213374U

Keep going.

Thankfully, even if military commanders got their ROE straight from Trump (do they?) those don't apply domestically. NG in support of law enforcement ops are still bound by State law with regards to the use of force. Which only adds to the tweet faux pas.

Civil society is only "ok" with using violence against suspects in as much as it is reasonable, justified and necessary. It's debatable whether calling in troops to fire at looters would meet that standard, but I'm leaning towards "no". edit: so riots break out ostensibly over police brutality and perceived disregard for the lives of minorities. The answer must be... an escalation from police brutality to military brutality? Color me unconvinced.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that "protesters" have carte blanche to loot and pillage. But that's the thing with social order breakdowns, they are antithetical to the law, they aren't proportional, and they aren't reasonable. Going moralistic about it is unhelpful because a moral failure of society -whether perceived or actual- is almost invariably a causing factor. Gotta love Trump casually threatening to send in the troops to shoot citizens and no one bats an eyelash. It's always these self-satisfied, cowardly types that are quick to volunteer others to die or wield deadly force in their stead. But what's truly sad about it is how often it is mistaken for "leadership" by the masses. What's that about the worst system except for all the others, again?

Witcher games also had some pretty great tunes.

I still listen to all 3 soundtracks regularly -- the whole trilogy had some pretty fantastic music.

If I'm not mistaken, the word filter always replaces a bad word with four asterisks, regardless of actual length.

Face masks are fantastic. Wearing them in public helps protect from such dangers as mass surveillance and are also helpful against hay fever.

Really inspiring how after a literal decade of going back and forth on the same arguments, the amount by which postures have shifted is measured in angstroms. No doubt a better future is right around the corner and we'll be able to solve all problems by means of reasoned debate.

I don't know about LOTRO, but DDO, which is by the same dev and uses the same engine, had a ton of different instances and I remember it having comparatively few ten (bug)bear arse kind of quests, that were optional too. SWTOR sure has a ton of ten bear colicoid arses-type "quests", too. It does have the stories going for it, but it's really not very good stuff beyond the original character arcs. Currently failing hard at HM Revan, btw...

Funny story. Wheaton has likely not seen that scene (from Q-Less), because he went with a DS9 watching guide that leaves it out, for his first time through the show. I'd say Q makes for fun -if not necessarily good- Trek so that makes it worth recommending especially as it's the only appearance of the character in the entire show, but what do I know. So yeah, pretty much the opposite of a Trek authority as majestic said. In his defense (ugh), I don't think he's never presented himself as one.

It is a known fact that economic recession brings with it increases in poverty, violent crime and suicide. The amount of patients with conditions other than COVID that have had their treatments suspended, reduced, delayed or otherwise affected is non-negligible as well. I remember reading that, for example, the amount of heart attack cases admitted to hospitals had decreased by some 40%. Needless to say, this doesn't mean there has been a 40% reduction in myocardial infarctions. That being said, any strategy based on analyses that look at QALYs per dollar vs total COVID fatalities is going to be problematic at best especially if the result said analyses return is that saving a group of core voters now condemns a larger number of people to death by various causes at an unspecified point in the future, even leaving ethical considerations aside (!). edit: also of note, is that Sweden, with its comparatively hands-off approach, is still looking at a 6-7% GDP contraction as a result of all this. Even without lockdowns, the economy is going to take serious damage, and trust takes much longer to build than it does to break.

37 Senators voted against an amendment that would have stopped the FBI from being able to seize your internet search and browsing history Wonder how many of them own stock in VPN providers.

Interesting. I tried watching that on YouTube and it asked me to sign in to confirm my age. Must protect impressionable kids from, er, the great games of old?

Some people are just ****. Crotch rockets and douche cars as coping mechanisms for mid life crises just tend to accentuate that. I've always been told to run against traffic if possible, though. And we won't get automated cars until the factories are running again, just saying...

Yeah -- let's see if we can keep the bashing limited to cops and not extend it to each other...

You have it backwards. When considering whether that power should be vested on law enforcement officials, it rests on those arguing for it to prove that the needs sufficiently justify the accidental deaths that will inevitably result. So what is the evidence that no knock warrants substantially help save lives or better enforce laws vis-à-vis the alternatives? It's baffling how an increasing amount people don't realize that state power isn't all encompassing except for whatever restrictions are placed on it when it's actually the other way around -- the state must be explicitly be empowered to regulate and enforce, and each of those endowments must be carefully considered before and closely monitored for abuse and effectiveness after.

Heh. Gotta love when someone puts the risk of perps escaping or destroying evidence on the same level as present danger to someone's life.

I too liked the whole Enterprise intro, including the theme. Never understood the complaint that a Star Trek show's theme must be orchestral only -- they even omitted the Star Trek part from the title to pre-empt that (to no avail). They could have maybe used Archer's Theme for the intro, but I think it would have detracted from a certain... innocent charm (?) that was an undertone I really liked in the series.

That's literally the bedrock of any economy that isn't restricted to direct barter. Remember TP just a few weeks ago? Crypto's main difference with fiat currency is that it isn't backed by any one government, but by the internet itself. You can get goods and services in exchange for it because other people will accept it so they can get goods and services in exchange for it, so long as the internet works and there's a limited supply of it. Its value is purely transactional. Not trying to lecture you here, btw, and I'm not invested in crypto myself. I just think it has the same intrinsic value as gold (unless you desperately need to make wires and are out of copper and silver...), and if we're looking at TOTAL COLLAPSE, neither will be very valuable. And, at this point, the Internet failing would be a bigger disaster than any one economy collapsing, including the US.

Yeah, I also like how Warp Speed means that it would take hundreds of years of Earth time for a ship to get anywhere, while they'd arrive in days of ship time. "The project will be complete in just a few months"... (in government time). 11D chess alright.

I don't know man. You ban buzz cuts and stuff and next thing you know the 80's are back. *shudder*

There isn't, because "the Criminal Interdiction Squad doesn't use them", to no one's surprise.

Whatever do you mean?