I was riding the bus in Paris, and all the streets in Paris were designed for anorexic horses in the 17th century and fuck you for trying to fit your fat-ass 21st century car down them -- much less a huge city bus. So we're squeezing down this street and we come across a moving truck blocking the road. I, as an America, am awaiting horns, swearing and automatic weapon fire. Instead, the driver stops the bus, turns it off, hops off and goes and has a smoke. The people in the bus were being totally French about it: not a murmur of complaint.

Two years later, I was in Canada and some dude cut off a taxi at a light. Out hops the taxi driver to confront the driver of the other car. I start scanning for my exit once pop-pop-pop / muthafuckas drop gets underway. Instead of a spray of bullets, or at least an amusing fist fight, the taxi driver shakes his finger at the guy and gets back in his cab.

I live in mortal fear of getting shot on the road in America over some stupid bullshit (this actually happened to me once: some asshole in Cupertino cranked off three rounds at my car when I accidentally cut him off). It's so amazing to visit civilized countries and see people acting decent and calm to each other.

I gotta squirrel story.
So when I lived in Mountain View, for Christ only knows what reason, the idiots in charge of power put this big-ass transformer thing on the corner of my property. The thing hummed with menace and I knew that shit wasn't right. But I didn't worry none because there was a big green metal cover over it that provided the same protection against horrendous death that a box of Kleenex would have provided the World Trade Center on 9/11.
One day, I'm standing on my balcony and drinking a beer. I mighta been stoned, too, only there's no 'mighta' that day. I'm watching the whorehouse across the street (really) and generally buzzing when I see a squirrel on the lawn. I hate squirrels. A motherfucking squirrel ate my bar fridge and fucked me outta the $50 I was selling it for on Craigslist (really).
Anyway, I got this longneck of Bud in hand and I'm working out whether I can brain the goddamn rodent with it when the neighbor's cat come rippin' ass from under the balcony and goes after Skippy.
Well here's some amusement!
The squirrel is running for it's pointless life and the cat is banking like a F-16 chasing an Iraqi MIG and I've already got $10 down on the kitty with a $3 over/under. I already know how this was gonna end and I was rootin' for it every step of the way.
Only it didn't.
The goddamn squirrel found the ONE way to get under that green metal cover I mentioned previously. The cat stops in amazement and I'm all pissed because I've been gypped outta Wild Kingdom's money shot.
A second later there's a flash like Ivy Mike going off from under the cover and an a concussive BOOM!! The fucking cover blasts off like a Space-X project gone horribly wrong -- or, in this case, delightfully right.
The cat jumps like 5 feet in the air and an arc of turds flies outta its butt, the cover returns to earth as a traffic hazard in the middle of Latham St., and the squirrel is basically vaporized. And now I'm the happiest motherfucker in Mountain View because dude, that shit was AWESOME!
I call out, "Babe! You won't believe what just happened!" 'cause you gotta totally share shit like that.
Then I realized everything is TOTALLY silent, like Little House on the Fucking Prairie silent.
"The power's out," my wife responds.
And it STAYED out for like two goddamn days while the putzes from the power company had to rewire pretty much everything that blew up.
Honey Badger didn't give a shit because Honey Badger'd copped an oz right before this shit happened. And as Fat Freddy taught us, "Dope will get you through times of no power better than power will get you through times of no dope." Or some shit like that. I dunno, I'm totally fucking baked right now.

This is a "Thuggish morons vs thug" kind of situation though. It wouldn't surprise me one bit that the thug would open fire in multiple directions THEN ram away out of the scene.

That would be the easiest/laziest response though. I was honestly being unfair to the cop with the above statement if I left it at that.

It seems the cop was just honestly looking into a reported illegal racing/gathering situation. Situation quickly got out of hand and got ganged up by those cop-hating (or not cop-fearing at least) kids. Legitimately panicked, the cop wanted to extricate him/herself out of the situation. What to do? Ram out a bloody path, putting people's body or even life in danger be damned, of course.

You've got to understand that the cop simply WOULD NOT be thinking any of those people are "innocents" and act discriminately, feeling they "deserve protection."

Cops feel so empowered these days they can do anything and feel justified to do anything without risk of consequences for themselves. The whole Law Enforcement and Justice Department "brotherhood" is behind every cops. With that mentality, why would this particular cop NOT do what he/she did? Why would this cop care what happened to the people that got rammed through? I can imagine they would do all these things.

Besides, the cop have to assume some of them came packing guns. It WAS a legitimately dicey situation he/she got into...

The lawsuits.... anyone want to bet what portion of the blame the cop will get? I bet the verdict when the gavel drops is a big fat ZERO.

Want to blame the cop? Why not blame the System first? Since it's all too easy under America's law enforcement system to train even an honest-to-goodness, idealistic person to go from "I want to Protect & Serve" to "I can kill/main anyone for looking at me funny and call it police work."

This is just not "Shocking!" anymore. In fact, I don't expect any less these days of police encounters. Cynical? Of course, But how can I NOT be?

Makes me wonder how much money he had on Jumping Gee Hosa Fat.

Bob's been incognito, wonder if he is wallowing in self pity like the fat bloated tRump turtle.

I'm overweight as well. 5'6" @ 150lbs. Gained 3 lbs over the past 8-9 mths. I got asthma since childhood. Got much better in my 20-30s. I'm in my late 40s and I have a take the steroidal puffer every night. It's very hard, and not that safe, to be active during these Covid-19 "new normal" times when everything is partially closed (gym's closed and I must wear a mask outside, instantly trigger the short-of-breath for me. So I gave up going outdoor except grocery).

You're absolutely right. I don't get the fat pride thing either. It's not OK health-wise no matter what angle you look at it. Personal "freedom" choice, genetic, physical/mental disease... the latter 2 causes are not shameful, and 99% constantly struggle with it in different degrees of difficulty. But "choice"? That I can't respect.

I think it's on point.
Doctors rarely tell people forcefully enough that being obese will kill them and make their lives miserable and prone to disease. Not being obese helps your health in every way.

No, it's not a guarantee you won't get sick, a seatbelt isn't a guarantee you won't get hurt in a crash, but it absolutely helps your odds of not being hurt and minimizes injuries when you are.

No, being healthy doesn't mean you can't spread disease, but being health conscious means you would know better, and know how to be safer. If you weigh 500 lbs it's clear health isn't your priority with very few exceptions.

Bill has been saying this for decades....it's like he's suggesting fireproof surrounds for wood stoves. Just because people are burning their houses down in huge numbers now is not a reason to stop advocating for safety, it's more reason to be louder.

Most doctors don't. They nudge, hint, maybe say "if you eat more baby, we're going to have to take your foot" (Simpson's), they don't tell 65 year old women "you weigh 350 lbs, you need to drop 200 lbs now or you're going to die and we aren't going to waste money and effort treating you if you won't lose weight". They should, imo.

Being overweight should be treated like smoking, it's a choice for 99%+, and that choice effects others. Covid proves it, many can't be treated at all because so many have horrible illness, far worse than most other thinner and healthier countries.

Fat acceptance, even fat pride is a thing, there are millions who claim they're obese and healthy, and it's fine to be obese. Take Lizzo as an example.

Full disclosure, I'm not obese, but I am overweight at 5'9" 170lbs.

My body's doing it wrong.
From age 16-35 I drank nothing but Coke unless it wasn't available (Coke, no Pepsi). Between 5-12 a day! Somehow I remained rail thin (probably cycling). Around 35 I decided that was going to kill me if I didn't stop, so I did and switched to lower calorie natural sodas, juices, coffee, and teas.....now I'm fat. Go figure.
At least I didn't give myself diabetes....although I can't explain how.

*promote a *quality reminder of a serving size

it's a shame that when president said he has tested positive for covid, the response for many was "what's his angle?"

not surprising for either incident or for the orangettes' "don't be mean to him" (like hill folk have no sense of irony) but this was...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/schadenfreude-20201002.

can say haven't found much schandenfreude in his deadly hubris or in his precarious situation but did find some dark humor from this...

https://www.betootaadvocate.com/world-news/fears-grow-for-trumps-ability-to-overcome-covid-19-as-an-obese-elderly-low-income-american1/

...that is fair game.

rather he loses the presidency, and recovers enough to face his trials, true place in history, and witness the steep fall off of the fat-head chasers. take his rightful place among the legacies of paterno, cosby and epstein.

Assault weapon bans. Effectively making illegal the most common rifle in the country (ar15) - even though it's statistically tiny in terms of gun killings.
(~450 people killed per year with all forms of rifle. Only some of that is ar15. That's the ~same amount of people as what die yearly from falling out of bed.)

Suppressor bans. Illegalizing an item that has been statistically as good as nonexistent in firearm crimes.

Banning DIY non-commercial firearms. Illegalizing firearms that have been statistically as good as nonexistent in firearm crimes.

Banning Private Sales (aka gunshow loophole). Effectively banning transfers between family and friends. Even though nearly all illegal arms are acquired by straw purchase at conventional stores by girlfriends.
And commercial sellers at gun shows have to do background checks anyways - this is much ado about old geezers trading collectible wild west / ww2 / antique shit.

Nearly all people are killed by pistols. Nobody is calling for a pistol ban. It makes things like an AWB look like a disingenuous effort - because you can pass all sorts of non-pistol-banning gun control laws and there will be no effect on gun death stats. Meaning you can just make more and more stuff illegal forever so long as you save what really matters (pistols) for last.

Between city, county, state, federal, existing gun laws are fat like an encyclopedia. Most people, unless they are 'gun folk', don't even realize the ways you can go to jail. Put a vertical grip in a pistol and posted it to instagram? Enjoy your time with the ATF. 10 years and $100k, assuming you're lax enough to not hire a lawyer to knock it down a bit. Literally volumes of ways to go to jail for shit you wouldn't even imagine would matter.

Many things people complain about aren't even a thing. Like complaining about buying guns online (you can't, not without an FFL involved), or crazy people buying guns (they can't, unless they've yet to be caught doing crazy shit).

Too many laws as it is. Erase a bunch first.

-scheherazade

I've been to Malta about 2 years ago and it was horrid in comparison to most mainland Europe how fat people are. People are fat there and they eat a lot of unhealthy food. Lots of puff pastry and starchy meals.