*promote

This is why I love my 50 year old Bronco and Jeep. None of this crap applies.
Of course I don't really have secure locking doors or electric locks or windows either, but that's fine where I live.

This is why I prefer M$ and Samsung over Apple.

Had fun replacing a Mercedes car key. Luckily the van is old so it only took a semi-underground repair shop that connects to a semi-underground server in Turkey (!) to get the key for an equivalent sum of 200$. The unprogrammed key sells for 10$ from China. Mercedes sells a new key for 600$. The programming itself takes minutes.

Now obviously someone in Turkey has the code to get into the van. So my security is compromised. But my anger at corporate bullshit is quelled slightly. If I ever get raped in a dark parking lot at least I will know it saved me 400$.

I'm the opposite, in a sense. I couldn't really get hooked on Futurama. I watched pretty much all the episodes and enjoyed them, but didn't really get attached to any of the characters. However, Rick and Morty keeps me coming back because of the irreverence and the way nothing matters.

Rick and Morty is a middle finger to the universe, to causality, to the notion of object permanence, that suddenly jumps back to remind you of the endless and inescapable human suffering in the middle of it all.

Then again, it's been a fucking rough year. Wubba Lubba Dub Dub!

Would never want to try this in America--one of those guys would have a gun and no sense to humor.

*asia *travel *food

I love Futurama, but not Rick and Morty. Don't get me wrong, I like R&M plenty, it's fun & fast-paced and I never missed an episode. But it's not worth the repeat viewing love from me as Futurama does. The characters in R&M are just not as relatable to me.

In many cases last summer, there was no rioting, but still orders to disperse quickly followed with violence before any opportunity for the command to be heard by most, much less followed.

Portland excluded, most BLM marches, 97%?, had no violence at all, and half the 3% was violence against them...reportedly 1/2 of the remaining 1.5% was by opportunists not involved with the March but using it as cover for crimes. BLM isn't blameless, but they are targets more often than perpetrators. It's hardly fair to charge them with the violence perpetrated against them.

The reporters I watched be beaten were 1) asking police where they wanted him to go when beaten mercilessly and 2) sitting on the sidelines well back from any order to disperse given to a peaceful crowd and trying their hardest to comply as soon as they heard an order, punched in the face and bloodied and shoved hard repeatedly breaking their camera while offering zero obstruction and attempting compliance. I didn't see any intentionally refusing to follow orders.

I'm going by what their representative said. It wasn't over one person, it was over fear of accountability, because they cannot do that job without violating people's rights, they don't have the patience or restraint.

Portland isn't a BLM issue, it's what happens when outsiders take over a popular nonviolent protest.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "protesters" still rioting over George Floyd's death, especially when most of them are white, ultra-progressives who think they are actually accomplishing something by violent anarchy. I do have sympathy for non-violent protesters who are trying to get a message across and keep getting caught up in the violence.

In fact, I feel if a person(like said "reporter") ignores a call to disperse once a "protest" turns into a violent riot, they kinda deserve what they get. I mean, how many people shed a tear over that air force lady who got shot during the capitol riots? Call me old-fashioned, but I believe there is a massive difference between non-violent protests and what has been going on for well over a year now in many cities. Portland being a prominent example.

I doubt every single one of the officers who quit did so over one person, maybe they decided to go with that as an excuse and now they are speaking individually on their reasons. I know that I would be incredibly frustrated at trying to do a job with conflicting orders (until recently) from my bosses. I could be 100% wrong about their actual individual reasons, but I would suspect a lot are just sick of the whole mess.

Plus, in the end, a lot of minorities are actually getting sick of these white kids making a mess of a peaceful protest.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-protests-portland-activis/in-portland-some-black-activists-frustrated-with-white-protesters-idUSKCN24W2
QD

*talks

thanks- it looked bad, will avoid.

Those are decent points, but have absolutely zero to do with the mass abandoning of their positions. It was 100% due to one of their own being charged after beating nonviolent protesters. They originally admitted exactly that, and now that they aren't being supported in their walkout, they are coming up with excuses that didn't matter to them the day before the officer was charged.

I think they should have to pay for the training and equipment they now refuse to use.

What are you talking about? You think budget cuts caused time off to be cancelled?! It costs double to not rotate in other officers, because you pay those on duty overtime, it doesn't make it cheaper. Budget cuts were not the issue when these cops were doing crowd control, only now that they're suddenly called to account for their own actions. No time off temporarily, because of extreme circumstances, was not an issue until one of their own was charged. It's certainly not abnormal, and absolutely not because of budget cuts, it costs more.

No prosecutions is the norm, if I recall, over 98% of charges levied at protesters have been dismissed nation wide, mostly because police had no evidence to back the charges they brought. You might note, as described in the article, "Mr. Schmidt immediately announced that he would focus on prosecuting cases of violence or vandalism; protesters who simply resisted arrest or refused to disperse after a police order would not necessarily be charged." They are taking a stand against anarchic violent protesters, but not the peaceful protesters with a legitimate gripe about violent, racist, deadly police acting as an anarchist gang that believes rules only apply to you, not them.

There are few prosecutions in large part because police declare riots when all participants are peaceful and not causing damage, and police are almost always the one's giving the orders to remove the people they declared "rioters", and in most cases they have zero evidence to back up their declarations, and are as violent as possible, beating peaceful videographers and reporters who were trapped and could not disperse, then charging them with refusal to disperse and resisting arrest, even violence against police for attacking police batons with their faces.
(Edit: remember the freeway shutdown when they marched on the freeway, and police blocked them from exiting or continuing while a second group of police came from behind, forcing them into a small fenced in area with no exit, then charged them all with refusal to disperse and the few that tried to disperse were charged with attacking police officers who blocked every escape route, violently attacking anyone trying to leave...all on live tv?)
Many peaceful protests became riots only after police moved in to violently disperse protests, fully 1/2 were riots because counter protesters and bad right wing actors like proud and boogaloo boys were planting bombs, shooting crowds, starting fires, driving through crowds, and murdering police in an effort to paint protesters as violent anarchists. That is verified fact directly from the DOJ investigation.

It's not a Portland only thing, police abandoning their communities because, as they indicated to the DA, "“It was like, ‘There’s our team and there’s their team, and you are on their team and you’re not on our team. And we’ve never had a D.A. not be on our team before,’” Police assume they are on a team against citizens, and won't do their jobs if, by doing them wrong with bias and malice, they might be prosecuted. They are used to immunity, and don't know how to do their jobs without it because they are abusers of power.

One day after charges were levied they quit in solidarity with the criminal abusive cop, and came up with fake excuses later.

You seem to have missed "the Justice Department said that the city’s Police Bureau was violating its own use-of-force policies during crowd-control operations, and that supervisors were not properly investigating complaints." part.

In this case, I sympathize because Portland has refused to assist or back any of their police in the riots there. The DA has refused to charge anyone who resists arrest or refuses to disperse after police have been given orders to remove rioters (they are rioters. even the Mayor is now saying to stop calling them protesters and to call them anarchists instead).

Why would anyone want to go out, night after night, and face the same people you arrested the night before doing the same stuff?

The fact also exists that Portland has made massive cuts to the police budget. That has led to time off being cancelled for police, no rotations to move fresh police into the riot situations so the same ones have to deal with the face to face confrontations with no break, and the alternative policing option which was hands off was tabled. "A paramedic and a social worker would drive up offering water, a high-protein snack and, always and especially, conversation, aiming to defuse a situation that could otherwise lead to confrontation and violence. No power to arrest. No coercion."

There are a lot of problems with police, for sure. Portland's government is the driver behind these issues, though. Until they start taking a stand against these anarchist, violent protesters (who are PREDOMINANTLY white), the situation will not get better.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/us/portland-protests.html

OMG it was bad.

My grandfather had one of these, or a very similar model, when I was a kid. Division of big numbers could take several minutes of entertaining clicking and things moving around a lot.