Unfortunately, Conan has been going for the easy jokes these days. You can see the situation present itself, and he goes right for the low hanging fruit all the time.

I miss old Conan, who was less jaded by Leno. =)

@tomspeed, yes and no. There are certain parts of Maori culture that have definitely been adopted, various Haka, some waiata (songs), pounamu (jade) carvings

But there's still a lot of racism and resentment toward Maori as well.

If you want to see an example, here's a story on one of the largest media sites in NZ about a local Maori tribe who had the audacity to charge a fee to have a commercial event run on their property. Read the comments.

Also it's very important that we mobilize and get angry about this sort of thing when it hits the fan or we won't organize. Nothing will progress, and we'll stay a fragmented society that's completely controlled by it's government and propaganda.

Ignore the apologists and the jaded cynics. Move the Country Forward.

This may run long, so bear with me.

Law Enforcement employees tend to come from two specific groups of people. The first group is going to consist of people who actually joined up to try to protect people and make things safer for them. They are idealists who may grow jaded over time; because realistically if your only input on what being a LEO is the internet and reality TV, you are not prepared for the type of mental assault you will endure day in and day out. I'm not talking about angry people, but stuff like drawing circles around little chunks of brains on the highway from a teenage girl that went through a windshield.

As an officer at any level (except maybe a small town), you are going to see the absolute worst side of humanity on a daily basis and you aren't on a tour of duty like the military. You don't get to 'rotate' home and put it behind you. This will wear on anybody who is not a sociopath, it will grind you down to a nub. You could see professional help for this, but I will go into that later.

The second type of person who goes into law enforcement is someone who likes authority, a sense of power over someone else, a bully. This person is in the job because it gives them power over others and the law will protect them because it is vaguely worded in SO many cases. This person will shrug off the effects that cripple the first type over time, because they feel in charge of every situation. After a while, if they don't tone it down, they will get caught. Thankfully the cell camera and the internet tends to be helping clean them out due to their own incapability to see they can't ALWAYS be in charge, but it will be a long road because this group is the BULK of the ones that join LE organizations.

Now why do these two groups tend to be the ones that you are going to run into on a consistent basis? The simple, hard answer is that we pay our front line LEO's very little compared to other services that risk their life or experience the mental grind. Your average patrol officer is going to pull a median salary of about 35k with comparable benefits to someone working in a office job. A firefighter is going to pull around 45k and scales up much quicker, not to mention their benefits are beyond good. EMT's make about the same as patrol officers, but their benefits are also very good and they don't have the same stressors. I know that ranges will vary and State LEO's are very well paid on average, but we are talking about the people you are going to encounter most often.

If you have to choose between a job where you are going to be considered a 'hero' or a job where everyone is going to be biased towards you being a 'villain, and the hero jobs pay better, which would you logically choose? Assuming of course that you are not sorted into one of the two groups I described, most are going to run away from serving in LE. In fact, this is why more of the 'bullies' tend towards LE and the 'idealists' don't. So you already have created a situation where the 'stormtrooper' mindset is going to prefer this job and haven't considered options to rectify it. The people you don't run into that much are going to be the people that took college and got pushed through the ranks quickly. If you didn't take college or just took an Associates Degree, you have to beat these people out. It is extremely hard to do that, even if you do your job much better than they did.

The final factor that runs into this is the mental issues I mentioned earlier. If you seek help from your employers for mental stress, they are going to handle it differently if you are a LEO. You are going to find out quickly that you are expendable. If you seek help and get classified as PTSD, you set a chain of events in motion that is inexorable. You will be rotated to a desk. You will see a Psychiatrist who will prescribe anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication. This person will meet with you for around 15 minutes 3-4 times a week, ask you questions, and ask if the medication is helping. If you return to functional status in a month or two, you get put back on duty. If you don't, they put you on short term disability for up to one year. Your visits drop to once a week, then once a month. One year later, your employment is terminated. They hire a new recruit and start the cycle again about the same time that you start your short term disability. You get to try to salvage your career in anyway possible, hopefully you paid through the nose for long term disability, or you can try to find a smaller department that doesn't bother to dig too deep on background checks.

Other related fields like firefighters/emts comprehend PTSD and work with their people much harder. They have better benefits so you they can see outside therapists as much as needed. There is less stigma if you have a problem, because they understand. You go on the fritz as an LEO and you will overhear people who used to respect you call you weak or a pussy. Sadly this type of thing happens at all levels of LE, even as a State Trooper you are expendable.

In any case, the point to this essay is that the system is flawed and is going to drive out the good LEOs and save the bad ones to protect itself from litigation. Protect yourself at all times with video, be advised of the laws and loopholes in them that bad LEos will exploit, and don't force confrontation with a LEO if there is a loophole. If the man had stepped outside and talked calmly, the incident would not have escalated as it did. In this case he did not inform himself of the loopholes correctly and got tasered (which was improper, they didn't warn him correctly or anything), and the LEOs look like villains again.

As one of the worlds most jaded, bitter critics of source-material-rape and book-to-film-shit-translations, I have not been this disappointed since I was vaginally spat out into this fucked reality.

This is a fucking multimillion dollar, month-late April-fools day joke. I could honestly, physically kill people for this.

Btw, @Fletch

Holy fuck...just holy fuck. Good reasoning Fletch, on all parts. Mindless drones on both sides always piss me off and I am glad to see you have an open mind. I remember my first year on the Sift when I came with a partially positive outlook on cops, yet pointed out when they were fucktards--I was this commie cum dumpster that everyone loved to hate... But my views are mostly like yours (Just a little less jaded.)

And we wonder why cops get jaded...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I want to be jaded about this ... but hot damn, looks like we're finally living in the future!

Your jaded perspective makes me feel bummed out for you. Don't read so much into this encounter. You can view it as a nature program or something.

Tonight on Nova.... The mating ritual of the Utah human.

Now... smile!

Wow, you guys are the biggest bunch of Jaded Folks!

I'm on the internet all the time, and being here makes you a cynic, trust me, I know. But listen to yourselves once and a while. Here are some cute little quotes about love, from kids. Loosen up.

Who cares if this list has made the rounds at some point or another. It's like "Kids say the darnedest things." The kids may have been coaxed a bit but the sentiments are sincere.

Does it make us feel more intelligent to criticize, break down and look for every fault in every post? I file this one under trite, but it's fun, and I don't think it merits the assault that has been lavished upon it..

Take life a little less seriously and lighten up a bit...
Your stress levels may thank you for it.

Which ones were faked or staged, and how can you tell? Call me jaded but I do believe that the world is teeming with idiots.

*ban


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCYPh4r1TV8&feature=plcp

@ http://www.homecontract.org/, "HomeContract.Org has been developed by Jade Robinson"

Oh look, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe

James Keefe is at it again. Yeah, that's one reliable source.
If you somehow are jaded enough to believe that this guy is not fishing and that this is all legit- look for the "interview" with a fake bono.
Apparently it needs 6 months from media-fallout to reestablishment of old patterns.
If you believe Michael Moore is borderline, you will absolutely love this guy.

>> ^Sagemind:

America is supposed to be that wonderland that everyone aspires to become - only it isn't.
The people around the world still hold on to that idea. By asking them to vote - they would project their vision of the ideal country upon the USA, instead of having the already jaded and defeated population do the voting.
It's always easier to see something from the outside.


The "jaded and defeated population" don't vote.

I can get a BBQ meatball sandwich delivered to my house if'n I don't feel like bothering with putting my shoes on. Just about any kind of food I desire is available to me. When I'm feeling olympic and must forage for food, I have my choice of 6 large chain grocery stores within three miles of my home. I have a car. I can go anywhere I please in this country without fear. I have 240 channels (60 HD) on my television. There's a convenience store two minutes in every direction from just about every square foot of this country (seemingly). I can hike in the wilderness far from "civilization" and not have to worry about bandits or terrorists, and because I have the entire fricking world in the palm of my hand, I'll never get lost. I don't have a computer. I have four computers with high speed access. I have running water; hot water on tap, a microwave, and more goddamn dishes and silverware and towels and t-shirts than any one person should ever need. I can go see the Blazers play, watch live jazz, a choice of music festivals during the spring and summer, live theater, short trip west to the beautiful Oregon coast, or trip south for the Timber Festival or one of several plays in Ashland at the Shakespearean Festival. When I opt to go see a movie over reading any damn book in the world on my Kindle, there's seven movie theaters in my area, and I can even afford the insane prices for soda and Raisenets. Education opportunities abound here, regardless of your age or income. You can learn how to fly a plane at several local small airports, or jump out of one. I have a "headphone drawer".

I make less money than the average American, and I'm RICH, and thankful that I was so damn lucky to be born in the United States of Wonderland.

America is supposed to be that wonderland that everyone aspires to become - only it isn't.
The people around the world still hold on to that idea. By asking them to vote - they would project their vision of the ideal country upon the USA, instead of having the already jaded and defeated population do the voting.

It's always easier to see something from the outside.

>> ^VoodooV:

I hate to say it, but Cenk summed it up pretty good. He can see it both ways. How many times have cops had to put up with bullshit stall tactics, it's impossible not to become jaded on this stuff.
still yeah, they could have driven him to the hospital and he could have been saved. If someone was faking it, a doc or a nurse could see that right away.
homicide though? nah. At best, it was negligence or just a plain ole accident. The biggest crime I see here is the coverup.


Negligence is better than homicide? I don't see it, either way the guy is still dead. Look I get being jaded is something that happens, it's happened to me plenty. I still have to go do my job though, what else am I gonna do? He's not going to escape, I don't have anything better to do, he's my suspect, he's important whether he's guilty or not guilty.

The point is do your job, just like the cops in the Casey Anthony case that got a call from someone who claimed to have found the body of a baby. I don't care that you don't believe him, you have something better to do? Take a drive and INVESTIGATE! Care about your fucking job.

Here's a story of another situation. I worked at Raging Waters once, and we were shown a video to scare us into being vigilant. A little girl went over to a lifeguard at a local pool and told him that there was a small boy at the bottom of the pool. The lifeguard told her that it was nothing more than a shadow that was always there. The little girl decided to go get her parents, so she walked home. They walked back and brought their video camera. When they got there they were just pulling a small boy out of the pool who had been under for maybe 10 mins. His stomach was bulging with water, his last seconds were probably terrifying. I watched that water very carefully all summer, because that wasn't going to happen while I was around.