Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

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Potentiated Synapse said:
It is in the first minute to two minutes of the police scanner recording.
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Is it a recording of police coordinating an actual operation in progress?

"Unit One, moving up on the south side to start the fire."

"Roger that, Unit One, you are clear to start the fire."

"Unit One, this is Unit Two, be advised we are clear on this side to start the fire if you cannot."

"Negative, Unit Two. Unit One is go for firestarter at this time. Fire started in three... two... one... Fire is started. Repeat, fire is started."

Something like that?

Or is it just cops expressing their heartfelt wish that Dorner should die in a fire.

Because if police officers are anything like me and my team, the unpleasant things we wish upon the people we work with are violently at odds with the professionalism and restraint we actually show on the job.

What, exactly, are you claiming. What, exactly, is the evidence that supports your claim?
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Nope. Give the exact time. Show me where they say "Let's start a fire and kill this guy".
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I don't think they ever say that. The video is here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X-WoiJhVY8

1:35 is where they talk about the burners having started the fire.

Also:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/13/dorner-lapd-officer-fugitive-gunbattle/1915961/

He said deputies initially fired conventional "cold" tear gas into the cabin in Seven Oaks, near Big Bear Lake, then switched to "pyrotechnic-type" rounds" known as "burners."
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So I think the audio, in and of itself, is probably legit?

There's also this:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/13/the-execution-of-christopher-dorner/

But for those of us listening to the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department radio frequency, there was little question what had occurred. Nearly a half hour prior, officers had referred to “going ahead with the plan with the burner,” with another adding that the plan was to “back the Bear down and deploy the burner through the turret.” (Live audio during the preceding shootout seems to confirm this intention). Soon, the message was straightforward and expected: “Seven burners have deployed and we have a fire.” No surprised tones, no suggestion that the fire be extinguished.

In fact, there was the exact opposite: a female voice on the scanner repeatedly asks if the fire crews should be allowed to approach, and is told that it’s not time yet, that we need to wait until all four corners are engulfed, then that we need to wait until the roof collapses. At one particularly repulsive point, those on the scene realize that the house has a basement, and an authoritative male voice indicates that the fire crew would not be called until the fire had “burned through the basement.” They were going to let him die.
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Take it for what it's worth, I guess.

Personally, I don't really care if the LAPD killed this dude on purpose.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
Yes. 1:00 in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhGor0vASrg

"Alright, (Steve?) we're gonna go forward with the plan, with the burn"
"Copy"
"Wanted ta... like we talked about"
(pause)
"Seven burners deployed and we have a fire"
"Copy, seven burners deployed"
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Huh.

Well, good for them.

I was always in favor of an actual drone strike, myself, but I'll take what I can get.
 
theprestige said:
Huh.

Well, good for them.

I was always in favor of an actual drone strike, myself, but I'll take what I can get.
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Heh. I'm not sure at this point that we can rule out the "burners" being fired from Predator Drones.
 
Where's that guy with the mod hat? Could we spin-off the Another WACO discussion to one of the other threads on the topic of Dorner? (I'm sure without looking that there have been several variations started in politics, CT, and SI&CE.)

Unless someone can tie this back to the main theme... bashing A+? I mean Dorner was black, right? Did the man really set him up for disgrace because he was applying for a sex change operation? Maybe he was deaf? He was kinda "big boned", perhaps he was weight challenged? Did he suffer from EWWAD*?

((*Like "Seasonal Adjustment Disorder", which every third member of A+ suffers from, EWWAD - Early Week Workplace Associative Disorder, which I just invented for this post, takes a common occurrence (Blue Mondays) and makes it into something that can earn you a Victim Merit Badge if you claim to have it)?

ETA: Oh, by the way, we finally did it. With the four+ pages of posts, plus the ones spun off to AAH, there are actually more posts in this one thread than they had on their whole board in the last 24 hours.
 
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Foolmewunz said:
ETA: Oh, by the way, we finally did it. With the four+ pages of posts, plus the ones spun off to AAH, there are actually more posts in this one thread than they had on their whole board in the last 24 hours.
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Are you sure that's the first time this has happened? Given they usually only have about 10 members logged in tops, I thought this thread usually had more posts than all of the A+ ones. :confused:
 
recursive prophet said:
Are you sure that's the first time this has happened? Given they usually only have about 10 members logged in tops, I thought this thread usually had more posts than all of the A+ ones. :confused:
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Pretty sure. They've only recently gone below 200 posts a day, and we haven't really seen five pages added to this thread other than the last 24 hours. I haven't been tracking every day (I'm anal but not that anal), but when I was catching up on this thread this morning I noticed that I had a whole lot of reading to do, so made the comparison.
 
Okay, I'm still following the thread linked to earlier and it's definitely fruity as a bat cake. There are three regulars whining that Mr. Samara is talking about ethical issues, whereas talking about ethical issues makes those posters uncomfortable because they describe things which happen to real people. So, for example, Mr. Samara is using an example of how to assess the competing values of the health of children vs. the freedom of parents to raise their children how they wish - specifically how to assess whether enforced vaccinations are "good" or not. And he's being slapped down because one of the members has children who are ill and his talking about the health of children in the abstract is upsetting to her. 2 other members have also told him off because this one poster finds this distressing.

Well, is it just me, or if the topic of a conversation is one that upsets you so terribly, then isn't the onus on you to remove yourself from that situation, rather than to declare that because it upsets you that nobody should be allowed to discuss it? How can people be so vocal about social justice, yet be so anti freedom of speech? It's truly mind-boggling.
 
I wish I'd written this about shoegate a year ago:

I know she was trying to get back on her feet, but fashion habits like that can be a real achilles heel. Revelations of this nature can pump up animosity, and efforts to punt away criticism and kick the problem down the road can fall flat. That said, if she stays on her toes, keeps one step ahead of the controversy and posts a blog before the other shoe drops she might be able to pull her reputation back up by its bootstraps. She needs to buckle down and remain straight-laced or tongues will start wagging and comments will become arch.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Well, is it just me, or if the topic of a conversation is one that upsets you so terribly, then isn't the onus on you to remove yourself from that situation, rather than to declare that because it upsets you that nobody should be allowed to discuss it? How can people be so vocal about social justice, yet be so anti freedom of speech? It's truly mind-boggling.
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I'm with you. It's similar to comments earlier about if something triggers a physical reaction, then you can't claim the site will protect people from that trigger without taking extensive precautions. The more sensible solution is to allow people to filter those triggers themselves.

On a forum which specialises in upsetting topics - *ism, oppression, mental health, etc ... how can they possibly expect to have any thread get farther than 1 post without upsetting someone?
 
WRT the whole "shoegate" thing, if the lady in question's post about the controversy is accurate, then I don't see how she's done anything even questionable. She had no medical insurance and was unable to work, so she asked for donations to cover her expenses while she received treatment. She reached her goal within 1 day, closed donations and asked people instead to give the money to various cancer charities, should they still feel like donating money. She successfully completed her treatment and started working again. With the money she now had coming in again, she bought herself some new shoes and posted a picture of them on the internet. Some people were up in arms, so she offered to refund donated money to anybody who asked.

There's not one single thing there that seems even slightly unreasonable to me, although I would personally baulk at asking for donations to sustain me. But, then again, I don't live in a society where you have to pay for your medical treatment and if I did and was at risk I might revise my opinion on that.
 
oh eck. i dot think pz realises its him and his blogs being described:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/

wish that could be true for me. Robin Ince lives in a rather more secular culture. I live a few blocks from a cemetery with an odious electronic chime that plays hymns every goddamned 15 minutes; I live in a town with approximately 15 churches; I’ve been condemned by the county council of churches; I share a state with Michele Bachmann, a state where every couple of years we get to have another battle to keep creationism out of the public school science standards. I’m in a country where a politician denying evolution because the Bible says the earth is less than ten thousand years old, or denying climate change because their god promised to never screw up the weather again, are perfectly practical positions that will endear them to their benighted segment of the electorate. I wish these people would just take their faith into the churches and leave the rest of us be.
But at least Robin is generally correct in this part.
For a while I have worried there is a rise in the superior atheist, though I hope that is not true of most I know. I believe there can be a lack of imagination and experience amongst some atheists. We can gloriously bathe in the reprehensible examples of faith inspired misogynists, homophobes, terrorists and other thugs, and ignore the religious people who amble around us, filled with doubt, questions, compassions and a non-dogmatic view of the world. There are cultures and countries, where the repugnant, muscular hand of organised religion manipulates the populace. There are people who embrace dogmas, religious or political, and will refuse to view them with a critical eye, whatever the evidence might seem to be; old Maoists or Catholic die-hards who, while eagerly criticising other persuasions, will remain energetically blind to “their own sides” shortfalls. I am sure I have and will fail to notice my own shortcomings, while criticising those I see as opponents for exactly the actions I have been guilty of. It seems that is part of the human survival mechanism, though I hope I am becoming more vivacious in my eye for personal hypocrisy.
These are concerns that sometimes leave me in despair. Yeah, I’m surrounded by the absurdly devout, but as we’ve all been discovering in the last few years, my chosen atheist community is pretty well cluttered with arrogant, petty ********. Some days I feel even more isolated than before.So, this Odin guy…are his followers enlightened and tolerant?
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
WRT the whole "shoegate" thing, if the lady in question's post about the controversy is accurate, then I don't see how she's done anything even questionable. She had no medical insurance and was unable to work, so she asked for donations to cover her expenses while she received treatment. She reached her goal within 1 day, closed donations and asked people instead to give the money to various cancer charities, should they still feel like donating money. She successfully completed her treatment and started working again. With the money she now had coming in again, she bought herself some new shoes and posted a picture of them on the internet. Some people were up in arms, so she offered to refund donated money to anybody who asked.

There's not one single thing there that seems even slightly unreasonable to me, although I would personally baulk at asking for donations to sustain me. But, then again, I don't live in a society where you have to pay for your medical treatment and if I did and was at risk I might revise my opinion on that.
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i mostly agree. i had a friend who recently passed away after a two year "fight" with cancer. he wasnt well off but never even entertained the idea of begging for donations online.

maybe he should have.

if i give money to a homeless person for food, its up to me, even though i know they will most likely spend it on booze.
if people want to give her money, regardless of what its for, thats their lookout.

lxxx
 
Thinking about the whole too drunk to consent thing I realised that English law has useful definition of capability that is used to decide if someone can consent to medical treatment or not.

Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 you have to ask two questions:
  1. Is there an impairment of or disturbance in the functioning of a person’s mind or brain?
  2. If yes to (1) then is the impairment or disturbance sufficient that the person lacks the capacity to make a particular decision?
Being drunk obviously ticks the "yes" box for (1) but how do you judge whether they are too drunk to consent?

The Act says you have to apply a test and that a person is unable to make their own decision if they are unable to do one or more of these:
  • Understand information given to them
  • Retain that information long enough to be able to make the decision
  • weigh up the information available to make the decision
  • Communicate their decision – this could be by talking, using sign language or even simple muscle movements such as blinking an eye or squeezing a hand.
The last part of the fourth point seems problematic on the surface but any person drunk enough to be only capable of communicating by twitching their eyes is not likely to get a "yes" in any of the first three.
 
s_pepys said:
oh eck. i dot think pz realises its him and his blogs being described:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/

<PZed's blog snipped>
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Could you make it clear when you are quoting text from elsewhere? Put the [quote] [/quote] tags around it, for example:
PZed said:
wish that could be true for me. Robin Ince lives in a rather more secular culture. I live a few blocks from a cemetery with an odious electronic chime that plays hymns every goddamned 15 minutes; I live in a town with approximately 15 churches; I’ve been condemned by the county council of churches; I share a state with Michele Bachmann, a state where every couple of years we get to have another battle to keep creationism out of the public school science standards. I’m in a country where a politician denying evolution because the Bible says the earth is less than ten thousand years old, or denying climate change because their god promised to never screw up the weather again, are perfectly practical positions that will endear them to their benighted segment of the electorate. I wish these people would just take their faith into the churches and leave the rest of us be.
But at least Robin is generally correct in this part.
Robin Ince said:
For a while I have worried there is a rise in the superior atheist, though I hope that is not true of most I know. I believe there can be a lack of imagination and experience amongst some atheists. We can gloriously bathe in the reprehensible examples of faith inspired misogynists, homophobes, terrorists and other thugs, and ignore the religious people who amble around us, filled with doubt, questions, compassions and a non-dogmatic view of the world. There are cultures and countries, where the repugnant, muscular hand of organised religion manipulates the populace. There are people who embrace dogmas, religious or political, and will refuse to view them with a critical eye, whatever the evidence might seem to be; old Maoists or Catholic die-hards who, while eagerly criticising other persuasions, will remain energetically blind to “their own sides” shortfalls. I am sure I have and will fail to notice my own shortcomings, while criticising those I see as opponents for exactly the actions I have been guilty of. It seems that is part of the human survival mechanism, though I hope I am becoming more vivacious in my eye for personal hypocrisy.
Click to expand...
These are concerns that sometimes leave me in despair. Yeah, I’m surrounded by the absurdly devout, but as we’ve all been discovering in the last few years, my chosen atheist community is pretty well cluttered with arrogant, petty ********. Some days I feel even more isolated than before.So, this Odin guy…are his followers enlightened and tolerant?
Click to expand...
 
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