Shatner Does Palin

[Andantil]

Holy hell, Palin's making Bush look like a damn English major.

Shatner nailed it.

 

[I III II X4]

I feel bad for Palin. The media has been, for the most part, very unforgiving with her mistakes. With Obama, its almost always praises.

Media isn't a very complicated beast.

News with Hillary Clinton sold, the media learned this lesson well...so when Palin came onto the scene, the media nearly had a collective heart attack, especially when her term started to tumble down...which is probably when she ran for VP.

Regardless, I wanna see Leonard Nimoy impersonate Parnell.

 

[PsykoDragon]

Denny Crane.

 

[Deadpoolsbrain]

Conan is so full of win...

 

[WingedFortress]

Spectacular as always.
Thank god for William Shatner.

 

[theultimateend]

The title of this post is sure to get hits on google.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Shattner's delivery actually makes sense! No wonder Palin sounded all mumbled up, she doesn't have the right address to poetry! Ohhhhh!

Seriously, though, does she write her speeches with those rearrangable phrase refridgerator magnets? The hell was she even talking about?

 

[bjj hero]

I cant believe she hides behind American troops.

"In honour of our American soldier, how about you (the media) quit making things up"

The Gaul of that woman. She may as well have said "Every time you say something mean about Sarah Palin, a soldier dies". how is pointing out something she said or did disgracing the military? Shes like a comic book character.



The speech was terrible. She rambled and contradicted her self. She should have handed over to Shatner when she quit. Did no one read the speech before she delivered it?

 

[bjj hero]

My holier than thou attitude simply comes down to stuff like this: With it's general human rights violations on it's own people, information control, etc.. China is not capable of handing torture. What it does is an atrocity. On the other hand in time of war when dealing with terrorists and sympathizers our actions which are directed at the enemy are something else entirely. There is a definate differance between attaching electrodes to the nads of a guy from an Al-Queda training camp to find out where the bomb/cell/hostages/etc.. are and sticking bamboo shoots under the finger nails of a pro-democracy demonstrator to teach him a lesson (or whatever the heck they decide to do this week).

Id be right with you if there was any evidence that torture actually works; and episodes of 24 don't count. Living in a country that used torture for thousands of years it doesn't work as people say anything to make it stop, even making things up. Often making things up. It doesn't tend to get accurate, actionable intelligence.

Thats why much of the world has stopped doing it. Thats not a quick decision, we Europeans used to love our torture. It just doesn't work. Unless you need a quick conviction and you don't really care if the guys guilty or not. The inquisition actually invented Spanish water torture. The CIA made it cool again when they re branded it waterboarding. I guess it wouldn't sound very American if it still had torture in the name.

Torture gets information you want to hear, not information thats accurate. Look at the Brits treatment of the IRA. All torture got us was false convictions, meaning actual bombers kept walking the streets. Theres not that much difference between the IRA in the 80s and Al Qaeda now, except one of them had American funding. Care to guess which one?

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I've never heard of this Shatner person before but that was really good. If they ever do a sequel to that Star Trek film I think he would make a good Spock. Better than the one they have playing the part now anyways.

I just... I can't wrap my head around this. First Rocket Man [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3MGN899yE], then Common People [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXWEM4gZhg4], and now this. I don't think I can make fun of William Shatner anymore.

Well, maybe a little. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1eFdUSnaQM]

That version of common people completely ruins the original with loud guitars and epic fail singing. Shatner respect -1.

 

[FloodOne]

My holier than thou attitude simply comes down to stuff like this: With it's general human rights violations on it's own people, information control, etc.. China is not capable of handing torture. What it does is an atrocity. On the other hand in time of war when dealing with terrorists and sympathizers our actions which are directed at the enemy are something else entirely. There is a definate differance between attaching electrodes to the nads of a guy from an Al-Queda training camp to find out where the bomb/cell/hostages/etc.. are and sticking bamboo shoots under the finger nails of a pro-democracy demonstrator to teach him a lesson (or whatever the heck they decide to do this week).

Id be right with you if there was any evidence that torture actually works; and episodes of 24 don't count. Living in a country that used torture for thousands of years it doesn't work as people say anything to make it stop, even making things up. Often making things up. It doesn't tend to get accurate, actionable intelligence.

Thats why much of the world has stopped doing it. Thats not a quick decision, we Europeans used to love our torture. It just doesn't work. Unless you need a quick conviction and you don't really care if the guys guilty or not. The inquisition actually invented Spanish water torture. The CIA made it cool again when they re branded it waterboarding. I guess it wouldn't sound very American if it still had torture in the name.

Torture gets information you want to hear, not information thats accurate. Look at the Brits treatment of the IRA. All torture got us was false convictions, meaning actual bombers kept walking the streets. Theres not that much difference between the IRA in the 80s and Al Qaeda now, except one of them had American funding. Care to guess which one?

Pretty much how I feel about the subject of torture.

On Topic- This has made my week so much better.

 

[BlueInkAlchemist]

Dude, any credibility you may have had in this conversation, or probably any other in the future, just went sailing out the window.

Normally I wouldn't care about your fly by, but you are red.

So are the states that support your inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Did Palin ever state her position on torture? (attempting to stay somewhat on-topic)

 

[Skreeee]

This takes some of the edge off of my anger over Palin being nominated VP at all. Seriously, as a woman I was deeply offended that the McCain party marched out the biggest airhead they could find just because she was a female to try and garner the votes of the Clinton supporters after the nomination to run went to Obama.

...Okay, okay. I'm sure they had some other, maybe decent reasons for doing it. But after watching Palin's first few speeches and what have you, it was hard to think little else. I wouldn't have minded them nominating a woman, I just wish it had been someone who could at least appear qualified (and recognize the irony of their own accusing of Obama as unfit/unprepared for office).

While I don't align myself with either political party (shameless fence sitter), I do get great joy in seeing the woman torn apart. Much more than I probably should. I really think it's how much she pretended to be God's gift to women's rights when she was/is one of the worst things ever for the movement that got to me the most.

Shatner is my hero for the week.

 

[Amnestic]

Dude, any credibility you may have had in this conversation, or probably any other in the future, just went sailing out the window.

Normally I wouldn't care about your fly by, but you are red.

So are the states that support your inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Did Palin ever state her position on torture? (attempting to stay somewhat on-topic)

I'm searching vaguely, bearing in mind I only just got out of bed. The only thing I could find was:

Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... [Obama]'s worried that someone won't read them their rights?

Grabbed the quote here [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26535811/page/5/]

How much you take from that is your choice, I suppose.

 

[George Palmer]

Palin has the same problem as Bush, which is that, on her own, she can't string together a coherent English sentence.

*****this portion edited.... suffice to say it involved a comment about Bush, Palin and what turning on a vacuum does*****

And yes, when you represent the United States, it DOES matter that you can speak coherently. I've watched her rambling speech a few times now. I still have no idea what the hell she is spewing from her hatch.

TRIG 2012!!

 

[Gerazzi]

oh the topic made me think something totaly different...

Yeah. I was... Disappointed... >.>

Agreed.
>>;
*imagines twisted offspring*

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Things like torture are nessicary

Dude, any credibility you may have had in this conversation, or probably any other in the future, just went sailing out the window.

Obviously we disagree on a fundemental moral point which could spawn a thread of it's own (and actually has). To try and explain my position on the matter would however derail this thread since it was a side issue, and it could get complicated.

Normally I wouldn't care about your fly by, but you are red.

cept the thing is it's been proven over and over that torture doesn't work. the only thing torture will do is get people to say what you want so they will stop the torture

seriously you should do some reading on the subject and then come back and argue, like most times you spout off about stuff and really don't understand what you're arguing at all or have a very limited view or knowledge of the subject

Palin has the same problem as Bush, which is that, on her own, she can't string together a coherent English sentence. This is not to say that she is stupid. I don't know if she's stupid. I've known some very smart people who just simply lacked language ability. But politics is a job that requires oratorical skill and that woman sounds like a moron when she opens her mouth on anything but a professionally written speech.

yeah i tend to agree with this. i will deal with this the way Schwarzkopf did when asked about Sadam's military tactical skills. she has shown to be less than intelligent in public speech, television interviews, newspaper interviews, television appearances, semi-private conversations, public appearances, so if you take all those into account then yes she's a smart person

the fact is she has tried to sweep way too many things under the rug and pull a wizard of oz and say "don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain" especially concerning her daughter who was a torch bearer for the "no sex before marriage and abstinence only" school of thought her party was pushing on everyone and frankly i think that attention was well deserved and overly justified

as for the topic on hand Shatner is awesome and the clip is absolutely hilarious. i'm glad he's got a good sense of humour about things like that

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Palin has the same problem as Bush, which is that, on her own, she can't string together a coherent English sentence.

*****this portion edited.... suffice to say it involved a comment about Bush, Palin and what turning on a vacuum does*****

And yes, when you represent the United States, it DOES matter that you can speak coherently. I've watched her rambling speech a few times now. I still have no idea what the hell she is spewing from her hatch.

Like I said in my post, I have known people who were sharp, capable individuals whose skills were clearly NOT in the realm of the written or spoken word. One of them, seriously, I didn't understand 60% of what he said. It was like a verbal dyslexia. That said, I'm strongly biased in favor of language as an indicator of intelligence, so while I would not state her lack of brainpower as a fact, but my belief is that she's as dumb as a box of hair.

As for her politics, I've heard she's as mean as a snake and as dirty as the sole of a hiking boot, but I've got no real evidence on that myself.

 

[Therumancer]

My holier than thou attitude simply comes down to stuff like this: With it's general human rights violations on it's own people, information control, etc.. China is not capable of handing torture. What it does is an atrocity. On the other hand in time of war when dealing with terrorists and sympathizers our actions which are directed at the enemy are something else entirely. There is a definate differance between attaching electrodes to the nads of a guy from an Al-Queda training camp to find out where the bomb/cell/hostages/etc.. are and sticking bamboo shoots under the finger nails of a pro-democracy demonstrator to teach him a lesson (or whatever the heck they decide to do this week).

Id be right with you if there was any evidence that torture actually works; and episodes of 24 don't count. Living in a country that used torture for thousands of years it doesn't work as people say anything to make it stop, even making things up. Often making things up. It doesn't tend to get accurate, actionable intelligence.

Thats why much of the world has stopped doing it. Thats not a quick decision, we Europeans used to love our torture. It just doesn't work. Unless you need a quick conviction and you don't really care if the guys guilty or not. The inquisition actually invented Spanish water torture. The CIA made it cool again when they re branded it waterboarding. I guess it wouldn't sound very American if it still had torture in the name.

Torture gets information you want to hear, not information thats accurate. Look at the Brits treatment of the IRA. All torture got us was false convictions, meaning actual bombers kept walking the streets. Theres not that much difference between the IRA in the 80s and Al Qaeda now, except one of them had American funding. Care to guess which one?

I don't think there was ever any doubt that torture worked, the prohibations on torture came about due to people (yet again) trying to moralize warfare and render it more antiseptic. The idea being that nobody should say have their fingernails removed with a pair of pliers under any circumstances.

This makes a certain amount of sense when your sitting in the aftermath of a global bloodbath, the world population depleted, and realizing how close you potentially came to literally everyone on the planet dying. At that point it seems easy to ignore the continued vision of nations, limited resources, and everything else and try and prevent it from ever happening again.

The thing is though that you can't put rules on real warfare, all it does is handicap the people who follow them.

See, the thing your missing (and I try and explain) is that when you torture someone you aren't going to just keep going until you hear what you want to hear. Things have to be put into context. When dealing with spy games and capturing operatives there are of course counter-techniques and if the person being tortured is better informed than you or your analyst he CAN play you. Especially if they did something like deploy extrea agents/terrorists just to use as a decoy in case someone was captured.

However, that's all part of the game, and it largely depends on who is involved. You grab your typical terrorist cell leader, or enemy officer, and they aren't going to have any of that kind of stuff going. When dealing with terrorists for example the use of small isolated cells has it's advantages in preventing the whole organization from being compromised if one is wiped out, but it also means that no cell has the resources to sit down and plant that kind of false information for situations like this.

Odds are if your dealing with someone who is on the level to actually resist torture and beat analysis by the other side, your in trouble anyway but you might as well try and hope you get lucky (better than nothing), as opposed to just sitting around twiddling your thumbs.

The thing is that unlike movies and scenarios created to make torture look bad or ineffective, the typical victim is going to be like some farmboy who signed up with Al Queda to attack the Infidel, learned how to shoot a gun, fire a rocket, and set off a bomb. Then he was introduced to some buddies and told "go out and kill for Allah, your virgins await". He's not James bloody Bond. So him and his buddies sit around and set up meetings and plan attacks and such. You capure this dude during a raid, you want to get his buddies too. You strap him to a gurney and have military intelligence go to work, your going to get whatever you want to know out of him.

It's just like you. You join the Navy, go through boot camp, enlist on a ship as a petty officer and some dude with a Turban grabs you in an alleyway and starts cutting pieces off of you in some back room. Your going to tell him whatever the heck he wants to know. You might claim otherwise, but in the end your just a person, the Navy didn't condition you quite like that. Of course this is hypothetical since it's a matter of debate as to what a low ranking naval officer might know to make him a worthwhile target.