greg1647545532

You agree with me then. I can afford to fund the police through speeding fines, but setting artificially low speed limits in order to generate revenue doesn't serve the people. It's a fucked system, and the fact that I've personally paid into it doesn't change the fact that I'm right. As a libertarian it bothers me that armed agents of the state are so pervasive. It's a setup ripe for abuse and its woefully inefficient. Just look at all the shit cops do on a regular basis -- directing traffic, helping people change tires, performing wellness checks, writing tickets, taking reports about shoplifting and petty theft -- and then ask yourself if it's "small government" to spend the kind of money we spend on a cop to do those tasks. It makes no sense. 2A people are fond of pointing out that cops aren't legally obligated to protect you, which is why they want people to arm themselves. Well if the cops aren't there to protect me from violence (I agree btw, they aren't) then why do we want to arm and armor people doing mundane tasks? It's expensive and adversial.

What law did Breonna Taylor break?

We overreacted and yet 114,000 dead with another 1100 dead today and probably about the same number dead every day through the summer, at a minimum. Imagine if we had under reacted. Yikes!

It's a concern. Decoupling traffic court revenue from police funding needs to happen regardless, though. That's always been fucked. I think most cities and states would have a hard time finding qualified applicants to pull people over all day for less than a cop makes. It sounds like a shit job. But I dunno, as someone who's been pulled over like 30+ times in my life, I'd be OK with a big reduction in the number of traffic stops in general.

That's quite a ridiculous scenario you've invented. What I would say to that is we all gotta go sometime, do you know how many people the flu kills every year?

What if the perpetrator goes to the BMV to renew their driver's license? Should the guy behind the desk be allowed to pull his sidearm and detain him? There's all kinds of interactions between the state and its citizens that don't carry the risk of escalation that "routine" traffic stops do. Most code enforcement for municipalities is not carried out by armed agents, including parking enforcement. Traffic enforcement in other countries is done by unarmed enforcement officers and things work fine. Used to be that way in this country too. But then cops figured out how convenient it was to use traffic stops as a pretense and America just seems to have kind of accepted it. Of course, nothing about the above precludes a BMV employee from calling actual police if it will help bring in a dangerous suspect, and nothing would preclude an unarmed traffic enforcement officer from doing that either. I think it would just be reserved for a certain type of suspect. Traffic stops shouldn't be "let's make sure you don't have drugs in your car" stops, traffic stops shouldn't be "let's make sure you don't have warrants for driving on a suspended license" stops. Keep it simple. Traffic stops should be for traffic code violations only and then nobody has to worry about getting shot during them.

Libertarians have been screaming for years about dismantling the militarized police state in this country, people only listen when its their ox getting gored. Ruby Ridge or Breanna Taylor, two sides of the same coin. I don't think anyone expects police departments to go away but there's no reason that traffic enforcement requires a gun and full-on arrest authority. There's no reason to send the same people as first responders for someone having a psychotic episode as we send for armed robberies in progress. End the war on drugs, scale way back on bullshit "tough on crime" laws, mandatory minimum sentencing, zero-tolerance policing and make the police departments work for the common people instead of the powerful elites.

How dare they? Breaking the law without consequences is reserved for the wealthy, famous, and well-connected. Light 'em up, boys.

We've focused almost everything on safety, maintenance, and reliability. We've got an M3 diff ready to go in, and M3 springs on it now, but that's it for go-fast parts. Whopping 245s.

I ended up giving the teg to my nephew, he needed some direction so his dad is going to finish it with him. Getting the E36 back together was a bit of a mad dash but then it did what it does, run all day without issue. Of course with the rain we barely got anything warm all day... tires still look brand new.

Thought I'd share some pictures that Downforce Media captured from the NASA event a couple weekends ago. I entered my ChumpCar in the inaugural TREC 4-hour endurance race and co-drove with one of my neighbors. It rained most of the day and we took about a half-hour break in the middle of the race due to lightning, so all of these pictures are from the qualifying session which was only about half rain. Bonus picture of my KMiata going through T1, after years of running baby slicks I bought some 15x9s and asked my tire guy for the fattest tire I could fit under an NB without modifying the fenders. This is more mechanical grip than I've ever had before and I need to re-calibrate my brain, I figure I'm leaving 2 seconds a lap on the table because I kept anticipating understeer that never came. Something to work on.

It's guidance for public health officials about where to focus for the greatest effect. "these findings suggest that if we quarantine and contact trace symptomatic people, we can make a significant dent in the pandemic,"

1) Can't have a second wave if the first wave never finishes -- while deaths have decreased from 2000/day to 1000/day, that's hardly "mission accomplished" as far as the first wave goes. 2) I'm not sure specifically what back-tracking you're talking about, but if you're criticizing a scientist for updating their hypothesis based on new and better information, you're doing it wrong. That's how science works. I don't think anyone would argue that the information they were using to make decisions 2, 3, 4 months ago wasn't "very poor" as far as these things go. Everyone was flying blind in the face of a new threat and doing the best that they could with limited info. If they're now changing they're recommendations because we know more, that's a good thing.

Mass gatherings during a pandemic are a terrible idea, especially when mask usage isn't 100% and people are exerting themselves and aggravating factors (e.g., avoiding riot police) might make social distancing impossible. But then, you already know that, and you already knew that I felt that way, so I'm not sure what gotcha you think you're trying to catch me in here... eta: My point was that "the media" is indeed now covering the pandemic angle of the protests, and how the protests aren't helping. The post I quoted seemed to imply that "the media" was encouraging the protests and promoting violence. I think that's a bit nonsense. I can provide links but I trust that y'all consume a balanced diet of news and have seen the same stories.

Just today I noticed a ton of stories along the lines of "experts predict a surge in cases after weekend protests." Whoopsie!

Yeah, it's like looking into the future.

Well shit, guess I've been owned.

What does this mean? What lockdown!?

What lockdown? There is no more lockdown.

We have.

We've pretty much completely opened up at this point, in Ohio at least. You can't keep blaming the shutdowns for the damage from the pandemic and our pathetic response to it when the shutdown doesn't exist anymore.

I'm not celebrating.

Massive deficit spending, record unemployment, businesses closing left and right... I'm not sure how much more succeeding we can handle.

Well give the fucker a gold star and a promotion to emperor, because all Trump voters seem to care about is rustling Greg's jimmies. Here I thought they liked America and wanted it to succeed but nope, owning the libs is priority one.

I don't think he was ever taking it in the first place. He just says shit.