>> ^EndAll:
>> ^Throbbin:
This time, at band camp....
I wonder if Africans find them as annoying as I do.

Not band camp! Apparently some 'ORU' goodwill-type-mission - which you can't really knock 'em for, Jesus-freaks or not.


I dunno, I'd like to know more about what they did there before I decide as to whether they need knocking or not... If all they did was go around and tell the poor poor savages about the wonders of Jesus, they can go and get mango larva on their vaginas for all I care...

>> ^Throbbin:
This time, at band camp....
I wonder if Africans find them as annoying as I do.


Not band camp! Apparently some 'ORU' goodwill-type-mission - which you can't really knock 'em for, Jesus-freaks or not.

In any case, this bores me.

Westy ought to stop making racist remarks, because it clearly is bothering people very much, but I would prefer that he just realized that they are bad comments, instead of us forcing him. You are welcome to ignore him, if you want.. that's your choice. And if he abuses our goodwill with blatant racism, then we can take it up again.

Westy, must you ruffle these particular feathers again and again? Please stop.

If something I say offend anyone, do tell me in a PM. I rarely do it, usually only in posts like these, because exposed nerves are so fun.

For all the moralfags:
Of course this was a horrible event. The lulz are from Kanye speaking near-unintelligibly, and then calling out the most politically incorrect statement on live, national television (however true it is).
I feel for all of the people who were affected. I participate in charity ffs. Blood, goodwill, hell i drove a stranger 30 minutes home. But that doesn't change that this is a hilarious video.

I just want to take this moment to stand up on my soap box and say NO to hand jobs. A guy can give himself a hand job. Please, don't even insult him with the lame offer of a hand job.

A blow job is always appreciated and is truly a gesture of love and goodwill.

And a little oral reciprocation is great for diplomatic ties.

This video has been declared a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by kulpims.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/DJ-Goodwill-I-Scream

>> ^quantumushroom:

Would you prefer the term illegal invaders? They're sure aren't dehumanized as much as the American taxpayer, who has to pay to reward criminality.
Illegals have no right to be here and certainly no right to any kind of welfare or "rights". They're not American citizens, they deserve nothing except our goodwill and trade when they stay on their side of the fence.
If you want to explore real brutality, research how Mexico deals with invaders sneaking across its southern border.


I prefer 'illegal immigrants', it's the term everyone else uses and is clearly the most accurate. I don't pretend to condone it, but the way you talk about it, or frankly any politician or media figure is counter productive. None of these people, who go on and on emphatically about illegals stealing US jobs while infering tacitly xenophobic dialect have any practical solutions. Politicians want to be seen as rallying against it, but they typically accomplish nothing other than scoring political points. Little can be done to stop the free flow of people especially over such a large borderline. A fence that is difficult to or completely insurmountable, especially over that kind of landmass is not feasible, neither is surveillance. Any funding used purely on border enforcement would be much better used rooting out cross-border crime rings.

The fact is, the only thing that will eliminate illegal immigration in the long run is working to equalising economic conditions on both sides of the border, and that means keeping and encouraging freer trade, and granting more temporary work visas for Mexicans. And yes that means accepting the fact that Mexicans will 'steal our jobs', because when it comes down to it free trade has the exact same effect, and if you did happen to miraculously reduce the tide of illegal immigrants looking for employment substantially in the US, the multinationals that currently rely on their cheaper labour will pack up and move, typically to Mexico or another country with lower real wage levels, as has already been the case in the past. Now of course worker protection should be extended to older workers in lower skilled industries who are incapable of retraining into new jobs, and government services to temporary workers should be limited as I'd imagine is already the case. It's a completely unavoidable conclusion though, railing against illegal immigrants blindly is equally as counter-productive as continuing the drug war.

While commiecrats valiantly defend the Kenyan, he's over in Europe apologizing for and badmouthing America while praising Europeans, half of which America saved from annihilation in WW2 and the other half which was busily exterminating entire populations.

He's also ignoring America's allies in favor of sh;tass tinpot dicators in backwards regimes. He's just a god-damned embarrassment and affront to all the things that make America the greatest country on earth: liberty, freedom, and a government that answers to the people, not the other way around.

H-Bob: since Obama's voting record is TO THE LEFT of Ted "Swim" Kennedy, how is he not an ULTRA-LIBERAL? I guess if you're a commie he's "to the right". BTW I respect American communists: they don't lie about who they are and what they're about, unlike taxocrats.

Redsky, thank you for your informative post.

Btw, just for your information, the term illegal 'aliens' is a distinctly American phrase that everyone else in the developed world sees as the blatant form of dehumanising foreigners propaganda ploy that it is.

Would you prefer the term illegal invaders? They're sure aren't dehumanized as much as the American taxpayer, who has to pay to reward criminality.

Illegals have no right to be here and certainly no right to any kind of welfare or "rights". They're not American citizens, they deserve nothing except our goodwill and trade when they stay on their side of the fence.

If you want to explore real brutality, research how Mexico deals with invaders sneaking across its southern border.

CONTEXT:

Music is 'I Scream' by DJ Goodwill (Ministry of Sound)
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=30607242
Video seems to be funded by Cornetto ice cream
http://www.noboringbits.com.au/#/goodwill

As crazy as the idea of shutting off the site to non-members is, I think MINK is just trying to brainstorm ways of saving this site, so I think it's not fair to shoot him down like this.

As far as opening the financial books of VideoSift.com goes...I don't really care about it. I'm sure other hosting options are being considered and weighted. Switching the host is not a decision that is to be taken lightly anyways. But the idea in itself is not that crazy (again, I'm not in favor of it). Non-profit organizations that accept donations (like Goodwill) do have to open their books to the public, at least they do have to in many countries. But again, I'm not interested in the details of that.

What I would be interested in is the system this site is built upon, namely VaroCMS. If this site was built upon a well-known system, such as Wordpress, Joomla, etc etc I could rest assured that it operates very efficiently, without a lot of bandwidth or server power going to waste. With the closed-source system VaroCMS I'm not so sure.

Here's a small example of what I'm talking about: I just visited 5 user profiles, all of them charter members. None of them has a custom CSS in use, but for each individual profile I visited, a new .css file was cached locally. Ok it's only 10kb per .css file, but stuff like this keeps adding up. Waste is a thief...

I'm not trying to pin lucky to the wall. Building a complete CMS from scratch by oneself(?) is such a ginormous task that I shudder at the mere thought of it. That's why I wouldn't have considered doing that for a site like this in the first place. The question now is how can the site's system be optimized to save even the last drop of bandwidth and servertime? Again, with a closed source system like this it's all in lucky's hands and that's alot of work he's not getting paid for.

As usual mink, you've got some pretty twisted views of this site and the Internet in general. Really, lock out non-members? This is a website that we hope to succeed eventually. How on earth could you seriously suggest that we essentially kill the website from all traffic? Real good plan for Internet success there, mink. Maybe we should save on bills by banning you because all your trolling comments take up a lot of space in our database.

Btw, do you also believe that every site on the Internet that has a "donate" button in their sidebar should detail all their finances? Do you rummage through Goodwill's dumpsters looking for financial statements to know if you're giving away your stuff to a worthwhile cause? Before you stick your spare change into the donation box at the counter of your local restaurant, do you start a letter-writing campaign to the organization to find out how they plan to spend your coins? Do you do a background and credit check on a homeless guy before putting a dollar in his cup?

We are not asking people to purchase stock in a company. We are not brokering a business transaction. We are not negotiating with the community. We are simply asking people if they are able and willing to donate, whether that willingness is based on financial information we've already shared or just their personal good feelings for the site. If you think it's worthwhile, then that's great. But if you don't, then don't donate. Just don't waste everyone's time with your little high horse act like King Mink is so magnanimous to demand full accounting for the poor, incompetent community when in reality you're just being a complainer as usual.

Dag's been very forthcoming and honest about the site's income and overhead. If that's just not enough information for you, too fucking bad for us. Pardon me while I cry a little. Just please quit you're inane whining and demand-slinging. You're clearly the only regular who gives too little a shit about the site's future to ever contribute a penny without us flying over and giving you a handjob in return.

Swampy is right; you're always going to have differences of opinion in how things are done. But ultimately whatever rules there are, they are subject to the discretion of those who run the site, in this case Lucky and Dag.
Complaining that so and so shouldn't have been banned because previously someone didn't get banned is a bit weak to me. It's like expecting 100% consistency from a referee at a football match.

I don't like these polls about what is supposedly fair nor those who start posts about getting others banned. Funnell it all through the admins and let them do their job - I certainly don't want pseudo admin/power user rights that end up in someone getting a ban.

Now complaining about how the site is run *is* ok. But after a while this sounds like a broken record. In the long term the fate of the site is with the admins and the goodwill of the users. If someone feels the site is genuinely broken or moved away from its original raison d'etre then surely it is time to leave. I've done that once and you know, it felt ok. It was only a website after all.

Well, we both know, and Israel knows, that nearly all of the people in Gaza can't leave. All of the nations in the middle east, friend to Israel or friend to any faction of the Palestinians, will not accept any large number of refugees beyond those already present in their country (and are in fact unlikely to grant citizenship to the refugees already there).

Honestly, I think that there is no and never was a clear consensus amongst Israeli leadership as to the exit strategy for this campaign. I think everyone involved agreed that some form of military response was necessary/called for, and that they all had and have different ideas of how they want it to end.

Hamas is in the position of balancing further casualties and suffering amongst their members and constituency against the possible goodwill they can gain in the region by mimicking Lebanon's performance in the previous war.

To be entirely blunt, the Palestinians in Gaza (including Hamas) have been losing a lot, and stand to lose a lot more if the IDF pushes forward.
I think the likely "out" in the near term (and possibly the endgame that a majority of Israeli leadership is pursuing) is that a sufficiently large majority of Hamas operatives in Gaza will decide that it is in their best interests to reach a compromise that accedes to some but not all of Israel's demands.

Joedirt, Hamas leadership in Syria has consistently refused a ceasefire without Israel first completely withdrawing, which I think is rather unrealistic.
This Arabic daily criticizes Hamas leadership for obstructing cease-fire negotiations (see the bottom) http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=15352
Here's the Telegraph, saying that there is division as to a cease-fire between the Syrian leadership of Hamas and the leadership on the ground in Gaza http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4240932/Analysis-The-choices-confronting-Hamas.html

In the long term? Personally, I had been thinking that unilateral distancing by Israel was a positive step towards peace. However, if Israel leaves open any significant access to Palestinian territories, additional weapons or weapon-precursors will enter the region and be used against Israel.
As we have seen, Palestinian militants will tunnel or otherwise attempt to circumvent even relatively thorough security procedures put in place by Israel.
This leaves Israel in the unenviable position of deciding whether to leave the Palestinians with relatively open borders, and suffer proportionately more attacks, or completely isolate Gaza (and probably the West Bank as well) in a truly thorough fashion.

This is a classic asymmetric warfare situation, which historically have been very bloody and nigh-impossible to end peacefully. I don't know of any historic examples that didn't end in the militarily superior power either pulling out completely ala Russia in Afghanistan or the U.S. in Vietnam (not a realistic or moral option here) or committing genocide as in many Medieval and Colonial conflicts (also not a realistic or moral option).

To end this before it gets any longer, simply giving the Palestinians a homeland will not bring peace to the region as long as a significant portion of the Palestinian population is willing to pursue the destruction of the state of Israel via violent means.

I do not dispute that there have been a number of bad actors affiliated with Israel. However, I believe from personal experience that the vast majority of Israelis would be happy for the Palestinians to have their own state, but also believe that many Palestinians would continue to pursue the violent destruction of Israel even if they had full sovereignty.

Bianca Jagger:
Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador, Chair of the World Future Council, Chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, and a member of the Director's Leadership Council of Amnesty International US.

Annie Lennox:
Academy Award-winning songwriter, also a political and social activist, leading such events as a pro-Palestinian rally in London January 3, 2009

Ken Livingstone:
English socialist politician, mayor of London 2000-2008.

Alexei Sayle:
English stand-up comedian, actor and author, notable for his cynicism, intelligence and political awareness.