tvashtarkatena

CA PROP 47 just reduced nearly all drug possession to misdeamenor - retroactive. decrim all drug offenses retroactively. stay tuned in WA. thats now an objective. the ACLU just got a 50 M donation to end mass incarceration, BTW.

A couple of issues with body cameras: How long can the police store the videos? Who has viewing access to them? Bellingham jurisdiction is currently flooded with FOIA requests for body cam videos. They estimate it would take 3 years to satisfy them. What's to prevent videos of people's homes showing up on the web? The ACLU WA is lobbying for body cam regulation to address these two issues - stakeholders (those with encounters with police wearing body cams and law enforcement) have 60 days to flag a videos where something worthy of flagging - as evidence, or when violence occurs. If no flagging occurs, videos must be deleted within a short time thereafter. Only said stakeholders have viewing rights to such videos to protect privacy.

end the drug war for starters. reform our mental health system, which warehouses a large number of mentally ill people who shouldn't be there would make a huge dent as well.

As long as the po po stick to shooting guys in Camaros and Beamers, they'll continue to enjoy carte blanche.

NASA's budget is 1/12 (as a percentage of GDP) of what it was during Apollo, so there's that. Still, it's hard to imagine that outsourcing things to the Chinese wouldn't get a big ole project like this done faster, but the UI might not be as quite as groovy. I've got to wonder if the Moon, Mars, and an asteroid or two will be our only options for meat puppet visitation in this neck of the woods. That's probably as far as we'll get before the robots come for us.

if you dont have time to read the studies, then dont. fucking kids these days.

Have you seen his new show? The Fuck Stables.

Our comprehensive indoctrination program has ensured that the Liberal Apocalypse will soon be upon us once the Selfie Generation seizes the Gaming Consoles of Power! Fly, my Tweeting Little Monkeys, Fly!

i think they used a Bugle Corn Snack for the doomsday machine shiite, i could use a bag right about now, but papa aint got one

dood, suri works for skynet

after i flew my drone around the theater - and into the orchestra pit under the stage (not so good with a gaming console), one kid asked when sentient machines were gonna happen. another raised his hand and said "well, its either gonna be the three laws or the apocalypse" I love these kids!

set phasers to clueless

Landru! Landru!

The much needed shitstorm has finally begun. Pattern of excessive force? Over militarization? I think we're gonna find both in almost every major US city. All we have to do is pry that lid off. Stay tuned. It's very interesting seeing America transition from bat shit crazy to...something. Just in time for the robots to come and take it all away.

Everybody comes around when titty twisted. That shit hurts.

The advantage high schoolers have is that they haven't choked down a stockyard load of bullshit over a lifetime. Like "Emptying your clip into an unarmed person is perfectly OK. It's what they're trained to do." And it is OK - in a war zone, but the rest of the civilized world, where policing is very different - has found a way to police largely without such extreme levels of violence. Hmmmm. Ah well, we'll all be dead soon enough, and the kids, who couldn't give two shits about race or sexual preference for the most part, will be able to enjoy each other that much more.

Yeah, he'd already been shot. More than twice. And he wasn't all that close when Wilson chose to finish him off - with his hands raised, apparently. Certainly too close, however, to wonder "hey, am I hitting this (size of a barn) kid?" Fucking shiite don't add up to "hail of bullets required" brah. Love the 'forensic evidence' line. And there's no credible proof Wilson got punched at all. His "injuries", or lack thereof, indicate otherwise. Blood on the gun could mean defensive action on the part of Brown - shielding, parrying. What we have, in the end, is the survivors story against the dead kid's story. And the survivor is a cop. History of similar events indicates (New York! New York!) clearly indicates how that almost always goes down. But enough mutual titty twisting. You're obviously 100% right and I suck. Back to the larger issues at hand.

Your self described experienced isn't represented in either your opinions or your analysis. Both suck. Seriously, it doesn't matter how many times you shoot someone? Really? I think it mattered a bit to Brown. Particularly considering that the autopsy reveals the last shot was probably the fatal one. And Wilson wasn't sure if he was hitting the kid, yet the kid was SO CLOSE (he wasn't) that Wilson's life was threatened. What, does Wilson need to hit the gun range more often? He can't hit a 6'4" kid at 8'? Should a guy who (claims) he couldn't tell if he was hitting a target that close even be trusted with a gun? In what universe does any of what you just recounted make any sense? Wilson's life wasn't seriously threatened when he gunned that kid down. That much is readily apparent from any witness's angle. But he emptied his clip into the kid anyway - at a distance - and that's OK with you. Yeah, I'll go with inexperience, smarter, calmer, and kinder. I'm good with that. Choke hold anyone?

You're the expert. The strawmen don't help your case, though. By all accounts Brown was neither near nor attacking Wilson when Wilson finally gunned him down with multiple shots. Many witnesses stated he had his hands up. Several claim that he shot Brown while Brown was attempting to flee. Some of us would argue that Wilson's actions may have been a tad excessive, to say the least. I wouldn't dis high school students too much. I've found many of them to be a good deal more intelligent and considered than some of youz guyz. Way less ideologically rigid, too. Glad to have 'em taking the reigns of a world we fucked the living shit out of without lube or saying "I love you".

Well, at least we're finally talking about this nationwide problem in earnest. I gave a talk at Garfield High this morning to about 100 students (not in this topic). Ferguson came up while conversing with the student organizers. According to them, it's a hot topic around the school - and most of the students do not share many of the sentiments presented here. Just a data point. One that gives me a lot of hope for the future, although they will have the killer robots to contend with. Garfield is an amazing school, BTW. Their theater/arts/music program is awesome, and they've got the facilities to do it up right.

It's possible that the cop aggressively pulled Brown into the car, as some witnesses have claimed, resulting in a reflexive defensive response. But none of us were there, and even if we were, or even if we were one of the two involved in the altercation - confusion happens, particularly when fear takes over.

My intent was to steer the discussion towards a focus on long term racial disparity in our criminal justice system. Thanks for playing along. The Milwaukee is the most discriminatory jurisdiction in the country claim was made by Jeff Robinson, one of the most distinguished civil rights attorneys in the US, during the ACLU's Bill of Rights awards dinner this year. Jeff was a fellow ACLU board member for a year, before his many other duties called him away. Jeff Robinson's credentials Blacks are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than whites Racial disparity in our CJS, per Farrakhan v Gregoire 9th Circuit (2010)) Plaintiffs (who won the appeal *sic*) relied heavily on the reports of two expert witnesses: Dr. Robert Crutchfield, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, who has “conducted extensive research on racial disparity in the Washington State criminal justice system,” Crutchfield Report at 9, and Dr. Katherine Beckett, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, who “conducted a 2004 study entitled Race and Drug Law Enforcement in Seattle,” Crutchfield and Beckett's evidence, as presented during Farrakhan vs Gregoire 9th Circuit (2010) One excerpt from Crutchfield’s evidence: ”…an African American in Washington State was slightly more than nine times more likely to be in prison than a white American in the state. But, the ratio ofblack to white arrest for violent offenses was only 3.72 to 1. This means that substantially more than one half of Washington State’s racial disproportionality cannot be explained by higher levels of criminal involvement as measured by violent crime arrest statistics.” This will help interested parties scratch the surface. There are a lot more supporting materials of course. Big issue. Get your wonk on!

he doesnt get the concept, either.

While driving back from some other planet down south last year, Big Man and I pulled over alongside a plowed field to crash at about 4 am - BAM = flashing lights outta nowhere. The sheriff was a bit of a dick at first, but he heard our sad story and spotted us some extra gas (fuck me, that is one gasless stretch on I DEE HO's southern border - not the best situ for an 8.5 gal toy car tank). I've got to say I wasn't in my perkiest mood at that hour either. It beat waking up in the middle of the night with a 12 gauge in my face (Dominican Coast Guard wake up call). That guy turned out to be OK too, in the end. Funny thing was, his boat looked an awful lot like a mule. Thank dog I took the trouble to get my passport properly stamped that time.

I don't think he gets the concept.