Ok so, going to the CNBC article and my own memory, as charitably summarized as I can:
Boca Chica is originally built with certain parameters and specifications, before Musk announced they would be doing all of the testing for Starship at that location.
Then, SpaceX just started doing so, and then asked for permission from relevant regulatory bodies … later.
At this point, Common Sense Skeptic on YouTube did a video or two specifically going into the details of exactly how bonkers it is to do huge scale rocket testing basically half a kilometer away from protected nature zones.
Then, one of the Starship tests blew apart huge parts of the launch pad after Elon had said that would not be a problem.
Then, Elon folded on that notion, and built the water deluge system and modified the launching configuration, without getting any permits beforehand from relevant regulatory agencies.
So the run off from all that water has been going into a protected natural environment for… about a year now.
The EPA began investigating this in August of 2023, and informed SpaceX they were in violation in March of 2024.
Literally the day after SpaceX was formally notified their water deluge system was in violation, SpaceX did its third Starship test, again using the water deluge system.
Now, cue SpaceX lying all over the place, saying that they’ve been told they were allowed to do this the whole time, and that there were no detectable levels of mercury in the discharge, even though their own permit that they belatedly filed indicates the detectable level of mercury in the discharge were about 50x the safe level.
SpaceX said in its response on X that there were “no detectable levels of mercury” found in its samples. But SpaceX wrote in its permit application that its mercury concentration at one outfall location was 113 micrograms per liter. Water quality criteria in the state calls for levels no higher than 2.1 micrograms per liter for acute aquatic toxicity and much lower levels for human health.
To conclude:
“Further wastewater discharges could trigger more investigations and criminal charges for the company or any of the people involved in authorizing the launches,” he said.
Eric Roesch, Environmental Engineer
Basically, the environmental aspects of this have been a known and ongoing shit show for over a year, but have only been covered by a few YouTube channels and blogs, vastly drowned out by the cacophony of SpaceX fans.
I highly suggest every one check out Common Sense Skeptic on YouTube, they have been calling bullshit on SpaceX for a while now.
In particular, one interesting vid they did shows that a former NASA administrator bullshitted her own request for project process to get it awarded to SpaceX, using blatant double standards.
I say former NASA admin because quite quickly after rubber stamping a huge amount of taxpayer money toward Starship development, she now works for SpaceX.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but wouldn’t diluting the runoff with more than 1:50 ratio with fresh water fix this problem? If it’s joining a large body of water down the line, wouldn’t that effectively negate the problem?
I don’t know anything about the area or it’s ecosystem. But it seems like being close to protected wilderness is kind of a prerequisite for this kind of thing, because you can’t have human inhabitants nearby. And it seems that logically, large swaths of unoccupied land would be zoned as such until there was a need for some kind of development.
I am far from an expert on the toxicity of mercury (and that’s nearly certainly just one kind of pollutant in this scenario), but it seems unlikely this would solve the problem.
The same amount of mercury is still being emitted, it just might lessen the amount that gets absorbed by immediately local soil… and just disperse it a bit more evenly over a longer range eventually mostly pooling along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
Which… is still part of a protected natural environment with endangered species living in it. As I recall, there is specifically a species of endangered turtles that live in this area, so, they’re still fucked, along with I think some other endangered birds, reptile and small mammals.
What they should have is a proper method of containing this dirty water, filtering and extracting dangerous chemicals, and a proper way of disposing those.
But that would require foresight and planning, which is anathema to Musk’s ‘move fast and break stuff’ style of ‘rapid iteration’.
Also, It is not true that large sections of uninhabited land are necessarily zoned as some kind of protected habitat. It is true there are lots of areas of the US where this is the case, but not totally.
Musk was trying desperately to get NASA to let him use Cape Canaveral for Starship, but they viewed this (correctly, in hindsight) as too risky.
So, when they said no, and he had deadlines to meet, basically said ‘fuck it’, took his existing facility and massively illegally upgraded it far beyond what was legally allowed by initial use permits, and just did everything Starship there, generally completely ignoring any concept of ‘regulations’ that might apply to this.
He could have actually given investors and NASA themselves more realistic budget and timeframe ideas for how expensive and time consuming it would be to do this properly, but he did not.
What they should have is a proper method of containing this dirty water, filtering and extracting dangerous chemicals, and a proper way of disposing those.
It is also important to note that the dirtiness of the water may have been misreported. It seems possible that this story is based on two typos in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report. The actual concentration of mercury may be 1000x lower.
One of the fundamental principals of the RCRA is that dilution is not an allowable solution to pollution. Otherwise, you could just say that any amount of pollution is below applicable concentrations after it mixed into the oceans, atmosphere, whatever. And any company could emit as much as they wanted as long as they diluted it. Oil spills could simply be left alone because they’d eventually distribute throughout the earth.
Concentrations must be considered as they occur in their process streams. The process stream must meet certain requirements first and foremost, and it must be further checked to see if that could significantly affect the air or water in which it is emitted, just to make sure its good to go since water flow, temperature, and wildlife migration change throughout the year. The same is true for air emissions as well.
Just a small correction about the pad exploding/water deluge system.
They were already working on the water deluge system before the pad blew up. They simply didn’t think it was going to explode like that since it worked as expected during the half thrust test, and the water system wasn’t ready yet.
Why would you wait to have something else ready if you think what you have is going to work?
All the physics modeling they did and live tests showed that the concrete should work.
When it looks like something should work, you test it. They had approval to test it after showing it should work.
These people are launching and landing rockets at a pace never done before, they know how to model these kind of things. Now obviously something went very wrong here, but it wasn’t just a willy nilly choice.
You test the things that you think will work, otherwise you never know if they’ll work.
While the concrete may not have been their final decision for Boca Chica, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a possible solution for other location where a large quantity of potable water isn’t available.
Edit: just further to possible other locations, the concrete if it worked, wouldn’t allow the rapid turn around time they want as they’d need to set new concrete vs piped water ready to go. But for a launch location that maybe wouldn’t need the rapid cadence, maybe it’d be perfect and cheaper if it’d work.
LOL. Dude, they weren’t even sure that the ROCKET wouldn’t destroy the pad (edit: as in, the WHOLE launch pad including the tower). They’re literally making the largest most advanced rocket ever. There are countless unknowns until you test it.
I just find it hilarious that your trying to say people shouldn’t test things all their tests and modelling says should work, because this OTHER thing, that’s also never been tested at the same extreme levels, might work better, but you know, maybe not.
I’m done with this conversation before I feel more inclined to violate rule 1.
The goal of the program is to figure out what does and doesn’t work.
There are numerous zero single failure points all over the ship currently as they figure things out.
Using the concrete was a way to test if they could set up a launch pad easier. ALL their tests and modeling proved it should work.
Tests and modeling aren’t the end all be all though and sometimes things you don’t or can’t anticipate happen and then you remodel with the new info. This isn’t a high school project, it’s rocket science.
There was nothing bullshit about testing it out.
The goal of IFT1 was don’t blow up the entire stage 0. They didn’t blow up the entire stage 0. They learned the concrete doesn’t work, but also hopefully they were able to learn WHY. And if they found a why that why may lead to it being attempted again in the future maybe even by someone else.
No, I’m not an engineer (and that’s an Ad Hominem fallacy). But for the love of god, SpaceX is a terrible company because they launched a rocket with INTENTIONALLY missing heat shield points to see what would happen (edit: all while knowing if certain heat shield tiles failed it would guarantee the complete destruction of the ship, that would obliterate any crew you’re oh so concerned about in this test phase!), and even launched their rocket with wing flaps that they suspected would be destroyed by the hot plasma and had already made changes in future designs! God forbid they test a ablative concrete launch pad that survived all their real world tests and showed it should work in models.
SpaceX said in its response on X that there were “no detectable levels of mercury” found in its samples. But SpaceX wrote in its permit application that its mercury concentration at one outfall location was 113 micrograms per liter. Water quality criteria in the state calls for levels no higher than 2.1 micrograms per liter for acute aquatic toxicity and much lower levels for human health.
Upon closer inspection, it seems possible that this discrepancy is based on two typos in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report. The actual value may be closer to 0.113 micrograms per liter, not 113.
I highly suggest every one check out Common Sense Skeptic on YouTube
They lost their credibility as soon as they started hating on Musk for clicks and views. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of valid criticism of Musk, but criticizing anything and everything related to Musk no matter what has become Common Sense Skeptic’s entire brand and business strategy. I don’t think they can be considered an unbiased party.
As of right now, the original blurb I quoted from the CNBC article has been modified to this:
SpaceX said in its response on X that there were “no detectable levels of mercury” found in its samples. But SpaceX wrote in its July permit application — under the header Specific Testing Requirements - Table 2 for Outfall: 001 — that its mercury concentration at one outfall location was 113 micrograms per liter. Water quality criteria in the state calls for levels no higher than 2.1 micrograms per liter for acute aquatic toxicity and much lower levels for human health
CNBC is currently sticking with their report. This is not factually inaccurate information, it is a clarification, a specification.
Perhaps SpaceX could actually provide evidence that they submitted a version with the typo fixed, that TCEQ is ‘currently updating the application’, or that other lab tests corroborate that the 0.113 number?
Either way, doesn’t change the number of complaints the TCEQ received, that SpaceX was releasing deluge water for roughly a year without permission to do so, that they were told to stop doing that and then did it again literally the next day.
They also wrote <0.113 on table 16 at the same outfall.
Table 2 and 16 also have 139 and 0.139 for sample 2, reversed so T2: (113/0.139) T16: (<0.113/139)
No matter how you look at it, that’s extremely shoddy reporting by CNBC. Whoever wrote that report also needs to have a long chat with their supervisor.
Also SpaceX claims they had permission to do it based on existing rules they are under, AND TCEQ was there to help with the first test even. The EPA had factually incorrect information when they requested they stop, and then gave the A-OKAY once SpaceX corrected their misunderstandings.
edit: Selenium also goes from 2.86 to 28.6 on sample 1
He’s a lame duck now. That means he’s free to pursue policies that will add to his legacy, and without having to give even the tiniest shit about what the establishment and the donor class might think about it.
I’m even wondering if the timing was intentional. Right after the RNC convention and they took all the momentum from Trump in one single announcement. Maybe they lined to the donors to pump up the donations right after the announcement to gain more momentum. If so, it was really genius.
I agree in sentiment, but the lame duck doesn’t start until November 6th. And we need to stop normalizing otherwise because the republicans have already weaponized it.
That’s not entirely true with Kamala being tied to his administration. I still think it would only make her more popular, but his actions aren’t truly lame duck.
This is without exaggeration the reasoning behind like 90% of South Carolina’s policies. Absolute shithole state, my heart goes out to people whose communities are there.
He probably got charged because he pissed off a cop. Maybe try not cursing at them while they are trying to break up a fight that you are not even a part of.
“Just give up your right to free speech because cops can’t be trusted to respect your constitutional rights” is practical advice, but it’s not exactly saying anything good about cops.
Fuck off, I’m allowed to say what I want and fucking contempt of cop is not actually a law anywhere.
Cops should not have a pass but this law is beyond fucking stupid and clearly only put into place because the tough right wing are clearly special snow flakes that cannot anything they don’t agree with.
I actually just realized the right is always calling the left “snowflakes and weak” when the left is offended by the rights desire to force their morals on us. In reality the left does what the right is refusing to do, be tolerant.
Turns out every accusation is really an admission from the right.
There’s no law saying you can’t curse at a cop, but the cop decided to charge they guy for breaking some old, obscure law from the 1950’s that would not normally have been enforced.
Or it was manufactured outrage regardless…police should have thicker skin and better de-escalation training. If someone wants to wear a mask they should be allowed to wear a mask regardless of if it’s because they’re Muslim or they’re worried about viruses or they’ve got a hairless they don’t want to show people it ain’t anybody’s business who cares.
You do know that there is literally nothing a black person in South Carolina can do to stop a cop from arresting or attacking them if they feel like it, right? They can be sitting on a park bench reading a book and a cop will find a reason to abuse them because the South is filled with racist cops.
There’s a reason why “driving while black” is a phrase all over the country, but in the South it’s especially true.
I am absolutely not defending them. The cop should have acted professionally and ignored what this guy said. Unfortunately, this is what tends to happen in the US. The cops here can usually get away with anything including murder with nothing more than some paid suspension as a punishment.
Well, it looks like you can pull it up over your face. He just has it pulled down.
Edit: I’m not even defending mask laws. I don’t see how they could possibly be constitutional and disagree with them fundamentally. I just think this guy was clearly wearing something that covers his face. It’s a mask that he uses to cover his face.
Would be real fun to see them twist themselves into pretzels banning all clothing that can cover a face without running afoul of their own pathological fear of human mammary glands 😂
A bunch of people were saying that it wasn’t even a mask, but it obviously is. His mom even said that he wears one to cover some scars he is embarrassed about. I was just pointing that out.
Also I don’t think mask wearing should be illegal. I think it’s a big government over reach. Maybe I’d be fine with an additional penalty for wearing a mask while committing a crime, or something like that, if you really wanted to go after masked people. No way you should be able to be arrested for that. I don’t think it would even hold up to court challenges as a viable law. I am confident that we will see these laws overturned.
The sad thing is, according to the article, this was originally an anti-Klan law. And now it’s being used to selectively and falsely prosecute black kids.
When asked how common this charge is, Husted said she doesn’t know anyone who has represented someone on this type of charge and could hardly find a page of recent arrests on the public index.
“I’m shocked, as an attorney, I’d never heard of that kind of charge before. I immediately wanted to help because it’s just so ridiculous that someone would be charged with something like that,” Husted said.
Sounds like blatant selective enforcement of a law that only applies to people who commit contempt of cop.
Well, it can continue to mean that there but it used to mean ok here. Now the only 2 groups that can use it here are scuba divers(while diving) and white supremacists. I am neither.
I get that but I am not particularly attached to number substitution as social messaging personally lol like no disrespect to yall who want to use it, I just live in the south and the dog whistles are endless. Misinterpretation can get weird here too.
No disrespect perceived, you’re fine. It may be a Southern thing too - my wife is from the South and she also associates it with the seemingly endless dog whistles of her life there.
Yeah it’s one of those weird little social land mines we deal with every day. You say a particular string of words or some reference, suddenly somebody you just met is talking to you about pizzagate or the gay agenda or something. There are too many secret codes down here that make people suddenly think you are “one of them.”
I was scared when I was a 19 year old doing a patrol through Sadr City in 2003, while manning the .50 cal and having dozens of kids suddenly show up and throwing rocks at me. Did I waste them even though I would have been justified because it wasn’t uncommon that patrols would go through markets and peopled start throwing produce and mix a grenade in?
No. Because I was well trained and realized that life is precious. And I was dealing with those rocks a lot longer than 1.6 seconds.
How dare you advocate for destroying the entire police force!
/s… Cause that’s what would happen. I’m pretty sure more than half would quit outright if they thought there was a possibility they’d see consequences for their actions.
Yea, but I’m betting you had more training than this clown. Maybe the cops need more than a couple weeks before they are given the power of a firearm, maybe I’m crazy.
Ayy, I was up north in '03, but I ran some Sadr City patrols in '04. Vivid memories of watching Cheaper by the Dozen in full kit while we listened to the mortars walking in. And a complex ambush on the way back to BIAP. I was on a 240 in the second truck. There was some musical car horn that seemed to signal it—not La Cucaracha, but something like that; I think one of these days I’ll hear it again somewhere and have a legit ptsd flashback—and a fruit stand or something on the right exploded, and a car behind me somewhere as well, I believe. Then some dudes came out on a balcony behind and to the left and started licking rpgs at us. Good times. Csm got some shrapnel in his ass, which didn’t improve his temper, but at least we got a lot of jokes out of it.
Oh man. My first IED was very strange. We were driving on what we called route kill zone, and there was some traffic. And then we came to an overpass and seemingly everyone else took the off ramp. Came out the other side and just blammo. I saw the vehicle in front of me get pushed a lane over and then disappear into smoke and dust. I locked up the brakes so I wouldn’t smash into them.
Turned out there was a sniper down the road and a can full of guys with RPGs on the bridge behind us. But we had no casualties or significant vehicle damage, so they apparently dipped. We hightailed it to a rally point that was literally 500 meters from where the attack happened. Front vehicle thought we were the ones that got hit.
They’re not even pretending it’s “just” about pronouns anymore. Now it’s just overt racism. Not surprised they went for the indigenous first.
Incidentally, there are over 70,000 indigenous Americans living in South Dakota. Considering the state has less than a million people, that’s not insignificant, so this is going to fuck over more than one or two people.
I gotta admit, I was blissfully unaware that this was a thing. I really did not expect to read a headline like that this morning.
What in the fucking fuck is wrong with people? This motherfucker needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars. The biggest sign of a person becoming a serial killer is their treatment of animals. I mean, he’s already been to prison, so it’s not like he has any interest in being rehabilitated in prison.
I agree with you but to be fair our prison system is terrible at rehabilitation. Sure it works sometimes but it’s not their main focus.
Did you read about the prison that is denying everyone in person visits so they can charge money for phone calls and video calls? They’re getting a kick back from the companies whk run those systems. Fucking gross.
The goal of the private prisons is to get the individual to commit more crimes so they get paid more. This means they are being paid to encourage and change people to break the law, as opposed to teach them to be better
The biggest sign of a person becoming a serial killer is their treatment of animals.
I’m going to guess this is the second biggest sign with the first biggest sign being specifically their treatment of the animals most closely related to humans.
Like torturing worms? Maybe 50% chance
Torturing dogs has got to be a good 80%
Torturing monkeys has got to be like a 99%+ chance of being a serial killer.
I’ve tried it more than a few times over the years. 99% of the time it’s porn and racism. It’s a website that’s best viewed at a distance with people take screenshots of the shit that’s actually worth seeing.
Depends on the board to be honest. The papercraft and origami one is surprisingly wholesome.
People assume all of it is like /pol/ since that is the most famous board with the highest traffic. It does leak into the other boards with the odd thread/post here and there but would say it’s not representative of the site.
Completely ridiculous that they quoted Kim Kardashian…
The soft life approach is not without its critics. In 2022, Kim Kardashian infamously claimed that women need to “get your fucking ass up and work” as “it seems like nobody wants to work these days”. She was forced to apologise – after it was pointed out that coming from a rich, already-famous family in LA would have its advantages in the job market.
But I never liked how this movement picked up the name “lazy girl job”. Bros can be lazy too…
I could have pulled in 6 figures after the Navy, but it would have been a shitty job that I fucking hated.
So I went back to school, got a degree that interests me, did that for a few years, then got a cushy decently paid office job that didn’t care what my degree was about.
I’m not maximizing my income, but I also essentially get UBI because I’m a disabled vet.
I’m basically living the progressive dream. And if everyone got the stuff I did, we’d be happier and more productive as a society. Along with a shit ton less crime, because people have something to lose.
Our current hyper capitalist society only works for people like Kim Kardashian that start out wealthy and connected, and those idiots constantly insist the only reason they’re wealthy is they work harder. I was doing manual labor before I was a teenager. There’s no way in hell Kim has worked a single day harder then I did as a child, but she legitimately believes she busts her ass, all the wealthy elites do.
Because they’re surrounded by people they pay to tell them what they want to hear, and everyone else is a “hater”.
Same ship, different service. The safety net affords me the ability to find what I really want to do without tying my life to a single job or place.
I also think that it can be brought to other citizens through other community activities. Why don’t we offer similar incentives to teachers? 10yr of teaching in exchange for UBI. Or doctors. Or rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure.
I’m guessing that your VA/service income doesn’t just go straight to savings either. A lot of it goes right back into the economy through purchasing and associated taxes paid on those things. At least mine does.
The US military is the largest socialist organization in the world and I wish they would extend that to the rest of its citizens without the downside of PTSD, death, and a lifetime of physical and mental ailments.
Every year it goes up, and every year I make it my new monthly payment for my mortgage.
The US military is the largest socialist organization in the world
I say this all the time, it’s 100% true.
The vast majority of our issues would disappear if everyone got that stuff. And we could pay for it all just be taxing the 1% of wealthiest people and corporations.
The only reason to not want it, is if those wealthy people give you a shit ton of money to not want it.
I’ve thought this for a while, but maybe our service to country isn’t done with a DD214. The current situation in the US and world at large makes me think I can still do some good. Maybe politics needs more people who think like you and me.
Kim Kardashian is only rich because she sucked a dudes dick and made a sex tape of it, pretty much with the hopes it would be leaked and make her famous.
She was Paris Hilton’s assistant (still no idea why she needed an assistant) when her sex tape legitimately leaked, and Kim saw her go from an fairly anonymous rich girl to nationally famous overnight.
She had a fairly popular reality tv show at the time and was already pretty well established as an it girl and model. Im hard pressed to say she was fairly anonymous. That’s what made the sex tape such a big deal was because it was of someone famous.
Don’t get me wrong, I buy your story that kim saw the value of the leaked tape. Just having lived through that as a horny young man, I’m not sure I agree with the characterization that she was fairly anonymous.
To be fair, plenty of sex tapes have leaked or “leaked” with a lot of noise over the years, very few people have translated them to massive wealth (games, reality shows, modelling, branding, appearances etc). Whoever is managing them (their mum perhaps?) is very smart in at least that they know how to leverage opportunity, and they’re smart enough to listen to that person.
She’s famous because her parents were famous, and her family made a pointed campaign to continue making money off of reality tv and being proto-influencers.
Like it or not, a lot of people genuinely enjoy reality TV as entertainment and having characters to watch and gossip about. Kim K is in the entertainment industry.
Yeah I’d definitely feel more compelled to send a donation - I’m not a fan of tipping culture, but doing the world a service like that would merit some kind of reward.
Yeah this is like when Republicans say shit like “Democrats want to nationalize the oil industry!” To try and scare people but Im just over here like nah no way the dems are that cool.
$804M in revenue… $286M to CEO and COO pay alone… so just two officers are worth 35% of the company’s annual revenue? Not profit, because it isn’t profitable, but just base revenue. Not even Elon Musk is paid that high a percentage of revenue.
Even ignoring the fact reddit doesn’t pay anyone for moderation, and all their other reliance on community freebies… That’s insane.
And they want to go public with that info? They believe that’s a financially sound position to be in heading into an IPO? Spez is even more stupid than I thought.
99% of the users left there won’t care about this. People here obviously do, but those are the ones that left because of the API debacle. I’d hope they start caring but I am pretty certain they won’t.
I’m not talking about reddit users. They have no bearing on public investors frankly. Investors don’t give a shit about users, just profitability. And an unprofitable company with no end of unprofitability in sight spending 35% of their limited revenue on two executives is ridiculous.
Yeah I didn’t really have a frame of reference for this but I was shocked to discover that Tim Cook was ‘only’ paid 62million usd last year. (!) Looking at the success of both companies, Huffman’s pay seems wildly out of proportion.
I haven’t been on Reddit in a very long time. I wonder if this story or any like it or getting posted on Reddit and surviving for more than five minutes before they’re pulled.
It’s a nice sentiment, I too abhor violence. But the world we live in is just not that way. I prefer to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst in people.
Bark on about how your rights are being taken, maybe when you find your oppressor we can throw a gun in the mix and see who comes out victorious. Waah waah, the powers are holding me down. Let’s go get the state to allow more unrestricted access to fire arms, as that’s everyone’s solution to everything.
Buddy, you’re the one all about the safe space in your domicile with your guns. TF i care about your trolling, you’re in a thread about domestic abuse, and have no grasp on the statistics I presented to counter your high and mighty opinion.
To be honest I’m truly bored with this discussion. The argument you’ve given boils down to meaningless pedantry that critiiques ones’ presentation over facts, contained in the link I found quickly, with which to dispel the illiterate.
Before you go, I do want to apologize. I re-read your post and realized I did miss a good point you made. For that I am sorry.
“Buddy, you’re the one all about the safe space in your domicile with your guns. “
I’m glad that you recognize on some level that firearms empower individuals to take agency for their own safety and protection. I realize this thought is but a small seed but hopefully it will grow in time.
That's because we don't see using a gun as a right, just like we don’t see driving a car as a right. They're both activities that are priviledges earned through training and licensing.
Offtopic: so these quotes mean you doubt that it is a right too?
1A doesn’t apply for what mods do, but it seems mods agree that his opinion belongs here.
1A does apply for him not being prosecuted for saying it anywhere. BTW, things like swatting gun rights’ supporters’ homes do in effect break 1A.
So there’s a valid combination where there’s nothing “delicious” in your meaning in his comment - that’s if he meant that people in some other countries are more reserved with their opinions online because of fear of being flagged by police. I’d say it has some merit - slippery slopes work in reality.
Also I think I’ve read something about Australia, refugees, detention and human rights activism of the level a bit more sinister than in US.
So free speech that is constitutionally protected is a sign of an underdeveloped nation? Weird viewpoint but ok you do you.
The US is the only country with a flag on the moon, from where I live I can watch weekly launches into space. Europe depends upon us for manned launches. Our military is also more advanced than any other nation and is globally dominant which reinforces our hegemony.
We are one of the largest energy exporters (which hopefully Biden will curb, I don’t want the US exporting so much Natural Gas and oil that it drives up our ultra low domestic prices and exposes us to higher over seas rates. Preventing further global warming is a good bonus).
The first amendment applies only to government action on your speech. It has nothing to do with your speech on a private website and it doesn’t apply outside of the US (even if you’d like to think the US owns the world).
Yeah buddy I’m still posting. Stifling free speech is never a good solution. Maybe you are intimidated by opposing opinions and need some kind of safe space.
US has the highest domestic violence / death by gun rates in the entire world.
There is no such thing as good guy with a gun. Look at the victory parade just last week. People with guns everywhere just ran away for their lives instead of shooting the bad guy with the gun they love boasting about.
The worst mass shooting in Canada in history was 12 dead. What’s the worst death toll in the US?
The last school shooting in Canada was about 20 years ago, when was the last one in the US?
If this Australian couple had guns, 90% chance she would have been shot and killed by beer husband instead of whatever means he used. The police should have done their jobs.
A populace with the ability to kill anyone with the press of a button isn’t free or safe - it’s fearful, which is a dangerous thing to be when you have a gun.
Gestures lazily at gun deaths per capita compared to the rest of the developed world.
There’s also the 13th - Slavery is fine so long as we criminalise you. Why the fuck would you want this, exactly?
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The deification of the founding fathers - a bunch of slave owners and the like is deeply weird. They had some good ideas… and some atrocious ones.
Let’s just set up a standoff where the husband, wife and one police officer all hold guns to each other. It’ll all sort itself out when the dust settles like the wild west. See I can come up with stupid politically motivated solutions too. Stupid, to say a gun will “fix” a situation involving domestic abuse. You hear that 2A’ers, THAT’S STUPID!
Desperate attempts at Paedo-jacketing now too? How embarrassing for you.
I’m not the one advocating for the ability to kill anyone with the press of a button, or for an 800% increase in homicides (AU vs US). While we’re at it, you definitely oppose the state murdering people with the death sentence, right?
All I can say about the paedophile piece is that there’s a pretty strong overlap between people pushing your positions in the way you are, and wanting to fetishise youth and return to tradition with relation to things like taking a 12 year old tradwife/slave - but that’s not you, is it?
Go ahead and join the dots between being anti-slavery and being pro-paedophile and pro-murderer… You understand that you’re accusing the majority of the species of these tendencies, right? That society would collapse if this were true?
Between your violent tendencies, hilariously deficient logic, and your repeated failures to spell “paedophilie”, you’re not exactly crushing those lead paint allegations. Never change, LOLcow - not that you seem capable of it.
That is very rich coming from the guy who has stalked me in three separate threads that were solely about 2A rights, yet constantly tries (and fails) to imply I support slavery because I support the Constitution. You must vomit soo much verbal diarrhea every day that you can’t see straight.
Now that I’ve pointed out that being anti 13A gives comfort to criminals and pedos you want to suddenly change tact and talk about guns.
Your points are worthless because you have no standards. You change your narrative and throw insults around to suite whatever bullshit story you want to tell. You are the liberal equivalent of any MAGA hack. You are cut from the opposite side of the same cloth as Jim Jordan, Marjorie Tyler Green or Lauren Boebert. The difference is Boebert is at least a useful meatsack because you can get a handy out of her.
Your over-inflated ego being so mismatched with your general deficiency is part of your dopey charm. I’m just responding to your moronic posts when I come across them - you’re the one keeping notes on me, what I’m talking about, and how often. Should I be flattered? Either way, I’m not interested - I’m spoken for, you don’t seem like my type, and your mental capacity leaves concerns about consent.
You support enslaving criminals - you’re pro-slavery. You support policies contributing to an 800% difference in the homicide rate - you’re pro-murder too. Even you should be capable of comprehending that - instead, you tie yourself in bizarre knots to paedo jacket me (but still struggle with spelling the word - keep at it, champ!). Australia is a comparatively civilised country that wants none of your barbaric slave bullshit.
Tell me more about your consistent standards when you support slavery, but insist you oppose it - really keep that stupidity flowing - you’re on a roll!
Wasn’t there some sort of ruling a while back that said the police are under no obligation to serve and protect, which is why that’s no longer on their cars and stuff?
When I was in high school I thought I was going to be a cop. Mostly because I was an unoriginal idiot and a friend wanted to be a cop. Went so far as to go through the explorers program where you hang out with cops and they show you stuff. You go on ride alongs. Spend a lot of time with cops.
As it happens about half the guys teaching this program were swat.
They were drooling for any excuse to suit up and kick down doors.
This was 20 years ago, at the time they’d tell you that 90% of officers never use their firearm on duty.
It colors their perception of any situation. Affects their decision making.
Could this be a prank? Maybe. But could I put on the armor and kick in a door? I mean they did call in a threat…
Yeah. I took a communications course from a former cop/hostage negotiator. It was actually pretty informative. There is a national program to teach police how to be effective and empathetic communicators trained to defuse high stakes situations.
One of the more unnerving “benign” interactions I’ve had with a cop was when the officer standing guard duty at the DMV subjected my wife and I to ten minutes of exposition about his various weapons and the effects they had on people while we waited for the line to move us out of conversation range. It’s never been more clear to me that somebody desperately wants an excuse to do violence, to anybody he might be allowed to.
That guy almost needs to be reported as a danger. He knows all the weepon effects and has put himself in a position where he may be able to legally find out.
I overall agree with your points but I will say that the type of person who probably excels at a life-or-death job like swat is someone who lives for that adrenaline rush in the first place. The problem is in their over-activation, like an overly-active immune system.
I watched the Uvalde PBS Frontline documentary and what stood out to me is that all those cops were glorified ticket cops one-step removed from mall cops. The only two guys showcased to seem to know what they were doing and had a willingness to do so were the border patrol’s equivalent to swat, BORTAC, who seemed professional and were the ones who entered the room first and ultimately eliminated the shooter.
Do they actually send a SWAT team? I just assumed that was the term but they actually just trigger a high priority multi officer response based on what they say.
Your comment doesn’t really answer my question. Do they actually send a SWAT team?
I don’t really care about how they are armed. Is it called swatting because a SWAT team is deployed, or is it because that happened once or sometimes but it’s not always the case?
okay to answer your question it doesn’t matter if it’s swat or not
Swatting is a criminal harassment act of deceiving an emergency service into sending a police or emergency service response team to another person’s address. [wikipedia]
If you make the stakes high enough in the 911 call, absolutely. You don’t want cops to waste time checking things out if a real hostage situation is playing out of whatever.
I mean the main reason they do that is they have to take it seriously. If they decided to ignore anonymous tips, then how many actual situations would they fail to prevent and handle.
Swatting is just taking advantage of the fact that they have no choice but to take it seriously.
That being said, if it’s a place that gets swatted regularly or a place that’s likely to be swatted due to various reasons they should have precautions in place with people they can trust in order to double check before acting, or at least be prepared to go in with their guns still holstered.
Bomber blows up the neighborhood and Joe bob did fuck all.
To be clear, I’m not making light of swatting, and not accepting the culture of modern cops to go all tactical to every little thing. Injustices are happening, people are getting hurt.
I personally want to live in a country where a bomb threat is treated with maximum seriousness.
Are you suggesting that unarmed negotiators don’t have an amazing success rate?
They are public servants who volunteer to do a dangerous job. Considering the way they treat innocent people now, yeah I’d much rather hire competent people who are willing to do the job properly.
Nope. I don’t have numbers. But I have seen competent, compassionate people talk desperate people out of some dire situations without harm to anyone. We should always start there. Every single time.
I spoke to the tactical-happy nature of cops, and how that’s a serious issue. I pretty specifically constrained my area of discussion to bomb threats. I acknowledge that for other issues of less terroristic nature, a negotiator is great. (Wellness checks, domestic issues, substance issues, etc)
Thanks for clarifying the anecdotal source though.
Oh shut up with these intellectually dishonest arguments. You know there’s a problem you know the police are overly aggressive to civilians but hey that’s fine I guess and swat to every situation, come on.
This is about American police being way over militaryized. Swatting is not a problem in many other nations so it’s a solvable issue but if we’re just going to say it’s acceptable then nothing will ever change.
The problem isn’t that the police respond, it’s how they respond. The fact that the police themselves are so dangerous to the presumptive victim on whose behalf they’re responding – as tacitly acknowledged by “swatting” being treated as a serious crime going beyond mere misuse of police resources – is the much bigger problem here. Frankly, going after swatters is at least 50% a misdirection tactic: an attempt to shift the blame away from the reckless police.
Until they figure out what is happening, if anything at all, the SWAT teams certainly stand the chance to do more harm than good. How about some recon first? Deaths are happening, and if nothing else innocent and completely bewildered people wind up with police guns pointed at their heads. Most of the time it’s cleared up but the victims are left with “Oh sorry folks, someone called and said there was a hostage here.”
Patrick Tomlinson was swatted over 40 times in 2023 alone. It took WAY too many times before the police would simply knock on his door and ask him if everything was okay. You’d think after the 4th or 5th time they might figure it out.
You’d think Patrick would have set up a big sign like “Hello, if you’re swat, chill! It’s just a prank bro! Just come in and have a beer.” But no, so the guy basically resisted /s
The frustrating thing was that the police had him on a list. They KNEW the history. But half the time they still rolled up ready for war. It was a banner day when he was woken up at 3 in the morning only by two normal officers knocking on the door to let him know it happened again.
I don’t know what they could do with a mosque. I think it is a very valid assumption that someone could be in there with a gun and a very valid assumption it could be an asshole “pranking”.
Be nice to see some harsh criminal penalties for people who SWAT and maybe some more advanced tech like cameras in the building they can plug into and see.
That’s RIGHT! Releasing Tax Returns gets you MORE Jail Time then trying to violently overthrow the United States Government and HANG the Vice President! That will teach Hostile Countries to MESS with US!
The way we turned our backs on Afghani interpreters who tried to get asylum here should have shown Charles Littlejohn what happens to people who fight for America
He probably knew. There are more stories of bad outcomes for that kind of shit than good ones. The fact that he did it anyway is why his actions are so admirable and heroic.
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