busdriver

As I said, "but otherwise legally armed." His weapon and his ID were co-located, which he expressed. I went back and re-watched the video, for whatever reason I thought he had said that, but didn't see it. I don't think he is guilty of murder. I think he could have led that situation to a better outcome. My personal opinion is as an armed agent of the state, that is his responsibility. I understand that the law doesn't support my opinion, it is just my opinion. Castile clearly fucked up by not telling the cop where his wallet was located. He could have done better to not get himself killed, but he is not an armed agent of the state. I get that it's a hard job and their life is potentially on the line, I get that demanding perfection is unrealistic. I get that cops are not evil assholes trying to fuck up people's lives. But they are armed agents of the state, they should have a higher level of responsibility. Officer safety has been used as rationale for changes that help cops and not the public for a very long time. I've seen the attitude among family and friends that are police officers.

Think about what you posted for a second. Assume Castile was a 100% honest, just high, but otherwise legally armed. He told the officer he was armed and where the gun was located. Was the officer reasonable in the way he handled a legally armed citizen? I would contend, no. Smelling weed is not an indication that the dude is a violent junkie. It's weed not PCP. The training is the problem. And I'm well aware of what gets taught.

He was kneeling on the side of his neck not the windpipe, so half of a carotid choke. I would guess the other side artery was likely restricted to some degree, but not fully since he knelt there for a long fucking time before he became unresponsive. Watch the Tony Timpa video. Died the same way, no knee on neck. The knee is a red herring, the confounding factors (for both cases, in my estimation) is a prone restraint and drug related physiology. So not being able to breath is true, but it had nothing to do with the knee. Qualified immunity is a problem. I'm not convinced just erasing it is a good idea, but it's something to look at that could allow better accountability of department policy within the current system. Having higher standards for police officers in general is warranted. With that comes a need for more money not less however. More training time requires more officers on the pay-role to cover the additional requirement. Want higher caliber people? Be prepared to pay them more. Etc. etc.

2nd shot did in fact suck. But I didn't die.

I doubt anti-vax theories running wild in the Republican base is solid theory for the disparity. More likely in my mind is a general difference in the perceived level of risk of the actual virus and a good dose of tribal politics on top of that. "The risk is overblown by left wing media" turns into "the risk is actually very low." The left was jumping up and down about how getting a vaccine out anytime soon was impossible not three or four months ago. So now that they're pushing it, the tribal instinct is to fight back regardless of the logic or illogic behind it. I'm actually curious what the narrative would be if Trump had actually won the election.

Blah blah blah. Repeal the 17th amendment. Popular vote of senators is dumb.

Expelling an elected congressman for things said /believed before their election (aka known to voters) would be counter productive, anti-democratic, and just plain creepy. Dumb fuck or not, she was elected. Just like the open socialists, pandering assholes, and the rest.

You guys realize that roughly 30% of the population is greater than 1 standard deviation (about 15) from the mean on IQ right? So about 15% of a 330M population is below an IQ of 85. Since you could probably justifiably say that about 8M of those people are actually mentally handicapped (2x standard devs), the other ~40M are just good old fashioned dumb.

Dawson Precision is the standard by which all target sights are judged in the action shooting world. That's not really true. Everyone just uses Dawson, no point in trying other stuff.

I was naively hoping Trump in the white house would piss off the Democrats enough for them to strip powers from the executive. Joke's on me, the hate kabuki got him out and set them up to ramp up the EO party.

Republicans: There is massive voter fraud! Democrats: There is massive voter disenfranchisement! Same old story.

Did you guys know chemicals in the water are turning the frogs gay? An inter-dimensional alien told me.

It always cracks me up how everybody in the chain of command can find a way to justify the thing they already wanted to do based on the latest strategic guidance laid down by the CSAF.

Formula 1 will eventually be electric. That's the whole point of formula E. Right now there's a lot of restriction on battery tech, to control cost. An actual unlimited electric powertrain formula series would actually be pretty cool.

You'll be just as busy completing more years of college, residency, fellowship, etc. as you will in pilot training, upgrades, etc. Congratulations, you've found yourself interested in two careers that both require a lot of dedication to be good.

Want to slash American carbon? Build nuclear power plants.

This is interesting. Have you guys read/watched any of Jonathan Haidt's work on personality traits and political leanings? It's a lot like men are from mars, women are from venus. Basically, people will tend to lean one way or the other politically, and it strongly correlates to personality traits. Here's one: Haidt's TedTalk Or dumbed down to a very rough generality for discussion: What animates liberals/conservative/libertarians? Brett Eric Weinstein would say: unfairness, abandoning long successful systems without good cause, and coercion, respectively. Which also make the two main teams bad and good at different things. Dan Crenshaw has said, liberals are good at spotting unjust and unfair outcomes, but bad at figuring out how to actually fix them. Instead preferring to tear down and replace. Conservatives tend to be good at nuanced systems and making small changes work, but bad at seeing the unjust second order effects of their processes. Anyway, nerdy pontification over. I'll depart now.

It actually been pointed out multiple times in this thread. You just don't agree with that view point. Just because you aren't convinced doesn't mean there isn't merit.

Which is exactly what you're doing in opposition. Of course it was and is a philosophical debate.

The complaint is gross of course, and CNN's "main" non opinion article on this one is actually pretty close, it's just harder to find. But it's still an anecdote laundry list without/before an investigation made by people who are trying to find this kind of stuff. Their sources are people who have been detained/in jail/in cages, which I assume is like every other situation like that that I've been in (deployments, SERE, etc) where some of the craziest shit is "known to be true." There's almost always a chunk of truth in all of it, but there's also a crap load of missing information and straight up fiction. But your comment makes it seem like you've already decided it's legitimate enough that you're willing to say that our government is currently, literally sterilizing detained illegal immigrants. If a single instance of a hysterectomy would validate your thought, then ok I guess. Put it this way: why is progressive taxation a thing? Because the "burden" of a flat 15% rate across the board would be higher the lower down the income strata you go. The policy is intended to consider the impact of it's implementation and "make it fair." Is it more fair to have every single person's vote be worth the same, or to attempt to ensure that rich or poor, urban or rural, big state or small state, majority or minority, elites or the common man; that each portion of the population will have it's concerns and viewpoint represented? The state of Wyoming is given a proportionally higher amount of electoral votes so that Wyoming isn't made irrelevant as compared to California. This is and was a state representation issue. Urban vs rural is just how the lines ends up shaking out as I think about it. Historically, a straight up democracy wasn't not done for technical reasons, it was an intentional decision as a matter of checks and balances in the design of the constitution. The founding fathers wrote hundreds of pages to advocate their positions. Granted over the years, we've killed some of those checks and balances, and some things evolved in ways that neutered others. I don't think any of them thought their original design would be stable forever. But a true democracy was a discarded idea, not an oversight. Ranked choice would certainly be interesting. I have a suspicion that they would have a similar problem as term limits. Namely that the people who know how to get things done in Washington would then become the career bureaucrats rather than the elected. Term limits for SCOTUS appointments is another interesting idea. I agree that something has to be done to break the control of the national parties, which I think is at the root of why our politics are driven by national level policy debates; and everything seems to get pushed to that level rather than allowing states to handle more things, which makes those policy decisions further further away from any real hope people have of influencing them. There's more to it obviously (taxation, monetary authority, etc.), but people are hugely emotionally invested in who becomes the president, and I'd say that level of emotion is vastly disproportionate to the actual impact the president has on any one person's day to day life.

Yes. And it was intentional. If the popular vote mindset won out, every national political decision would be decided by major metropolitan urban voters.

I started to write something, then I re-read your post, and Flea's. I have no idea what either of your points are. Also, you believe ICE is actually sterilizing immigrants in some grand eugenics conspiracy? The CNN article I could find is a basket of non-specific anecdotes, confirmation bias, and creative framing. The federal government has too much power, but it isn't a fascistic, all controlling Machiavellian new world order. It's a giant incompetent bureaucracy lacking accountability. So just like every other giant bureaucracy.

They need to cut the downforce levels. A lot. Then open up the power plant and suspension rules. The MP-4/4 is still the baddest F1 car ever.

There is a distinct difference between talking about experiences, how all people have biases, etc. That's just being a human and connecting to other humans. Then there's the Robin DiAngelo / Ibram Kendi anti-racist horse shit. Which is actually just racist nonsense looking to reverse the tables of history.

Is anyone surprised that the President acts like a petulant child? Does anyone actually think the politicians we're looking at are quality choices? You either accept that this is the way the game is played, vote for a third party, or freak the fuck out like this isn't the same ole shit that's been going on forever. Everyone has already decided which is the lesser shit sandwich to eat, then rationalizes their choice by pointing to the other pile of shit while ignoring their own.