Gromnir

the water looks nice. spellcaster offer genuine different gameplay experiences. in fact, each class has been offering enough unique abilities to be interesting, although the rogue and warrior/fighter strike us as a bit vanilla. no cassowary for rangers, but we can name a bear, State O' Maine. HA! Good Fun!

we got many criticisms of the game, but am thinking many o' the combat complaints is attributable to one factor: inexperience. we hear frenetic. we hear auto-attack bug, we hear pathfinding. *shrug* Gromnir micromanages, so pathfinding has been a minor nuisance (had priest run complete wrong direction drawing a second group o spiders to us were fun), and the auto-attack doesn't seem much o' an issue 'cause even when we get that bug, we inch through maps and invariably am prepared for combats. that being said, we gotta observe that there is no tutorial for this game, and we is being dumped into mid-levels. ultimately we believe that starting at level 5 is a good idea, but it makes the learning curve considerably steeper than it otherwise would be. at first level we would have a handful o' abilities per character and we would no doubt have some hand-holding combats which would introduce us to combat mechanics. we would learn first level abilities and would get a dozen combats with those abilities before reaching the next level... but there is no intro combats with this beta. obsidian is taking a bunch o' folks who don't know how to swim in PoE water, and throwing 'em in the deep end... or at least the deepening end. we sill say that we would like the character sheet to be more dynamic. we change weapons and armour and gear and numbers on character sheet appear to remain static. how does Gromnir know if a stilleto is a good or bad weapon for a cipher if we cannot see some kinda character sheet change? am also not getting much o' the applause for the writing. am s'posing some appreciation is based on expectations. obsidian does good writing, so we must be getting good writing? am not able to identify a particular memorable character or dialogue thus far... at least not a good one. sid were a mess. all the history were tedious exposition that wonder if we were 'posed to have read volume one and two before getting sid's talky. most dialogues has been pretty standard crpg fare with some silly humor (josh must be chewing on aluminum foil to see such included) and skill/ability checks that don't always seems to work as deigned... or maybe the do work as designed and we just don't understand the rules. most unfortunate bug so far is disappearing quests. the only xp we get is from guest and task completion, so quest disappearance is a game killer. nevertheless, am suspecting that most complains 'bout combat is actual misguided. yeah, inability to identify friend from foe or character 1 for character is annoying and inexcusable. and some bugs make combats more difficult than necessary, but we suspect that the biggest problem with combat is simply that it is relative complex, not particular intuitive, and we were dropped in game midway without any chance to learn basics. that being said, we still believe starting at level 5 is a good idea, but we can see how it would be discouraging for some players. HA! Good Fun! ps having to play our cipher sans armour is also annoying. every time we reload a game, his armour disappears... not that we can honestly tell you how much good armour is doing for our cipher anyway given lack o' a dynamic character record display

*sigh* same. zero quests, notes, etc. HA! Good Fun!

Okie dokie. This is a beta, so if Gromnir sounds critical it is with full awareness that we don’t have a finished product. Even so… Game is difficult to play at this point, at least for us. Meredith(sp?) fight were our first combat and she got stuck in an endless and seeming infinite repeating sneak attack loop that slowed game down to a molasses-like drip. In that same battle we noticed that our priest and wizard party members were disarmed, which made it impossible for the wizard to cast spells. Our warrior comp had been knocked prone at some point during the battle and he were unable to move afterwards (a reload solved the immobility issue, but only after combat ended.) Using mouse button to zoom in and out were kinda disappointing as we were not able to get zoomed in particular close or pull back particular far. Lack o’ zoom were an issue in part ‘cause distinguishing friends and foes and different enemies were not particular easy—allow us to give different party members different colored indicator circles would help a bit to identify party members. Oh, and at some point during the Meredith battle, zoom stopped working. Reloading and/or entering a new area fixed zoom as we were limited to increasing and decreasing the fog-of-war with zoom after the Meredith encounter. Oh, and cursor over our characters did not accurate reveal our stamina/health— those numbers were seeming fixed at max/full. Again, keep in mind these were problems during our first combat. We started a new game ‘cause as stated already, our mage were completed useless w/o a grimoire. Our second attempt at fighting Meredith did not result in the sneak attack slow down or missing gear from priest and wizard. Huzzah. Character 1 were a human cipher. Character 2 were a dwarf cipher. Is perhaps not a problem, but the knockdown sound effect is a bit excessive. Am knowing josh is a fan o’ Dune, but the thumper-like sound effect for knockdown were threatening to attract giant sandworms to our computer. Fear us, for we is the kwisatz haderach! No? So we make our way back to the inn after the fight. More weirdness. There is a “container” near base of the stairs leading to the second floor. Is looking like a generic loot pile and it contains a fine sword. Is also three weapons that we cannot interact with on the floor in front o’ the bar—axe, mace and sword? Odd. Had a hard time not clicking through sid exposition. Does his “story” make better sense if we had played full game up to this point? Keep in mind that we didn’t pay much attention to many o’ the lore updates as we wanted to experience such stuff in the game, but we were not following sid particular well… he simple weren’t engaging. We noticed that we were able to access a dialogue with the nobleman at the inn that required a lore o’ 4 and a intellect o’ 14. Our character didn’t have a lore o’ 4. Is skill checks party based or main character focused? If is main character only that generates skill/ability checks, then perhaps it were a bug we encountered. Used world map to travel south to a map with bugs and wolves. After a fight with wood and stone bugs, our cipher’s armour had disappeared leaving us rather naked. Am thinking the evaporating armour were the fine brigadine we had looted following our second Meredith battle. We fought some wolves and sure enough our warrior comp once again got stuck after being knocked prone. We discovered golden celery, quite by accident. The vegetation were not being revealed via the tab feature but rather became illuminated by us accidental brushing with our cursor. Is vegetation discovered through pixel hunting? If so, why? Game is rough. Got random thoughts. - Lack o’ traits were something ‘bout which we were forewarned, but am admitting disappointment in absence o’ any chooseable so far. -The spell icons look nice and is reminiscent o’ ps:t style, but am admitting that am not certain we gotta grasp on spell casting. We seem to be able to generate focus via ranged weapons. Is that the way is ‘posed to work? We read somewhere that focus were only generated through melee, but it don’t seem to work thus. Am having more than a little difficulty predicting focus building. - Is no way to speed-up mouse speed? -we opted for auto-pause when attacked, but that resulted in a pause every single time we were attacked. A First attack auto-pause would likely be sufficient. -boob armour does not aid in distinguishing characters. We mentioned above, but different colored indicator circles for each party member would not complete alleviate the seeming perpetual Charlie fox combat situation, but it could help. -foliage and water look nice. *shrug* -am still not certain how secondary stats is generated or how to be figuring out combat mechanics. Dual wielding doesn’t change the displayed accuracy modifier on our character sheet, so am not certain what penalties and bonuses we incur by dual wielding or by equipping different weapons. Am sure we can puzzle out by looking close at combat feedback, but that ain’t the only way to puzzle out combat numbers, is it? -the various casters we has played during our extreme brief session were varied and intriguing. Am admitting that without traditional healing, am not quite certain how to be using our priest effective at this point. As we don’t genuine understand all the factors that go into generating fatigue (or loss o’ stamina, or… whatever) am not quite certain how to use priest buffs. We will come up with more positives later, but as we said, our first few hours o’ play were very rough. HA! Good Fun!

am not ashamed to admit that we hate women. oh, is not as if we hate all women... or even many women. that being said, we hate more than one woman. discounting the largely impersonal hate (if such is possible) of historical female personages such as myra hindley or ilse koch, we has also developed a personal and real hate o' a handful o' women. virtual all the women we can say we genuine loathe is/was the parents o' kids we dealt with while working at juvenile hall. any woman that would abuse (particularly sexual abuse) their own child such that as an existentialist we began to believe in objective evil, well then such a woman is deserving o' our unapologetic hate. so, in the sense that we can honest say we hat more than one woman, am guessing that technically we hate women-- less than ten though. as for women in general, we has no greater or lesser animosity for the female gender than for the male. we do find drunken men more obnoxious at sporting events, and women is more annoying when they passive/aggressive let us know that they Really don't wanna watch the movie that is currently on tv, but such annoyances don't rise to the level o' hate. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/18/world/meast/iraq-mosul-dam/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 if true, is incredibly good news. am amazed at just how little press the mosul dam(n) situation has received given that we are talking o' potential biblical scope harm resulting from simple negligence in maintaining the facility, much less intentional destruction. HA! Good Fun!

absolutely hilarious. we can show examples o' excessive police violence from numerous european nations, particularly eastern european. Am not sure comparing U.S. to ex-soviet block countries is a particularly good comparison, I'd certainly hope it wouldn't be a standard most Americans aspire for. naughty. in same paragraph we also noted we could pull examples o' police violence from australia and japan. am thinking it were kinda obvious that we were observing that one may find examples o' police violence anywhere. you also ignore where we mention in the same post where we observe that if we had been a victim o' police excess in russia, china or north korea, we would be happy to simple get out of the country following such an incident. am thinking we made kinda obvious that the point were that places such as russia is far worse than US. "Nah, I just pointed out a particular document to Orogun. I actually doubt the style I did it in matters in the slightest." is not really irony when is predictable. you now wanna claim coincidence in spite o' your sarcastic "I'm sure that's a coincidence," comment? HI-larious. serious. keep going with this. is much entertaining. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure what significance the 80s represent. tensions 'tween various minority groups and the police were probable less in the 80s than in the 50s and 60s... is arguable 'bout the 70s or 90s. honestly, compared to civil rights era, this all seems kinda strange. looking at general approval and confidence levels o' cops you will see that the numbers is extreme high... am thinking hurl posted a link earlier. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66695-police-arrest-attack-reporters-order-reporters-not-to-cover-protest-in-united-states/?p=1479289 'course our map o' st. louis is representative o' part o' the problem in talking 'bout confidence in cops. different counties and states and municipalities mean that when Gromnir speaks o' cops, a person in LA or Chicago is likely to have much different experiences. in our own locale, there is considerable difference 'tween roseville, folsom, carmichael, elk grove, and sac city cops (among others), and we is just as likely to be dealing with sac county sheriff or the chp. say "cops" can refer to any one o' those relative autonomous departments. our personal anecdotal experience 'bout cop confidence would be that last few years has seen a decrease in cop confidence with a general trending decrease since the 90s, but am suspecting that much o' that is due to economic misfortunes. disparity 'tween the haves and have nots has always been massive in the US, but recent times has been rough, particular for the have nots. anger at government is kinda vague and unspecific. cops is the most common street-level government official people will come into contact with. ... am hesitant to mention this 'cause it makes us sound old and outta touch, but there is elements in american culture that is promoting unfortunate ideas. apparently, being "disrespected" is the greatest insult one may give to another human being. responding with violence to perceived disrespect is acceptable and even glorified. there were significant gang warfare in chicago in the 70s, but Gromnir lived south side in the 80s and 90s when serious weapons began appearing. at that time there were lack o' confidence that police or fire department would show up to an emergency, but the perceived danger from cops were relative slight. statistics show that actual danger from cops nowadays is even less than it were when we were a teen, but the perception is complete different. also, there is subjects we cannot talk about. being labeled as a racist or bigot prevents open discussion o' many topics, and so perceptions fester and become malignant. crime is higher amongst various minority groups. interracial crime is significantly higher between and betwixt certain groups. certain types o' crime is much more prevalent amongst certain racial groups... but not necessarily racial as we think. there is reasons for these problems and those problems might be fixable, but even on an anonymous message board, we is reticent to bring up some issues, 'cause it forever labels us as for or against some perceived unspeakable evil. how the hell can you fix problems you can't even talk about? so we get what we got now in the US where violent crime and police violence has decreased in recent years, but perception is complete different. HA! Good Fun!

absolutely hilarious. we can show examples o' excessive police violence from numerous european nations, particularly eastern european. can do the same for places such as japan and australia too. the fact that police does use too much force in tense situations is shocking news to you? sure, russian police sodomizing suspects over s'posed refusal to admit $200 theft o' computer hardware is a bit shocking, but is hardly unique. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/world/europe/russia-jolted-into-action-on-police-brutality.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 the fact that you has used innuendo (legal term btw) to draw a correlation 'tween police in israel and missouri based on a week long visit by the retired police chief o' st. louis county is the straight-up conspiracy theory nonsense we has come to expect from the wackiest elements o' this board. as for the florida teen that gots 0 relevance to current thread, the fact you seem to think the sling were the essential element in our posts is baffling. lord knows we ain't believing tariq 'cause he claims he didn't use the sling israelis claim were found in his possession. nevertheless, that element is hardly essential to be showing that the american teen were a complete idiot. duh. in the video o' tariq you can see one officer carrying a sling, but no doubt that were a plant, or just something tariq were having in his pocket or dropped on ground. heck, tariq originally had only claimed that he had not hurled rocks at police... he didn't initial claim that he had no sling. oh, and since you find absence as compelling evidence, how 'bout absence o' israeli apology? one israeli officer received a 15 day suspension. one. US state department gets involved and one guy gets a reprimand? no news 'bout a civil case neither, eh? if we were talking 'bout russia or china our north korea, Gromnir would be happy to simple get out of the country alive following a similar incident, but in the case o' an american in israel, we would be fighting tooth and nail to make sure innocent passerby types (HA!) such as our self and tariq would be safe in the future. without an apology from israel, there would be no end o' noise and litigation from Gromnir. but again, in case it is missed, raise tariq situation when the issue you raised were the s'posed non-coincidence that a now retired missouri police chief had visited israel for anti-terrorism education is beyond ridiculous. HA! Good Fun!

"But it does make a good parallel though," no it doesn't. tariq situation got nothing to do with furgeson-- is... spam. in any event, compare brown to florida teen is as bizarre, which is simply par for the course for you. our comments about florida teen had Nothing to do with his guilt or innocence o' a crime. we has also mentioned many times that israelis acted excessive in arresting the yutz who decided to join a rock throwing mob on his vacation. tariq's actions were generating very little sympathy here in the States because tariq were a moron. being a moron is not a crime, so no presumptions o' innocence. you keep avoiding the real issue regarding tariq: was it a good idea for a fifteen year old from florida to join a rock throwing mob in palestine? again, 'cause am sure you has already forgotten, the israelis should not have beaten tariq as they did, but the likelihood that israelis would hurt palestinians engaged in rioting makes tariq voluntarily joining such a fracas all the more idiotic. a keffiyeh, btw, is not particular useful protection from tear gas. a good counter measure is leaving the area. best counter measure is Not joining the freaking rock throwing mob in the first place, a point you keep missing. "Actually I am rather amused you took the whole defamation thing so dead seriously, right down to the legalism the 'ohno its libel cos its written' predicted." which is pretty much an admission that every time you try and raise legal issues, you is just spouting ignorance. for once do yourself a favor and take our advice: don't post law. serious. explain in plain english and you will avoid these embarrassing backpedalls. "Whether Israeli training actually influenced the results is something only the Ferguson PD can answer. And I'd bet any money that they won't." *chuckle* for a guy throwing in defamation references, you don't know innuendo. it is funny watching you post self into incomprehension however. HA! Good Fun!

slippery slope arguments is unnecessary and is ignoring certain realities. there were numerous protests in other cities following the shooting o' mr. brown. whatever the real issues is leading to unrest, stated complaints include complaints that cops in the US is using disproportionate force 'gainst black suspects, and that blacks is disproportionate treated as suspects w/o justification. using serious force to quell disorder would, for many, be a validation o' the aforementioned complaints. to go into ferguson and use a no-nonsense approach could, at this time, result in more bloodshed both local and nationally. regardless, as volatile as the situation is currently, am gonna hate to see what happens during/after a potential criminal trial o' the cop. am not personally seeing much justification for the shooting, but am familiar enough with these situations that am doubting state will be able to do better than manslaughter. the videotape o' the robbery and the apparently significant bruising on the cop's face will create a trial that does not go as many people in ferguson will be demanding. on the positive side, the folks in missouri will have far more experience wit crowd control, and with a trial they will have time to prepare. is that a positive? kinda? HA! Good Fun!

no doubt the st. louis police learned from the israelis to stand back and allow folks to burn buildings and l007 stores. see folks in swat gear and bearing assault weapons ignores just how long these... events, has been allowed to continue, and how relative few people has been serious injured by police... as long as we pretend that police isn't being serious injured. is not even fair to refer to situation in ferguson as rioting. there is widespread protests during the day, then at night, large number o' jackarses loot and burn shops. am suspecting the israelis would laugh themselves silly at st. louis approach to "crowd control." much o' the chaos and disorganization o' cops early were not hard to explain. please note that not only does state and county have their own cops, but so does many municipalities. check out ferguson on the map. regardless, to see some kinda similarity 'tween feguson events and israeli approach is laughable. one retired county chief visits israel for a week to learn counter-terrorism, and a couple o' our tinfoil hat brigade makes a connection regardless o' how actual events is unfolding in missouri. btw, am not suggesting that israeli way is correct. on the contrary, israeli no-nonsense approach would result in widespread condemnation here in the US. HA! Good Fun!

1) you don't know slander/libel any better than you know presumption o' innocence. do we really need to beat you Again with your confusion about presumption o' innocence? btw, is multiple media reports he had a sling, and you sure as hell don't have access to all court documents in this case. hell, you don't even know if evidence was presented. this were a very public event, so, given the ny times v. sullivan line o' cases, you would need to show actual malice (legal malice, not english definition o' malice) if you wanted to try and generate slander (or libel). so, no dice. wanna try another route? oh, and is no category o' sling-possession slander anyhow. Gromnir is claiming that the kid acted like an idiot and not that he were actual guilty o' a serious crime, or that he had a social disease or other similar categories that result in slander. you got a rough battle showing that a palestinian american kid would have suffered monetary damage resulting from reputation besmirching from inaccurate claims o' sling possession. gotta show damages for slander/libel in such cases. *snort* all o' which Complete misses the point(s). your observation ignores fact that idiot boy thought a violent riot would be a good choice to add to his vacation itinerary. who woulda' ever thought that he might get hurt at a violent riot? and in video his face is clear obscured by keffiyeh, which not only makes claims that ty were an innocent bystander less likely, but it sure as hell would make it far easier for israeli's to mistake florida yutz for folks who were hurling rocks. imagine a bank robbery wherein one o' the innocent bystanders just happened to don a ski mask such as worn by the actual bank robbers. is absolutely shocking that he mighta' got hurt in that situation. HA! and again, what happened to the dolt who thought that joining a riot in palestine were a good idea has what relevance to ferguson? 2) so, you is gonna pretend orogun is only one making a connection? "As for the letter... well, it's been covered already. Orogun said NYPD had trained with Israeli Police, I pointed out that the far more relevant St Louis PD had. Any further conclusions drawn from that are completely your, or anyone else's, own." ah, so when you said, "I'm sure that's a coincidence" you were being literal? alternative, and more likely is that you were suggesting that there were indeed some kinda correlation 'tween retired police chief's one week stay in israel to study anti-terrorism and the events in ferguson. am not surprised you is gonna take coward's route and avoid trying to explain yourself... though given your penchant for conspiracy theories, am disappointed that you seem to realize now just how ridiculous trying to link the a retired st. louis cop's week-long trip to israel to learn 'bout anti-terrorism and police tactics in ferguson. HA! Good Fun! ps advice for future: don't use legal vernacular. is a mistake many people make. is ironic that most people use the legal stuff to sound more educated on a topic when it in fact reveals surfeit o' knowledge. use plain english to express yourself and you will be far less likely to end up with metaphorical pie on your face.

again, what is the point? what conclusions is you deriving from fact that retired former police chief went to israel to learn counter-terrorism? what correlation can you possibly be making between the retired guy's week long visit and events in furgeson? *insert emoticon o' your choice here* ... oh, and fact that the moron from florida were released is hardly meaning there were 0 evidence. "He was released on Thursday after pressure from the U.S. State Department," well gosh, am surprised that the israelis let him go. *snort* also, please note that your outta left field reference to tariq complete ignores fact that in that thread we observed that israelis use o' force were "excessive." and again, 'cause you is being dogged with this obtuse israeli/st louis connection, what possible connection do you think to create? an idiotic florida kid who shows up to an ugly riot wearing a keffiyeh covering his face and carrying a sling (no proof he hurled any rocks 'course) where folks is dressed thus and is hurling rocks at police and surprise o' surprises, he gets serious injured? so what? does not diminish israeli excess but it sure as hell don't reveal a connection to events in furgeson. the st louis /israel thing is wacky enough, but to somehow reference idiotic florida kids enjoying palestinian style riots while on vacation is getting even beyond your usual strangeness. go ahead, show us again the connections. you is very amusing when you get squirmy and obtuse. HA! Good Fun!

Yes? The police tactics we're seeing in Ferguson pre-date that 2011 press release by several decades. Police were doing this sh*t against protesters way back in the Veitnam era. Assault Rifles and everything? well, actually, yes. is actual the result o' the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991. started as a war on drugs kinda thing. Congress expanded in 1997... counter-terrorism were included as rationale. try searching 1033 program. we could explain, but am doubting that would help you much. in any event, we would still like to hear zor spin the israeli/st. louis connection. we will make popcorn. HA! Good Fun!

please, spell out what you see as coincidence. ... this will be good. give us a sec to first grab our tinfoil hat. HA! Good Fun!

we like a political circus as much as the next guy, but... well, perhaps video is better and it would appear that these kinda videos received significant airtime, and cop organizations beat Perry to the punch by demanding lehmberg resignation. now perhaps prosecutors can come up with alternative reasons why Perry really wanted to remove lehmberg, but lehmberg did a pretty good job o' providing Perry with a plausible excuse, and that is likely all he needs... unless prosecutor got audio/video o' Perry admitting that his actual motivations were illegal. HA! Good Fun!

distilled your entire post down to the essential. rodney king comparison in story link is particular noteworthy as rodney king were 1991. am thinking you need better than once every 20 years to be establishing a trend. given the enormous volume o' police stops that occur weekly, monthly, yearly in the US, the excessive force examples is kinda small. widespread use o' tasers actual resulted in a temporary increase in excessive force complaints. am suspecting cops were perhaps a bit too comfortable with application o' a non-lethal attitude adjuster. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/world/europe/russia-jolted-into-action-on-police-brutality.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 yeah, US cops don't seem all that bad by comparison. as an aside... http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/tech/social-media/ferguson-hands-up-igotthetalk/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 is reminding us o' our own anecdotal contribution earlier in this thread. we will note that the talk our father had with us is different than the one many young men get nowadays. we worked at a nor-cal juvenile hall for a bit. heard some odd variations o' "the talk." "don't let anybody punk you." that were most common variation we heard from kids who had gotten advice from their father. mom advice were typical different. even so, whether kids were crip, blood, norteno, sureno, g-mob or peckerwoods, most o' the kids we dealt with were believing that an essential quality o' manhood were defiance, particularly police defiance, and a stay in juvenile hall were a right o' passage. being sent to prison were often referred to as "going to college." the kids we dealt with seemed to think prison were where they would eventual learn their real trade, though the reality were that you could see just how terrified they was when they came back from court having heard that they would be tried as adults. example: asian kid, chinese, had been in juvenile hall for over a year as his case slowly worked its way through the system. he were in juvi 'cause, as he put it, he went along with friends as they stole a car... stole car and eventual fired a weapon at a cop. he had no freaking idea. he thought 'cause he were a passenger during the high-speed chase, and 'cause his co-conspirators would vouch for him that he did not drive car or shoot a weapon, that he would only be facing car theft charges. one freaking year passes and his attorney never let him know that as a co-conspirator he were facing same charges as his pals? the kid were kinda proud o' the cred he got from being involved in a serious crime. we broke our own personal rule and advised the kid; we told him to ask his attorney 'bout what it actual meant to be a co-conspirator. age seventeen hardarse comes back from lawyer visit crying like a twelve year old girl, and we genuine felt bad for him. *shrug* strangest/saddest variation o' "the talk" were from sixteen year old who were in j-unit awaiting trial for a double-homicide. his father had given him the most brilliantist advice we ever heard: "never apologize." big surprise he ended up in trouble with the law, eh? HA! Good Fun! ps visiting days at juvi is why we decided we will never have kids. 90% o' the messed up kids in juvenile hall had messed up parents. messed up kids with messed up parents were reinforcing our naive world view. the 10%... scared us. 10% o' the folks who visited were hard working people who clearly loved their children, and the kids loved the parents back... were no creepy vibe. the 10% coulda' been norman rockwell characters... albeit a bit more diverse. juvi taught us that parenting could be a crap-shoot and we don't gamble.

... is extreme creepy, but nix the facial hair (all facial hair) and josh is looking increasingly like our mother did the first time she went through chemo in the mid/late 80s. she became extreme thin and wan and her hair began to grow back a charcoal-grey color. we see pictures o' josh nowadays and we feel an overwhelming urge to give him zofran and cranberry juice. we did say it were creepy. HA! Good Fun!

Yeah, our officers have the cameras as well. People sue police departments with regularity, so financially it makes sense to have video of every event. the cameras is expensive. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66695-police-arrest-attack-reporters-order-reporters-not-to-cover-protest-in-united-states/?p=1478326 clearly Gromnir thinks the cameras is a good idea, but at $900 a pop, and $23,000 a year to store video for a smallish department, am recognizing that many police departments is gonna need help outfitting a substantial % of officers. for example, many counties and cities in CA is still operating in the red despite the overall improvement o' the economic situation nationally. HA! Good Fun!

am not gonna speak to bester's imaginary statistics for cop corruption, but from a law pov, the US Constitution hamstrings its cops compared to western european countries.... and am not even gonna bother with eastern european notions o' civil liberties. am thinking we mentioned exclusionary rule in another thread, yes? exclusion is not embraced by most europeans, and australia has kinda a exclusion-lite version. exclusion is designed as a deterrent o' police excess as it is a rule that sets guilty folks free. most europeans is more enlightened and has decided that the way to deter cops is to punish bad cops as 'posed to letting guilty folks escape justice. in the US we punish the cop AND set guilty folks free. silly. should be called the excessive rule. furthermore, searches o' dwellings in the US requires probable cause, which is, from a practical perspective, a much more difficult threshold to overcome than european equivalents. euro "reasonable grounds" or "reasonable suspicion" would amount to "barest suspicion" here in the US. ... given Gromnir's profession, we is feeling sheepish to admit it, but more common than a belief that US laws is overindulgent o' police excess, a more common fear is that lawyers may twist laws so that no genuine criminal with enough money will ever be convicted. such a belief is not borne out by the facts, but regardless, the fear that criminals can escape justice 'cause o' wiggle-room in laws is common. in eastern europe, on the other hand, lack o' faith in legal system is due to belief that corruption is endemic as 'posed to institutional flaws that favor the guilty and the rich. regardless, the common American belief that laws and institutions is far too protective o' the rights o' suspects is having more than a little validity. we honest don't know european statistics regarding incidence o' police using excessive force. am knowing that the US is a far less homogenized nation than is typical in europe. is our belief that such diversity makes conflicts such as the recent events in furgeson far more likely than in most european nations or japan. there is also more than a few unfortunate US institutional legacies that has made crime a hereditary problem. nevertheless, we has no genuine knowledge o' statistics to support our assumptions regarding euro police excess. we do know laws though, and bester is ridiculous wrong 'bout laws. HA! Good Fun!

But why there were police officers geared as they are in that last picture? As I can say for sure that there were zero polices in such gear in that riot that I mentioned my previous post or any other riots that there has been in Finland that I know and it is not because of that Finnish police don't have such equipment in their use. again, from the first 2 pics you can see that the riot lines were patchwork and hodgepodge. am betting that st. louis police used pretty much used a kitchen sink approach... am not surprised at all that swat were sent out, even if we agree that it seems to us like overkill. we would also not be surprised if those swat guys were only the smallest % o' total police employed, in spite o' disproportionate screen-time. HA! Good Fun!

to be fair, there is similar pictures from st. louis. unfortunate/fortunate for st. louis, they ain't had riots and am suspecting they were scrambling to put together a hodgepodge force to deal with rioting. that being said, swat teams is gonna be far more photogenic. have media show disproportionate number o' swat is hardly surprising. if peter parker brings the three pics above to j. jonah jameson, which is mr. jameson gonna pay for? HA! Good Fun!

Or we could not assume and just wait for all the facts to come out. May be police used excessive force, may be they didn't. Yeah the guy was unarmed, but he's a 6'4" 290 lbs giant. You can see him assaulting the clerk in the robbery video, anyone would be scared for his life. he coulda been 8' tall and looked like mumm-ra from the thundercats cartoons for all we care. he were unarmed and were a considerable distance away from the police vehicle when he were being shot. unless cops thought brown/mumm-ra represented an immediate threat to the life and well-being o' themselves and/or innocent bystanders, there were no cause to shoot... and we is having a hard time coming up with even imaginary explanations that reveal the necessary threat on behalf o' brown... or mumm-ra. being big is not a valid reason in itself to be shooting people. Gromnir is waiting for full story, but it makes difficult when we can't come up with even a hypothetical that reasonably explains the situation. HA! Good Fun! ps am gonna conceded that if mumm-ra or mr. brown had the eye of thundera in their possession, the situation would be complete different.

wow. is this an age thing again? so, if all pictures o' ferguson police were shown as above would you believe that once rioting started, st. louis and furgeson police would be kitted like mr. friendly from our pic? once riots start, and we get images o' swat and gas-mask bedecked stormtroopers, somehow folks thinks that is typical? you get that this is, thankfully, an extraordinary situation, yes? some foreigners watch far too many movies... or is just very gullible. HA! Good Fun! ps our pic is of a baltimore cop, but ferguson standard uni looks very much the same. hell, typical cop uniform virtual anywhere in US is gonna be similar.