I find it a bit silly that some sifters, i.e. anyone who has quoted Ayn Rand, thinks that their loose logic can debunk a lifetime worth of philosophy, modeling, and brainstorming. These are the best and the brightest, otherwise they wouldn't be as well published. The Austrian school of economics (not necessarily associated with Ayn Rand) has been the Nostradamus of the financial system, yet when it comes to actions that could be taken, it is thrown out the window.
SOCIALISM -social organization advocating social or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society.
for future reference

I'll start with saying I'm glad I misread you -- there are so many people here in the US who repeat these kinds of things out of pure partisanship. What was in that clip was no reasoned debate, condemning Obama's use of fear, it was two propagandists for the right-wing party trying to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about the opposition party's candidate for the Presidency.

I agree with your assessment that the low point of Obama's trip was the Israel leg. He always steps up his rhetoric about Iran, and that makes me nervous. He did the same thing when speaking to AIPAC here in the states (the pro-Israel lobby), and he caught a lot of flak for it from his base.

I think the main thing Europeans have to worry about is the echoes of 9/11 that are still ringing here in this country. They're no longer clearly audible, but it's just below our register, affecting our subconscious. The public in this country will not elect anyone who would not make the appeal to the world to aid us in our so-called "fight against extremism".

However, if you look back at his earlier comments from the beginning of the primary, you'd see he spent a lot of time talking about the need to "change our mindset" and to not act out of fear. That's part of why he's got Hope and/or Change emblazoned on his signs and bumper stickers. Hillary (and the rest of the Democratic field) blasted him for being "weak on terror", and he made a clear turn about a year ago to make sure he kept sounding a tougher line about extremism.

I think he's now in a place where he has to keep the momentum on this going, because he can't win without doing that.

That said, he has made it clear he will listen to our allies more -- so even if he does get carried away, I do think pressure from Europe would affect him. I think if he wins, he will begin the long process of trying to reverse the pervasive fear running through the populace -- fears that Bush amplified for his own purposes.

John McCain on the other hand will happily give Europe the middle finger if they protest an American plan to invade Iran, because many people here think that shows "good leadership" and "independence". He'll also happily continue to perpetuate those fears about terrorism. He has said on many occasions that the "fight against Islamic Extremism is the transcendent challenge of the 21st century."

From what I see, Bush has pushed this country a great distance towards fascism. McCain's a member of the same political party, and it's clear that all the same advisers have gotten their hooks into McCain, because he's gone from a moderate that I actually kinda liked, to being in lock step with Bush, not only on issue positions, but also the combative, disrespectful, fear mongering overtones. He's also got the media propagandists helping him (like the ones in your clip), who dig up ridiculous claims like Obama is a muslim, or a terrorist, or that he wasn't born in the US (which would make him ineligible for the Presidency).

That's why I reacted the way I did to your post.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
I hope you're following my line of thinking, I'm brainstorming it all right out in full flow...

To Americans, these events will be soaked in pride, hope and patriotism, there is nothing wrong with that.

But to a British politician or to the Lords who have reign over the politicians, it paints a very different picture. It's one thing when Luther King makes speeches about civil rights in this way, it's another when Obama talks about uniting forces against extremism, and even goes as far as talking about Iranian nukes. That's the language of fear, that's the kicker, that's the alarm bell - and I mean that in the most literal sense, this language of fear is one of the things Winston Churchill warned about in the tomes of books he wrote after WW2, about how the world must avoid the same thing happening again, and how he regretted that Britian didn't move sooner against Germany.

These are very specific things contained in Obama's speeches, and I really don't know what to make of it. I think you should be thankful that at least somebody in American media saw this from a perspective of history. WW2 is very fresh in the minds of people in England, the country is soaked in the history of that war in every town and city and bit of countryside and Obama's words are very potent and a bit scary to be frank in that context.

That's why I say it's all about persepective, and what makes it frightening is that Obama's speechwriters couldn't have made it any more potent in the context of WW2.

Phew.

Yeah I'm in Ireland!

Man, I was a news junkie for years, I picked it up from my grandfather. I was one of those guys who sat and watched BBC News 24, all day long, changing over to the ITV news to see their take on the same stories. All I ever watched on TV was News and Star Trek.

I remember the exact moment when BBC News started to change and go the way of American news. It was in 2003, when David Kelly, the british UN weapons expert was found dead in a forest near his home. Just a couple of days previous, I had watched the entire live 2 hour cross examination of David Kelly in front of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, as he completely tore holes in the dossier that the UK government had put forward claiming that Saddam had WMD. I had been following the whole story in impeccable detail, online, on TV, bookmarking everything I could, and I had been looking forward to seeing David Kelly appear in front of the committee.

Anyone who watched it live was completely blown away by it, it couldn't have been any more dramatic. The government totally shot themselves in the foot. That night on the news, the BBC got stuck right into Tony Blair and the UK government and they continued to do so for the next couple of days, exposing all the lies about the Iraq war. It seemed finally that we were going to get the whole truth, and David Kelly was the key to the whole thing.

Then David Kelly was found dead, an alleged suicide. The same day the government went on the offensive against the BBC, people in the BBC were sacked over the next few weeks, government mouthpieces started appearing on all the TV news programmes shouting down presenters and acting very very strange indeed.

That is the exact moment when it changed. The BBC started becoming very very dumbed down very very quickly. Reports on the Israel/Palestine conflict became very watered down, that was when I really knew that the government had gagged the BBC (also happened in the 80s when Thatcher was in power during the Falklands war). The only decent reports were hour long specials broadcast at 1am or 2am, the normal daily news became a joke. Even the presenters were changed.

Within a year, the ITV News (Independent TV news in the UK), which had been reporting very consistently about the whole debacle ceased broadcasting.

Now the House of Lords - very little of what goes on in there is ever covered on the news. To see it you have to watch the live broadcasts on the Parliament channel (which I don't get any more cos I cancelled my cable a few months ago). It's where law is made, the house of commons is the showpiece for the public. All the stuff they decide in the commons has to go to the Lords where it is actually discussed at a very high level of detail and intelligence before it can be made law. The Lords also recommend what the UK prime minister should be saying to foreign presidents during state visits, a good example was when Blair was going to Russia and the Lords wanted him to confront the Russians about old KGB type activity rearing its head again - fascinating stuff, not a bit of it was ever on the normal news.

The Lords are probably the most well versed people on the history of Europe you could possibly meet. It is an education watching them debate sensibly and intelligently without all the pomp and drama you get on the TV news. They have bloodlines going way way back, they are soaked in the history of Britain and Europe. (Tony Blair near the end of his term even made moves to get rid of the Lords altogether when he wanted to get his 48 days detention without trial bill passed into law, the BBC actually started running hit pieces on the Lords, another sign that the BBC had changed)

Anyway, the point is, the Lords are a bit jumpy about stuff like this, and I'm sure it won't have gotten past them. Someone will have raised it for discussion. Obama making speeches in Israel about fighting extremism is very dangerous for Britain because I have watched discussions about the oppression of Palestine in the Lords and how delicately it has to be handled because the UK is an ally of the US which is an ally of Israel. Following that up with an event reminiscent of a British coronation more than a US presidential acceptance speech will really be ringing alarm bells.

I hope you're following my line of thinking, I'm brainstorming it all right out in full flow...

To Americans, these events will be soaked in pride, hope and patriotism, there is nothing wrong with that.

But to a British politician or to the Lords who have reign over the politicians, it paints a very different picture. It's one thing when Luther King makes speeches about civil rights in this way, it's another when Obama talks about uniting forces against extremism, and even goes as far as talking about Iranian nukes. That's the language of fear, that's the kicker, that's the alarm bell - and I mean that in the most literal sense, this language of fear is one of the things Winston Churchill warned about in the tomes of books he wrote after WW2, about how the world must avoid the same thing happening again, and how he regretted that Britian didn't move sooner against Germany.

These are very specific things contained in Obama's speeches, and I really don't know what to make of it. I think you should be thankful that at least somebody in American media saw this from a perspective of history. WW2 is very fresh in the minds of people in England, the country is soaked in the history of that war in every town and city and bit of countryside and Obama's words are very potent and a bit scary to be frank in that context.

That's why I say it's all about persepective, and what makes it frightening is that Obama's speechwriters couldn't have made it any more potent in the context of WW2.

Phew.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Are you, as your name implies, from Ireland?

I'm definitely curious on your take as to why the House of Lords would have an objection to what Obama said in Israel, or the fact that he plans on giving a speech to 75,000 campaign volunteers at his nomination (different from inauguration, BTW).

I did a couple searches of BBC News's site, and it seemed to generally be reporting positive reactions in the UK and elsewhere to Obama's trip. Is the UK media as distorted as the US's these days?

Here, there's already a meme forming about how this trip is going to hurt Obama domestically.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
http://politics.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Speech-Something-the-Fuehrer-would-have-done

In regards to this, I think it's important that this stuff be posted, sifted, and discussed. I'm not into posting stuff that I personally believe or subscribe to. I'm quite the opposite, I post stuff because I want to know what people think so I can get a big brainstorm of commentary. I don't know what to make of it, but I have an excellent knowledge of WW2 and whether intentional or not this is resonates with that history and is very dangerous ground for Obama and America to be on.

To be absolutely honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if this and the Israel visit are items for discussion in the House of Lords in the UK.

I'm all for discussion of it, after all I didn't downvote it. Put me down as taking outright offense to a member of the propaganda arm of the Republican party trying to paint Obama as a Nazi because he's popular.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
http://politics.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Speech-Something-the-Fuehrer-would-have-done

In regards to this, I think it's important that this stuff be posted, sifted, and discussed. I'm not into posting stuff that I personally believe or subscribe to. I'm quite the opposite, I post stuff because I want to know what people think so I can get a big brainstorm of commentary. I don't know what to make of it, but I have an excellent knowledge of WW2 and whether intentional or not this is resonates with that history and is very dangerous ground for Obama and America to be on.

To be absolutely honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if this and the Israel visit are items for discussion in the House of Lords in the UK.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Is the point here to show how misleading and offensive this is, or to take something mediamatters.org highlighted as misleading and offensive and try to perpetuate it?

Do you really think giving a political speech in front of lots of people makes you a Nazi? Usually acceptance speeches happen before crowds of 20,000 or so. What's the cutoff number for Nazification?

Does that mean Martin Luther King became a Nazi for his I Have a Dream speech, which he gave before 200,000 people?

http://politics.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Speech-Something-the-Fuehrer-would-have-done

In regards to this, I think it's important that this stuff be posted, sifted, and discussed. I'm not into posting stuff that I personally believe or subscribe to. I'm quite the opposite, I post stuff because I want to know what people think so I can get a big brainstorm of commentary. I don't know what to make of it, but I have an excellent knowledge of WW2 and whether intentional or not this is resonates with that history and is very dangerous ground for Obama and America to be on.

To be absolutely honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if this and the Israel visit are items for discussion in the House of Lords in the UK.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Is the point here to show how misleading and offensive this is, or to take something mediamatters.org highlighted as misleading and offensive and try to perpetuate it?

Do you really think giving a political speech in front of lots of people makes you a Nazi? Usually acceptance speeches happen before crowds of 20,000 or so. What's the cutoff number for Nazification?

Does that mean Martin Luther King became a Nazi for his I Have a Dream speech, which he gave before 200,000 people?

http://politics.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Speech-Something-the-Fuehrer-would-have-done

In regards to this, I think it's important that this stuff be posted, sifted, and discussed. I'm not into posting stuff that I personally believe or subscribe to. I'm quite the opposite, I post stuff because I want to know what people think so I can get a big brainstorm of commentary. I don't know what to make of it, but I have an excellent knowledge of WW2 and whether intentional or not this is resonates with that history and is very dangerous ground for Obama and America to be on.

To be absolutely honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if this and the Israel visit are items for discussion in the House of Lords in the UK.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
How do you think this event will be percieved around the world?

Moving the venue to a football ground and filling it with 75,000 'adoring fans' does have the whiff of fanatacism about it.

I'm sure many Europeans will see this event echoing 1930s Germany.

I think it's right that this be raised and discussed. Obama's speech in Israel followed by this event is sending out a very particular type of message.

It's not about what I personally think, it's about the alarm bells that this kind of stunt rings around the rest of the world. It's about perception.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Is the point here to show how misleading and offensive this is, or to take something mediamatters.org highlighted as misleading and offensive and try to perpetuate it?

Do you really think giving a political speech in front of lots of people makes you a Nazi? Usually acceptance speeches happen before crowds of 20,000 or so. What's the cutoff number for Nazification?

Does that mean Martin Luther King became a Nazi for his I Have a Dream speech, which he gave before 200,000 people?

Well done!

In reply to this comment by my15minutes:
ping

In reply to this disturbing vision from quantumushroom:
"The ICE...is...gonna BREAK!"

>> ^dotdude:
> Too bad Natalie Wood drowned before shooting was completed.

too true. she was amazingly talented, attractive, and her thing of wrinkling up her nose when she smiled was very endearing.
good news is, 95% of her stuff was already filmed anyway, though.
the night she fell off the boat was something of a wrap-up party cruise. that's why she and her husband had walken and other friends onboard, for a couple days.

and the director, douglas trumbull, basically had to throw away his career to have her last movie be released. the studio wanted to cash in the insurance policy on the movie, instead.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085271/trivia

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

Soylent Green, Logan's Run and Dark City have been on my mind lately.

BrainStorm was a great movie with Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood's last before her untimely death.

"With Videosift becoming more popular then ever before, if it wouldn't be prudent to have a new members page. This way we could catch most self-links and spammers before they get very far."

Further division should be a last resource type of thing, the "display new submitter videos only" can do the job at the moment if enough people in the community get involved which I don't think it requires much number of people nor time.

At the moment, spammers are not that many in my opinion; again, a division of this kind is not really covering the problem. It's like sweeping dust but instead of properly disposing of it you hide it under a rug. I mean the only thing a new section like this will do is help to 'pile them up' so things are easier to spot correct? unless I misread your post.

I moderated a video site for 2 years, and spammers at one point were posting 50-60 spam ads every 2 hours, I was deleting 80 spambots per day, and I doubt a division of this kind would have helped much in such a situation.
What we eventually did was add a rating system for posts, which we already have here on videosift, and put a threshold. If enough negative votes are cast for a particular post, it becomes hidden by the bot of the site. The post was also sent to a report list, if it was considered spam by the moderators it was deleted.

I am not arguing for adding a similar system to the Sift, but what I'm trying to say is that implementing tools and methods to deal with these sorts of things should be made first than doing something which divides the community as a whole in a way that could be unnecessary. Because yes, the site is getting bigger but not at a fast rate, especially in terms of what you are concerned about: spammers and self links.

Maybe members with high rankings, say members with '100 star' and up should be able to have a 'spam' command. I mean, by their ranking we know most of them spend a lot of time here so why no let them have the chance to help clean up the place? we have a "quality command, why not have a counterpart as well?

Just brainstorming that's all.

What about ObsidianForce? ObsidianForce X, whooping ass and takin' fame! Hmm.. could use a little polishing. We'll have to meet up for a brainstorming session, but this could definitely work.

Last week I was in hospital for a few days having surgery and have spent the last few days recovering. I logged in yesterday and was fairly shocked by what had been going on here.
Perhaps I'm seeing it worse than it is because I took it all in at once.
Hopefully this is all temporary but I don't think people leaving will help matters.
Perhaps there should be some brainstorming on how to reward members for being positive influences in the community, beyond just posting videos.

Back then audio quality degraded on subsequent copies and generally over time, not to mention proliferation was immensely stymied without the internet. Nowadays it's a different ballgame, but the issue is the same. P2P is unlikely to dissapear, and if it is eventually stifled out in some manner, a new method of electronic copyright infringement will appear. If the regulators and record companies weren't so stuck in their archaic, preordained conceptions then they would have long ago utilized P2P to the full extent in letting people know about and sample the works of their artists without fear of incrimination, and focused on providing a plethora of incentives for buying hard copies or electronic versions of the singles/albums such as vinyl editions, complementary booklets among other collectors items and features I'm sure they could brainstorm, using some of that moolah they're currently burning to sue their own fans.

An inspiring idea, dft. I believe I must also undertake some research on this subject, albeit in a slightly different direction. The outline is as follows:

Criteria (as indicated by this video material):
All of my wife's (hereinafter, Test Subject No.1) underwear falls strictly into the 'naughty' category, as classified by one of my extremities. That's one.
Second-although I'm not entirely sure (more qualitative data need to be collected via hands-on approach/observations), it is likely Test Subject No.1 has masturbated at least once.

Hypothesis:
Test Subject No.1 is homosexual.

Method:
Upon initial brainstorming the most effective method for verifying the hypothesis seems to be subjecting Test Subject No.1 to camera-monitored and recorded close proximity of a visually pleasing specimen of the same gender, preferably homosexual, robed also in what can be classified as 'naughty' underwear. I also acknowledge other conditions such as downtempo music, presence of lit candles and a dip of aphrodisiac in the preceding cuisine/ventilation system might benefit eliciting a more rapid response from both Test Subjects.

I only wonder, to whom should I turn for financing such research?

they're definitely walking around on the ground, looking through infrared goggles, which collect and display ambient light of higher wavelengths than our eyes can collect. Some of the lights do seem to be associate with areas of ground light (city areas).


brainstorming a few ideas
-spotlights and high altitude water vapor/ice? hell of a lot of them; soldiers have never seen them before
-aurora-like sun-related phenomenon? pretty far south
-rockets/contrails? they all appear to be vertical
-lens flair/optical noise? seem to stay vertical while the scope turns; soldiers have never seen them
-mystery military weapon? doesn't seem to be doing anything