Were you paying attention to what two idiots did with pressure cookers in Boston a few years ago? Or what another idiot tried to do with a propane tank, which this story says may also have been in the vehicle?

I own both of those items. I've transported them within my vehicle many times. What I haven't done is parked my fucking car outside the local Federal building and left it unattended with those items inside. Should I have to think that way? No. Is that the sad reality of the world we live in today? Yes.

Jesus Fucking Christ, look up what "common sense" means sometime. Stop trying to rationalize this as some sort of oppressive Governmental action. This is called an "abundance of caution," and is perfectly understandable to anyone that hasn't been living under a rock for the last twenty years.

Which he'll likely be reimbursed for, notwithstanding the fact that he was illegally operating the vehicle immediately prior to this happening. A pressure cooker costs ~$30, a rear window ~$400, and a propane cylinder ~$30. We're not even talking one thousand dollars worth of damages here.

18USC1029 would come into play too, just guessing.

Do you think quoting my post line by line makes you sound like less of an absolutist idiot?

Gasoline doesn't explode, it burns. Of course, as our resident expert in IEDs and Constitutional Law, you already knew that, right?

In New York State you can get expired registration and/or inspection citations while your car is parked. There ain't nothing to see here. Drive without a license and you'll get cited for driving without a license. If you have proof they made up that charge or revoked his license for political reasons why don't you present it? Otherwise you're just making shit up to fit your narrative.

You people really are something. Have you ever heard the expression, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should?"

I can legally put every single firearm I own into the trunk of my car with thousands of rounds of ammunition and drive through Washington DC on my way to Virginia. That doesn't mean cruising past the White House on this little road trip is a sensible decision, never mind parking nearby while I grab a bite to eat or take a few photos.

Fucking common sense says don't park your fucking car a block away from the United States Capitol with anything inside that could be misidentified as an explosive device. It also says you should keep your drivers license current and in good standing. You think they just cited him for that offense without checking to see that he was actually operating the vehicle? You are familiar with traffic cameras right? Hell, he probably admitted that he was driving when they interviewed him.

He's not getting the book thrown at him in any of the media accounts I've read, he's getting the same treatment he would have received if he was pulled over for a routine traffic stop. If it's his first offense he'll probably get off with a small fine and a conviction for a violation rather than a misdemeanor. There's no fucking miscarriage of justice here.

To the best of my recollection, there is no legal parking on that section of 3rd Street, NW or SW, near the National Mall. If you illegally park your car near the US Capitol Building you should probably expect some scrutiny. If you have a pressure cooker inside in the day and age of improvised explosive devices you should expect further scrutiny. Is the latter bit "fair?" Maybe not. But it's reality in this era.

If the police don't investigate an illegally parked car near a sensitive structure they're grossly negligent. If the investigation reveals you broke the law to get the car there, well, you're going to get charged. If this gentleman was driving on a suspended license it was only a matter of time before he got charged anyway; he just managed to do it in a high profile fashion, vs. the thousands of idiots doing the exact same thing that get picked up in a more mundane fashion every day of the week.

I don't know how much Seagate's lack of attention to quality in their HDDs is reflected in their SSDs.

I don't know either, and I'm not willing to find out the hard way.

Blu-Ray is total crap, as is all optical backup media.

The biggest problem is that it's simply far too small to be useful. To back up a 1TB drive, you'll need 20 BD-R discs. That's a lot of swapping to do a full backup.

Aside from that, they're slow, write-once, and suffer a lot from bit-rot due to poor quality media. DVD-Rs and CD-Rs had the same problems before, and those are completely useless for backup these days due to their puny size.

The only thing that makes any sense at all for consumers is USB hard drives. They're fairly cheap, they're rewriteable, and only cost probably a few times what a single set of BD-R discs would cost. After a few backups, they've equaled in cost, plus it's a lot easier and faster to do incremental backups with them since you can just use rsync.

Actually, the other poster's suggestion of using a NAS drive makes a lot of sense too.

Not to burst your paranoid bubble, but the cops can't just revoke drivers licenses in the United States. Generally speaking, your drivers license can only be revoked or suspended after convictions for certain serious traffic offenses, a combination of convictions for minor traffic offenses, or failure to pay renewal fees when your license expires. A handful of jurisdictions allow the cops to physically take your license when you're cited for DWI; the actual suspension thereof generally occurs at your first court appearance.

In this instance they haven't released any of the back story, but it would seem that the guy was driving on a suspended or revoked license, which is a crime most everywhere in the World. It's a tough one to get away with in the day and age of license plate readers but if you're gonna attempt it you're probably best advised not to park your car on the Mall in Washington DC.....

And of course they need to be able to defend their own borders/etc if they don't want somebody ticked off about their debts to come looking to collect.

The Spartans at Thermopylae proved that the Greeks are the last people you want to try to invade.

and Adblock plus is simply a front company that sells the right to place adverts in front of its users.

Not a problem; don't use ABP.

Use uBlock instead. As a bonus, it's much much faster and uses far less memory.

See, the problem is that the religious conservatives want other religious conservatives to have the privilege of being able to spout their hateful bile without any consequences. They don't want free speech, they want consequences-free speech for their own kind (but no one else).

What an odd thing to say. Of course the owners of the bank take the hit when fines are levied. Who else would? And it's up to the owners of the bank to decide how to hold their employees accountable.

No, this is clearly #1. The biggest existential risk, and the most promising opportunity. It all depends on what those 7 billion unusually intelligent apes decide to do.