I must say, I wish it was alien to me as well. It is a disturbing thing to have to fear any interaction with those charged with my safety, but it's the only reasonable reaction when you have had the types of disrespectful interactions I've consistently had with police, no matter how compliant and respectful I was, invariably they are disrespectful, angry, and dishonest.

I grew up believing that cops were there to help citizens and that telling the truth to them is always the best thing to do. Personal and familial experience has dissuaded me of that belief thoroughly.

I'm also a middle-class, middle-aged, straight, white dude, but because I've lived in poor (largely black) areas I have been repeatedly targeted by police for 'sticking out'.

I've seen numerous close family members believe cop's lies, say too much trying to be helpful and/or truthful, and charged with crimes for what they revealed, or in some cases what the cop SAID they revealed. I've personally had cops lie on the stand about what I've said and/or done in their presence, and had them caught by the judge (lucky me) in the lies. Friends and family were not so lucky, and some of them did serious time for things they either did not do or things they were told would be ignored if they just told the nice friendly cops where the fireworks/pot/beer/anything they need to know about/etc. was, then when they tell the truth, officer friendly morphs into angry drill sergeant who charges them with any possible infraction he can think of and off to jail they go charged with the crimes they were promised would be ignored or crimes the officers created by lying.

When you see this behavior repeated time and time again, directed towards quite different people, one must conclude that it's an issue with those in the profession, not any personal issue by the victims. It's quite sad.

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Fire inspector goes out to fireworks barge to inspect fire control apparatus.

"Ah... very good. So what does this button do?"

"NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

When it comes to fireworks, i don't discriminate. *promote

They actually had a little fireworks show after this; so I was slightly lying, but I wouldn't want to test anyone's patience...

One dead, 23 hurt. Truck with hazardous materials and one with fireworks were involved.

http://www.king5.com/story/news/2015/01/09/120-car-pileup-michigan/21515731/

It makes me want to plan a trip to Montreal next summer to see the international fireworks competition.
http://montreal.about.com/od/montrealevents/a/fireworks_mtl.htm

Pretty much is. Most fireworks of that size are either spherical or cylindrical. Think about how big a package FOUR FEET WIDE filled with pyrotechnic stars and black powder is.

Maths sez a perfect 48" sphere, after you take three inches off the radius to account for the protective shell around it, leaves twenty two cubic feet, almost two-thirds of a cubic metre, in which to pack splodeys.

That could make one sweet helluva bang.

Your video, Insane Amount Of Fireworks, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I shot a roman candle once
It fell down from the air
And caught my neighbour's hair on fire
He sucks so I don't care.

But now I see a different source
For better fireworks
I'm gonna get me some of these
For all my neighbor jerks.

:-D

Not as good as the Komodo 3000, but respectable.

why yes, yes I would.

THAT, coupled with Oculus Rift and the right type of firework, would be impressive.

I saw that yesterday and had a good laugh. He came here at a good time with the fireworks and the Pride parade.

Not so in any meaningful way.

Israelis are the expansionists....aggressors.
Israel bombed first this (and many other) round(s)....aggressors.
Israel has many other less harmful methods of obtaining their 'stated' goals but prefer indiscriminately bombing civilian populations and shelters, then lying about it and blaming the victims....aggressors and liars.
Israel is safe as long as the iron dome system works, and it's working fine against the fireworks, but they still claim their offensive military campaign is defensive....aggressors, liars, and assholes.
Israel has done to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to them, namely force them into ghettos, then a giant concentration camp where they are randomly killed, but Israel still thinks they somehow hold the high moral ground (in large part because of people like you who will tell them so, in the face of all evidence to the contrary)....evil, history forgetting aggressors.
I think that's enough to say you are dead wrong in the first part of your statement....but they are getting their butts kicked. To me, that's a statement about the inhuman willingness of Israel to repeatedly and viciously attack a defenseless, imprisoned population rather than a slight against Palestinians.