No other comment...I'll take that as concession that I'm right about all that. Thanks

OK, lets discuss the video then.
If there had been no video, what do you think would have happened to this poor 'suspect'? I say he might not be seen again, at least for decades. He was on probation/parole (the cops didn't know that), accosted over nothing, searched for nothing (with nothing found on him), arrested for nothing, beaten mercilessly for nothing with deadly objects and pepper sprayed while prone on the ground with cops on his back, then charged with assault on a police officer (obvious lie) and resisting arrest (another obvious lie, there was no resistance, only compliance that wasn't fast enough for the gang of thugs...I mean cops...and absolutely no reason ever given for the original arrest they claim he resisted in the first place). Without the video, he would be in jail for the next few months (minimum) awaiting trial where he would then have to dispute the multiple officers lies (claiming he assaulted and resisted). Who would the courts believe, 6-8 cops or one felon? I think we all know the unfortunate answer to that question. Sadly, because people like me are honest enough to admit we can't believe a word that a cop says (you're all trained to lie in the performance of your duties, and once a liar always a liar) I never serve on a criminal jury, leaving only jurors that will believe cops and liars on juries....which is not a good outcome.

It's easy to say 'just fight it in court' when you are part of a group that is considered 'truthful' by courts, contrary to all evidence. Single private citizens contradicting numerous officers (lies) without video proof that the cops are lying have no chance in court. You know this.

EDIT: there are requirements for arrest, requirements that cops ignore constantly or fabricate, as in this case.

But surely thats the point?
If you are inclined to believe in some over-watching intelligence that is creating and playing us as a hobby (and I understand and sympathize with that emotional need so long as you don't start burning unbelievers) then why bother with complicated half-science based justifications?
If there's a big magic man in the sky why not just ignore science completely as those who perpetrated the dark ages did, instead of a neoliberal 95% concession to logic while still retaining the right to believe in magic?
I'm not trying to insult - just interested in how a clearly smart mind squares the circle: either the world is explicable (atomic level up anyway) or its the arbitrary caprice of a being that renders our thoughts redundant .. no?

I'm surprised there is no cutting fluid being sprayed on it. Most all the multi-axis CNC machines I've seen (not many, admittedly--not my department), required a pretty constant flow of oil. Is this some advancement in cutting tool technology, or is it just that aluminum is soft enough not to need it?

I understand NASA has used 3D printing to create fuel injectors (or something like that) for rocket engines with considerable success. Since it's a solid metal shape with lots of vacant internal channels, there would otherwise have to be a lot of design and construction concessions if it's going to be cut or forged. I suspect that sort of 3D printing will be quite revolutionary for manufacturing once it doesn't cost stupid amounts of money.

No, it is a statement of fact, or statement of an opinion based on asking many reasonable, educated people what they think. edit: and based on some internet investigating to see what the consensus seems to be. I'm glad you could at least see what it is not, now perhaps try to see things for what they are.
To me, when a debate moves from discussion of the ideas on to only simple derision, it's concession by the one doing the derision that he/she is out of ideas and has no legitimate response to offer. That's a loss of the debate. I'm not sure how your debate teacher taught you, that's how mine taught me.
It's not important for me for you to loose, or me to win, but that is how I see it when discussion stops and derision starts, as a loss. It is important to me that people understand that.
Coming to agreement, or at least true understanding is a win, for both sides.

EDIT: when one group declares itself sovereign and fires on another sovereign group, they have declared war. That is what the confederates did at Ft Sumter.

Nope, your comprehension is apparently even lower that I thought. The Mason Dixon line point was finished with before you brought this point up by stating (incorrectly) "(Oh, and by the way, everyone is against slavery in 2014. No one is impressed by your "hatred" of it. Please.)"...this was clearly wrong, and I corrected you. Eventually you 'admitted' your mistake by turning to derision instead of being able to answer.
I classify your lack of response to my answer to your ridiculous question ("You know folks involved in human trafficking who are opposed to slavery?" my answer being "I don't need to know them to know they exist" and an example of exactly the kind of people I was talking about) as admission that you had no answer to give.
Alll you could come up with was "Yeah, far be it from me to stand between you and your hacktivism! lol" (whatever that's supposed to mean)
To me, that means you conceded that you had no response and you 'lost', or that you now understand that there certainly ARE people involved in human trafficking that don't want to be and know it's wrong. That's my position every time when someone ignores the 'debate' and moves to ridiculous derision, like you did.
Get it now?

P.S. I classified your concession that these 4 states bordering the Mason Dixon line are not considered 'northern' or 'southern' as a coming together in understanding of the terms being used.

How about a serious third party so gerrymandering becomes far less effective.

Nearly every other democracy in the world works better than the American system because they have multiple parties. You can't win simply by being marginally 'better' than the other guy. Multiple parties force the governing bodies to deal with issues they'd rather ignore and in minority situations they force the big parties to make concessions to other voices.

I think that's part of what happened. I think democrats thought the same thing back in 2004 with Kerry v Bush. They couldn't conceive that Bush would remain elected so they didn't bother to vote.

I think the main thing though is just the implosion of the Republican party. They've gone so far far far right that they're losing moderate republicans.

The most delicious part is how Nate Silver got lambasted as a political pundit by the right even though he correctly predicted every single state of the union race outcome

It just perfectly illustrates the right being so out of touch with reality.

Silver: The data says this
The Right: we don't care! Hey Romney, don't bother writing a concession speech, you won't need it!

@chingalera
/chuckles
oh i know man.

my comment was with tongue firmly planted in cheek but my basic point remains the same.

some people have to make concessions in order to survive in this fucked up system.
maybe they have children.
maybe they are married with an asston of debt hanging over their heads.

i am an anarchist.
so i have arranged my life in a way where my participation in this zombie system is shaved to a bare minimum but i also have to recognize that some people do not have that luxury.since i am not living their lives i refuse to judge them.

just look at the comments here.
your assertion of an imagined polemic plays out in this thread,quite conveniently making your point.

we have @bobknight33 posting the heritage foundations position almost verbatim (thanks for responding bob,i like when you participate.sincerely),in regards to capitalism.

then we have @Sagemind posting a more "left" leaning comment.

and then we have the always ironic @lantern53 bemoaning the ills of government.yet his salary is provided by taxpayers,and hence the very government he is deriding.he is such a closet socialist.(loooove you lantern../hugs).

yet all these positions have validity.

the governments role should be criticized and examined.
corporations should be exposed for their undue influence.

this is not a simple issue and it is where i think you and i totally agree.
i too get frustrated when people talk about this subject in a binary way.
it is NOT just a black/white,good/evil,right/left matter.

and when people engage in this form of perception they also tend to demonize the "other" side.
so if someone posits an opinion that happens to be contrarian to ones views,they are automatically dismissed as "wrong" and anything they have to say is discarded as being stupid,ill-thought or just plain downright wrong.

this is the fundamental flaw in this binary thinking.
and it is not by accident but rather by design.

divide and conquer.

in the developed western world we have 30 choices for toilet paper but when it comes to things that TRULY matter?
we get two.

so the true elite and powerful of this country pick their prized horse and offer up to us,the american public,a choice of TWO rich fuckers.
would you like democrat?
or republican?

doesnt really matter who you choose because either one is going to serve their masters.
who of course are wall street and corporate america.
not you or i.

we are fed a constant stream of populist bullshit that gives the appearance of solidarity and nationalism but in reality serves only the corporate masters in fleecing the american people of more and more of their own hard earned:money,rights,liberties and ultimately our independence.

the problems with un-fettered capitalism are well known and well understood.
just as the problems with socialism are well known.

it is the SYSTEM that needs to be challenged and questioned,examined and ultimately discarded if we find it lacking.

and i find it lacking.
morally,socially and financially.

it is time we kill the beast.
because it is feeding on itself and putting us ALL at risk.

bah..you fucker.got me ranting.

let me conclude with this:
i find all structures of power and authority to be illegitimate until proven otherwise.
i find the system of plutocracy currently in place to be illegitimate.
it serves only the upper eschelon and commodifies the poor.
the poor have become fodder for the military industrial complex as well as the private prison system.
the working poor have become cogs in a machine that is slowly crushing them under the weight of the hubris of those who feel entitled to their fortunes and that somehow they are more deserving then their fellow man.

the beast is sick with its own arrogance and needs to be put down.
the only recourse us normal folk have is to stop feeding the beast.

if only 5% stopped going to work and took to the streets you will see a very frightened beast begging us all to the negotiating table.

thats my 2 cents anyways.

You know I can't upvote this vid.

My sole concession to my adoration of you? I won't downvote it.

Go Seahawks!

But, the concessions in the Affordable Care Act weren't concessions with Republicans. Zero republicans in the house and the senate voted for it, they basically weren't involved. Which is why they're so furious it passed.

It was pro-business Democrats that wouldn't go along with the public option. Yeah, "individual mandate" was once a Republican idea, but it wasn't put in to somehow meet Republicans half way, it was put in to make insurance companies happy.

Actually, that's exactly what I say, and average modern human morality is considerably superior to the filth that the biblical God advocates.

The moral standard of western civilization is founded upon judeo-christian beliefs. Read:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595555455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366921071&sr=8-1&keywords=book+that+made+your+world

Following the morality the biblical God advocates is the hardest thing you will ever do. The standard of today is a superficial, politically correct morality where you pretend to be nice to people but curse them when they aren't around. God requires a transformation on the inside where you have genuine love for your fellow man.

I am only saying that they are wrong by todays generally agreed upon moral standards. Some of these moral standards are extremely effective and have been around since very early human communities, so they only have the illusion of being absolute due to high adherence rate.

Are you saying nigh universal adherence to certain moral standards isn't evidence for an absolute standard of morality?

Murder, theft, oppression and incest are three fairly obvious examples. The evolutionarily advantageous trait of society building tends to list it's effectiveness when such things are widespread. But we have a very long human tradition of sanctioning and celebrating murder and theft as long as it occurs well outside our cohort. Killing other tribes is celebrated in the bible, as is stealing their possessions. Ethically justified slavery took another 4000 years to mostly get rid of, and hell, it was common practice to fuck your fifteen year old cousin all the way up to about the late 1800s here in the good old US of A as long as it was under the marital auspices of the church, of course.

Yep, but thank God that his just definition of morality - if we didn't have god's guidance through scripture, we'd probably do crazy shit!

You don't understand what God was doing in the Old Testament, or why He did it the way He did. It is morally consistent with His goodness and holiness, and there are logical reasons for why this is so. So far you are not interested in hearing them or discussing them. When you are let me know. In the end you don't have any excuse for suppressing the truth about Jesus, no matter what you think about how God acted in the Old Testament.

Using the word 'absolute' is a concession to brevity, but nice try - seriously dude, this is laughable and it wouldn't even stand up in Jr. High debate - absolutes do exist, they just need to be well justified, and yes if you want to be nitpicky about it there is an ever so remote chance that 1+1 is not equal to two in some distant corner of the universe. But as humans with an admittedly limited scope of understanding, we have to accept that level of certainty. If you want to relegate your theory to claiming its space somewhere in the possibility that we might be wrong about the whole 2+2=4 thing, go right on ahead.

There, that's what I meant by absolute. happy?

Basically, what you're saying is that because 2+2 probably equals four everywhere in the Universe, you are free to make absolute statements about morality? The fact is that your belief system leaves you with no justification for any absolute statement what so ever. Why should 2 + 2 always equal 4 in the first place? Can you tell me why the laws of physics should work in the same way 5 seconds from now without using circular reasoning?

Can you justify any piece of knowledge without God? If you can then tell me one thing you know and how you know it. Could you be wrong about everything you know?

Well then thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass in the whole god based morality thing. I prefer to have a really good reason to never slaughter innocent kids. But thanks for finally answering my question: there has been a good reason to butcher a toddler after all! Praise The Lord, for he is good!

It comes back to the same question: As the giver of life, and the adjudicator of His Creation, is it wrong for God to take life?

And here's another interesting brain tickler. If everything god commands is right, and god has a track record of testing his faithful with their willingness to commit infanticide, how can you say that this lady isn't moral?

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2001-08-17/news/0108170166_1_baby-s-death-baby-s-father-documents

The scripture is finished and anything which contradicts it is not of God.

Wrong, I know that things are wrong because humans and cultures have a long history of interacting with reality, and certain strategies have been more successful than others. You haven't spent one iota of your time discrediting this notion, whereas I have given you plenty of examples crediting mine and discrediting yours.

What I am supposed to be discrediting? You're asking me to nail jello to a wall. You have not even defined what "successful" is supposed to mean beyond pure survival. In that case, every civilization has been successful. Tell me what your definition of success is supposed to be.

For the millionth time, I have no hopes of convincing you of anything - you'll defend your stance against literally any proof. But you seem to come here on the sift with the intent of demonstrating to others that there is some logical basis for your beliefs.

What proof? The foundation of atheism stands upon the shifting sands of relative truth. You, the atheist, ultimately make yourself the measure of all truth. Because of that, you can't tell me a single fact about the world that you can justify.

Well you're failing miserably, mainly because you are only capable of restating the following sentence as if it is an agreed upon truth:

"Not only is the entire concept logically contradictory, but it doesn't match our experience, which is that some things are absolutely wrong. "

I don't expect you to have any good support for that, but the audience out there just waiting to be convinced, they will need at least something.

Torturing babies for fun; not absolutely wrong?

I'm still waiting for you to give Stalin some kind, any kind of argument as to why he should adopt your morality and abandon his own. If you can't tell Stalin why he is wrong, then you have no hope of escaping the charge of incoherency.

"... If people rob and cheat you, you don't say that they are just executing their particular survival strategy, you say that those things are wrong. You know they are wrong because you have a God given conscience which tells you that they are. "

Actually, that's exactly what I say, and average modern human morality is considerably superior to the filth that the biblical God advocates.

I am only saying that they are wrong by todays generally agreed upon moral standards. Some of these moral standards are extremely effective and have been around since very early human communities, so they only have the illusion of being absolute due to high adherence rate.

Murder, theft, oppression and incest are three fairly obvious examples. The evolutionarily advantageous trait of society building tends to list it's effectiveness when such things are widespread. But we have a very long human tradition of sanctioning and celebrating murder and theft as long as it occurs well outside our cohort. Killing other tribes is celebrated in the bible, as is stealing their possessions. Ethically justified slavery took another 4000 years to mostly get rid of, and hell, it was common practice to fuck your fifteen year old cousin all the way up to about the late 1800s here in the good old US of A as long as it was under the marital auspices of the church, of course.

Yep, but thank God that his just definition of morality - if we didn't have god's guidance through scripture, we'd probably do crazy shit!

Do you see that these are absolute statements? On what grounds do you say there is no absolute morality? Saying there are no rules is a rule; this statement contradicts itself

Using the word 'absolute' is a concession to brevity, but nice try - seriously dude, this is laughable and it wouldn't even stand up in Jr. High debate - absolutes do exist, they just need to be well justified, and yes if you want to be nitpicky about it there is an ever so remote chance that 1+1 is not equal to two in some distant corner of the universe. But as humans with an admittedly limited scope of understanding, we have to accept that level of certainty. If you want to relegate your theory to claiming its space somewhere in the possibility that we might be wrong about the whole 2+2=4 thing, go right on ahead.

There, that's what I meant by absolute. happy?

When God issued the command to wipe out Canaan, it would have been immoral for the Israelites to disobey Him.

Well then thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass in the whole god based morality thing. I prefer to have a really good reason to never slaughter innocent kids. But thanks for finally answering my question: there has been a good reason to butcher a toddler after all! Praise The Lord, for he is good!

You are truly tiring me out. This is my last post on the subject.
1; Where did i say I knew better than the ASPCA? read my previous post again s l o w l y.
2; Yes, you are a bad parent. Exposing a 3 year old to even the slightest possibility of serious harm, is beyond comprehension.
3; In your first post you said you forced the dog to give up the bone (try reading your own comments), what exactly do you mean by "force?
4; I told you to look for the information on fighting breeds. And what anecdotes did I quote? (again, read my comment)
5; I did not say "ban them because everyone else does" I said countries have banned them based on their own research. (read my comment again)
6; I make no "arrogant, ignorant, assumptions." (read my comment again and point them out).
7; Whatever personal attack you perceive is groundless. My comment was based solely on evidence provided by experts (look it up yourself), and your attitude regarding your child's safety. Your only concession is the mind numbingly stupid approach of; "I won't wrap my son in bubble wrap." The fact that you have such an opinion negates you from serious debate. I'm done.

You are an a-godzilla-ist and that is entirely a practical concession to the fact that you can't really afford giant monster insurance considering recent statistics for giant lizard attacks and indeed going through life avoiding Tokyo at all costs is just kinda a bummer - imagine all the fresh sushi you could miss out on.

You can't actually prove that there never was a Godzilla or that there never will be a Godzilla and you can only assume (not demonstrate) that there is not a Godzilla planet orbiting one of the stars a few galaxies down the way.

All you can really say is that Tokyo is still standing and that all the various accounts of Godzilla's antics across the myriad of B-movies and hollywood blockbusters that feature him as a character seem to have no basis in reality for various reasons. You move on with your day, smile a bit and never really bother to duck for cover.

And that's all we're saying about God. To my knowledge, that is the bleeding edge of audacious claims being made by anyone who is even vaguely respected - simply that we can't take religious claims seriously any more, so we are going to move on with our lives, only dealing with religion directly when it decides to be a bit too influential for our tastes.

But fine, based on the secondary predicate principle and a lengthy philosophy 101 essay with no shortage of verbal meandering through Descartes, et al., atheists kinda sorta make a claim of some sort. What's your point.

And if you think that the atheist experience simply trawls the bottom of Christian intellectualism then who would you have them debate, Ray comfort? Matt Slick? Perhaps you?

More than anything, the most disgusting trait of Christianity is that it equates child rapists and children as equally sinful in the eyes of God. There are certainly various arguments saying that different consequences will be felt here on earth, or perhaps that there is an arbitrary age of innocence, etc... But almost universally, Christians agree that the following scenario is at least possible:

Rapist rapes child, we'll start with that.

The child struggles through the resultant torturous anguish across a lifetime, starts a support group, mans a hotline, works in the community to support fellow victims, increases awareness and so on while loving his/her family and friends, making mistakes periodically and occasionally letting loose at a concert or something. The child (now an adult) is unfortunately just a minimally observant Jew and never really gave Jesus any consideration, so when he/she gets hit by a drunk driver at the unfortunate age of 34, he/she is tormented in hell for the rest of eternity.

The rapist, meanwhile, goes on with his (statistically probable) life, perhaps he rapes some more children (also statistically probable) and maybe he then stops at some point, realizing it is wrong and maybe even feels guilty about it. Ridden by guilt, the preaching of a wayward street preacher catch his ears one day. He ventures into church for the first time. He is moved. He proclaims his belief in Jesus and the resurrection. He feels his sins are forgiven and he can feel years of guilt being washed away. Maybe he even admits his history as a rapist to a sympathetic inner circle of confidants, spiritual advisors and friends. He dies of a heart attack, and spends eternity in heaven.

That is disgusting and a god that sets such a system up is disgusting.

Many compassionate people are blinded into thinking this is just and good in an effort to tenaciously preserve their own sense of eternal safety and cosmic worth at all costs. That is less disgusting just because it is an understandable impulse, but it is disgusting nonetheless.