Politics 101: Answer the question you wanted to be asked, not the question you were.

When I first came to Thailand, I saw the occasional swastika emblazoned on things that made me double-take -- a kid's t-shirt being the one that I remember the most. When I asked Thai people about it (just politely asking, not like 'ohMyGawd, why is everyone racist WHARRGARBLE') I got the response that the symbol here isn't linked to nazism, it is a Buddhist symbol, etc., as mentioned above.

That was enough explanation for me until I started to see street vendor stands with nazi flags (red background, white circle, black swastika), eagle with swastika logos, and even motorcycle helmets in the SS soldier style with SS logos.

Now my impression is that an average Thai person doesn't associate a swastika with nazism, and might purchase some item displaying the symbol because either:
A) they don't know/care about the symbol's link to WW2/Hitler/Nazis OR any Buddhist symbology and just think it looks cool (which I tend to agree with -- it is a simple yet striking shape if you try to mentally disassociate it from any ethos etc.), or
B) they know it as a Buddhist symbol, and feel that link overrides any to nazism.

But those explanations go out the window for the vendors that sell the flags, symbols, SS posters etc. all in one location, with no "Eastern"/Buddhist swastikas in the mix.

>> ^demon_ix:
Didn't Jimmy Carr say "Never work with children or animals"?


I hope you really don't think he was the first person to say that... man... what else do you think is attributed to people of today rather then yesteryear?

If I said 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country' would you think I was the first?

Yoiks.

From your response you didn't comprehend any of what I wrote. I propose an exercise in logical deduction.

He who thinks he hears voices in his head is schizophrenic and institutionalized.
He who thinks he hears the voice of god/jesus, is considered blessed.

Life is all a matter of perception. Oftentimes the very same event perceived by multiple individuals is entirely different. What is considered mundane to the logic minded, may seem magical to the easily impressed. This is even more profound in ages past when even less was understood about nature.

While a flashlight today is considered commonplace. 300 years ago you would have been accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake for possessing gifts from demons. Alchemy (chemistry) was considered evil magic. Individuals died for practicing it. Modern technology was born from Alchemical research. The technology you now hold so dear and sits in your hands as you read this. Contradicting the church with scientific truth was life threatening. Galileo suffered imprisonment as a result. Even greater numbers died for standing up for their contradictory 'beliefs'.

Many of the truths you even accept now for fact, were once 'heretical' by the very people who first wrote the Bible you hold so dear. Yet have been 'selectively' forgotten due to incontrovertible proof proving their 'bible imbued truths' as being completely false and were based purely on superstitious suppositions rooted in fantasy.

Here is where the logical fallacy lies: By accepting the Bible as the truth, yet only accepting PARTS of said work as truth, and the rest as metaphor and/or ignorable is simply hypocritical. It must be accepted as a whole, or rejected as a whole if your 'faith' in it being the '100%' word of God is required. Partial acceptance is simply a partial commitment and is not complete faith. Total faith in the 'word of God' as written in the Bible means accepting all the hypocrisies, accepting the vengeful/horrific god of the old testament, and believing that killing one's children for not listening to you, and slaughtering non-believers simply because they are non-believers is acceptable.

I ask not this question of you, but you should ask this question of yourself. Do you accept, and fully understand all parts of the bible fully as 100% infallible truth, and can honestly tell yourself that you will follow all teachings, even the ones warranting the stoning of children and non-believers as complete truth as spoken from the 'mouth' (if he has a mouth) of god. Is a talking snake the pure 100% truth. Is the speaking burning bush 100% truth? Did the flood of Noah actually occur absent of any physical evidence (where would all the water 'drain' to anyway may I ask?).

The question isn't mine to answer. The question is for you to answer for yourself.. to either believe 100% in the bible, or live life in a state of partial belief. Partial belief has been tantamount to heretical belief in the eyes of the church for thousands of years (save for more recent, somewhat saner, times).

I think it's a question still worth asking. Not just of Palin, but of anybody.

Background from Wikipedia:

Baldwin contends that after their separation in December 2000, his former wife, Kim Basinger, endeavored to deny him access to his daughter by refusing to discuss parenting,[13] blocking visitation,[14] not providing telephone access,[15] not following court orders,[16] not dropping their daughter off for reasons of it being inconvenient,[17] and directly lobbying the child.[18] He contends she spent over $1.5 million in the effort.[19]
[...]
Baldwin wrote that he spent over a million dollars,[22] had to put time aside from his career,[23] travel extensively,[24] and find a house nearby in California (he lived in New York),[25] so he could stay in his daughter's life.[26] Baldwin contended that after seven years of these issues, he had hit a breaking point and left an angry voicemail message in response to yet another unanswered arranged call.[27] He contends that the tape was sold to TMZ, which released the recording despite laws against publishing media related to a minor without the permission of both parents.[28] Baldwin admitted he makes mistakes, but asked not to be judged as a parent based on a bad moment.[29] He later admitted to Playboy magazine in June 2009 that he contemplated suicide over the voice mail that leaked to the public. Of the incident, he said "I spoke to a lot of professionals, who helped me. If I committed suicide, [ex-wife Kim Basinger's side] would have considered that a victory. Destroying me was their avowed goal."[30]

Dogma

All we want is a headrush
All we want is to get out of our skin for a while
We have nothing to lose because we don't have anything
Anything we want anyway
We used to hate people
Now we just make fun of them
It's more effective that way
We don't live
We just scratch on day to day
With nothing but matchbooks and
Sarcasm in our pockets
And all we are waiting for
Is for something worth waiting for
Let's admit America gets the celebrities we deserve
Let's stop saying "Don't quote me
Because if no one quotes you
You probably haven't said a thing worth saying

Sex, drugs, God, cash
Sex, drugs, God, America
We need something to kill the pain of all that nothing inside
Sex, drugs, God, cash
Sex, drugs, God, America
We all just want to die a little bit

We fear that pop culture
Is the only kind of culture we're ever gonna have
We want to stop reading magazines
Stop watching TV
Stop caring about Hollywood
But we're addicted to the things we hate
We don't run Washington and no one really does
Ask not what you can do for your country
Ask what your country did to you

Sex, drugs, God, cash
Sex, drugs, God, America
The only reason you're still alive is because someone
Has decided to let you live
Sex, drugs, God, cash
Sex, drugs, God, America
We owe so much money we're not broke, we're broken
We're so poor we can't even pay attention

So what do you want?
You want to be famous and rich and happy
But you're terrified you have nothing to offer this world
Nothing to say and no way to say it
But you can say it in three languages
You are more than the sum of what you consume
Desire is not an occupation
You are alternately thrilled and desperate
Sky high and fucked
Let's stop praying for someone
To save us and start saving ourselves
Let's stop this and start over
Let's go out
Let's keep going

Sex, drugs, God, cash
Sex, drugs, God, America
This is your life
This is your fucking life
America
Sex, drugs, God, cash
Sex, drugs, God, America
We need something to kill the pain of all that nothing inside
America
America

Quit whining you haven't done
Anything wrong because frankly
You haven't done much of anything
Sex, drugs, God, cash
Sex, drugs, God, America
Someone's writing down your mistakes
Someone's documenting your downfall

wait a tic...

this segment of rachel's bashes on:

dana perino (bush admin press secretary)
rush limbaugh (republican gasbag)
sen. mitch mcconnell - kentucky (r)
sen. bob corker - tennessee (r)
sen. john mccain - arizona (r)

with absolutely no mention of *any* democrat, specifically this:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/18/aig.bonuses.congress/index.html

"Senate Banking committee Chairman Christopher Dodd told CNN Wednesday that he was responsible for language added to the federal stimulus bill to make sure that already-existing contracts for bonuses at companies receiving federal bailout money were honored.

"Dodd acknowledged his role in the change after a Treasury Department official told CNN the administration pushed for the language.

"Both Dodd and the official, who asked not to be named, said it was because administration officials were afraid the government would face numerous lawsuits without the new language.

"Dodd, a Democrat, told CNN's Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer that Obama administration officials pushed for the language to an amendment designed to limit bonuses and "golden parachutes" at those companies."

and then rachel throws in a somewhat disingenuous correlation between median household income growth from the '70s through to 2000, and then falling to negative growth over the last eight years, as she would have us believe, because of wall street deregulation?? isn't such a decline far more likely because of the tech bubble bursting at the end of the last decade, or a recession beginning in march 2001, or 9/11 and a subsequently ham-handed 'war on terror'?

i'm as outraged as the next american over this fiasco... but is what rachel's doing here really 'news'?

it seems dishonest, at least to me, so i guess the 'lies' tag is fitting

I was actually a bit surprised at how mild this report was (and shocked that Olbermann didn't mention it at all), until I saw this article from dag, that claims MSNBC anchors were asked not to "incorporate" the interview into their reporting for the day.

Watching this again, this looks like Maddow was working under some very specific rules about what she could and could not say about this event. No clip of the interview, and no direct summary of the content of the interview, appear to be some of the rules. While she does, in the end, communicate a sense of gravity to the event, and that it contained a call for the need for more "watchdoggery" from the business journalists (and I suspect the qualifier about business was mandated), it clearly fails to tackle the meat of what happened in any real way.

Contrast this to CBS's coverage of the interview. The difference is striking.

Then again, they aren't affiliated with CNBC.

what rights do gay people need, that humans don't already have? thats the problem i have with this: don't frame it as a gay rights issue because its not about gay rights its about human rights. frame it that way and suddenly you have drawn an imaginary line between two groups: "gays" and "non-gays" -- and division creates conflict.

gays have the right to marry/have gay sex/do gay things/give gay blowjobs because they are humans, not because they are gay.

frame it in a different context and suddenly a "gay basher" has a whole lot more in common with a gay person. frame it as a human rights issue, and the only way to take away a gay person's rights is to argue that gays are "subhuman" or "nonhuman" ...thats a lot more difficult than arguing that "homosexuality is wrong".

ask not of a gay basher, "should you bash gays?" ask him, "should you bash humans?"

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Ask not what VideoSift can do for you, but who you can do on VideoSift.

We are all well aware of the "friendship" you and thepinky have. Don't play dumb, just because you are.

>> ^LittleRed:
>> ^kulpims:
everybody - CHICK FIGHT!!!
because i enjoy being a male pig

Maybe so, but I will not take back what I said, and I also will not apologize. That was absolutely uncalled for. She specifically asked not to be quoted, IN CAPITAL LETTERS, and then was quoted in full. The response was directly underneath her capital-letter request. I believe thepinky deserves an apology just as public as her request not to be quoted. - If not for her, then for all the other females here that have been victims of sexual abuse and may not want to be quoted saying such.


http://femme.videosift.com/member/LittleRed#comment-483899

Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.

Why do you have to be such a liar, as well? I'll never understand the need people have to lie, especially about things that are easily proven true. Once again, LittlePuss, learn to read.


In reply to this comment by LittleRed:
I'm her hypocritical sidekick now? That's good to know - I was unaware of said fact until now.

In reply to this comment by EDD:
No thanks necessary, especially since I wasn't so much standing up for you as trying to obliterate thepinky's trusty sidekicks' hypocritical defense. Besides, to any sane and rational person you're not the underdog in that situation, because you're not the troll

In reply to this comment by UsesProzac:
Thank you.

>> ^bamdrew:
... its not a call to serve your government, its a call to help your community.
Being a 'good consumer' is no longer enough. Thats the change, dude... sorry to break it to you.
>> ^imstellar28:
^Ryjkyj
"Ask not what your country can do for you. But what you can do for your country."
why would you serve your government? the government was established to serve you, not the other way around.
that quote is not patriotism, it is just nonsense.



I think it's important here to note that the quote does not say government. It says country.

I know it sounds naive but as a person who's volunteered a lot of my time to not just causes but services, I don't think it's such a bad idea to do all we can to encourage community service. I don't think it should be mandatory but part of me thinks that if it was, it would do this country some good.

People in this fucking country seem to be able to do nothing but complain. Sometimes I'm guilty of that too but jesus christ. Some people I know and meet are so god damn selfish that I think some mandatory service might help them see what the world is really like.

Maybe even some mandatory military service. Give these stupid fucking "patriots" a gun, put them on a plane and then see how they feel about their country and the right to dissent. Maybe if people were actually participating in the well being of their community, they might gain some respect for their fellow man. Maybe some people would see why they should have the right to question their government and why EVERYONE should have the right to speak their mind freely. Not just how that right applies to them and their ability to yell at people because their not getting everything they want.

... its not a call to serve your government, its a call to help your community.

Being a 'good consumer' is no longer enough. Thats the change, dude... sorry to break it to you.


>> ^imstellar28:
^Ryjkyj
"Ask not what your country can do for you. But what you can do for your country."
why would you serve your government? the government was established to serve you, not the other way around.
that quote is not patriotism, it is just nonsense.

^Ryjkyj
"Ask not what your country can do for you. But what you can do for your country."

why would you serve your government? the government was established to serve you, not the other way around.

that quote is not patriotism, it is just nonsense.