MrFisk, whose name sort of sounds like it belongs to a cat (Mr. Whiskers?), just got his diamond. Again. And he did it the hard way: By posting a lot of controversial stuff, which makes it difficult to get stars. And a lot of hip hop videos too. Which also makes it difficult to get stars. So marvel at this achievement, and love up his PQ while you're at it (conveniently sorted from highest to lowest votes.)

Did you know he's a Nebraska boy? I'm from there too, which makes us brothers. With the same wife. Our sister. Help out a brother. My brother. And brother-in-law.

The 60 char title limit kind of hindered me putting up a fully informative title as to this post.. It was discovered recently that Reznor's music along with a number of other bands is being used as torture at Gitmo. Their music is played at ear splitting levels, sometimes repeating the same song over and over for long durations.

This is all being done without any consent from the artists (did they at least legally purchase their copies?), and it would seem that any requests from the artists to have their music pulled from the 'enhanced interrogation' is being dismissed at a near hostile level by members of Liz Cheney's group, 'Keep America Safe'.

All of my news concerning this is being pulled from The NIN Hotline, I found this particular quote interesting: "A "Keep America Safe" spokesperson went so far as to say "It's almost laughable to think that heavy metal bands like Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine have a moral authority on national security issues.".

I guess loud edgy music must be evil and immoral even though it's almost always anything but, 'least the stuff I listen to.

You can read more: at http://www.theninhotline.net/news/
Including an organized attempt at asking for an apology from Keep America Safe for deeming the artist's stance as laughable and having no moral leverage concerning the use of their music, and as they word it - to stand up for all awesome musicians who have enriched American culture and deserve to have their rights respected, not dismissed.

Teacher, poet, well-known lounge whore and all-round good guy, JiggaJonson has soared through the ranks of siftdom to arrive at the ruby station. He received his lovely jewel and commented "where's my parade!?", and here it is!

JJ is an avid lounge user and I have had many talks with him there. He's really a nice fella, who all the schoolgirls swoon over. He has his opinions, which have resulted in both roses and tomatoes thrown at him, but he's always come back smelling of daffodils.

He's got over 70 videos in his personal queue and usually a bunch in his queue too.

Here are his Dungeons & Sifts stats:

Rank: 72
Rating: 251 star points
#1 Videos: 2
Top 15 Videos: 32
Votes Received: 6742
Average Votes Per Video: 27.08
Votes Cast: 2142
Comments Posted: 1018
Comments Applauded: 22
Sifted Videos: 249
Unsifted Vids: 3
Sift Talk Posts: 14
Quality Sift Talk Posts: 2
Poll Posts: 1
Blog Entries: 30
Dead Pool Fixes: 3
Profile Views: 15718

Not much of a dead pool fixer, but a nice ratio of comments about 1 quality per 50 boring rants.

Let's all encourage him to make a great channel and give it up for JiggaJonson!

Roman Polanski’s fugitive days are over. The Academy Award-winning director is under arrest in Switzerland and vowing to fight extradition to California to face charges in connection with a 1977 sex crime involving a 13-year-old girl. Swiss police arrested Polanski Saturday when he arrived in Zurich for a film festival, where he was to receive an honorary award.

The 76-year-old had been living in France for decades to avoid U.S. authorities. You may recall, he declined to attend the Academy Awards in 2003, when he won Best Director for “The Pianist.” That’s because he would have been arrested once he set foot on U.S. soil.

Let’s rewind to 1977. That’s when Polanski pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor. He was 43 at the time. The incident happened during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson’s home. Nicholson was not at home. Polanski fled before he could be sentenced.

There have been several attempts over these past three decades to settle the sex case, but Polanski has always refused to come back to the U.S.

The movie director started a new life in France. He got married and is the father of two children.

Do you think Polasnki should fight extradition or face justice in California?

Prosecutors have argued it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow a man to go free who “drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl.”

He also has a lot of supporters who think the case should be dropped, including the victim.

Now 45, married and known as Samantha Geimer, she made her identity public years ago, because she said she was disturbed at how the criminal case was being handled.

She sued Polanski in civil court, which led to an undisclosed settlement. In court documents filed earlier this year, she said, “I am no longer a 13-year-old child… Every time this case is brought to the attention of the court, great focus is made of me, my family, my mother and others. That attention is not pleasant to experience and is not worth maintaining over some irrelevant legal nicety, the continuation of this case.”

taken from -http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/28/evening-buzz-fugitive-filmmaker-arrested-fighting-back/


Another perspective-

She was not drugged but given some champagne.
She was a fully developed model, and he was her photographer.
She consented
She wasn't a virgin to begin with
Anjelica Huston, who was Nicholson's g/f at the time thought the girl was 20.

further details here -http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/free-roman-polanski-wtf/

Sunday, September 10, 2006
The Seattle Craigslist sex scandal

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Violet Blue has posted a comprehensive roundup of the Craigslist sex scandal making the blog-rounds since last week. Over the weekend, I solicited comment from others known for insight on privacy and life online, and will post their thoughts here as they come in.

For what it’s worth, I think what Jason Fortuny did is shameful and wrong in the extreme. But one obvious moral to this tale: your private information is as intimate as your private parts. There are serious risks to sharing either with strangers you bump into online.

Violet writes:

Last Monday Seattle resident Jason Fortuny [Ed. Note: pictured at left] (and a friend) carried out a thought experiment into reality -- one I think anyone who has surfed Craigslist sex ads has entertained. He took a hardcore Women Seeking Men ad from another city and reposted it to see how many replies he could get in 24 hours (the ad's photo at right). Then he published every single response -- photos, emails, IM info, phone numbers, names, everything, to a public wiki (Encyclopedia Dramatica -- site is up and down, check back if down). Then they went public on Jason's LiveJournal page calling it The Craigslist Experiment, inviting readers to identify the CL ad's responders and add more info ("Your Goal: identify people you know IRL and point them out. We've already had great successes here.") It has turned into quite a meme, getting posted all over the place.

(...) They got 178 responses, with 145 photos of men -- cocks, faces, more; full email addresses (both personal and business addresses), names, and a few IM names and phone numbers. One respondent used a Microsoft employee email address, another used a usar.army.mil (military) email address. They got audio, too. Since then, there has been one copycat in Portland. Respondents have emailed him asking him to take the info down, and he has simply published their requests.

Since then Jason has had *his* private info published to CL and been threatened physically, threatened with lawsuits, and has been hated on by everyone from online BDSM communities to Wired (and I saw he was interviewed by the NY Times on friday Sept. 8, so I wonder what position they'll take on all of this). Wired called him "sociopathic" while commenters are saying things like "Disclosing an email to the public is indeed a violation of privacy, and if anyone has a spine, they will take you down with a massive lawsuit that will make you regret ever doing this. You are a liar, a xenophobe, an asshole, and deserve to have your ass beaten to within an inch of your life."

Link to more on the story.

Reader comment: Anonymous BoingBoing reader says,

I'm writing to you from my real email account in order to demonstrate that I'm for real, but hoping that anything I may say will only be published anonymously.

I am a woman in my early 30s who has used Craigslist in my city to find casual sex, so I took a particular interest in the story of Jason Fortuny.

I tend to agree with Wired News: I think this is a deeply hateful act.

I've posted a few "Casual Encounters" ads at different times looking for various things. The first ad alone received over 300 replies. Some of them were beyond repugnant -- the bestiality proposition springs to mind. The majority were unappealing but mundane -- people who just didn't dance the same way I do, mentally speaking, didn't know how to compose a well-thought-out email or articulate themselves attractively. Those were ones like the one-liner "yo, hit me on MSN", that kind of thing. I received a lot of dickpix. Then, there were a tiny fraction that drew me in and showed me that as much consideration had gone into their reply as I put into my original post. Those were people I connected with, corresponded with (from a gmail account), and eventually met.

As a writer I have put a lot of thought into how I could use these experiences in my work. But even though I have a goldmine of material in my gmail account, I would *never* reveal these people's identities or post their personal information. It simply breaks a very basic implied trust. Now, the situation with Fortuny is different because he's just taking the piss for his own amusement. But I think that makes it even worse.

It's a big ol' world and there are intelligent, worthwhile people in the Craigslist personals... *real* people. They're (mostly!) not much different from you in that we all have the same needs and desires and cravings. This is just one manner of fulfilling them. My experiences have brought me much joy and a small measure of sorrow, but ultimately they have made my life unquestionably richer. The fact that this jagoff thinks that he is above these feelings, that he is pissing all over CL personals posters -- by extension pissing all over me -- is to me simply repugnant.

taken from- http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/10/the_seattle_craigsli.html

Thoughts?

In honor of Darwin's "Origin of Species" 150 anniversary, I presume, the CNN are holding a simple poll.

http://edition.cnn.com/

Do you believe in God?

Yes 69%
No 31%

Go get there and vote. Pretty please.

_{Tip of my hat to PZ Meyers}

UP VOTE THIS in case you missed it


http://www.videosift.com/video/WE-RE-SCREWED-Special-Edition-NY-Post

Just wanted to share this.

http://15.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kpzm7fOJzx1qzbfx5o1_500.jpg

if you don't get it...watch this http://www.videosift.com/video/Kanye-Insults-Taylor-Swift-at-VMAs

Taken from: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090902/NEWS0107/909030307/1163/Bizarre%20act%20halts%20court%20hearing

James Orr put an immediate halt to his criminal trial Wednesday when he squeezed the contents of his colostomy bag onto the table in front of him and ate it. "There was what appeared to be feces on the table and on the floor," assistant Hamilton County prosecutor David Prem said. Prem was prosecuting Orr, 66, for robbery and kidnapping. The trial, without a jury before Common Pleas Court Judge Ethna Cooper, began last week but continued today.

A witness had just taken the stand in the case Wednesday when Norm Aubin, Orr's attorney, said Orr leaned into him and asked if Aubin had anything to eat. A shocked Aubin said he didn't. Orr then said he was hungry and asked for food. Aubin ignored him. That's when Orr made a spectacle of taking his colostomy bag, worn on the outside of his body to collect his waste, and placing it on the table. He then squeezed it and looked to be eating it.

"It appeared he was eating his own (feces) at the table," Aubin said. The Sheriff's deputy in the room shouted "What are you doing?" and then cuffed Orr and rushed him out of the courtroom. The Sheriff's office later reported there was feces on Orr's lips, beard, hands and the defense table where he was sitting.

The judge suggested the courtroom had become a biohazard area and closed it for cleaning, continuing Orr's trial until next week. Prem admitted he almost vomited up while watching Orr's antics but suspects they were done with a purpose. "He's a con man. He has over 50 aliases and has convictions in Ohio and New York for thefts and robberies," Prem said. "He's done just about everything a person can do to avoid justice. He feigned (mental) incompetence" leading up to this trial, Prem said.

Orr was ordered to trial after court mental health workers deemed him mentally sound and a faker. I'm completely convinced his whole goal here is to cause as much mayhem as he can," Prem said of Orr. Aubin will have jail workers again check Orr's mental health before continuing the trial Wednesday. No additional charges were filed against Orr after Wednesday's courtroom activity.

Orr was being tried for robbery and kidnapping charges after officials said Orr and a partner tried to get money, in a ruse, from a woman buying food at a Silverton Chinese restaurant. When the woman wasn't fooled, Orr is accused of pulling a gun on her - with her three children in the car outside - and taking her to a bank where she was forced to withdraw $1,000 and give it to Orr. He faces more than 60 years in prison on those charges.

Wow!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090831/ap_on_bi_ge/us_disney_marvel_entertainment

Holy shit.

So it seems like we've been having the "snuff" discussion a lot recently. Every time a new, potentially snuff-like video is posted, it gets *discussed and we have the same debate all over again. I think perhaps it may be a good idea to get a more concrete ruling on what is and is not acceptable on the sift.

I've made this argument before, but the way the rule is currently written in the guidelines is ambiguous -- and worse, it's self-contradictory. Let's take a look:

Please do not post pornography or "snuff" films (which we define as the explicit depiction of loss of human life displayed for entertainment).

Note: The presence of human fatality is acceptable and not considered "snuff" if presented as a limited portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary. Our definition of "snuff" does include but is not exclusive to any short clip in which a human fatality occurs whether or not any victims are actually visible on camera.

First, snuff is defined as the "loss of human life displayed for entertainment." Okay. Fair enough. But wait, a couple of sentences down, there's a second definition. Suddenly, snuff is "any short clip in which a human fatality occurs." So, not just for entertainment then. Then there's also the whole "limited portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary" thing, which has been broadly and inconsistently interpreted to mean any clip that is "important" -- such as the clip of the girl dying in Iran, which is technically against the guidelines, but which was deemed to be acceptable. Which is fine, but the guidelines should be changed to reflect that policy.

I think it may be a good idea to just draw a line, and either say "yes, videos featuring fatalities can be posted, as long as they have some merit to them" or "no, important or not, we don't want those types of videos on this site" and then rewrite the rule so that it actually means something (as opposed to now, where it essentially says "You can't post snuff... except when you can; I dunno, whatevs man").

I have been thinking of this long and hard. Since my last post Atheism WTF? To me many things were put into perspective for me though didn't change that i believe in something that can't be expained but i have another question regarding the fake man in the sky. For all those that believe that God could be nothing but a figment of your imagination or an illusion of humanity. Then how do you explain Love? Is love nothing more the eating alot of chocolate or a chemical imbalance in the brain? We all know love unless you are a mass murder or sociopathy. I would figure that most of you have family or wife/husband and they love you if this is so then why or how? Why does Love even exist?

OK, are the things said in this video speech by John Pilger that seems to be doing the rounds amongst a certain group of netizens


valid?

I'm really, really busy at work at present, and haven't the time to look into all the claims against Obama, and I know that the sift has many strident supporters and also those who dislike him.

What say you all as to the veracity of these claims?

A nice little article i just read on yahoo news page.. Not meant to start a raging debate, not meant to be inflammatory, just a well written piece on the benefits of a system like the NHS, and the way the NHS is being used as the posterboy for the apocalypse by certain politicians in the US.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/talking_politics/article/55620/

Interesting read and some excellent points made. Hard for a brit to understand why the US are against a free and non-obligatory minimum standard of healthcare for all - it genuinely is. And having seen the recent Obama video, harder still.

This a good read to anyone from the US?

In my back-and-forth with burdturgler I noticed his personal subdomain name was "nigger" and consequently the address linking to his profile is listed as " http://nigger.videosift.com/ " also his "Favorite Tags: Spook"

I'm sure stirring the pot on this matter will only cause more drama but if you dont like it, dont comment. IF personal attacks are ok, as established via my last sifttalk post, and nigger.videosift.com is ok where do we draw the line exactly?

What kind of response does this deserve then?
http://www.videosift.com/video/Ann-Coulter-More-Lies-About-Obama-s-Health-Plan#comment-832086

"I heard from a reliable source that QM sucks dick left and right."
-budzos
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not trying to be a prick about it and I have my disagreements with QM as much as anyone else; but if personal attacks like this are being tossed around and QM is made to be on the receiving end of them, open and honest discourse degenerates into a food fight in a middle school lunchroom.

I'm all for a heated debate, but we need to keep it civil, and it should be frowned upon especially in cases where the community is in strong opposition of the opinions of those being attacked.

Okay, so I was thinking about this earlier today, and I find it kind of interesting.

I've noticed how a person's avatar can sometimes influence the way I interact with them online--not just here on the Sift, but anywhere online where avatars are allowed.

... more inside ...

So I took a poll not 5 min ago about whether or not I am for or against "Government run healthcare". I answered I was for and when I was directed to the results in this poll only 19% was for "Government run healthcare", 77% answered no to "Government run healthcare", and the rest answered maybe. I thought "wow despite all the people that don't have healthcare plans and insurance there a lot of people who don't want a government option". That is when it hit me. I had heard an NPR report on the word campaign that is going on that is at the core of health care debate. The Republican's who are opposed to "socialized medicine" call the bill in debate "Government run Healthcare". I just want to point out that THIS IS A LIE!!! It's a Public OPTION!!! The way the Repubelickers worded it make it seem like the government is going to take over all the insurance companies and Obama will rule over this land from his golden Kenyan throne. Even my retarded Econ 200 TA thinks that the government wants to take over healthcare or that with a government option that all private insurance companies will die out, and he shows us these overly simplified intro to econ models that only factor in a single variable into the equation to make his points when he well knows that it is not that simple. Shame on all of you who want to see this potentially great new bill which could help potentially millions of people who do not have adequate healthcare. Sure we are probably going to have to pay more taxes to fund this, but It this money will be going to help someones quality of life! It might even save their lives. Plus we won't have to worry about the "long lines in Canada" (which are complete boogus when all the republicans have to draw on are single cases out of the nearly 34 million people living in Canada using the completely socialized healthcare system) we will still have the private sector. Please lets tell the truth. It is not Government run Healthcare, it is a Public Option.

I have noticed that comments get voted up and then voted down , to the point that they then become neutral again when infarct they are different from neutral because they motivated people to vote them up and vote it down as aposed to just neglect it.

It would be cool if it had 2 separate numbers one as a + and one as a - so you could see how many up votes and how many down votes a comment got.

Maby this happens to videos as well im not sure if it is as important for videos as you are activly trying to filter them , but as comments normaly rmain in place regardless of the raiting i think its apropreat to see how manny people voted it up and how manny voted it down.


I bring this up partly as I think its interesting to see how much of a disparity there is between sift users. Maby its possible to list the names of the comment down voters with an adress so you can send them "presents" in the mail ?

So alright, i've been around videosift for years. Originally, i got rid of my P-status by posting a video, then decided to get comment star points.

Ok, that was removed, i felt like i'd been told my contributions were worthless. That pissed me off bigtime and it took me a while to even return to videosift i was that annoyed.

So now i've been demoted to the point where i can't downvote anymore whilst flagrant racists go about downvoting at will with a nice little handcuff symbol as decoration by their name. After years of my own contribution, i've been twice kicked in the nuts and told to go and provite something more valuable.

Should i now go and do as most of the others do, and post a string of music videos that are virtually contribution-less and thought-less, in order to get back to my previous hard earned status? Is that a worthy contribution? Worthier than my ALWAYS heart-felt comments which have earned me both praise (from high-ranked members) and one or two cases of outright hatred (from high-ranked members)?

God fucking damn it guys. You could have at least given active members who've been around for YEARS the same star rating as they had for all that time. How about all my WORTHLESS power points, can i trade them in for a return to bronze status? Can i trade them in for a razor to /wrists with even? Throw me a bone.

Right, guess it's time for me to stop complaining and go sifting for brainless vacuous music videos, and a little circle jerk of 9 other people who all vote each others videos up indiscriminately, yeah?