This beast maintains her appeal for a few reasons-The ones that are left still run as they did when they were manufactured(they're brick-shithouses in the durability/reliability categories) and like most simply-designed diesel engines maintain their dependability-Combine these with the enthusiastic appeal of our collective industrial heritage and the vibrating ground beneath her pad when she's purring and you have a recipe for an unquenchable, historically relevant enthusiasm.

Did I mention they'll run forever??

I'm not sure she really means this. If it's not her actual opinion (I reckon it isn't) it's basically just viral advertising for the programme. The media do this constantly. Remember that Samantha Brick woman who whipped up a storm last year by writing a column in the Mail about how all other women hated her because she was beautiful? She was a troll, and the Mail's website benefited from all the increased banner ad viewings. This is just the same: making controversy for the sake of pageviews, advert clickthroughs and logo placement. The watercooler effect.

That day will come, definitely. How soon it comes is up to you.

I know people in their forties who are stiff as bricks, yet my 65 year old Sensei can do the splits and put his whole torso on the ground.

I refuse to be old!
/stands up and tweaks back....

@Kofi. It's pretty hard not to horrifically oversimplify Pakistan in only a few paragrahs. Pakistan only enjoys the third government branch of power thanks to very heavy American pressure. The ISI and military have dominated Pakistan's prior history, this years elections mark the first and only time in Pakistan's history that a civilian government there managed to serve it's full term and pass power on to another civilian government. Past governments like Bhuttos were dismissed by the military, and then saw Bhutto executed. Pakistan's road democracy is hardly secure yet either since for all the gains, Bhutto's daughter was assassinated before finishing her bid to run the exiting civilian government.

Kashmir is just the bone of contention between India and Pakistan. Within Pakistani politics the discussion is all about Balochistan and FATA. The internal divisions over those two regions was and still is being manipulated to maximum effect by Pakistan's enemies. Particularly, in FATA you have Saudi dollars building Madrassah's were Pakistan's government either won't or can't do anything about education for the tribal people. So on one hand it's giving a lifeline to a poverty stricken people, and on the other that life line is tied to a brick being thrown into the deep end of jihadist teachings and training. And when I say Saudi charities, I don't mean to suggest it's government backed. It is by all accounts privately donated monies by private Saudi citizens, the ones that give out candy to kids when parade worthy things happen.

"Plus, I can name many muslim nations that did not have spontaneous celebrations. Afghanistan for one"
You've got to be kidding on this, right?
I'd ask you maybe look at my point and counter more closely though. I was speaking to the comment that Al Qaida was wanting for supporters and didn't have peoples support prior to 9/11. I did not declare that all muslim nations were dominated by celebrations, I in fact stated that very few failed to officially condemn the attacks. I just asked how many did not see spontaneous celebrations, and yes even America saw spontaneous celebrations by the likes of Westboro nutters. My point was not paint entire muslim nations as celebrating, but that there existed elements virtually everywhere celebrating. Would you disagree on that, or is that essentially correct. As I see it, that is a clear refutation of the idea that groups like Al Qaida were starved for support prior to 9/11.

"The third point you seem to provide your own refutation. Drones etc do indeed fuel Al Queda."

Maybe read my statement more closely again. My position is that while on one hand Drones help recruitment, and on the other they hurt not only recruitment and retention, but larger scale operational planning as well. Drones have done more than drive some angry youth to join the fight against America. They have also killed a great many of the Taliban's top leadership. More importantly, they have driven a near permanent wedge between the Taliban and Pakistan's military which is a value that is hard to underestimate. IMHO the 100% sole reason for the Afghan war was to either drive that wedge between Pakistan's military and extremists, or failing that to provide a location for waging a ground war with Pakistan. I also believe there was heavy calculations that the Afghan war would prove sufficient threat and deterrent that Pakistan's leadership would make the "right" choice.

I think it's important to make a distinction here. I almost feel like talking about "Al Qaida" as the problem is Bush(jr.) league type stuff. The bigger picture is jihadist terrorism, and who cares what label it wears. The reality after 9/11 was that jihadists terrorists in the form of the Taliban, Al Qaida and many other groups had a strong foothold inside of Pakistan. They were close friends and allies with the highest ranking officials within Pakistan. After the 9/11 attacks were committed, it was decided that a line needed to be drawn between the two and it was no longer acceptable to just let Pakistan hold these jihadist terrorist groups as friends and allies. After all, how emboldened would they be if they got to launch such an attack while still maintaining their alliance with Pakistan's ISI and military. Suddenly Pakistan's military has a pseudo mercenary/spec op force that is capable of organizing attacks on mainland America large enough to kill thousands in one round. The implications of that were deemed bad and in no uncertain terms the decision was made to put an end to it.

...And Bush 'sold' it to his demographic by giving a cowboy speech declaring your either with us or against us. I'm confident though that in the most bizarre of ways, that speech was carefully phrased diplomacy giving Pakistan a flashing red message without the public embarrassment of actually naming them in the process.(or Bush stumbled onto something in blind ignorance too, I'd flip a coin on it).

CEREAL
"Snoop onto them..."
NIKON
"...as they snoop onto us!"

Soooo whaddya do, stand outside 9800 Savage Rd Fort Meade, MD and toss bottles and bricks at the windows?
Americans could do what the Brits did when their poncy government ass-fucked them and lay down and take it like a bitch, I suppose.

Oh hai, in the opening 10 minutes this guy rattles-off the addresses of the largest of the heads of the Babylonian hydra...I imagine an army of Rastafarians mounting a frontal assault, mon!

Let's see... fresh baked cupcake for or pre-packaged possibly pre-historic "edible oil products" from AM/PM for the same price of $3.25

http://cupcakesforcourage.com/flavors.html

Ya. I can see why the brick-and-mortars are scared.

Brick House - The Commodores has been added as a related post - related requested by Fusionaut.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Brick-House-The-Commodores

@enoch

you honestly think this shitstorm of a "discussion" is a good example of debate and discourse? It started off nice enough but the @shinyblurry web-bot detected the word atheist in its search algorithms and ran its "scripture_dump_#647.bat" script and then insecure @chingalera heard the commotion and decided that enough people weren't paying enough attention to him so he had to enter the fray.

and of course the people who just haven't been around long enough to know how those two operate unwittingly took their bait and assumed that these people were actually genuine and engaged them and viola! instant shitstorm

This has nothing to do with taking offense. You honestly think we ignore people merely because we disagree with them? Fuck that and fuck you for thinking so. We ignore people because we don't think they add anything to the discussion and their posts eventually become noise and distraction.

This has everything to do with people who have no actual interest in the community here and are just here to push an agenda or they're here to agitate people in a non-constructive way.

there is NO debate in this thread, there is NO discourse here. just brick walls and trolling.

@messenger this is EXACTLY why moderation is needed because this thread demonstrates exactly how there is NO self-moderation going on. Things are blowing up now until the next time someone falls for the chigalera/shinyblurry trap and we do this all over again lather rinse repeat and zero progress.

This sift keeps naively assuming that everyone wants to contribute constructively. Not everyone does. Some people are just attention whores. Dissent and offense is fine as long as it can be done constructively and you can at least make a decent argument to back it up. Most of us do that here, but non-insignificant number of us don't And sometimes you have to pull out the weeds.

Not every opinion is equal. You want debate and discourse here? Well there are rules and a structure to that. If you can't back your shit up or you commit blatant logical fallacies or are non-constructive, expect to get your ass kicked. That isn't squashing dissent, that's enforcing a standard.

Hello, Brick Wall. I would like to argue with you.

There are plenty of brick houses in Oklahoma. But this was an incredibly powerful tornado. It flattened buildings made of cinder bricks.

No, but they are more expensive. Plus a tornado will rip off the roof of a brick house and destroy everything inside as well, so unless you are particularly attached to your walls, doesn't make much difference. In earthquake zones, a wood house is safer than a brick house and will take less damage. Also, buildings tend to be made out of what is most cheaply and easily available. Unlike pretty much all of Europe, the US still has forests!

are brick houses illegal in the US or something?

I've got no problem paying taxes on things I buy online. It will help brick and mortars compete with warehouse operations - which will save jobs - and it will also help cash strapped states with revenue.