless it's purposely meant to be offensive to a particular racial background. It's clear that no company, least of all a fast food chicken company, would walk off a cliff willingly like this and put on an intentionally racist ad.
At worst it was produced by a bunch of employees that want to play up on a racial stereotype but was in no way endorsed or acknowledged by KFC. At best, and to me most likely, the ad was produced by an Australian marketing team unaware of the stereotype. Cenk to me seems correct, they're not rowdy, they looked like they were generally having a good time at the game. As for the whole 'awkward situation' phrasing relating to being surrounded by a bunch of black people, well yes it's a fact that even now people from different racial backgrounds tend to have more trouble getting along. There's no harm is stating that evolution has made us innately mistrustful of those that look different to us, there's nothing offensive about admitting that.
Point is, regardless of which it is, it's overblown and diverts attention away from actual examples of racial hate.

I think the notion of racism needs to be brought back to the core.

It's not racist unless it's purposely meant to be offensive to a particular racial background. It's clear that no company, least of all a fast food chicken company, would walk off a cliff willingly like this and put on an intentionally racist ad.

At worst it was produced by a bunch of employees that want to play up on a racial stereotype but was in no way endorsed or acknowledged by KFC. At best, and to me most likely, the ad was produced by an Australian marketing team unaware of the stereotype. Cenk to me seems correct, they're not rowdy, they looked like they were generally having a good time at the game. As for the whole 'awkward situation' phrasing relating to being surrounded by a bunch of black people, well yes it's a fact that even now people from different racial backgrounds tend to have more trouble getting along. There's no harm is stating that evolution has made us innately mistrustful of those that look different to us, there's nothing offensive about admitting that.

Point is, regardless of which it is, it's overblown and diverts attention away from actual examples of racial hate.

My moment of heroism:

I was walking past my university main building on my way in to uni that morning. There's areas in england where the road connects to a bicycle path on the pavement (sidewalklol). It's marked in red and separated by a small kerbstone from the pedestrian part of the pavement. Cyclists are SUPPOSED to be carefull when joining these from the road to make sure they don't hit the peds and vice versa. It usually occurs around complicated roundabouts where bikes can get the shaft.

Ok, so there's a girl walking along, about to step into the red area, she's checked the road which was clear from her view. I saw a bike come out of a side street very fast, swing round and go straight onto the pavement colliding HARD with the girl.

So i stopped and waited to see if all was well, she got up and was clearly shocked but started walking away as the big guy on the bike started going "OI YOU, COME HERE. NO DON'T WALK AWAY, GET HERE NOW." This girl really wasn't sure what to do, she was so intimidated by this guy and she was caught between running away and standing still. This guy seemed really unhappy about hitting her and coming off his bike, he had no regard for if she was ok, just the fact that he wasn't ok and his bike wasn't ok.

So the second time he yelled "COME HERE!" I decided to get involved. I yelled at him "Leave her alone you idiot!" And marched right over to him (oh i can be quite brave when i'm annoyed at someone). He stopped yelling but still didn't want to lose the girl. "No don't walk away, come back here," he said. So i said "No, if she wants to go she can go where she likes." At which point, she legged it, clearly scared.

So the guy turns his attention to me now and said "She's just walked right into me!" So i say "No, i saw the incident, dickhead, you're meant to be a lot more careful."

He said "So who's going to pay to fix my bike then?" So i told him i'd take a look at it for him, cos i'm a cyclist myself.

This is when the reason for him not wanting the girl to walk off became apparent - it was a reasonably expensive racing bike, and where he'd fallen, he was going so fast that the handlebars which normally look like -.- (best i can do) had been COMPLETELY bent over so it almost touched the other side, so it looked like this =.

My solution? I laughed and said "Oh i can't fix that hahaha." And off i went.

Training can over come to this. Attention to detail, a paranoid mind, and a lot of training. But even with training it is still difficult. I also think that the natural human reaction to authority has something to do with this. A person who has enough sense to read what they are signing would probably, I think, notice the difference between one guy and the other.

I would wonder why not noticing is a normal thing. It shouldn't be normal. I also think that its normal because there is no danger involved there. No incentive for adaptation. I think if each one of those people who didn't notice got electrocuted when they didn't notice they would notice in a similar experiment.

This reminds me of some of the tricks that Darren Brown does. When he pays with white paper instead of real currency, or when he takes stuff from the Russian guy and walks off.

This is a good book from Oreilly called Mind Hacks. It talks about alot of cool things. From blind spots, to Cognition, Noticing, and Attention Span.

I'm going to walk off into the forest when I'm ready to go. That's for sure.

It's not that I disagree with securing the borders, but aren't they already secure? How much more secure must they be? If we weren't picking on everyone in the world, we wouldn't have to worry about so called 'bad' people coming through our borders to hurt any of us.

That aside, I think it's currently too difficult to become a citizen of this country. I wish it was like the ol' Ellis Island days. You walk off the boat, they take your name, and welcome to America!

Forget her and the military guy- Did that guy walking off at the beginning really leave with only a thousand dollars? :-o

^Stop it, man, you're killing me. (doubles over and walks off laughing) Simple-minded! hahhaahhaahha...

Proper procedure for CPR

*Chuck Norris. Bicycle Kick to the chest. Clean remains with mop.
*MacGyver. Construct an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine using a piece of toast, some metal wires, and a rubber hammer. **Bonus points: Build sentient robots of the same materials.
*Keira Knightly. Show your boobs.
*William Shatner. Talk about yourself until the patient walks off in disgust.
*Rosie O'Donnel. See: 'Keira Knightly' and 'William Shatner' combined.

If you are none of these people, the best thing to do is to panic and run around with your arms flailing wildly.

>> ^evil_disco_man:
>> ^Duckman33:
It's already been shown he was threatened with a chair, and punched by some idiot Boise St. fan. That's why he "let loose" on the crowd.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Boise-State-Fan-Hits-Legarrette-Blount


If he would've ignored both of them, I'm sure he would've walked away unscathed. Blount talked trash before the game and ended up with -5 yards rushing. Sore loser and a punk, nothing more.


Perhaps the "punk" is the guy that taunted him and got clocked for it. If he simply minded his own business and let Blount walk off the field like he was doing, this would not have happened. As far as I'm concerned, he got what he asked for. It's poor sportsmanship to rub it in after a loss. Hout should also be suspended for a few games for his bullshit. He caused the whole scene by running his mouth.

As to why Blount "trash talked before the game", do you even know the history behind this game and his comments? Chances are you don't, so I'll educate you. Watch this from last years meeting, then tell me who the "punks" and "losers" are. The cheapshot on our QB took him out for the game, the one on our receiver got the asshat ejected:

Personally, I'm pissed past all recognition of the word seeing as how the damned console asshats get it NOW but PC users have to wait till the 15th just because lame ass nvidia (who I used to like until this bullshittery) wants to be able to package it with their new card.

*walks off raving incoherently*

edit : nvm about a new card, the cards are available right now. So I'll be damned if I can reason out why the hell they're releasing it at different times. Asides from just general idiocy anyway.

Hah, I saw this a couple of weeks ago, thought about sifting it, but i'm not too hot on the Bill Hicks thing. This is a cool interview, even though Clive Anderson is a wanker. Best thing he ever did was interview the Bee Gees and make Maurice Gibbs walk off set. Maybe I should go look for that...