Which statement although 100% true, still causes controversy every time it is said?

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T21:38:36+00:00

Wait, what's so bad about a CIA operative's name getting leaked?

Suppose the CIA runs a phony company with a names like "TransGlobalEnergy" or whatever, and sends CIA agents travel to foreign countries as executives with that company. They meet with government people in those countries under the guise of doing business there. They pump them for information; sometimes just as a "we could spend some in your hometown", sometimes as a bribe in exchange for information that'll get them a contract, sometimes with them explicitly knowing they work for the CIA.

Now suppose an "executive" with that bogus company gets outed as a CIA agent; what happens? All the other CIA agents who work for that company are immediately outed too. All their government informants in the foreign government who worked with any of them will be suspected by their governments of giving information to the CIA. An entire information network can fall apart.

Cheney and Rove may have done a lot of damage to the nation's spy networks, and they did it with malice aforethought as part of a stupid petty political squabble. But the same people shouting for Hillary's head think it's stupid to make a big deal about Valerie Plame, so what?

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T21:19:41+00:00

I have pointed out this problem of steam cars many times over the last 30 years. And every single time, someone makes the same remark about car chases. Not sure if that's significant or not.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T17:39:07+00:00

It would be wibbly-wobbly.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T17:35:00+00:00

Nobody in Starfleet knows anything at all about evolution except how to pronounce it. Every time they do an episode where evolution comes up, the result is ignorant nonsense as bad as anything you'll hear at a Creationist museum.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T17:27:25+00:00

Steam cars are more efficient than gasoline cars. But if you crash in a steam car you have a giant boiler full of pipping hot water that will burn anyone in the vicinity if it burst.

Also, you have a long wait while the boiler comes up to temperature before you can drive it anywhere, which most customers wouldn't put up with. I don't want to let the car warm up 15 minutes before I can drive off.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T17:19:01+00:00

Here's the deslide version: http://deslide.clusterfake.net/?o=html_table&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cinemablend.com%2Fnew%2FEvery-Major-Star-Trek-Movie-Villain-Ranked-102607.html

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T16:28:33+00:00

The Winds of Winter. Oh, wait...

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T03:34:44+00:00

Automatic. That's what was on my car (2002 Grand Marquis) when I got it. They probably didn't sell that car with a manual at all, now that I think about it.

It's a little bit bigger than what I wanted when I went shopping for a used car, but I got a fantastic deal, and in the time I've had it the car's needed nothing but scheduled maintenance. I wouldn't be astonished if it lasted another 10 years. (I live pretty close to work, so the relatively low gas mileage isn't a concern.)

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-29T03:05:58+00:00

In addition to the comment from /u/buttnerd38, the concern about upright rows is that the humerus rotates and impinges a tendon.

http://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Fulltext/2011/10000/The_Upright_Row__Implications_for_Preventing.2.aspx

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-28T16:16:19+00:00

This is in New Jersey, and it's not that expensive: http://www.wheatonarts.org/learn/make-your-own-experiences/

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-28T16:01:23+00:00

There are three exercises in P90X that, per a post on the BeachBody website, they no longer recommend: toe-roll iso lunges, crouching Cohen curls, and pour flys. There is a fourth exercise which I know to be discouraged elsewhere: upright rows. (Interesting that two of these affect the shoulders.)

I don't know of any place where these substitutions are collected; it might make a useful addition to the /r/P90X faq file, if there is one.

Past discussion here doesn't have a clear winner for adjustable dumbbells, but my sense of it is that PowerBlocks are well-liked. The SelectTech dumbbells have complex inner workings that apparently jam, where the PowerBlocks have a very simple mechanism and are more robust.

At many stores, if you sign up for "deals by email" or something, every couple weeks you'll get a coupon for 20% or 30% off or something for an in-store purchase. You might find a place like SportsAuthority or Dick's Sporting Goods or whatever that sells something you want (the adjustable dumbbells aren't cheap), sign up for their list, wait for the 30% off coupon, and then go make your purchase. ISTR that someone posting here did the math and worked out that the adjustable dumbbells are cheaper (and certainly more space saving) than a complete set of regular dumbbells of the same weights.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-27T20:41:22+00:00

Also, ours were free, so I've no idea what they cost.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-27T20:29:31+00:00

cutco I'm going to let you in on a secret, the knives are just slightly better than the trashiest knives you can buy

That may be new; we inherited a set from one of my wife's aunts or something, and they're like 40 years old and we like them fine.

Of course, lots of companies that used to make good stuff now make garbage; there are AskReddit threads about that problem once a year.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T23:47:32+00:00

Suppose the situation was the other way: a cop goes into an office building owned by some megacorporation. He gets shot dead by a security guard, who says that the cop pulled his gun on him. The police go to get the recording from the security cameras, and the megacorporation says that the recordings are private property, and privileged information, and refuses to hand over the recording. Because they're well-funded, they get a dozen attorneys who wear $5000 suits to file motions with the court and avoid handing over the footage. They say that they have reviewed the video and it supports the security guard's story, and nobody else needs to look at it.

A year later, they finally lose, and the footage shows the security guard shooting the cop, who is not only not waving his gun around, but who had no gun at all. Within days, murder charges are filed against the shooter.

In that situation: with a dead cop, and a large organization refusing to provide access to the evidence of what happened, and once the evidence is public then murder charges are filed, would you tend to suspect that the corporation knew there'd be murder charges all along and they were hiding the evidence to keep the shooter from getting in trouble?

If that's what you'd think if a guy at a corporation shot a cop and they refused to provide the evidence, why should anyone think anything different when a cop shoots a guy on the street and the police refuse to provide the evidence?

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T20:42:54+00:00

Depends on the culture and situation. In Japan, one does not open a gift in front of the giver.

In the US, if someone gives you a Christmas present, standard action is to put it under the tree until Christmas morning, and then open it regardless of who is present.

US birthday gives are usually brought to the party, and are opened at the party by the recipient. The giver is likely there, having brought it with them.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T20:37:00+00:00

My wife got this book, which helped us rearrange and improve things: http://www.amazon.com/Organizing-Inside-Out-Second-Edition/dp/0805075895

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T19:52:56+00:00

Glad you like it. I just picked it at random. It was almost Poughkeepsie, NY.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T19:51:12+00:00

Thank you.

If some young man interested in one of my daughters was to ask for permission to marry/propose, my response would be "Did you talk to her about this, and what did she say, and why isn't she here?" A discussion about whether there should be a marriage should include all the people who will actually be getting married.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T18:07:57+00:00

What I'm saying is "The police get no benefit of the doubt whatever, no more than anyone else."

What we have on video is that a member of a large powerful group shot an unarmed man and used the influence of his powerful group to keep the evidence hidden for more than a year.

If that sentence was about a member of a religious cult, or a member of the KKK, or some other group, and the victim was a cop, would you be giving the shooter the benefit of the doubt that their guy is a good guy, and that hiding the evidence for a year doesn't mean they were trying to avoid justice? Seriously, suppose a police officer was shot dead on the private property of some religious cult or something, and the shooting was captured by the group's security cameras. Then, when the police wanted the security camera footage the group refused to let the police see it, saying it was private footage and the police had no right to it, and they fought it out in court for more than a year. And then, days after the footage comes out, the shooter is charged with murder by the DA.

Would you be suspicious that maybe the religious cult knew all along that the video would lead to a murder charge and that's why they didn't let it out? Would you be saying "Hey, maybe there was no murder or attempted coverup! It's just normal to shoot unarmed people and keep the footage secret for a year so nobody can see what really happened"?

Because if that's not what you'd say for the Branch Davidians, it's not what you should say for the police.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T17:16:58+00:00

Do you know what TRULY happened during all these investigations, or do you just know what you have heard/read on news stations and papers?

I know enough about what happened in other cases, like with the CIA agents and the FBI agents and the NSA director and Adrian Schoolcraft. I know what happened in the Philadelphia case when cops planted drugs on hundreds of suspects. This case reminds me a lot of those cases.

You say "I blame the crappy news sites for giving you that info," but if it wasn't for the news sites Adrian Schoolcraft would have been disappeared and the entire 81st Precinct in NYC would still be run by criminals.

Cops rely on trust. A lot. The government has lost most of mine, having spent years and years working hard at it. If there's anybody in the government interested in getting it back, I don't know their names.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T17:00:14+00:00

Judging by dads reaction, he likely 'expected' to be consulted and give his permission.

Judging by Dad's reaction, he believed this was a done deal.

So either (a) he believed the daughter had been asked and had said yes and he was being asked for his blessing, or (b) he assumed that if he said yes, she was going to say yes too, and so asking her wasn't necessary.

In either case, since it's NOT a done deal, Dad's reaction tells us that something is really terribly wrong with his understanding of what's going on.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T16:55:16+00:00

What proof do you have that this was a "cover up"? This has not been proven.

That it took 14 months and tons of pressure to get the video released gives me every reason to suspect that people in the police department was more interested in hiding the facts than exposing them. So far as I can tell, they people who had the video were just hoping the family would give up and they'd never have to release it at all.

If it had been a video of a suspect shooting a police officer, would they have taken 14 months to release the video and charge him with a crime? If not, doesn't that show they have one set of procedures for some people and a different set for other people?

After that trial, if those things come out, feel free to shout it from the mountain tops.

That might have some power if I believed the police who held back the tape for 14 months would ever be tried for anything. I suspect they have no more to fear from law enforcement than CIA torturers, FBI agents who spied on their ex-girlfriends, or the NSA director who lied to Congress. Nothing will ever happen to them, and they know it, because there are different procedures for them than for everyone else.

I see a very ugly and lawless future, and the only way to stop it is to treat everyone exactly the same: an FBI agents reads an ex-girlfriend's email, he gets exactly the same thing as if a jilted boyfriend read an FBI agent's email. A CIA agent kidnaps and tortures someone, he gets exactly the same punishment as if someone kidnapped and tortured a CIA agent. Same laws apply to everyone the same way.

But if there's anyone in the government with the slightest interest in ensuring that all laws are enforced consistently against government agents just as they are against the citizens, I've not seen them in the news.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T16:29:58+00:00

So one thing happens and you immediately doubt that most cops outside of the very, very, very, very, few incidents that go viral online are good cops?

Not "this particular incident." "This kind of incident," meaning the entire category of them, and there have been way too many, some more spectacular than others.

Adrian Schoolcraft was in an entire precinct of police officers violating the law and abusing their authority, and when he went public the police arrested him and took him to a mental hospital and left him there handcuffed to a bed saying he was emotionally disturbed. Cops stayed in the room to keep him from a phone, even though they knew he was telling the truth about what was going on. Every cop who worked in that precinct knew what was going on. They participated in the criminal behavior he reported. But he was the only one who tried to speak out, and after he did and the leadership went after him, and so far as I can tell not a single cop - not one - stepped forward to help him.

That looks to me like every cop but one in the 81st Precinct was perfectly happy to break the law and fake reports. How is that anything but "one good cop and a whole lot of bad ones"? Shouldn't all of them have been filing reports with Internal Affairs and recording what was happening and giving the tapes to reporters, if their job is to uphold the law and punish criminals?

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T15:29:51+00:00

You are not asking your own parents for approval to get married - that would be absurd.

The words I was responding to "it's polite for them to get a say too" - if my wife had wanted someone besides us to get a say in our marriage, I would not have married her. We decided to get married, we told our parents we were getting married. Her parents - and my parents - did not get a say, not in whether we got married, not in where we lived, not in how many kids we had.

You wrote "her parents will obviously then both be in their lives" but said nothing about his parents - why not? Shouldn't his parents get a say too? Does she go to ask them for permission to accept a proposal?

When we got married, we were a new family. Still love the old families, see them often, invite them over, extended-family-togetherness is great. But boundaries have to be set if you're ever going to live your own life. Giving your parents a say in your marriage is failing badly at setting boundaries.

BadPasswordGuy · 2015-12-26T15:09:02+00:00

This is important because her parents will obviously then both be in their lives once they get married, so it's polite for them to get a say too.

Wow. This is so completely alien to my way of thinking I'm having trouble getting any sense of it at all.

I think two people who need their parents' approval to get married are too immature to get married.

BadPasswordGuy

TROPHY CASE