If I was more of a fuckwit, I would share this information with my flatmate who, one drunken evening, brought home a woman who screamed SO LOUDLY that it was a fucking theatrical performance. I mean, it was so unbelievably fake that I actually felt incredible pity for the poor woman. (I have since learned that she has some Serious Issues.)

But what's possibly sadder still is my flatmate's total ignorance of her malingering, and his conviction that it was the best sex he's ever had, and that it showed his sexual prowess was unprecedented.

It actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.

Clearly the 'validation' function works. To my great horror.

That's not predicated by the polygamy. People make the same argument for gay marriage - all the horror and gay disease that follows with gay marriage.

I can agree that polygamy provides an excuse for crazy people to do crazy things, like Porn also does (if we remember that discussion). It attracts the wrong crowd. That said, principally there's nothing wrong with polygamy.

Muslims have a funny sense of honor..
>> ^therealblankman:

@gwiz665
Personally I don't give two shits about whatever consenting adults do- sexually, maritally, orally, anally or whateverly. The problem with polygamy isn't the multiple spouses per se, it's what accompanies it, such as child abuse, the severe repression of women, and domestic violence.
Polygamy is a sensitive subject here in Canada and especially in BC. A recent case involving a polygamous Muslim marriage in Ontario went a little sideways when a man and his second wife actually murdered the first wife and her 3 daughters in some sick nasty "honour" thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders
In BC there has been an ongoing case involving a small Mormon community called Bountiful. The Polygamous men there have been trafficking in young pre-pubescent girls, marrying them and consummating those "marriages". Pretty fucked up stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bountiful,_British_Columbia
It's pretty hard to support Polygamy when such consequences seem to follow naturally. The above examples are admittedly extreme, but hardly isolated or unprecedented.

@gwiz665

Personally I don't give two shits about whatever consenting adults do- sexually, maritally, orally, anally or whateverly. The problem with polygamy isn't the multiple spouses per se, it's what accompanies it, such as child abuse, the severe repression of women, and domestic violence.

Polygamy is a sensitive subject here in Canada and especially in BC. A recent case involving a polygamous Muslim marriage in Ontario went a little sideways when a man and his second wife actually murdered the first wife and her 3 daughters in some sick nasty "honour" thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders

In BC there has been an ongoing case involving a small Mormon community called Bountiful. The Polygamous men there have been trafficking in young pre-pubescent girls, marrying them and consummating those "marriages". Pretty fucked up stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bountiful,_British_Columbia

It's pretty hard to support Polygamy when such consequences seem to follow naturally. The above examples are admittedly extreme, but hardly isolated or unprecedented.

He's honestly one of the best players to ever play the game. Plus he was diagnosed at 11 with a growth hormone deficiency. Which is why he looks a big stocky and elf like. He's known to not dive...at least not nearly like any of his other teammates or Real Madrids.

Plus he has the best technical skill ever seen in a player, that is notice that at speed he can keep the ball very close to his feet making it difficult to get away from him. Put him on the best team that's probably ever existed with a game plan that allows tiny players to flourish and you see why FC Barcelona has won 13 out of a possible 16 trophies and an unprecedented 6 of 6 in 2009.

I can't say what it's like to be a parent, but I can say what it's like to have been a teenage kid.

You complain about everything. Your parents. Your school. Your friends. Everything that doesn't go your way in your life seems like an unprecedented tragedy of galactic proportions. You're emotional -- when you're happy you're freakin' giddy, and when you're mad all sense of proportion goes out the window, and you let fly with everything you've got.

I'm old enough now to see why that's hard for anyone to handle. I'm old enough now to realize a lot of it was petty childishness, and most of the rest was the kinds of overwrought emotional responses that seem to be common to most teenagers.

Like I've said, I don't know what it's like being a parent, but I'm sure the bit where she said she wouldn't be there to take care of him when he's old probably hurt him a lot more than he's willing to admit. And I'm just as sure she doesn't really mean it.

Growing up isn't easy. I can honestly say I think the first 15 years of my life were a lot harder than the last 15 years of my life. But it's a big adjustment going from complete dependency to being independent. It's a big adjustment going from having your life strictly controlled by someone who knows you and loves you, to going out into a world that's controlled by people who are indifferent, uncompromising and mechanical with how they'll impose limits on you.

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here, and say that it seems unlikely to me her behavior improve because of this. His daughter will not be complaining less. His daughter will not be swearing less. I wouldn't even be surprised if she fights back, stops doing chores, starts swearing to her dad's face, or maybe even runs away.

Maybe I'm just projecting my own childhood onto other people, but that's how I reacted when my parents tried to ground me for thought crimes.

I guess it's a little dangerous letting your kids read 1984 when they're teenagers. The world of Big Brother and your life as a teenager start seeming scarily similar.

Maybe I can be more concise.

Temperature reconstructions of the years 0AD through 2000AD that show uncharacteristic warming since ~1850 are a smoking gun that we are influencing climate and in an unprecedented way. Correct?

Is the opposite then not true as well, if reconstructions from 0AD through 2000AD show that warming since ~1850 is not particularly unusual, then we are not facing unprecedented changes?

To me this seems to be the key, and the refinements to reconstructions are rapidly beginning to show that the last century is not particularly unusual.

I guess on the one hand, I agree with part of his rant -- elections don't matter enough, and there's too much continuity in policy from President to President, from Congress to Congress.

On the other, I think it's largely spun in a self-serving way from a right-wing ideologue. His big complaint is that the parties are too similar, but then largely misidentifies this as somehow inherently a liberal confluence of policy, when the real issue is that we haven't had a liberal shift in America's policies since before I was born.

A lot of the problem, IMO, is that conservatives like to sell people on the idea of "divided government" and the whole idea that adding opportunities for the minority to stop things from happening (like the filibuster) are the essence of "limited" government.

They've been on a decades-long crusade to stop or sabotage the government from acting effectively on any topic, and now they're complaining that their success means they were right that the government is some unresponsive, ineffectual, cold-hearted leviathan that must be destroyed...even though they had a lot to do with it getting that way, and have worked tirelessly to keep it that way, regardless of whether people vote for them or not.

I don't really know how we're going to get out of this situation, but the solution has got to start with people getting fed up with this blame-shifting excuse coming from the right. Government is not some alien creature acting on its own whims, it's a human institution, populated with human beings, acting in accordance to laws that are voted into existence by people.

People who think "government" is the problem, are letting the actual people responsible for the problem off the hook, because they're too apathetic to figure out who's really to blame. And assholes like Judge Napolitano want to help encourage them to keep blaming "the government" by trying to make it seem like it's some all-encompassing conspiracy that no mere mortal could penetrate, rather than it being the direct result of decades of Republican malfeasance left unchecked by anyone, including Democrats.

And forgive the rant, especially if you're not normally into politics.

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
http://videosift.com/video/Unprecedented-wisdom-coming-out-of-Fox
I dont do politics but this got to me a bit fired up. I know this is something you might be interested in and was curious what you and @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://netrunner.videosift.com" title="member since August 5th, 2006" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#0000CD">NetRunner thought.

There are two major logical flaws in this guys logic.

1. At the end of a rant against republicans and democrats, he endorses a republican.
2. He gives a list of politicians who have failed to live up to their campaign promises, and then endorses Ron Paul, without considering that he too would also fail to live up to his campaign promises, because he would be subject to the same political realities (congress, the media, big money, etc. all have power to subvert the president) that all of the previous presidents had to face.

I don't believe Ron Paul to be the saint he's made out to be. He's another rich, conservative, white career politician pushing his own questionable agenda on a whole lot of unsuspecting citizens.

More reading:

http://www.geekarmy.com/geekblog/politics/transcript-of-noam-chomsky-on-ron-paul/

http://videosift.com/video/Why-so-many-people-are-endorsing-Ron-Paul-for-President?loadcomm=1#comment-1380333

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/13/1054389/-Of-Broken-Clocks,-Presidential-Candidates-and-the-Confusion-of-Certain-White-Liberals

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
http://videosift.com/video/Unprecedented-wisdom-coming-out-of-Fox
I dont do politics but this got to me a bit fired up. I know this is something you might be interested in and was curious what you and @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://netrunner.videosift.com" title="member since August 5th, 2006" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#0000CD">NetRunner thought.

http://videosift.com/video/Unprecedented-wisdom-coming-out-of-Fox
I dont do politics but this got to me a bit fired up. I know this is something you might be interested in and was curious what you and @NetRunner thought.

Definitely looks like an homage to Groucho.
>> ^artician:

I wonder how his research is going on the effects related to a larger-than-average mustache in zero-gravity?

thanks!

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

>> ^wormwood:

I have started to wonder a lot more about where all that money is going TO. People have started counting these dollars as though they are equal to votes, with the actual votes seeming to matter less and less. When do we just dispense with this troublesome voting and just weight candidates money piles in November? But seriously, where does all the money go? TV commercials, lavish banquets and ?????. Can you really spend a billion dollars on that? What happened to one man one vote? It's like we don't even get one anymore--the slot in the box doesn't accept ballots, just $1000 bills.
>> ^ghark:
Dammnit, Marbles fooled me, I upvoted his comment then I realised he was blaming most of that stuff on the Government. The root of the problem is lobbyists influencing the Government. I hear Obama wants to raise one billion dollars for the next election cycle, I wonder where that money is going to come from, and what it will mean for the decisions he makes after he is likely re-elected?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/04/barack-obama-re-election-r
un



In terms of what the money gets used for, it's a very good question and something that certainly needs more attention. As far as who's getting it, I was kind of surprised to recently see that the money is allowed to go to some very unexpected places - the so called super congress had raised over $300,000 in donations by the end of September alone, with most of that going to 2 Republicans and 3 Democrats on the committee.

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/10/18/7138/super-congress-hauls-super-donations-special-interests-try-influence-budget-cuts

I don't know if that's just the tip of the iceberg though, with the Citizen's United ruling, there may be other PAC's donating far more.

Also, after watching all this video, my one gripe is that he seems to put too much focus on political ideology, he talks a lot about how Communism, Socialism etc can work, and is working in some parts of the world, but I would say that of greater importance is how accountable those in charge of the system are. I mean, Democracy is turning out to be worse than any other system in the history of the world but it's not because the principle of letting people have a vote is bad, it's because those in charge are abusing the system.

The environment is getting destroyed on unprecedented scales that were impossible previously
Millions have been, and are being, slaughtered because of kleptocratic regimes installed by the US
In the EU, bankers are being installed to lead countries, while political parties get merged - in so called 'democratic' countries
Austerity measures are being imposed on the middle class in many countries, while the rich are doing as well, or better than ever

I think it's human nature to want to vote for a person that you think will stand up for the principles you believe in, but in reality I think you are right wormwood - one man one vote is quite a meaningless term these days, especially so because we are in the age of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and Speechnow v. FEC decisions.

Ah, Yenk ALMOST makes the most salient point here, but not quite:

If the MSM highly under-reports the unprecedented size of the crowd (or, worse, doesn't mention it at all) yet DOES cover the video-friendly "things on fire" part of the story, that alone can imply that violent behavior is a significant part of the larger protest movement. When it's clearly not.

I'm no "crowd expert" either, but that mass of marchers was huge. When 99 percent are well-behaved and non-violent, that's impressive. As always, the real problem lies with a selfish & destructive 1 percent. (See what I did there .)

@jmzero: "Imagine a situation where nobody can afford food"

Precisely. The absolute amount of wealth/resources/whatever is much more important than the percentages involved. We're currently living in a society that has more income inequality than ever before, and yet lower hunger than ever before - from what I heard, America isn't tracking death by starvation any more since it so rarely happens - 120 deaths in 2004. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_die_from_starvation_each_year_in_America) This is absolutely amazing in a country with 300 million souls in it, and unprecedented in human history.

>>"Most people won't get mad if one person is richer than them and can have golden toilets and they have "whatever else they want" (which is ridiculous - we're imagining a place where people have all they want?)"

I meant that somewhat flippantly, and somewhat seriously. There's a certain point after which incremental gains in money does not buy any more happiness, and the point is around $60k-$75k. This the point where you can afford food, a house, a car, health care, take the occasional vacation, and so forth. I'm not saying they're buying golden toilets, but the point is, people that achieve that relatively modest level of wealth no longer have to worry about all the really shitty parts about being poor (and I've been there - it sucks) and can instead be happy or sad based on whatever else in life is going to make them happy or sad.

If our poor hit this level of affluence, then there won't be a single person, outside of the anarcho-communists that seem so popular on forums like these, advocating for the overthrow of the social order.

Hell, look at China as an example of how rising affluence lets people overlook (actual, real) problems with their society, instead of pretend problems like income inequality.

Haha, that's pretty funny. The people on the balconies have no idea. They probably grew up extremely sheltered, went to good schools (believed in their lifestyle & education) & believe success is based on where one works & the amount of money you have.

They see no problem, the only problem they see are the protestors, "Look at these uncultured, middle class monkey's... they dislike me because I am rich & successful, har har har, cheers guys!" Instead of "Oh shit, I'm pillaging unprecedented amounts of money from the people who do all of the actual work, I'M A A PIECE OF SHIT!! I need to change my fake, frivolous, meaningless lifestyle right now and figure out what is really going on in the world!"