Valsuelm

In Finland there has been 110 police officers that have died in line of duty in last 97 years, which includes our civil war and World War II, in years after the wars there has been 21 officers that have died in line of duty. So it is quite hard to perceive situation and culture where cops in USA live from my point of view, because over hundred officer dying in line of duty every year is lot even for 60 times larger country. While the specifics of every police death vary, some generalizations can be made. http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html First, keep in mind that not every police death is the result of someone else killing them. Some are the result of the officer's actions. ie: a police officer killed themselves in a one car accident a county over from me two years ago by driving at excessive speeds (and no one knew why; but of course the propaganda was such that said police person died a hero). Accidents are also counted in the tally. For example, in 2012, out of 122 deaths only 57 were actually definitely killed by someone else (though it's possible some of the 14 hit by cars were purposely killed). Also keep in mind that some of these killings of police may have been justified (though the local DA likely didn't see it that way). And, some or even many of these deaths very well may have occurred in any line of work and were not job specific related (ie: the police person who drove themselves off the road at excessive speed I mentioned). Second, Note that the highest rates of police deaths on the job occurred during the Prohibition era in the U.S. Per capita police were at least 5 times more likely to be killed during those years than they have been in the last few decades (save 2001). As soon as the 25th amendment was passed that repealed the 18th, which gave us Prohibition, the death rates dropped and haven't risen near as high since (save 2001, but there's an exceptional reason for that year). Now, there are a myriad of reasons as to why the death rate is what it is in any given year, but without a doubt, the more intrusive police are into people's affairs in what many would perceive and unjust manner the more likely they are to get killed. While being a police officer can indeed be a dangerous job, in 2011 (the last year I was able to easily find into for) it's a line of work that didn't even make the top 10 most deadly jobs in America list. It did make #11. And this was in a year that saw the 2nd highest overall police fatality rates in the last decade, and highest # of police shot. Note that the top ten most dangerous jobs don't involve carrying a gun and confronting potentially dangerous people. The propaganda that the police need to do X, when X is assault or killing, in order to protect themselves is overwhelming, in general it's pure BS, but a lot of people buy it. We've got innumerable TV shows and movies reinforcing this propaganda. When one factors the # of police killed in any given year and consider the circumstances a police officer works in, it's a surprisingly safe job.

The Feds lack the authority to compel State or local jurisdictions to report, though I don't think they'd exercise that authority even if they had it. If the populace knew the number of people assaulted and killed by police every year in the U.S. more would be less inclined to blindly support them. That number is not low. That said, some departments do self report. Whether or not they tell the truth is another matter. Hit up your local or state government if you want reform. The feds are not the answer on this one. Also, believe it or not, in some jurisdictions killing people is a badge of honor for the police. A buddy of mine is an attorney in a low population county in Tennessee where the Sheriff proudly exclaims his department has killed three people under his 'watch' over the last decade or so he's been Sheriff. From talking to my friend, he told me that one of the killings was definitely justified, however the others should have seen the cop arrested and tried. None of the police involved shootings were ever reprimanded and all are still on the force. The local populace however votes for this sheriff overwhelmingly every election. There's a lot of blind support for the police out there. A lot. And that's the number one reason I'd say they get away with it.

Alright. For the first time in over 25 years on BBS/internet forums, I'm putting someone on ignore. Please let me know if Gromnir actually starts attempting to post in correct English, and I'll take him off of it. It's certainly not something I'm expecting however.

How would the police know he had existing medical conditions for that to be a consideration in whether they used a proper response to the situation? Choking someone, was not a proper response to the situation. That wasn't what aluminiumtrioxid's point was, his point was "accidently killing a dude through the compression of the chest which triggers a host of existing medical conditions"; thus my point is to question whether unknown pre-existing medical conditions can be considered at all before an action is taken by the police. Because they can't by definition; they're unknown. This does not mean that taking the action is valid (or invalid) by necessity. Just that I don't see how the pre-existing medical condition can change that validity/invalidity of the action. In essence, it was either right or wrong to choke/restrain the man or it wasn't. The medical condition couldn't have been known at the time so can't be a factor in determining the rightness or wrongness of the action. Uh... you miss my point. And it is a point that trumps all others. Choking the guy wasn't warranted. Now, in a court of law, all that would need to be demonstrated in order to justify manslaughter or murder charges (different states have different criteria as to what legally constitutes murder, but intent is usually a key factor) is that the tactic used by the offender would be known by your average person to possibly cause death. In this case, the answer is yes. Choking someone is indeed a well known way to cause death, whether or not said victim has a medical condition. In regards to the medical condition. Yes, that would be admissible in court, and if the DA was doing their job they'd hire a medical professional(s) to testify in regards to it, as is very common practice in trials against those who are not police. It would also be brought up in a courtroom (by a competent and incorrupt DA) that an average person should reasonably suspect that a man of the size of the victim would be likely to have at least one serious medical condition, with respiratory conditions being quite common amongst the obese (and increasingly common throughout the population in general; ie asthma is hardly a rare or unusual medical condition) . But medical condition or not, and of paramount import is the fact that the guy is saying repeatedly that he cannot breathe as the officers pile on him, yet they do not relent. In a better world the officer choking him would have been tried and convicted of at least manslaughter if not murder, with the others dog-piling on the guy accessories there to. But our world is so #@)$ed up right now you can have murder filmed and people will make excuses and justify it if it happens to be the police perpetrating the crime.

How would the police know he had existing medical conditions for that to be a consideration in whether they used a proper response to the situation? Choking someone, was not a proper response to the situation.

Only because you're too lazy to go enlighten yourself, and are content with others doing the thinking for you. And if you think that just because there's a lot of media attention to something that things still can't be hidden.... well.... shoot me a pm for some good deals on bridges I have special just for you!

In fantasy worlds without an established binary morality. Once again; you seem to discussing the idea of anti-villains in fantasy without taking into account that Starwars specifically has already established that it has binary morality. Not to mention that the Starwars universe is silly and unsuited for depth and nuance. Here's the thing. Star Wars *never* established that. You apparently only saw that. A couple cases in point off the top of my head: 1. Hans Solo. He's a smuggler, outlaw, and shoots Gredo first! 2. There are sympathetic characters within the empire. ie: at least one of the guys Darth kills. 3. And if you fast forward through the original trilogy Darth is indeed a complex and sympathetic character by the end of the Return of the Jedi. Star Wars was never angels vs. demons. The whole 'lure of the darkside' is there from 'A New Hope', and that's a message and concept full of moral ambiguity and all sorts of shades of grey. I think perhaps you're insisting these movies were meant for 10 year olds because you refuse to look at them from a point of view other than that of an average 10 year old. But really, even your average 10 year old can see some of the morale ambiguity. You're generally usually far more astute Namu. Why you can only see black and white on this I'm not sure.

Valsuelm makes a fair point with regard that a DA has a vested interest in not alienating the people they work with by providing vigerous prosecution. But as Grand Jurys are secret, we'll never know if there wasn't enough evidence of if the DA presented a weak case to ensure his future cases don't get sabatoged. While what exactly is discussed between the members of the jury when they deliberate behind closed doors is secret, the actual proceedings and evidence presented in any given case usually is not and is a matter of public record. ie: One can read what the grand jury in the Ferguson case saw and heard here: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/us/ferguson-grand-jury-docs/ For less famous cases one would have to go to the local courthouse where case X was heard and petition to acquire the information. But it's information that anyone can get if they wish to (you often need to pay a fee to cover the costs of providing that material. A fee which one might find is reasonable or unjustifiably high depending on where they live. If it's the latter you can be rest assured that your local court system is corrupt.

You seem to have a decent idea of what the purpose of a grand jury is n the U.S. legal system. Three things to keep in mind. 1. A jury, grand or not, is only looking at the evidence the District Attorney's office shows them. If the local DA's office is corrupt (which they often are) or inept (which they often are), the grand jury may never get to see crucial evidence of the case. It is rare to find a DA's office that will prosecute a police officer or anyone else working on 'their team' (for the same state as them) to the fullest extent of the law and to the best of their abilities. 2. Of slightly lesser import, is that juries, grand or not, generally are restricted (or at least told they are) by the judge overseeing the proceedings. Some judges attempt to influence the jury by telling them falsely that they cannot think outside the box that is shown to them. This is complex, and situational, but it's not too uncommon to have juries decide X (almost always in favor of the state) when they could have decided otherwise or thrown the charges out all together if they knew their legal rights better. [for more on this fairly complex issue, look up concepts and legality of 'jury nullification', though that isn't the only aspect of what I'm talking about.] 3. Juries, grand or not, have people on them that are prejudiced or brainwashed in manner X. In regards to criminal transgressions by the police, it's not uncommon to have people on juries that think the police cannot do wrong, as there are people who think this way everywhere in society these days. Theoretically they may admit the police can do wrong of course, but you could show them a cop murdering someone on film and they'd make up excuses in their mind that the cop is just doing his job. (Evidence of this is all over this and other forums, ie: Gifted1's post above justifying what's unjustifiable to anyone who really knows what a choke hold is, appreciates an individual's rights, their well being, and saw that video.) All that said, from everything I've ever, seen, read, and experienced. #1 is by far the biggest problem.

Well yea... One should ask themselves why the Michael Brown case was even made such a large national news.... heck, international news story, and the innumerable Eric Gardners out there don't. Police brutality and murder is sadly and scarily not a rare thing. Even more unnerving is the fact that them getting away with it is commonplace. Yet the main stream media chose a case that wasn't actually either of those and pretended it was, yet routinely ignores cases where it clearly is one or both of those cases.

George Lucas also said that Greedo shot first... The original trilogy, without a doubt the first two movies, were made for people of all ages. If those movies just appealed to kids, they would not have been near as successful as they were. Nor would so many people be wanting to be seeing them decades later, or be invested in what the sequel trilogy will bring us. The addition of the original cast would not be so important if they just wanted to appeal to 10 year olds. Starwars was based on Flash Gorden; a kids show. When making the original script George Lucas wanted it to be, "A movie a ten year old would love." (From his biography) With the original trilogy he never strayed from that premise. Don't get me wrong; he didn't design the movie to alienate adults, but ten year old kids were the target. The fact that such a wide audience enjoyed the movie came as a complete shock to Lucas. We've already seen the results of both approaches to Starwars. Make it a story of the heroic good guys fighting the evil bad guys (The originals) and you get some of the greatest movies ever made. Make it morally unclear and have sympathetic villains and you get the prequels. Movies that are sub-par at best. They're based on more than just Flash Gordon. Westerns for one. That's well known. Again, Lucas says that Gredo shoots first. <<<< this means that near anything Lucas says anymore and for a long time now means poop. (he also contradicts himself in many other instances over the years). Insofar as why the prequels suck: It has nothing to do with the moral ambiguity, and everything to do with an abysmal script and direction. You have multiple good actors in those movies give the worst performances I've ever seen them give (Portman, McGregor, Neeson to name a few). The reason is the atrocious dialogue and George's direction. Lawerence Olivier couldn't have saved some of those scenes. The premise of the story behind Anakin's fall to the dark side is a great one. I was looking forward to it. How Lucas executed his vision of decades earlier was poorly to say the least. Lucas lost his way a looooong time ago. The respectable George Lucas that gave us the original trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Arc, and envisioned Anakin's tale died sometime in the mid to late 80s. The doppleganger who sounds and looks like him yet is strangely pudgy is soulless, shallow, tasteless, heartless, and greedy. When I saw those 'love scenes' between Anakin and Padmé for the first time I thought to myself: 'No wonder George's marriage ended in failure....'.

It does'nt really have a nice ring to it, does it? Another good one is ixquick. Neither are data-mining you like google, bing, et al. I definitely appreciate LadyCrimson's effort to not use that all too popular phrase synonymous with a 'web search' named for a once great but now long inferior search engine from what's become a really evil corporation that most think is benign.

George Lucas also said that Greedo shot first... The original trilogy, without a doubt the first two movies, were made for people of all ages. If those movies just appealed to kids, they would not have been near as successful as they were. Nor would so many people be wanting to be seeing them decades later, or be invested in what the sequel trilogy will bring us. The addition of the original cast would not be so important if they just wanted to appeal to 10 year olds.

Please refrain from posting spoilers in this thread, at least without a warning. Very uncool. I purposely don't look for 'leaked art' for good reason.

Doubt it. J.J. is a purveyor of cheese and he's never shown he can do anything else but cheese. It's not just the queer lightsaber, though that really sums it all up. If it was just the queer lightsaber in an otherwise good trailer, it might be ignorable. There's a reason that the picture of that lightsaber is being shown and ridiculed all over. If you're someone who can't see why, I dunno what to tell ya. But in addition to said lightsaber, we've got the whole contrived jerky stance thing. The uber stupid voice narrating. The soccer ball cutesy droid. The jerky camera stupid flashy light effect gimmicks on the stormtroopers. It's called really bad direction. Actually... 'uber stupid' is an understatement for that voice over. That voice over might be the worst thing I've seen/heard in a trailer in memory. The SW7 trailer makes this trailer look good!:

I know people who like both... For me JW is meh... been there done that, but it doesn't look bad. It might be amusing though likely forgettable (as most remake, redo, rehashes are), and it probably won't sh*t on the original. SW7 trailer just looks bad, and the movie is like to sh*t on the originals. WTB original stories coming out of Hollywood. TV seems to be able to do it, but the movie studios not so much these days.

That is a myth. The rest of what you say above is for the most part right on though. 1) Check the purchases of gov bonds 2) Check the manufacturing plants placement of US based companies. 1) China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government bonds yes. However the vast majority of government bonds are held within the U.S.. That said, who holds the government bonds means very little in regards to how the U.S. (and the majority of other nations) accrues and fund it's debt. Also, last I looked (which was a few months back), China was divesting itself of a great deal of those bonds and other U.S. backed assets (i.e. cash)... 2) Irrelevant in regards to the deficit the U.S. federal government runs.

That is a myth. The rest of what you say above is for the most part right on though.

HAHAHA!!! Oh socialists and their class theories. None of it is ever based on facts; just ideology. The push to end welfare mostly comes from blue collar (I don't know if that's an American specific term; it basically means working class) people pissed off that they have to work while lazy slackers feed off the system. Most of the political support FOR welfare comes from the upper-class communities. I can assure you in the US if you ask poor to lower-middle class people about welfare about 1/2 of them will want it eliminated, and the other half will only accept the programs grudgingly. Ask the rich and about 19/20 of them will give their complete support for welfare. That's because neoliberal ideologues are working overtime to convince everyone that the theoretical "welfare queen" is to blame for everything. Its a project they've been doing ever since the Reagan/Thatcher era and its easy to prove where it originated. Just because some blue collar muppets took up the cause (that goes against their own interests) doesn't make them the real brains behind it. Its nonsense of course, people have no sense of the scale at which a country's economy operates. A certain number of people leeching the system at the bottom rung make absolutely no difference whatsoever to an economy that shuffles billions or trillions of (insert currency) per year. its easy to demonstrate how the current economic crisis and the recession are precisely the fault of the uncontrolled financial capital institutions from the housing crisis onwards. It was the result of systematic abuse that cost taxpayers across the world insane amounts of money and brought economies to the brink of collapse. In fact, it has been repeatedly demonstrated by top economists that that is in fact what happened. Welfare itself has never been an economic threat to the system but it is a barrier to increasing profit margins and possibilities for corruption for people on the top. The money that can be made from privatizing health care and social services is unfathomably large. No. The primary reason is because people who work see the giant chunk the state takes out of their paycheck each pay period in the name of welfare. It's because some people are opposed to the evil of robbing from someone to give to someone else. It's never taken any propaganda from 'neoliberal ideologues' to get a great many people in the U.S. to dislike welfare. It's also because many are aware of the rampant abuse and corruption in the system. And some, though fewer, realize that welfare ultimately causes far more harm than good on many levels. 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions' applies. The various financial crisis as reported to you in the main stream media that you're referring to are other issues all together. Welfare itself is a financial crisis, just one almost never mentioned in a media that for the most part endorses and supports it.

Coming out against Israel was for a very long time political suicide in the U.S., and in many circles still is. The Israeli lobby is arguably the most effective lobby in Washington D.C. Without a doubt it's the most effective foreign lobby. They have a lot of politicians by the balls. Times are slowly changing though as one really has to try to ignore the evils and pure BS that government perpetrates, and more people have woken up to that and the fact that Israel really does near nothing positive for the U.S. as an ally, is a giant liability, potentially on a scale no nation can afford, and if you're really astute in your history and modern world affairs they're even arguably our enemy. Hearing anything bad about Israel in main stream media just about never happens. It's pretty much non stop: 'Israel is our friend we must help them', 'Israel is our friend we must help them', 'Israel is our friend we must help them', 'Israel is our friend we must help them', 'Israel is our friend we must help them' over and over and over and over. Basic and effective brainwashing. The closest you'll get to a major national politician saying we shouldn't support Israel is someone like Ron Paul saying we shouldn't be involved in their issues, and he wasn't at all supported by the major parties or the main stream media.

It's not going to take even close to that long....

Given your time on this forum, does that really surprise you? The commies and willing serfs out number us here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIDmK5qwarU

I've wondered the same thing... as he often posts in a manner that would lead one to think this.

Rand is definitely not his father, however he's probably the best there is on capital hill right now (that's how bad things are), and the only one of the so far possible presidential contenders that might actually earn my vote. There's no indication however that he's going to 'lick the boots of evangelical whackjobs', nor do such people have remotely as much power as you and many others seem to think. Not much more power than the boogie man brigade really. Also, Huntsman supported Israel, the unconstitutional and frankly evil individual mandate that everyone buys insurance, believes in 'global warmi' errrrr..... 'climate change', and endorsed Mitt Romney. He was a sh*t candidate.