Cops shouldn't be considered a threat because they have been appointed by the government to uphold the law. The success of that is definitely up for debate, but to suggest that citizens should be fighting cops is absurd. That will only lead to more deaths.
(The solution is for the system to weed out the bad cops, the incompetent ones, the corrupt ones, the power tripping, racist, trigger happy etc).

Most cops do the right thing, most of the time. The millions of police encounters each day where nothing has gone wrong don't make the news.

I think it's worth considering what the any country would be like without law enforcement. We know what it would be like - hurricane Katrina - complete chaos on the streets, far worse than these shootings. Assuming your goal is to have fewer people shot and murdered, then having a police force is the best way we know of. However for that to work we need a competent police force that is there to serve and protect.

There definitely needs to be a system were police are made accountable to make sure stuff like this video does happen, or even non-lethal situations where citizens are being harassed. There are number of ways to do this. But my suggestions is that if you want to argue with someone, don't do it while they're holding a gun at you. Wait until you get to the station and call your lawyer. It's not perfect, but at your chances of getting shot will drop dramatically.

So now you do admit that your blog post was a smear attack. You weren't "simply mentioning". We'll it's going to be hard to have an honest discussion then. Because you're happy to lie in order to be "right".

Dr. Greger reads " every single diet related research paper, written in English, every year" He says this as his opener on every presentation he does.

If that doesn't make him a qualified and credible source, then I don't know what does.

PhD's are focused on a single, narrow yet very detailed topic. So mentioning PhD isn't even relevant here.


The fact that you've come to the conclusion that he's not a credible source based on your own technicalities is just absurd.

Sliced turkey and chicken nuggets = processed meat. The report was warning about processed meat.
Poultry and fish = unprocessed meat. They mentioned this because they were talking about red meat (unprocessed) and didn't want people to become confused. But that obviously failed in this case.

OK here I'll admit you're right, please don't take advice from me, without doing your own research as well. But you said you're lacto-vegetarian, and most people don't eat carrots on their own, or just potatoes on their own. Most people make mash-potoates (with milk). Most people dip their carrots into creamy cheeses etc.

The only thing I've lost is a bit of my free time, and I'm happy to give it up because I'm enjoy this conversation.

A report that places chicken nuggets, turkey slices and bacon in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos is NOT equivalent to saying that quitting meat is the disease and mortality equivalent of quitting smoking.

That is patently absurd, and demonstrates what happens when someone tries to apply the scientific conclusion of a study to ...everything else. Scientific studies have a particular scope. They should state clearly within the study the limits of what the information can tell us.

1. How much of those meat products must you eat vs. how many cigarettes do you have to smoke? If i quit having one slice of bacon a week, I will not be healthier than if i quit smoking 10 a day.
2. The meat products you refer to make up only a small fraction of the meat based produce that is available. You might as well say "krokodil is bad for you, so stop taking your insulin."

I expect you to admit that the bit from the comment quote (put in bold) is wrong.

Great. Another fucking moron.

I really can't stand this new wave of right-wing ignorant morons, who love Trump.

The problem with these retards, is that they think they're very intelligent and knowledgeable, when in fact they cherry pick everything to an absurd extent.

And these filthy, stupid, ignorant pieces of shit have the FUCKING NERVE to talk about science.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

That was fucking epically WTF LMFAHS hilarious.

*quality *absurdity

Wonderful!

When you finally get people to realise how absurd satire is, they're one step closer to realising how absurd the original idea was.

Watch out for curses bob!

Diversity finally taking the curve towards absurdity.

Absolutely the officer should be charged. I think it's a huge disservice to everybody that these things are so often dealt with behind closed doors. It breeds contempt and distrust, and it eliminates an important opportunity for the public to understand some of the issues inherent in policing, and it seems to let horrible crimes go largely unaddressed.

But 'triple cuffed' can only mean a daisy chain of cuffs. Nothing else makes any sense, and to do so means that they are making some kind of attempt to accommodate the comfort of the individual during the cuffing. Or do you think it means having 3 sets of hand cuffs individually applied to your wrists? Come on... Doesn't excuse the cuffing of the guy, obviously, but thinking that triple cuffing is some heinous extreme version of cuffing is absurd.

You acknowledge that he had bad aim, and that the majority of shots missed the intended target, whichever target that was. You acknowledge that poor leadership, training, and protocol may have contributed to this outcome, but then you make the leap that because these this incompetency, it must have been intentional. It simply doesn't follow. You might ask them to be held responsible, but it doesn't mean it was the intent.

Saying 'I don't know' in the immediate aftermath of a charged situation where you are just coming to realize you made a huge mistake and nearly killed an innocent seems reasonable. It does not mean 'I meant to kill you and missed." It seems to indicate a state of confusion or shock.

I heard absolutely no reference to any time frame, or them preventing medical assistance for more than 15 minutes. I'll just remain agnostic on that angle.

I'm no lawyer, but I would have thought that intent combined with action was the very core of attempted murder. Murder is all about intent, and attempted is all about action. Attempted manslaughter of some degree seems the most realistic charge to make, but that's up to people that better know the law, and are willing to spend hundreds of hours analyzing the situation.

A huge problem with the system is the way that justice is delayed for so long (assuming it is ever meted out). People want instant karma, immediate redress for wrongs committed. People see something, get heated, and feel that a strong reaction is called for in the moment. The system on the other hand is meant to be about dispassionate discussion of the details of the situation, and can take a long time to play out. This is a big part of why it seems so reprehensible when it's carried out behind closed doors; it looks like it's being swept under the carpet. Similarly this is why media coverage over sensationalizes crime. But that's a discussion for another day.

Anyways, I've already typed too much about this I think.

The draws back the curtain on the absurdity of security theatre. There is no way in hell that we would put up with the level of security required to ensure that something like this doesn't happen. All it took was a truck rental.
I suspect this attack will up the stakes more than many of the previous ones, because there will be no way to make people feel 'safe' from this kind of horror.

Are you insane? Being a dissatisfied customer doesn't give you the right to commandeer a place of business - that's some crazy level entitled bullshit. If she doesn't get the service she expects, she can down-rate him, she can ask for her money back, she can make a report to the BBB, and she can sue him / Uber for her money back and whatever damages she can prove. She doesn't get to hijack his place of business.

The implications of what you're saying would completely screw over any sane conflict resolution - if I don't like the movie I can stay in the theater until they show me a better one, if my drink was poorly mixed I get to stay in the bar past closing time, if the milk I bought was bad I get to demand that my complaint is resolved by duel in the Kroger dairy section... no. Just because you bought a service does not mean - even if you were screwed over - you get to decide that the place of business now becomes a place of arbitration for your dispute. Take that shit to the proper channels.

As for screaming at her - he terminated their professional relationship at that point, and it was just two private individuals in conflict. Maybe it's 'smart' to kiss up to assholes, but it seems absurd of you to Monday morning quarterback him given that when we didn't see the ride. If he'd used physical violence in any way that would be a completely different story, but you're allowed to scream at people while waiting for the cops or other help.

I'm far enough away from these issues to admit that I don't have anything like concrete knowledge on the subject, but I feel like I should mention some of the more obvious counterpoints to some of the things he's said in this video. Otherwise I'd get that dirty echo chamber feeling, and no amount of showering seems to wash that away. Could be I'm just a masochist, though, who enjoys arguing.

I think there's racism in every culture. I think it's often much more subtle than described in the video, often even subconscious. I also think that modern western culture is among the least racist cultures to have ever existed, despite our many complaints.

I guess I'll talk about Libya first. The west (the white people he was talking about) is continuously demonized for supporting tyrants and the like. Yet when they participate in overthrowing a clear example of a extravagant super villain tyrant, they are demonized for that. I'm not saying they didn't have other motives, I'm just saying that it's an example of a tautology. No matter which choice they make they are labeled racist.

Now, when beleaguered folk make a desperate attempt to dangerously cross a sea, well knowing the risks they are incurring, it is again the fault of the Italians for not rescuing then with sufficient alacrity. Yes, many of them are coming from countries the west had a hand in destabilizing. But it would be pretty racist for you to demand that the Italian navy take full moral responsibility for the actions of other western nations, simply because they are white too. Also, if the only number you pay attention to is the number that drown, your bias is showing.

Next the issue of the Commonwealth. It seems absurd to expect the UK to treat former colonies populated by citizens that had moved there the same as former conquests that have since shrugged off the yoke of empire. The justifications for this discrimination would seem to be a combination of racism, cultural chauvinism and sober pragmatism. The latter two factors clearly scale with the gap between the culture of the colony in question and the home country, and probably ought to in some sense.

The incarceration thing is tougher to poke holes in, and clearly a much more touchy subject. Once could argue all sorts of justifications for why more members of ethnic minorities are apprehended, but it's nebulous and smells of bias and chauvinism, at best ending in a chicken vs egg conundrum. But once you're in police custody, I think can agree on demanding a higher level of equality of outcome. So I checked out a charity called Inquest who had compiled pretty comprehensive stats on police custody deaths since 1990. Here's a link: http://www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/bame-deaths-in-police-custody
To summarise, since 1990, ethnic minorities have made up a total of 153 out of 1557 deaths in police custody, or roughly 10%. Given that they currently make up 13% of the population, that seems to be well within an acceptable range of results, so I was confused at first. Then I thought maybe he had misspoken and had meant to say state custody, or inmate deaths. So again I looked for some numbers, and again Inquest had the most comprehensive data, broken down by year and ethnicity etc. Again here's a link: http://www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/deaths-in-prison
It shows 453 out of 3963 prison deaths are suffered by ethnic minorities. This seems almost perfectly in line with the 13% population of said minorities. So again, I'm a bit confused by the point he's making.

All of that said, I think I agree with the sentiment of his presentation, which perhaps confuses me even more.

At first I thought he was overreacting slightly, looks like she was just trying to slowly, but dickisly force her way in.

But on second viewing she appears to have been completely ignoring the fact he was there, either deliberately or through ignorance. (I could't see her look at the biker even once and he was in the blind spot)

Either way that behaviour could easily prove fatal at higher speeds. And even at the speed they were going serious injuries are entirely possible, I nearly broke my wrist once merely dropping a bike (Yet walked away from a 40mph spill because life is strange like that).

I know motor-bicyclists may seem like whingy bitches sometimes, but we are absurdly vulnerable to ignorant assholes like this.
At the very least, this plays on the sub-conscious heavily and even minor slights can sometimes feel like attempted murder at the time.

Another time and place she might have caused a serious incident, so I'm glad she got a stern talking to at the very least.

But yeh, this is small fry in the grand scheme of things. I usually just move on, but had I been filming and then run across a police car.....I might well have done the same here. (Though I do make a big point to stay out of blind spots these days as most car drivers don't bother to check it)

This "EXTRA-editing-magic edition" is absurdly funny :
https://youtu.be/MCceW_i0oMo

@ChaosEngine

Did you even read the article I linked? It makes a pretty strong case that at the time the wording was intended to imply every citizen's responsibility as well as right for "collective self-defense," as in everyone should own a gun so they can help out in the event of an invasion.

In other words, you're flat out wrong when you say the 2nd amendment wasn't about self-defense--that's precisely what it was about. It wasn't about personal (i.e. individual) self-defense at the time of its inception but it has since been found to include that meaning because the idea that people should keep guns at home but only use them to defend against foreign attackers and not domestic ones, such as a home invader, was found to be patently absurd. And yes, eventually militias faded away, but the idea that citizens have a right to own firearms for sport or protection--whether it be from wildlife or other humans--had already been legally established for a long time.

I'm not sure why your tone is so dismissive in this thread. You live in New Zealand, am I correct? Yes, you're right, you're quite lucky to live in a country where your government protects you from growing your own food by throwing all those dangerous gardeners in prison.

Look, New Zealand has a shit-ton of guns (about one for every four people) as well and people own them for a variety of reasons, from sport to self-defense. You have a lower crime rate, which can be attributed to a variety of factors but not conclusively to the strict gun laws, as people in New Zealand do in fact still commit crimes with guns.

So... what's the point you're trying to make?

That's just absurd. You're drinking the Kool Aid.

I live in a country with ~1m or 3.2% of the population is Muslim. They are the second largest religion in our nation. They are perfectly peaceful. You live in a country where ~3m Muslims live, comprising 1% of your country's population.

How many of those people were involved in this act yesterday? What percentage?