I agree completely, complaining about the flag, while I agree with wanting it taken down, seems like a ridiculously misplaced sentiment. I don't understand how that's the resolution people collectively came to in response to the deaths of innocents.
I do feel the flag is a symbol that does support an underlying system of hate, though, but in the context of the murders it probably has a laughable 0.00001% of jack-shit to do with them.
I'm sure our opinions are divided on what we should do to fix the situation as a people, but I think we both agree that there are better places to look for an appropriate solution.

Actually Lucky you are way off base. Domestic violence is equal-opportunity. Knox (2012) notes that women and men batter each other with relatively equal frequency. Where the domestic violence diverges is that men go much further physically and hurt women more severely. By ignoring the first part due to the level of violence some men typically display, we minimize abuse in general. No abuse is okay-abuse.

Not to mention that women abuse children quite often too...which imo is sadder than any abuse inflicted on an adult. But that's a slightly different topic.

A funny note is that in America women shoot men per ratio far more than in other countries. It is actually laughable in a disturbing kind of way...but that's 'Merica for you.

Fury was laughable. It tried too hard, so it looked like a pathetic propaganda movie from exactly those times.
John Wick however was really well made. It felt like a good 80s or 90s action flick.

People think they can know God, or what he's up to. That's quite laughable.

You can't explain how or where consciousness came from. You have no idea, just as the average person can not know God. And if you knew God, you couldn't explain it.

Even a relatively superficial exploration would help you out, but your cup is quite full.

If you could answer the question honestly 'where did our morality come from' (and it didn't come from us) then you would be on your way.

I know that Jon himself doesn't really think of himself or his show as competing with the "real news".

...I agree, he hasn't competed with the real news. He and his show were way better than the "real" news. To such an extent that to say they were in "competition" is laughable.

The "real" news blathers on about drivel that corporate interests and juggernauts like Murdoch and Trump want us to hear about. And when it isn't doing that, it trying to shovel and spin enough horseshit to fill a 24-hour "news cycle". Garbage in, garbage out.

In trying to be a satire or parody of the "real" news, Jon Stewart has actually helmed a show that really informs, yet does it with wit, logic, and some amazingly real insight.

So, thanks for being my primary source of "news", be it fake or real, for the past 10+ years Jon. Enjoy your retirement or whatever comes next -- nobody deserves it more than you.

I completely agree with her about Lars on many points. He often (very often actually) makes his technique seem "the best in the world" when compared to ANY other technique (as there are A LOT of shooting techniques; some that need different bows, materials, and setups).

Kind of like being able to shoot through plate-mail... Lars would NEVER be able to pull that off (of course no one, with a shortbow and the wrong arrow--or tip--will be doing it either; the crossbow is as close as you can get to being small and puncturing plate) as it requires a huge amount of pull force to puncture plate (even heavy English oaken wood shields). The type of bow is a big issue, because that is where you get your draw strength. But, what type of tip you have on your arrow will determine whether or not it even goes into or just bounces off the armor...

However, for the most part, archers didn't try to puncture plate armor--because to be honest about it: it was HARD, it required a VERY heavy bow and expensive tips (of course the bows were also expensive, because they would not be made out of normal material--it might be a specially imported type of wood that could hold up to extreme forces; the string may also be made of something a bit different than normal). So, you didn't have very many people walking around with the innate ability to puncture plate. BUT, what most archers trained a VERY long time to accomplish was extreme accuracy, for one reason alone: armor.

Instead of trying to puncture plate or even chain, archers instead aimed for gaps or areas were there was no coverage (basically anywhere you bend or connect the armor to another piece or tie/connect itself together; so places like under the armpit or along the side of the body were the armor is pulled together and tied shut). Then they may not have to go through anything at all, or they will only have light leather or heavy cloth armor in the way--either way they will penetrate, and they will slowly kill their target by slowing them down and immobilizing them, then moving in for the finishing blow OR if they hit the right place they can just let blood loss finish them off...

But, this requires extreme accuracy, especially in battle AND especially so if you are firing from a horse (if you were lucky you were able to ride behind someone and concentrate solely on firing your shots, then you could add a bit of speed as well). This is the one place that Lars has horribly mislead people--OR he has made a really great breakthrough. But, if Lars never bothers to really demonstrate this stuff, we have no idea how great an archer he really is.

His entire video is one gigantic edit. Every shot and "trick" has been setup with the camera in the right place. The biggest problem is we don't know if it took Lars 1000 attempts to accomplish some of these feats (he makes it sound in some areas that it happens VERY fast, however...but due to the editing, or how he edited it, we actually have no idea if his claims are true) or if he did it in ten...or right off the bat...

That is why I said we needed to wait for Lars to actually talk to us about this whole thing, and to clear various areas up (records and competition). Because he has set a very high bar for himself, and from his own video he seems to be amazing--but, I like many know that if you edit enough and try something over and over again, you can make yourself look like an expert *whatever* whenever you wish to do it...

I agree heavily with her about his historic claims (and also mocking him on his "super clumsy" shots and setups to make fun of "modern" archers); she also points out, correctly, how wrong he is on some of those claims. Like everyone shooting from the left side; which somehow Lars, in ALL his studying completely and utterly missed. Which tells me one thing: she knows more about archery history than Lars actually does.

But, is Lars actually a great archer? Would Lars be a good archer in a battle, or more specifically his "technique"? Lastly, is he really an unique archer more than worth praising? We won't know until Lars does what I mentioned above; he must meet these criticisms head on.

If we allow Lars time to learn how to ride a horse; or it might be a bit more fair to just allow him to ride behind someone controlling the horse, which was a common practice even in battle (then make sure Lars knows how to also fire properly from a horse, since it requires controlling a horse--if you're alone--and staying on the horse using your thigh muscles...which is actually a pretty hard thing to do...and requires expert horsemanship; asking Lars to accomplish this is laughable, as this type of thing would have been a lifetime achievement in the past AND any archer that could fire fast, accurate, and ride a horse by himself...would have been a horrific force on the battlefield; then give him a sword/melee skill--make sure they have a lot of upper body strength--and a very well made, thick steel buckler and he'd be godlike; and then enough armor to protect from arrows...BUT this means you have to be very strong...otherwise you will never be able to accomplish ANY of the feats with the bow mentioned above; BTW, I'm mentioning a superhero right here, there "may" have been a few people like this in history, but they would've been very few and far apart...and more than likely used sparingly).

Mounted archers are extremely powerful against all units that are mounted yet slower than them and of course those on foot and without a long range means of attacking them (at least shorter than the mounted archer's range), this I will always agree with. We already know that mounted archery units could create absolute havoc in the past, see: Alexander The Great. However, eventually people figured out how to deal with this type of threat as well... But, horse mounted archers do have their "nemeses", namely foot archers--since they can take some time (if an arrow comes their way, they block it--it is much harder for a horse archer to carry around a big shield or at least just have on sitting nearby--or you can aim for their horse, which is why above I said that "superhero" like warrior would need a melee skill, because eventually they WILL be on the ground).

So, again, we have to wait and see if Lars bothers to respond to this video and to ALL of the others that have also been made (he did make a lot of people angry; as he did make some stuff up and possibly "overshoot" the mark on other claims and possibly even his own abilities...). I won't hold my breath though.

I think we can all come to a fairly logical conclusion on this. If Lars NEVER responds to anything, then we will have to assume that a lot of his "super-speed" with "accuracy" was due to one thing alone: editing.

Phew, I think that covers everything...it certainly was long enough!!!!

The idea that if Stephen Fry were standing before the pearly gates and had something to say to God...that's pretty laughable right there. He'd be shaking in his keds, just like anyone else.

And not because God is vengeful...God, as a conscious Being, who put the whole of creation into motion...anyone would be gobsmacked, to use Stephen's vernacular.

I think there is a lot of truth behind this and, in my opinion, Ms Holten does share in some of the responsibility for at least the existence of these pictures. Being a young and likely naïve person without much relationship experience (which can apply to both men and women), she allowed her boyfriend to take those intimate pictures. Loss of private information is not a new occurrence and there have been some big stories about data theft or loss in the past decade or so. Ms Holten must have realized that these intimate pictures might still have ended up on the internet even if her boyfriend hadn't posted them: phones get lost or stolen all the time; personal computers and cloud storage services are not always secure, etc. Ms Holten seems like an intelligent woman, so I think one can assume that she was at least aware of the risks and, at the time, accepted them.

If Ms Holten's boyfriend had taken the pictures without her knowledge and then released them to the internet, she would clearly, at least in my opinion, have zero responsibility. That is not the case though. She willingly allowed the creation of the original erotic pictures and accepted the risks associated with their existence. That does not make her any less of a victim, but she is partly responsible for the existence of the pictures; if the pictures didn't exist, her boyfriend couldn't have put them on the internet and she wouldn't be subject to the ridicule she is receiving now.

A good example is sharing your banking username and password with someone. This is intimate information that you might only ever share with someone that you trust completely. Even so, many banks are very clear that this is a violation of their terms and conditions and can result in you being held responsible for any monetary losses incurred from unauthorized use. Another example: Enterprise administrators are constantly admonishing users for writing down their network credentials and leaving them lying around. While someone shouldn't use your credentials without your consent, that doesn't mean they won't and therefore you have the responsibility to protect that information. To me this is a demonstration of common sense: don't expose information that you can't afford to lose control of. With that said, Ms Holten's boyfriend absolutely committed a crime and should be punished. Furthermore, it's likely that many of the unsolicited emails that she received overstepped the line between opinion and harassment. I have no argument with that.

Lastly, releasing nude images of herself in order to regain control of her life is admirable and shows courage, but it's naïve to assume that it will shame or impact, in any way, the lives of her harassers; the media headlines about her "getting revenge" are laughable and nonsensical. Ultimately, the new nude pictures probably just gives her harassers more material to enjoy. Still, if it helps her move on, power to her. After all, it is her choice. I'm curious if Ms Holten will post a follow-up about the response to her new images.

Another problem with NDTs words in this video, he tells us that 50% of scientists believe in god/are religious, and this is somehow proof there is no contradiction, or that science does not lead to non-belief. But this is a laughable failure of statistical analysis by NDT. I think the 50% number seems quite high, like he has been using a really bad sift on who qualifies as scientist (is it anyone with a science degree on any level?) But fine, lets make it 50% of scientists in the US. The takeaway from that is that the number of religous is MUCH LOWER than in the general population.
T
he general population is like 85% religious. That means that if 100 people go get a science degree, 85 will be religious, and 35 of them will lose their faith on the way to becoming a scientist. That means that if you study science, and you are religious, theres a 40%
chance youll lose your faith along the way. (This doesnt take into account that many of the 15% non-religious are probably already scientists, so the general population number is probably even higher.)

If you make it all the way to the National Academy of Sciences, a whooping 78 out of the 85 will have lost their faith. Thats about as damning for the no-contradiction/conflict-hypothesis as you can get.

Its like arguing that most drunk drivers never actually crash, therefore alcohol-intake does not influence your driving skills.

OMFG! You are sounding completely insane.
She knew what the police were doing because she ASKED them and they TOLD her...duh.
She knew that the man they accosted WASN'T a burglary suspect, he was her gardener that had been at her home the entire time working. The idiot cops didn't want to hear it and just saw 'black man in white neighborhood=dangerous criminal' and did their thing, putting him on the ground and preparing to take him away. Fortunately for him his employee was both there and a lawyer who knows how to not be BLUFFED out of her or her clients rights by liars (cops).
The cops WERE acting stupidly, racist, and dishonestly...proven because they clearly had the wrong person.
If the call came from another neighborhood long enough ago that the perp may be in another neighborhood (in any direction), there's no way in hell they could honestly think they could find the perp, they just went after people that 'looked wrong' to them. (by which I mean being black)
I also note the arresting officer can't even say what the reported crime was, or where it occurred, so how does she explain her theory that it was the gardener, who was working when they found him? She had to wait for the driver to answer those questions.
They put him on the ground before the video starts.
Well, it's becoming fairly obvious that most white cops ARE racist, but no, racism is an equal opportunity evil perpetrated by all races.
No one (who isn't a cop) can blame this lady, or this man for 'hating cops', cops have lied to and about them in order to trick/lie/bluff him into jail for who knows how long.

I hope your family does NOT have the good fortune to have a thinking lawyer present when they are arrested by an angry black officer for being within 4 blocks of a burglary that happened yesterday...(and being white near a black neighborhood to boot!), and your home is taken by civil forfeiture because they may have used it to store the stolen property (not that they need to find any)....maybe then you can see the error of your position....or maybe not.
Oh man, I feel that this is one of your biggest fails yet. You look like a complete dangerous nutball with that comment. It would be hilariously laughable if you didn't have the power to put people in jail. Because you claim that you do hold that authority, it's terrifying to hear your positions, your clear racism, your constant defense of clearly criminal cops, and your 'Us VS citizens' mentality you display constantly....yet you still can't understand why citizens might feel it's 'us VS cops'. Just plain old WOW man.

Straight to trolling since you can't spout your usual BS about how we don't know everything that happened before we saw this and being a cop is dangerous and that guy probably had an attitude towards the cop.

When confronted with a video where the police are clearly in the wrong, rather than condemn them, you just throw out straw men left and right. It would be laughable if it weren't sad that you can't recognize your own biases.

There are many reasons it might not even be possible to vote in representatives for these people. Gerrymandering, fixed elections, etc. Negligence and apathy are valid, but I doubt they're the primary reasons. And all people are equal, just as all people are fallible.

Cops are just like anyone else, with the exception that they have an institution that will protect them from their personal decisions, such as shooting unarmed, or racially segregated people out of spite. I have more personal experience than I like with white police officers openly practicing racism and physical abuse, when the only minority around is their victim.

You cite how Brown allegedly tried to take the mans gun. He also allegedly did not. Unfortunately it comes down to the eye-witness account versus the officers. In cases like this, I can find 999 instances out of a thousand that reflect police organizations that promote racism and abuse, in a scenario where the minority suspect did everything expected of them in a confrontation, and was still victimized. Having the gall to support the officers in this case, a case where we as the observers have nothing to go on other than heresay, is ignoring decades of historical experience with exactly these scenarios.

Lastly, you're not a boyscout. I'm not a boyscout. Fuck boyscouts; they don't even exist in realistic contexts. I don't give a good god damn fucking shit what he did prior to being murdered. It is so irrelevant it's laughable. In this particular instance where we're judging a man for deserving life or death, it doesn't matter if he skullfucked a litter of puppies and raped the kindly mother of everyone on earth collectively. If the man who shot him had no idea of the crime, as has already been shown he did not, he had absolutely no right to fire on an unarmed man. Even if he *did* know of these crimes: he still has no right to take the mans life.

If Brown tried to grab the mans gun, he failed, and therefore he was still unarmed. We have multiple witness accounts that he was shot while surrendering. At that point, crimes, robberies, past events, whatever: none of that matters, because one man killed another while the latter was no threat. No other argument you can make has any validity.

I'm sorry, but if you're going to compare an entire country's uniform gun control laws to minor areas which you can clearly drive in any direction for a short time and circumvent gun laws for that region, then that isn't room for comparison.

If Mass, DC, and Vermont had border control and firearms restrictions like most ports of call and airports, then you'd have something to compare.

Until then I find specific regional statistics in the US laughable at best. If you want something, nearly anything, you can drive to get it, regardless if your home district disallows it. This is not an option in Australia, and not a comparison for valid argument.

Is it nuance to be an innocent family on the receiving end of a high explosive round? Last time I checked, whether it's via gas or a shell, death is death. Do you think the Palestinians suffer less fear waiting to see if they are about to die? That you raise scale as a method of differentiation is laughable. Israel has has ~70 years of slowly whittling away at Palestine and it's people.

And the facile differentiation between a German concentration camp and Gaza is beneath you. You would much rather not live in fucking either, and neither would all of us if we were given a choice. That the Israelis are going about the business of eliminating Palestine slowly is more about international backlash. If they thought they could get away with it, they'd sweep them in to the sea and be done with it.

And in response to the invocation of Godwin's Law, you do understand that the purpose of the Godwin is to reduce/remove ludicrous hyperbole, not to shut down legitimate comparisons? Much as you could draw parallels with Idi Armin, Stalin/Russia etc, Israel is engaging in similar tactics. Fascism, racism, segregation, making war on civilians etc. That it isn't a 100% carbon copy is irrelevant.

I find this to be the most difficult subject to tackle when it comes to breaking through the bullshit. No matter what facts there are you're always considered wrong, and so are the Palestinians. There are so many true believers in this and misinformation out there that you can't have an argument about this subject at all it seems.

So it's very important we have clear, concise, and intelligent reporting. NBC had that, so they pulled him out. You can't ask these sorts of questions in polite company, it's not allowed. NBC show'd how subservient to power they are in such an obvious way it's laughable. People talk about Fox news all the time, and yeah they're pretty stupid at times. The entire media has a problem though, and it's plain to see anytime something like this happens.

I wait patiently and study constantly for the day when we are allowed to talk about the Israel/Palestine conflict candidly and honestly. Right now whenever a discussion happens there's no give whatsoever. Israel is right, and they're doing the right thing, not even a misstep. I think in any position over the course of history, that can't possibly be correct. No government is 100% right and just, but don't tell their supporters that.