The Refuge of the Toads

[Hunt]

Review of the new Ghostbusters movie.

[youtube]u-Pvk70Gx6c[/youtube]

The new Ghostbusters movie will be funny. If you don't think so you are an oppressive MRA. There will be many laughs. Now bring the popcorn. Ha ha.

[Shatterface]

Those shot dead by UK police this year were 100% white.

His name was James Wilson.

The US has a serious policing problem that can't be reduced to racism.

Watch the embedded video in this article and listen to what the US cops say...

http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/01/scottish- ... e-5656880/

I honestly don't know what the solution is. In the UK the chances of a traffic violation ending with the death of either the suspect or the cop is pretty much zero.

The US situation needs to de-escalate and the 'war on blacks' meme isn't helping.

[Ape+lust]

Review of the new Ghostbusters movie.

Awesome.

I was staggered by how Sony let that Feig asshole politicize this movie. He politicized the shit out of it, making it a litmus test of a person's suitability for decent society. Nobody stopped to wonder if his harangues weren't a buzzkill for a fucking middlebrow comedy.

It sounds like Sony stands a good chance of having a massive hole blown in their budget this year.

Awe-SOME.

[deLurch]

So what do you think will happen? Will feminists & train wreak gawkers come out in droves, along with the haplessly unaware? Or will this movie tank? I believe it is showing in the UK first.

[Karmakin]

Review of the new Ghostbusters movie.

Awesome.

I was staggered by how Sony let that Feig asshole politicize this movie. He politicized the shit out of it, making it a litmus test of a person's suitability for decent society. Nobody stopped to wonder if his harangues weren't a buzzkill for a fucking middlebrow comedy.

It sounds like Sony stands a good chance of having a massive hole blown in their budget this year.

Awe-SOME.

That's the thing, it's not even middle-brow. From everything I've seen in the trailers, it looks really low-brow.

Which IMO makes it even worse. Not that I'm interested in low-brow comedy. I'm not running out to watch every Adam Sandler movie that comes out.

But yeah. It looks like Feig, from the get-go wanted to make a SJW movie for SJW culture. At the very least, it sounds like the marketing matches the movie pretty accurately.

[AnonymousCowherd]

Interesting study on racial bias in police shootings. From the abstract:

The results provide evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being {black, unarmed, and shot by police} is about 3.49 times the probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} on average.

There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... #abstract0

Dreadful paper.

The author seems to have decided what they want to find and gone out to find it, and not just because Bayes. The only interpretation of differing risk ratios they allow is that they are the result of "racial bias".

Nothing else could cause that? - not that you've demonstrated cause at all? S/h/it then notes that at least one result, that individuals who were shot by police had a higher probablity of being unarmed and black than being armed and white "could be explained by reduced levels of crime being committed by armed white individuals". But, oh no, can't have that because "it still raises the question as to why there exists such a high rate of police shooting of unarmed black individuals. Er, because they commit more crime and the police treat them the same as anybody else? That would also be consistent with the data.

Maybe there's a case for why so many police shootings, but this analysis doesn't show that there is bias in the treatment of any group.

There's a bunch of (too, too boring) technical errors in the stats as well, but the interpretation is where the author runs amok. There is very likely some good information to be extracted from the data set they used, but not from this analysis.

I think it was tribble who quoted the figures that blacks made up about the same percentage of both those shot by police, and those committing violent crime (figures not used in this paper). If that stands up, there needs to be a pretty good story to explain that and show bias against blacks. If there is variation across areas (a reasonable expectation) then there may be bias against blacks in one area, but it would have to be balanced with bias against whites in another.

Needs more work.

[AnonymousCowherd]

Some articles re. statistics re. police killings:

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016 ... .3dkJH2vwq

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myths-o ... 1455235686

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... inority-d/

The upshot seems to be that whites are in fact more likely to be killed by police than blacks, but while that seems reasonable when you consider the relative populations, when you then factor in the proportionately larger percentage of violent crimes committed by blacks, blacks are if anything proportionately slightly underrepresented.

What does this mean? It means that everyone should calm the fuck down; obviously police homicide is a problem, but it's not an especially racist problem. It's a problem for roughly the reasons Kirbmarc and others have outline upthread.

But as we all know, facts and statistics don't matter to movements based on intersectional identity politics.

Now I think I understand how Billy feels. :nin:

[Bhurzum]

The US situation needs to de-escalate and the 'war on blacks' meme isn't helping.

Yeah...but de-escalation seems unlikely.

[youtube]B1KeQF7WNaw[/youtube]

I'm not sure who I dislike the most in this video.

[deLurch]

I'm not sure who I dislike the most in this video.

Paul Feig?

[Bhurzum]

I'm not sure who I dislike the most in this video.

Paul Feig?

:lol:

Most witty, sir.

[Za-zen]

In my opinion from afar, the problem with the US police, is cultural. The firearms they carry, are used to force compliance, rather than a tool of self defence.

[youtube]gx4jn77VKlQ[/youtube]

[Shatterface]

Someone should ask Feig if a female director would have made a better movie.

[sp0tlight]

Someone should ask Feig if a female director would have made a better movie.

:lol: That is superbly assholish and to the point.

[Eskarina]

Would you recommend Der Spiegel or Stern for example?

I tend to avoid Stern because no English and instead read The Local.

Do you have any suggestions for news sources?

Borked links. Redo. Edit button failed just when I needed it. Anyway, any suggestions Eskarina?

I wouldn't dream of telling you what to do. :lol:

The international Spiegel is okay, I think, whereas the german version is rather left leaning. I don't know much about The Local, but haven't heard anything negative about it. Die Zeit usually is a good source, too.

Really, just read as much as you can from lots of different sources and make up your own mind.

Incidentally, I just came across an interesting episode of Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown" about Cologne that he made shortly after the New Years Eve attacks. It might be available on youtube.

[Service Dog]

And some aux "cops" are not only unarmed, but have a slightly different uniform, just to make sure that everyone knows. As bad as being a meter-maid.

There's truth to what you're saying, but other dimensions to consider.

On patrol in a group, Auxiliary Police Officers are often identifiable at a glance, because they're less meaty than fulltime cops. More gangly. Less intimidating = more vulnerable, but it can also be less confrontational.

Decade after decade, there have been tens of thousands of active nypd APOs, but fewer than 10 were ever killed while on duty.

Many auxiliaries work as security guards, door guys at bars. The professional training, Peace Officer status, and volunteer work-- make them more attractive to employers. I think there's a benefit to rent-a-cops also working under direct police supervision a few hours per week: they're exposed to scrutiny for abuse-of-power.

APOs are often 18 to 21 years old. A time when young guys are testing their manhood. It's contrary to current society's safety-conscious mentality-- but a taste of danger as an cop-without-a-gun could satisfy that stage of development. The auxiliary program is a controlled environment, with adult supervision. Better than waking up the neighbors with a loud motorcycle, or yelling in the street when the bars close.

The police union is perpetually wary of unpaid volunteers undercutting cops' paychecks, so cops keep a sharp eye on auxiliaries.

The phrase "eyes and ears of the police" is ubiquitous, describing the Auxiliary program. But APOs are embeded eyes and ears ON the police dept as well. It's easier to report misconduct if your career isn't on the line.

[Service Dog]

Also-- the police milieu is de-mystified by being an APO. It's a reality-check against the cartoonishness of learning about cops from TV.

[Brive1987]

It's taken PZ all day to figure out a line with which to address Dallas.

It's an oblique reference, undoubtedly all it will get, but the Dallas shooting is the NRA's fault. And justified because the cops were trigger happy.

Cunt.

http://i.imgur.com/cGlHNWd.jpg

[jimmyfromchicago]

It's taken PZ all day to figure out a line with which to address Dallas.

It's an oblique reference, undoubtedly all it will get, but the Dallas shooting is the NRA's fault. And justified because the cops were trigger happy.

Cunt.

http://i.imgur.com/cGlHNWd.jpg

More stretching in that post than an entire month of yoga classes (and I'm sure Peezus would bemoan the cultural appropriation).

I feel sorry for the NRA. Fuck you for that, PZ.

[The Yeti]

Police should withdraw from areas which think they can police themselves.

Let's see how that works out.

""Essentially, these small towns in urban areas have municipal infrastructure that can't be supported by the tax base, and so they ticket everything in sight to keep the town functioning," said William Maurer, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice who has been studying the sudden rise in "nontraffic-related fines."

Take the St. Louis suburb of Pagedale, where, among other Norman Rockwell-worthy features deemed illegal, "you can't have a hedge more than three feet high," Maurer says. "You can't have a basketball hoop or a wading pool in front of a house. You can't have a dish antenna on the front of your house. You can't walk on the roadway if there is a sidewalk, and if there is not a sidewalk, they must walk on the left side of the roadway. They must walk on the right of the crosswalk. They can't conduct a barbecue in the front yard and can't have an alcoholic beverage within 150 feet of a barbecue. Kids cannot play in the street. They also have restrictions against pants being worn below the waist in public. Cars must be within 500 feet of a lamp or a source of illumination during nighttime hours. Blinds must be neatly hung in respectable appearance, properly maintained, and in a state of good repair."

Where did this Kafkaesque laundry list come from? Maurer explains that in 2010, Missouri passed a law that capped the amount of city revenue that any agency could generate from traffic stops. The intent was to limit small-town speed traps, but the unintentional consequences are now clear: Pagedale saw a 495 percent increase in nontraffic-related arrests. "In Frontenac, the increase was 364 percent," Maurer says. "In Lakeshire, it was 209 percent."

It is probably no coincidence that when you examine the recent rash of police killings, you find that the offenses the victims were initially stopped for were preposterously minor.
This racket now has many variants. South Carolina hosts "Operation Rolling Thunder," an annual dragnet in which 21 different law enforcement agencies swarm stretches of I-85 and I-26 in the name of catching drug dealers. In 2013, this law enforcement Bonnaroo netted 1,300 traffic citations and 300 speeding tickets. But after everyone had paid up, the operation boasted exactly one felony conviction.

A different strategy in San Diego simply tacks on various fees to an existing fine. A 2012 Union Tribune investigation revealed that while speeding is a simple $35 fine, other government agencies can tack on as many as 10 other surcharges, including: a state penalty assessment, $40; county penalty assessment, $36; court construction, $20; state surcharge, $8; DNA identification, $16; criminal conviction fee, $35; court operations, $40; emergency medical air transportation penalty, $4; and night court, $1. When it's all said and done, that $35 ticket comes to $235."

"There is still no comprehensive study to determine just how many cities pay their bills by indenturing the poor, but it is probably no coincidence that when you examine the recent rash of police killings, you find that the offenses they were initially stopped for were preposterously minor. Bland's lane change signal, DuBose's missing plate. Walter Scott had that busted taillight—which, we all later learned, is not even a crime in South Carolina. Eric Garner was selling loose cigarettes. When Darren Wilson was called to look into a robbery, the reason he initially stopped Michael Brown was for walking in the street—in Ferguson, an illegal act according to Section 44-344 of the local code. Between 2011 and 2013, 95 percent of the perpetrators of this atrocity were African American, meaning that "walking while black" is not a punch line. It is a crime.

And not just a crime, but a crime that comes with fines that are strictly enforced. In 2014, Ferguson's bottom-line-driven police force issued 16,000 arrest warrants to three-fourths of the town's total population of 21,000. Stop and think about that for a moment: In Ferguson, 75 percent of all residents had active outstanding arrest warrants. Most of the entire city was a virtual plantation of indentured revenue producers.

Back in Pagedale, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jennifer Mann recently calculated a 500 percent increase in petty fines over the last five years. "Pagedale handed out 2,255 citations for these types of offenses last year," Mann wrote, "or nearly two per household."

"Once the system is primed for maximizing revenue—starting with fines and fine enforcement," Holder said apropos Ferguson, "the city relies on the police force to serve, essentially, as a collection agency for the municipal court rather than a law enforcement entity."

In Alabama, a circuit court judge, Hub Harrington, wrote a blistering opinion three years ago asserting that the Shelby County Jail had become a kind of "debtors' prison" and that the court system had devolved into a "judicially sanctioned extortion racket." This pattern leads to a cruel paradox: One arm of the state is paying a large sum to lock up a person who can't pay a small sum owed to a different arm of the state. The result? Bigger state deficits. As the director of the Brennan Center's Justice Program put it, "Having taxpayers foot a bill of $4,000 to incarcerate a man who owes the state $745 or a woman who owes a predatory lender $425 and removing them from the job force makes sense in no reasonable world."

When the poor come to understand that they are likely to be detained and fined for comically absurd crimes, it can't be a surprise to the police that their officers are viewed with increasing distrust. In this environment, running away from a cop is not an act of suspicion; it's common sense."

"But when budgetary whims replace peacekeeping as the central motivation of law enforcement, who is more likely to write up more tickets, the good cop or the crummy one? When the mission of the entire department shifts from "protect and serve" to "punish and profit," then just what constitutes good police?"

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... sive-fines

That article discusses what I think is one of the biggest problems with policing in America. When the police are used as a source of revenue it destroys trust between the police and the community. I think that locking people up for minor traffic offenses or stuff like unpaid child support is not only unjust but it is also really stupid and counterproductive. It sticks people in the criminal justice system that shouldn't be there, and the people caught up in that vicious cycle of be locked up constantly can't hold down jobs or otherwise be productive members of society. At some point the people who are constantly being locked up for petty shit have to turn to crime just to survive. You end up,with the criminal justice system making people into criminals.

A lot of times the individual officer doesn't have a whole lot of discretion to do much about this. Even if a cop, never writes tickets for trivial offenses, if that cop,stops someone and they have warrants for failure to appear or unpaid fines, it's not as if the individual cop can just let the person with a warrant go. In some places like NYC cops are pressured to write tickets and such, and if they don't do it their supervisors will fuck with them and try to force them to quit.

The people who are fucked over by stuff like this are the poor, regardless of their race. One thing to note though is that many of the areas that are the worst about using the police as a revenue source are big city, liberal areas with a large or even majority black population. Places like NYC, St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, etc. The cops are the ones perceived as racists yet they are just doing what their fucking liberal, revenue hungry local govermants want them to do. Many of these same places like New Orleans and St. Louis don't pay cops worth a shit either, and the cops themselves are barely living above poverty level.

The only quibble that I have with the article that you posted is When they noted that the pc for stopping Michael Brown was walking in the street as if It was wrong for the officer to stop him. The officer was looking for a robbery suspect, saw a suspect matching the description, and used the misdemeanor infraction as as pc to stop the suspect to investigate. That is a perfectly legitimate policing tactic and was absolutely the correct thing to do in that case.

[Kirbmarc]

Social justice warriors in general also seem to think that racism is simply an expression of callous sociopathy, of "maintaining power structures" and privileges. I happen to think that the problem of racism is much more complicated then that.

Working class people, for example, tend not to be very "privileged" and yet tend to express racist ideas openly, while upper class people are more likely to express ideas akin to "benevolent racism", i.e. patronizing if apparently benevolent ideas about race.

Racism doesn't seem to an instrument of maintaining privileges as much as a feature of identity politics, where individual features are ignored in favor of group identity (and the consequent in-group morality, out-group hostility).

Working class people historically have seen in-group solidarity as a safety net, and out-group competition as a source of issues. Upper class people have their own in-groups with their networks and see new members who don't belong to the group as dangerous upstarts.

Racism in the US was shaped by many phenomena, including both the Civil War and immigration. Immigrants were seen as suspicious and a source of social issues, but where also really eager to see other immigrants or blacks as potential competitors.

It's highly simplistic to describe the US as a country built on "white supremacy". Even the idea of who was "white" varied with time. Irish people, Italians and Jews were at many points excluded from "whiteness" as it happened to a lesser extent even to working class Swedes or Finnish and even German Americans. The dominant class in the US wasn't simply "white", it was WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) and even in those cases real privilege was limited to families of a specific background.

Scot-Irish "hillibillies", who are WASP and often stereotyped as die-hard Southerns were, for example, excluded from power in the pre-Civil War slaveowner-dominated society, to the point that West Virginia seceded from Virginia to join the Union at the beginning of the Civil War, and Appalachia in general was very hostile to the Southern ruling class and pretty much disenfranchised and poor.

The US were dominated for a long time by a de facto aristocracy: the Boston Brahamins, the Sixteen Families of Virginia, etc. More recently a new aristocracy of rich people has replaced the old families, although new familiar cliques have formed in politics (the Kennedys, the Bush, the Clintons etc.). Race played a huge role in American history, but the SJWs want people to believe that it plays the only role, and that any other feature didn't really matter.

SJWs have a naive understanding of race and racism. For example SJWs quote studies about how people with a "stereotypically black" first name have it harder when they try looking for a job. The same studies show that exact same people with the same pictures (and so the same overt racial features) don't have it so hard. How can this be explained if racism is the only issue at play here?

If you assume that another element, like classism, comes into play then it's easy to see that those names aren't simply "stereotypically black" but stereotypical of working class blacks. Racism and classism "intersect" in limiting chances for a job for someone named Jamaal or Latisha. It would be interesting to see if people with stereotypical working class white names have it harder that the same people with stereotypically middle class white names.

[deLurch]

Update on SciFi Shows out:
* Dark Matters Thumbs Up. continues season 2. Over all a good light enjoyable SciFi show in space. (5 people wake up on a convict ship but don't remember who they are). Rich unique universe. Good action. Good implementation of SciFi. Robot ship computer. Most characters are pretty good. A few people have complained about the acting. But I say over all it is well above average.

* Outcast Thumbs Up. based on a comic. 5 episodes in. It's initial set up appears to be like that of the movie The Exorcist. I hated the Exorcist. But this show is working out pretty well for me. None of this noseeum endless suspense. It heads straight into the action when the demons are afoot. And I don't spend my time wondering why I am supposed to think the freaky stuff the demons are doing is supposed to be scary. Main two protagonists are a small town preacher who does exorcisms & a man from that same town who has had all the people around him taken over by demons. There is something special about the main protagonist (of course). And there are early indications that demon possessions we see, aren't really what we think they are.

* Killjoys Thumbs Down. Starts 2nd season. Mercenaries in space. Great set. Great special effects. Some good 2ndary characters. Decent premise... or at least a decent starting off point. But it appears there is some feminist writer on staff expressing her inner fantasies & ideology that is killing what could have been a decent show. After grueling through the tail end of last season, I thought I would give the first episode of the 2nd season one more shot. They keep on throwing in the cringe.

{Setup: Characters are in a rough-tumble thieves gambling bar. John & Pree are trying to create a diversion}
John: I'm sorry. I had to take a call. From your mother.
Pree: My mother?
John: Mm-hmm.
Pree: Oh, well, maybe if you returned her call, she wouldn't have to keep calling.
John: Well, maybe if she stopped treating our couch like a guest room, I wouldn't have to keep avoiding her.
Pree: I can't help your limited social skills.
John: And I can't help it if your mother's a big fat raging bitch.
{Gambling bar comes to screeching halt as they are all so offended they can't even}
Pirate-Gambler: You don't disrespect your man's mother! What's wrong with you?
Preen: Thank you. Right?

Other scene:

{As girl walks away at the end}
Ship-Computer-Luce: I like that one, John. Can't we keep her?
John: That's not how it works, Luce. That's not even a little bit how it works.

[Kirbmarc]

That article discusses what I think is one of the biggest problems with policing in America. When the police are used as a source of revenue it destroys trust between the police and the community. I think that locking people up for minor traffic offenses or stuff like unpaid child support is not only unjust but it is also really stupid and counterproductive. It sticks people in the criminal justice system that shouldn't be there, and the people caught up in that vicious cycle of be locked up constantly can't hold down jobs or otherwise be productive members of society. At some point the people who are constantly being locked up for petty shit have to turn to crime just to survive. You end up,with the criminal justice system making people into criminals.

A lot of times the individual officer doesn't have a whole lot of discretion to do much about this. Even if a cop, never writes tickets for trivial offenses, if that cop,stops someone and they have warrants for failure to appear or unpaid fines, it's not as if the individual cop can just let the person with a warrant go. In some places like NYC cops are pressured to write tickets and such, and if they don't do it their supervisors will fuck with them and try to force them to quit.

The people who are fucked over by stuff like this are the poor, regardless of their race. One thing to note though is that many of the areas that are the worst about using the police as a revenue source are big city, liberal areas with a large or even majority black population. Places like NYC, St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, etc. The cops are the ones perceived as racists yet they are just doing what their fucking liberal, revenue hungry local governants want them to do. Many of these same places like New Orleans and St. Louis don't pay cops worth a shit either, and the cops themselves are barely living above poverty level.

A very interesting post, as is the article quoted by Service Dog. Speed traps and other forms of revenue like parking tickets due to overly-complicated local laws are common even outside the US. They're a feature of every governmental body which goes over its tax-based budget. Fiscal responsibility isn't simply a matter of reducing taxes, it's also a matter of streamlining and simplifying laws and cutting potentially "problematic" alternative sources of revenue.

In general high governmental expenses have to be paid for somehow. Police forces need to pay for military training and equipment, public employees need to be paid and that is true for bonuses for city councilmen, mayors and other local governmental authorities, as well as general expenses of bureaucracy and of the various local governmental systems.

The only people who actually benefit from these laws and regulations are the heads of the governmental power and their cronies. Crony capitalism, lobbyism and corporativism are a drain on the economy and the source of many social issues. The SJWs are often too naive to see the problems of governmental activity and prefer to blame everything on the generic "Patriarchy". SJWs actually support heavy governmental control and rules and regulations when they come from politicians on "their" side, regardless of who benefits from those policies.

SJW identity politics, boiled down to their more basic elements, are attempts to substitute old "networks of friends" and cliques with new cliques. SJWs don't really want to "end discrimination": the pawns want to see more "representations" by percentages, the leaders of the SJW movements wanted to put of a foot in the door to form their own cliques and take over local powers through identity politics, manipulations and shame.

[The Yeti]

The thing that makes America unique in these police shootings is the proliferation of firearms. No amount of New gun control laws will make all of these 100s of millions of firearms disappear or make firearms unavailable to criminals. As I have mentioned before, I am very pro 2nd Amendment and I don't get nervous when dealing with people who are armed. A lot of shootings happen when the officer sees that someone is drawing a gun on them. Some shootings like the recent one in MN are obvious, tragic fuckups by the officer in handling an armed subject. However, in many of the shootings the subject is actually armed or pulls a realistic looking toy weapon or otherwise legitimately appears to be drawing a weapon. What further complicated things is that even in the US, if you are a convicted felon you can pick up very serious criminal charges for simply possessing a firearm. A lot of times a felon in possession of a firearm will try to throw away the weapon if they think they c are about to get caught. The criminal in the heat of the moment is thinking about avoiding prison time, and often isn't considering what reaching for that gun looks like to a cop. If you are a cop and are arresting someone who tries to grab a gun, how do you tell if they are trying to throw it away or if they are trying to shoot you with it? You can't.

Here is what happens when a cop has a noncompliant subject who is armed and the cop freezes and doesn't take action to address the threat. Do note the armed subject is an older white man.

[youtube]L6z8q4lOrDU[/youtube]

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Some articles re. statistics re. police killings:

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016 ... .3dkJH2vwq

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myths-o ... 1455235686

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... inority-d/

The upshot seems to be that whites are in fact more likely to be killed by police than blacks, but while that seems reasonable when you consider the relative populations, when you then factor in the proportionately larger percentage of violent crimes committed by blacks, blacks are if anything proportionately slightly underrepresented.

What does this mean? It means that everyone should calm the fuck down; obviously police homicide is a problem, but it's not an especially racist problem. It's a problem for roughly the reasons Kirbmarc and others have outline upthread.

But as we all know, facts and statistics don't matter to movements based on intersectional identity politics.

Oh, they matter a lot, and must be vigorously attacked as the mortal threat they represent.

[Tribble]

Review of the new Ghostbusters movie.

[youtube]u-Pvk70Gx6c[/youtube]

Yeah. It's a comedy. The trailer was awful and not funny. And this review makes it seem even worse than the trailer.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

The US has a serious policing problem that can't be reduced to racism.

We have a serious fucked-up-culture problem that can't be entirely blamed on bad policing.

[Za-zen]

Slightly tangential but gun proliferation is a problem. The US so far has opted via the constitution and broad support for the concerned amendment that it's a problem worth having.

In western Europe, Britain and Ireland specifically, most cases of violence which cops are called to involve alcohol. Especially in a domestic context. The absence of firearms in the homes undoubtedly has meant far fewer people have been killed in those instances, and far fewer people are incarcerated for murders.

[The Yeti]

Here is a black lives matter activist learning that use of force scenarios for police aren't as cut and dry as he thought they were. Kudos to that activist for actually trying to see things from the other side.

[youtube]yfi3Ndh3n-g[/youtube]

[Matt Cavanaugh]

My last year in Boston, the paper reported that the city had taken in something like $57 million in revenue from parking tickets. And they hoped to top $65 million the next year. I thought, 'shouldn't the point of tickets be to reduce parking violations?'

[Shatterface]

Re: Outcasts.

I'm enjoying it but I'm still getting used to Philip Glenister with an American accent.

He'll always be Gene Hunt to me:

[youtube]QYeNuCTf_PE[/youtube]

He'd have also been my choice for host of Top Gear

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Slightly tangential but gun proliferation is a problem. The US so far has opted via the constitution and broad support for the concerned amendment that it's a problem worth having.

Canada has more guns per capita than the US. My county has more guns than Canada, total. Nobody but coyotes and mountain lions gets shot up here.

In western Europe, Britain and Ireland specifically, most cases of violence which cops are called to involve alcohol.

You have comparative stats on that, or is that just you stereotyping?

The absence of firearms in the homes undoubtedly has meant far fewer people have been killed in those instances, and far fewer people are incarcerated for murders.

Most guns kept in homes for self-defense are pistols. The progs & SJWs are calling for a ban on so-called "assault rifles". How will that ameliorate this problem you identify?

The problem is a culture of violence, that happens to have access to guns. The guns themselves don't create the culture.

[Shatterface]

My last year in Boston, the paper reported that the city had taken in something like $57 million in revenue from parking tickets. And they hoped to top $65 million the next year. I thought, 'shouldn't the point of tickets be to reduce parking violations?'

Quite.

Raising revenue through fines, or taxing cigarettes or fatty foods, etc. means the authorities become financially dependent on exactly the behaviour they are supposed to be preventing.

[Za-zen]

Slightly tangential but gun proliferation is a problem. The US so far has opted via the constitution and broad support for the concerned amendment that it's a problem worth having.

Canada has more guns per capita than the US. My county has more guns than Canada, total. Nobody but coyotes and mountain lions gets shot up here.

In western Europe, Britain and Ireland specifically, most cases of violence which cops are called to involve alcohol.

You have comparative stats on that, or is that just you stereotyping?

The absence of firearms in the homes undoubtedly has meant far fewer people have been killed in those instances, and far fewer people are incarcerated for murders.

Most guns kept in homes for self-defense are pistols. The progs & SJWs are calling for a ban on so-called "assault rifles". How will that ameliorate this problem you identify?

The problem is a culture of violence, that happens to have access to guns. The guns themselves don't create the culture.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. ... lence.html

I'm not really disagreeing with what you are saying in your final statement.

[screwtape]

Canada has more guns per capita than the US.

I don't think so:

1280px-World_map_of_civilian_gun_ownership_-_2nd_color_scheme.svg.png

(253.26 KiB) Downloaded 204 times

[The Yeti]

http://www.kare11.com/mb/news/police-sc ... /267042738

It looks like more information is coming out about the MN shooting. It was originally claimed that the traffic stop was simply over a broken taillight. The reality is that Mr. Castillo was a very close match to a picture lookout for a robbery suspect. The cops used a minor traffic violation as pc for stop but the purpose of the stop was to ID Mr. Castillo and talk to him to see if he was actually the robbery suspect. (apparently he wasn't he just had similar appearance).

That doesn't mean the shooting was justified. It still appears that the cop fucked up and it cost an innocent man his life. It doesn't mean the cop shouldn't suffer consequences for his fatal mistake. It does destroy the idiotic black lives matter narrative that the cops in this case were just looking to kill black people or that they only pulled him over because he was black. It appears that the cop,made his tragic and fatal mistakes in judgment because he thought he was dealing with an armed robbery suspect. Again, that doesn't mean it was a justified shooting, but it sure sheds light on how that tragic mistake happened. Of course to the racebaiting black lives matter people and their supporters in the media, the truth doesn't matter and they will continue to push their false natratives about this tragedy.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Catch me before I'm banned:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisb ... cism-crap/

[The Yeti]

Catch me before I'm banned:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisb ... cism-crap/

Looks like it's already gone, that was quick.

[Service Dog]

Hate crime?

http://heatst.com/culture-wars/punching ... ate-crime/

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Canada has more guns per capita than the US.

I don't think so:

1280px-World_map_of_civilian_gun_ownership_-_2nd_color_scheme.svg.png

Yeah, well ... umm ... look at those crazy Yemenis?!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Catch me before I'm banned:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisb ... cism-crap/

Looks like it's already gone, that was quick.

I still see my comments, but I've been shown the yellow card for questioning SJW dogma. I was also grilled as to why I was even commenting there. Umm, featured post on the Atheist channel? Patheos really should create a separate "Regressive Left Humanist" channel. Or they could all move to The Orbit and block commenting.

[The Yeti]

I know some others here have talked about this already, but here is my take on "The Amazing Atheist" alleged racism. I am not a fan of TAA and I don't normally watch his videos. I personally find his videos to be annoying and uninteresting. When I saw all the angry blog posts about him I assumed that he actually did say some racist shit. On Thursday I actually watched the video.

I found the video to be intentionally inflammatory at times, but didn't see the basis for the racism claims. I disagree with some of the things TAA says in the video, because I think he is sometimes using the same dumb identity politics logic that SJWs use. I disagreed how he conflates the views of critical race theory obsessed black SJW types with "black culture" as a whole. I also don't like his comment about "I am a bisexual atheist, when are you going to start caring about my issues." that is totally some shit that s whiny ass SJW would say. The SJW video that TAA is responding to is breathtakingly stupid, and is a pretty fucking easy target to criticize. Most of TAA's points are valid in that video. I imagine,some might claim his mention of crime statistics as "racist", but he explicitly stated that people should be judged as individuals and that it is dumb to criticize people as racial groups.

I also read that blogger Martin Hughes' response and I am not impressed. The SJW atheist bloggers keep talking to him as if he is some kind of voice of reason. His response didn't seem quite as unreasonable before I actually watched the TAA video. He compares TAA and anyone that likes his videos to the KKK. I was kind of expecting that TAA has gone off on some Michael Richards style racist tirade in his video. After watching the video and seeing no such thing, I have to conclude that Martin Hughes is a lying cunt. I looked at some of Hughes" other posts, and he has up another post blaming TAA and other white people whose thoughts aren't sufficiently SJW for the police shooting in MN. Instead of being a reasonable blogger calling out actual racism, I have to conclude that Hughes is just a cunt.

Even though I don't really like TAA I think I will check out his takedown of that cunt Shoved.

[The Yeti]

:twatson: Shives, not shoved.

[Shatterface]

Cunt shoving is a hate crime.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

Cunt shoving is a hate crime.

'round these parts, we call it foreplay.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I know some others here have talked about this already, but here is my take on "The Amazing Atheist" alleged racism. I am not a fan of TAA and I don't normally watch his videos. I personally find his videos to be annoying and uninteresting. When I saw all the angry blog posts about him I assumed that he actually did say some racist shit. On Thursday I actually watched the video.

I found the video to be intentionally inflammatory at times, but didn't see the basis for the racism claims. I disagree with some of the things TAA says in the video, because I think he is sometimes using the same dumb identity politics logic that SJWs use. I disagreed how he conflates the views of critical race theory obsessed black SJW types with "black culture" as a whole. I also don't like his comment about "I am a bisexual atheist, when are you going to start caring about my issues." that is totally some shit that s whiny ass SJW would say. The SJW video that TAA is responding to is breathtakingly stupid, and is a pretty fucking easy target to criticize. Most of TAA's points are valid in that video. I imagine,some might claim his mention of crime statistics as "racist", but he explicitly stated that people should be judged as individuals and that it is dumb to criticize people as racial groups.

I also read that blogger Martin Hughes' response and I am not impressed. The SJW atheist bloggers keep talking to him as if he is some kind of voice of reason. His response didn't seem quite as unreasonable before I actually watched the TAA video. He compares TAA and anyone that likes his videos to the KKK. I was kind of expecting that TAA has gone off on some Michael Richards style racist tirade in his video. After watching the video and seeing no such thing, I have to conclude that Martin Hughes is a lying cunt. I looked at some of Hughes" other posts, and he has up another post blaming TAA and other white people whose thoughts aren't sufficiently SJW for the police shooting in MN. Instead of being a reasonable blogger calling out actual racism, I have to conclude that Hughes is just a cunt.

Even though I don't really like TAA I think I will check out his takedown of that cunt Shoved.

I watched the whole video, (only the second time I've watched TAA.) I, too, didn't find anything overtly racist.

I disagreed with some of his libertarian takes, but mostly he appropriately dismissed what were not real questions, rather dumb non-sequiturs, accusations, straw men, or just racial insults. Most of the people apoplectic over his racism seem to never have gotten past his first answer, to Be honest, you hate black people, don’t you?

I don’t hate black people any more than I hate any other race of people. If I hate anything about black culture is it’s such a victim culture, almost a victim cult. Every unfairness that exists in their lives is the fault of white people or society stacked against ya. You might as well tattoo, ‘it’s because I’m black, isnt’ it?’ on your fucking foreheads.

The idiotic 20 questions ironically reinforced that impression.


FTR, he said he defends anyone's right to say hateful things against gays or atheists, even though he himself is atheist and bisexual. In response to What are you going to do about systemic racism?, he said:

I have spoken out against the racist aspects of our criminal justice systems, and I personally would not discriminate against black people. Beyond that, I have no fucking intention of doing anything about it. First of all, the problem has been exaggerated. Second of all, it’s not my problem in the first place. What are you gonna do to end discrimination against atheists? Right, you ain't gonna do shit, because it’s not your problem and you don’t give a shit.

It's valid to ask why atheists need to work on black (or feminist) issues, but blacks (or feminists) needn't reciprocate.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

"Even though I don't really like TAA I think I will check out his takedown of that cunt Shoved."

FYI, TAA posts on Youtube, not Redtube.

[Bhurzum]

FYI, TAA posts on Youtube, not Redtube.

To be fair, it's 50/50. I googled "big fat drooling cunt" (looking for TAA's latest vid) and ended up on Redtube.

http://favoritememes.com/_nw/31/82634070.jpg

[Tribble]

FYI, TAA posts on Youtube, not Redtube.

To be fair, it's 50/50. I googled "big fat drooling cunt" (looking for TAA's latest vid) and ended up on Redtube.

http://favoritememes.com/_nw/31/82634070.jpg

Rutger Hauer has become trans-lemur?

[Billie from Ockham]

The only quibble that I have with the article that you posted is When they noted that the pc for stopping Michael Brown was walking in the street as if It was wrong for the officer to stop him. The officer was looking for a robbery suspect, saw a suspect matching the description, and used the misdemeanor infraction as as pc to stop the suspect to investigate. That is a perfectly legitimate policing tactic and was absolutely the correct thing to do in that case.

One quibble with your quibble: you only need RAS (reasonable articulable suspicion) for a stop. PC is for an arrest. Otherwise, I agree with your rant against using policing to raise revenue, although I would add that the asymmetrical rules WRT to lying during a stop are a problem, as well.

[Bhurzum]

Rutger Hauer has become trans-lemur?

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to forage for fruit, nuts and maybe even small insects." - Roy "Ring tail" Batty

[sp0tlight]

I'm "glad" that this budget repairing via ticketing is a international issue. Me, being vagabond loser, who walks everywhere, are not at the receiving end of the stick but my car owning mates are constantly being fucked by ever changing zoning due downtown revitalization. One day you can turn right, next day, baam! You're it.

Same with parking. I don't know why they even bother to drive to office. No parking space, traffic, the municipal police always on the prowl for a easy money.

And may Jesus help you if you try to use main street (you shouldn't), the trap is set.

http://r-scale-d2.dcs.redcdn.pl/scale/o ... quality=80

[Billie from Ockham]

http://favoritememes.com/_nw/31/82634070.jpg

Rutger Hauer has become trans-lemur?

I love that movie, so I appreciated this allusion. My son and I argued for an hour about the meaning of the origami unicorn before I realized that he'd seen the version without the dream sequence.

[Guestus Aurelius]

Those shot dead by UK police this year were 100% white.

His name was James Wilson.

The US has a serious policing problem that can't be reduced to racism.

Watch the embedded video in this article and listen to what the US cops say...

http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/01/scottish- ... e-5656880/

I honestly don't know what the solution is. In the UK the chances of a traffic violation ending with the death of either the suspect or the cop is pretty much zero.

The US situation needs to de-escalate and the 'war on blacks' meme isn't helping.

Major difference in the US is how prevalent guns are among the populace. The UK has fewer than 10 guns per hundred people. The US has over 100. Surely that affects how police are trained?

[CommanderTuvok]

Some articles re. statistics re. police killings:

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016 ... .3dkJH2vwq

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myths-o ... 1455235686

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... inority-d/

The upshot seems to be that whites are in fact more likely to be killed by police than blacks, but while that seems reasonable when you consider the relative populations, when you then factor in the proportionately larger percentage of violent crimes committed by blacks, blacks are if anything proportionately slightly underrepresented.

What does this mean? It means that everyone should calm the fuck down; obviously police homicide is a problem, but it's not an especially racist problem. It's a problem for roughly the reasons Kirbmarc and others have outline upthread.

But as we all know, facts and statistics don't matter to movements based on intersectional identity politics.

Facts get in the way. They always do. That's why facts are dangerous.

The thing is, when authorities and the media kow-tow to the SJW narrative, it leaves an opening for the nutcases like Infowars to have the facts on their side.......

[The Yeti]

The only quibble that I have with the article that you posted is When they noted that the pc for stopping Michael Brown was walking in the street as if It was wrong for the officer to stop him. The officer was looking for a robbery suspect, saw a suspect matching the description, and used the misdemeanor infraction as as pc to stop the suspect to investigate. That is a perfectly legitimate policing tactic and was absolutely the correct thing to do in that case.

One quibble with your quibble: you only need RAS (reasonable articulable suspicion) for a stop. PC is for an arrest. Otherwise, I agree with your rant against using policing to raise revenue, although I would add that the asymmetrical rules WRT to lying during a stop are a problem, as well.

You only need RS for a Terry Stop but Terry stops get challenged quite a bit in court and if the defense successfully challenges your RS for the stop then any evidence stemming from the stop is thrown out. Much better in practice to have PC to make the stop due to an observed traffic violation and develop the investigation from there. That way if you do come up with something it is a lot more difficult for a defense attorney to challenge the stop.

That was my take from the radio transcripts from that incident, the cops wanted to ID the driver to see if he was the robbery suspect but waited unril,they observed com commit a traffic violation before making the stop.

[The Yeti]

Billie: my bad I thought you were referring. To a different post in that reply, my point is still the same though, it is better to justify a stop or detention by pc from observing a minor crime than by RS in a Terry Stop.

[Billie from Ockham]

You only need RS for a Terry Stop but Terry stops get challenged quite a bit in court and if the defense successfully challenges your RS for the stop then any evidence stemming from the stop is thrown out. Much better in practice to have PC to make the stop due to an observed traffic violation and develop the investigation from there. That way if you do come up with something it is a lot more difficult for a defense attorney to challenge the stop.

That was my take from the radio transcripts from that incident, the cops wanted to ID the driver to see if he was the robbery suspect but waited unril,they observed com commit a traffic violation before making the stop.

Ah. If they wanted to ID the guy, then a Terry Stop wouldn't have sufficed, because Minnesota is not a stop-and-ID state, so now I get what you're saying. As to things being thrown out when a Terry Stop is later shown to be unjustified, two responses: first, the same happens with unjustified arrests, second, we need to see what effects there are from Utah v Strieff before saying much more ... not that a beat cop in Minnesota has any fucking clue about that decision.

[Billie from Ockham]

NP, Yeti. Once it became clear to me that they wanted to ID the guy, I could see why they wanted more than a Terry Stop. That actually shows decent thinking on the part of the cop ... knowing that a Terry Stop wouldn't legally get him what he wanted in the state where he worked.

[Billie from Ockham]

My bad, too, Yeti, as I have mixed the locations of the two things that we are cross-talking about. Michael Brown was in a stop-and-ID state, so a Terry Stop would have been enough to ID him.

[Service Dog]

http://www.kare11.com/mb/news/police-sc ... /267042738

It looks like more information is coming out about the MN shooting. It was originally claimed that the traffic stop was simply over a broken taillight. The reality is that Mr. Castillo was a very close match to a picture lookout for a robbery suspect. The cops used a minor traffic violation as pc for stop but the purpose of the stop was to ID Mr. Castillo and talk to him to see if he was actually the robbery suspect. (apparently he wasn't he just had similar appearance).

I think everything you've said has been sensible.

But, since you mention probable cause in reference to this & Michael Brown...

I cant reconcile probable cause (or reasonable suspicion) with the way the supreme court has authorized cops to tell direct lies.

Ive been stopped on foot by cops who said "we're looking for a guy" who supposedly did something serious... but i was met with silence & pretending not to hear, when I replied with "am I free to go?" If they had real pc, the answer would simply be 'no'.

The price of cops casually violating civil rights like that is-- they shit on all other cops ever being trusted, especially when they're holding a smoking gun & dubious probable cause.