Or maybe we tackle this from 180 degrees.

As opposed to what is happening, or how likely, we may find common ground on what it is we should actually be doing.

I've already made the suggestion of electric vehicles and fission, fusion or renewables in place of coal as the road away from emissions. Specifically improving li-ion batteries as Tesla is doing is a major step. Researching sodium-oxygen batteries would be even better as they can hold 4-5 times the power and have cheaper materials and recent results have us close to making them viable, so I'd like to see gov money directed there.

For power solar and wind are currently only cost-competitive because the scale is small enough that we get away with treating coal plants like giant batteries covering our baseline. They simply aren't cost effective to scale up for base load yet, and not likely to be for another 10-20 years. We can have a lot of nuclear plants built in that time. With electric cars coming into the picture, we're also going to need that extra electric capacity. I again would strongly encourage more gov money going into French style large scale nuclear power deployment. China's already doing it, even they've had enough of their current coal literally blocking the sun in the sky on them and nuclear is part of their clean air push. We should be encouraging that and following suit out this way.

I also wasn't kidding about Lockheed-Martin's fusion research. A lot of new ideas are out there for fusion confinement plans and Lockheed has publicly declared their intentions to have a demonstration reactor in 5 years time. I'm hopeful, and if that pans out, the roll out of truly cheap and clean power will start in the next decade for the sole reason that fusion under cuts coal for price.

Part of me reason for these measures versus more drastic ones is we need to keep our economies growing because regardless of what we do the next 30 years, the oceans will continue rising that entire time and the mitigation measures we're going to gradually be spending more and more on are gonna required us to have the money to do them.

If anybody's got better suggestions I'm all ears.

They pulled too close, fired way to fast, even the judge agreed. Yes, some blame falls on the parents, but how many cops are being shot and killed vs citizens at this point?

When does officer safety trump the fact that they are supposed to serve and protect, not shoot at the first option and sort it out later? They fired on Tamir within 2 Seconds of arriving on scene, 2 seconds...

What is even more disturbing about this case is, after shooting him, the police walked around the scene and looked for the weapon while the kid lay dying on the snow. Tamir laid there for 4 minutes bleeding from a torso gunshot wound until a police detective and an FBI agent who happened to be nearby came and rendered aid.

Both cops also had issues.

In a memo to Independence's human resources manager, released by the city in the aftermath of the shooting, Independence deputy police chief Jim Polak wrote that Loehmann had resigned rather than face certain termination due to concerns that he lacked the emotional stability to be a police officer. Polak said that Loehmann was unable to follow "basic functions as instructed". He specifically cited a "dangerous loss of composure" that occurred in a weapons training exercise, during which Loehmann's weapons handling was "dismal" and he became visibly "distracted and weepy" as a result of relationship problems. The memo concluded, "Individually, these events would not be considered major situations, but when taken together they show a pattern of a lack of maturity, indiscretion and not following instructions, I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct these deficiencies." It was subsequently revealed that Cleveland police officials never reviewed Loehmann's personnel file from Independence prior to hiring him.

Garmback, who was driving the police cruiser, has been a police officer in Cleveland since 2008. In 2014, the City of Cleveland paid US$100,000 to settle an excessive force lawsuit brought against him by a local woman; according to her lawsuit, Garmback "rushed and placed her in a chokehold, tackled her to the ground, twisted her wrist and began hitting her body" and "such reckless, wanton and willful excessive use of force proximately caused bodily injury". The woman had called the police to report a car blocking her driveway. The settlement does not appear in Garmback's personnel file.

Amazing pieces of work, and both out there to take care of us. I feel safe, do you?

Hey @lantern53

You're oddly silent.

What's your opinion on this one?

Good police work here?

I wonder why they only tackled and handcuffed the black kids tho.

Clearly they aren't racial bias or anything. Cops can't ever be racist.

They probably just knew exactly ever kid that did or didn't "belong" there
You know, like they personally know each and every kid and where they live.

So of course they only tackled the ones that were "trespassing" and "fighting".. right? o_O?

Either way, lawful or clearly morally unlawfully wrong.
ALWAYS obey the police, amirite?!

This is elaborate, and very Canadian visual metaphor. The naked man represents the terror of divulging that which is most vulnerable while being intoxicated, while the tackle represents the motor coordination challenges while same. Asking for help to "bring it in" being a rejected cry for help. The canoe represents the territory of self, surrounded by the depth of the dark feelings.

It's a very basic Canadian mode of self-reflection.

That's what I like about Canada: you ask a stupid question and get tackled by a naked dude for it. Their justice system just works.

It sucks ass he got away. They should take the video to local middle/high schools and compare to yearbook photos, I bet they would find him quickly. Unfortunately, they still probably wouldn't prosecute him...but might actually prosecute the person who tackled him for child abuse, because people are idiots and care about the wrong things almost every time.

Let's see...we've got assault and battery, armed robbery, destruction of private property, destruction of evidence...and probably a few more crimes here. I won't be surprised in the least if there's not a single crime charged, however.

Police are proving conclusively that they are NOT protecting, serving, or upholding the law. Since they refuse to police themselves, I'm thinking it's time to disband the criminal gang and start again, they've all failed time and time again to be honest and upright people, much less proper authorities. If cops policed themselves, the other cops would have tackled this cop, jumped on his head, hog tied him, and carted him off to jail....but that's NEVER happened, not a single time, ever, no matter what kind of murderous crime the cop commits in front of his fellow officers. In my mind, that means they are not real cops and so not deserving of respect or compliance.
How about a ballot initiative to remove any 'protective custody' for officers sent to prison, so they have to go to gen pop like every one else? Then they might think twice...assuming some are prosecuted...because it would no longer be summer camp with other cops, it would be real prison.

It's a bit hard to say whether the fabled Grexit would have been more damaging than The Austerity, has anyone actually done the calculations?

What we can see, fairly clearly, is that the projected outcome of The Austerity by the Austerity freaks has been completely the opposite of what actually happened. Somewhere there was a nice graph showing projected growth vs actual, but the summary is that where they projected growth in year 4, in actual fact the Greek economy actually just kept contracting. (@radx, did you see the graph?)

The reports I saw of the reform proposals were exactly what you suggest, a credible plan to tackle corruption and to use some of the savings to fund social programs and tackle the humanitarian crisis caused by The Austerity. The Grauniad summarised reactions to the proposal as a sensible compromise between the Greek government’s promises and the demands of its creditors.

@radx

I think we're probably going to end up rehashing old arguments.

The loans weren't the cause of the output loss, it was the huge and fraudulent debt their government amassed. The withdrawal of loans would have been and still would be more catastrophic than what has occurred. I think you're mischaracterizing it as a loss of sovereignty.

The unwillingness to fund fiscal stimulus rather than just bailouts comes back to the whole issue of lack of trust. It's fair to say the new government may not have the nepotistic past of the major parties, but they also have little to no governing experience, particularly with difficult reform. I don't really see Varoufakis as having the wherewithal to accomplish that.

The more they argue for things like raising the minimum wage or reinstating public sector workers, the more difficult it is going be for them to find any semblance of a middle ground with Germany. If they instead came to the recent meeting with a credible plan for tackling corruption then they may have gotten better terms.

Nothing is good about this situation and there is no reason to think this will end in anything but Greek default.

Greece's government, elected by its citizens ran up a large and unsustainable debt which was masked by easy credit before the GFC and fraudulent accounting.

There were many contributors. Corruption, hugely wasteful state owned enterprises, joining the euro zone before they were ready to lose the ability to devalue their currency and lower interest rates, and flagrant tax evasion.

But as a country they're collectively responsible for not demanding the necessary reforms of their politicians to ensure they were not vulnerable to a credit crisis when the GFC hit and lenders began to look more scrupulously at individual European countries rather than Europe as a whole. Equally, Italy is responsible for voting Berlusconi into power for every year their economy recorded negative growth under his government. Spain is responsible for not providing sufficient oversight to bad bank lending leading a huge indebting bailout package.

Some of Syriza's reforms are reasonable. Tackling corruption and trying to break up oligopolies are worthy ideas, but they are unlikely to be easy and yield any immediate benefit. Raising the minimum wage and planning to hire back state workers as they have already promised will almost guarantee they will cease to receive EU funding/ECB assistance and later IMF funding.

The simple truth from the point of view of Germany and other austerity backing Nordic countries is if they buy their loans (and in effect transfer money to Greece) without austerity stipulations, there will be no pressure or guarantee that structural reforms that allow Greece to function independently will ever be implemented. These lender government and by extension its people have no interest in transferring wealth to Greece if it stalls its reforms.

Yes fire sales of state owned enterprises suck but the likely alternative at this point if the Troika lending is stopped is that all other lending stops and Greece defaults. At that point there would be mass loss of state sector jobs and sky-rocketing unemployment relative to what is now being experienced. It would take years of reform for the Greek government to be lend-worthy again. There is simply no trust for any alternative to austerity on the part of north Europe.

Currently Greece has reported positive growth in the past quarter and excluding debt repayments is running a budget surplus. Realistically, yes they cannot pay back the 180% of GDP. The likely way forward is after several more years of real reform they (+ Spain & Portugal) would get better terms from the EU as politically, leaders in Germany and elsewhere will be able to make the case that their objective has been achieved.

The ECB's QE package is in some ways already part of this. What I guarantee won't happen is electing Syriza to oppose bailout terms helping to secure that. Germany et al will quite rightly see that if they acquiesce to Greece they will encourage other populist parties in Spain, Portugal, Italy and France and stall reforms.

Could Germany and others in theory provide a huge cash infusion to Greece, Spain and Portugal now? Sure. And those parties would be voted out in the next election and the terms reversed. Even with the relative stinginess of current loan terms, the likes of UKIP and the National Front with their anti-EU stance, have gained political standing in the EU parliament and will likely see huge boosts in upcoming domestic elections.

I'm curious why this is being described as a racially motivated attack. Just because the assailant was ignorant of his own state's law(s) and an idiot doesn't make him a racist. He may very well be a racist but that can hardly be determined from a silent video; just because the man he tackled is black, doesn't mean the victim couldn't have just as easily been a Caucasian (or Asian, Hispanic, etc.)

I understand the current racial tensions and situation in the US is pretty volatile right now, but not every act of black-on-white or white-on-black violence is racially motivated. By making these assumptions and posting them as facts (e.g. dailykos website), all it does it stir the pot even more and shows a huge lack of journalistic integrity.

Unless there is evidence to suggest that Mr Foster, the assailant, targeted Mr Daniels, the grandfather, because he was a black man carrying a firearm then people should treat it for what it is: an over-zealous wannabe hero who is ignorant of the law. He was arrested, so it's not like he got away with his crime. Maybe more information will come to light (prior arrests, complaints, etc) that will reveal it to be a racially motivated attack.

As for the others being arrested, there were only two other people in physical contact with Mr Daniels, after the initial take-down, and I don't believe that they struck him; they only held him down, which is probably well within the confines of a citizen's arrest. The other bystanders just removed the gun from the area. Big deal. The cops did the right thing in this situation.

"The rich keep you fed enough that you bark at the intruders." - Some youtuber.

Yes he's a little out of his depth and he's so desperate to try and get people to understand that he's hurrying and nervous. Well, he's a comedian, he isn't used to public speaking, he knows how to make people laugh not convince them in an argument. But he's out there, putting his neck on the line when he doesn't even NEED to - because as the tabloids (controlled by who?) enjoy pointing out he's rich. At least he got rich through his ability to make people laugh, rather than tricking people into voting for him because he'd act in their best interests then selling their decisions to the highest bidder.

We are seeing politicians scrambling for ANYTHING they can to hold power and keep making money for a little longer. That anything is immigration and they're quite happy to let people convince themselves its the immigrants. Even if we are slightly overcrowded for our infrastructure in Britain, we wouldn't be if the money in the system was active and being used to build and be productive instead of sitting in the pockets of people who have everything they want and 8 figure bank balances. These people in charge keep telling us they're going to tackle all these problems, but they never do anything to close the loopholes being used by all the huge corporations who have been paying NO TAX WHATSOEVER during the times of extreme wealth and growth. Is it any wonder our countries are in a dire condition? Our tax system has been starved of hundreds of billions, possibly trillions, who really knows!? And why weren't they closed? Just look at the links between big business and and politics, the only reason we aren't all saying "what the fuck is going on?" is because they can distract people through their control over the media and their convincing oratory skill into going "it's your neighbour.. it's his fault. was he born here? why is he using your hospital?", meanwhile we lose out of BILLIONS because the post office was sold off on the sly! Only to be told next election THAT WE ARE SHORT ON OUR FUCKING BUDGET. You're ok with that happening?! Why is it ok for them to keep coming back having lost our money and asking for more, but if it was a man who came directly to our door to collect our money in exchange for services, we'd tell him to piss off? It's EASIER to blame someone who looks and speaks differently rather than the clever bastard with a gleam in his eye sitting in the pub silver tonguing his constituents.

We are not fucking short on productivity - how many people do you know that think they have a lot of spare time and freedom from work? But that productivity is not being directed appropriately, and if you don't believe that then you need to get outside and talk to people who are less fortunate than you... benefit of the doubt, maybe you just haven't had to see it. But all the money that went on bonuses could be going into improving schools, police, hospitals, public transport and roads and god knows what else. A bunch of people would go without a brand new range rover sport or yacht or champagne holiday for 30... in contrast, thousands less people would die - think of the old people dying in the cold each winter? or hospital beds and treatments for those with cancer or anything that the NHS can't afford to treat? All the freshly educated nurses and doctors thanks to our universities being given cash to improve their facilities and training.

The theory behind all this was trickle-down-wealth, the money will be distributed through society by paying those at the top a lot of money. It CLEARLY does not work, and anyone who suggests otherwise would surely be considered insane. It's not working, we see it not working, so why aren't we fixing it or getting angry and making those in charge fix it?

If Brand is advocating anarchy (and i'd like to know your argument for saying that, i could stand to be convinced), it's because he's exasperated at our inaction and wants to try and stir people to act. We're currently at the other extreme - watching it happen. People are criticising the crowd for being too into brand, too "leftist" or some nonsense. But those are the people that are having their lives drained by these leeches at the top, of course they're only going to come and cheer if someone is going to say what needs to be said. Any other night, it's just drones debating different ways to stack the odds against everyone.

Edited: Tried to make it nicer, more readable, sorry for the long post but he's really really got a great point and i can't understand why we are all ignoring what's going on. We seem to accept that big business WILL get away with not paying billions in tax like that's fine.. but it's not, we can change it, we just have to stop fucking ignoring it and hold these twats to account like Brand is trying to do. It's not like he's suggesting some wild and risky change, he's just saying STOP LETTING AND HELPING PEOPLE STEAL MONEY FROM US. They won't, and watch Farage go bright red when brand talks about his scandals and rich business partners. If they won't, we need to get rid of them. You may not like his demeanour but he is expressing democratic and egalitarian points.

To jump in on the left hand/right hand drive thing.

Figure most people are right handed. Early weapons, swords would be worn on the left hip to make it easier to draw. So you step up on the horse from it's left as the sword is in the way for getting up otherwise. Now as you ride your horse down the road, you'll ride on the left, as you want to keep approaching people on your right in case you need to respond to an attack, you are attacking them on your free side and not across the horse. So people get used to riding on the left of the road. This gives left hand drive a certain sense from a historical perspective.

Of course if you are driving a team of horses, then you are probably on the left rear horse, and for vision and control reasons, it's probably best to drive that team down the right side of the road. So a certain sense there too.

Then again, how often do you drive a team without a coach behind the horses? So why not drive from the right hand spot down the left of the road? Unless it has to do with the shotgun position, since then the person there has to shoot across the driver, in which case right hand drive once again makes sense.

None of which answers why some countries do right hand drive vs left. Did the US adopt right hand drive just to be different from the UK? Why did France adopt right hand drive? Did Napoleon's war efforts really lead to the rest of Europe adopting right hand drive? Sounds like an issue for CGP Grey to tackle...

Sam makes a great point about the failure of journalism, and I love that he calls out Cenk on the issue at the start. Call it whining if you like, but he's so spot on with his criticism that it alone makes the viewing worthwhile in my opinion.

All Sam is really asking for (not the profiling part) is to acknowledge that it matters what people believe. I'm amazed that this is somehow hard for people to swallow. I think most people would agree with him, fundamentally on this point.

Having accepted the above point (that people are motivated, at least in part, by their beliefs), one of the next things to do is to identify some of humanity's worst ideas, and try to undermine them. It so happens that the horrible ideas Sam is tackling, in general, are in the holy books of the 3 big monotheisms. Since 2 of those 3 have already internally dealt with the most horrendous of their ideas, it leaves the latecomer, Islam, to fall under the microscope. It doesn't help that islam, at it's foundation, attempted to bake in a proof against future refinement and growth.

This seems almost as uncontroversial as a logical chain of thoughts could be, yet somehow people manage to misunderstand them.

So, basically, the next Dark Souls.

Which is fine, because I enjoy those games. Character and enemy designs look great, but at this point they're just regurgitating a formula. It looks foreboding, it's probably going to be brutally difficult, there will be some interesting monsters and probably a convoluted, western-style dark fantasy plot. That's the same thing that Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 offered to a 'T'.
Someone no one else has ever agreed with me from the game industry is personal reinvention, and I wish consumer demand was more fickle for less repetitive offerings.
I *might* play this, but after 3 games, multiple playthroughs of each (because I loved them so much), I'm pretty much over it. Plus, fuck next gen consoles, I could have gotten another 5 years from the current crop. I expect truly talented developers to innovate when they're lauded for their perceived innovation from past successes. Tackling an entirely different genre in the same way the *Souls games were throwbacks to more unforgiving times, or taking the extremes from the previous entries to completely unexpected heights.
There are so many fucking vectors of unexplored progress in the medium that it never surprises me when industry reports year-over-year declines for half a decade, and infuriates me to the point that I wish it would all just fucking die already, wipe out the failures, and rebuild it with this millenniums version of the NES. It's not even about finding "completely new, unexplored methods of interactive media", because you can continue to build on the genre's that exist with a 4-decade-old toolbox that an entire industry only recognizes the most recently opened drawer of.