I see @lantern53 has no idea how gov't works. You see bobknight33, err I mean lantern53, There are three branches of government. Only one of them can create laws.

After much compromise, congress passed a law called the ACA. The President agreed and signed it into Law. It was ALSO upheld by the Supreme Court. So you see, ALL THREE branches of gov't are OK with this law.

Now this faction in the House of Representatives are trying to pass a law that says "sure, we'll fund gov't...but only if you de-fund or repeal the ACA. That's not governing, that's called taking a hostage. The senate isn't going to agree, so there's deadlock. See, the president isn't even involved.

He would ONLY get involved if both housed agreed with this, but guess what, even if congress agreed with the Tea Party, The President has this pesky little thing called a veto, which sends it back to Congress and they need a whopping 2/3rds majority vote to override him.

sorry, ain't going to happen. But hey, I'm happy that I could give you some remedial education since you refused to pay attention in class.

So in actuality, The Tea Party can keep having their little temper tantrum, They're all but digging their graves in the next election.

This is really crap.

This imperialist fuck's argument amounts to this:

1) The US will need to defeat Japan through military means
2) The US wants to avoid "another Okinawa" (with a quote from Truman)
3) The US needed to drop the atomic bomb

So, lets look first at that Okinawa analogy. Okinawa, as with other pacific islands, were particularly brutal because of both their strategic importance to the Pacific front as well as their terrain. Both because of they needed to be seized in order to cutoff mainland Japan (and isolate it) and their small, heavily dense terrain caused warfare to be at times hand-to-hand, the battles here were desperate and ugly.

This leads us to the next point: the whole presupposition with the imperialist fuck's argument is that there was no other way but occupation, in the form of Okinawa, to end Japan's empire.

This is false. The US had other options to end the war. Occupation of Japan wasn't a strategic necessity in the way occupation of the pacific islands was. The US could have maintained a bombing campaign while getting the rest of the world to pursue political/diplomatic talks with Japan.

The reason the US dropped the bombs wasn't to end the war (which was already war, de jure shit aside). It was to a) ensure supremacy over Japan (which isn't the same thing as ending a war) and b) to ensure global imperialist hegemony.

Amerikkka doesnt give a shit about saving lives. What about all the people firebombed in Dresden? What about all the imperialist adventures before and after WWII? Don't give me some ethical crap about a country, at least 1/4 of which was still under apartheid conditions, that wants to save lives because it respects human life so it drops atomic bombs on an already defeated people.

This should give you some insight...

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/dont-let-mumford-sons-trick-you-into-liking-them

Just listened to the entire Come of Age album by The Vaccines, whom I'd never heard of before, and I love it. Highly recommend it. Love the "Weirdo" song.

Give me some sugar. *promote

Are you willing to give up some freedoms to enjoy others? Your forefathers gave their lives.

How high of a price are you willing to pay for freedom?

@VoodooV
god i love you.

i did post some articles which reflect the expansion of power in regards to civil liberties and constitutional law.

but im with @Yogi
just because they 'say" they dont use that power does not mean they wont use it.historically it is quite the contrary.
once power is given it is ALWAYS used in some capacity.

but i agree with your contention about hyperbole and sensationalist media.
i also agree that for things to change it is going to happen from the people,

but for that to happen we must be informed and the government has done everything in its power to make this dragnet secret.
and thats really my main beef with all this.

secrecy.

which even by your own argument is not necessary.
we use facebook,google etc etc.

maybe all this attention might give us some much needed checks,balances and most importantly...transparency.

So the fourth guy already knew this wasn't going to work, but instead of saying that he ran and grabbed his dashcam to film it?

I think it could have worked, its round that gives it some structural strength, if only they would have slowly lowered it instead of just dropping it off.

@aaronfr

while I'll give @lantern53 some credit for attempting to justify his position instead of usual troll and run away we get from the others.

You're just wasting your time. They're not going to let a little thing like facts or perspective or reality get in the way. They're DESPERATE to find anything to stick...anything. They were even criticized him because a marine held an umbrella for him during a speech.

They're predictably tossing around the idea of impeachment as much as they can trying to drum up the pitchforks so they can lynch the black guy, err I mean remove him from office.

Brace yourself for more. I mean shit, they impeached Clinton over a blowjob..and he was white. What do you think they're going to try to do to a black democrat president.

Don't like it? Good, make sure you vote them out in 2014 and 2016. Republicans are done (maybe they already are) if they can't retake the presidency in the future. But if you think they're going to go down quietly, you're stupid.

Be prepared for more obstructionism and scorched earth mentality.

Let me start out by saying I work for a county Sheriff’s Office and will give you some insight or an idea what goes on in an officers/deputies head with any situation (which could pertain to this one)

First, I am a big nerd and have been around computers all my life and the internet so I have seen many police videos online. So let me say first that I agree that there are bad officers out there. Are we all bad? No, but the few ruin it for the many and I’m sorry to see such hate and distrust because of it. The only thing I or any law enforcement can do about that is do our job correctly and wipe the stigma away one person at a time.

Second, when it comes to responding to a 911 call (A call for service), 9 times out of 10 you do not know what you are going to. Dispatch (radio or control whatever moniker you want to use) can only give you the info that the person calling 911 gives them. Say this video instance, that someone from inside the home or a neighbor called 911 because of possible domestic violence going on inside the home. This is usually all the info an officer will get before showing up on scene. Now if the officer approaches the house and tries to make contact and is confronted by a man who has locked his door and is shouting at you, this is going to cause alarm with the office. Not only can he not make contact inside the house to verify if someone is actually hurt or to clear the call as it was made on accident by a neighbor, he has a male subject who is disobeying his commands to answer the door. I’m assuming this officer made a few attempts to make contact before he called for backup (fill units). Now with multiple officers, they will attempt to make contact a few more times. These officers broke down the front door to make contact inside the house. The only reason they would do that is because they saw danger or possible harm to someone inside, or the call made to 911 dictated that there was someone inside the house who was injured or in fear of their life.

To be honest, there are many reasons why responding authorities would break down that door. Maybe the 911 call was from a family member inside the home stating that their brother etc… was off his medications and was threating to hurt himself or others. Maybe he was acting erratic because he was off his meds and police broke down the door due to this individual having a violent past when he stops taking his medications. Maybe there were no meds involved at all and this individual has a violent past so the officers chose to act based on past experiences with said individual.

See, that’s the problem with almost 98% of these videos, WE DON’T KNOW. There are so many possible scenarios that without full disclosure on what went on, what info did the police have, and what were they witnessing on scene. We cannot “Monday night quarterback” these videos. I know videos prior to this have shown officer’s acting in the wrong with all the info available, but that doesn’t give us the right to assume this or others videos are showing officers acting in the wrong. I do not go to work every day planning on hurting people or making false arrests. I have said this many times to people who I have arrested or deal with when they ask “why are you arresting me”, “are you taking that money out of my pocket and stealing it?”, “this is a false arrest!”, my response is your few dollars or property or the statistic of making one more arrest if false is not worth my job. I am not going to make false allegations or take someone’s property that would cause me to lose my job and most importantly my pension. My family relies on me to bring money home so I can provide food and shelter. I would like to think almost every officer/deputy thinks and believes the same. We do what is right, even if during the situation it may seem wrong to others (civilians), we do what we think is right so at the end of the day we can go home to our families and the city/county stays a little safer. That’s my whole day, trying to make the city a better place one call for service at a time, and then get home safe to my family.

I really wish we were appreciated like firemen or military but I know we never will be. Law enforcement only show up when things have gone bad to worse. Nobody ever wants to go to jail. Try having a job where everyone hates you no matter what good you do. Yet we still go to work and put our lives on the line everyday (many of us die each year) so people can sit at home or in there office cubicle and judge videos of our actions. So please try to remember we are not all bad.

Just my .02

really? emergency landing just for that? fuck that noise. Give me some fucking headphones and continue with the flight for fucks sake.

Something that I don't get about Tywin (book or movie version):

He's cold, logical, practical, intelligent, cunning. His relationships with his children mostly make sense given the way he operates.

Cersei advanced his family name by marrying King Robert, which was good. But she makes stupid decisions, takes unnecessary risks, and arrogantly thinks that none of this will catch up with her. Tywin correctly identifies her key weakness being that she thinks she is much more clever than she actually is.

Jamie could be a reasonably useful chess piece in Tywin's arsenal, but by Lannister standards he isn't as cunning and "big picture" intelligent as Tywin is, or even Cersei. I'd say Jamie knows his own limitations in that regard way better than Cersei though. During the Targaryen reign, his position in the Kingsguard would have been potentially useful, but that turns for the worse when he sullies the family name by becoming the "Kingslayer", even if his actions were justified. His Kingsguard position and skillset in general become much less useful during Robert's rule, which further hurts his relationship with Tywin. All still makes sense from a cold, calculating perspective.

Then you get to Tyrion. Tywin has an antagonistic relationship with Tyrion, and seems to refuse to see that Tyrion is the best bet to take over the reins of House Lannister after Tywin himself is gone. I know that it is suggested that Tywin's bias against Tyrion comes from the combination of A) him "killing" his mother in childbirth and B) being born a "freak" dwarf. I have a hard time with that because I see Tywin as being too cold, logical, and pragmatic to let either of those issues cloud his judgement.

So Tyrion "killed" his mother (Tywin's wife). Perhaps that event had a profound effect on Tywin, but considering the way he plays his children as pawns on his chessboard, it seems more in his character for him to have viewed his wife that way also. Especially considering the normal state of noble marriages being primarily chosen to maximize political gain in the setting. Plus, mothers dying during childbirth probably wouldn't be an exceptionally uncommon thing in the setting either.

And Tyrion being a dwarf? So what -- Tywin only cares about what you can do to advance the family name. Tyrion could easily be groomed to take over as family mastermind while keeping Cersei, Jamie, or one of Cersei's children as the public face of the family. Pay no attention to the man, er, dwarf behind the curtain.

I guess I just find Tywin's relationship with Tyrion to be the one thing about his character that feels ... off, at least to me. I feel like Tywin would be more ready to give Tyrion some opportunities to prove himself, and less subjective about judging his performance in those situations.

Well considering the poster's title and MilkmanDan and sixshot's comments, they all seem to think its a real commercial. I also thought it would help to give it some context since the poster didn't. But anyway, good on you for being a complete arrogant dick and belittling someone just trying to help out the sift. Fuck you very much

Actually, that's exactly what I say, and average modern human morality is considerably superior to the filth that the biblical God advocates.

The moral standard of western civilization is founded upon judeo-christian beliefs. Read:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595555455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366921071&sr=8-1&keywords=book+that+made+your+world

Following the morality the biblical God advocates is the hardest thing you will ever do. The standard of today is a superficial, politically correct morality where you pretend to be nice to people but curse them when they aren't around. God requires a transformation on the inside where you have genuine love for your fellow man.

I am only saying that they are wrong by todays generally agreed upon moral standards. Some of these moral standards are extremely effective and have been around since very early human communities, so they only have the illusion of being absolute due to high adherence rate.

Are you saying nigh universal adherence to certain moral standards isn't evidence for an absolute standard of morality?

Murder, theft, oppression and incest are three fairly obvious examples. The evolutionarily advantageous trait of society building tends to list it's effectiveness when such things are widespread. But we have a very long human tradition of sanctioning and celebrating murder and theft as long as it occurs well outside our cohort. Killing other tribes is celebrated in the bible, as is stealing their possessions. Ethically justified slavery took another 4000 years to mostly get rid of, and hell, it was common practice to fuck your fifteen year old cousin all the way up to about the late 1800s here in the good old US of A as long as it was under the marital auspices of the church, of course.

Yep, but thank God that his just definition of morality - if we didn't have god's guidance through scripture, we'd probably do crazy shit!

You don't understand what God was doing in the Old Testament, or why He did it the way He did. It is morally consistent with His goodness and holiness, and there are logical reasons for why this is so. So far you are not interested in hearing them or discussing them. When you are let me know. In the end you don't have any excuse for suppressing the truth about Jesus, no matter what you think about how God acted in the Old Testament.

Using the word 'absolute' is a concession to brevity, but nice try - seriously dude, this is laughable and it wouldn't even stand up in Jr. High debate - absolutes do exist, they just need to be well justified, and yes if you want to be nitpicky about it there is an ever so remote chance that 1+1 is not equal to two in some distant corner of the universe. But as humans with an admittedly limited scope of understanding, we have to accept that level of certainty. If you want to relegate your theory to claiming its space somewhere in the possibility that we might be wrong about the whole 2+2=4 thing, go right on ahead.

There, that's what I meant by absolute. happy?

Basically, what you're saying is that because 2+2 probably equals four everywhere in the Universe, you are free to make absolute statements about morality? The fact is that your belief system leaves you with no justification for any absolute statement what so ever. Why should 2 + 2 always equal 4 in the first place? Can you tell me why the laws of physics should work in the same way 5 seconds from now without using circular reasoning?

Can you justify any piece of knowledge without God? If you can then tell me one thing you know and how you know it. Could you be wrong about everything you know?

Well then thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass in the whole god based morality thing. I prefer to have a really good reason to never slaughter innocent kids. But thanks for finally answering my question: there has been a good reason to butcher a toddler after all! Praise The Lord, for he is good!

It comes back to the same question: As the giver of life, and the adjudicator of His Creation, is it wrong for God to take life?

And here's another interesting brain tickler. If everything god commands is right, and god has a track record of testing his faithful with their willingness to commit infanticide, how can you say that this lady isn't moral?

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2001-08-17/news/0108170166_1_baby-s-death-baby-s-father-documents

The scripture is finished and anything which contradicts it is not of God.

Wrong, I know that things are wrong because humans and cultures have a long history of interacting with reality, and certain strategies have been more successful than others. You haven't spent one iota of your time discrediting this notion, whereas I have given you plenty of examples crediting mine and discrediting yours.

What I am supposed to be discrediting? You're asking me to nail jello to a wall. You have not even defined what "successful" is supposed to mean beyond pure survival. In that case, every civilization has been successful. Tell me what your definition of success is supposed to be.

For the millionth time, I have no hopes of convincing you of anything - you'll defend your stance against literally any proof. But you seem to come here on the sift with the intent of demonstrating to others that there is some logical basis for your beliefs.

What proof? The foundation of atheism stands upon the shifting sands of relative truth. You, the atheist, ultimately make yourself the measure of all truth. Because of that, you can't tell me a single fact about the world that you can justify.

Well you're failing miserably, mainly because you are only capable of restating the following sentence as if it is an agreed upon truth:

"Not only is the entire concept logically contradictory, but it doesn't match our experience, which is that some things are absolutely wrong. "

I don't expect you to have any good support for that, but the audience out there just waiting to be convinced, they will need at least something.

Torturing babies for fun; not absolutely wrong?

I'm still waiting for you to give Stalin some kind, any kind of argument as to why he should adopt your morality and abandon his own. If you can't tell Stalin why he is wrong, then you have no hope of escaping the charge of incoherency.

I voted for "variety" (Etc.) ....... Also, one thing that counts for a lot with me is content, if, for example, a video is poor quality visually, but has good content within, then I'll still give it an upvote. I actually take downvotes quite seriously & think long and hard before clicking one, when I do give a downvote, I give my reasons why (even though I'm not obliged to) 'cos I think it's only fair to give OP some feedback.

*Quality post @chingalera.

Obviously, the brain is being tricked into something. What that is, is yes an astounding mystery. See, as I said before there is only one way to test your theory is to invest ten minutes and find out. But, I am sure you would want to pussy foot around with 10mg for a long while until you got to the 40mg, "breakthrough" dose. Which, no one is ever prepared for.

It is not like any other drug. Two seconds in and the person is in a trance. The first time I did it, I really was not expecting what it felt like to go into trance as your mind slips through some sort of portal into the unknown. Seeing pure energy, geometry, with eyes closed. I remember before I did it, I was interested in many aspects of it, seven foot tall black entities were never something I thought about or fantasized about. It is not some fear of mine. I was interested in seeing the afterlife.... and on the way maybe I would see that all the geometric mayan/eastern mandala stuff was bullshit. I wanted to discount the experience as well. But, I could not. And in fact I can see where the influence comes from even if the patterns one sees on this are far more intricate beyond the human imagination. Surely, this is a state the yogi, the buddhist, hindu monks spend their lives trying to get to.

I have given this to close friends. Afterwards, I give it some time and eventually I ask do you think that came from your imagination? And no one believes it does. A lot of what they saw came from absolutely no pop culture references. It came from nothing except knowing very little about it and trusting that I was not going to pop them to the other side of the universe. I still do not know where you are getting your assumptions from? No one knows of anything for sure. We hardly know anything about anything. Repeat that in your head.

I believe in Science first and foremost. But, whatever this is challenges just about all preconceived notions we have of what we actually are to the core. And even if it all proves to be just a trip. It would still challenge the preconceived notions we have of what we actually are.