you think the current "Send in a two dozen man hit squad, guns blazing and don't even check the address, every time someone thinks of a bong or other activity" is okay.

The current discussion has nothing to do with drugs, or anything that remotely looks like abuse of power. (I said earlier that I didn't think using SWAT to deliver warrants for non-violent crime to people without a history of violence is wrong.) "SWATing" is using technical problems in the phone system to convince the police that someone is calling 911 from inside a house and is asking for immediate help dealing with an armed intruder.

I suppose I am such a toady that I think when the police are being begged by a citizen to come to their aid, they should rush into that person's house. I also think the technical problems that mislead the police should be fixed.

I'll defend that sometimes mistakes happen with regard to the address, under the "holy shit, if people had to execute policy perfectly for it to be a good policy, we wouldn't even be able to eat raw bugs" defense.

In what universe does a government website selling personal info to advertisers count as even remotely fucking acceptable???

Probably the universe where a bunch of assholes insist that the federal government not use in-house personnel to build this website, and instead outsource it to the lowest bidder... who is lowest because they valued and counted on this additional revenue stream?

Uncle Sam needs to retire.

Uncle Sam needs to get his ass off the bench, and stop outsourcing all it's functionality to private companies who do this shit.

Now, the government was complicit in allowing this. But I think that if it weren't outsourced to a company attempting to monetize everything, no one would think of this.

Also, it probably wouldn't hurt to pepper your walls leading to your bedroom with portraits of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Dick Cheney.

Hell, if you want to get laid, that's just good advice in general.

There's an awful lot of other police forces in the world which don't feel the need to go in in full armour and with guns blazing at the slightest opportunity. For example, I think the US is the only place where a SWAT-like force is used to serve warrants against nonviolent offenders.

I agree that no-knock warrants that are being delivered to people with no history of violence, and not suspect of violent crimes, is a bad thing.

But in this case, the police believe someone from the house called and said there are armed intruders in the house. This doesn't seem like "the slightest opportunity". This seems like an immediate reaction to a request for help in a life-threatening situation.

They do have to follow due process with radar. The Supreme Court ruling that guarantees you need a warrant (or exigent circumstances) is old enough to date. Or listen to Justin Beiber. Or whatever teenager-related thing you want to use. I understand that most people assume the worst, but there's definitely a legal requirement that exists that people assume doesn't.

Neither the radar nor the kicking isn't being done to invade privacy. The kicking is being done because they believe there is an armed assailant attacking the family, and they are coming to help. I don't know what world you want to live in where "dear police, please help keep someone from killing me" gets a response of "I'm sorry, that would interfere with your civil liberties to... fight the invaders off yourself."

At least with the radar, the police are less likely to have to bust down the door. At least with the radar, the police^H^H^H^H^H SWAT team is less likely to get surprised rounding a corner and shoot someone. Heck, it may even turn more attempted SWATings into "hostage negotiation"ings.

Bottom line: When someone calls 911, the police are supposed to respond. We can obviously say that bad responses are bad. But you need to provide a better alternative solution. Because otherwise, what you are arguing for is "the police shouldn't respond to 911 calls". And I think you have an insurmountable burden to demonstrate that, and haven't even begun to attempt to meet that burden.

(To preempt a deliberate misreading:) Not that people should be forced to rely on the police, they should be able to defend themselves. But some people opting to defend themselves shouldn't release society (thru the police) from an obligation to assist.

And yet, when they try to get radar so they can see inside houses before/instead of kicking down the door, people react like the fucking sky is falling.

/me waits for edge case obsessed Tepples to start talking about game consoles that can't run Chrome.

What about people who don't want to run Chrome? Or who only run Chrome within the google app space?

D's syntax is simpler and more readable than C++,... so shouldn't it be more popular?

I guess the users of languages don't like readable, simple, or maintainable code.

The languages with the biggest gains this time around include JavaScript, PL/SQL, Perl, VB, and COBOL. (Yes, COBOL.)

Confirmation!

And, one should point out that your retirement account, unless used for silly things (like to avoid paying insurance) should not be counted as part of your assets for liability purposes.

Why wouldn't you get it back once you are no longer self-insuring? And you can deposit a security, so you can deposit 55k (current value) of bonds so you can still get a return on investment.

My friend interviewed at a pretty major insurance company. It was a similar setup.

My guess is it's their variant of a partnership in a lawfirm or somesuch. Up or out!

The part of government trying to overthrow repressive governments invents it. Different part of the government, different goals.

Hey now, don't rub your civilized way of taking care of the sick and injured in my face. If my face gets hurt, you know how much it will cost me to get it fixed!

We would save a lot of money if a retirement account could be used as evidence of self-insurance in place of paying an insurance company.

You can self insure if you put up a bond of $X. I think 10,000 is a common number in US states. The thing is, you cannot be the one investing it. So when you're distracted because your portfolio takes a nose-dive and you crash into someone, that 10k is still around.

Of course, you could lose everything, because that's not the maximum liability you face. So you might want to have insurance anyway.

And preemptively said the same applied to wall penetrating radar.