I wanna see glow-in-the-dark mammoths.

>> ^TheFreak:

@kceaton1
We're not goimg to see government investment in technologies like fusion windustriesing industries like coal and fossil fuel hold so much control over the government. The status quo will be maintained for as long as the big money industries can buy the government and wage their public campaigns to convince people to defy theor own interests in the name of small government and anti-liberalism. Didn't you know? Science, education and investment in new energy technology is a conspiracy of the liberal elite to make us all slaves to big government.
As long as the mammoth energy industries are calling the shots and writing the news items for fox news we will see no advancement in science that threatens the cash flow.


It's nice to hope though, isn't it. Like I said, when Obama said, "I want America to think of a BIG project for us to work on, what is it?", I thought right off the bat, fusion, duh. I certainly knew there would be impediments towards that road, but it seemed as likely as sending someone to the moon.

If we screw over our own future, whether that be the world or just America, it won't be that surprising at all. We are all too willing to let the unrepentant psychopaths, sociopaths, and straight up bad human beings into power.

@kceaton1
We're not goimg to see government investment in technologies like fusion while the fossil fuel industries hold so much control over the government. The status quo will be maintained for as long as the big money industries can buy the government and wage their public campaigns to convince people to defy their own interests in the name of small government and anti-liberalism. Didn't you know? Science, education and investment in new energy technology is a conspiracy of the liberal elite to make us all slaves to big government.

As long as the mammoth energy industries are calling the shots and writing the news items for Fox news we'll see no advancement in science that threatens the cash flow.

Edited for spelling. Stupid mobile keyboard.

This intellectual area is really not as simple as it seems. For example, let's look as critically at that NYT article as we would at articles that we disagree with:

"Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education... This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible."

1. The NYT authors are comparing teachers' salaries to people with similar levels of education, like MBAs. What is ignored is that MBAs often regularly work 60-80 hour work weeks, they don't get summers off, and their job is substantially harder. The reason why there's such high demand for jobs as a teacher despite the 'mammoth' 14% pay cut (according to this article) is because in addition to lesser hours, much of which like grading papers can be done at home, the work is relatively easy compared to working in high stakes, high stress business environments in which you'll be eaten alive if you're not constantly bringing your 'A game.'

2. So teachers have difficulty owning a home in a nice part of town and raising a family without a spouse who's also working? Of course... everybody does. 14% is a very small disadvantage (assuming the NYT's number is correct). Here in San Francisco, most people can't afford to live in San Francisco, particularly if they're a single parent raising a family, so they live in the cheaper surrounding cities and commute to work. The NYT authors are horrified.


If this is how the NYT authors operate, there are probably countless weaknesses in their intellectual accuracy.

Dude, is it so hard to believe a public employee makes $12,000 a month? That's only $144,000 a year, not $1.4 million. It's possible. Especially since so many groups are unionized in this state.

Remember this video with Councilman Bernard Parks banning fast food in South LA? Well, according to this article from LA Times (you know how right wing they can be), Parks makes $178,789 a year plus "$22,000 a month in city retirement benefits". Plus a police pension of $265,050 being the highest paid police chief in US history. But that's just one councilman and retired police chief in LA.

The entire Los Angeles general fund budget is $6.7billion, and they're projecting a deficit. The police budget's over 1 billion. And check this article out:

Los Angeles could face nearly a $1-billion shortfall by 2010 because of a mammoth bailout needed for the city's employee pension funds, which have seen investments tank in the spiraling national recession, according to a city budget report released Friday.

Sure, they're cutting some jobs, but look at all the new spending and hiring they're doing. On the news right now they're reporting about LA City Council voting to fund a $1.2 billion-development project to build a luxury hotel. And what about the high speed railsystem from San Diego to San Fran? The point is, LA and California spend a lot of money, so why is the $12,000 monthly salary for a fireman too big for you to swallow? Usually there's nothing too big for you to swallow.

Hell, a quick google search could've easily proven my "apocryphal firefighter" is in fact not so questionable. According to this article, "overtime pay for the Los Angeles Fire Department soared 60 percent over the last decade", and "the department's top earner racked up a total of $570,276 in overtime in the last three years, including $206,685 in 2006." And that's just overtime. How are they able to earn so much? Is it because the number of fires magically leapt to historical highs over the last couple of years? Well, according to the article, that sounds unlikely:

Recruits earn overtime for after-hours remedial training "if they feel the need for more time to grasp the skills," a department spokeswoman said.

So, do you now still call bullshit on me, my CPA, and your mom the two of us were fucking when we told each other that story? Or does it seem possible (nay probable!) that maybe the city workers in unions here in LA (and all over California for that matter) are making a very good (and at times great) salary on our tax dollars?

My CPA also told me a story of an architect who got tired of struggling as a small business and having to pay so much in taxes, so he quit the private sector to make more money working for the city. You wanna call BS on my apocryphal architect?

And I do care about the taxes I have to pay. I envy you that you don't. You must've had a great life as a lawyer's son. Always having more than you owe. I wish we all could come from there so we could also take the same sanctimonious positions you do. Only people of privilege seem to say things like, "money isn't everything." As if they scowl at the rest of us for wanting better for ourselves. Now excuse me while I go back to that mom of yours I was fucking when I told you this story.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
I'm not accusing you of lying, I'm just expressing skepticism since it doesn't line up with either my personal experience, nor with objective analyses of the changes in tax law from 2009 to 2010. Since you don't seem to have any firsthand knowledge about why your taxes might be higher, there's not really any way for us to get to the bottom of the discrepancy in our viewpoints.

I can't say the same about your secondhand hearsay about a supposed fireman who's making six figures. I call bullshit on you, your CPA, and the pig the two of you were fucking when you told each other that story. It's either a total fabrication, or the guy's primary source of income has nothing to do with firefighting.

As for Ireland, Greece, Spain and the UK, they're not in the same boat as the US. They're all engaged in much sterner deficit-reduction policy than the US has adopted or is likely to adopt in the near future. And to answer the question I posed to you, the net result is that they're just making things worse. What on paper should have reduced the budget didn't since it depressed the economy so much, and as a result they're no better off in terms of government debt, and much worse off when it comes to their general economies. Countries who took the liberal path like Canada and Sweeden are in pretty good shape. The US is pretty much splitting the difference, and while we're not getting worse anymore, we're not really recovering either.

I kinda feel sorry for you if you really think taxes are the only thing standing between you and a happy, satisfying life. A 35% raise wouldn't give that to me, nor would even a 350% raise. It'd be nice to have to be sure, but I feel like I've passed the point where even large increases in my income would have a qualitative impact on my overall quality of life. I don't really make all that much in the grand scheme of things either -- far less than your apocryphal firefighter.

I appreciate your candor in admitting that you don't care about wars, or humanitarian crises that happen to other people, just about how much taxes you have to pay and whether people you know make fun of you or not. Most people who feel that way don't have the guts to come right out and say so.

Just a word of advice, but money isn't everything. It can feel like it if you're not able to put food on the table, a roof over your head, or pay your medical bills, but beyond that happiness and satisfaction has a lot more to do with your emotional needs and the relationships you have with the people in your life than much of anything else.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Well, I'm certainly not lying. And it was 35% on my adjusted income, or what they call taxable income, I think. And it was in no way over or even in the same ballpark as $373k. Not even close.

I don't own. I rent. It is LA, after all. Buying a home in the city is tough. But I shouldn't be penalized for that, should I? We didn't get married last year, but we're certainly doing it this year. That may help next year, but why punish people who are single? Does that seem fair to you? And why punish those who don't want to work in the public sector or for a corporation? You know, I did employ two freelancers, so I create jobs this year. Shouldn't I be rewarded for that? It just makes zero sense to me.

I don't know why my tax is so high, to be honest. I have a CPA that deals with all of that. I just give him my itemized deductions and the amount I made, and he does the rest.

Yes, Ireland, Greece, Spain and the UK are exactly the same as the US. Bravo. Their EU is part of their problem, but that's an entirely different conversation, isn't it? I like how you bipartisan types take someone's real problems and make a political statement out of them. You know, taxation of this magnitude is not a partisan issue. This affects real people with real lives. Right now in my life, the only thing that stands in the way of me building a better life and the ability for me to pursue my happiness is the government. I owe them every year, and every year it goes up, and every year the Democrats call me a liar. I don't understand that.

Meanwhile, my CPA tells me of some of his clients. The firemen and policemen in LA. One fireman, a captain for a firehouse, makes $12,000 a month, and he'll retire when he's 55, and he'll take home 90% of that for the rest of his life. Good for him. A police captain makes enough to buy a home in Malibu overlooking the water. According to my CPA, he's got one helluva beautiful manicured backyard, too. Good for him. Glad I can pay for it. And you wonder why some of us hate public unions. Because I have to pay for them to retire at the age of 55 and take home a pension for the rest of their lives, yet the small businessmen can't catch a break because we're just middle class. I hear it's a helluva lot easier to just get on welfare and ride that out for a while.

So, you can comeback all you want with "Spain! UK! Greece!" but it means little to people like me, because I don't give a damn about your partisan bullshit, and it's not worth my effort to sit here and point out the many flaws in that argument. I care about how this affects me. The wars, the world affairs, the humanitarian efforts, and whatever else to me is just a distraction. What's important is I shouldn't be raked over the coals, and then have a gaggle of confused statists scratching their heads and point fingers at me as if there was some taxation glitch in the system.

I find it somewhat amusing that these people with, what I would view, not real skills make so much. I mean news caster do nothing more than read the news...or well, they did years ago before they were celebrities that sell news instead of report it. The tax code is a piece of crap anyway, this debate is just about one morsole of fecal matter.

Number of pages in Federal Tax code.

I can't find a more recent list of how many pages there are. It is sad, and wasteful, that not only do we have to pay a mammoth IRS to keep track of all that, but, entire industries have sprung up to do you taxes for you. Money you could be spending on better schools, better toothbrushes, ect. One might say, "but you are creating jobs for accountants!" But that is the same as saying it is good for the economy for the government to go around smashing windows is good for window repairmen. Fact is, you shouldn't need to spend money to have some firm write software to sort through millions of lines of federal tax statues. Make it flat, make it easier, make it fair...but for heavens sakes, make it something else.

</rant>

>> ^MarineGunrock:

They didn't used to. The world we live in, at least the civilized part, is too soft to kill off stupid people. People aren't forced to get smart or die. Food, shelter and water are all readily available. Almost makes me want to say "too bad." >> ^oohlalasassoon:
Fact: Stupid people get old too.



I hear ya. Back then, when some dimwit like this said something idiotic, you could smile to yourself and take solace in the fact that sooner or later, he'd get himself eaten by a saber-tooth tiger or gored and/or stepped on by a woolly mammoth.

Ah, those were the days...

Where's the mammoth tank?

I was lucky enough to take my daughter to one of the last Flintstone Parks a couple of years ago before Hanna Barbara pulled all licensing rights from the theme parks. It's sad to see an era slip away.

My daughter will always have the photos as memories though... driving the bedrock cars, controlling the Fred's big purple dino crane, pumping gas from the woolly mammoth named "Ethel" Going on the log boat safari drinking cactus juice, watching the cartoons on the cave walls and so much more.

The cartoons were a blast as well - sort of the predecessors to the Simpsons..

The problem I see here is that the video author is assuming that all the problems created are actually philosophical in nature. The big problem is the human mind and our nature.

We have been selected to first, fight or flight at any unknown variable. Second, evolution plays its core tenet: survival of the fittest (which has a part to play in all these examples). Third, you have resources--which in turn go back to number two. Lastly, reproduction comes into play.

Sillma and Crosswords touched on this. We have to figure out a solution to force a change in our predisposed evolution. Whether that be a biological or technological (or both) solution. What would any such society do about sociopaths? They, by definition, will not understand "being good".

I hope we can get to a semi-Utopian like society, but it will be a mammoth undertaking. The changes he talked about are far easier in comparison (physics and astronomy--oh, and since when was quantum mechanics not messy ). The Utopian change will require an upheaval at every facet of society: government, trade, religion, decisions, structural, biological, technological, industrial, etc...

/I'd like to live in a nice paradise, but this approach would require too much from the one source that made it in the first place.

Now for Mr. Snuffleupagus.... the sole surviving Woolly Mammoth, but without tusks, or something totally different?

>> ^zor:

It's better than nothing, however, the used motor oil that they are using in this demonstration has very little in common with the tar like substances that could cause problems on the Gulf Coast. Used motor oil is full of additives and detergents that will cause the oil to coat things better. In this case it coats hay really well. Tar, and other crude derivatives with a consistency more like Vaseline, not so much.


I don't understand this. The idea of motor oil is that it is free flowing yet keeps the "oil coating" property inherent with oil. If oil in its natural state didn't have a problem sticking to things, then this wouldn't be a problem in the first place. I don't suppose the natural state of oil would hinder gathering it in this way much, and as they pointed out, the denser nature of crude oil might aid in the process. I mean, just the wording that you used conveys exactly that, "the tar like substance". When I think of tar, I think of a substance so sticky that it drags down woolly mammoths to their doom!

Americans buy ten thousand gallons of gasoline a second, without giving it much of a thought. All this gas takes a one-hundred thousand mile journey from local gas stations to oil fields half a world away. From the most off-limits places on earth: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the New York Mercantile Exchange’s crude oil market, oil fields from Venezuela, to Texas, to Chad, and even an Iranian oil platform where the United States fought a forgotten one-day battle, the story is at once surreal and alarming, as lonely workers on a Texas drilling rig, an oil analyst who almost gave birth on the NYMEX trading floor, Chadian villagers who are said to wander the oil fields in the guise of lions, a Nigerian warlord who changed the world price of oil with a single cell phone call, and Shanghai bureaucrats who dream of creating a new Detroit are pieced together in the mammoth economy of oil, and these stark warning signs for American drivers.

So far for me it's this list, but still some fine releases to see from last year..
1. Mammoth
2. Das Weisse Band

3. The Wrestler
4. Inglorious Basterds
5. Avatar
6. Slumdog Millionaire
7. 35 Rhums
8. Bright Star
9. Ricky
10. Knowing

"What i hope for is to see less videos about religion and atheism and for people to loose interests in this retarded war. I got tired of all the video spam on these subjects long ago, but they seem to keep returning."

As long as there be unfulfilled, frustrated, bitter, and uncreative folk, there will be arguments "for" or "against" anything and everything.

Religions make Semolians....greenbacks...MONEY. Including the 21st Century religion of Atheism. Both sides will always profit in our current paradigm, where money reigns supreme. YES! Has not the choggie been spouting from day 1 here on the sift (with a chambered downvote shotgun at the ready) that the rabid, sophomoric, finger-pointing and name-calling by both sides is a circle jerk of mammoth proportions?

The sift has enough video wreckage-those who play here and show up to look, usually have a brain with a solid handle on a take on God. Personally???...If ya wholesale rule out a creative force in the uni/multiverse that may or may not be a benevolent omni-being or catalytic observer/initiator, well, you simply ain't had a third-eye opening experience, and ya need to have yer pineal gland fibrillated!

Praise Bejesus Mary Magdaloin!