Economic disruption of the blockades was similar to the Mohawk blockade of railways about 2 years ago:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ottawa-rejects-police-intervention-to-put-an-end-to-blockades/

Similarly, mass lay offs and multi-billions of dollars of goods stuck sitting around waiting to get to the industries needing them.

Since at least 2012 the attempted expansion of an existing pipeline(Trans Mountain) was targeted continuously by blockades. Opposition and resulting delays leading to cost overruns so large that company ultimately halted the multi-billion dollar project.

In terms of dollars being lost, the convoy protest wasn't special. More over, the blockade of the border in Ontario that was causing the real economic damage was dismantled and removed before the 'emergency measures' were enacted. Which is to state, the emergency measures were primarily intended to clear out downtown Ottawa. In downtown Ottawa though, the damages were at minimum as localized as any of the lumber or pipeline blockades mentioned.


Prime Minister Trudeau couldn't be more unequivocal when he was expressing his support for the farmer protests in India and the Floyd protests in the US. Clip if you'd like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9EaSF6Y0eE

The protests in India absolutely did immensely more harm to India's economy than the convoy here did in Canada. The protests in support of Floyd were again unequivocally more violent than the convoy in Canada.

There really is no basis by which to point to the convoy's actions and find them in any way unique or distinct from multiple other protests within Canada, or ones abroad that have been either given more latitude, or outright embraced and supported.

The distinction as even you can't resist going after, is that their beliefs they are protesting for are stupid and wrong, so no right to protest for them. That isn't how the right to protest within a democracy should be allowed to work.

I also have to point out the 'ethical' argument isn't as cut and dry as you want to make it out either.
-Pipelines bad so blockading is good ignores the fact the same oil gets pumped regardless, it just gets loaded into trucks that burn even more oil to haul it and have a fair greater risk of accidents and spills.
-Defending the rights and lands of Aboriginal peoples(like at Coastal Gas Link site violently attacked with millions in damages while the convoy was being vilified for 'incitement') is anything but obvious. The Wet'suwet'en hereditary leaders made claim to parts of the pipeline route and demanded it be shut down. However, the same Wet'suwet'en people's multiple elected Band Councils signed on with their wishes to proceed with the project. In fact, ALL elected representatives of ALL the Bands with land along the route had ALL signed onto the project and wanting it to proceed. It is in no way obvious that ignoring the will of those other bands to favour the conflicting claims of the hereditary leaders is clearly the most respectful of the people's wishes.

you'd think with such a high incident rate, they would come up with a safer route/solution? even a large metal shield they could crawl under seems like a no-brainer. like a turtle shell - could tie it to that rope and send it back over to the next climber.

maybe the local emergency-helicopter-pilot economy depends on these "thrill seekers" ?

They went round the wrong way? Jeebus, Chile is a huge leeward shore to avoid... That bit about having to then fight the current to go 200 miles further west before you can turn north so that you have enough sea room not to get smashed onto the rocks of the Chilean coast when the weather turns rough... We had engines at least as a backup, but just in case of emergency. Plus we had weather radar and modern forecasts so we could plan a route to avoid the worst of what was to come. Respect.

I especially loved the part about how sailors on the upper yards like the royals or the masthead being "as close to heaven as a sailor ever gets".

Such sceneic route, now but a vastness of devastation.

When we can just tone the down the incessant over consumption for the sake of driving up "economic growth" and not do a thing for the environment and concentrate of quality-of-life?

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.

Your video, Baelin's Route - An Epic NPC Man Adventure, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Actually it varies every event. The co-driver has a map of the route through the channels and waives his hand in front of the driver, pointing the way as they go....it’s a bit like rally racing but too loud to speak the directions so they point.

Slalom: a timed race (as on skis or in an automobile or kayak) over a winding or zigzag course past a series of flags or markers broadly : movement over a zigzag route.

Closed loop zigzag?

I want the switch to route the mic signal directly and solely to a speaker built into the candidate's lectern. Start talking when it isn't your turn, you get the feedback (but no one else hears it, or at least not nearly as loudly).

what I find crazy about this is he got off the wrong side of his bike, it would have been a lot faster/easier to get off on the side it was leaning towards and looks like it would have been a better escape route from that backhoe. Granted he would have been killed by the SUV, but he didn't see that coming.

But.....Bcglorf said: Capitalism (or many unrelated civic freedoms) made science and progress possible. The implication is that without capitalism, science and progress are impossible.
Edit: my mistake, vil said that, not bcglorf.

Also, the video is about contradicting that exact contention.

No they aren't, because America isn't just "an economy based on capitalism", which you yourself pointed out. They all come from innovations in systems and inventions created through American socialism.

Again, pre '68, before America went the socialist route to advance computer sciences, not after. Yes, after we used a combination of socialism and capitalism, we were more successful. That's my point.

China is working on 6g, and nearly ready with 5g. America isn't. That cannot be simply because China stole our advancements since they're ahead of us. They also, as you've admitted, developed better (cheaper/faster) manufacturing methods both because of technological advancements and few or no regulations (which have caused them horrendous issues). Funny enough, removing the regulations for more profit at the expense of the workers/environment is capitalistic, not socialist.

Their 5G is better because it's 1)almost ready to deploy and 2) cheaper. Ours isn't ready for prime time yet, and has used billions in public funds to get where it is. The FCC also proposed a $20 billion fund to expand broadband (5g)....that's not capitalism.

Ahhh, switching topics, eh? I thought the topic is capitalism vs socialism as it relates to invention, not fascism. I'm not going to bite.

Ok, personal enrichment is one of many incentives that drive invention, but invention happens without that incentive daily.

Once again, necessity is the mother of invention, not capitalism or profit.

You miss the point if you claim he contradicts that conclusion, because the systems invented that the examples require were ALL publicly funded. Without the socialist inventions, there would be no capitalistic innovations. No internet=no world wide web. No WiFi means no WiFi. No displays=no mobile computers/phones. No access to phone lines=no data transfers, so no internet, www, etc.

If his numbers are correct, 72% of research spending is public funding, not private. Nuff said.

Utter Russian/Ukrainian separatist propaganda bullshit Bob. Not a single letter of truth in how it's presented.

The Burisma investigation began before Biden was hired, and was not being investigated by Shokin before or at the time he was fired for being corrupt himself.

April 18, 2014: Hunter Biden, 44, son of Joe Biden, joins the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company. Biden’s directorship attracts attention because Burisma is owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a minister under Yanukovych. Zlochevsky and subsidiaries of Burisma had faced accusations of money laundering, fraud and tax evasion. (Zlochevsky and the company have denied the allegations.)

Feb. 10, 2015: Ukraine appoints Viktor Shokin as prosecutor general. Shokin inherits some of the investigations into Zlochevsky and his company. But Vitaliy Kasko, who serves as Shokin’s deputy overseeing international cooperation until he resigned in protest, told Bloomberg in 2019 that, under Shokin, the investigation into Burisma remained dormant. Kasko said the matter was "shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015," and Bloomberg reported that documents backed up his account.

Winter 2015-16: Many Western leaders and institutions, as well as Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, view Shokin as corrupt and ineffective for failing to prosecute anybody of significance, and for protecting members of Yanukovych’s and Poroshenko’s circles. A frustrated Biden threatens to withhold $1 billion unless Shokin is fired. (He would later brag that his pressure tactics succeeded.)

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/oct/03/timeline-trump-impeachment-inquiry/


Well son of a bitch....Bob's Russian style cranial rectosis flares up again.

Biden used sanctioned government pressure with international support to publicly route out corruption, Dumb Donald's corruption gets more difficult to ignore daily, and is ALL about personal enrichment, and is done through secretive unsanctioned back channels like his personal attorney who has no business interfering in foreign affairs, then hidden in super top secret servers where they have no business being hidden.

How much money have Trump's children taken from other countries in the last 3 years? All accounts based on their own filings indicate it's hundreds of millions, much through new business dealings created after Trump took office and gifts like dozens of patents from China worth tens of millions.

Saw a nice clip of Grahm, talking about Clinton, saying that Nixon's impeachable offence was ignoring congressional subpoenas.
That is impeachable, and he should be removed with any Republicans who support his stonewalling.

Just a few Senate seats is all it will take to route out these traitors. Nice the Democrats regain control, they need to strengthen congressional rules making it a felony to ignore subpoenas, and instant impeachment to request political favors from foreign powers....even if you say you were joking when you get caught.

Today two major Trump donors and Giuliani cohorts from Florida were arrested for taking over a million dollars in cash from Ukrainian and Russian officials in secret and funneling it to Trump and other Republicans in a scheme going back to at least 2016 when they gave Trump nearly $400000 for his campaign. The Ukrainian donors wanted the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine removed, something Trump actually did for them....quid quo pro.
It won't be a surprise at all to find out the Russians wanted us out of Syria for their recent donations....something Trump just gave them by abandoning our allies and bringing Daesh (ISIS) back from the dead.