The worst thing about @bobknight33 and @lantern53 s insidious brand of racism is that it turns you into them.

The way to defeat them is with tolerance and understanding.

But I don't have the patience for that. FSM forgive me, I just want to punch them in the face.

That is unequivocally wrong.

It's what they want and it ultimately, it solves nothing. But it's really, really hard to read their constant stream of "I'm not racist, but here's why black people suck" tirades.

Stevia is too new to make any real determinations on. Currently, there is a lot of uncertainty. Just because something comes from a plant doesn't make it safer. Almonds used to be loaded with cyanide before we eliminated the trees that had those kinds of almonds. There have been recent studies questioning the safety of stevia, and this will likely be dealt with over the next decade. Unfortunately, certain countries have gotten around the necessary procedures for sufficient scientific inquiry because they are marketing it not as a food additive or sweetener but as a dietary supplement, which makes it easier to avoid such scrutiny. Unlike xylitol, which is perfectly fine for human consumption and has been shown to inhibit growth of oral bacteria that leads to caries and plaque, stevia is simply an unknown at this point.

However, stevia has also been around for a while. It has been a product since the 90s and has been banned and un-banned in numerous countries. European reports have shown that it is safe, but it is also still banned in many countries there.

For those of you think that it is "natural" and thus safer, I urge you to look up the naturalistic fallacy on wikipedia before going any further here. It has also been used as a sweetener by certain tribal peoples for centuries, so that means absolutely nothing as far as science goes, but it will still sway many people over, just like traditional herbal Chinese medicines like tiger penis powder and rhinoceros horn powder.

However, it is not a "natural" substance whatsoever, even though that word means nothing in nutrition anyways. Basically they take a small amount of Rebaudioside A from the stevia plant and use a bunch of alcohols and other chemicals to extract out the active sweetening ingredient and then crystallize it. This is then renamed steviol. It is significantly less sweet than most of the other sweeteners, except maybe saccarin, at only about 150x the sweetness of sugar.

Basically, Stevia is probably not bad for you, although the verdict is definitely not in on this one. It is no more "natural" than any of the other sweeteners. You need more of it to reach the same level of sweetness as your other sweeteners so dosage could be an issue. But you have to understand that each of the companies that makes these sweeteners has to find a way to sell their product. So, what do they do? They claim that their sweetener is "natural" and "safe" which implies that all of the other sweeteners that came before it aren't, and as evidence by my previous tirades, this is simply not the case. But they profit from our unwillingness to look at the data for ourselves and play on our natural tendencies to trust them.

In short, we are not certain about stevia yet, but we are certain that sugar is bad and aspartame is fine. However, you probably shouldn't eat any processed food, but we already know that in our bones. We all know that cooking up a delicious meal from simple ingredients is the best way to eat healthy but we don't do it because we are lazy. I am just as guilty of this as the next person. We can only dream of a future similar to "The Invention of Lying" where marketers aren't allowed to lie to us and can simply say that their food is bad for you but you drink it because it tastes good and because you have been for years. A world where they can't market to our children so we don't all grow up addicted to halloween candy or cereals that are more sugar than grains. The best way to do this is to cut your cable from the television and live on the internet with AdBlock installed. Then those fuckers can't get at you as easily.

@BicycleRepairMan
i do not understand what you are arguing against.
you could have stuck with "no" and that would have sufficed,but you went off on a tirade about religion that had very little to do with what NDT was attempting to convey.

simply put:keep science and religion distinctively separate.that you could BE a scientist and still be a religious person.

he didnt get into the details because (and i am assuming here) he is full aware of the complexities of ones personal beliefs,religion being only a single facet.

to say religion has not produced a single novel or new idea,totally ignores the massive contributions in regards to:philosophy,math,astrology,physics.the list is pretty extensive.

you appear,and please correct me if i am wrong,to pigeon hole anybody who claims a religion as being a fundamentalist.this is not only staggeringly inaccurate but reveals a massive lack of understanding.

which is why NDT didnt even mention the fundamentalist,because the chances of a fundamentalist being a scientist hovers around 0%.

so why are you making an argument against fundamentalism when NDT did not even proceed from that assertion?

why do you care if a scientist also happens to hold a religious or spiritual philosophy?
are you suggesting that a scientist who DOES hold to these philosophies can no longer function properly as a scientist?

has it ever occurred to you that an intelligent person may hold a religious philosophy and keep that philosophy separate from their work?

or considered that a religious person may actually view their work as the continuing study of god/creator/universal consciousness? that by unraveling the mysteries of the known physical universe is their way of revealing god?there is a certain poetry to seeking and attempting to understand the mysteries of the universe.

i am totally with you in regards to fundamentalism,which brings a stagnation to the inquisitive mind and hampers the desire to know and seek those answers.the fundamentalist externalizes those questions in the form of scripture and in the process..stops asking the questions.

but to suggest that anybody who adheres to a religious or spiritual philosophy is somehow a fundamentalist,and therefore unworthy of consideration,is just plain inaccurate.

When I had retail jobs I thought it was hilarious when customers would threaten to get you fired. It's retail.. 95% of people working in retail don't give a shit about hanging on to that job. On multiple occasions, a terrible customer would start going on some tirade and demanding to see a manager, I'd just yell and insult them until they left the store. Amazingly, I was only ever "talked to" and never fired.

Oh man...I feel bad you just went on an angry tirade because you saw what you wanted to read and NOT what I wrote.

Derp...I didn't say let's forget the civilians. I said...that "nobody blames INNOCENT civilians so let's move past that" (i.e. let's not assume anyone is blaming civilians, or at least...Im certainly not).

Derp...I said that equivalency is irrelevant not that there IS equivalency. I said that the problem is that there IS an equation. When there is an equation there is an automatic need to balance it which equals more deaths down the road. THE PROBLEM is that people are dying and it needs to stop.

Why does that make you angry senor Caps and Bold? Why is the statement that death is bad and it needs to stop a problem?

Without reading and understanding what I wrote you automatically categorized me as a "hardliner." Then to further 'discredit' me you took a visual trait (my red P) and further categorized me in order to mock my statements and garner public support against my statements.

Its scary how easy and subconscious it is to create a reviled OTHER, which is Ironic considering the issue.

Anyway.... My only central point is and has been that Hamas and the Israeli elite directing the conflict are both to blame...they are both perpetuating the conflict throughout the decades in the best ways they can.

Why does saying that they are both to blame for the violence make me a hardliner? For who exactly? For people who understand that taking sides is stupid. Yes. And why does it spawn such vitriolic responses?

How can you not blame Hamas....How can you not blame Israeli elites?

Killing needs to stop. Humanitarian issues need to be fixed. Simple. Wooo such a hardliner.

Does anyone else get the impression that those last three comments are quite representative of the information warfare waged these days by several parties (nations, corporations, etc)?

Comparatively endless and overly specific tirade against something that was not even the topic of the video? The use of "99.9% of the knuckleheads commenting here" in a thread with a mere three entries?

So very out of place...

Why does it feel like every time a women host goes on a tirade, some guy is patronizing her, but when a guy does it, it's called Journalism?

@BoneRemake

Clear violation of official sift decorum
"You are a backwater tinfoil hat wearing twat. it is no secret here that you fit that geography. Fuck off , your stupid bullshit man.. sometimes it is just too much bullshit to take. "

....or simply assholism??

Newt, you should know fucking better and act accordingly if you have it in you to dump your ego in the toilet for a refreshing swim.

I have accepted consequences of my tirades in the past-Trying really hard to play 'NICE' children, got a few years on your "polite' asses as well. Your hate doesn't fool anyone, in fact it seethes with every comment made.

Bothof you continue to ignore or otherwise discount sincere private messages, yet you come out in public to try and destroy my opinions and observations with personal attacks. what's up with that, eh??

Man-up why dontchas?

Indeed. I believe the option was placed here by popular (mob) decision a few years back in order to mitigate the "panty knotters" from lapsing into self-righteous pontificating, finger-wagging, and holier-than-thou tirades.

When you talk to Mr. or Mrs. Literal....♪ You better mean just what you saaaaay! ♫

First, you again label me with your convenient labels knowing absolutely NOTHING about me. You make the mistake of assuming I'm an average consumer/waster/litterer. You would be wrong. I've never once thrown litter out my window or elsewhere since I was an adult, including cigarette butts and water bottles. In fact, I have bought fewer than 5 bottles of water in my lifetime. I grow my own food for the most part, and I don't buy much, so my garbage output is severely limited. Even my driving habits are below average, well under 5K miles per year.
(You have it backwards, in your scenario the asshat wants to shove his shit into my ass because I don't want it on our roads. If you think that's OK, I just don't know what to say except stay the hell away from me and mine!)
Second, you seem to be up in arms that someone would have the unmitigated gall to call someone else out on their illegal, immoral, and incredibly rude behavior by returning the offending litter, and your knee jerk reaction is to say you would do something worse to that jerk that had the gall to call you out and return your litter? Hmmmm. That's not a reasonable or logical reaction, and is what I expect from 5 year olds and meth heads.
The guy throwing shit out the window repeatedly after someone went to the extreme of going into traffic to retrieve the litter and return it has the death wish, he's poking an unstable bear (OK, really 2 unstable bears) while ensuring no one would come to his aid when it all goes wrong.
Interesting, in private you agree with me on many points, but when I call you out in public for making ridiculous statements attempting to be a little fucking thing (another way to say an annoying object, which is exactly what you have told me you are trying to be) you go off in unintelligible tirades. The hilarious thing about this one is we both seem to be suggesting similar responses, just by different parties. It seems if I don't agree with you 100%, I must disagree with you 100% (in your mind) and therefore must be insanely unreasonable.
Repeatedly littering when numerous others have gone above and beyond to stop you is insane, out of control, rude, and illegal, and is asking for some other idiot to take things a step farther out of control. Ramming one of their cars was BEGGING to be ripped out and beaten, he was just lucky the guy he hit wasn't the same kind of hot head. You think everyone besides you is insane, uneducated, and completely lacking self control, so how does antagonizing them and escalating the already hot situation do any good for anyone?
I just can't understand how anyone with the intelligence to type can defend the litterer in this. Even if you think everyone in the situation was wrong to some degree, the litterer A. started the situation B. was doing something both illegal and immoral C. repeated this action and D.escalated to vehicular assault. You really need some serious mental gymnastics ala Eric Cartman to make him the one who was wronged or righteous.

Is it's safe to assume she didn't want fries with that tirade?

Careless. What you left is to be enjoyed throughout the United States of Unconsciousness, regardless of invisible borders between the hectares...This particular abuse of the machine notwithstanding, you ran from what's essentially your own shadow cast by the sun, and the suns' everywhere-Blame for the insanity of governing bodies rests upon everyone's shoulders, no one state can be singled-out-

I stay here because all there is to be had somewhere else is more ineffectual whining from Americans who have been groomed for the past 50+ years to enjoy the smell of their own shit as their heads reside comfortably, up their own asses.

Conservative, liberal, progressive, partisan, democrat, republican, socialist, etc., these terms and labels have become absolutely meaningless and the discourse to be had on forums where these terms are slung-about like they actually mean something actual or tangible (including this one), banal, tiresome, and lacking any practical substance to affect change of any kind.

Moronic and pointless iffn yer askin', and since this soapbox tirade be unsolicited, enjoy your "freedom" wherever the grass seems greener. It's only a picture of grass, the real stuff will cost you money.

CreamK there got me riled with that developmentally-disabled rhetoric there Buck, I did not mean to down-vote your retort to his tirade.
All I read was blah blah blah guns, blah blah blah right, blah blah blah left, and my brain needed a Fleet, with natural Lavender scent & comfortable applicator tip

You really just don't have any self awareness do you?

you complain about my use of slang and rhetoric. Yet in the very next series of sentences, you launch into your own tirade of derisive rhetoric and insults.

Here, let me attempt to clarify the irony with a much more simple example.

"This motherfucker is calling me names!"

If you're going to cry foul about mud-slinging, it helps if you're not slinging your own mud. Just a suggestion though.

Now...do you have any arguments that actually have to do with topic at hand, or are you just going to whine again?