What are your thoughts on God deciding to create Jesus today instead of 2000 years ago, and Mary wanting an abortion? Are you for theistic abortion, or against?

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Hehe, where would you like to start?

In reply to this comment by thinker247:
I'm always up for learning strange ideas about various topics. Maybe we could have a strange-off competition, then sit at home and cry about the fact that we just competed to see who is more strange. Or not.

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
I'm Toby, a true blue swede (blue because of the cold) and procrastinator extraordinaire. Socialy inept, silent to the point where you might think me mute, gloomy to the point where you might think me suicidal, there's hardly any prejudice about swedes I'm not living up to.
There's nothing in particular that I'd put down as an interest. Don't have any real hobby or past-time occupation except for lurking the sift, really. Also, Got a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to people listing theirs and adding stuff like "music", "movies", "food" etc. For some reason it just feels like such unnecessary information, a filler if you will, like there would be anyone who didn't like music or who couldn't stand food. Not that the interests themselves are the issue mind you, but rather the lack of specificity.
I've some strange ideas on religion, politics, society, video games and just about anything you can imagine, and would love to exchange thoughts if you don't mind the ramblings of an uninformed and ineloquent mind.

Currently unemployed after some time working in the eldercare business, I'm waiting to start my university studies this fall and hopefully become an engineer someday.
Previously I studied to become an English teacher, but after two years there was no question I didn't have what it took to be a real good one, and it wouldn't be fair either to me or my students to do some halfassed work.

The most amazing person I've ever met was a 12 year-old boy who had immigrated with his family from Iran. He was fluent in three languages (Farsi, Swedish and English), was an advanced guitar player aswell as a straight A-student.
It's people like that who give me hope for the future of humanity.

kreegath, would you have the same feeling of disgust had he been a person who walked into the office with an uzi and executed several people instead of just freaking out? fuck this guy and his inability to deal with the same shit billions of people have to endure their entire life without any issues whatsoever.

fuck this guy for not just quitting and finding another job that suits him better like any normal and decent human being would. i say, laugh at him, laugh at him in his pathetic face so he never breaks down like this again. and if he does, throw him in jail where he belongs.

we all deal with horrible things in life. It doesn't give anyone the right to act out on others or on the corporation you work for and hate.

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
I find it disgusting to take pleasure on account of someone ruining their career and possibly their life. It's disgusting regardless whether it's the first or second person recording it, and I have trouble believing that the guys making this recording did so with the intent of aiding any possible future investigation, even if the videos could possibly be used as aid in that.
They're making a spectacle out of a man ruining his career and quite likely his life, which I think is quite clear for no other reason then that it ended up on the internet and subsequently here.

I'm always up for learning strange ideas about various topics. Maybe we could have a strange-off competition, then sit at home and cry about the fact that we just competed to see who is more strange. Or not.

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
I'm Toby, a true blue swede (blue because of the cold) and procrastinator extraordinaire. Socialy inept, silent to the point where you might think me mute, gloomy to the point where you might think me suicidal, there's hardly any prejudice about swedes I'm not living up to.
There's nothing in particular that I'd put down as an interest. Don't have any real hobby or past-time occupation except for lurking the sift, really. Also, Got a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to people listing theirs and adding stuff like "music", "movies", "food" etc. For some reason it just feels like such unnecessary information, a filler if you will, like there would be anyone who didn't like music or who couldn't stand food. Not that the interests themselves are the issue mind you, but rather the lack of specificity.
I've some strange ideas on religion, politics, society, video games and just about anything you can imagine, and would love to exchange thoughts if you don't mind the ramblings of an uninformed and ineloquent mind.

Currently unemployed after some time working in the eldercare business, I'm waiting to start my university studies this fall and hopefully become an engineer someday.
Previously I studied to become an English teacher, but after two years there was no question I didn't have what it took to be a real good one, and it wouldn't be fair either to me or my students to do some halfassed work.

The most amazing person I've ever met was a 12 year-old boy who had immigrated with his family from Iran. He was fluent in three languages (Farsi, Swedish and English), was an advanced guitar player aswell as a straight A-student.
It's people like that who give me hope for the future of humanity.

>> mmm. Swedish cheese...

Is that new avatar somehow a representation of the new "ignore" feature?

Kreegath? Hello? Can you hear me?

Oh that's okay, I don't have any expectations regarding you getting back to my inane internet correspondence.

The one saving grace is that the US has an entirely volunteer professional army (for now), although you may have heard the phrase "backdoor draft" which entails making those "volunteers" "volunteer" a little more than they might wish, by extending and adding tours of duty and such. We also have the National Guard, which is a part-time force of civilians, who ordinarily offer their services for something like a weekend a month during peacetime, but may be in for extended duties during times of conflict, such as now. There are laws to protect them, such as making it a legal requirement of their employers to have their jobs open for them when they return. These 'Guardsmen' do a lot of the heavy lifting and convoy work, and are in harm's way as much as any other soldier in the case of Iraq. Maybe they do patrols, too.

But by and large, you can shirk any amount of military duty as an American. Every male has the slightly ominous duty of registering for the draft at age eighteen, but aside from that for most Americans the conflict is just pictures on a screen. I think that's part of the problem. Without any real experience, war is fun adventure, a bold crusade for freedom for some of couch-bound America.

Except for the Mothers, Fathers, Brothers and Sisters of the slain. Then it's an entirely different story of immense sorrow mixed with some justifiable pride, one by the grace of God I can't tell.

There are many of these large SUV vehicles driving around getting 30L/100km gas mileage, with these little ribbons on the back that say "support our troops". The drivers clearly can't connect the two concepts of consumption and empire.

Get this, the ribbons aren't even adhesive. They're magnets, so they can be removed at the slightest whim, should the war become unfashionable. I often remove them and toss them up on their tall roofs, surely not to be found for years.

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Oh and sorry for the late reply, haven't had the time nor energy to do much of anything but work these past weeks. Just couldn't get anything remotely coherent written down, but hopefully you can discern what I wrote just now


In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Yeah we've got *sort of* a compulsory military service, in that we're all drafted at the year we turn 18. Then during the draft, we're going through a series of tests to decide what position within the military (if any) we're most suited for/would like the most, and hopefully we're trained for that position for 9-15 months. If memory serves, the tests are separated between physical strength, endurance, intelligence and mental health, all rated from 1-9 were 1 basically means you're dead and 9 means you're in excellent condition for that particular test.
Thing is, about 1 in 10 willing people are actually put in military service today due to cutbacks, and the general concensus is that about 1 in 10 drafted say they want to do their military service at all. And as you can see, the ones who are willing do get some perks, like being able to goof off like that
But the decline of our military is not at all bad if you ask me, first of all because we don't have any enemies, secondly because we don't have much of anything that other countries would want and thirdly because we're members of just about every treaty and defence agreement you can think of. It's just necessary to get enough new blood in order to keep our arms industry going, which sadly is too important for our economy to scrap.

Guess it's kind of different from the states, eh? Don't have a clue how you guys go about it to be honest, but it certainly must be more serious. What with you being the world's only remaining superpower and all. Quite a reputation to live up to for sure!

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Well, I think that looks fun as hell! Is some amount of compulsory military service required of Swedish youth, as it is in some countries?

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Basically the reporter explains the situation, that the group of youngsters doing their military service training are making a video showing off some cool bazooka action in true US marine spirit, or so they gather from having watched war movies. For some reason they thought it'd be fun to do it in the nude (DON'T ask me why) and the reporter tells us why they should have clothes on (to avoid getting burned by the hot shells and bazooka pipe), then speculates if there really is a rule saying a soldier have to wear clothes or not. We're also told some bigwig in the defence department doesn't approve of the image this video conveys of the Swedish army, but seriously who are we trying to kid. Let them have their fun while they can, they've been educated about the risks and dangers of those weapons.
Personally, I'm in favour of dismantling our the entire defence establishment and just keep the weapon sales industry, because sadly that's one business we can't afford to lose at the moment.

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Can you offer any additional insight, Kreegath? Personally I think it's perfectly healthy.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Naked-Swedish-Artillery

Well, I think that looks fun as hell! Is some amount of compulsory military service required of Swedish youth, as it is in some countries?

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Basically the reporter explains the situation, that the group of youngsters doing their military service training are making a video showing off some cool bazooka action in true US marine spirit, or so they gather from having watched war movies. For some reason they thought it'd be fun to do it in the nude (DON'T ask me why) and the reporter tells us why they should have clothes on (to avoid getting burned by the hot shells and bazooka pipe), then speculates if there really is a rule saying a soldier have to wear clothes or not. We're also told some bigwig in the defence department doesn't approve of the image this video conveys of the Swedish army, but seriously who are we trying to kid. Let them have their fun while they can, they've been educated about the risks and dangers of those weapons.
Personally, I'm in favour of dismantling our the entire defence establishment and just keep the weapon sales industry, because sadly that's one business we can't afford to lose at the moment.

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Can you offer any additional insight, Kreegath? Personally I think it's perfectly healthy.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Naked-Swedish-Artillery

Can you offer any additional insight, Kreegath? Personally I think it's perfectly healthy.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Naked-Swedish-Artillery

yeah i do trust that your comments were seriously a representation of anti-European feelings, because people just comment using the first feeling that comes to mind, this is because half the people are sheep that are on the internet.

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
You don't honestly believe our comments were seriously a representation of anti-European feelings? I thought that by going insanely over-the-top with my post and trying to add in every US stereotype I could think of, I'd make it crystal clear that it was indeed perceived as it was meant, as not being serious.
I enjoyed the irony of your post though, and hold no ill will against you.

In reply to this comment by leotfreshy:
2nd part

now heres about the vid.

I think this vid maybe a anti-europe vid beacuse it is fed to people like swampgirl and Kreegath that are on the comments abover me.

cuz just look how they are reacting, i mean come on! its people like that, that give mankind a bad name. Those are the people that belong in the army because they are narrow minded, they are sheeps not leaders, they follow the line of food that is put infront of them. so if you believe in this vid and others like it then i have a question to put to you sifters

what are you, sheeps or leaders?

Nah, don't worry about it, I'm at least as much to blame, and it's easy to misread something like that. No big deal.

English isn't your first language, huh? Cool! What's your native tongue? Mine's English, and I'm studying Japanese and Chinese.

I wonder if most people even have any interest in that topic though. I translate Japanese songs by groups that I like as a hobby (not like LOL TRANSLATION, I'm about to finish fourth year college Japanese as a 2nd year student), so the nuances and problems of translation are REALLY interesting to me.

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Yeah, I really like the fact that we can hold a good conversation here on the sift and exchange thoughts like adults. Didn't mean to sound confrontative in the thread, it's just hard for me to read in comedy over the net, especially since English isn't my first language.
Let's hope we get some more people interested in the discussion, would love to continue talking about this and see how people feel about it. I think we're able to make a pretty good case for ourselves

In reply to this comment by JAPR:
responded to this over there.

This is a really good conversation we've got going on, I'm enjoying it a lot. Sorry if I came off like I was being rude with quoting myself, it was more of a kind of comedic way of pointing out that I totally agreed with you/we were saying the same stuff. It didn't really come off clearly I guess, haha.

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
I agree that it's still ridiculous in the Japanese version, turns out it's the acting and script we've got a problem with
But what I wanted to say before was that the cutscene isn't necessarily bad because it's not a direct translation of the Japanese version, and that it could actually have been worse had it been directly translated.
Being a high-budget production, it's not out of line to assume they had a plan for dubbing it, but either the communication went wrong at some point or we weren't the target audience for the dubbing.
I wasn't trying to get at you with the post, but instead trying to flesh out your comment with some thoughts on the whole process, because it's quite the ordeal to translate something and it's so much more than just trying to fit the speech to the characters' mouth movement. We both agree that the cutscene wasn't very enjoyable, after all.

responded to this over there.

This is a really good conversation we've got going on, I'm enjoying it a lot. Sorry if I came off like I was being rude with quoting myself, it was more of a kind of comedic way of pointing out that I totally agreed with you/we were saying the same stuff. It didn't really come off clearly I guess, haha.

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
I agree that it's still ridiculous in the Japanese version, turns out it's the acting and script we've got a problem with
But what I wanted to say before was that the cutscene isn't necessarily bad because it's not a direct translation of the Japanese version, and that it could actually have been worse had it been directly translated.
Being a high-budget production, it's not out of line to assume they had a plan for dubbing it, but either the communication went wrong at some point or we weren't the target audience for the dubbing.
I wasn't trying to get at you with the post, but instead trying to flesh out your comment with some thoughts on the whole process, because it's quite the ordeal to translate something and it's so much more than just trying to fit the speech to the characters' mouth movement. We both agree that the cutscene wasn't very enjoyable, after all.

Hey Kreegath, Congratulations on that shiny star! Please don't downvote me!

Thank you!

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Huge congrats there! Hope to see you get that 100-point star soon, followed by the ever-so-elusive diamond. Nice work!

Hi there - remind me to promote your melonia vid next week. That was my inspiration for posting my own recently. I was about to do it just now, but a friday afternoon promote back to the queue is next to useless for a vid with only a few votes.

I tried to find it, but couldn't. Aww I hope it hasnt

In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Quite certain this has been sifted, but I can't find it at the moment.