Some other evolutionary whodunits from the new world:

Why did pronghorn antelopes become the second fastest running animals in the world?

Why do honey locust trees have thorns all over their trunks?

Not at all. I hate seeing nice trees cut down as well.

I would guess they took it down because of the HUGE crack in a large branch that you can see at the start of the video.....oh...I just read the description where they explain EXACTLY why they took it down, it was dropping branches after a lightning strike, almost hitting someone. That likely means the trunk was also weakened, and it was certainly close enough to take out that house.

I can relate. I (sadly) took down a 30-40 meter Douglas Fir tree in my yard a few years back. It's still painful to think about. My tree had grown too tall, and had a weakened root system because it was growing sideways out of a small hill, and had massive gopher activity all around it. All the surrounding trees on other properties were cut well before we moved here, so it was also exposed to full wind. I was terrified that it was going to come down through my bedroom and kill the wife and myself, or through a neighbors house, so we had it cut. I've spent the nearly 3 years since then digging out the root ball (which WAS as weakened as I had thought) and turning the hole into a large pond. I still hate that we had to kill the tree, but it was a safety issue. At least I have firewood for years to come, and a pond.

Don't think this is a Russian only problem. I have seen and heard of plenty of stupid towing stuff here in North America.

You have to attach to the main frame, and nothing else. Not bumpers, not axles, not nose/tail sub-frames. The pros can wheel tow because they have the right equipment and know what they are doing.

My aunt almost had her bumper ripped off when someone tried to pull her out of a snow bank. Another person stopped and checked what they had attached to and told them to move it to the frame.

There is also that classic video of the guy getting his entire rear bumper and trunk ripped off his Cavalier when not only did they attach it wrong, the had slack in the tow cable and just gunned it.

He's got two trunks!









............oh

That's a trunk. Elephants use it to drink water and pull on branches.

The nude modders will have a field day with the junk in that trunk.

Never mind, apparently sports writing can get pretty gross... "Jason Whitlock, a black sports writer, slammed Williams in a 2009 Fox Sports column for having "chosen to smother" her beauty "in an unsightly layer of thick, muscled blubber." His main gripe, unsurprisingly, was about what he called her "oversized back pack." He explained, "I am not fundamentally opposed to junk in the trunk, although my preference is a stuffed onion over an oozing pumpkin.""

29:29: Let's have a happy little tree right in here. And we'll make his little trunk here. There he goes. Doot oot boop boop boop.

I'm lusting after the trunk. That thing is beauteous.

OK, I see your point there. That kind of goes to my 'why are they both on the traffic side' though...although I grant he didn't really have much opportunity to move it to the side of the road. I would have retreated (edit: either on foot or in the car) when the guy got past his own trunk, but that's just me, and I'm obviously abnormal.

As to 'what happens next'...I want to say 'backup arrives', but I do see that he can't assume they will, maybe staking his life on that.
So, somewhat less outraged, but still quite disappointed that other methods were, at best, afterthoughts.

Making life and death decisions alone in the dark on the side of the road is hard. MmmmmK? And this is all Monday morning quarterbacking too with 20/20 hindsight. I do see that, lest you think otherwise.

Embers burning down the trunk into a root ball---just waiting to catch fire again...

While I don't doubt the hills have been mined or deforested, the structures you see I believe are high voltage trunk line supports, not cranes and drag lines.

In Russia, luggage puts you in trunk.

How is it not surprising that the problem sees no problem?

You say : "I don't see people getting beat up, or shot, or assaulted, or arrested for no reason"
So, those that were "beat up, or shot, or assaulted, or arrested", were for a good reason, right?

Ever consider that those reasons are often made up?
Ever consider that the stories you heard around the water cooler were simply B.S., and it was in fact the police simply preying on innocent people?



Just what exactly does LE do for me, or anyone?

Do police have super powers and spidey senses?
Will they magically teleport to someone getting raped, and prevent it?
Will they magically teleport to someone getting run over, and prevent it?
Will they magically teleport to someone getting beaten, and prevent it?
Will they magically teleport to someone getting robbed, and prevent it?
The answer is : no.

Police can't actually /help/ anyone.
They can only show up after the fact, and ask you what happened, and if you know who did it.
If you don't know who it was, tough shit. Sucks to be you.
Unlike on TV, there is no in-depth investigation. The most they do is tell you to call them if you remember something else. (This is speaking from experience)

What if you're not around to even tell them anything? Almost every murder committed by an unrelated stranger without witnesses or video goes unsolved.
Why? Because all police know how to do is ask friends/family where they were, and if everyone has an excuse, police got nothing.

At least when a normal person [that you can identify] harms you, you /can/ call the police, and maybe, just maybe, if they feel like it, they will round them up after the fact.

(They often don't. We've had people dumping trash on our land : police didn't respond. We've had people hunting [strangers shooting guns] on our property : police didn't respond. Brought evidence of a fraud to the police station, with account numbers, names, addresses : we won't investigate. The only time they ever came was to talk with my mother after she reported her credit card number was being used by a stranger - LOL, of all the things, they bother coming for /that/?)

But if the police harm you, you've got nowhere to turn to - but them. And they care more about each other, than some stranger.

Heck, I've been tailgated by a cop, on a multi-lane road, so close his headlights weren't even visible over my trunk. He could have gone around me any time. After miles, when I finally sped up - BAM. Ticket.

I've pulled up to a roadblock by my house, and asked if I could go by. The guy was so incensed that he detained me for hours, and told me I was threatening his life, reckless driving, and not wearing a seatbelt.

I've been threatened by a cop - because I interrupted her chat with her girlfriend to ask for directions around a road they were closing off.

I've been pulled over with gun drawn, for trivial speeding (well below reckless).

Seriously people, every time you get pulled over, you are at risk of getting shot, because someone is trained to be suspicious and paranoid, and they saw something shiny.

Just look at how they behave. Cop shoots his daughter in his own garage, because he thought she was a burglar.
What, too much to ask just to look at the person to see if they're even a burglar? Shoot first ask questions later.

Every year there are multiple cases of police raiding a house and shooting people - only to find out it was the wrong house. What, too much trouble to be a decent human being and just knock first, and ask for whoever they need to come out?

Oh, but that might put them at a greater risk. And we all know that police take MINIMAL risks themselves, and instead risk the lives of the citizens. (Why not approach with gun drawn? At least you're ready to shoot the suspect. And if you accidentally shoot the suspect, oh well, just say they 'attacked'. No biggie. Why take the risk.)
The biggest risk they take, is the one they dream up for when they want to take credit for being the heroes they never were.

Look at the friggin VT shooting. Swarms of cops surrounding a building. Man inside, could be killing more people by the moment... and the cops just camp out and wait for him to kill himself.
Worst part, is if it were my family inside, and I tried to go in and stop the shooter, the police would just shoot me for trying to enter.

(And no, police don't deserve heroic praise. They deserve the _pay_check_ they signed up for. If that's not enough, they should take life more seriously and really think about what it is they're getting into, before they do it. Take responsibility, like an adult should.)

The police are a liability. They're armed. They're selfish. They're paranoid and suspicious. They're jumpy.
IMO, the best thing to do is keep away from them, don't look at them, don't talk to them. Stay away, and stay safe.

Oh yeah, and the police are also immune form the constitution's equal protection clause. "Because interpretation".

Look at the numbers. You are less likely to be arrested or go to jail in NORTH KOREA, than here in the U.S. of A. By a factor of 4 last I checked.
What the heck is going on here?

1 in 18 men is either in jail, on parole, or somewhere in the process of going to jail.
Most of the countries in Europe have smaller populations, than the people that we have 'in the system'. And most of the people we have 'in the system', never even harmed another person. They're just arrested for 'behavior crimes' - simply doing things that are not allowed. This is madness. The system is mad, the police are mad.

You don't end up with videos of a gang of police acting like gangsters, if it's a matter of 'a few bad apples'. They all have to be in the same frame of mind.
If they weren't all of the same frame of mind, one would do something bad, and the others would say "whoa there man, you're out of line".
But instead, they all do it. Because there are no 'bad apples'.
There is 'bad training', and 'bad culture', and it permeates the profession.

And when I say bad, I don't mean that "they are trained to be thugs".
I mean that the police don't see suspects as 'citizens (members of the state) that the police are on the side of'.
Whoever crosses their path is dehumanized. Some kind of "other", that the police need to protect society from. Not realizing that those people /are/ society, and /they/ need protection.
The kind of behavior that I see in these kinds of videos, it's simply treason. Betrayal of the state.

If the laws of this country were written to provide restitution to victims - and there were no laws to simply tell people how to live, and if the police spent their time providing restitution to victims, then I would have nothing but the greatest appreciation for the police.
As it stands, there's very little nobility around this profession. Majority of the job is simply picking on people - sometimes because they did harm, but usually because they mind their own business in an unapproved of way, or for kicks.

-scheherazade

Love it. Btw, "painted on"? Come on, take 1 minute to google "yoga pants" and after you zip up, do a quick comparison... you can see the junk, the trunk, and everything in it.

p.s. "apoplectic shit fit" - that's going on my next t-shirt.