Very nice. When it's high above the houses it make you feel like you're inside a snow globe!

Maybe his family, like mine, is spread out across the globe and can't all get together for a moment like this. Maybe YouTube/Facebook is the perfect medium for this guy to convey this moment to extremely interested family members and friends far and wide. And maybe he did intend for strangers to see this if they so choose. Maybe he thought sharing a moment like this, a moment we all hope and pray will never come, would be something that could maybe be valuable to total strangers. Maybe he felt sharing something like that could give his child's brief life more meaning. Maybe it might cause total strangers to put their life in perspective, even if just for a moment. (It sure did for me.)

How did the wizard fair? Was he still out there doing his thing when the quake hit? I had a great time with him in the late 80's. He was a fixture of the town at that time, I hope he's still there trying to sell his 'inside out universe' and 'upside down globe' theories, along with all the other insanity he spouted so gleefully.
It's so sad to see the damage still so bad 4 years later. Hints of New Orleans in that. It was such a beautiful place (and still is, but obviously in recovery).
One good thing though, this gives Christchurch the opportunity to become the most technologically advanced city in NZ, or even the entire southern hemisphere. Since the infrastructure needs to be rebuilt anyway, youall can do it right instead of just plastering over rust and broken concrete (like we do here in the US). Fingers crossed that it gets done the right way, and not just bandaged over with last century tech.
I SOOOO want to come back there and visit again. Most beautiful country and people (on the inside anyway) anywhere on earth. I miss it badly.

Actually it was rhetorical, I knew where I was going to start, I was not asking you in a real way or expecting you to answer...that's what rhetorical means.
Because the video was limited to American schools and systems does not mean the comments will be, we have a diverse bunch of sifters from all over the globe that might want to comment, and might not stick to America as the only place that counts. It is logical to ASSUME you might have meant only American schools, but some of us don't assume we know another's meaning and just go with what you wrote. If you wanted to limit your comment to American schools, you could easily have written exactly that. There's not a character limit on posts!
Or, perhaps Bareboards2 knows some Americans that would be insulted by your painting them as lowest common denominators at their basest. I would be one. I admitted those you describe exist, and may even be a majority, but Americans are not homogenous by far, and there are many that do exactly what you claimed they don't.
It's not hard to CARE, it's hard to retain, it's hard to focus, it's hard to attend at times, it's hard to come up with supplies, it's not hard at all to CARE about education, and I've never met a person of lesser means that didn't wish they could get more education. Saying they don't care is insulting, saying they don't achieve (as well as rich counterparts) is fact, sad tragic fact.
Yes, I agree, we need to help the poor a LOT more, their plight is getting worse daily while those not in need are the only ones succeeding.
I'm right there with you on free higher education, for the betterment of the nation AND it's citizens. College grads are far less likely to commit violent crimes or otherwise be drains on society, so are a boon for all.
It sounds like you may be confusing a lack of time, money, ability, and energy with a lack of caring, or perhaps not. As I said, those you describe do exist, in large numbers, they are simply not the ONLY variety of American student.
What?!? If this woman is in class working and paying for a degree while trying to raise 3 kids, one disabled, it sure sounds to me like she CARES about education, and that she's not lacking in educational pursuance or lack of drive, she's possibly failing for lack of energy and time would be my guess, or maybe from lack of educational preparation, or innate ability. If she didn't care, she shouldn't be spending money and time being in class working for a degree that no longer guarantees more money, she should be in welding class, or making bank cleaning up the school. There's nothing wrong with that, I've done both. People who only want to get more money and don't care about knowledge should go that route, they'll have a much better chance of success and not be in crippling debt for a chance they'll use their diploma for financial gain.
WTF?!? When they stopped the abuse, did you care then? The poor have tribulations, but are not constantly working to the bone unable to even contemplate a better future because they're outrageously accosted by life every second of the day. Be real. When there's time to think, many people of all social strata think how they would like to lean something new. You obviously cared enough to be in classes now even with this abuse you speak of, just like I did when and after all those things happened to me (but with only one brother. For me it was actually incentive to learn more and be 'better' than my brother whenever possible, in order to have a better life, I know I'm a freak though ), so what's your point? The poor don't think about furthering their education 100% of the waking day because they're too busy being poor, so they don't care about it at all? That's just silly. I think many if not most don't think about it much because they've determined there's no reasonable opportunity for them to achieve it, so why dwell on what you can't have. It' s not an issue of not careing.
I think we should help them have the opportunity to gain higher education and ability to make use of that opportunity because we know most of them DO CARE about education, but could certainly use help to achieve it. Those that don't care (I again admit they exist, but not only among the poor) should be helped to care, because it's important for them and us to have everyone educated.
Jon Stewart was generalizing, not making a statement about each and every American. I only take issue with the broad brush strokes painting all Americans in the same ugly color, I think we're a quite varied and interesting group, and I don't resemble your generalization in the least...and I'm American. I did admit that I think many, if not most Americans do fit your description, but you seem to still take exception to that viewpoint.

@SDGundamX Searching for gay porn where a man is hugging a globe while suspended from above. While that search is ongoing, the same one is being done for women, also still ongoing.

Meanwhile: http://blackdreamer.com/spiderman-31-picture.html

Just to play devil's advocate here, the poses of the male and female covers are actually quite different, in my opinion.

Spiderman is lying flat against the surface of a globe with his body pressed against it. I haven't seen any gay porn that depicts models (admittedly I'm not one to peruse much gay porn) in this way in order to evoke sexual feelings.

Spiderwoman on the other hand is simply kneeling on a rooftop and has her ass thrust into the air, with back arched and head raised. As a hetero male, that's imagery I see used to evoke sexual feelings in Sports Illustrated, Playboy, etc. It does totally looks like she's presenting her ass to me specifically because there's no reason for her ass to be up in the air higher than her head (in Spiderman's case he's upside down so of course his ass is going to be over his head).

As far as the rest of his argument goes, I'll simply say this--people are not upset about the sexualization so much as people are upset that when men get sexualized in media it is often in a manner that is idealized by men themselves (i.e. muscular, ripped body) and when women get sexualized... it is often in a manner that is idealized by men themselves (i.e. big boobs, unrealistic body figure, etc.) because it is the men who often control authorship in the media. Of course you're going to alienate potential women readers if you don't present them with an idealized version of themselves but instead give them an idealized version of who men want them to be.

Yeah and when emissions from volcanoes (among other things) got out of control:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event

The oceans aren't going to save us and, if anything, might be affected the most by increased CO2 in the atmosphere: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F.

I really don't see why it is such a bad idea to attempt to reduce harmful emissions around the globe - it can only benefit us in the long run and we have the technology to do so. But it will cost big dollars that citizens and, in particular, corporations are unwilling to part with. If we continue the way we are though, in another 100-200 years it might be too late.

Okay this is pretty freakin' awesome and needs to be copied by search, rescue and fire service departments around the globe, culminating in a world event where countries go head to head proving their worth!

What's coming inevitably will be as it's always been in the 'century-of-self ': The machine keeps peeps distracted by disinformation, issues to rally-behind, toys to play with and continual mind-fucking through Bernay's-style cradle-to-grave programming then....Suddenly, like three skyscrapers dropping into their footprints on International Shit-Box Tonight with Sham Cocksworth, yet another, 'create-the-crisis-provide-the-solution' scenario will further strengthen the resolve of the assholes who want ultimately to have the world to themselves and the bulk of humanity as dutiful robot-putty-slaves.

Technology, technique, fear, and an empty promise of safety and security (please, think of the children again, break to commercial) will shape the next worldwide crisis and urgency of action...and again, watch rights and individual responsibility deteriorate into a controlled chaos.

Fake alien invasion? Orchestrated and choreographed conflicts? Some scary flesh-eating disease? Most-likely the next planetary theatrical concoction will be some superfecta once again where fascism continues to reign supreme and the entire globe continues along the path of planetary lock-down.

Oh, and pusillanimous shit-heals with Cheeto-stained fingertips will between anime-clips and chicken-choking to porn, (who think they know how police fraternities work), will continue to pop-spit from the illusory comfort of their soiled computer chairs....

'Right...'Left' ?? Again, for the ChaosEngines of the world...a concocted and programmed, fucking illusion.

This seems to be a semantic argument, much like the argument that evolution is "just a theory", you're saying it's "just a consensus".

And yes, a consensus for layman is just a majority agreement, and this does not make it reality. Lots of majorities believe really stupid shit.

A scientific consensus, however, is not just an agreement or a majority opinion. It is what the evidence points to. If there is no conflicting evidence, you will get a scientific consensus that it means a certain thing. Evidence is largely not up for much interpretation, unlike opinions.

It used to be that the consensus was that the earth was flat, because the only evidence we had was "it looks pretty flat", but more evidence invalidates that and so that hypothesis fails the evidence.

So far the evidence seems to indicate that that globe is warming and that people are at least partially causing it. There hasn't been solid evidence presented to counter it, save for flimsy opinions ("I think the sun is doing it!" etc.)

It's a clever rationalization of hypocrisy. If it's going to be taboo to observe patterns in groups of people demarcated by visible characteristics they were born with, be consistent about it. But I'd argue against that taboo.

What makes racism bad is treating people as specimens of a group rather than unique individuals. Group averages may differ slightly but there's tons of overlap. Common usage of the word "racism" unfortunately conflates a moral aspect (how to treat people) with an epistemological aspect (dogma that all groups are created exactly equal in every way). Epistemology shouldn't be moralized. I could give you lots of examples of sociological and psychological research getting muddled on account of an inflexible dogma that there couldn't be any heritable differences between groups other than the obvious superficial ones. I'd rather conceive of the word racism as a verb describing harmful actions towards people due to their group membership, not a noun denoting a thoughtcrime or speechcrime. Like church and state, or science and religion, epistemology and morality don't go together.

A priori based on generation times and mutation rates you should expect there could be 1/10 as much variation between historically isolated groups of humans as there is between breeds of dogs, since the most recent common ancestor of all domestic dogs is half as far back as humans' most recent common ancestor is (or rather was before 16th and 17th century explorers spread their sperm across the globe) but dogs breed a lot faster. Breeds of dogs demonstrably vary in many behavioral and psychological traits. It's not far fetched to suppose that a variety of environments over the past 100,000 years of humanity pushed population means of behavioral traits in various directions.

Awesome! Reminds me of the Harlem Globe Trotters for some reason.

He's one of those actors that need a good director and script. If his first big break was with Whedon and not Lucas, he'd have an Oscar or Golden Globe or something by now. At least an MTV award...

At least Portman got out from under the shadow. That's a good thing.


Now that I think about it, wasn't Anakin supposed to be 14 or 15 in Clones? He was what, 6 in Phantom Menace? Playing it like a mewling child just might be correct. He was just too obviously older.

Nice, though my only complaint is their world is a globe (sphere), whereas the world in the GoT intro is actually a concave surface (inside of a sphere).

I have explained my reasoning for the terms I used, which are the norm for those discussing this topic.
You are welcome to your own opinion.

And you are incorrect that "everyone is against slavery in 2014". It has been often reported that there are more people being held in 'slavery' today than during the civil war around the globe, so obviously 'everyone' is not against it!
And some of us are proponents of voluntary indentured servitude, which some people might call slavery.