kimmy

I take issue with lumping the killing of Freddie Gray in with incidents like the Michael Brown shooting, because they're totally different situations. In cases like the latter, it's entirely possible that a policeman might need to use force, and maybe lethal force, against a suspect who may be aggressive and combative. The Freddie Gray death is a completely different story. The guy charged with slaying Gray-- Caesar Goodson-- isn't one of the officers who was involved in apprehending Gray. He wasn't even there at the time. By the time Caesar Goodson showed up with his police van to take Gray to the station, Gray was already shackled hand and foot. Goodson's interaction with Gray came while Gray was shackled hand and foot and locked inside a metal compartment inside Goodson's van. It's absolutely ludicrous to propose that Gray posed any kind of threat to Goodson, or that he was resisting or uncooperative with Goodson because he was already under complete control before Goodson even arrived. So why does it matter why Gray was in Goodson's van? What justification is there for Goodson to inflict these injuries at this point regardless of why Gray was in the van? What possible difference could it make why Gray got put in the van? No possible answer to that question justifies what happened afterward. Gray is not dead because he foolishly ran from the police. Gray is dead because a police officer decided to dish out some extrajudicial punishment for Gray's foolishness. Gray is dead because "the nickel ride" remains a big fat joke among police in Baltimore (some other cities as well), even though Baltimore "nickel rides" have killed people, left others crippled, and cost the city millions of dollars in compensation payments to victims. -k

Topp is an experienced guy, having already served as a chief of staff for Roy Romanow's NDP government in Saskatchewan. There's not exactly a lot of experienced NDP staffers in Alberta, so looking outside the province isn't that big of a surprise. What alternatives would you propose? Search through the dumpster of discarded Progressive Conservative partisans? Appoint some oil industry cronies? Of course Levant knows what he's doing, playing on the reliable old Albertan distrust of easterners. That might resonate with some people; largely older rural conservatives who didn't vote for Rachel Notley anyway. -k

Re-read post #53, bc. -k

They're still acting as if they'll get the benefit of the doubt, but with the ubiquity of recording devices, the amount of "doubt" has been greatly reduced and the police are getting caught red-handed with great frequency. But instead of cleaning up their act and dealing with their "bad apples" they've instead decided to lobby lawmakers for laws against recording police. -k

I don't know who these alleged progressive burqa enthusiasts you guys keep mentioning are. I never hear from them. I do know that a whole bunch of people in this thread got distracted by the question of whether women cry more than men or not, and got distracted from the real issue-- a Nobel prize winner, presumably a guy who has or had his own lab and his own grad students-- saying that the cause of science would be better off if women would go find their own labs and let the men get their work done. -k

I never questioned her right to peddle this horse-crap, I'm just calling it what it is. She-- and others supporting that narrative-- are arguing for police to be exempt from criticism, and treated as if above the law. I thought you guys fought a revolution against that sort of thing. -k

Of course he'll get a trial. Like many other thugs, aside from Freddy Gray of course. I don't object to the him being presumed innocent until proven guilty. What I do object to is this retarded narrative being brought forth by many (like the authors the editorial in the opening post or the Heather MacDonald WSJ piece it was based off of) that bringing thug cops to trial is in itself bad for America, that criticizing police misconduct causes crime, and that if we want the police to function then we have to turn a blind eye to their misconduct no matter how outrageous. That is what is implicit in this pro-police backlash against police accountability, and its a load of horse crap. -k

So you support efforts to get thugs like Caesar Goodson thrown in prison where they belong? -k

He doubled down on the remarks. He might have been trying to be amusing and jovial, but he reiterated his belief that you can't criticize women in the lab because they'll burst into tears, that women in the lab cause "emotional entanglements", and that as a result it "diminishes the science." And I can't imagine why you of all people would be defending a point of view like that, considering how much it sounds like our Muslim friends who insist that if women don't wear tents it'll disrupt men and cause them to act badly. As for why this should be a concern: It's a self-perpetuating cycle. -k

Why do you guys keep bringing forth this false dichotomy? "Hur-de-dur! If you're criticizing the police, you must be a perp-loving thug-hugger!" "Hur de dur! If you won't Stand With The Heroes In Blue, maybe the cops should just let the thugs run wild and then we'll see how you feel about the police!" That's not it at all. I'm not saying we'd be better off without police. I'm not saying that thugs shouldn't be punished. I'm saying that thugs should be punished, even when they have badges. -k

This has been on my radio lately. I have no idea who Philip Sayce is, but he's definitely pretty handy with a guitar. -k

I'm not really into big band or accordion, but for reasons not entirely clear to me I've had this kicking around my MP3 collection for many years. It makes me think of sunset on a beach in summer. James Last passed away this week. -k

For people my age and younger, Christopher Lee is probably best known as Saruman and Star Wars villain Count Dooku. However, his acting career goes back nearly 70 years, when he took up acting while deciding what to do with himself after his military duties ended. Other notable on-screen roles include James Bond villain Francisco Scaramanga-- "The Man With The Golden Gun" --and became well known appearing in Hammer Pictures horror movies in roles like Dracula, Frankenstein, "the Mummy", Rasputin, and Lucifer. After moving on from horror films he continued to find plenty of work, as his list of credits contains no gaps at all-- when his last movie is released sometime in 2016, he will have appeared on screen in a new release every year from 1946 to 2016 inclusive. Christpher Lee was 6'5 and his height and deep powerful voice brought a real sense of authority to his role as Saruman, and I am sure to many other roles during his career. When World War 2 broke out, Lee joined an English volunteer group that went to Finland to fight in the Winter War. Later, he trained with the RAF to become a pilot. Unable to serve as a pilot due to an optic nerve ailment, he instead served as an intelligence officer, and later with the British SAS. He spoke several languages fluently, and was knighted in 2009. -k

Is that what you were doing? It looked more like you were throwing non-sequiturs at the wall to see whether you could derail the thread. -k

Sure. And for Heather MacDonald and her think-tank, pushing their "Stand with the Heroes In Blue, right or wrong!" message is part of their job too. But it's nobody's job in particular to swallow stuff like that without critical analysis. Sounds like you agree that brutality and murder are ineffective strategies for law enforcement. -k

Sure, he can say whatever he wants, and he can accept the consequences. In Mr Dogg's case, the consequences are that people say "Smooooooth!" and in Mr Hunt's case the consequences are that people say he's a withered old idiot, and he gets to clean out his office at the University College of London. -k

And those two things are the key. Those are the *real* challenges facing police. Not "Obama". Not "a media crusade". Two prongs: the ubiquity of recording technology makes it far easier to catch them in the act, and the ability for almost everyone to reach an audience makes it easier for people to get their side of the story told. And the problem, if it can be called that, is that it's harder for the police to get away with stuff that they used to do with impunity. -k

b-b-but... Snoop Dogg! b-b-but... Jian Ghomeshi! b-b-but... Spa Lady! Really, is this sort of stuff the best you can do? Some withered old idiot made an indefensible suggestion, and you're trying to shift the topic to Snoop Dogg and transgendered washrooms? Why? -k

The original title was "So it begins" ... and Sharkman indicated that "it" is a crime-wave resulting directly from media criticism of the police. Given this premise, I think the fact that there's no evidence that such a crime-wave is actually happening is, indeed, central to the thread. So to answer your previous question: yes, It does matter. And one of those challenges is definitely not "an Obama crime-wave" fueled by a "media crusade against the police." -k

Coming from Snoop, that's a tremendous compliment! Completely different from calling for separate-- but equal, no doubt-- labs for female scientists. What's next? Separate-- but equal-- water-fountains for black people? -k

Well, I would hope that the people who earlier championed this flimsy misrepresentation of the facts could at least acknowledge the truth of the matter. As well, since the thread title has been edited once already to more accurately reflect the contents of the thread, perhaps another edit is in order. Perhaps something along the lines of "Police apologists conjure fake crime-wave to fuel backlash against criticism of police." -k

No takers? None of the police cheerleaders here actually want to argue that the alleged crime wave is not fiction? -k

Somehow you don't exactly strike me as a next-level guy yourself, Fred. -k

Not an attempt at humor-- he contends he was just being honest, though regrets causing offense. Just another example of an old-person acting like an old-person. -k