Philly PA is a Democrat city/ state..
Democrats don't care. You #'s point this out.

2016 277 murders in Philly
2020 500 murders in Philly.
1990 500 murders in Philly.
2022 300 murders 2/3 of the way.

You want Philly to be a gun free zone?

Sorry can't do that.
There are enough gun laws.

Need to make the punishment for improper gun use that causes these occurrences extremely harsh.

I'll go ahead and say the unpopular truth....we need to not just defund, but disband the police. Fire them all, then allow them to reapply for their jobs, but those with excessive complaints, or any crimes on their record don't get hired back or at a minimum should have to go back to school with no pay, then pass a psychological screening far more stringent than the one they passed originally.
No amount of funding change (which is needed), demilitarization (which only means not making them more militarized, no one's taking their swat tanks or snipers), no amount of public outrage, or chiefs quitting will make a difference if the same criminal cops are still on the force, they need a massive purge and complete culture change or things will not get better.

One other change that I believe will definitely help, remove immunity so criminal cops not only go to prison, but also are first in line to pay restitution for their own crimes out of their own pockets, then once they're bankrupt the union's pockets, and if they both run out of money the city/state comes last in line for obligation to pay. When cops lose everything when they're convicted for abusing their authority, the bad apples will straighten up fast or quit.

No. Ng is the wife of the SUV driver. Read your link.

It is shocking the cop was tried, even though he was part of the illegal violent gang terrorizing the city/state who tried to murder the family they had assaulted previously. Usually they get a slap on the wrist at most.

I only wish the SUV driver had actually killed a dozen of these thugs with zero charges. They deserve every bit of time they are sentenced to a hundred times over. Every single rider in that group is guilty just as much as if they participated in a drive by shooting as the driver.
With only about a dozen tried, they should each do the time for twenty they won't turn in.
Two years for rioting, assault, attempted gang kidnapping and murder by a cop is hardly justice. His story was pure bullshit, he was 100% complicit in the gang attack and rioting, he was not trying to help. He tried hard to deny any involvement at all, never reporting the incident, then later trying to claim he was officially undercover, so had to participate to maintain his cover. He should be doing twenty to life in gen pop, imo, along with all the others convicted.

To me, the video sorta oversells the difficulty in identifying / escaping from "ridiculous claims", at least in comparison to my personal experiences.

I grew up in a very religious (Christian, Methodist) family / city / state / country. I was questioning the indoctrination at an early age (younger than 10), and rejecting it due to never receiving satisfactory answers to those questions by ~12. Actually, one of the most significant pushes for me was the ultimate reward/punishment thing. Zero consistency and open contradictions between different religions / sects / sources, etc. In symbolic logic, contradictions mean that one of your premises is wrong. Reconsider what you "know" and try again.

With regards to atheism vs (a)gnosticism, technically I'm an agnostic because I don't know with absolute certainty that there is no god / gods out there. However, in practice, I easily and comfortably would rather self-identify as an atheist. Why, when I don't know for certain? Because I also don't know that there isn't an Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Loch Ness Monster, or Leprechauns, yet I don't feel compelled to tell people that I'm "agnostic" about those things. No. They are pretty clearly human-invented bullshit, with readily apparent human motivations behind their invention. Sounds like religion to me.

That's basically Russel's teapot.

Desal can be awesome ... for islands with a high percentage of revenues coming from tourism (lots of Caribbean examples), or for City-States that have high population density and lots of money-making industry (Singapore).

California is *huge*, with lots of revenue coming from agriculture. Not enough tourism per square mile to pass the costs on to visitors, like with Caribbean islands, and not really enough population / commercial density to make it an ideal solution for those uses either.


...On the other hand, economy of scale can't start kicking in until you get some early adopters. By throwing some money at this now, California might be making a smart investment towards having better and cheaper desal options that could fill a higher percentage of their water needs in the future.

Mr. Fantomas, I want you to understand something: we are not subject to city, state or federal regulations -- we are om-KNEE-poe-tent.

Om-KNEE-poe-tent.

That's POE-tent with an om-KNEE in front of it.

Fallout 1 was a technically antiquated VGA (that's right, 640x480, 256 colours) post-apocalyptic turn-based tactical RPG where you could not control you team mates during combat. It was a bit buggy (and so was F2). It was Mad Max, without cars.

And yet.

Fallout is arguably the best world-building work in the history of video games. People are probably going to dispute that, but most other games are built on pre-existing lore or works, or do not have that scope*. Fallout built its world pretty much from scratch, conflating a pre-war 1950's, golden-era, overly-optimistic world-view with the bleak desolation of the nuclear holocaust that ensued (to clarify for those who really know nothing about Fallout: in this universe a nuclear war happened in the 50s**. all that's left is from that era). Beside its content which was plentiful in and of itself, this created a contrasted, yet highly coherent and mature world (and by mature I don't just mean killing friendly NPC, I mean doing Morally Very Bad Things that don't necessarily result in graphic scenes). An open world that you could roam freely, be surprised by a new discovery that you made, and at the same time find these discoveries to fit perfectly with the game's logic. In most large games you just access new areas or are carried by the story, in Fallout you would go "Holy shit I'm in the middle of a city populated by centenarian ghouls!", shortly followed by "ho, of course it's full of ghouls, that's perfectly normal". There are not many games that have this mix of unexpected/logical and dark/humorous content.

Fallout 2 had the same ho-my-God-how-could-they-get-away-with-it VGA engine (so next to zero evolution there), but quadrupled the world map (with a minimum overlap with the one from F1) and brought it fifty or so years forward, expanding the world greatly (there are now rival quasi-city-states, and your action may influence their future), while also building on the first one: some antagonists 'classes' from F1 have now grown their own identity and became NPC, and some characters are still around -- a young character you saved in F1 went back to her settlement, became its leader, built it into a town, and is now in the process of expanding it into a new state...So Fallout 2 is basically the same game, except they did that one important thing: push the game world's boundaries even more. You could never guess what next city would be like, but you could bet it would have some crazy shit in it, and yet somehow still make sense.

That's why many people don't like Fallout 3. It is not in itself a bad game, but comparatively, it's kind of coasting. Also it's too damn easy.

I'm sorry, I got carried away, you were asking if you should play the previous ones? No, you 'should' not. But you could, and for F1 & F2 you would certainly not lose your time if you know what you're getting into. And if you don't, at least go and watch their intro on Youtube, they'll give you the feel of the world.

* Possible contenders in terms of "original video game world": Elder Scrolls (vast, but less original), Deus ex (not as large), Bioshock (same), Final Fantasy (original and vast, but not as complex). Any other idea?
** Technically not the 1950s, but in practice the 50s + a bunch of high tech gizmo.

Certainly you understand that a mayor (or anyone, really) can request that the governor send them in. I didn't see or hear about any of that. It doesn't have to be done in front of a camera, but if it happened it would have been reported that the mayor had requested that the governor send them in...at least that's how it usually happens.

Have they been deployed now? They had not been last night, the last I saw. I can't understand how the city on fire, cops on the run and injured, and thousands of destructive looters on the streets doesn't meet the requirements, that happened early on. Instead of doing something, they announced a curfew for the next (5?) days and basically let the rioters do their thing on day one. Anyone injured is going to have a good case against the police/city/state for not taking action to stop it.
EDIT: I see now, they sent in 160 national guard members this morning (Tuesday) with more to come...zero on Monday or Monday night/Tuesday early morning.

When it's obvious that local law enforcement is outnumbered 10 to 1 or worse, and the "protestors" have become violent rioters attacking police, citizens, cars, and businesses, and lighting buildings and cars on fire, it's time. That was 3pm, and came with plenty of warnings online. There was pretty good indication that there would be exactly that problem, they should have had serious backup at the ready, they did not.

I can't fathom why there wasn't a curfew last night, there was plenty of time to see it was needed. I also can't fathom why the national guard wasn't requested (yes, I'm sticking with that being proper and normal, but not necessary) by the mayor, or why it wasn't sent in by the governor or the fed without being requested.

It really seemed the authorities could have foreseen there would be severe problems (they've been claiming they have serious credible death threats against the entire police force by numerous factions...that's enough right there to call/send in the National Guard yesterday, before the funeral). Waiting for the problems to happen, then allowing it to continue over night is shirking their duty because they're scared, IMO.

EDIT:from http://www.wsj.com/articles/national-guard-deployed-in-baltimore-amid-riots-after-freddie-grays-funeral-1430218096
Protests over Mr. Gray’s death had been largely peaceful until Saturday, when pockets of violence led to 35 arrests and caused minor injuries to six police officers.
Mr. Batts, the police commissioner, said late Monday that 250 to 300 officers assembled in West Baltimore after a social-media message called on high-school students Monday to stage a “purge”—an anarchic protest based on a film called “The Purge” that includes a period of lawlessness—at 3 p.m. starting at the Mondawmin Mall and ending downtown.
Baltimore police also said they received a threat that city gangs would join together to “take down” law-enforcement officers.

I don't know if it's pertinent to the video or not, as I couldn't see plates or anything distinguishing on the vehicle....but ......

A lot of trucking companies will have US drivers drive into Canada and Mexico and drop off their loads, to be picked up by an out of country driver and brought BACK into the US because it's cheaper since Canada and Mexico don't have as many laws for their vehicle standards/tagging/insurance and their labor rates are lower so US drivers can't come close to their rates. And because the US authorities aren't going to be as likely to get anything if they pull them over for violations....so they are more likely to pass them over in favor of in country drivers.

Now, I find that different cities/states ways of handling traffic signage and other things is confusing as someone in country at times. So I can only imagine what kind of shenanigans having a bunch of out of country drivers crossing back and forth across borders and delivering all over the place will lead to. I don't believe non-CDLs are tested for driving in other countries at all....and am unsure of CDLs...I really doubt it.

> "dividing large jurisdictions into many smaller jurisdictions would be a drain on commerce"

I don't think this is necessarily so. Both ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy prospered due to multiplicity of competing city-states. The more the competition between states, the more they will have to lower taxes and make the environment business-friendly. It creates a meritocracy as those states that fail to attract "clients," citizens and businesses will not survive. Small states make it very easy to do business with them, as in for example, Singapore, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Bahamas, etc. Small jurisdictions adapt their laws to make it easy to do business with them from abroad. Only big ones, like the US, make it a hassle to deal with from outside the country.

A free market society is as close to a meritocracy as you can get.

In a free market you can only really do well by providing goods and services that others want.

A common legal framework comes from commonality of culture, not from state control. And cultures adapt to each other for purposes of commerce.

Let commerce operate freely and people will find a way to adapt legal protections for successful and peaceful commerce. A small jurisdiction that "rips off" foreign business partners will find itself very quickly with no business partners and.being small, have a hard time surviving. Out of self preservation they will want to be trustworthy for others to want to do commerce with them.

Actually, to practice road ride, you MUST ride in a group. There is a huge group etiquette and not to mention learning to pass, take over, draft, follow etc can only be learned by actually doing it.

Most road groups like that ride on long stretches away from town. It's not like it's the end of the world to pass them, safely mind you, by waiting a good 30 seconds.

But you're right, roadies are lame. Fat Tire for life!

BTW, should be noted that most cycling experts will attest that most cycle lanes are more dangerous than not having them. Between all the road debris and poor maintenance, it's sometimes the worst place for us to be.

Which means I should also point out, that cycle lanes does not mean we're required by ANY law to use them. They are basically a courtesy for slower solo riders. In Florida they tried passing a requirement law, and it hit a lot of walls due to liability issues. If a cyclist is in the bike lane and there's an obstacle, and they hit it and get hurt, the city/state is completely 100% liable for any injuries or deaths.

I don't disagree that deaths by drunk driving are a real danger, but DUI laws tend to only do two things: 1. Revenue creation for the city/state. 2. Punish people preemptively before they create a victim.

Whatever happened to no victim, no crime?

>> ^Hastur:


I'm sorry to be pedantic here, but I don't see why you get to decide what an abstainer thinks. I think they don't like any of the candidates, so I say they're casting a vote for "none of the above". However you want to count them, the 69 million popular votes cast for Obama in 2008 represents about 23% of the 300 million residents. It's simply not the will of the majority. It's not even the will of a representative sample, being that it excludes everyone under 18 and everyone not a citizen.
In a country where people seem reasonably satisfied with two senators per state, unelected judges, and all kinds of other "transgressions" against one-person-one-vote that occur in a republic, I just think it's misguided to believe that the electoral college is some huge injustice. The US is called the United States for a reason; it's not conceived to work purely as a direct democracy on the federal level, and there's no prior reason to believe that's a more effective form of governance at that scale.


I don't decide, the abstainer decides... Whether it's apathy (my vote doesn't make a difference), indifference (don't care either way) or a genuine protest about a paucity of good candidates, the abstainer chooses (democratically) not to participate. They lose the right to complain (although most will still do so) about who they wind up with, but it's not like they were disqualified against their wishes...

With that in mind, if Obama wins with 69 million votes in a popular election, it is still a majority of people who voted... EC's basically say that even once you take out the abstainers, a person with less than 50% of the actual voters can win office. Abstainers drop out of both systems, the important metric is total votes accrued per candidate vs total number of people who placed votes.

re: the second paragraph, just because problems aren't getting solved doesn't make them not problems. Essentially the apathy to change a flawed system is a democratic expression in itself, that does not make the system fair. And a popular vote for the president (ie. the executive) has little to do with the day to day running of towns/cities/states. A president might be hamstrung by a hostile congress and/or senate and achieve little during his term/s (see Obama and his great plans which were mostly stymied by the legislative branch of the Fed).

A direct popular vote means that instead of appealing to a few niche states, the candidates have to make a broader appeal to the electorate, and are less prone to pork barrel the power brokers of the electorate. It might not ever change but that doesn't mean we can't point out the inequalities in the current system.

subsidizing big business friends that don't need the subsidy or tax break may be the place to look for that

Places like Illinois, California, Wisconsin, and New Jersey are not facing fiscal black-holes because they are paying too much in subsidies to ‘big business friends’. The main problem is that they have promised government workers a gold-plated lifestyle when they only had a copper-plated budget. You could end every ‘big business’ tax break, subsidy, and kickback tomorrow and it would not even make a dent in the budget shortfalls of states like Illinois. The problem is government over-spending. Here it is in black and white. This isn’t ‘left or right’. This isn’t ‘liberal or conservative’. This is just the brutal, harsh, cold reality…

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Illinois_state_budget#Public_Employees

You will notice that Illinois’ budget is NOT dominated by a big line item of ‘subsidies to big business’. The budget is dominated by government spending on unions, union benefits, and entitlements. The only way to ‘fix’ such a budget is to cut the spending. Really. Because for every 12 people living in Illinois, there is one full-time salaried government worker pulling a higher wage, more benefits, and a better retirement than the people paying for him. Such a system is economically impossible to support. And there is plenty of evidence that such systems will ALWAYS collapse because of ineffiency. Greece, Italy, Portugal – entire nations are collapsing because of exactly the same problem. And that problem is the poison of Keynesian economics propping up an impossibly lavish public sector.

That's basically my point, this country has plenty of money, it just does it's that people are greedy as **** so they're going to say that only THIS slice of the pie is available for you guys

You are talking as if the public sector is NOT getting its ‘piece of the pie’…

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/09/14/study-finds-public-employee-compensation-better-than-private-sector.html

http://www.aei.org/docLib/AEI-Working-Paper-on-Federal-Pay-May-2011.pdf

It's just not true, public service unions have nothing to do with the crisis, when you look at the fact that we're in two Wars and spend double what the entire world spends on the armed forces

To say public unions have 'nothing' to do with the economic shortfalls is just factually incorrect. The links above prove it. Illinois has entire sections of its budget dominated by union issues, and union contracts repeatedly block any attempts at reform.

But regardless... Sure. Cut federal defense spending. And while we are at it, we should also cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and every other program. Cut them all. Slash them by 33% across the board. No exceptions. No mercy. But anyone that thinks that the only place we need to cut is ‘defense’ and that’ll fix it all it living in a dream world.

For example – how is cutting defense spending going to help Illinois? Or California? Or New Jersey? Or let’s take it national. Greece’s defense spending was a measley 3.4%. Explain how they would solve their massive budget shortfall by cutting defense. Or the US… Even if you cut US defense spending to zero, our current deficit is over 1.4 trillion. Defense to zero? 700 billion. Only HALF of just the deficit. It doesn’t even touch the 14 trillion in debt the nation already has. Or the further SEVENTY trillion in debt we have to cover all the 'unfunded liabilites' of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

At some point all the prog-libs out there are going to have to accept the facts. You can’t close the massive budget shortfalls that cities, states, and nations have with defense cuts. The problem is not defense. It is not ‘big business’. The problem is that governments are overspending on unsustainable public employee packages and entitlements that have no reasonable expecation of ever being paid for.

*citation needed*

How can you assert that "they surely did a part"? I call BS unless you can provide some historical evidence.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^bobknight33:
Very interesting and worthy of watching. There is more than we don't know than we do know.

More to the point, how do we know what is known is truly known (by knowledge, I might right and true belief). Epistemology is my favorite philosophical topic

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/hpqp" title="member since July 25th, 2009" class="profilelink">hpqp
Many of the Greek city states pledge to a Patron God: Poseidon at Corinth, Hera at Argos, Zeus at Kos, Athene at Sparta, Tegea and Athens. Different parts of the Nile also had the same type of Patronage. It is debatable how much of a role they played in war, but they surely did a part.