Very cool build. One odd thing; Stainless is beautiful; but when it fails, I understand it fails catastrophically and without warning. In some odd ways, regular steel, rusty and all, would be less scary for something which is going to hold up a heavy vehicle when you are crawling under it in an emergency (yes, jackstands but...still)...

@newtboy,

A company cancelling a multi-billion dollar project means multi-billion dollars not spent on the work of the project, that many jobs out of the economy. Exactly the same as a car manufacturer shutting down for a week, by your logic nothing was lost, the company just stopped spending money for a couple days...

I only support the groups right to protest, and not to illegally block roads or borders. I stand by my wish is for their prompt arrest when illegal blocking roads, borders or places of business.

That said, I believe it also wrong of me to fail to point out that our federal government has continually refused to act as I would wish in promptly shutting down illegal blockades. This is the very first instance were they've shown any interest in a prompt police enforced end, and they've in fact jump much further to invoking a declaration of national emergency so they can also target protesters bank accounts directly and without court orders.

An analogy would be someone that supports arresting people for possession of marijuana. The government then proceeds to only selectively enforce that law, say only acting to make arrests when people are a particular creed or color. It's perfectly consistent to believe the government arrests are wrong and unfair, and to NOT support them, while at the same time still believing the idea of the rule applied fairly being a good idea.

One side is about what I think the line for protest should be:
-I believe the right to protest should be independent of creed or belief, and should only be restricted when actions taken are illegal.(Ideally illegal being defined as impeding on freedoms of others)

By that, the convoy blockade of border or streets should have led to immediate arrests.

In the eye of fairness though, the last two years have already seen at a minimum 3 major protests, that included illegal blockades of work sites and railways and those were ALL allowed to run for weeks and in 2 cases months. The government of the day even tripped over themselves to message their support for the overall causes of the protestors.

In that light, it's wrong to simply ignore the fact that the first protest that is likely to vote conservative is the ONLY one where the government immediately condemns everything about them and feels compelled to intervene urgently.

Churches were literally burning last summer, and our PM's public statements spent most of their time sympathizing with the anger before pleading that burning churches isn't helpful. Where'd all that compassion for folks that you disagree with go when it meant a small number of downtown Ottawa business shutdown and horns honking go. Now our PM invokes terrorizing of the populace.

Trudeau's actions have been distressingly similar to Trump's as the division in our country grows, he's using his words to reach out to the extreme end of his side of the aisle, while tossing gasoline and vitriol onto his opposition. It's making things worse in the worst possible way when we need leaders uniting instead of stoking further division.

@newtboy,

??? How exactly do you figure cancellation of a billion dollar project is no where near the economic cost of blocking a border crossing for awhile at similar cost???

I'll tell you what the difference in Canada is, the dollars lost from the pipeline were being lost in Alberta, the dollars lost from the convoy were in Ontario. In Canada we've got a pretty sad history of if it happens to western provinces, it doesn't matter. Much like the urban/rural divide in the US. The response is pretty similar as well, the urban side just laughs at the loss of the stupid backwards country folk. When the same thing hits them though it's a national emergency.

I've tried pointing out costs and your just rejecting them out of hand , while whole hog accepting the highest estimates for the convoy cost as gospel truth. Like the literally a company walking from a multi-billion dollar project and you insist that's nothing and the days the border was blockaded clearly must have cost more...


For years now I've insisted that illegal blockades of worksites, job sites or trade routes should be met with prompt arrests and re-opening of the route/site.

Until January of this year, the entirety of the Liberal minded half of my country(Ottawa centric) called that authoritarian, repressive and were against the notion. Now I find myself in a weird spot, as suddenly that same crowd DOES want that action and more to be taken promptly. And the conservative crowd that agreed with me before is now kinda walking things back.

I read it, nowhere did it give an estimate of what those protests cost, and it indicated there were multiple other routes for the oil to travel so didn’t even disrupt oil transportation completely, much less ALL commerce.
And it was about pipelines crossing their (or protected) land it seems, a far cry from the truckers. Yes, the validity and severity of your cause matters, just like the damage you do and to whom.

Billions worth of goods stuck temporarily…but no actual estimated cost for their delay, this cost billions in lost production and salaries that won’t be recovered.

That protest was targeted against the offending entity, not the populace. I have no issue with natives blockading their own land and preserves that feed those reservations against permanent destruction for some private profits. That’s a far cry from the truckers blockading the main border crossing for industry and tourism because they’re afraid to get a poke.

The numbers I saw were special. Hundreds of millions-billions lost (your billions in goods delayed doesn’t have a price tag). That was before the bridge was reopened. These protesters weren’t satisfied with that damage and continued to close your capitol with ever shifting demands. Since regular measures had failed, I support emergency measures, seizure, even forfeiture after trial, of any funds or tools used.

Perhaps they became only as localized (but certainly not as targeted, and localized in a city not the unpopulated country), but they had already done exponentially more damage and showed no sign of end or even demands.

Let’s ignore someone personally supporting a grass roots movement outside their country and control, please. I find it a red herring totally unconnected to how he governs.

Yes, some Floyd protests were more violent than the truckers, some weren’t, remember how they were all violently smashed, tear gassed, rubber bullets galore, run through with police trucks, unmarked vans pulling up and grabbing people crossing the streets, unmarked vans driving through towns full of police shooting tear gas at any moving body, etc? Don’t pretend the response is similar.
Also, the Floyd protests lasted a weekend in most cases (occupy Portland really wasn’t about Floyd) and went elsewhere the next march. They weren’t closing down one area for weeks intent on staying. Most lasted hours and were peaceful until police became violent, despite right wing media’s fear-mongering.

I think you’re stretching, putting on blinders, and doing insane mental gymnastics to pretend you believe that. From the actual damage caused, the idiotic reasoning behind it (quickly abandoned), the extremely uncanadianness of the self centered far right rally masquerading as protest, the international damage, the foreign involvement from planning to funding, these are unique “protests” in numerous ways.

Their idiotic beliefs are only one of many distinctions I’ve pointed out, and as I mentioned only color public opinion and the amount of patience they’re given by the public, not how the government treats them. It’s not at all honest for you to pretend that’s the entirety of my position…it’s very Bob of you, and has lost some of my respect.

Pipelines crossing sovereign territory or preserves = bad so blockading those areas to force pipeline movement = good….oil companies didn’t truck the oil out, they increased shipments from other areas by rail. Read the article you linked.

Native cultures and governments are different. Pretending an elected board for a reservation works for the people is naive in the extreme. Read about politics on reservations, who funds the people that get elected in most cases, what happens to opposing candidates…saying the board signed off while so many showed up to fight against it seems a bit at odds, no? Like maybe the board members were bribed, had ties with the oil industry, or other conflicts….just maybe?

And again, those protests didn’t cost a fraction what the truckers did from my research. Delaying delivery of a billion in goods isn’t the same as costing a billion in losses. Neither is delaying or cancelling a billion dollar project. Be adult please….don’t make such specious arguments ….please. They don’t slip by, and they make me think you are being disingenuous.

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.

@newtboy,

Finally we're talking about my Canada .

I'm agreed with calling 90% of what the convoy and truckers are protesting as being misguided, ill informed or flat out wrong. That however shouldn't be what the right to protest is based upon.

The extent of the protestors illegal activity seems to have been blocking of roadways and borders. Which in Canada isn't exactly new:
-Blockading of roads to logging work sites to "protect old growth forest"
-Blockading of roads pipeline construction sites
-Blockading of transportation highways and railroads

In the past 2 years alone, those various sites have seen blockades ranging from weeks to months. In virtually every single one of those instances the Liberal government went out to meet and negotiate with the protestors while allowing them to continue for weeks to months. In one of the biggest protests Trudeau himself went to meet with the groups in person. Trudeau has a video of himself praising the farmer convoy and blockades in India, declaring his government will always defend the right of groups to protest.(those groups blocked multiple border crossings)

This time though, Trudeau started out with insulting, ridiculing and belittling the protestors. Within the first day of the protests, politicians and our national news corp in CBC were demanding an immediate end to the protests.

The protests that have seen comparable zero violence to the protests in the US in support of Floyd(which I support), where condemned repeatedly by the CBC and Trudeau as terrorizing the populace and inciting violence. For reference, Trudeau remained steadfast in support of the Floyd protestors right to protest.

The federal government essentially tried insults and ridicule to try and end this protest though, and when that didn't work they invoked a national emergency measures act that requires both:
-A threat to Canada's sovereignty
-A threat that can not be addressed by any other laws or means

The government then proceeded to empower themselves to not merely arrest protestors, but to freeze/seize the bank accounts of anyone considered to be supporting the protest, with no court oversight required.

The difference in how protestors are treated based upon what it is they are protesting is alarming and should be a red flag for anyone and everyone.

For reference, while these protests were going on, a pipeline worksite in BC that has been continually shut down by protests for the last several years was attacked in the night by a mob wielding machetes and axes. The workers and security were chased off and millions in damages were done to the site afterwards. Trudeau didn't feel the need to even address the incident though because he was to busy villianizing the convoy. The CBC media buried the incident under local BC news, and downplayed it as an 'alleged' incident, despite RCMP having responded and even having had an officer injured in the incident. CBC also emphasized there wasn't any verified connection to the ongoing protests against the pipeline...

When you look at the narrative, despite my disagreeing with the vast majority of what the convoy is wanting to say, I am disgusted by the attempt to remove their right to say it and everyone wanting to support a strong democracy with the right protest should feel the same.

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" ?

I thought it was funny until the fire department showed up.

That's not cool, pulling them away from an actual emergency (or from cooking chili and playing with their Dalmatian and sliding down their pole).

*quality engineering, sadly only required because the original contractors cut corners and no regulators caught it before it failed. IMO, the companies that built it should be paying that $1 billion price tag. They’re the ones who used low quality concrete, left out literally tons of rebar, and decided a soft dirt emergency spillway on an earthen dam was good enough.

This is why we need a $3 trillion infrastructure bill. Really, we likely need ten times that. We haven’t invested in infrastructure for decades.
Had there been regular real inspections they likely would have noticed the problem when repairs only cost $100 million. There are literally thousands of dams in America with similar, or worse issues, and no money to even properly inspect them, much less fix them before they fail. Waiting for them to fail costs at least 10 times what pre-failure repairs cost, but we only care after they fail.

Thanks Manchin, our nation is crumbling thanks to you joining the obstructionist Republican Party, someone needs to burn his yacht with his family on board while he watches, then burn him in his mansion and distribute his hundreds of millions back to the state he stole it from.
Edit: Btw- Goldman Sacks has revised their 2022 estimate for gdp based on Manchin killing the infrastructure bill from over 3% to barely 2%. >$200 BILLION just gone with his vote against America. This as Manchin says “the Democrats aught to push me into the Republican Party”, but you’re already there, Joe. They aught to deny you funding and primary you, but not hand another seat to Republicans as you suggest, traitor. They really aught to strip you of all assignments, all funding, all security, and start broadcasting your location 24/7 until you are gone. If you ask me, they aught to drop you feet first in a slow meat grinder and make a day of it, televised. Then they aught to forced feed you to your family before taking every dime they have and denying them any assistance from anywhere. That’s what aught to happen to skidmarks like you.

The camera guy obviously bought himself an old police car, probably had emergency lights on, drawing attention to himself.

People rubbernecking the "cop car" at the side of the road and missing the dark coloured wrecks.

I understand people don't like being good samaritans by default, but it would have been smart (and nice) to just leave your car in front of the cars with your emergency lights on and just wait at the side of the road. Even better if it's a big rig or a large truck. You'd likely prevent more cars piling up for the price of your patience and time. And, depending on how good you are at Frogger, your safety.

What did I tell you!?! States rights! Suckers! Bwaaaahahahahaha!

“I am outraged by yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Texas’s ban on most abortion services to remain in place,” Newsom said. “But if states can now shield their laws from review by the federal courts that compare assault weapons to Swiss Army knives, then California will use that authority to protect people’s lives, where Texas used it to put women in harm’s way.” Newsom said he will work with his staff, the Legislature and California Attorney General Rob Bonta to craft a bill that would let citizens sue anyone who “manufactures, distributes, or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts” in California. They could seek damages of at least $10,000 per violation plus costs and attorney’s fees, Newsom said.

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article256524466.html#storylink=cpy

I told you this would happen.

BTW, the Presidential coup Plan PowerPoint handed over by Meadows pretty much obliterated the lies that 1) it wasn’t an attempted coup 2) it wasn’t expected 3) it wasn’t planned 4) it wasn’t Trump supporters being violent and 5) the white house wasn’t directly involved.
Contemporaneous records of the planning, including texts to organizers and militias claiming that the national guard is poised to protect Trump rioters from arrest or attack….as if any non cultist needed more evidence beyond the live broadcast of the coup attempt, but now there’s publicly available physical documentation/evidence directly from the highest levels in Trump’s cabinet of their own direct involvement in the planning to overturn the certified election by fraud and force.….which I’m certain you will dismiss as fake news with no hint of evidence because your little brain can’t handle facts.

the PowerPoint laid out a plan to effectively use the military to steal the election outright, undeniably. That’s treason.

The plan was to use the military, specifically the national guard, declare a state of emergency, throw out most of the ballots from the 2020 election, and then have the national guard run by people that Trump handpicked himself count only the paper ballots that they deemed to be legitimate. essentially giving them a free ride to throw out any ballots that were for Biden. Only count the ones for Trump and boom, Donald Trump gets all the electoral votes. That's how the coup was supposed to happen. So again, these lawmakers were briefed on this two days before the capital riot. So they knew exactly what Donald Trump was trying to do, what his administration, what his friends, what his allies had suggested to him. There is no indication at all that one of these lawmakers alerted the department of justice, the FBI, local authorities, anyone, they had this information and they did nothing with it.

Any official who knew and didn’t report to the FBI or DOJ should be removed immediately, get the firing squad, and their entire estate (and their spouses estate, and minor children’s estates) seized. That’s a lot of Republicans.

Also, Fox hosts, the same ones who now claim Jan 6 was a peaceful picnic, families calmly touring congress, and it was BLM and ANTIFA and the FBI that perpetrated the violence that didn’t happen, were all frantically trying to reach the president to stop the attack on January 6, outraged he wouldn’t tell his supporters to stop attacking America, explaining how not acting to stop the coup was destroying his legacy and theirs.

The California state water board just announced that farms will receive 0% of their allocation in 2022 from state run sources in both the earliest and lowest allocation announcement.

ZERO. Only the bare minimum for sanitary conditions in many otherwise completely dry communities, up to 55gal per day per person if they’re granted emergency access.

This is on top of the major cuts from sources like the Colorado river, already cut completely from Arizona and Nevada farmers, and with California aquifers rapidly running dry.
California is by far the largest food producing state, producing over 13% of all food in America (by value) and nearly 100% of many staple foods and beverages. Along with the near complete halt to farming in neighboring states, it’s impossible to imagine this won’t dramatically affect both food costs and quality in America for the foreseeable future.

This is inflation due to predicted climate change, @bobknight33 , in case you need someone to blame…and since inflation is suddenly an issue for you. Biden asked for funding to address it, and got not one Republican vote. Clearly inflation isn’t important to Republican representatives unless it’s inflation of yacht prices.

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".

Nah, he was illegally "defending" property that didn't belong to him (silly Wisconsin values human lives [even 'thugs'] more than used cars).

He was illegally practicing medicine by soliciting people and asking if they needed first aid. WI code allows for unlicensed medicine practice in an emergency ONLY (how do we know he was offering services absent an emergency? He was turned down repeatedly, aka there was no emergency where someone needed forst aid). Walking around offering first aid services is illegal without a license. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/448/ii/03

He illegally purchased a firearm through his uncle because he was under age.

He illegally was out past curfew for people 17 and under.

Gee, given all his lack of training and experience and maturity, I wonder why these things are illegal? Oh right, because someone so immature and ignorant of the law or disobedient of the law is more likely to be dangerous and kill someone when it's not warranted.


====

You can't escape the fact that WI law dictates that if he's already doing anything illegal he MUST exhaust all other reasonable options BEFORE using deadly force.

HE DID NOT DO SO. Someone fired a round in the air, someone lunged, and he killed em. Tangeal witnesses hear "he shot someone!" And give chase. He kills another. Why no empathy for the people who suspected he was a "thug" and tried to vigilante justice him?



And
And
And
ANOTHER THING
It's really ugly to witness the duality of your flippant attitude towards people trying to legally claim asylum 'they broke the law' because they went to the wrong entry point because they speak fucking Portuguese and don't always know exactly where they are out in the Mexico desert.
Vs the bizarre justification you're trying to make for this kid who 'broke the law' in, I contend, a series of more serious laws that warrant criminal liability.

If this kid gets off I hope he moves to NC and you run into him once he gets his highway patrol car. You can have him.

I'll take the family in Afghanistan I'm trying to help who, you know, don't get off on killing people.