Really? I've never met a Liberal (I assume you mean the US swear word, not the Canadian political party, most of those clapping are "Conservatives", btw) who wanted all police officers (and he is one, a long, storied and honourable career) to be without a sidearm.

Oh shit, I didn't see who I was responding to... nevermind... I thought reason would work.

It's not being anti-cop, it's being anti-bad-cop...

You probably won't remember the recent video of a great cop that booked a guy tailgating a cyclist. You know, because it doesn't feed in to the narrative that exists between your ears.

Oh yeah, and why should we go tit for tat posting up criminals doing criminal things? They are criminals... We kinda fucking expect them to be the "bad" guys, it's hardly a surprise when they are... It's when the people put in a position of power and trust, public service, abuse that position that it's noteworthy. Sadly, that happens so often now that the most noteworthy points are when an officer performs with distinction, honour and humility, exactly the way he or she should...

http://videosift.com/video/How-a-Good-Cop-Behaves

Or how about this, where one good cop get's crushed because the dept. prefers to support two bad ones? The risk of being an honourable person in the police force isn't just from criminals, it's from coworkers as well.

http://videosift.com/video/Bogota-Police-Officer-Regina-Tasca-Suspended

So climb off your fucking self righteous steed (it must be uncomfortable riding it with your head up your ass). If you served as a police officer as you claim, your postings here give a pretty good indication of the type you were. And if you were a "good cop" in the truest sense of the words, doesn't your stomach turn to see how the entire profession is being dragged down by the criminals in your own ranks?

Meh, there's a time honoured tradition of laughing at horrible things (dead baby jokes being a whole sub-genre themselves).

This guy's crime isn't the subject matter, it's that he's not funny.

The last time an Aussie was on the podium for a home race was Allan Jones back in the 80s, but that was a non championship round!

Certainly Magnussen has gone some way to justifying McLaren's decision to replace Checo (Sergio Perez).

One more honourable mention - to Bottas, for keeping the racing interesting long after the podium positions had been decided.

@chingalera

Your delusion as to what the fuck police are baffles me. Here, we have a video clearly showing not only the cops are NOT using excessive force, be it physical or tazer, doing everything in their power to actually resolve this situation in a manor that is civil up to and including explaining why they did what they did ALL THE WHILE not releasing the information of what the girl did to keep it private (likely, there was a warrent issued for her arrest for something she did OFF camera), and yet you're still claiming to the "gun totin' bullies" schtick.

I could cite thousands of examples of police officers doing their jobs correctly, and I take PERSONAL offense to the notion that A) "All cops are cocksuckers" and B) "All cops are felons". Why? Mostly because, unlike you, I actually know quite a few personally. Including my Father, and step mother.

Lets go ahead and actually skip a shitload of the easy shit, like the fact my step mother is (and for the past almost 9 years has been) the President of an optimist group, whose primary goal is to raise funding for underprivileged children and give them access to things like sports, and in some cases educational scholorships.

Lets graze over the fact that my dad and a good deal of my own local police officers actually put on not one, but two musicals (Caught in the Act / Caught in the act II) to raise money for Charity (the womens Y, and unfortunately I can't remember the other one).

Hell, we'll even skip the time I was in DETROIT, and while on the highway blew a tire and needed to pull over to the side of the road to change it, only to have a police officer see this going the opposite direction, get off the highway, and then back ON the highway, so he could park behind us and keep his lights on so that we remained safe while doing so.

Lets focus on the fact that you're citing one example of you. Where a friend apparently was in too deep a sleep, or drugged up to answer a phone call from the people she's now paying to call the police when the alarm system goes off and they can't reach her.

They then show up, and either you, or somehow she, answers the door and lets them in, only to seemingly be a rude prick about it, and one of you winds up getting yourself arrested. Your entire post on the subject is incredibly vague (yes, I'm sure the fact that you said the cops sunglasses make you nervous was the exact reason you had whatever happen to you happen.) And yet, you still have the gall to maintain that the entire problem is with the people who did their jobs right in the first place. (You know, showing up to a distress call about a home that may be broken in to)

Also, if you're referring to those of us who actually maintain that the police aren't all the devil in bullet proof vests with badges as "cunts who are afraid to show their asses", you're once again wrong. I've stopped voicing my opinion on the matter, it typically goes nowhere. I'll cite law, you'll cite something crazily in some form of gibberish, and at the end of the day, neither person has made progress.

You want to voice your opinion, fine. I'll stay in the shadows and save both of us a lot of time arguing back and forth. DO NOT drag my family's honour through the mud by insinuating that part of it is somehow the bane of the earth because my Dad and Stepmom signed onto a group of people "To serve and protect" the damned community.

Obama from '06 and '08 would have honoured him. I kinda miss that guy.

I take it you are not familiar with the Oath of Office for the US government?

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

So when the government breaks it's oath, breaks faith to the people and demands of it's soldiers, those men and women who are ready to pay the ultimate price, that they commit atrocious crimes, what worth is there honouring your oath to them?

More importantly, Nuremberg proved that "just following orders" ie. adhering to your oath as a soldier, was not a defense. In the recent debacle in the Australian Defense Force, the chief of armies has explicitly said that people who received the illicit emails and deleted them rather than reporting would also be held responsible because they didn't blow the whistle...

You can waffle on about honour and adhering to ones oath, but the truth is you're advocating the path of the coward. Stay quiet, don't speak out, be a good little lap dog to the establishment. Allow evil to happen because you don't have the cojones to do anything about it. Take cold comfort in the fact that you "honoured" your oath.

Yea I do.
It's pretty much an honour system as far as getting tagged is concerned. Though in fairness, in close quarters those little motherfuckers can leave a nasty mark and you will react to the pain.

Big thanks! It is a honour to be in the ranks.

Nice reply. Thanks Gwiz.

At the moment I am doing honours in ethics looking at gender reassignment surgery. The science behind it all is extremely subjective and there seems to be a lot of cherry picking of factors and studies where a certain result is desired. There are a few scientific findings that have consensus and they mainly involve how little difference there is between men and women. Lots of the differences we see are at the extreme end of the scale, aka sports analogies. In every capacities men and women are capable of doing pretty much the same thing. Some extreme cases will involve things that only men can do due to the outright strength involved but other things we may think to be too physical women have done and are doing in other 3rd world nations all the time. Women can be conditioned to be very strong and very tough. We just don't value that or pursue that in the West.

The Elevatorgate and other examples should simply be ignored. They are immediately identifiable as being ridiculous and threaten to undermine to the entire project of a meritocracy that seems to be at the core of the liberal tradition (liberal in the post enlightenment sense, not the Fox news "All liberals are evil" sense).

You are right that society is probably not consciously trying to keep women down. THis is one of the major criticisms that feminism brings forth. It is that we do it tacitly and automatically. When we see an all women rock band we say "That's an all womens rock band" but when we see an all male rock band they are simply "A rock band". Simple and largely harmless example but it extends to every facet of society. Look at CEO's. When a women makes CEO of a huge multinational it is noteworthy. There are certain assumptions made that she's a ball breaker or a tough business woman. All things we associate with masculinity. Its as if there is no role for femininity in powerful roles either from women or men.

Ramble ramble too. Running out of stuff to add without writing a HUGE thesis.

"Don't Give Up" (Duet With Peter Gabriel, 1986)

Debate, yay! Let's take this in order:

@00Scud00 You don't actually disagree with me it seems. Christian fundamentalism is (almost) as dangerous as Islam fundamentalism imo, with the tiny caveat that Jesus' message was mostly pacific passive-aggressive, à la "be nice to everyone here, me and Dad will torture our enemies in the afterlife", whereas Muhammed's was very much "death to the infidel, by our hand and/or God's" (e.g. s2:191-3; s4:89; 5:33; 9:52, etc). As for nation-building, it is more rooted in Islam - if only by virtue of being what their holiest figure did, contrary to the "kingdom-of-heaven-is-not-on-earth" Jesus (of course, Christianity's inherent One Truth totalitarianism is, as history shows, a perfect backup ideology for colonizing and war-weilding as well.
Of course people growing up with Islam will, for the most part, adhere to the good and ignore (sadly, instead of revolting against) the evil, just like with any other religion. That does not change the inherent wrongness and dangerousness of the ideology itself.
"You're condemning an entire belief system and billions of Muslims based on a statistically small group of whackjobs, doesn't sound very scientific to me. the comparatively greater (observable and quantifiable) numbers of threats/acts of violence done in the name of Islam than those in the name of other religious ideologies in this point in history " FTFClarity. If I mention >100'000person-riots demanding the deaths of atheist bloggers, which religious beliefs are most likely to be at the source there? Proportionally, which religious beliefs have, today, the most negative effects on women? Which population of ex-"religion" is most likely to receive death threats and/or be killed for religious reasons? I could go on, but I think the point is made that, proportionally, Islam is the greatest cause of religious-fueled harm today.

@Yogi, apples and oranges dear, not to mention your very narrow definition of Islam's toll (the sunnis bombed by chiites and vice-versa, and all the honour-killing victims, to name only a couple, would not agree with you). The US-wrought massacres in the ME are unforgiveable, no doubt about it, but most of the excuses made to justify it were secular, not religious. Fundamentalist Islam is above all a threat to its immediate neighbours (usually other muslims). Islamist terrorism is only one aspect of the ideology's dangers, and takes its greatest toll in Africa and the ME. Counting only US victims is terribly self-centered.

@SDGundamX Hello old debate-buddy; I will freely admit that I do not want to spend days and days compiling exact numbers of "victims of Islam" vs "victims of other religions", and I think it is rather a dismissive tactic to demand such data. That is why I formulated the question differently in the response above to 00Scud00: take a look at the state of the world, and simply compare. Does this paint all of Islam in a broad brush? You think it does, I do not. I do not find it contradictory to accept the wide variety of "Islams" and Islamic practices/interpretations while arguing that the core fundamentals of Islam, i.e. the founding texts and exemplary figures, can and sadly often do lead to or are invoked to motivate violence and unethical behaviour, and that at this point in history it is the one that does so the most. I do not imply that there is "one" practice of Islam, that is you projecting. There are, however, a set of texts at the core of Islam, and with it a set of beliefs (as you yourself point out).
There is a reason why "moderate" Christians, Muslims, etc. are called "moderate": they only "moderately" adhere to that core. And yes, Muslims disagree with eachother about how to live/interpret that core, and sometimes (like the Christians and Jews etc. before them) kill eachother over their disagreements.

Is there good stuff to be found in those fundamentals? Yes, of course, but they are basics of human empathy and animal morality, and do not require holy validation (this applies for all religious fundamentals of course).

You and many others seem to be unable to dissociate "hating an ideology" from "hating every individual who adheres to it, no matter to what degree". It is noteworthy that the people who accuse others of painting Islam/Muslims "with one broad stroke" are often guilty of implying exactly that when they make that accusation: "you express dislike of Islam and/or the acts of certain Muslims, ergo you can only be expressing dislike for all of them, because one=all!"

As for equating Islam with danger, there is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is to equate Muslim people with danger, and yes, there is a huge difference, one that people like myself think so obvious as to not have to spell it out until opposing voices accuse us of not making that difference, often because they themselves cannot. When the fundamentals say "believing something other than Islam is worse than murder" and "kill the non-believer", it is a dangerous ideology. Thankfully we know that the majority of individuals will eschew that part of the fundamentals, gaining the "moderate" achievement. This does not diminish the danger inherent in the fundamentals.

@Babymech It is not ignorant to say that Chechens have been bombed, massacred, and isolated, and are poor as all get-out. It is ignorant to suggest that these are the only possible reasons a culture might have violent strains running through it, and that one should by all means not look towards the beliefs that explicitly command killing people who don't believe what you do. Moreover, my history is pretty rusty, but of all the many places and peoples the US has bombed and massacred, I don't remember Chechnya being among them. The Boston bombing may have been political in nature, but suggesting that it can only be so and cannot have religious motivations is simplistic and counter to, well, reality.

It would only be surprising if all news networks independently choose to broadcast the exact same thing all the time. If there were an equivalent thing of Bush receiving some honour, no way MSNBC would show that live. Their audience would tune out, and they'd lose advertising revenue. Whatever Rachel is implying about Fox's motives, the truth of it is just economics.

Cry me a f*cking river CNN, THis girl was carried around from party to party, was violated, photographed naked, URINATED ON, and then had the images spread around through social media.. Promising young men dont do that kind of sh*t. Promising young men see that happening and they shut it down and stick up for the poor girls honour. Alcohol is no excuse either.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

*promote in honour of all the new Star Wars hype