I love the show overall. Krill bothered me a little bit though, because it felt a bit too MacFarlane-y to me.

Taking The Orville as an homage to Trek (TNG specifically?), it struck me that any Trek character that would be asked to infiltrate a hostile alien group would take that task very very seriously. They'd learn enough culture / language / etc. to pass cursory examination, and they'd know to limit attention being placed on them as much as possible. That's just sort of taking your fiction/material seriously.

The Orville's (Captain!) Mercer and Malloy were basically just screwing around on their infiltration mission though. They knew very little going in, which is somewhat excusable since in there is solid story justification for it in that they are doing very early recon because humans in general know very little about the Krill. BUT, if that is the case then it would be doubly important to just try to fade into the background and not draw attention, and they didn't really do that at all. Long, "funny" answers to questions instead of being terse, not trying to blend in behavior-wise, etc.

I don't mind MacFarlane's humor, and even think that it adds a little something that is very often lacking in Trek. But only when it is story-appropriate, and it kind of jarred me out of the moment on that particular episode. It was still an OK episode, but that just hurt the immersion for me, I guess.

And now she's a half million richer. http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/10/31/utah-nurse-arrested-for-blocking-cop-from-drawing-blood-from-patient-receives-500000-settlement/

I would have said this is why we build things off diagrams (plans, schematics, etc) rather than words.

I'm in the process of designing/building* a house and I very nearly made pretty much the exact same mistake (essentially assuming a 0 thickness of the walls).

* well, I am paying for other people to build it, but I am sending my very bad drawings to an architect who helpfully points out things like "the house will collapse if you remove that wall".

No.
You don't fight racism by being racist.
You don't fight sexism by being sexist.
It's not about ego, it's about fairness and honesty and civil behaviour. Those who fight against ignorant hatred with ignorant hatred are also my enemy....no matter what their cause.
What this does is legitimize body shaming. This means the douchbags you decry now can, with impunity, demean women's bodies all they like, and when confronted about their sexist douchebaggery, they can just say "Sam made it OK to demean
your (insert demeaning adjectives here) vagina".

Also, when you're trying to draw people to your side of a debate, it's never a good idea to blatantly insult them. Not all men are abusers, but Sam seems to think we all deserve to be treated as if we are. Had she stopped at :45, I would stand with her. Because she decided it was more important to insult men than instruct them, I now stand against her.

Edit: Finally, this won't create fewer harassed women, it's more likely to create more by giving the predisposed to abuse an excuse and validation of their methods.
This is why I'm barred from team sports...I call fouls on my own team.

I think we could draw from this. How about all US citizens that want to purchase a gun have to take a comprehensive exam that test knowledge not just of the 2nd amendment, but also the entire constitution, branches of government, federalist vs anti-federalist arguments, all supreme court cases directly involving challenges to the 2nd amendment, etc. Throw in a federally mandated mental health check from an accredited shrink and voila, guns are taken from the hands of those fighting erectile disfunction and put in the hands of those that actually care about the nation.

PS: don't go off on a tangent about how then only the bad guys will have guns and then we'll all get murdered like, all the time. That's a bs argument and you know it.

We don't stand for that kind of crap up here in Canada...

Jokes aside, we make exceptions to free speech and hate speech is something you CAN be prosecuted for. A teacher that was trying to teach holocaust denial was convicted for it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_Canada

My 2 cents, punching a nazi is more wrong because of the vigilante aspect of it than in an absolute moral sense. IMO the state should have laws about support for or membership with known criminal, terrorist or hate groups. Nazi's and KKK for starters, Westboro baptists and Saudi Wahabiism too depending on where society wants to draw the line. Morally though, I have no problems with declaring that debating merits of fascism and even mistreatment of Nazi germany historically is free speech and protected, but at the same time wearing a swastika on your arm or a pillow case on your head while marching in the streets to support your 'cause' should see you convicted and sentenced.

Good and interesting stuff in there.

I think Sharpe is right that this escalation happened for a pretty silly reason (known blowhard and mouth-runner Trump runs his mouth, news at 11), and the NFL vs Trump skirmish detracts from the root issue that Kaepernick was trying to bring attention to a year ago.

On the other hand, I kinda agree with the other guy that maybe bringing attention to that skirmish will also bring attention to the original issue, so maybe it is a net good thing.

Yeah, the owners aren't going to give a fuck until shit lands on their doorstep. Yeah, calling people a "son of a bitch" rates at about a 2 on the "Trump just said what?!" scale. Sharpe's cynicism about how we got here makes a lot of sense.

I didn't care about Kaepernick sitting for the anthem a year ago enough to pay attention. I wasn't against it. I didn't think the was trying to "disrespect" the flag / soldiers / country / whatever, but I wouldn't have really cared if he was. Aren't people allowed to be anti-war? Opposed to mindless nationalism?


Fast forward to today. The billionaires that Sharpe mentioned who donated big sums to Trump's campaign finally get upset when his shit lands on their door. His (comparably tame) "Twitter attacks" on the NFL kick off a dog-and-pony show that may possibly have been cunningly intended to distract from the much more weighty stuff that Kaepernick was trying to draw attention to in the first place, but I seriously doubt that Trump is that clever.

However, something good did come of it: I went from "meh" to paying attention. I went back and listened to Kaepernick's interview about why he was sitting for the anthem from a year ago (embed below), which I didn't watch at the time. I heard a rational, honest, and eloquent young man calmly and clearly explain what he was doing and why he was doing it.

He saw injustice, and wanted to do something about it. He had access to a soapbox that very very few of the people on the receiving end of that injustice have. So, he made up his own mind to do something to try to get conversations started. He was surprised and confused that anyone would see his actions as disrespectful towards soldiers / military, and was later persuaded (by a Navy SEAL) to kneel as opposed to sit for the anthem in an effort to make that more clear.

He seemed aware that he can only control what he does -- not how people will try to spin it, and not how people may react to it. And he also clearly accepted that his actions could have consequences, and that he didn't want to rope anybody else in to acting with him unless they were prepared to accept those consequences also.

So, yeah. Some good came of this recent escalation, even if it came for the wrong reasons. Because some of the people that get drawn in to the dog-and-pony show might decide that they care enough to go back and take a deeper look at it, like I did. And when they look deeper, they're going to see Trump's standard, everyday twitter nonsense on one side compared to a lot of more rational stuff like, say, perhaps actually listening to words of the person that got the ball rolling on the other side (Kaepernick, and others). I like the way that scale balances out.

The driver has no idea what he's getting into when the cop is starting by violating procedure and using his weapon to pull over a car. The driver wants to go home after driving, see his family, make it to another day of life. If he feels he needs to shoot that cop drawing down on him over nothing to make sure he's safe...do it.
And I and others will stand here and support him for self defense while you have a conniption fit.

The only one making things unsafe here is the cop, who has made at least one if not more people unsupportive of other cops who may be doing their job properly and not with irrational or controlling fear causing them to put others lives in danger. If fear is the controlling factor in his actions, he absolutely should not be a law officer.

He will stand there while he receives dozens of complaints on his permanent record stopping him from ever being promoted, and while his trial for shooting an innocent person moves forward, and while his family leaves him due to the numerous death threats they receive, while he goes into hiding, and while normal citizens ridicule him daily for being exposed as a violent snowflake, etc.......I'm not sure what you're point was with that statement.

So it gets worse.

The person they wanted to draw the blood from is a reserve police officer himself, was not even a suspect in the crash, and only got involved in the crash because the other driver was a suspect fleeing from pursuit by other officers.

So they didn't even need the blood really.

Both the detective and his supervisor are suspended on admin review because the detective said he called his supervisor and was told to arrest the nurse.

Official statements and apologies from Mayor and Chief of Police: http://www.slcmayor.com/pressreleases/2017/9/1/statements-from-mayor-jackie-biskupski-and-salt-lake-city-police-department-chief-mike-brown-on-inciden
t-at-university-of-utah-medical-center

Two points followed by some general discussion but w/e...

I didn't try to justify his actions in the slightest, he was wrong to draw the gun and to discharge it. I understand why someone might do something if he sees an idiot with the worlds worst flamethrower trying to set people on fire, but I do not condone it.

I also said that he was drawing the gun to defend others, didn't try to make out that he was being attacked personally. Defense of others is a legitimate reason to step in to a situation (even if, again, I think the amount of force he decided to deploy was way over the top and illegal...).

No, neither side should show up armed, that is how far this whole shit show has barreled down the hill. And yes, I would be fairly certain that a bunch of white supremacists would be armed, so if I did show up to protest against them, I sure as fuck wouldn't be attacking them first and giving them reasons to lose their head and draw down on me... They certainly are the types that gravitate to gun ownership, rebellion against the government etc, I don't think that's a huge surprise to anyone right?

One of the first rules about fighting I learned way back in the day when I worked security is that it's fucking stupid to launch violence against anyone that you do not explicitly need to because you have no idea what they can do, what they have access to etc. If you can resolve a situation with words rather than fists (or more), do so at every opportunity. The idiots showing up to 'punch nazis' really have no concept of this. They show up to 'take nazi scalps' and expect no repercussions?

And yeah, you clearly put this up as a 'left did something bad, OMG THE RIGHT DID SOMETHING WORSE', the entire screed describing the vid only mentions the pyro once as a minor note in a story about the evil armed racist. You're about as fair and balanced as Faux and it's bitchy little stunts like this shit which will always put you exactly where BK33 says you are.

Fucking amazing, you're moronic enough to make Bob right. Kudos...

But I still believe that it's more important for people to see what happened than to suppress it, so the vote stands (petty would be taking it away now you've insulted me ; ).

Two points.

Completely unreasonable to discharge a firearm in to a crowd like that, although I'm fairly sure that guy is drilled enough that he could accurately shoot someone at that range if he really wanted to. The guy has been charged, correct? Entirely appropriate.

Second, you notice the missiles incoming, the dickhead trying to turn a spray can in to a flamethrower? Do you honestly think these were isolated events? Do you not think that people prepared for this? Or does every person carry aerosols and lighters just for shits and giggles?

The pretext of antifa is that assaulting people is fine because it's proactive self defense, right? If it's okay to physically attack people for thinking and saying offensive things, then why the fuck is anyone complaining about someone drawing a weapon to defend others against an actual attack??? /grin

That's the problem when you justify unreasonable actions on one side, whether you like it or not you justify unreasonable actions for everyone.

And just to ice the cake, if you're dumb enough to show up with sticks/stones/cans of spray against the the white right who are well known to be armed to the motherfucking teeth, you might want to avoid poking the bear.

ps. Upvoted your vid because it should be seen (the more documentation about the whole shebang the better) and because I'm not a petty cunt... X D

And blacks in the west start miles ahead of blacks in Africa. So where do we draw the line? Equal opportunity and equal treatment are the very best we should be able to expect in this world because as soon as you put your thumb on the scales, one way or another, someone is going to feel cheated. That will, in turn, become resentment, fair or not, and the cycle will continue.

You trace back every persons family tree and you'll end up with both ancestors that had the boot on their neck, and ancestors who wore the boot. If we carry the sum of the sins of our forebears, then there is not a single person alive today that isn't guilty of some horrid event. A million monkeys with a million typewriters will eventually write Mein Kampf...

I agree with most of what the Governator said, and noted the things he didn't say eg. he didn't say it's okay to physically attack someone expressing a hateful idea.

More importantly, I think Daryl Davis has the solution:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kkk-klu-klux-klan-members-leave-black-man-racism-friends-convince-persuade-chicago-daryl-davis-a74895
96.html

Or Martin Luther King: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Which is why you don't destroy history, you don't shout down people expressing hateful ideas, you do not dehumanise them and in not doing that, you do not become the monster you are trying to fight.

So, @bobknight33 how was the weather in Charlottesville?

You're still avoiding answering any questions, I see. Easier to hide like a coward rather than face the fact you might be wrong I guess.

Do YOU support the marchers? Are you a member of any of the groups represented there? Clearly you support some racists, I'm just checking how far it goes. Where do you draw the line? Are Nazi slogans okay so long as you're on the right side of the barbed wire?

The extreme right IS growing it's base off the people the extreme left are alienating. It is NOT enough for the left to just hope to similarly grow it's base by those alienated by the extreme right. That didn't work so well for Hillary. "Growing it's base" is code for gaining power and support, aka more people that can act and vote. The Dems need to do more to draw in extra voters, the current trend of doubling down harder in condemnation of anyone that didn't vote Hillary is exactly the opposite of what they need to be doing. That's chasing away voters that need to be won over. Go back to those same voters with some of the olive branches I mentioned, or come up with some others, but at least make a blasted effort to grow your base out too or else your shrinking your own base while the right extremists are growing...