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At 12/13/11 02:59 PM, Proteas wrote: This is the U.S. Military we're talking about, the most well funded military in the world. Don't you think it's odd that they didn't have a few fingers of Semtex rigged to explode and destroy the most sensitive parts of that drone if something like this happened?

With power comes superiority. With superiority comes arrogance. With arrogance comes complacency.

Chances are the military had the option and cheaped out because they thought a country would never get a hold of one intact, and if they could, we'd get there first...

At 12/13/11 03:40 PM, Morph94 wrote: I honestly don't care, because I'm going to say 'Merry Christmas' to people until either I'm dead or the two words are tabooed.

And yo're missing the point...

The ONLY people who give a shit whether you celebrate Christmas are those who bitch about "Christmas" being removed fromt he holidays...

This has nothing to do with how private people celebrate holidays.

At 12/13/11 09:10 AM, Korriken wrote: Whatever happened to "It's a time to celebrate the birth of the savior!"?

Valid concern. Some people clearly take it too far. No doubt. However, there's more to it than just throwing toys and money at the kids. There's tradition and the feel, and the kids.

I dread the day I end up with a kid... I'm sure it'll be a battle between me and the woman. I don't really believe in buying the kid(s) all the latest gadgets and toys. If I'm gonna get you a new Xbox, I'm not gonna wait til Christmas and give the credit to some overweight old man in a big red suit who breaks into people's homes in order to dispense counterfeit goods.

You act all prinicpled now, but things change when you have a real kiddo. Trust me.

At 12/13/11 05:31 AM, VenomKing666 wrote: See, but if you change a fact it's not one anymore.

No. It still is. Facts are EXTREMELY narrow. They only gain breadth when grouped together as a story.

If you lie about it it becomes (conveniently enough) a fucking lie.

No it doesn't. If I tell my kid, that the Moon is a circle because it is actually Gouda Cheese, that doesn't change the fact that the Moon is a circle. The story becomes a lie, but the fact stays the same, changed merely by the company it is with.

I know how differently you can treat an information to make it look different or to change public perception. I am studying in communications. It does NOT change the base facts of what happenned. Fox news' bias is outright lying and bullshit, other news media not so much. And sure they might ommit some stuff for various reasons but that's your job to check the information.

I know FOX plays fast and loose with the facts. No critical thinker can deny that. However, the facts that they do get right, i.e. 90%+ are the same exact facts that TYT uses. When two people use the same facts but get completely divergent stories, you have bias. FYI, the guy who legitimately questioned the word "is" wasn't in communications... There is one occupation that is much better at word play and semantics than communications majors are.

I was defending merely defending comparing tyt to fox news here, as I have not seen them lie about an issue in the way fox did and at least TYT have the honesty to show they have an opinion unlike the "straight" fox news anchors and the "no spin zone".

Now you're getting it. TYT has a bias.

You think you got me figured out but you are wrong, and you are arguing against a straw man you made up for yourself. It might come up as a surprise to you but other people can also think critically.

Then why are you trying to act as if TYT has no bias? If you can think critically, you'd know that they are knee deep in bias. That doesn't mean you have to disagree with them. But, until you realize their bias, they serve no purpose as a source for information.

At 12/13/11 05:11 AM, wildfire4461 wrote: Remember that video Megaupload made I posted? They uploaded it to Youtube, and Universal is taking it down for copyright infringement WHEN THERE CLEARLY ISN'T. So Megaupload is now suing UMG over it, and is now voicing their opposition to SOPA.

Mega Upload is the exact sort of site ans system that SOPA targets. Sure some musicians like it. If they wish to give MU a free or dirt cheap license to share their files, good for them, but having Kanye, Foxx, and Will.I.Am support a websiet doesn't give people the right to trade Rascal Flats (sorry, they were on a CSI I watched yesterday), radiohead, Five Finger Death Punch, Boston, Chicago, Kansas, Alabama, Denver (and whatever geographically named musicians you can think of). Nor does their approval allow for the downloading of movies, even X-Men Origins (cause B level actors don't get copyrights in movies they star in).

Even if 10% of all of the copyright owners in the world approved the site, 90% of the copyrights, and likely cxlose to 90% of the files traded would still be pirated. This clearly fits within the definintion of a site whose primary purpoise is the selling of pirated material. We don't allow chop shops because their goods are stolen, why would this change just because the internet becomes the medium?

Please, SOMEBODY answer that question. Unless this question is answered, defense of internet piracy is disingenuous AT BEST.

At 12/12/11 09:08 PM, Iron-Hampster wrote: remember, the Australian government down played everyone's fears of the censorship before it happened as well. They said they would only block sites with illegal content, in the same manner supporters of S.O.P.A are.

If you're going to make this comparison, finish it. You claimthe Australian law is like and was bad, how?

The problem is that we shouldn't be forced to trust the government on this issue, especially after what happened the last time people were forced to trust their government. Enough people are saying no to at least call for a referendum. This bill is shady, and there are a lot of sites out there that could fall victim to it what with how fast and far copyright infringing you tube videos can be spread.

I really don't see this Bill going anywhere near this far. Anyway, theft is theft. Just because it happens on the net doesn't make a crime any less of a crime.

At 12/12/11 09:07 PM, MrFlopz wrote: But we progressively become less free every day. Let's not get complacent and say "we're freer than most, so we don't need to change". Our prison populations alone should indicate that America is not the freest country in the world.

I am not saying that this isn't true. There just tends to be too many people who make mountains out of grains of sand for the sole purpose of being able to say they are climbing a mountain. Shrinking freedoms (whilst we get more and more freedoms everyday) is no excuse to ridicule others for being proud and happy with what we have. It's like that fat kid from Harry Potter who gets like 36 presents but bitches and moans because he's getting one less than the year before.

Veruca Salt, anyone?

At 12/10/11 10:06 PM, WallofYawn wrote: Yes, we have freedom and Democracy. The question is: do we have ENOUGH freedom and Democracy? I think not.

Bitch, bitch. Moan, moan. Stop being so angrily jaded.

America is a great place to live. As Americans we are granted, by the mere fact of being American, so much over darn near everyone else in the world. If that isn't worth loving on some level, I don't know what is...

At 12/11/11 07:24 PM, VenomKing666 wrote: What the hell are you even talking about?

Let's just boil this down. Liste n to TYT, FOX News, CNN, and CBS. Take down the facts they use. Chances are the facts they use in common will be the same. I can gurantee you that 90%+ of the facts they use will be the same. However, based on that remaining 10%, the context, the order, and the manner in which they all resent it, you'll get 4 stories, some more different than the others. I mean the mere eixtsence of Sean Hannity yelling angrily a set if facts and Brian Schieffer droning on about the same facts in the same exact sentences as Hannity, and you'll get a different story.

Facts are maleable. You can't change the fact of the fact, but you can minimize, couch, hide, exaggerate, highlight, ignore, or blow that fact out of proportion. Hell, you can even add lies to a fact to make it seem 100% different than it truly is. Or you can cop off a seemingly mnor part of that fact (like a quote) to completely change the meaning of that fact. All I am saying is that you have got to think beyond the mere facts and words thrown at you and dig down to the why. Ask yourself, "When TYT, or FOX, or NGBBSers say facts and storys, why are they telling this story?" The more biased and selective a source is the more likely the why is more important than the what.

Now, I know how you're looknig at this. You've come across TYT and they seems to say everything you want to say and they say it the way you want to say it. When I was younger I latched on things the same way. Now TYT wasn't around back then, but you can bet your bum that if I knew about TYT when I was 16-19 I would've latched upon them like a vice grip. Now, that might have lasted a few years, but when you have things that fit your bias, yoiu love it until that onbe time when they no longer fit your bias. Once you disagree with them you realize that the entire time this is how they've treated everything, and it will quickly turn really really sour. Trust me.

Not everything you see or hear is exactly what it appears to be.

The effect of drugs on artist may Iand I mean may) have a positive effect. However, I ahve also heard, as djack pointed out, that many artists ended their careers far too early and lost their quality far too early because of substance abuse.

But guess what? Very few people are artists. The vast majority of us have jobs and relationships where we're valued by our lucidity and reliability. Hell, many of us us (by many I mean most) of us have jobs that flat out require us to be 100% 'there' at all times.

Some use may not hurt this, but use in any sort of sustained manner effects job performance and societal productivity, and severely damages social and familial relationships. I see it every day at work.

At 12/11/11 07:55 AM, VenomKing666 wrote: No, I am sorry but you are an idiot. I don't like to call names but when people say something that stupid I just have to.

A fact is meaningless. One fact is narrow and only tells one piece of information. Without a story or context a fact can be twisted to mean anything and therefore has no real meaning.

Listen, a fact is not meaningless, a fact means what it means, that's it.

And this is why you'll be mislead by the news becuase you are bound to be follow the story because you're too distracted by sparkly facts.

Exept these are two BIASED points of view of the same events, the truth still is that one of these points of view (or both) may be wrong. And therefore not facts. It's not because we don't know all the information that facts are suddently meaningless.

No shit, there genious. The STORIES aren't facts. A ball is not a triangle and a car is not a filet mingon. However, bot the stories I presented were created off of the same facts, and guess what? These stories are extrmely divergent! TYT can look at the same facts as me, Fox, CNN, and every otehr American and there story is gonig to be anti-corporate. It always will be. That's the story they choose to tell with the facts at hand.

My story of OWS is shaped through my experience with these sort of people in numerous stages of my life. I take the same facts and see them and project them through my lens. What TYT sees as heroic Egypt-style protestors, I see as stinky bored children yearning for a cause. It's not like we're lookin at different things.

I can't believe I have to explain this.

Don't. You don't understand what you're trying to explain.

When it comes to dress, I am half and half. I acknowledge that a chunk of rape, definitely the most violent sort, is driven by violence and not sex. However, dressing in order to gain sexual attention isn't exactly a way to avoid sexual attention.

To say that dressing provacatively invites rape is a huge jump, however there is a highly logical possibility that dressing sexually will definite invite a reaction, and that reaction may not be exactly wanted.

It definitely is nowhere near the risk of drinking alone, or going into strange or foreign clubs alone. (any by nowhere I mean nowhere. Think speeding as opposed to drunk driving tired with a blindfold on)

At 12/10/11 07:15 PM, camobch0 wrote: This movement isn't just about protesting, it is about educating and helping EVERYONE.

So in other words it's a bunch of hippie social themes rolled under the vague confines of anti-corporate angst?

At 12/10/11 04:22 PM, morefngdbs wrote: To say someone with deminished capacity doesn't have the ability to give consent.
Can't IMO be a one way thing.

It isn't.

If she is drinking & cannot give consent, & I am also drinking, why is my deminished capacity not taken into account ?
If it CAN be used as a defense by one, it should ALSO be a defense for the other.

Under model penal code states (I believe 30 states) diminished capacity negates any crime with a mental state of Knowing or purposeful. However, it appears that at least under Oregon laws (an MPC jurisdiction) sex crimes are reckless or strict liability. So I guess it doesn't count as a defense. This does make sense though. Consent of rape should not be determined by what the actor believes to be consent, but a subjective view from the victim with an objective reasonable component.

At 12/10/11 03:57 PM, VenomKing666 wrote: By that definition everyone is biased (And everybody is). I was speaking in terms of massive bias or outright lying, or hiding critical information from the viewer, which unlike fox news I am not aware of the people from TYT doing.

TYT is pretty biased. They are not biased to the point of altering the truth, however if you were to make a "news of 2011" based solely on TYT reports you would have a very liberal and very small picture of world news. This small picture isn't due to lack of resources, but due to selective reporting.

A fact, evidence is by definition true, if it is altered then it becomes untrue, and therefore is not a fact anymore.

But one fact alone is almost meaningless. Take these three facts.

A man has a gun.
A person died.
The man has money in his wallet.

Each of these facts mean very little. Put them together to make a story and you have, a man with a gun, killed another person and took his money. Or is it, a person left the bank and killed someone trying to mug him? Or is it a police officer who shot a sucpect? Or is it a tragic heart attack, and some random guy has a gun?

This is pretty extreme, but this is how facts work. One fact alone is meaningless. It does not get meaning until someone creates a story with it and gives it meaning. After that even the same exact set of facts in the same sequence can have different meanings. The Libyan people were 'rebels' in the Government's eyes, but they were 'freedom fighters' in our eyes. Two VERY different stories based off the exact same facts.

At 12/10/11 03:23 PM, JustinTheHedgehog45 wrote: You cant fool me!

Kinda like how you can't slander a dirty mobster cause there's no way to ruin their reputation any further?

You act the fool so hard that there is no physical way anybody can make you look more foolish?

At 12/10/11 02:43 PM, Korriken wrote: Tea party wants fewer taxes and more economical freedom... well most of em anyway, some are nuttier than others.

OWS wants more regulation and to end corporate bailouts.. well, most of em anyway, some are nuttier than others.

You at least have to admit that they both want to end corporate welfare (i.e. the bailouts and TARP and stuff).

Their methods for doing this, however, diverge significantly.

At 12/10/11 11:36 AM, Ericho wrote: I honestly don't find that ad to be particularly offensive. What I find weird about it is that it doesn't make sense. If you are drunk and someone has sex with you, then in the strictest sense, it isn't rape. It's something that you did not disagree to. It's the same thing with joking about guys who have sex with ugly women when drunk. It's interesting how it's always played more seriously when the woman is the victim.

While I don't have a copy of my criminal code at my side right now, I do believe that consent from a person with dimished capacity does not equal consent. Being three sheets to the wind is diminished capacity.

I will say that there is a fundamental difference between a man having sex with a woman he thinks is disgusting when he is drunk, and a woman being unable to say not, and it's pure biology. A man has to want sex to engage in regular intercoure. A woman doesn't. While the man may regret it, and unless he was sodomized, he voluntarily (in the criminal sense) engaged in the act, and that it not getting raped. Like I allude to earlier, if he gets drunk and some woman starts sodomizding him somehow, that may be rape (hoever, this is where you'll have to fight the double standard, and it does exist)

At 12/10/11 11:29 AM, Ericho wrote: I think that it's just the worst percentage wise. I read that there were roughly 4 million Native Americans living in America at the time of Columbus and now there are only 250,000, so that would mean a 96.975% percentage loss although that could be attributed more to Columbus and other settlers. I don't know how many there were when the country was founded.

You're way off here...

The Navajo Nation, alone, has over 300,000 members. Per the US Census (and my fuzzy math, adobe isn't reading pdfs for me right now...) the US has approximately 2.5 million native Americans right now.

While this is a significant drop, not that much of the drop is directly attributable to Jackson. A great deal of it is due to assimilation and interbreeding. At work, at least 25% of the families believe they have some ICWA connection, though most people's native heritage is extremely small.

At 12/10/11 04:16 AM, joe9320 wrote: Yet they speak out against censorship. There should be a balance between the two. Back a while ago, Australia attempted to censor the internet.

The world isn't black and white. It's not an all or nothing place. We can advocate for free speech while still having and enforcing restrictions, such as libel, slander, and theft of ideas and speech.

You're making an odd logical jump. In tangible goods trms you'd be saying that when the government tries to stop shoplifting it's actually trying to discourage the purchasing of goods.

The world isn't all about the"me" and the "I". Drugs, especially the illegal sort, cause people to alter their productivity, lose their health and otherwise negatively effect those around them. If a drug user were to truly have zero connections to the world and society, they wouldn't be an issue, but it's extremely hard to find an example of someone who fits this category. Even the most low of the low have people who love and rely upon them. Drugs are a violation of the inherent trust we need to function as a human society.

At 12/10/11 01:42 AM, VenomKing666 wrote: Once again you just say stuff out of your ass with no evidence to back it up, like I said, find a fucking tyt article that reported facts wrong or tried to hide facts.

VK, don't get sucked into the lore and sexiness of 'facts'. The mere existence of a fact doesn't mean anything. Facts are merely facts. They do nothing but indiciate a single bland piece of information. It's the story that counts. Facts are fungible.

Korriken is not saying the facts of the Young Turks are wrong. he's saying their story is biased and one sided. His point that TYT has been salivating over OWS like Zoidberg when someone mentions food. They haven't reported much, if at all, on a similar bottom up grass roots (though at least partially astroturfed) Tea party movement.

So when it comes down to it, regardless of whether the facts that TYT puts forth are 100% true or not, they are extremely biased. They choose the facts they out forward and the story they craft is done so through the lenses of their beliefs, and they make little effort to hide that fact.

In conclusion, fatcs aren't gospel. They are merely tools through which people craft stories.

At 12/9/11 06:51 PM, Korriken wrote: what do they have on Cain? not nearly as much. Still, someone wanted Cain removed and they used the dirtiest tactic they could to do it.

Call the timing dirty if you want. Hell, call the accusations semi-truths if you want. But saying that there wasn't any ammo against Cain? Really? This guy was Palin-esque the way he created statements that just made him look bad and hardly capable to lead.

The EU as a customs union has been a resounding success. Trade in Europe is floursihing (with respect to the down state of the global economy).

However, the EU as a pseudo-multinational governing body has been a complete and utter failure. Europe just is not ready for it. The Med states are, and have always been, completely irresponsible. The Northern Continental states are very ripe and reay for it, however they don't have the money or the will to prop up the Med. The UK just likes to be a cheeky bugger and will thumb its nose at authority if it thinks that there hasn't been enough petulence for one day.

The only country that truly seems to be "all in" on the EU is Germany. Everyone else is intentionally exploiting it, or just doesn't care enough.

Well, a PSA poster by the PA liquor control board was pulled recently. The ad points out the high correlation between alcohol and sexual assault. However many people have been clamoring to say that this blames the victim. This isn't the first time that this has come up (see slutwalks), but where do we draw the line between blaming the victim for rape and good and honest attempts to prevent rape?

I very much agree that victims of rape, both men and women, are not to blame at all for what happened to them. However, we must realize that there are certain things that people do that make themselves vulnerable, or that they could do to defend themselves before a rape occurs. I fear that by throwing the "you're blaming the victim" argument at every attempt to prevent and preempt rape, will lead to further unsafe practices and result in more rapes and easier rapes.

At 12/9/11 01:59 PM, Ericho wrote: I know! Everytime I hear a President being criticized it's Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon because they killed people, but Jackson was easily the worst of them all! He contributed more to a genocide than any President in history. Christopher Hitchens should write a book on him.

Well, when it comes to pure numbers, Truman, Nixon, and FDR vie for the top of this category, but I have to agree that in when it comes to the pure hatred and despicability with regard to the killings Jackson's campaigns against native americans takes the top spot hands down.

At 12/9/11 01:06 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: people generally know more about themselves than some strange doctor

No they don't.

Sure people know how they feel more than some strange doctor, but if feeling great equated to being healthy than obesity wouldn't be an issue, nor would drug addiction.

Face it, much of what feels good for us isn't.

Britain will never leave, nor will it be kicked out of the EU. It's too stron gof an economic power for the other countries to let it go. The UK invests a lot. The UK buys a lot. As a part of the EU they get tariff free investing and other countries get tariff free selling in the UK.

At 12/8/11 08:53 PM, TheMason wrote:

At 12/8/11 03:43 PM, Camarohusky wrote: All I am saying is you can't say the President controls the economy when it suits you and he doesn't when it does not.

The thing is it is not an either/or proposition. The economy is largely outside the government's control...however this does not mean that it does not respond to government policies. Government regulation can cause price increases.

On the other hand, fluctuations in the business cycle can effect government coffers.

So which is it? Did President Obama have a hand in the bad economy or should he not be lauded for the recent gain in employment?

Be careful here Camero...the November decrease in unemployment is to be expected going into the holiday season. We'll probably see another decrease in December. We'll have to wait to see January or February numbers to see if this really is long-term gain or short-term high.

I am skeptical of these employment numbers. I have been for years. Ever since I hread that in 2009 when Oregon's unemployment was around 10% that in actuality 17-20% were truly out of work and a total of 25% were underemployed at best.

However, my irritation still stands. I have heard so many slam Obama for the economy and tear him down for the economy and every little economic drop no matter how miniscule became an Obama blunder, but the minute something good happens these same people rush in and start telling others to back off and that the President doesn't control the economy. This is what is bugging me. Inconsistency along political lines bugs me (I know I am guilty of this sometimes too)

It seems that many have made nothing too small to blame Obama for, but nothing is big enough to laud him for.

Personall, I agree with proteas' statement that there is very little a President can do that effects the economy. However, if you're going to assert that Obama is at fault for the economic ills, then man up and admit that there has been some good news in his tenure.

At 12/9/11 06:27 AM, nexusknight wrote: GAYS WILL BURN IN HELL

You'll be there to watch won't you?