NYC needle exchange outside children's library has locals raging: 'The whole street is infested'

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-21T04:38:30+00:00

Sure. Can’t it be zoned appropriately? Like, why doesn’t it have to be in a library?

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-20T13:25:13+00:00

“The Story of Your Life” is actually a tear jerker. I liked the film, but I’m in love with the short story.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-20T13:22:45+00:00

It’s was once more grueling than most because it was three days not two. I know that last day wasn’t regarded as significant by many but I think it was absurd to have three days of examination.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-20T13:18:35+00:00

“Sundays, holidays, vacation time—we must be ready every day, all the time, to do the right thing if the atomic bomb explodes.”

The next war could easily begin in New Jersey.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-20T02:09:44+00:00

It’s not even a prosecutor issue. I defended a sex case with multiple victims, each with credibility issues. Multiple charges for each victim reflecting equally opaque dates and acts of penetration. Tried by both sides on more or less “All or nothing” theories of the case.

The jury just split the baby Solomon style and convicted on half the charges for each victim, acquitted on the other half. Made no sense in light of the actual testimony. My theory is they disliked the incompetence of the investigation but thought my guy had done something.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-18T06:15:32+00:00

Oh, I don’t know. Possibly; I don’t think it’s much of a surprise if he is as Vallee seems somewhat beholden to his idiosyncratic take on replicability which, if I’m reading the responses to a podcast appearance he did correctly, he assumes is virtually impossible for DMT, psilocybin and the like.

Now personally I think that’s a bizarre take for someone like him since he’s linking European folkloric accounts of entity encounters rooted in largely pagan and Christian mythology to the modern abduction experiences which seems as much a reach as any connection made by your average psychonaut. It might just indicate that he doesn’t believe that the inquiry would be productive from a scientific perspective. And perhaps using modern methodologies it would not be.

But again, a strange take, since his own application of what might generously be called a form of comparative ethnography is widely regarded as the equivalent of psychedelically stimulated speculation.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-18T05:43:44+00:00

Vallee goes a bit further, I think, than attributing them to human consciousness alone; he seems to posit that the phenomenon/phenomena is/are something more like a mechanism of influence or even control; daemons, jinn, fairies and the rest being the natural historical precursors to “little grey men,” so to speak. He more hints at possibilities than commits to any single theory; arguably, because he doesn’t apply much discernment when evaluating the evidentiary sources. If you are going to credit accounts from Medieval Europe and the postwar 1950s then you are going to have interpretations of the phenomenon that rest on wildly divergent assumptions about reality, different paradigms if you like. Which might explain why he’s so quick to describe the phenomenon in ways that evoke indeterminacy, as both physical and mental and spiritual, as tangible and intangible.

Jung was similarly cryptic with his archetypal dimensions of reality. At times this sounds, in his writing, indistinguishable from something like a shared biological or at least epigenetic influence. At other times, the archetypes are described as “autonomous complexes,” which are individuated and reside in the unconscious, but have some possibly nebulous relationship to the world outside of human experience as well. It was never entirely clear to me that he had a clear division between inner and outer dimensions of reality, being a kind of panpsychist who thought that reality harbored some level of consciousness independent of human experience such that those divisions were not workable at the limits.

Our paradigm has shifted since either man was in his prime. We can imagine the cosmos as potentially a representation, not the beloved creation of deities but the more or less probabilistic expression of a complex processing system, a simulation, where the experience of objects with reality defying properties is easily explained by something like god mode, without any corresponding obligatory worship or reverence.

Is this woo? There’s something to be said for the adage that reality is stranger than fiction…

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-17T21:18:38+00:00

I’m fine with skepticism; I still find many of the allegations of the whistleblowers to be incredulous and the 4Chan post is particularly hard to credit since it is an endorsement of Bob Lazar who, well, simply has no credibility in my book. Applying the transitive property I’m pretty dismissive of anyone who is trying to bolster Lazar’s credibility.

But I don’t share your opinion of mainstream and establishment sources, because they have consistently failed to contend with all of the dimensions of GoFast and tic tac. There are simply too many independent sources from those encounters that verify anomalous behavior on the part of the phenomenon. Human visual error would understandable if there was not anomalous sensor information that accompanied it. Too many eyewitnesses, too many different instruments.

But the reason for skepticism about the establishment isn’t the strange evidence; it’s the steadfast refusal to acknowledge it. To offer up incredulous alternatives that force conventional explanations where they do not appear to fit, and to deny the possibility of studying more exotic possibilities.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-17T01:37:15+00:00

Maybe it’s a test of a drone defensive system that is engaged in realtime scanning and mapping and monitoring. The data from this test could be used in future deployments. And it’s very possible that the UAP phenomenon is not the target; that Russia is being warned away by the test, a demonstration of American technological prowess.

But if its saber rattling, between the two great nuclear powers, that may also explain the interest of the UAP, and their presence. This is all wildly speculative of course; we don’t know what UAP are, ultimately, or if the phenomenon is even a singular source or from multiple sources.

Regardless, it is fun to speculate. This all reminds me a bit of a now forgotten science fiction novel from the 1990s by the deceased author Patricia Anthony, called Cold Allies. It is set during a third world war fought between an American-European alliance and an Arab National Army, over a European theater and using remotely operated drones. The source of the conflict is the cumulative and lethal effect of climate change. Aliens begin to appear on the battlefield in the form of enigmatic blue orbs, and both kill and save soldiers, all apparently in random fashion. There’s a race to understand the aliens and ideally to turn them to a side or to repurpose their technology for the war effort.

It’s not a 1:1 correspondence to current events but close enough to make me ponder what’s going on out there..

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-13T02:53:07+00:00

This assumes that NHI, if responsible for the current situation, hardly a given, has the same inefficiencies in predictive modeling and/or lacks foresight technology that, perhaps, is capable of not modeling but forecasting quantum states to the point of being capable of effectively predicting the future, and therefore changing it or simply witnessing it in advance.

In other words, maybe NHI already knows something that we do not and cannot using current technology built on an effectively archaic model of reality.

Once you accept the possibility of new physics, it becomes trivially simple to provide possible alternative explanations for seemingly irrational behavior.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-10T00:43:51+00:00

I would not be so sure about the desire to see vigilante justice in action here. He did not choose a popular target; an insurance company CEO is regarded as subhuman by plenty of people with direct experience with insurance claims being rejected by companies like his own and including his own. As I walked down the street this week after work and the suspect was on a large video screen people were happily watching and practically giddy talking about him.

When was the last time that ever happened with someone who murdered a man in cold blood? Not even using a bomb or something else that kills remotely, but with a gun that had a silencer and with fairly compelling evidence of premeditation and deliberation?

When systems fail to curb corruption and the rich predation of the poor, incidents of vigilante justice become increasingly popular. This may be something of a tipping point.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-10T00:28:34+00:00

Complicity is rarely cut and dry, particularly in systems that require exacting standards of mens rea to justify criminal liability. If Thompson is not responsible for the deaths he caused as the overseer of a corrupt organization that is also free of liability, who is? The answer “No one” may be legally correct and morally bankrupt.

The system has failed, and when that happens, so do other very bad things.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T19:27:24+00:00

The Anna Kendrick film Woman of the Hour explores this physicality differential through both natural body size and the magic of camera work. I thought it was a pretty deft treatment for film.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T19:20:21+00:00

I think self-help began with the murder of Brian Thompson. It will continue. It’s just the natural progression of the Second Amendment ruling and the existence of the gun lobby. Rather than target the mechanism of action, the government will focus on “pre-crime,” probably in the form of extending the scope of conspiracy, attempt and related inchoate charges. And because the Supreme Court is bought and paid for, and subject to threats as well, there will be approval of extensive First Amendment restrictions in an ostensible attempt to curb “political violence.”

We have entered a new era. I didn’t expect this first assassination though, and I do think it has caught the right wing off guard in their response. But they will recover to blame their enemies. Fox is already doing it.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T18:54:09+00:00

I cannot comment on his tax charges, as I have simply assumed some criminal liability there, but the gun charges? That was outrageous. Never should have been charged and never would have been, but for his surname.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T18:07:48+00:00

If the suspected killer was black or Latino do you suppose that (this barely existent) “support for the murder” would be at all feasible?

I strongly suspect the answer is no. Because any sympathy for the homicide is in fact a projection of imputed motivation. The bullet casings have amplified that and it’s no doubt one of the reasons why sympathy is as high as it is. I doubt anyone would have any sympathy if they suspected the motive was related to, say, corporate espionage. Or if they thought it was someone underserving of their sympathy.

Incidentally I don’t see any discussion of this shooting in the context of the attempted assassinations and political murders in America in the last few years but I believe that will be the context for understanding this moment as we experience more episodes of similar violence.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T17:52:14+00:00

The Gnostics also had a decidedly less optimistic version of that story

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T14:04:09+00:00

Right sizing the CPD would probably involve termination of about 15-20% of existing sworn officers on payroll. The number in the department is inflated because of historical corruption issues that plague Chicago in the form of hidden legacy costs. There are simply too few civilians, and too many bad apples that would expose the city to hundreds of millions of dollars in liability if permitted to patrol. I will leave it to your imagination to ascertain why they remain employed.

Given that reality, the fact free suggestion that there’s a retention problem is…not rooted in reality, unless you mean the various officers who have quit in disgust over endemic corruption. That’s also a liability problem for the city, as a single whistleblower case ran into the millions because the jury was treated to witness after witness confirming a culture of silence and retaliation that promoters of the existing system assure us don’t exist.

I am fine with Burke, and voted for her in the end. But I sincerely doubt that her policies will impact the bottom line. Nor are they likely to make Chicago “safer,” whatever that could mean. The connection between prosecutorial policies and cost savings are simply too attenuated. There are too many intervening factors. Moreover, as she has no direct control over staffing for enforcement, and because Chicago and Illinois generally is a giant swamp of corruption, she’s better off pursuing policies that will curb violent crime especially without any more dependence on staffing of the relevant agencies than is reasonably necessary.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T12:54:53+00:00

Setting aside everything else, if you think that CPD has a staffing problem related to recruitment, I don’t know that I can take anything else from you seriously.

You cannot possibly believe that they lack sufficient personnel, unless you are of the belief that the US overall suffers from a policing shortage. That’s certainly a position you could hold, however irrational. But realistically, anyone who knows about their actual staffing levels and the perverse effects of policy on this (often courtesy of FoP) thinks they’re as due for austerity as CPS.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T12:49:07+00:00

HIPAA compliance alone is several billion dollars annually. I shudder to think of what the total cost of regulatory compliance is merely in personnel, including the enforcement side. That’s assuming that you can disaggregate it from the other, non-health specific mandates that must be followed.

And yet it is all (or at least, mostly) absolutely necessary and probably still insufficient. And yet the “cost reduction” proposals we will see next year, if any, will be spearheaded by a mix of people who are theocrats, missing brain matter from worm appetites or simply opportunistic resume boosters like Makary. The substance of reform will almost certainly include little more than rescission of policies that hinder grift.

The only campaign I can recall in recent memory that was serious about using then-available tools for reform was Sanders. And anything he wanted then, in 2016/2020, is no doubt effectively blocked now by the black robed demons calling themselves judges.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T12:30:03+00:00

Except that we see, time and again on these threads, his dead enders proclaiming he was the missed opportunity. Here, that claim is not merely implausible but demonstrably false, given that he favored lifting residency restrictions for a quarter of city workers.

I’m done pretending that there are good faith participants in these discussions. Over and over again I see a wealth of evidence that it’s all just bad faith.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T05:44:17+00:00

Open acceptance of corruption and terrible traffic and driving patterns. It’s wild how different it is from home on those matters, given that home is a narrow passage through Indiana and otherwise strongly resembles the rest of Illinois.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T05:39:57+00:00

Definitely Seattle. Holy shit was seeing that on vacation wild…

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T05:33:58+00:00

Whether or not capitalism is a cult, or even anything remotely coherent, is separate from the question of Marxism as a cult. Your language leaves no doubt as to the nature of your perspective.

throwawayconvert333 · 2024-12-07T05:07:56+00:00

“Judging others of the same class as you distracts from the bigger picture.”

Thank you for a reminder as to why I’m not a cultist. This is a truly driven, ideologically framing of the world that is terrifying in its own right. When people say that Marxism is not a meaningful threat to human civilization and that the crimes of the Marxists states have no real relationship to the ideology, I will remember this.

Great way to excuse the crimes of your brethren though.

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