Not me? I was assuming I'd be on it when I heard the number was that high, especially as I believe you once admitted to having me on it (unless I was removed since then, which is quite possible.)

Actually more surprising: No krazen?

Actually what this thread is about is this:

This seems to be a view here even though all the statistics and facts point to that the vast majority are not Islamists. Hell just read Wikipedia's troop numbers for the Syrian Civil War article, the Islamist groups make up only about 20% of them at most.

It's not really a big in your face thing, just a general mindset, most of the people where I grew up (which mind you is primarily a retirement community for olds from rural North Dakota) have the mindset you can't be a "good person" unless you're religious and those who aren't are "unguided" and all that. I get the same vibe in rural western Minnesota where my grandparents are from. But the actual denomination is quite unimportant. If you converted just because you moved and now live closer to a church of a different denomination, that'd be considered perfectly legitimate (and is actually something I've heard of more than once.) Even the same in the Twin Cities. No one would consider you a culture traitor or anything like that. It's the polar opposite of what I'm told is the attitude in places like Ireland or even most of Europe or certain places in the Northeast, where people believe if you're born into something you're that for life and can't leave and if you do convert you're some type of nutjob.

Something noteworthy is that many churches' Christian youth groups in high school marketed themselves as basically OK for everyone and emphasized "We don't care what you were raised in, you're welcome." Now that might not be an unusual thing at all if geared toward adults (like that was basically the case with all campus Christian groups in college), but it seems for teenagers still theoretically under control of their parents this might not go over well in some places that don't have as open attitudes about this. Unless I'm reading things wrong. Would your average Irish Catholic northeastern couple really have a problem with their kid going to a Protestant youth group? Before being told certain things I would assume they probably wouldn't care either...Would most such people refuse to attend or film their niece/nephew's adult baptism and be disgusted by it? Because my Catholic aunt had no problem with it or going there and I don't see her view changing if I was baptized Catholic as a baby either. None of my Lutheran relatives were bothered either of course.

This whole topic is basically an invitation to racism.

White people criticizing white culture and history and voting patterns = racism?

Seriously though, is there any reason for white Democrats to be unhappy with this?

     If all instances of "white" in this topic were replaced with some other racial or ethnic group, I wonder what sort of reaction it would garner.

Deathpoints

Yeah, because those posts would be disgustingly racist.

And its not with white people because....?

Because the very idea of racism against white people is ridiculous.

You have heard of Robert Mugabe, no?  While I do emphasize with the point you're clumsily trying to make (that whites do have a disproportionate amount of the power and the privilege in the US, and claims of "reverse racism" are in practice entirely BS and entirely execrable), one should not take it nearly as far as you do, at least if one is trying to hew to intellectual consistency.

More like the anti-apartheid white guy who assassinated the South African PM than Mugabe.

Honestly the only thing I care about is less whites = less Republicans. That's all I care about in regards to racial demographics. I don't hate Vermont of course or majority white Minneapolis. But the white population declining hurts Republicans, and therefore is a good thing.

It's like how blacks can call each other the n word and no one is bothered. Or how Dave Chapelle's humor wouldn't be tolerated from a white comedian.

DEA easily.

Because all the people making such comments are white themselves.

Just think if there's a month long outage like PSN had in 2011 you won't be able to play ANYTHING for a month. Not just multiplayer.

Approve. Voted option 2.

No, but we should support them in other ways, like bombing Assad's forces.

Because we're not involved in enough pointless conflicts, amirite?

Let the Syrians sort this out. Us getting involved in a civil war will not serve anyone, and Obama moving to arm the rebels, who are, you know, al Qaeda-lite, will inevitably cause problems later on. We've seen this movie before.

The vast majority of rebels are not Islamists. Only about 20% are per Wikipedia's troop numbers.

White people are awful, aren't they? Everything would be so much better if we could just kill them off.

Strawman. Plus it's not like anyone posting here is going to commit suicide, the logical extension if we adhered to that view.

It's not hyperbole to say my fellow white Americans are responsible for almost everything wrong with America and most of its ignorance and bigotry, note the Tea Party and Birtherism.

BTW today I was just playing Ingress in the aforementioned Stevens Square, so this is what it looks like. This is the densest neighborhood in all of Minnesota:

What are we talking about here in terms of Inhabitants / sqm (both for the "densest" neighbourhood and the one you have posted initially)?

For reference: The "urban" part of Hamburg - approx.. 4 miles radius around the Central station, half circle due to the Elbe river and the port area in the south) has a density close to or even above 20.000 inhabitants / sqm. A "suburb" like the one on the photo would have below 10.000 inhabitants / sqm (the part on the photo even less, but there are also some multi-storey apartment buildings nearby that push up the average density).

P.S: The part of Hamburg shown on my second photo happens to be (purely accidentally, of course ) the city's densest quarter (>40,000 inhab./sqm) and is commonly regarded as one of the most densely populated areas in all of Germany (no quarter in Berlin or Munich is even coming close).

Stevens Square is about 16k per square mile, so you can probably convert that to square kilometers. Ventura Village is about 11.7k per square mile.

Mind you that Stevens Square can be easily split in half, with one of the halves (the one the pics are from) far denser than the other.

Whatever the case that half of Stevens Square is home to hordes of Ingress portals, and the de facto leader of the Twin Cities Resistance lives there. Ventura Village has far less portals and they are more spread out, but since they are usually Enlightened held, I like to go over there to go on raids.

Here's my attempt at a definition:

"Working class" households are those in which the main source of income is wage labor from one or multiple breadwinners, excluding most professionals (lawyers, doctors, engineers, professors, accountants, upper management etc.). Most members of the working class have at least a high school degree, many have some college, and an increasingly large number have four-year degrees.

As with most terms related to social class, I wouldn't think of it as being exclusively or even primarily related to level of income. Your source of income, your peer group, your tastes and hobbies, and your level of education (virtually no one with a legitimate master's degree can be described as "working class") are all more important as class signifiers.

So then hipster coffee shop baristas and bartenders at trendy bars are working class after all. As am I.

I probably should know better than to get in a meaningless pissing match with no defined means of measurement. I would ask you to consider (especially considering that people do not stay in their houses all day long) which of the following cities offers more opportunities for interaction with black people.

Yeah, but that's only because Memphis has a lot more black people.  When you adjust for that (as one must, if they wish to not make a mockery of numbers), then yeah it looks to me like BRTD is right here.

Also, question about that neighborhood: does the nearest commercial strip have multi-story buildings where people live above the storefronts, or is it all single-story?  If it's the latter, then this suburban-looking neighborhood (note the detatched houses for crissakes) obviously fails the most basic test of urbanity, and what the hell are you all thinking calling it "urban".  If it's the former... okay maybe I can let all your votes slide.  But that still looks suburban to me.

Geez.

Well actually it's kind of complicated. Franklin Avenue runs right through this neighborhood (the picture is just south of there) and it's a major road that in that area is full of gas stations, restaurants, and some grocery stores and local markets, almost all single story. It also contains some tribal offices, since as I noted the neighborhood actually contains what's basically a Reservation right in the middle of the city. But go just two blocks north of there and where you leave the neighborhood, and you're literally right in downtown, where that most certainly does apply.

Also detached houses are basically the rule everywhere here, even in Stevens Square and my neighborhood, though here they obviously tend to be more of a duplex style obviously instead of single family.

BTW this is what that neighborhood looks like north of Franklin Avenue. Remember this is just one block from downtown. (Although to actually get to downtown if you're not a bird, you'd have to travel at least one block west first to get to a bridge over the interstate and then would be in an all apartment block):



Still keep in mind that the entire Ventura Village neighborhood is very non-car friendly. Perhaps even moreso than the city's hipster stronghold in Uptown.

Wait, people get upset because other people aren't Christian. WTF? Did you grow up in the Middle Ages?

No, North Dakota.

No, but we should support them in other ways, like bombing Assad's forces.

And providing the rebels with just stingers and AA would be fine too.

you'll never hear it for urban youngs who likely work service industry or low level office jobs and barely make over $30k if even that.

Those people would clearly be "working class" to me.

But you'll never hear the media or a politician describe where I live as a "working class neighborhood".

Well of course, because the media narrative reflects the dominant societal narrative that there's no such thing as "class" in America because "anyone can become rich." It's total bulls**t but it has incredible staying power and really no one in the media bothers to challenge the American Dream myth.

A few years ago, I got into it with JJ because I tried to narrow down what class looked like in the US and he basically tried to refute it by saying "anyone can become rich" and "you don't have to be rich to make big decisions". 

Yeah but that's J. J. He's in a class of his own when it comes to absurdity and lack of logic.

It'd be in the interest of consumer protection against a flawed product.

you'll never hear it for urban youngs who likely work service industry or low level office jobs and barely make over $30k if even that.

Those people would clearly be "working class" to me.

But you'll never hear the media or a politician describe where I live as a "working class neighborhood".

Also I'm including the Dakotas in what I'm referring to so it's clearly not that.