Yes exactly, duration of time and distance to be traveled are key factors in the decision to wear heels. But some of these girls, I see them every day, trucking all over campus heavily laden down with books and gigantic purses (and they don't look attractive at all when they're all slouched forward under their burdens- kinda ruins the whole effect that heels are supposed to provide in the first place)... I just don't understand why!

I love the ads that are spawned whenever there is a gay video sifted... its only time we get beefcake on this site rather than bimbos in wet t-shirts!

I actually stopped wearing heels (except for special dressy type occasions) years ago because I have had joint deterioration issues and, in general, it pains me severely to wear anything over about an inch.

But every day I see girls around campus wearing some of the most ridiculously high heeled shoes or boots ever, all day, every day, in any kind of weather, even dangerously icy (which I am sure I would kill myself doing)... it astounds me, and my favorites are the ones who pair really high heels with massively overstuffed backpacks, so they end up hunched way far forward under the weight of their books, looking like some sort of odd pack animal on stilts... I wonder some times what they think they are doing, and if they realize what is going on physiologically as a result.

I am tempted to begin posting this diagram in the ladies rooms around campus... if anything, it should be required reading at some point in a young girls education. That, or all grandmothers should show their granddaughters their bunioned and hammer-toed feet... mine certainly has- she wore 3 inch heels every day to work as a corporate secretary throughout the 40s, 50s, and 60s, she felt she had to be able to stand up to the men in her office... so I guess that is why a lot of professional women do that sort of thing. But damn! there is no way I want to have feet like Grandma's when I am 90! They are scary!!!

But anyway, I just thought that diagram was neat and informative in a disturbing sort of way.

@snoozedoctor & arsenault (if you really care to learn why sending missionaries to Iraq stirs up so much trouble)

While I think you have made a somewhat valid point... I ask you not to forget that our great and wonderful nation of 'free-peoples' was only gained via the slaughter and removal of an indigenous population. The rationale for this removal often was that it was completely legit due to the fact that Native Americans were 'heathens' and 'pagans' and therefore not children of God blessed with all the divine rights that the good people of America were inherently imbued with... and don't forget our 'Manifest Destiny, which was essentially God's will that America stretch from coast to coast and become the leading power in this hemisphere. Historically, American armies may not have been have entered battle under the banner of a crucifix, but the justifications for their deployment have often been laced with the rhetoric of spreading 'Christian values' and thereby civilizing the heathen peoples of the world... so, even though this country is not technically a 'theocracy', which is a nation governed by a religious body who forcibly imposes one faith upon all of its citizens (which the Ottoman empire was NOT, by the way- political and ruling powers lay in the hands of the Sultan and his heirs, the Caliphate only established to give their dynasty legitimacy, and by and large the Empire was comprised of peoples of MANY faiths- it was no more a theocracy than was the Holy Roman Empire, or any of the Medieval European States, in fact, in a lot of ways, it was probably much less of one. That corsairs or an envoy operating under its aegis chose to justify their actions by using the Koran is no different than the thousands of other actions carried out by European kings, and conquistadors who chose the Bible as their umbrella), the justifications for the actions of the American military have in the past often been aligned with 'Christian' motivations or agendas (once again, see the conquest and 'taming' of North America)... and given the discourse in American politics today, I think it is hard to deny that there is a great portion of this population that would very much like to see it formally defined as a 'Christian Nation', with Bibles in the classroom and Commandments at the Court House, so the perception abroad that Iraq is a 'Christian War' is not unsurprising, its like to spring up anytime a predominantly Christian country sets foot in the Middle East.

But back to history and the motivations of international shenanigans of the more recent past.... Its not only America that is guilty of working in tandem with the motivations of religious institutions and their rhetoric... throughout the Golden Age of Imperialism foreign missionaries more often than not preceded the armies of Western nations throughout Africa, Asia and the Pacific, establishing churches and converting portions of the population. Attacks on these outposts of Western thought and culture would often then be used as an excuse for a Western nation to move in and establish a military presence before moving on to full blown colonization (see the French takeover of Indochina/Vietnam if you don't believe me).

In regards to this situation then that pattern is important to keep in mind, because I think it helps explain some of the anger that is being raised by missionary activities in the region. Given the prevailing attitude against Western influence in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries (due mostly to the experience of having been subjugated by Western Imperialist powers in the past), it should not be so surprising that these FOREIGN AMERICAN missionaries would be viewed by Iraqis as a threat to the sovereign identity they are trying to create for themselves. It is not that the Iraqis who might strike out at these people are doing so entirely because they are averse to Christianity, after all, there has been a long standing population of Chaldean Christians within Iraq that has gotten by just fine for centuries- it maybe hasn't been on top and they were pretty fairly discriminated against under Saddam but they certainly have never been outrightly persecuted for not being Muslim. Even today, despite all the turmoil in the country, those who have remained are pretty much just hanging in there and riding things out while the various Muslim factions around them blow one another up.

So, a large component of the problem is that many Iraqis ultimately feel that they are being 'invaded' by Imperialist Western influence, on many fronts, militarily, politically, and via these missionaries, religiously. So, therefore, this conflict of interest goes beyond simply just religion and it is important, I think, that Christians (missionaries and otherwise) realize this, the situation is not just Christian vs. Muslim- Iraqi Muslims are not just angry or striking out because the people of Jesus have dared tread on their sand to convert their neighbors. There are many many other factors involved in this that explain why they would not want missionaries from America to be active within their country... especially at a sensitive moment in history such as this.

Oh thank you so much!! I'm so glad you took the time to find a replacement! I've had so many get sent to the deadpool lately I haven't had much time to go around trying to fix them all. And I'm glad you found a fix for that one in particular, Fred Astaire will always be an unrequited love of mine!

In reply to this comment by mas8705:
Your Ceiling dance is back on... Sorry I couldn't find a better video, but the other were either out of sync, didn't have an Embedding code or had bad picture...

@arsenault... I said 'life-loving'... or so they always seem to say that they are.

And if they were sending happy, colorful 'Jesus Loves Me' stickers and bibles to a country that wasn't currently being torn apart by a religious based Civil War and thereby helping to add to the chaos and misery of the situation, then I probably would not have said anything, because yeah, like it or not, they have been doing this for centuries (although really, that, I think is no cogent argument for the justification of modern missionary activities- after all there are lots of things humanity has done for centuries, like, oh, prevented women from owning property or having any sort of a say whatsoever, or, oh I don't know, slavery.... both of which could also potentially be justified by the "we've been doing this for thousands of years" argument, but aren't, because people by and large have realized that we need to progress and move forward as a species. So, applying that same reasoning to justify the continuation of missionary work, just isn't gonna fly).

But, anyway, they are purposefully going into an area that is already torn apart by religious and sectarian violence... if they were so dead set on saving Muslim souls, then why not go somewhere else? Iraq is not going anywhere, someday, eventually after a lot of bloodshed it will settle down. The fact they have chosen to go into Iraq NOW strikes me as purposefully divisive and meant to stir up trouble, like they are looking to make some modern-day martyrs or something... so in this case, in light of the civil war and the inherent violence of the region at the moment, it strikes me that they should GTFO for now and stop making things worse... there is a time and a place, and their being there NOW is not helping, and any way they rationalize it is, at this point in time, ridiculous.

Oh wow! yeah, I guess I can see it now, I suppose that is why I couldn't figure out who it was... all that youth and such... but now that I know I can definitely see that it is kubrick, especially with his expression.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
It's a youthful picture of Stanley Kubrick. I'm not sure what year exactly, but I believe it was taken in the early 60s.

In reply to this comment by raven:
By the way... who is your avatar a picture of? Dude seems oddly familiar but I can't place it.

*horrorshow

And will undoubtedly be banned in such fine states as Kansas.

Ugh. No "Top Downvoted Videos"!.. do we really want to give quantummushroom, billOreilly, rotty and other consistently obnoxious personages their own special soapbox???

*islam *waronterror

I think the point is the imbalance in the type of role the Muslims stereotype is cast in, as Tom Stall pointed out, they are, more often than most other stereotypes cast as the role of the enemy.

The reason there is not a Jewish version of this video is because Jews in movies can also be sympathetic genocide victims, or intelligent problem solving types, or funny scene-stealers, or that cute guy the cute girls falls for in the latest 3 hankie chick flick sobfest... and yes, Germans in films are for the most part perpetually stuck in 1939-45 invading other countries and shouting 'Mein Furor' but they can also be punk rockers, composers, happy beer-swilling tourists, new wave musicians or esoteric art film directors... its not to say that these groups are not stereotyped in film, but their stereotypes have more variety, and fill many more roles than always being terrorists.

I think Farhad is right in that the Russians are the only group that can begin to compare in the treatment the Arabs have received from Hollywood, they are always baddies perpetually dubbed as 'those sneaky-fucking Russians'. Unless they are played by Sean Connery, then they get to be noble, but they still speak with a Scottish burr.

Just to clarify, now that my comment is getting so many votes... I'm not an atheist, but I am very against evangelical proselytizing and most 'missionary' activities (because historically its gone hand in hand with imperialism and the ultimate plunder and destruction of countless indigenous cultures, and in the modern era it just does not jive with my own views on personal determinism)...

But all that aside, I am above all else a very practical person when it comes to viewing world conflicts, and ventures such as this just blow my mind in their overall disregard for the actual outcome and affects that they cause on a region. I only wish that Christian missionary organizations would move away from the rationale that their supposed 'saving of souls' somehow makes up for the earthly strife and destruction they cause in the process.

Yeah, I agree they're a total waste...

But I fail to see how this post relates to SiftTalk. So in the spirit of keeping it better organized and clean (as Dag and Lucky have pleaded for in the past), how 'bout we append this to one of the channels? Like, say, *lies ? I think that would be appropriate.

That's better... I see they're starting to whip out the titles and the esquires and such... much more lawyerly. I shall wait in suspense to find out who they rep and what they want removed.

And yeah, do we get a prize if its one of our sifts?