Heh, i live in Kokkola.. We are the neighboring town for Jakobstad and that's where Sara comes from She lived here for couple of years doing music studies.

Kokko is also an old word for an eagle and while Kokkola is understood now as "place for bonfires", it actually comes "place for eagles" as legend says that eagles liked to rest on the rock in the bay. "City that rose from the sea" is is accurate description as around 1200s there were only the exact hill i live on and one other places above the water.. In fact, there is still an old smugglers tunnel, less than 50m away from where i sit right now that leads to the old shoreline, maybe 200m long that was used in 1600s. The sea itself is now about 3-4km from here.

The good news is, i could sit here for a hundred years without fearing rising sea waters.. Not that i intend to but i could.

Rose from Downton Abbey.

No man, that body armour, those boots...I'd harvest the bones of a thousand murdered infants to build our bed if that's what it took. Do you think that's what she wants?

I had to go rewatch this. It's practically perfect. Not an origin story, no romance subplot, no compromise. Just a day in the life of Judge Dredd. Love it, but my favourite Dredd story was told in rhyme:

They'd been waiting there since nightfall for the Sharks to come along,
They knew they'd have to pass this stretch of street.
So they'd sharpened up their stickers and they'd brought along their bars,
And they were wearing steel-tipped stompers on their feet.

There was Big Frank Zit and Faceache, Crazy Joseph with his spear,
The Dixon Boys were there and Billy Rat.
Ike the Spike had brought his sister with her homemade ghetto blaster,
And the Ghoul had put new rivets in his bat.

Now it wasn't nothin' personal that they had against the Sharks,
Any bunch of dead-end spugs would do.
'Cos there was nothing they liked better than to mash and bash and stomp,
Same as any normal Mega-City juves.

"A-rumbling! A-rumbling! We love to go A-rumbling!
("AAAH!")
We love to lay in ambush in the night!
("AAAA!")
A-rumbling! A-rumbling! The Zits were born for rumbling!
(SMAK!)
There's nothing we like better than a fight!"
(KRAK!)

Then a headlight pierced the darkness - a rider gaunt and grim,
Daystick drawn and ready in his hand.
     The chin belonged to Dredd,
     And the voice as well, which said:
"You creeps can do your rumbling in the can!"

"It's just one judge!" cried Cindy Spike and opened with her blaster -
"I'll send him back to Central in a sack!"
(SPOING! "AAAAAAA!")
But Dredd's bike absorbed the blast and laid her on the street,
With tyre marks running right across her back.

Then the judge got down to business and his daystick rose and fell,
Striking out at every head he saw.
For though the Zits launched the attack, the Sharks were fighting back -
And self defence is no defence in law!

As the heap of bodies mounted, Big Zit could see his Waterloo,
Waiting just one station down the line.
Oh, sure, he loved to rumble - but he preferred to be on top...
"Let's scram and live to fight another time!"

("Dredd to Control! We got forty-plus juve rumblers fleeing east through Bernstein. Zits and Sharks, back-up required."
"Wilco, Dredd!"
"Med squads and meat wagons to Moreng Alley. Estimate twenty casualties, more to follow."
"Control to all units area Bernstein. YPs on the run."
VRMMMM!
"Pick 'em up!")

In the space of sixty seconds there was a judge on every street.
From watching bays others scanned the slab -
"We got two Zits runnin' fast though the Tamblin Underpass!"
"Krupke here! I got 'em in the bag!"
(THUNK! THUNK!)

They cut them off at Sondheim and they mopped them up on Wood,
On Pedway 12 they corned Crazy Joseph.
He tried to make a stand - but a spear's not worth a damn,
When it's up against a judge's high explosive.

The Ghoul surrendered quietly, he didn't have much choice -
Ike the Spike tried to scale the sector wall -
("Save your bullet, he'll never make it." "Oh no! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" SPLATT!)
The Dixon Boys all copped it when they tried to hitch a ride,
On the 2020 Zoom to Bernstein Halt.

Big Zit thought he'd play it clever, the law was everywhere,
The safest thing for him to do was hide -
Dredd tracked him down on infrared - "Don't bother to come out!"
"The best place for trash like you is inside!"

In minutes flat they'd caught them, every Shark and every Zit.
To Dredd it fell to ladle out the years -
"Twenty years apiece for Cindy Spike, Billy Rat and Ghoul."
An extra ten left Big Frank Zit in tears.

For Faceache minus half his face, for the hapless Dixon Boys,
For Ike impaled so cruelly on his spike,
For Crazy Joe with his gaping hole, there'd be one final rumble,
Along the last conveyor belt at Resyk.

A-rumbling! A-rumbling! They loved to go A-rumbling!
But the Zits will go A-rumbling no more!
A-rumbling! A-rumbling! They loved to go A-rumbling!
But they should've known they couldn't buck the law!

And here you have it: "'Why exactly are all the main characters in ‘Frozen’ white?' my husband asked a white friend recently. She responded thoughtfully: 'Well, the movie is set in a Nordic, cold place — you know, it makes sense, right?' Annoyed, my husband countered, 'The movie has a talking snowman.' It’s funny, and sad, where we draw the lines for what’s acceptable in fantasy movies. Somehow a talking snowman makes more sense than, say, a black Norwegian."
"Fortunately, as children so often do, my son rose to the occasion. He bought his parents’ awkward explanation of how 'Harry Potter is a made-up character, and he could be any color.' Yes, for a moment, he quietly resisted; he knew that Harry wasn’t just any color in the movie. But then his enormous childhood imagination took over, and he decided he could be Harry for Halloween after all. I’m not sure I want to know whether my son imagined away Harry Potter’s whiteness or his own blackness."

Link to full article here.

So many holes in your argument.

You're cherry picking the parts of Nazism to fit your anti-religious views. You even made the argument that Russia was dogmatically atheist, which isn't a true characterization of Russia then, either.

The simple fact of the matter is racial supremacy had what was seen as extremely scientific underpinnings with a foundation of Darwin, which then was applied to Social Darwinism, etc.

You had Nazi scientists who were going around the world literally measuring people's skulls, with the assumption that Germans had bigger brain pans, and that must explain why they're the master race.

Those ideas sure as hell weren't religious.

The simple fact of the matter is that there were secular and religious arguments against Nazism, as there also were secular and religious arguments in favor of it at the time.

It's very difficult to argue that the evil of Nazi Germany rose due to the level of dogmatic behavior within Germany. Prior to Hitler's rise, Germany was considered a Western European modernized, industrialized country, and for the time well educated, as was France and Britain. It was far more like Britain and France than it was to Russia.

An even better counterargument - who was the most modernized, secular, educated people in Southeast Asia, and therefore should have been the least likely to instigate war according to your logic? Japan, yet they became an imperial, aggressive power.

The rise of Nazi Germany is something I studied quite a bit of, and boiling it down to how dogmatic the people were is not only overly simplistic, it's not remotely historically accurate. It completely factors out the god awful mistake the Treaty of Versailles from WWI was, the common particular disdain for Jews at the time (some due to religious conflict, for Nazis it was more about race), the dependency of Germany on US loans, which dried up when the Great Depression began, the scientific trends in thought at the time, etc.

Those all converged.

And the reality is that "Muslim" countries are more likely to subject women to numerous horrors simply because more Muslim countries have not modernized their economies yet. Hey, just like every other religion. The reason we treat women well is we've had an industrialized economy far longer, and even then, the speed of it was often circumstantial. Women's rights in the US took a quantum leap forward because of women being needed for labor in WWII (same reason the Civil Rights Movement started so relatively soon after WWII as well).

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Where The Wild Roses Grow (Live) has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash.

Added alternate embed code for this video - backup requested by Zawash.

Where the Wild Roses Grow- Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash on that post.

*backup=[...snipped...]
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Nick-Cave-The-Bad-Seeds-Where-The-Wild-Roses-Grow-Live

*length=2:05 More like Rose Phoenix plants, eh?

In your opinion, what is "the right thing"?

This isn't a flame, just an attempt to understand your perspective.

My reason, and perspective, is because for many years I've seen what actions that Israel has taken, even through the American rose-colored-lens of media, as oppression-bordering-on-genocide. I also sincerely doubt that the Palestinian media has such a subversive hold on American media that it could launch as much propaganda as what I've seen over the last couple decades.

The US appears to have an unspoken mandate to support everything that Israel does. Even when I research US and world history, I don't fully understand why the US has taken this stance.

Regardless, terribly, ironically, the US seems to be supporting an organized regime of the like since we have not seen since the early 19th century. I try to listen to all channels of media because I feel it's healthy to be exposed to contradicting viewpoints, but I've never heard a single positive action that Israel has done in the name of its geographical area, history, or government, that wasn't entirely selfish in the name of biblical righteousness.

Anyway, I originally viewed this post because I was actually surprised that the US would condemn an action of Israels because I'm so used to the US government loading up the state of Israel with arms and supporting their militant actions. I've no idea what "WochIT" media is, but it would be a nice turning point for the US if their channel portrays a legitimate perspective.

In the meantime I won't hold my breath.

[Hook x2]
Clap
Magic Clap

It's like a hotwire, baby
When we put it together
When the sparks fly
We'll ignite the future forever
This is the last kiss Martin ever gave to Coretta
It's like a paparazzi picture when I flash my Beretta
I got scars on my back
The truth on my tongue
I had the money in my hand when that alarm got rung
We wanna breathe fire and freedom from our lungs
Tell Homeland Security
We are the bomb

[Hook x2]

Hurry up, get in, close the do'
This here the meeting for the overthrow
Waiting on that concrete rose to grow
Doing lines that ain't quotable
Counting up all that dough you owe
You ain't sposed to know its opposable
We are not disposable
Muscle up kid
We got blows to throw
Til the folks have risen
There'll be no decision
We make the motor move
They chauffer driven
Right now we can't shine right like a broken prism
I figured out the 14th is a broke amendment

[Hook x2]

Good evening
Tonight we bring to you
Worn out streets that'll sing to you
.45 shells that'll dance to the beats
Stomachs so loud it'll cancel the speech
Checks that vanish if you blink an eye
Grace getting locked in the clink to die
A salary cap on a birth certificate
Notarized lies that burst in triplicate
Morning prayers for the car to start
A man and a whiskey in a heart-to-heart
Hope in a track suit to flash and run
While agony chases with a badge and gun
Poetry shouted from the squeal of the bus breaks
Hands in the air try to feel for an escape
Flash in my eyes like candid snaps
When we slap back, it's the magic clap

Not entirely cut and dry.
+ Gun suicide fell
+ Mass shootings fell.
- Gun homicide in general didn't fall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#Measuring_the_effects_of_firearms_laws_in_Australia

"Some researchers have found a significant change in the rate of firearm suicides after the legislative changes. For example, Ozanne-Smith et al. (2004)[33] in the journal Injury Prevention found a reduction in firearm suicides in Victoria, however this study did not consider non-firearm suicide rates. Others have argued that alternative methods of suicide have been substituted. De Leo, Dwyer, Firman & Neulinger,[34] studied suicide methods in men from 1979 to 1998 and found a rise in hanging suicides that started slightly before the fall in gun suicides. As hanging suicides rose at about the same rate as gun suicides fell, it is possible that there was some substitution of suicide methods. It has been noted that drawing strong conclusions about possible impacts of gun laws on suicides is challenging, because a number of suicide prevention programs were implemented from the mid-1990s onwards, and non-firearm suicides also began falling.[35]

In 2005 the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn,[36] noted that the level of legal gun ownership in New South Wales increased in recent years, and that the 1996 legislation had had little to no effect on violence. Professor Simon Chapman, former co-convenor of the Coalition for Gun Control, complained that his words "will henceforth be cited by every gun-lusting lobby group throughout the world in their perverse efforts to stall reforms that could save thousands of lives".[37] Weatherburn responded, "The fact is that the introduction of those laws did not result in any acceleration of the downward trend in gun homicide. They may have reduced the risk of mass shootings but we cannot be sure because no one has done the rigorous statistical work required to verify this possibility. It is always unpleasant to acknowledge facts that are inconsistent with your own point of view. But I thought that was what distinguished science from popular prejudice."[38]"

-scheherazade

Oh wow, the Charlie Rose bit was good.

Congrats! Couldn't be more deserved.

Now, if you'll allow me to bust out an old chestnut format:

There once was a gal from UK
who had so much to say
through all her work, rose like captain kirk
to a galaxy far far away.

Your examples are flawed.

Place a rose-tinted glass in front of someone, and they would think you've placed a rose-tinted glass in front of them. The would expect the image transmitted by the glass to be rose-tinted as well.

Place a white sheet in front of them, and they would think you've placed a white sheet in front of them. They would expect to see a white sheet.

Place a clear object, such as a drinking glass, in front of them, they would think you've placed a drinking glass in front of them. They would expect to see through it, maybe expecting a perfect image, maybe a distorted one.

Fill that glass with water, and they do NOT expect to see a reversed image. It's an illusion. The arrows are not faced right, they are faced left, but they SEEM to be facing right.

By your yardstick, a mirage, the most common form of illusion, isn't.