I've known cops my whole life -- 1 ex-girlfriend's father, as well as a household of them in my family; serving the church and the state equally. And all of them lawful evil. Assholes with stories about being assholes. I'm sorry, but fuck you if you're a cop.

I don't care if you're a "good" cop. I've watched so-called good cops follow shitty orders and realize at the end of the mess that they had done wrong. This goes on CONSTANTLY; not simply a one-off, "oh cops are people too" scenario.

Not to mention their highway banditry.

Until the current state of police training and enforcement methods are reevaluated and they return rights to citizens, I cannot abide their involvement in domestic disputes and highway enforcement.

Sure, they save us from the evil that men would do, but as they currently stand, the American police force is a bastion and a playground for bullies that want to remain above the law.

And their internal affairs system allows this to persist. No transparency, which means the law is always blurred for their benefit. Luckily evidence beyond a reasonable doubt sometimes surfaces. Sometimes.

Sometimes...

One of the downsides of jury nullification not mentioned in the video is that it doesn't afford higher courts the opportunity to correct defects in the law.

In the UK an eleven and a twelve year old boy set fire to some newspapers, which unknown to them spread to a wheelie bin, which spread to another wheelie bin, which spread to a shop and eventually caused ~£1 million damage. They were convicted of arson despite an extremely reluctant jury and even judge, because while it was acknowledged that the boys didn't foresee the risk of the fire spreading the standard of recklessness at the time (which had persisted for around two decades) was an objective one referring to the judgement of a hypothetical reasonable adult.

It took their conviction, and the Court of Appeals upholding that conviction, for the House of Lords to reexamine the bad precedent they'd set in an earlier case and finally revert the standard to a subjective one of the defendant's actual capacity.

It may take thousands of nullifications before legislators even notice that their terrible laws aren't being enforced, while one unsound conviction can make a difference. So your strategy as a juror may be to convict in obviously stupid cases (unconstitutional ones in the US, say), but nullify where the law appears to be functioning as intended but conflicts with your conscience.

Persistent little shit, ain't he?

Flops are still there, but with a lesser impact. This company helps set a maximum budget per project, so that over the whole year the studio will break even, or at least persist (hence the ongoing trend of risk-averse "neatly categorized + predictable budget" movies).

But they still don't know in advance which movies will make it. So we have a watered down version of the 70s "production roulette": the majority of movies will still lose money, but the with an overall budget under control the company is still there the following year.

Case in point: in 2013 most big budget movies bombed badly, but (as opposed to the 70s) no major company went bust.

@newtboy
"i know you are but what am i i"?

that had me cackling like a loon.bravo my friend.

please understand guys my comment is in reference to this particular thread,not any previous private or otherwise.

my commentary was also tongue-n-cheek and not to be taken too seriously.
i was poking the hornets nest...like a boss..who also happens to be a dick.

please forgive.

as for conflicting private to public messages.
well..that would infuriate me as well newt.you wont get an argument from me on that point.
that speaks to a persons character and integrity and explains a ton in regards to your attitude towards @chingalera.

our integrity is all we have.
when you take away everything,the only thing left we have to trade is our word.
our honor.
our respect for another human being.
when we lose that trust....we lose everything.

i do not know the particulars on how you all conversed in private.its none of my business and not my place to judge.

but if what you are saying is true newt (and i have no reason to believe it isnt.there is a past precedent in that regard) then i have to ask @chingalera why?

why say one thing in private and then another in public?
that is so disengenuious and un-necessary my man.
you make good solid points..often,and often i agree with them.
so why would invalidate them by interacting with such duplicity?

you cant call out newt for disregarding or dismissing your points because it was YOU who invalidated those points by your interactions with him.

and you know this.
dont act like you dont because i know your smarter than the average bear.so dont insult my intelligence by feigning innocence.

you owe newt an apology.period.

and dont prove @VoodooV right.we both were there when you flamed out and it was ugly.
and you made it ugly by taking it personal.
i never judged you for that..still dont.
but that does not mean i condoned how you played that closing scene out.
real people had real feelings hurt...including you.

now i realize this thread is destroyed and i dont even know who i need to apologize to.
so...
to the original poster:i am truly sorry for this tragic hi-jacking of your thread.

but it appears necessary.

@chingalera i realize that much of what you do is to shock people out of complacency.
to get them to perceive a situation with different goggles.
many times the weapons you use are confrontational language and a persistence that rivals the most glorious case of OCD.

those intentions are noble.
i agree and am of a similar mindset.this is probably why i can read choggie-speak with little trouble.

i understand what you are trying to do.

but how can you expect someone like @newtboy to listen to anything you have to say when you cant keep even basic correspondence open and honest?
it invalidates everything you attempt from then on out.
your words have to have the weight of your integrity behind them for them to have ANY impact.
you lose that and your words become dust.

sounds like you will have to work to gain the respect from @newtboy.i wish you well in that endeavour.

please understand i consider you a friend @chingalera and hearing this has upset me a great deal.

and @VoodooV,
you may be right brother.i do not know what the future brings.hopefully ching will prove you wrong.i know he could if he wanted.

but i disagree with keeping the riff raff out.
i dont mind confrontation or arguments.in fact i LOVE them and @chingalera has a talent for poking the hornets nest and shattering the monotone-vanilla-circle-jerk-clones into a frenzy.

and that my friend..is a good thing.

@chingalera keeps the locals buzzing,constantly challenging pre-concieved notions and ideologies and i love that fucker for that.he keeps this site interesting.his antics bring lurkers to actually comment/post and others who usually side-line to jump in.

all good things.

but...
i cannot abide the darker side.
the hurtful side.
maybe i am being naive'....i always see redemption for those who the entrenched masses see as unredeemable.i always feel i can save those who are truly lost.

i always see the human first and the actions last.

so you may be right.i just hope you are wrong.
maybe this thread will impact my friend and remind him we are all humans.

i dont know.........
i hope though...
i hope.

@ChaosEngine again,as i told newtboy,no argument here.
hopefully this derailed thread has cleared some air and brought the things to the table that needed to be discussed.

which from my viewpoint is about integrity.
you cant admonish people for being egocentric and then turn around and be egocentric yourself.
it weakens the very position you were trying to make in the first place.(ching,not you CE).
it is hypocritical.

i am a dissident.
a radical.
a subversive.
even to the church i am an apostate.
so i understand @chingalera on a certain level.he has never treated me other than a friend and compatriot.so it pains me to see how he deals with those he disagrees with,and just how far he will take a story to a painful conclusion.
this does not give be joy or pleasure.

he is a righteous dude.passionate,sensitive and creative and has soooo much to offer.
im sorry ya'all didnt get to see that side of him.
but maybe thats on him,because you all should.

there is a reason he has been invited back multiple times and its not because he whined about it but rather he truly is an exceptional human being.

maybe he should show that side more.
takes honesty and courage,but that boy has a huge capacity for that.

@chingalera
balls in your court brother.
what ya gonna do?

*note* for all those who read to this point.
cookies and milk will be served in the back storage room.
free fondlings for the ladies.
dont forget to tip your bartenders and waitresses!

No training required. Beagles are very smart, and when food is involved, their persistence is legendary. We had a beagle who dragged his sleeping pillow into the kitchen, went from it to the top of the trash can and then onto the counter top, opened a cupboard door and ate an entire pound of butter out of the butter dish. And then proceeded to vomit little pools of bile and melted butter all over the kitchen and dining room floor.

@chingalera ahh the "both parties are equally bad" fallacy.

tell me? What's the Democrat equivalent of the denial of same sex marriage?
What's the Democrat equivalent of telling women they must keep their rape babies? What's the Democrat equivalent of trying establish a state religion even though we are a country of many (or no) religions. What's the Democrat equivalent of Republican's persistent denial of this pesky thing called science. What's the Democrat equivalent of the Republican body count due to starting unnecessary wars?

Don't get me wrong. Democrats fuck up all the time. They believed the 2004 election would be a slam dunk. They can often be naive and miscalculate political realities. I'm not convinced they won't fuck up the 2016 election somehow despite the Republicans' current problems. I really don't think Hillary should run. To quote Doctor Who: "Don't you think she looks tired?"

Both parties should be abolished to get away from this political nonsense, but to suggest these are somehow equal to Republican misdeeds is absolute lunacy unless you dare to back your claims up.

Hell, arguing the opposite of my claims is still more rational than this "OMG they're equal" nonsense. If you capable of making a value judgement, one party matches your values better than the other. It's impossible for them to be equal in that regard.

I love how the Cleric argues that other places permit marriage at 12 or 14 but he fails to see the distinction between contractual marriage and a marriage between two mutually consenting individuals. His persistence to just throw some facts out the door and maintain his biased opinion makes me think he was a Republican in a past life.

One persistent world kinda makes the whole "procedural" generation pointless. I'm hoping it's more along the Minecraft model of someone being able to have a server with a bunch of people connected to the same randomly generated universe... it's persistent only in that sense of being connected to one server. Someone else can host another server with an entirely different universe.

It's not an MMORPG but if everyone is playing in the same persistent world, I fail to see how it's not an MMO.

I suspect it'll be somewhat similar to Eve, actually.

I've always wished MMOs were more world simulations and less traditional video games with a large number of players. I'm still not interested in paying a subscription, though, and I don't have the time that so many of them require.

He never really says that it's an MMO per se. He repeatedly avoided the question. The suggestion of persistence and "everyone in the same universe" could have some different interpretations. Fingers-crossed that if it's an MMO it's nothing like any ever made.

Seems like the rumor these two are married has never been confirmed (yet certainly persists online):

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/robert-plant-patty-griffin-not-married-350315

I read one this morning describing a vacuuming algorithm of the I-Robot roomba 770-In referencing the machine's ability to aggressively and repeatedly sweep an extremely dirty area of the floor or carpet, it uses sensors and such utilizing , "Persistent Path" cleaning.

I thought that that would be great newsspeak for politely describing an obsessive-compulsive's dysfunctional manner of vacuuming and then vacuuming again and again until a hole is worn in a spot on the carpet

Thanks for your persistence on this one, I hope it works!

Water is a dangerous thing.

My brother has been a river guide in denali, colorado, life guard, etc. It is shocking who he has to rescue. Last week he had to save a 6'5" muscular army guy who rolled his kayak on the Chicago river (completely flat). He was pretty much stuck upside down.

There continues to be a big racial divide with learning to swim. I wonder how long that trend will persist.