Where morals come to die

Aww man, I thought we were going to wait until tomorrow to get into these debates.

Let’s get this out of the way:

hacksawjenny:

• Guy Fawkes was a Catholic.

This is true.

• He attempted to assassinate King James I who was a Protestant, so that a Catholic could take the thrown. This is also known as the Gunpowder Plot.

This is also true.

HOWEVER, the entire reason they were plotting to assassinate King James was to replace him with his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. She was only 9 at the time and would have probably had an adviser (as many young kings/queens did), which means it would not have been AS BAD. How bad, might you ask?

During the 16th century and the English Reformation, believing that the church was a part of England was considered treason and was cause for execution. After the Gunpowder Plot, it only got worse. In 1641 (35 years after the Gunpowder Plot), all Irish Catholics had their positions of powers stripped away and their land was given to Protestants.

• He was supposed to guard the gunpowder than they planned to use in the assassination, and was caught.

This is true.

• He was then tortured, and eventually commit suicide.

His suicide was nearly right before his execution. He jumped with the noose around his neck so that he wouldn’t be strangled. He wanted his neck broken so that he would die rather than his death be drawn out. All of the other conspirators were drawn and quartered (which was to hang them until they were nearly lifeless, and then dismember them).

• He became the face that people connected with the Gunpowder Plot, and every November 5th effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned at bonfires to celebrate his failure.

The effigies were a celebration of his failure, yes. However the festivities have changed over time. Sometimes the bonfires were a part of riots. Other effigies that have been burned have been Paul Kruger, Margaret Thatcher, Osama Bin Laden, and an effigy of a gypsy caravan.

• November 5th is a day where people celebrate that the king did not get assassinated. It is not a day where people celebrate how cool Anonymous are, and how awesome the V for Vendetta comic and movie are.

While I agree with the sentiment that November 5th is not a celebration of Anonymous, V for Vendetta is definitely a different thing. Parliament is successfully blown up on the 5th, in a celebrationof Guy Fawkes, despite the failure in the past. This appropriation of Guy Fawkes day has only occurred in the two decades or so, more so with the film adaption.

Yes, Guy Fawkes is a symbol of rebelling against a government that you don’t see fit, but look at his reasoning. This is a guy who fought because he thought his religion was the best religion, and the only religion that should be in power. The Gunpowder Plot was not the only time he fought for this either. Is that really the kind of person you want to praise and celebrate? Just think about that before you go posting your V for Vendetta gif sets, okay?

Guy Fawkes rebellion is due to Catholic persecution, not superiority of religion. Yes, the persecution between Catholics and Protestants occurred (and switched) MANY times over the course of the 12th-18th centuries. But that does not remove the concept of rebellion from that day.

(via hcdragon)

thebooshislooseandalittlebitraw:

otaku-sex-beast:

Cliff and I agree that Americans have this so fucking bad. I think that this whole moral-complex goes back in this country to at least WW1.

You mean world war one where the Americans entered late and were the only nation to make a profit? (and even then bullied other nations into the LoN) 

Or do you mean in world war 2? where you again entered late, entered a seperate war and had minimal impact on european conflicts whilst still running up a giant bill for the allies to pay. 

Or do you mean the Marshall plan? or the different actions since then pointless wars to steal goods?

http://youtu.be/UuzlwFXeW3A

in fact watch that 

You just made a bunch of points on why the US should leave everybody alone and trade with everyone.

the US should focus on itself? the nation with the worlds largest economy and perhaps the only one that can help the rest of the world becoming self focused?

Kami isn’t saying that we should be isolated from the world. She’s saying that the idea that we need to send our military into other countries to solve their problems is an awful one that is brought on by people who wear their hearts on their sleeves about saving the world.

the lack of US intervention let US businesses thrive and the US government profit, then with the theivery and wars you capitalised on this  leaving your allies dependant on your business and stock market (which  has caused 3-4 major crashes in my nation alone) 

The US economy didn’t profit. Just the businesses that built for the war efforts. The lack of the US intervention allowed our businesses to thrive, yes. Because we weren’t wasting our time and money going to war.

It was a stupid string of alliances and wars without declarations of war. If we were not involved with the war at all, you wouldn’t be pointing fingers at our country for your economic problems because we wouldn’t have done anything.

In fact under simple economics the US MUST save the world in order to even exist 40 years down the line 

Define “save”.

Save as in “be the world’s police force”? Because if so, we already are. Our war budget is nearly larger than the rest of the world combined.

Or save as in “be the world’s economic help”? In which case I 100% agree with you. That embargoes and restrictions on trade with other countries only serve to hurt the world further.

When Kami and I say “save” we’re pointing at people who want military involvement. War screws up economies.

ferretmochalatte:

kwills88:

I keep seeing these posts on here about “Sandy didn’t just hit New York and Jersey, but it also hit the Caribbean, like Jamaica and Cuba, but the news didn’t cover it”

Last time I checked, the news did cover it up until it finally reached us, hell, they even interviewed people in Jamaica about their situation, granted they didn’t do a 24/7 coverage of it, and I say why the fuck should they, how is covering what happened in another country gonna help people here who need help also, do you think the news in Jamaica or Cuba are doing an in depth coverage of the ppl who got hit here?

This is the same shit ppl did when it comes to 9/11..Its AMERICAN NEWS if something happens here it will and should always be first and top priority.

I am Jamaican and I ain’t mad that they aren’t covering their situation all the time.

I found that the common American will go out of their way to find something to be mad about no matter how unrelated a situation is to them.

Mad by nature.

Totally agree. It’s always a “MY PAIN IS WORSE” situation.

(via fathermercer)

imanassspankme:

people who refuse to vote because none of the candidates are absolutely everything they want

all I see in my head is a little kid going “IF I DON’T GET SPRINKLES ON MY ICE CREAM THEN I DON’T WANT ANYTHING”

and their parents are like, okay then you don’t get any ice cream

“WAIT, BUT I WANT ICE CREAM. I DECIDED THAT ICE CREAM IS BETTER THAN NOTHING.”

too fucking late, missed your chance.

Actually no.

That’s like saying “I want ice cream”, and then being offered two flavors. The first flavor has a sparkly name, and sounds great. But it tastes awful. The other looks pretty old and bland and tastes just as bad.

So you say “well I don’t want either of those flavors, aren’t there other possibilities?” And then your parents turn to you and say “well everyone else gets these flavors, the other flavors aren’t all that popular”.

So you kind of shrug, and if you pick one of the flavors that isn’t all that popular, the fanboys on both sides of the flavor wars will berate you for not supporting their flavor (essentially letting the other flavor gain popularity in their minds).

If you decide you don’t want to participate in this nonsense, you are berated by everyone despite the fact that the two flavors aren’t even actually picked by the people. They are picked by a group of “flavor experts”.

Science is broken. Psychology was rocked recently by stories of academics making up data, sometimes overshadowing whole careers. And it isn’t the only discipline with problems - the current record for fraudulent papers is held by anaesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii, with 172 faked articles.

These scandals highlight deeper cultural problems in academia. Pressure to turn out lots of high-quality publications not only promotes extreme behaviours, it normalises the little things, like the selective publication of positive novel findings – which leads to “non-significant” but possibly true findings sitting unpublished on shelves, and a lack of much needed replication studies.

A recent paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that since 1973, nearly a thousand biomedical papers have been retracted because someone cheated the system. That’s a massive 67% of all biomedical retractions. And the situation is getting worse - last year, Nature reported that the rise in retraction rates has overtaken the rise in the number of papers being published.

This is happening because the entire way that we go about funding, researching and publishing science is flawed. As Chris Chambers and Petroc Sumner point out, the reasons are numerous and interconnecting:

• Pressure to publish in “high impact” journals, at all research career levels;
• Universities treat successful grant applications as outputs, upon which continued careers depend;
• Statistical analyses are hard, and sometimes researchers get it wrong;
• Journals favour positive results over null findings, even though null findings from a well conducted study are just as informative;
• The way journal articles are assessed is inconsistent and secretive, and allows statistical errors to creep through.

The peer-review process needs to be overhauled. Currently, it happens behind closed doors, with anonymous reviews only seen by journal editors and manuscript authors. This means we have no real idea how effective peer review is – though we know it can easily be gamed. Extreme examples of fake reviewers, fake journal articles, and even fake journals have been uncovered.

A simple next step would be to make this system open and viewable by everyone, while maintaining the anonymity of the reviewers themselves. This would allow young researchers to be critical of a senior academic’s paper without fear of career suicide.

Read on

beaky-peartree:

You do realize that complete and absolute elimination of cultural appropriation is segregation, right?

I posted about this in January. Unfortunately, I got absolutely NO answers about why people who believe so firmly in nationalism wouldn’t support segregation.

(via pon-raul)

To those voting:

The House of Representatives is directly influenced by your votes. That is why there is more Reps for bigger states and less for smaller states.

The Senate is smaller, only 2 per state. They are also influenced by your vote but not as much.

The President is the farthest of the three and is usually decided by the electoral college.

The Supreme Court, on the other hand, is kept entirely away from votes because the Supreme Court is the branch that is the highest law.

I hope you realize that if Obama is re-elected and your House of Reps/Senate is Republican, you have only screwed yourself. Likewise to all those voting for Romney with a Dem HoR/Senate. To all those voting third party, remember that local politics is always easier to influence than the president.

You know what, fuck it. I got some time to kill.

Read More

Alright, let’s put it this way:

If you are so strong with your nationalism (that’s what it’s really called, where your pride is in your nationality and heritage), then at what point do you call for segregation? You say “If your family didn’t teach you about it and tell you it was yours to participate in, leave it alone”. But that’s too vague to mean anything. But I think you saying “White people, stay in your fucking lane” is perfectly telling where you stand on that issue.

I mean you could literally go everywhere with that. 

Think about people who complain about “white people appropriating our food”. Ungit made a picture that fit this best:

Hairstyles like the “mohawk”? Thousands of years old, not even strictly aboriginal Native American.

Tattoos? Tattoos have been part of global human culture for at least seven thousand years, that makes as much sense as giving up painting because they paint in subsaharan Africa

I mean what next, “white people shouldn’t study non-white culture”?

In response to the middle east’s riots, and just religious people in general.

vonblixen:

thousandmilestogo:

nevver:

1. Fine Arts
2. Drama and Theater Arts
3. Film, Video, and Photographic Arts
4. Commercial Art and Graphic Design
5. Architecture
6. Philosophy and Religious Studies
7. English Literature and Language
8. Journalism
9. Anthropology and Archeology
10. Hospitality Management
11. Music
12. History
13. Political Science and Government

That kind of article is ridiculous. Useless? Depends on what you put value on and what you expect from your personal and professional life. The fact that we can even use the term useless to talk about knowledge piss me off so much. 

I’ve bolded the things I’ve studied and have a degree in and italicized my interests. Thank you, Capitalist World, for reminding me once again that I am, indeed, useless and worthless to you. I should have studied business, or marketing, or how to shuffle papers on my desk. I bet that would have been useful. 

We are giving up on our soul, on our heritage, and are becoming instead an overly mechanised society that cares about nothing but money and social status. We’re cogs in a machine, we’re not human anymore, and we think we are free simply because we have a choice of skim milk over whole, or Top Shop over Gap. We are becoming stupider and less informed, our news, books, and entertainment reflect that, yet we think we’re smart because we can access Google when we don’t know something.

Perhaps this article explains why I can’t find a job, even though I can speak 6 languages,  can converse about art, literature and music, have a personal interest in history and philosophy and I’d rather be reading a book than go to an office 5 days per week and get blinding drunk in a bar the other two, to wash away the taste of it and pretend I have a life.

Thank you for reminding me why I am useless, and why my kind is a vanishing breed. Thank you! I mean it!

>Depends on what you put value on and what you expect from your personal and professional life. The fact that we can even use the term useless to talk about knowledge piss me off so much. 

They’re useless because they’re closed off markets. The risk of being a “starving artist” or something of the sort is high, while the rewards are few and far between. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t strive for it. By all means, go ahead. But don’t come knocking about “where all the jobs are”.

>Thank you, Capitalist World, for reminding me once again that I am, indeed, useless and worthless to you. I should have studied business, or marketing, or how to shuffle papers on my desk. I bet that would have been useful. 

Well at least you’re trying. Nobody said business or marketing is what the ideal is. Where are the scientists? The engineers? Our country is losing actual labor and science jobs in favor of services and the arts. Services aren’t bad, but if you’re doing nothing but services, you have no exports and a country with no exports is literally shifting resources back and forth while paying for imports. 

>We are giving up on our soul, on our heritage, and are becoming instead an overly mechanised society that cares about nothing but money and social status.

Tell that to the tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of people majoring in those degrees listed above. 

Let me tell you a story. I work at a company that makes a show on TV. I’m the video effects editor. I got here by luck. My boss needed to hire an editor and literally got over 500 applications in less than 10 hours. He literally could not read every single application that he got in the course of 24 hours because there were so many. Now consider that this was just a single part of LA. Imagine every city across the US. That is an extremely high supply and extremely low demand. IT JUST DOESN’T WORK OUT.

>Perhaps this article explains why I can’t find a job, even though I can speak 6 languages,  can converse about art, literature and music, have a personal interest in history and philosophy and I’d rather be reading a book than go to an office 5 days per week and get blinding drunk in a bar the other two, to wash away the taste of it and pretend I have a life.

“I’d be rather be reading a book than go to an office 5 days per week” is your most damning statement. I worked retail for 2 months, hated it. But it’s called a necessary evil. Do you think anybody wants to work? Do you think coal miners, railroad workers, or even people who work on “dirty jobs” (like, the show kind of dirty jobs) actually want to work those jobs? They do it because there’s a need to be filled. 

>We are becoming stupider and less informed, our news, books, and entertainment reflect that, yet we think we’re smart because we can access Google when we don’t know something.

That’s actually a failure of our public education system. Funny enough, our school system actually inspires more people to take non-science courses and majors with tiny markets. The reason the word “useless” is there is stated in the article: These are the most popular majors that have the highest unemployment rates. They are useless because you could easily get no degree and participate in them. LIKE MYSELF. 

They’re not saying the subject matter is bad or unimportant, but the degree itself is useless. Like getting a liberal arts degree (which I’m surprised isn’t on there). 

Life isn’t one big fucking entitlement for you. 

(via ride--on--shooting--star)

ferretmochalatte:

A largely popular opinion that is often challenged but is ultimately true: Barack Obama won the 2008 election because he is part black.

The DNC is all over the news and I’d like to indulge you with my thoughts on the aforementioned statement from my perspective.

I’m Nigerian-American.

My family, and every Nigerian I know, love Barack Obama even though his views conflict with that of Nigerian society.

Granted that my views are not in alignment with Nigerian society, I find it funny how most Nigerians and Africans do nothing but sing praise of Barack Obama.

When the RNC was on TV, my parents did not want to hear it. All they thought, as well as their family friends and other relatives of mine, was that there was a scarcity of blacks in the crowd.

I mean Romney could have said that he guaranteed every American $1 million but they did not want to hear it. All they said was, “Boo, he does not know what he is talking about. Look at the crowd. All white people.”

Yet when Michelle and Barack are on TV they do nothing but talk about how nice their family is, how they interact with one another, what Michelle is doing, and how cool Obama is. It reminds me of that Boondocks episode about Huey and Uncle Ruckus not supporting Obama while the rest of the town is all over him.

So I tried, to my dismay, to bring the subject matter to the issues, but they would understand then and the next day it would fly over their heads.

Of course this is with the women (here come the sexist flames), the men are a bit more sensible, but equally…problematic…ignorant is too harsh.

I mean Obama and the other convention speakers are touting gay marriage and abortion, things that are widely un-Nigerian, but he can talk about God for two minutes and everyone loves him again.

Then throw in Bill Maher, an athiest, and a person that shares the same social values as Obama.

They love his show. They laugh at his jokes. Most Nigerians love him. Maybe it is because he dated a black woman…who is known for her exceptional fellatio skills.

If I were to blaspheme God, or declare myself as an athiest, I would be thrown in an oven and left to roast.

You would not even want to know what would happen if a Nigerian, besides the lead singer of the Bloc Party, would come to Nigeria, share those same values, and come out of the closet. He or she would be dead once they said ga.

African nations social views are more aligned with conservative views.

Need proof?

General African stance on abortion? Look at their birthrates.

General African stance on gay marriage? Look at the Nigerian law on being a homosexual.

General African stance on prayer in school? Look at their religion stats.

It is disturbing what blind faith people have. 

I mean, Obama did not even have to be charismatic and he probably would have stood a chance because he is black.

It is funny how racially divided the two party system is and how people will cling to whatever they confide in no matter how irrational their reasons for believing in it is.

Why are they continuously pumping out more ideas for Marvel Zombies? It’s like Indigo Prophecy, “ideas out of a hat” kind of crap that kills people’s interests. 

So it starts out with zombies. Awesome. And after they take down Galactus, there’s all sorts of universe hopping. I think it peaked at maybe 2, or 3. After they had a prequel and crossed over Ash (from Evil Dead).

I mean let’s list stuff:

• Universe hopping, basically the theme of everything starting with #2
• Dimension and “alternate reality” hopping
• Marvel Apes crossover 
• A bunch of realities merging
• At least 4 different prequels revolving around the same concept of fighting the infection, which isn’t necessarily bad but is kind of annoying after the 3rd time.
• Howard the Duck fighting Nazi Zombies

the-coriolis-effect:

are you people so fucking stupid that you seriously believe this kid wasnt asking for what he got?

he went to a 24 hour corner store. in the middle of the night. with his friend. who was wearing a ski mask. 

“to get …uhh…snacks”

So wearing a ski mask now warrants you to get pistol whipped by police. 

like. are you fucking stupid? obviously this guy could have been armed considering he was with someone who probably wanted to rob the store till he noticed the cops. 

So what, we can now justifiably start jumping and beating on people for “looking suspicious” and “could have, would have, might have”?

you’re all going to play the race card and say it was because he was black. not his friend he rolled up with wearing a fucking balaclava. 

Weird. I never once heard “because he was black”. If anyone’s trying to pull the race card, it’s YOU.

The cop said the youth was “aggressive” and “tried to pull a gun” for why his own gun went off. But his gun went off after hitting the kid. The cop is lying at the very, very least.