>> ^EvilDeathBee:

Yay for boobies! Except those really bad fake tits, blegh.
Also, I'm all for the right to bare your breasts (especially for feeding, no question), I'm also partly against it. If they were free to be freed anywhere, anytime their sexual appeal would lessen. I like to leave somethings to the imagination. May sound a bit prudish, but not knowing and teasing is usually more exciting


Luckily nature has given us an amazing gift; we're programmed to love boobs and in the long term we can never get bored of them. Young men everywhere with internet access will confirm this. Finally evolution gets something right.

Public nudity laws are really bizarre, but that's our society for you. As long as everybody thinks everybody else's business is their business this nonsense will persist.

"What caused me discomfort far more acute - because it was mental, not bodily - were the illustrations of the bestiality, the futility, the insanity of war and of the system that produced war as surely as land uncultivated produces noxious weeds: these were now forced on my notice every day. "

"The first cart of dead that I saw, legs sticking out stiffly, heads lolling on shoulders, all the poor bodies shovelled into a pit and covered with quicklime, made me wonder what the owners had been doing when they were called up, crammed into uniforms, and told to kill, maim, mutilate other men like themselves, with whom they had no quarrel. All of them had left behind many who would be grieved, perhaps beggared, by their taking off. And all to no purpose, for nothing."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWstretcher.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jfyfe.htm

Our military gets kids before they are diagnosed with any mental disorders... they dont weed those with OCD and depression and daddy issues out... we give them guns and tell them they are killers, then they realize its all bullshit and they suicide or go apeshit... at a higher rate than other professions.

you couldnt make a better formula for disaster and record profits. a war that isn't involving most of the population of the country winning is not really a war. its a game for profit and young men who like to feel important.

>> ^bareboards2:

@ChaosEngine, you are absolutely right. Context does matter.
I haven't gone into another aspect of my (much thought about) logic around this language issue -- although I did allude to it above -- but it is indeed about context.
I have no problem with the word girl being applied to grown women IF IF IF in the same CONTEXT, you would use the word boy for a grown man.
That is why your wife calls her women friends girls -- just like @longde called his friends boys. Same context.
My personal internal test for whether it is (unconsciously) sexist or not to call a grown woman a girl is to change the gender and ask myself -- if this were a man, would I call this grown man a boy under the same circumstances. If the answer is yes, then hey, go for it. CONTEXT does matter. I am with you 100%.
But I'll say the same thing to you -- go through one day doing that. Change the gender. When you hear "man", change to "boy" and see if that doesn't feel WRONG to you. When you hear "girl", change to "woman" and see if your internal landscape doesn't shift the tiniest bit.
Thank you for the first respectful response I have gotten to my point here. I really really appreciate it.
I also would be interested in hearing your wife's response to all my posts. That would be fascinating.


To be fair to you. I rewatched the video and tried to imagine if the story involved young men being racist hipster idiots.

And I can't help but concede you probably have a point here. It's highly unlikely that these guys would have referred to males in the same position as "boys". They would probably have been initially called "dudes" and later as the story progressed referred by some non-gender specific epithet (idiots/morons/etc.)

There's an interesting societal language thing at work here, and there's probably an element of "unconscious sexism" as you put it. Generally men are raised to treat women differently. This can be "positive" (holding a door open, "never hit a girl", etc) or negative (do I really need to provide examples of this?). And it's undoubtedly leaked into language. Also to be fair to the guys telling the story in the video, "girl" is such a common euphemism for woman in society that it's kinda hard to see it as anything but equivalent to "dude", "bloke" etc.

I don't know if that's down to sexism or just evolution of language, but as I said, there is definitely a difference. Whether that difference is ultimately problematic is, I guess, personal.

I really had nearly forgotten how much I love this video

In some weird way, in 1987, William Shatner was a guy who wanted to go camping with you and tell you about how tough young men have a passionate affair with the mountain

We train young men to drop fire on people, but we won't let them say fuck on television because it's obscene!

>> ^Esoog:

>> ^tymebendit:
we need more videos of cops.

True. But I dont know if people can handle so much positivity. It might burst everyone's cop hating bubble to know there are plenty of GOOD people who are police officers. And of course, there are bad eggs too.
Im not defending any of the people in this video or saying who I think is right or wrong, but I cant imagine many reasons at all why I would want to stand in front of a Walmart and film something. I wouldnt even put myself in this situation. But then again Im rational and have better things to do.


YOU can't think of a reason for their video, so YOU must be rational. YOU have better things to do, so YOU must be rational. You don't want to say who you think is right or wrong, but those irrational boys don't look to be up to any good that YOU can see, do they? I guess some people just naturally defer to authority, even for no rational reason.

I can think of at least one thing I'd be video-ing if I was in front of this particular Wal-Mart. I'd be recording some asshole, irrational cop being a total prick to a couple of completely rational young men who weren't doing a goddamn thing wrong.

>> ^kymbos:

Where does all that lost shit go?


Into their pockets, that's why cenk is furious and i totally understand why. We need more angry young men to shout and scream the odds, we need people to get motivated. This person has 'borrowed' money, then told you he won't pay it back, and furthermore told you that he wants you to work harder to give him more money in the future.

He simplifies the problem thus:

He (and you, and the entire working population) has given the man many many trillions of dollars. Now that man is turning around and saying "you will not get your money back."

Can you imagine if you said that to a bank loan?

He's right to be furious. I think the interview was a fresh change, and i think it was about time that someone spoke the truth, hard and clear, in natural language that everyone can understand, to fuckpigs like this who have utterly no conscience and utterly no morals and REALLY DO steal money from you every single day.

On TV, in the open, for everyone to see, strip it bare, strip it down to the simple facts - someone has taken your money and spent it, and now they're telling you to give them more. And they're doing it in a way that you can't legally fight back, and it doesn't matter how many letters you write to them, or anyone else, or who you vote for, you WILL be giving them more of your money, and they will NOT be reimbursing you.

I'm surprised cenk didn't call him a few choice names. When asked where the money was, or whether it was going to be reimbursed, the guy just sat there, LAUGHING, and said "well it's gone now, so you're gonna have to put more in!"

Seriously, can you believe that? Could Orwell have written that any better?

>> ^Quboid:

That's 3 names. How many professional footballers are there? This are young men with a lot of money. Of course some will do stupid things. Joey Barton? Why do you think he's stupid? He's a pretentious, self-righteous hypocrite, but none of those mean he's stupid.
Being thick isn't the same as being uneducated. They aren't well educated but this is because they went into football, not because they couldn't handle it. Quite a few have got degrees in their plentiful spare time while playing.
Of course foreigners can be twits. That you would imply I'd think otherwise is what I mean, this idea that footballers, especially British footballers, are uniquely thick.
Why do I think they are probably above average? Because if you have two players of equal technical ability, strength, fitness, etc, the one who is smarter will generally do better and therefore play in a higher standard of league. Egro, the smart rise to the top. Since intelligence isn't a particularly important part of football, the effect this has will be small, it still exists.
Charlie Adam is rubbish, I'll give you that.


How many names am I supposed to give you? Is there a specific number that should convince you? Put it like this ff you were mining the wisdom of crowds they'd be the last crowd you'd go with.

A lack of education, also known as ignorance and poor critical thinking is linked to lack of comprehension and the wider phenomenon of stupidity.

You're incorrect about intelligence being a differentiator on the field. The number one characteristic coaches look for is attitude. Players with an intense competitive desire and a controllable amount of aggression WITH talent are the ones who make it.

Off the pitch, being able to make smart decisions about contracts, sponsorship is where you'd be right. Actually maybe that means Beckham is a genius and I'm totally wrong! Or maybe he's well advised.

I always admired Klinnsman in that regard. If you forgot the diving you might recall he sorted out his own contract and only hired a lawyer and an accountant. The value of an education there is that you actually eke out a bit more money over the long term.

As for Barton his propensity for violence suggests he's not the poster boy for the football intelligentsia. I know he's been working via twitter to build a different kind of reputation but I'm yet to be convinced. It's amazing what you can cut and paste on the web.

That's 3 names. How many professional footballers are there? This are young men with a lot of money. Of course some will do stupid things. Joey Barton? Why do you think he's stupid? He's a pretentious, self-righteous hypocrite, but none of those mean he's stupid.

Being thick isn't the same as being uneducated. They aren't well educated but this is because they went into football, not because they couldn't handle it. Quite a few have got degrees in their plentiful spare time while playing.

Of course foreigners can be twits. That you would imply I'd think otherwise is what I mean, this idea that footballers, especially British footballers, are uniquely thick.

Why do I think they are probably above average? Because if you have two players of equal technical ability, strength, fitness, etc, the one who is smarter will generally do better and therefore play in a higher standard of league. Egro, the smart rise to the top. Since intelligence isn't a particularly important part of football, the effect this has will be small, but it still exists.

Charlie Adam is rubbish, I'll give you that.

Also, the monster you see in the video is a Tokoloshe - look him on Wikipedia.

>> ^EndAll:

To give some of the stuff in the video a bit more context, there's this further explanation from Xeni Jardin in the comments on BoingBoing:
So, the story behind this video and song (or part of the story -- there's so much going on!) is that this kid was being coerced into a form of ritual circumcision by his community. It's culturally mandatory within his ethnic group, so much so that if you are a young man and you do not participate, you are completely ostracized. It's hardcore.
The thinking, and this is communicated pretty bluntly to the young men, is that if you don't participate, you're gay. You're effeminate. You're not a real man. You never mature from being a boy to being a man.
The kid is hetero. And he struggled with all of this in real life: with what it meant for his personal and cultural identity. And he came to a point where he was like, you know what? Fuck you all. The fact that I won't consent to having my penis sliced with an unsterilized knife, out in the bush, and risk infection or worse-- that doesn't mean "I'm gay," as you say. If that's what being a man is, fuck it, I don't want to be a man. I'll be an "evil boy for life." But, yeah, I am a real man, even if I don't participate in this tradition which I now reject, at the risk of being totally ostracized from my community.
You might have chosen different lyrics, but dude, it's not our story or our culture or our world experience at all.
It's his.

>> ^cosmovitelli:

I read your stuff Yogi!
FWIW Involving the US in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan is all about money and power. Oil, minerals, rate earth shit etc etc.
In Iran they got rid of a benevolent democratically elected progressive who tried to return the oil wealth of the country to its people and replaced him with a foreign sponsored greedy foolish puppet.
When it swung back the other way the clerics took over. Doh!
They used Afghanistan as a proxy war with the soviets, training the mujahideen / aka Taliban fighters in improvised explosives, insurgency warfare and basically how to fuck up a mechanised invading army. Then they invaded. Doh!
In Iraq they supported Saddam despite his demented paranoid savagery until the Iraqi oilfields became too tasty to ignore.
Duck Cheney said it couldn't be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I&sns=em
But they upped his end via massive Haliburton projects and installed a puppet moron to keep blaming Iraq for the Saudi attacks on 9/11.
Then they invaded, killing thousands of civilians, and dismantled the police and social services while fucking up the food and water supply. Just for good measure they disbanded the army and sent 375,000 heavily armed young men off to find food for their own families. Doh!
Never mind about panama, chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan etc etc.


I'd pretty much agree with your facts. I'm a little less sure on your point.

America helped train and support the Islamic fighter in Afghanistan to chase out the Soviets. America supported Saddam while he was using chemical weapons against Iran and even Iraqi Kurds. America propped up a strong man of their choosing in Iran which backfired and led to the current theocracy.

You needn't look far or very hard to find examples where almost any and every nation has selfishly done very bad things, or things with terrible consequences. America, Russia and China being such large nations, the examples for them are much bigger and numerous. It makes for great propaganda, and all 3 continually make heavy use of it to tarnish each other. America is characterized by the genocide of native americans and Vietnam, Russia by Stalin and China by Mao. It's great propaganda, but it's not insightful or helpful analysis.

Pretend you get be President when Bush Jr. was president. America's narrow self interests are being threatened by terrorism. Bin Laden has extremely close ties with Islamists not only in Afghanistan, but throughout nuclear armed Pakistan. AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, is going around selling nuclear secrets and equipment to the highest bidder. That's an uncomfortably short path from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to the hands of a very credible terrorist network. Do you demand Pakistan break it's ties with the Taliban, or just let it slide? Do you demand the Afghan Taliban break ties with Al Qaeda, or just let it slide? I think selfish American interest DID dictate making those two demands, and being willing to launch a war if they were refused.

I think that is a strong argument that the Afghan war was indeed a good thing from the perspective of America's narrow self-interest.

What about the Afghan people though? Their self interest depends on what the end game is, and nobody can predict that. What we DO know is that the formerly ruling Taliban hated women's rights, and we fought against them. What we DO know is that the formerly ruling Taliban burnt off more of Afghanistan's vineyards than even the Russians had, because making wine was anathema to their cult. What we DO know is that the Taliban was one of the most brutal, backwards and hateful organizations around.

I can not say that the Afghan war ensured a better future for Afghanistan's people. What I CAN say is that leaving the Taliban in power in Afghanistan ensured a dark, bleak and miserable future for Afghanistan's people. I would modestly propose that a chance at something better was a good thing.

I read your stuff Yogi!

FWIW Involving the US in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan is all about money and power. Oil, minerals, rate earth shit etc etc.

In Iran they got rid of a benevolent democratically elected progressive who tried to return the oil wealth of the country to its people and replaced him with a foreign sponsored greedy foolish puppet.
When it swung back the other way the clerics took over. Doh!

They used Afghanistan as a proxy war with the soviets, training the mujahideen / aka Taliban fighters in improvised explosives, insurgency warfare and basically how to fuck up a mechanised invading army. Then they invaded. Doh!

In Iraq they supported Saddam despite his demented paranoid savagery until the Iraqi oilfields became too tasty to ignore.

Duck Cheney said it couldn't be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I&sns=em

But they upped his end via massive Haliburton projects and installed a puppet moron to keep blaming Iraq for the Saudi attacks on 9/11.
Then they invaded, killing thousands of civilians, and dismantled the police and social services while fucking up the food and water supply. Just for good measure they disbanded the army and sent 375,000 heavily armed young men off to find food for their own families. Doh!

Never mind about panama, chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan etc etc.

>> ^Unaccommodated:
Being against polygamy is not bigoted. Humans pair off, its what we do. But Polyandry (one female - multiple males) doesn't work except in a few places like Nepal and Bhutan, where there is little arable land. But the men are ALWAYS brothers, there is no other way it would work (also its a dying practice). Polygyny (One Male - Multiple females) doesn't work either, because then you get an excess of poor, young, bored undersexed men, who become serious problems. Infact, the Warren Jeffs FLDS cult would evict 'misbehaving' young men because there weren't enough ladies to go around. These kids were given no chance. As far as homosexual groupings of more then two? No one is asking for that, many are quite content pairing off with one other person. There is also no historical or ethnographic evidence for it either. And as far as marrying anything nonhuman, that is wrong simply because the other thing is not sentient (in the way we are) and doesn't know what its agreeing to. I think you may be one of those dangerous people only took ONE Anthropology class, and has otherwise missed the boat.


Diogenes just linked to an article about people who are asking for exactly these things, and making them work. Polyamorous and polygamous relationships are neither very rare nor dysfunctional.

Marriage involving nonhumans seems to be very simply resolved. We discount the consent of the nonsentient partners. If I want to marry my pencil or goldfish I really don't see how it could be any of your business.

@gorillaman
Being against polygamy is not bigoted. Humans pair off, its what we do. But Polyandry (one female - multiple males) doesn't work except in a few places like Nepal and Bhutan, where there is little arable land. But the men are ALWAYS brothers, there is no other way it would work (also its a dying practice). Polygyny (One Male - Multiple females) doesn't work either, because then you get an excess of poor, young, bored undersexed men, who become serious problems. Infact, the Warren Jeffs FLDS cult would evict 'misbehaving' young men because there weren't enough ladies to go around. These kids were given no chance. As far as homosexual groupings of more then two? No one is asking for that, many are quite content pairing off with one other person. There is also no historical or ethnographic evidence for it either. And as far as marrying anything nonhuman, that is wrong simply because the other thing is not sentient (in the way we are) and doesn't know what its agreeing to. I think you may be one of those dangerous people only took ONE Anthropology class, and has otherwise missed the boat.