Trusting him as a source is useless, because half of everything he says is a lie.

Just like Michael Moore; one half is lies, the other half, distortions.

>> ^MaxWilder:
I knew this couldn't be as simple as the guy in the video makes it sound.
http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=85aa1df1635a3bbb
Police claim they identified themselves and wore badges and shirts emblazoned with the word "Police". They also claim she shouted "I hate the police" as they tried to detain her.
Still, I couldn't find anything indicating why they tried to grab her in the first place, considering she was not three white prostitutes. Strictly speaking, if the police try to arrest you, even when it is obvious they have the wrong person, citizens are required to cooperate. The jury deadlocked, which probably means 3 people refused to convict her because she should not have been put in that position in the first place. And I have to agree. If they convict her of assaulting a police officer, which technically she did, then she would never be able to successfully sue the police department for wrongful arrest. And they sorely need to be found guilty on that count.


For the record I'm not arguing against the author of this quote above, I am noting the usefulness of the evidence at hand.

Three cops say they wore the gear, however two private citizens say they didn't? So we assume that the officers are telling the truth and the citizens are lying. Or we assume that the officers were lying and the citizens were telling the truth.

Its a 50% chance that one group was lying. However justice should not deal in chance. Chance means there will be collateral damage.

He's been president for a few hours, but he's suddenly "more trustworthy" than the last one? I call *lies

>> ^quantumushroom:
Most people wish to see good deeds and work rewarded and bad deeds and evil punished. That's how we roll on earth. I find it amusing that you wouldn't care about rewards versus punishment for MT and Hitler, yet you find the 'golden parachute' concept upsetting.

---
They're dead, so their eternal suffering, joy or nothingness affects only them. As far as our need to see rewards and punishments: I do not believe eternal suffering, nor eternal reward to be an aspect of justice, for it serves only the purpose of satisfying a lust, not a function. If their postmortem reward or punishment (not the idea of it, but the truthful existence of it) affected us in a positive, progressive way, only then would it be a worthwhile system of dealing with what we consider injustice. However, because it is uncertain that there is a force which doles out afterlife justice, we have no business worrying about it. We can appreciate what dead people did while they were alive, or be glad they're dead because they were a hinderance to the progress of life.

I don't disagree (ha!) with the idea of religion; I believe it serves a function, especially at our point in evolution, where we are only beginning to come to terms with these absract concepts. But religion all too often is a closed system, causing divides that need not exist. Yes, religion has done good -- let's keep that aspect; but it needs to be fluid. All philospohy of worth should be as an ocean, whether it be concerned with possible existence/nonexistence of gods or scientific understanding of our universe.
---

Yes, for most people, God serves in part as a kind of Keeper of Scorecards, but rewards and punishment may be only one aspect of an "afterlife" which technically is consciousness after this life.

You're perhaps assuming that the endgame of religion is to
follow rules now to live in a Heaven forever, which would mean
some sort of consciousness apart from a Creator. That may not
be it at all. Buddha described Nirvana as 'the end of
suffering' and left it at that. Buddhism is atheistic.

---
I'm assuming that the interpretation of the majority of mainstream religions are to live in a Heaven forever, because that is how I have encountered them with almost everyone I've ever known or known about. I'm not opposed to the idea of an afterlife, I simply find it a moot point. As the living, we should be concerned with life, not death.
---

You claim moral relativism exists, but for the atheist, does evil exist?

Which way of living demands more responsibility, the
religious person trying to follow moral precepts or someone who
doesn't necessarily care what happens because nothing finally
matters; death is the End? I don't want to live in a society
where everyone makes their own rules up as they go along; few
atheists would either.

Since for the atheist there is no Prime Mover behind what
society commonly defines as "goodness", why would an atheist
seek to enforce any kind of (self) responsibility at all? If
you felt bad about hurting someone because you didn't treat
them according to the Golden Rule, why not just kill them? If
there was no afterlife they would simply cease to exist along
with their pain and the question of right or wrong would be moot.

Yes, I'm being a tad silly, but hopefully I've made some half-assed point that, "Morality has to come from somewhere."

---
Your points are not silly at all, merely common interpretations -- and I don't mean that pejoratively. I do not believe in evil in such a rigid, unrealistic way. Evil could be considered any action which seeks or causes an end to life. But evil is not necessarily bad. Cancer kills, human dies, human returns to earth, new life begins. From "evil" comes "good". A supernova could be considered evil, but it also gives birth to new life, which is good. I believe our existence within a realm of constant destruction dictates to us the sanctity of life, and thus morality. Life is the underdog in this universe, which will become apparent (to whatever exists in this solar system) when our sun decides to stop behaving as it is now. It's not always a struggle for power, but a struggle for life itself. Yes, in a relative universe you may decide to kill your fellow man, but on a macro level you become in conflict with life, in favor of destruction. Just as truth is valued over the lie, life is favored over death for very practical, and often poetic reasons that need not stem from God.

Concepts such as "morality" exist on the human level to illustrate and teach. Ideas and concepts are not so rigid as to dictate what is always right and wrong, nor should they ever be used to represent an absolute; espcially one as silly as "evil".
---

You are perhaps basing your argument against either the
existence of God or belief in God on the idea that since
religions provide conflicting statements, all of them must therefore be
false.

Religions are not God. Religion is a human endeavor and
therefore flawed, whereas the nature (or concept) of God is
perfection.

---
God as perfection is an assumption lacking observation. The nature of God (assuming it exists) cannot possibly be determined; though I'm not in opposition to the idea of that possible explanaion, let's not kid ourselves that the idea is anything but assumed. (Assumption not necessarily being a bad thing, but also not something to base your existence on.)
---

If I say, "We are breathing air" in English and you say it in
French, is one of us 'lying?'

Also, to many atheists why is 'lying' only a feature of religion? You mean atheists never tell lies--even little ones--when it suits them?

---
Lies are available for all to use. I wouldn't dream say otherwise.
---

Faith is not logical and much of religion isn't either, but to dismiss them all out of hand seems rather absolute, in a world where "there are no absolutes".

We can all agree when out brains die, if there is nothing, we will "experience" nothing forever. If there is an afterparty, atheist and believer alike will go "somewhere" even if it's only within their own consciousness.

---
On the contrary, faith is perfectly logical. I have faith in my senses enough to walk outside on a cool, winter day and not expect to walk into lava. Unless I smell sulfur... then I'd become suspicous, maybe I'd notice the increase in heat, and my faith will change. No longer can I have complete faith that outside is a good place to go. Just as my faith in Santa Claus went to zero, and my faith in God went to near zero, based upon observation and learning.

As humanbeings, we do not have the capacity to say anything with 100% certainty, so we must be careful to organize our minds into tiers of belief/faith. (Forgive my semantics; tier is perhaps not the best word, but I'm tired right now) Your immediate senses being on the top tier, followed by recognized patterns from experience, down to intellectual knowledge from schooling, on down to some philosophical interpretations, religion, God or gods, etc. (The existence of smurfs being, obviously far down at the bottom -- much farther than God even.)

Humans are unique in that we are deeply affected by ideas; but ideas have no corporeal nature that we are aware of (yet), so we cannot let any one idea rule our lives, but rather let us rule them. We are the makers of dreams, and need not suffer otherwise -- unless Kai'ckul visits my dreams and says otherwise.

I don't disagree with the intention of your words, but I
have a few problems:

Why would it matter whether Hitler or Mother Teresa go to
heaven or hell, or anywhere in between? I've never understood
the significance of an afterlife. In my opinion, the idea of
an afterlife is gluttonous. Why are we so obsessed with living
forever?

Most people wish to see good deeds and work rewarded and bad
deeds and evil punished. That's how we roll on earth. I find it amusing that you wouldn't care about rewards versus punishment for MT and Hitler, yet you find the 'golden parachute' concept upsetting.

Yes, for most people, God serves in part as a kind of Keeper of Scorecards, but rewards and punishment may be only one aspect of an "afterlife" which technically is consciousness after this life.

You're perhaps assuming that the endgame of religion is to
follow rules now to live in a Heaven forever, which would mean
some sort of consciousness apart from a Creator. That may not
be it at all. Buddha described Nirvana as 'the end of
suffering' and left it at that. Buddhism is atheistic.

Also, moral relativism exists whether you choose to believe
so or not. If it didn't, we wouldn't need police, jail and
prison systems, mental health facilities, military or
psychiatrists. The fact is, people can and will do what they
want (or what the voices in their head want) when they want.
Whether or not a god or gods exist has no bearing on this
reality. Even if you believe it does, your belief does not
change the fact that murder, rape, disease, supernovas and
golden parachutes happen. It's our responsibility to prevent
these things from happening, not a gods.

You claim moral relativism exists, but for the atheist, does evil exist?

Which way of living demands more responsibility, the
religious person trying to follow moral precepts or someone who
doesn't necessarily care what happens because nothing finally
matters; death is the End? I don't want to live in a society
where everyone makes their own rules up as they go along; few
atheists would either.

Since for the atheist there is no Prime Mover behind what
society commonly defines as "goodness", why would an atheist
seek to enforce any kind of (self) responsibility at all? If
you felt bad about hurting someone because you didn't treat
them according to the Golden Rule, why not just kill them? If
there was no afterlife they would simply cease to exist along
with their pain and the question of right or wrong would be moot.

Yes, I'm being a tad silly, but hopefully I've made some half-assed point that, "Morality has to come from somewhere."


Now, if you're thinking the way I think you're thinking,
which is that religion provides us with absolutes, the problem
becomes thus: Which god or gods, tenet, belief system do I
believe in? There really is no absolute answer, and if there
is, only a handful of people in the world (universe?) will
ever know. There's this thing called truth (which even itself
is somewhat difficult determine) -- does truth matter or is it
merely the idea that matters? If it's only the idea of
religion that matters, you haven't solved the so-called
problem of moral relativism, you've only hidden the truth from
the believer so that they do the "right" thing. So in other
words, you're lying. Is lying bad? Yes.

You are perhaps basing your argument against either the
existence of God or belief in God on the idea that since
religions provide conflicting statements, all of them must therefore be
false.

Religions are not God. Religion is a human endeavor and
therefore flawed, whereas the nature (or concept) of God is
perfection.

If I say, "We are breathing air" in English and you say it in
French, is one of us 'lying?'

Also, to many atheists why is 'lying' only a feature of religion? You mean atheists never tell lies--even little ones--when it suits them?

Faith is not logical and much of religion isn't either, but to dismiss them all out of hand seems rather absolute, in a world where "there are no absolutes".

We can all agree when out brains die, if there is nothing, we will "experience" nothing forever. If there is an afterparty, atheist and believer alike will go "somewhere" even if it's only within their own consciousness.

I think we're all missing one vital fact here. The reason no-one can sufficiently roast this douchepump is simply because he's so indescribably banal. I've seen more usable material on a Swedish naturist reserve. Conversing with him for more than 10 minutes is much like sticking needles in ones eyes, except much more painful and far less of a turn on.

I think we all know that he let us see that photo with him and the pretty girl to give the impression he could actually get a member of the female species to come within a 20 foot radius of him, but what we don't know is that she is in fact a French stripper he met in Amsterdam and 30 seconds later she handed him half of his cash back and blamed her menstrual cycle for not giving him a dance.

I'm sorry a law degree? Whatever! Methinks this is one of those lies you tell on the internet, but it's obvious he's not got the brain capacity to flip burgers, let alone submit a dissertation for fucks sake. Anyone who says "Legs? What the hell are they good for" is clearly lacking somewhat in the education department.

I'm sorry I can't waste anymore time on this monacle wearing, cane tapping, the-only-way-I-can-look-cool-is-to-listen-to-Dylan pretentious Norwegian tosspot any longer, I have a bikini line to wax. Good day!

^ Well, you're right about that. Terrorists and racists are two very different things. Truth is: I'm not as bothered by the McCain ads because they are not fooling anybody. I think that what is so offensive to me about the Obama ad is the fact that it was extremely deceptive and misleading and released in the Spanish language, therefore targeting a group of people who may not see these claims disputed on Fox and CNN. Again, this is what was released in the Spanish language about McCain:

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with . . . the intolerance . . . they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."

Then the commercial flashes two quotes from [Limbaugh]: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

And then a voice says, "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote . . . and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain . . . more of the same old Republican tricks."

McCain is not a racist and his immigration policies are different from Limbaugh's and similar to Obama's.

I'm offended by the McCain ads, too, but I don't worry as much about the media getting the truth out about Ayers because of the mainstream media's liberal bias. Don't worry so much about it. I'm not an Obama supporter, but I don't believe a word of the Ayer crap. Obama is no terrorist. Friends with one, maybe, but who really cares? The people ignorant enough to care have already made up their minds.

... right, ... the casual dismissal he was quoting was from the author of 'No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton', but anyways,... its such an awkward position McCain has put this woman in; she is so obviously driven by power and control, but so clearly unprepared and even uninterested in how or what services the federal government performs for the United States community.

It's not a long article. I'll just post it and save you guys the click:

Obama is Stoking Racial Antagonism
by Rush Limbaugh

I understand the rough and tumble of politics. But Barack Obama -- the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before.

Mr. Obama's campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite. What kind of potential president would let his campaign knowingly extract two incomplete, out-of-context lines from two radio parodies and build a framework of hate around them in order to exploit racial tensions? The segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s were famous for such vile fear-mongering.

Here's the relevant part of the Spanish-language television commercial Mr. Obama is running in Hispanic communities:

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with . . . the intolerance . . . they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."

Then the commercial flashes two quotes from me: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

And then a voice says, "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote . . . and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain . . . more of the same old Republican tricks."

Much of the media that is uninterested in Mr. Obama's connections to unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright have so far gone along with the attempt to tie me to Mr. McCain. But Mr. McCain and I have not agreed on how to address illegal immigration. While I am heartened by his willingness to start by securing the borders, it is no secret that we have fundamental differences on illegal immigration.

And more to the point, these sound bites are a deception, and Mr. Obama knows it. The first sound bite was extracted from a 1993 humorous monologue poking fun at the arguments against the North American Free Trade Agreement. Here's the context:

"If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

My point, which is obvious, was that the people who were criticizing Nafta were demeaning workers, particularly low-skilled workers. I was criticizing the mind-set of the protectionists who opposed the treaty. There was no racial connotation to it and no one thought there was at the time. I was demeaning the arguments of the opponents.

As for the second sound bite, I was mocking the Mexican government's double standard -- i.e., urging open borders in this country while imposing draconian immigration requirements within its own borders. Thus, I took the restrictions Mexico imposes on immigrants and appropriated them as my own suggestions for a new immigration law.

Here's the context for that sound bite: "And another thing: You don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You're a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail."

At the time, I made abundantly clear that this was a parody on the Mexican government's hypocrisy and nobody took it otherwise.

The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

We've made much racial progress in this country. Any candidate who employs the tactics of the old segregationists is unworthy of the presidency.

They've got this one at the "Wet 'n Wild" in Vegas, only without the loop. It's called "Der Bombay". The only thing it's got going over this one is that the guys that run the one in vegas lie to you in terms of the count prior to dropping you thru the hatch. They completely ignored the pleas of my wife to give a countdown and the guy pretended like he couldn't hear her right before pressing the button.

It was great.

and actually, NCFOM held me and Soupskin's attention the entire time. Believe me, we were RIVETTED by it. So much so that the credits had been rolling a while before we fully took in that it was over.

What I did miss, and I think this is bad direction/production is that Moss was dead. The camera showed it for all of a second (maybe) and I was supposed to deduce that fact from his clothes, being as he was one more body lying on the floor covered in blood?
I'm not stupid by any means, I'm not inattentive - especially during that movie - but I am nearsighted slightly and I COMPLETELY missed that Moss was dead. Thus perhaps the ending missed the mark for me a bit. I didn't know Carla Jean was a widow when she made her statment. She mentioned her mother dying and that was it. That's some crappy acting/direction right there. I "get" subtlty. I'm probably the only person in the whole bible belt who "got" "Jacob's Ladder" and rolled my eyes at how overdone the ending was (still in my top five of movies) so it's not that I "missed" the meaning. I just feel that the ending was not meaningful (as was the whole movie) it was thematic

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
-------Spoilers-------

NCFOM does have quite a bit of humor in it and isn't nearly as dark or gloomy as se7en. It plays as a tight little thriller for 2/3rds and then turns very real, which is a nice twist you don't see coming.

If you like Coen films like Blood Simple or Fargo, then this one shouldn't be a problem.

The meaning of the film is in the title, and this revelation is tossed at you very softly minutes before the abrupt end of the film, so don't blink or go to the bathroom.

------MAJOR SPOILER-------

The scary dude DOES get called on his pseudo masculine fatalist bullshit by the wife just before she is killed. She tells him that he is the one who makes the decision to murder, not coins or games. His mojo is thrown off, which results in a nasty car accident. I personally assume that the character recovers to kill again, but with out the glee and games of the past. In keeping with the title, I believe he becomes an old man in that scene, just like TLJ in the last hotel scene.

There is plenty of meaning in the film if you want to find it.

IMO, this is one of the best films of the year. It held my complete attention up until the very last scene, which I missed because I went to the bathroom.