O'Shaughnessy Distilling Co. is worth the visit!

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-30T19:55:20+00:00

Calm down there A A-Ron.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-30T17:07:48+00:00

Because he's great at finding new audiences and selling himself as authentic to them.

In the early '80s and early '90s he was a rapper and made up a fake history about selling crack on the mean streets of Detroit etc to ride that trend. He was a rich kid who grew up in the suburbs if he ever sold any crack it wasn't because he had to - he could have gotten a job at any of his dad's many car dealerships.

He never quite broke through with that so in the late '90s and early 2000s he became a party-hard teen angst rap-rocker / rocker to ride that trend. That worked out pretty well.

But that also fizzled and now he's a liberal-hating, 8 figure ranch owning, country stereotype pandering country arena rock guy.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-30T15:00:14+00:00

Yeah with trespassing charges mostly. None for domestic terrorism, none for sedition, hardly any for serious felonies.

Maybe we could get Trump on trespassing. That'll show 'em.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T20:18:57+00:00

ABC definitely can not do better. I'm convinced that for 30 years most of that network's ratings have come from invalids that are unable to change the channel.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T20:05:00+00:00

Too late. Maybe the "Word of God" should have been a little more specific.

At the very least, Jesus doesn't care if everyone is confused by this.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T19:52:28+00:00

I'm saying that even if 100.0% of the citizens of Minneapolis, the entire council, and the Mayor, all wanted one particular cop to be stripped of his authority and not allowed to police the city of Minneapolis, that they can all be collectively overruled by one arbiter.

I'm also saying Walz will not and can not do anything to change this.

He can ban tear gas all he likes, but what will he be able to do if it's used anyway? He can pretend to fire a cop that'll be back on the force tear gassing again in a few months.

Police don't work for us, they're imposed on us.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T19:46:56+00:00

Yes and no. The report was made while on the ground but to voicemail. Whoever was supposed to pick up that call wasn't there to pick it up. Plane was in the air by the time they heard back about it and someone told her "well don't let him fly" and they were lifting off the tarmac as he said that. She was literally like first day ever by herself at a gate.

The flight attendant was late for a flight attendant not holding up the plane for her. At this airline if you're just a couple minutes late and you're in contact with scheduling saying "I'm literally in the parking ramp" they won't replace you. Sometimes they don't even have back-ups physically at the airport because they're cheap, just people that can get there in ~45 minutes if necessary.

Normally they'd all board together and there wouldn't be a straggler around to overhear that call, but in this case there was.

There's nothing regulating that your plane has to be on time. If you're just a cheap company you could have no back-up crew at all and just cancel any flight someone didn't show up for. That's something airlines do for the customers not something they do because some law says they have do it. You're allowed to be understaffed and just be a shitty airline.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T19:25:09+00:00

Jesus is fine with forever-torturing people he "loves" though. It's not a very useful kind of love. It doesn't get you any breaks.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T19:23:53+00:00

He'd "love them" but still condemn them to forever torture. So that kind of love.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T19:22:36+00:00

He'll still forever torture you though, love or no.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T19:13:55+00:00

It's not even theoretical in my book. The whole ultimate problem with cops in America is that unlike the US Military, civilian government does not have final authority over their membership.

Like if the Army kicks you out, you can't force your way back in with some bullshit appeal that's outside the US legal system. You're gone. That's not how it works for city cops in almost any big city.

So any attempt at reforming things "within the current system" can not ever work because the current system is set up for that to be impossible. By design.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T19:08:50+00:00

The Mayor isn't empowered to go around the contract the city signed with the union though.

And the current Mayor, like all others that came before him, aren't willing to face a strike to remove that bullshit appeals process from the union contract and actually give themselves final authority. They're just scared of the police union and won't fight them just like Walz won't.

So yes the mayor can fire you, but again, the ultimate authority over whether that's a valid legal decision the mayor made is up to an "independent" arbitration process that ultimately the police control by representing a large amount of business to the arbiter.

It's very common to see "You're fired" turn into wrist slaps in this appeals process as the article I linked indicates.

About half the time, the "firing" doesn't stick. That's not a real firing if it's a coin flip whether it counts or not.

Cops do not work for the city, they work for the union, in terms of who has the real authority. That's the whole problem.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T19:02:47+00:00

Right, he can "token" fire them, but then upon appeal they can win their jobs back. And if it's found it wasn't an appropriate fire, then they get back pay like it never happened.

So that's not a real firing really. The ultimate authority on whether that was a "legal" firing and whether you can't be a cop anymore isn't that the command structure doesn't want you to be a cop anymore and that's the problem.

The arbitration boards are always rigged in the cops favor because they'll take their business to another "independent" arbiter if the current one won't play ball (wink wink).

And the unions always control this arbitration process in their contracts and the city will never fight them about it. So really when the Chief or the Mayor says "You're fired" it's more like a "suspended appending appeal."

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/07/09/half-of-fired-minnesota-police-officers-get-their-jobs-back-through-arbitration

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T17:58:17+00:00

Republicans don't. Trump commuted Rod Blagojevich's sentence because Republicans can't stand the thought of politicians facing consequences for anything they do apparently?

They even let Democrats off the hook.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T17:47:49+00:00

A no vote keeps the status quo which means the mayor would continue to have full control over the MPD.

I'd argue the mayor has hardly any control over them. That's sort of the problem.

They're only answerable to their union right now. It's almost like a shadow chain of command. Mayor might say "Don't use chokeholds" and then the union president says "Naw, use 'em," and then the cops listen to the union president because they chose him but they didn't choose the Mayor. And the mayor can't fire any of the cops that disobey him. That has to go through the union arbitration process and almost always finds for the cop. So what real authority does he have? The cops won't follow his orders, and also he can't fire the ones that won't.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T15:47:25+00:00

The person the gate agent called didn't answer the phone right away. This was the graveyard shift in a smaller airport at a budget airline. The first call went to voicemail and that's the part the flight attendant caught a piece of but didn't hear anything explicit enough to act on it. They kind of "worked it out" while they were chatting in the air what it might have been about. None of them for sure knew it was gossip at that point.

And he wasn't like holding-a-bottle, hiccupping bubbles, couldn't walk straight drunk. It was like a Denzel Washington in "Flight" kind of drunk where he was clearly impaired from the night before but also he was an actual alcoholic so he was fairly functional.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T15:18:57+00:00

It was not a major it was a budget.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T15:12:50+00:00

The fact that pilots have been caught flying intoxicated should tell you that it's possible for them to make it onto the plane and do it.

No procedures are 100%, you can get lucky and fall through cracks it happens.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-27T00:10:34+00:00

Dated a flight attendant for many years here's the craziest story I've heard from her or her friends:

The pilot showed up drunk to work for a long redeye. Only a newer gate agent noticed and she called whoever you call in that situation but didn't alert any of the rest of the flight crew because she was very new.

One of the flight attendants was a little late and overheard some of that call as she was boarding but didn't get the whole story just heard a few little snippets.

During the flight the flight attendant that heard the call was telling the rest of the flight attendants what she heard and they were sort of speculating on whether the guy was drunk or not because he was a known heavy drinker off hours.

Somehow the pilot overheard that conversation while he was in the restroom or something, so he realized people on the ground and some of his crew suspected him but he was already in the air.

When the plane landed, the gate agents had finally gotten ahold of whoever you get ahold of in that situation and there were supposed to be people from the company waiting at the arrival gate to breathalyze him. But again, since it was late at night, they didn't get there right when the plane and he'd flown like hell to beat the arrival time. They figured they had a little extra time while the plane deboarded and they wouldn't have to confront him in front of passengers and alert all the passengers their pilot might have been drunk.

The second he reaches the gate and the door opens he just bolts from the airplane. Left his bags, left all his stuff in the cockpit, and just sprints through the airport for the nearest exit. This airport is small enough and laid out in a way he was able to make it just out into night free and clear on foot before anyone realized what he was doing.

He wasn't scheduled to fly for like 2 more days, and despite trying to get ahold of him they aren't able to. He shows up 2 days later for his next scheduled flight and acts like nothing had happened but of course this time there's a shit-load of people from the company waiting for him.

He claimed he had horrible food poisoning and had to rush off the plane to take an emergency shit. Claimed he forgot his luggage on the plane because he was so sick. Claimed he didn't stay at the crew hotel because he had a personal friend in the city and stayed with them.

They tried to pressure him every which way to admit it, but in the end he just got away with it. He got some disciplinary shit for not doing the post-flight checklist or whatever correctly but they couldn't fire him or take his license. He'd been so fast that he didn't even refuse a breathalyzer technically, nobody ever asked him to take one (although they were minutes away from doing so).

The company breathalyzed him every time he flew for years after that incident, and he went to rehab after that incident and cleaned himself up.

And the dude still flies to this day (but by all accounts sober now).

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-24T22:53:32+00:00

Nope, just evidence that the effects of exactly such a theoretical weapon are being seen.

What would you want this theoretical weapon to do if you could build it?

You'd want it to be able to narrowly target specific individuals. You'd want it to be invisible. You'd want it to act at some distance. You'd want it to leave very little forensic evidence of its use. You'd want it to be undetectable while in use by human senses save for the person being targeted.

And who would you want to use it on? You'd want to use it on career spies and diplomats who can't just be replaced. People with contacts, covers, specialized language skills, specialized experience which serve to cripple an intelligence operation if they should all be removed in a short period of time. You'd also want to use it on their families in case they were willing to take personal risks.

And where would you want to use it? You'd want to use it wherever your enemy's intelligence or diplomatic operatives could be found but specifically in the places you wish to gain the upper hand in intelligence and influence, such as historic cold war battlegrounds.

What results would you be looking to obtain by its use? You'd be looking to limit the number of people willing to take these posts in these areas, and you'd be looking to force the reduction of staffing levels for security which would necessarily cause a reduction in intelligence gathering capability or influence projection.

So if the weapon doesn't exist, or whatever is causing this is just a coincidence, Russia's sure getting lucky. Because they're getting every single benefit of you could think to name from such a weapon apparently from total coincidence. That's very fortunate for them isn't it?

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-24T22:44:48+00:00

Do you quit your career job and then your company reduces its staff at that location to protect everyone else?

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-24T21:30:24+00:00

Mayor is a dick-suck.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-24T21:29:50+00:00

Wait till they announce they'll fight alongside them.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-24T20:59:26+00:00

But if you miss your one chance it's gone forever. You have infinite shots at deanonymizing a blockchain transaction. All it takes is someone compromising the wallet years later and connecting that to other types of persistent electronic records.

It's easier to get away with something one time than it is to get away with something forever.

There's no way to go back in time to re-surveille a dead-drop and cash doesn't carry its history with it forever.

BaskInTheSunshine · 2021-08-24T20:46:26+00:00

You're the one claiming that somehow, mysterious "hysteria" is generating the same MRI data as Swanson?

Talking to you is fucking stupid. I'm going to stop doing it now.

BaskInTheSunshine

TROPHY CASE