Twilight

Personally, I think the libido complaint is overrated. Most of the time we saw Kirk coming on to a woman, it was a tactic to gain an advantage over some opponent. And he scrupulously avoided any involvement with the women under his command -- something we can't say for Picard.

City on the Edge of Forever.  Any number of Sci-Fi greats wrote whole novels about time travel, but Harlan Ellison set the standards for the dangers of changing history for an entire generation.  
    I personally think every time travel story after that point from Quantum Leap to the Terminator owe a little something to it.

Legitimate addressing of the issues (instead of token gestures) would end all this, but...as usual...America refuses to admit there is any problem.

It's reasonably easy to remove or replace the firing pin on most modern weapons. It does not require a gunsmith or special tools (or, frequently, any tools). I suspect that the condition of the gun would be ruled inadmissable, because there is no way to confirm that it hadn't been changed between the incident and when it was turned over to the police.

Whether the gun is functional or not is irrelevant to the charge of exhibiting. She could have been waving an airsoft gun and she’d be just as guilty. And she’d still be getting off easier than Tamir Rice. 

The terminology used here is so blatantly biased and ludicrous that it's hard for me to take anything written here seriously. Every protester is a "violent anarchist" and more than one is a "mob". Ok...

I would feel so bad about this if the police in other locales hadn't been caught slashing people's tires, on top of  the Seattle PD being told to stop using tear gas and using it anyway.
CES  

I abhor violence, but...if someone came up to you in plainclothes (including military surplus camouflage...which many people wear as a fashion statement), did not announce who they are (or who they work for) and attempted to assault/restrain you, couldn't you make a case that self-defense was obviously warranted at that point?

Incidentally, I am amused by Trump's outrage that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have not shown consistent and obedient fealty. His own world-view should have told him this: He gave them something that he can't take back, and he has nothing else that they want. Therefore he has no leverage. They don't need him anymore. So why should they give a rat's ass what he wants?
 
Dean Shomshak

I'm not going to be outraged at anyone shooting back if someone is firing a gun at them, full stop, whether it's a triple homicide suspect or a swat team who kicks in the wrong door and starts plugging away before assessing the situation.

Police in America have gotten away with too much for too long. The black community in general is unwilling to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I don't think this is going to derail anything. Overwhelming evidence of police abusing their authority, and being protected by the system, has come to light and been given a very high profile. Those who refuse to let their anger be assuaged by evidence in specific instances, and those who would use those instances as a justification for their abuses, are playing to zealots on each side, whose positions were already set in stone. The broader public has been forcefully apprised of the situation now, and that genie isn't going back in the bottle.

Supreme Court Oklahoma Decision Explained

The Cherokee reporter who discussed the decision on ATC was simply gobsmacked that a US court had said, "The treaty says what it says, and that makes it the law, so follow it," instead of, "Meh, the treaty has become inconvenient, so ignore it."
 
Dean Shomshak

ELIZA's output was grammatically correct.

But what have the Romans ever done for us, such that their candles should be venerated so many years later?
 
Maybe you could also lob a few Roman candles into my neighborhood to break up the damn late night fireworks.  I don't get up at 4 AM (a little after 5 instead), but damn, wish they'd have some consideration for people who have to sleep to live.

I think you will find that the system allows corruption.  It would not happen if people were more engaged.  Ultimately it is neglect that breeds corruption.

That is a counsel of despair Badger, and not likely to get something better in 2024.  If folk don't like either option and wait for something better, nothing is likely to turn up.  If people counsel despair, nothing is likely to change.
 
Democracy, like a vegetable garden, takes work to make it flourish.  Voting at every election is like seeding the plot and ignoring it until harvest time.  It is unlikely you will go back and find any tomatoes, potatoes or carrots, just a bunch of nettles and weeds.
 
We have gotten lazy, expecting the system to throw up good, principled candidates when experience is telling them that is not the way to get elected.
 
What is needed is not new systems or rules but a deeper engagement by the electorate.  of course, it might take a new system to garner that engagement.
 
We get the politicians we deserve.
 
Doc

How much of his income goes to other businesses? If he's holding onto it, then it's not working for the economy-at-large. Money has to move around to be of benefit to the economy, and it's much more effective to give "50,000 McDonald's employees" who have to buy goods and services more money to do so. The money will eventually bubble up to the billionaires, but it will touch a lot more folks along the way.

We're also lagging way behind in education, standard of living and other metrics while spending an obscene amount on the military....but hey....
 
You're right. We should just eliminate and dismiss the majority of Americans and focus on the ones who are "valuable" to the economy.  Let's prep the concentration camps now. Oh wait....we can't kill all those people...they're the ones who do all the work that make Bezos, Elon Musk, and Gates so "valuable". What a great society we've developed here...
 
 

The fact that Ken & Karen didn't get shot by police is a pretty good illustration of white privilege in and of itself.

If it's a private road then they're scamming money from the city of St Louis because the zoning law says said roads are being maintained by the city of St Louis.  If they city's maintaining it then it's public property plain and simple but there I go being logical rather then mindlessly swallowing whatever story de jour they're using to vilify the black people being threatened by the gun wielding idjits.  

Literally that attitude is "if you want the services 90% of your city's budget goes to then you have to put up with us planting evidence or beating people we don't like and us putting toy guns on kids we accidentally shoot so we don't have to see a courtroom."

To move away from American politics for a moment: China forces birth control on Muslims to suppress population
 
I was struck by how one academic observer of Uighur affairs characterized it as "slow, painful, creeping genocide."

I appreciated this, since I'm getting back into e-wrestling

When you tie that to the 'brotherhoods/gangs' post earlier, you begin to see why there might be real fears about police behavior and brutality.
 
Planting drugs is a thing.  Police in Florida were recorded talking about how much they liked doing it.
 
Take a minute to think how much it does to a single family, to have that happen once.  Emotionally and financially.
 
Then think about what happens to a community that has even a single police officer doing this, even just once a month.  Over the course of ten years.
 
A single bad officer can crush an entire community into poverty for multiple generations this way.
 
It's not a surprise to me that people feel upset.  It's not universal, but where it's a problem, it's an incredibly impossible problem to solve.