LastPommerFan

Canandaigua, this time of year, is usually full of pedestrian tourists. Right now, there is holiday level foot traffic downtown (3 gyms and 11 pokestops). Lots of people looking at their phones, but almost everyone is traveling in groups, walking and having fun, and interacting IRL with other groups. That's probably the most noticeable change: there are always lots of people walking around, but now they're talking to each other. Living right smack in the middle of downtown, this is really cool to see.

Using a drone avoids creating an immediate threat to the life of an officer. In a non-hostage situation this by definition means the suspect is not an immediate threat to anyone. I don't want cops empowered to use lethal force when there is no immediate threat.

So. Pokemon Go is awesome. Been on 5 mile walks with my whole family every night for 3 days.

Social media victim worship or cop worship doesn't interest me anymore. It's always more complex and nuanced than that. But I really want to see a court case of a police department being sued because legally armed citizens are more likely to die. That absolutely should not happen in a nation that honors the second amendment. And there should be plenty of $$ to pursue the case. I can't think of a single legitimate reason that the NRA would lot make this a major issue.

If a person carrying a legal firearm is more likely to result in that persons death because of police training, then that training is in clear violation of the 2nd amendment. I would love to see that question in front of SCOTUS.

To be fair, that's probably just the mayor of Quahog, RI fulfilling official duties.

Thanks, sizzle. That clarification helps a lot. I think there is a lot of common ground between your position and mine, and I think your explanation of thinking about the police as blue collar workers helps me consolidate what I was thinking. On the one side, some folks are making cops out to be monsters. Psychopaths bent on murder. This is patently false, and a distraction from the real problem. I can empathize, however, with the real emotions of rage that so many people are feeling, and the faceless guy in the blue uniform is a really easy place to direct that rage. It much harder, in the simplicity of the emotional side of our minds, to redirect that anger toward something less corporeal, like a societal system, or an aggregate of multiple systems. On the other side, some folks are infinite apologists. They see an assault against their brothers, husbands, etc. They know that the person wearing the uniform is not the problem, and their instinct is to defend them. Again, in many cases we have an emotional, and totally understandable, reaction that prevents us from seeing the complexity and nuance of the issue. When I was a lifeguard, there was a really simple directive. And it was universal to every guard I knew: if you have to make a save, something went wrong way before, and most likely, your team messed up. Regardless of what the victim did to get themselves into that situation, we as the guards were entrusted to maintain the public's safety. There is nothing that they can do that abdicates us from that responsibility. Police deal with this on an exponentially higher level. If they have to fire their weapon, something went wrong. This comes back, largely, to what I was trying to write about our language around race. We can't write off police officers as monsters bent on genocide and an active doctrine of supremacy. At the same time, we can't ignore that there are previously existing conditions that cause our justice and law enforcement systems to fail a large swath of our population. That group that is being failed isn't monolithic, but in large part its members were determined in 1619 and reinforce for three centuries. All of this based on race. The villains are all dead, but despite our efforts, we've inherited the mess. The problem is, we use the word 'racist' to describe both the monster and the residual mess. Then we talk past each other. We're we diverge, I think, is in assigning so much blame to other people alive to day, your 'elites'. From what you've written here, I think it's possible that you may be making the same error in creating a monster to attach your rage to, only instead of 'pigs' yours are named Soros and Obama and Clinton. The left does this too, with Bush and Koch and Cheney. The long arc of human history does not bend to the whims of individual men, in my opinion. The underlying, animal desire that all of us have to protect what is ours certainly plays a role. And for the powerful, this means protecting the status quo. If we can change the discussion, as you have suggested, by ceasing to create the generally false notion of the monster genocidal cop, and refocus, as I am suggesting, on residual underlying, and largely inherited, circumstances that lead to this violence, our society will move, as it always has, slowly, but for the better. Edit: corrected for some typos.

Sizzle, I can't reconcile your contention that we should submit to the police, and your contention that we need to rise up against the powerful. They seem dissonant to me. Can you explain where they fit in together? Also, sounds like this guy in Dallas was a lone wolf terrorist. For some reason that restores a little hope for me.

Sizzle, I think your dead on about the conditions. I'm not sure President Obama created them, but he has certainly failed to make much progress addressing them. A lot of people want racism to be white Georgians in sheets and hoods going out to light crosses. That certainly still exists, but we use the same word to describe that and the idea of systemic disadvantages that result in an underclass disproportionately filled with African Americans and a justice and law enforcement system that aggravates the number of African American males that move down a path to violent crime. The conditions have not improved, and that is the race story of America since 1964. I don't think a ton of people vote to proper ate this system because they want to keep minorities down, but rather because this system is good for my tribe, and I can't be certain that a major change to that system won't harm my tribe. Sometimes protecting what I have can cause continued harm to someone else.

Every time I go to play with lines I just end up maddeningly frustrated that we won't have consistent lines until February. Is there a stat for line consistency for a team, I'll bet we're close to last.

Friend and former colleague may be a generous description. He has been a Guilianni level crusader for the police state since he prosecuted the 1993 WTC bomber. He has some definite fringe legal positions. My concern here, the reason I'm trying to feet more information, is if there was a back room deal. A deal that becomes public now just destroys a primary candidate, and the party can fix it in 3 weeks at the convention. A deal that comes out in 2 months destroys the general election candidate. And probably cost the dens the senate. A deal that comes out in 2 years destroys a sitting president and the Democratic Party with it. That said, the first piece of evidence down that conspiracy trail would be a similar case (this exact issue, negligent digital risk of sensitive information, happens all the time) where the accused was tried and convicted under 18 USC 793(f). I cannot find a single example. Not one. I'm going to keep looking, and searching for a better understanding of gross negligence as a legal concept, but until I find another case, there is nothing that leads me to believe that Secretary Clinton has received exceptional treatment by the Justice Department. The State Department has reopened their internal investigation, which had been suspended pending the criminal investigation as standard protocol. I full expect Sec. Clinton to be censured by State, and some restrictions put on her security clearance, if she was still working there, it probably would result in even greater discipline.

We can't blame our way out of this. We need to be more kind more often to more people. We need to expand our tribes to include all humans. I'd rather not wait for an extraterrestrial invasion for that to happen.

With the exception of Carter, we may not have had an honest and straightforward president in the last 100 years. And look how well that worked out for him, and the country.

Even I think the Clintons are dishonest and corrupt!

Take your time. I can't find a single piece of case law where a defendant was tried, let alone convicted, under the statute subsection in question.

I want to be clear in my earlier statement. I wasn't trying to say he should be fired now, I am describing what I would do if I were his employer. Given the current reported information and allegations, if I were the GM (or if this was one of my employees) I would be purposefully seeking information on my own, not waiting for the justice system, to determine if he violated my standards of conduct. If Kane instigates violence against multiple women, and I can find evidence that reasonably supports this allegation to my satisfaction, I would terminate his employment immediately, regardless of his value to my enterprise. I would do this knowing full well that there are arbitration risks to the decision.

To the bolded, I'm not sure I care. If I'm the GM, I'm actively trying to get my hands on the surveillance tape, and if Evander is initiating the violence, I'm terminating his contract and worrying about the Grievance Arbitration later.

To the best of my understanding, Title 18 USC section 793(f) is the statute in question.

The standard in the statute is Gross Negligence. Can you, as a legal mind, offer a layman's definition of what that means?

I imagine you will disqualify Ireland on Sovereignty Issues, as they are a part of the EU. New Zealand has really high taxes (like 35% of GDP or something like that, US is currently around 25%), Austrailia might be a fit, but I still think that you will like a Hilary-led America better than any of them.

Partially because the alternatives are terrifying. Our Constitution was written in a way that ensured a two party system. Currently, the alternative party is a disaster, and their options would be a disaster for America. I honestly do not believe we could come out of a Trump Presidency in even decent shape. But also because I believe that despite this failure, she will bring good policy to this country. She will appoint People to the SCOTUS who accept the idea that the Founding Fathers were not Infallible Gods. She will promote policies that will spur economic growth and break down barriers that our social structure has created that keep millions of people from participating in that growth. She has the experience to lead us on a world stage with a crumbling Europe and a volatile Asia. This issue, playing far to fast and loose with government information, provides very little to affect my beliefs about all these other things.

ATL, I would be interested in which countries you're looking at moving your business and family to in order to have a system that better aligns with your beliefs.

Most importantly, there have been more melodramatic distilled spirits around recently.

I'm as partisan as they come. I can't get behind anything with this email deal that makes it nothing. It's something. It's a negative on her resume for sure. She made a move to make things easier for herself, and she crossed a line. Definitely a line of good protocol, and way to close to a criminal line. That said, my partisanship allows me to forgive this transgression. It's not a litmus test for me. "State Secrets" don't hold a ton of value in my worldview, so their care and maintenance are not a high priority for me. I will accept that she made the wrong choice. That she let us down, but I will look at the balance of what is best for America, and all of her people, and I will continue to support he candidacy. This is not a decision I take lightly, and I'm not worried about Trump. I'm worried about the next guy who sows scapegoats and anger and reaps electoral votes. The next guy might be a professional politician with a well run political team behind him. The next guy could make us the next Poland, or UK. The next guy could roll back every societal advance we've made since 1946.

The entire house is made out of crushed whiskey bottles and broken dreams. They did a good job with the paint, though!