Escape from Elba

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - bodiddley

Pages: 1 ... 161 162 [163] 164 165 ... 436
2431
Previous Administration / Re: Trump Administration
« on: August 30, 2020, 06:26:41 PM »
Doubt very much it is legal to charge people for police presence at a political protest/rally.  Unless the group specifically hired the police.  Absent that, the gov't can't charge you to assemble in public.

2432
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: August 30, 2020, 06:17:48 PM »
Team worst -31 for Hardaway.
Came in late to guard Kawhi ...
2-4 on 3's 2nd half.

Dorian Funky-Smith played well
Luka nearly had a 40 point triple double.
Killed it 3Q, and LAc started doubling Luka mid-4Q to get the ball out of his hands.
Too bad KZ couldn't go last two games.  He should be fine though.

2433
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: August 30, 2020, 05:12:00 PM »
MaMO always has been a hothead.

Tim Jr and Burke jsut 3-17 1st half.
Need Tim to get on track 2nd half.

2434
Previous Administration / Re: Trump Administration
« on: August 30, 2020, 02:46:16 PM »
New Jersey Teen Who Organized Rally Supporting Black Lives Matter And Affordable Housing Billed For Police Overtime

The town billed her for $2500.
The vid I saw looked like about 15 low-key people standing outside the municipal building in Englewood Cliffs, with signs in daylight, likely late afternoon/early evening.

Quote
“We always bill… the bicycle race or running race or any other event, where our police are used ... people pay for the overtime,” said the mayor.

Pretty clueless.  Billing people for exercising their 1st A assembly rights.
After a day of criticism, the local gov't rescinded the bill, but didn't apologize.

2436
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: August 30, 2020, 10:58:08 AM »
You're right.  I didn't see the game and kinda lost track of things with the hiatus.

2437
Previous Administration / Re: Trump Administration
« on: August 30, 2020, 05:24:18 AM »
Belarus cracking down hard on journalists these days, including expelling foreign media, blocking domestic websites, etc.  Whether it's a prelude to a military crackdown or just incremental authoritarian pressure remains to be seen.  Wouldn't be surprised if a military crackdown is being readied.

2439
Previous Administration / Re: Trump Administration
« on: August 30, 2020, 02:36:41 AM »
Now Black people are being massacred in Chicago etc...by other Black people.

Only those that die at the hands of someone in uniform matter to BLM masses.

Don’t equate murders by criminals with murder at the hands of those who are sworn protect and serve.
Otherwise the cops are just another gang.

Yeah, society takes a lot of action and spends a lot of money and effort trying to prevent murders and violence and catch criminals who do so.  It's called the police.  The problem and issue BLM is addressing is who is policing the police.

And don't think community groups and Black people don't want the police to be more effective, better trained and stop the murders as much as possible.  But also stop acting like a gang with impunity harassing and abusing black folks, and occasionally killing them.  The police are people who have been trained and we are paying to keep us safe.  They shouldn't be a threat.  They shouldn't shoot wildly and pump bullets into people posing no threat.

Maybe after the police stop harassing and abusing black people and there are effective methods of holding police to account for their actions, BLM and the police can work together on reducing crime and murders.  Be nice if the police were actually a force serving and protecting the community who could trust and work together with them.  Instead in too many places the police are just an out of control gang, using arbitrary enforcement and violence, with racists and corrupt cops within their ranks, and a union system and institution that will shield them no matter what.

2440
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: August 30, 2020, 02:12:37 AM »
Brother Stan calls out Shae-Gilgeous for being roadkill for James Harden - and any Rockets player.
heh

Too bad we didn't draft him, Shai Gorgeous can play.

A learning experience for sure, but he played well in 3 of the 5 playoff games:

31 / 6 / 2  &  10/11 FT's
23 / 7 / 6  &   4 steals in 48 minutes
18  / 12 / 6  in 44 mins
8-19 on 3's in those 3 games.

Two duds to open and close the series.
Just 22 years old and a gamer.  Knix missed out.

2442
Previous Administration / Re: Trump Administration
« on: August 29, 2020, 03:45:52 PM »
I've been trying to keep up with the Belarus protests as that may or may not be my next vacation, whenever international travel is a thing again.

Was encouraging when many state-owned factories went on strike, since they used to be a big source of support for Lukashenko.  Surprising when many at the state-owned TV station walked off the job in protest solidarity.


The real wildcard is what will Putin do or will Lukashenko fall back on Putin's help if he gets totally cornered.  Putin completely thinks of Belarus as Russian, and it provides a significant land buffer form the rest of Europe.  Hard to see Putin just allowing a pro-Western gov't popping up in Minsk.  For a couple years there had been rumors that Putin wanted to confederate Belarus with Russia and Putin would be the leader on the union (thus skirting Russian term limits, which he just constitutionally did away with a couple months ago).  Putin's already raised gas prices to market rates removing the huge subsidies Belarus formerly enjoyed (and was allowed to sell some of the gas for profit).  Faced with loss of power Lukashenko might agree to some union with Russia in exchange for Russia stamping out Belarus opposition.


Anyway, that's likely more Belarus than anyone here wanted.
Fraudulent election results triggered this whole uprising.  The opposition candidate  Svetlana Tikhanovskaya officially won around 12% to Lukashenko's 80%.  She's a housewife and former English teacher who ran only because her husband had been thrown in jail and not allowed to run.  She's been quite brave and outspoken, but had to flee to Lithuania. Just someone who steps into a historic moment and is up for the challenge.  One result is that women have been a major opposition/protest force in macho male-dominated ex-Soviet culture.

2443
Previous Administration / Re: Trump Administration
« on: August 29, 2020, 10:41:52 AM »
But what about my previous point.
What kind of society permits anyone to walk around in public carrying military style weaponry?  Often a definition of gov't and police is that they have a monopoly on the use of force.  That's what gives them power and keeps most of the rest of the populace peaceful.  That's going out the window.

Anyone who wants to undertake mass murder can now just walk around in public heavily armed until they find a crowd they feel like shooting into.  This will happen.
Someone angry or mentally ill will kill dozens.

The police will have an increasing hard time sorting things out in crowds and protest situations if a significant number of people are armed.  Just as they waved Rittenhouse by as he apparently was surrendering after shooting a few people.

All of this will get worse as it becomes more normalized for people to hang around in public armed.  What's likely to happen is more peopel will satrt arming themselves in public and at BLM protests to be able to protect themselves form the right wing folks who show up with weapons.  The police are going to need to start carrying and having quick access to larger and more powerful weapons as they can't handle the firepower folks are toting around with just service revolvers.

There's going to be an arms race in public which will make everyone less safe.
Completely dangerous and absurd.

2444
Previous Administration / Re: Trump Administration
« on: August 29, 2020, 10:32:13 AM »
Even if no shots were ever fired it seems Rittenhouse violated  anumber of laws:1
1) he was underaged to be carrying a weapon in public in WI (17, law requires 18)
2) he transported a gun across state lines (I'm unclear on what law he broke, but one site made it sound like this was a violation if the gun started in ILL and went to WI)
3) he was out past the 8:PM curfew

Otherwise he was just a law-abiding teen walking around with a deadly assault rifle during volatile protests.

2445
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: August 29, 2020, 10:25:19 AM »
Some good ideas here:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29754941/what-experts-say-nba-players-do-power
One suggestion is to get team sponsors involved in some of the social justice projects.  Large corps with lots of money and resources who like to be seen doing good in the community.

Donna Brazile talks about including the local community when new stadiums are built.  Owners often get very generous tax breaks (such as 20 years of no prop taxes) and lots of expensive improvements on the land.  I'd advocate building some affordable housing in any stadium deal.  A huge several $B project like Atlantic Yards in BKY, could have a couple of 10 story low-income housing buildings tossed into the mix ... something like that.  She also talks about providing training for young people to work in marketing or opening related businesses, etc.

Liz Warren has a plan that the state/local gov't should get an equity stake in exchange for all the tax breaks and improvements they provide.  I forget he numbers but in her BKY example getting a  gov't stake (25%? or whatever) in exchange for hundreds of millions of assistance, would have returned the full gov't investment in 10 years as the franchise value doubled and then doubled again.

If the gov't is getting its investment back in part or full, a good deal of that money could then be shifted from helping a billionaire sports enterprise to investing in the local community.

I liked that Chris Paul and LeBron reached out and got advice from Obama.  Michelle's brother and ex-Knick employee Craig Robinson would seem to be an excellent point man for the NBA's new social justice committee.

Pages: 1 ... 161 162 [163] 164 165 ... 436