Whose brilliant idea was that?

It would probably take 20 years for the conceptual designs, material selection, laboratory testing of the materials, CAD design, prototype building (a dozen or so), THEN come the lawsuits, Congressional hearings, de-funding, re-funding, de-funding again, re-funding again, route selection, more lawsuits, different route selections ( Repeat ) and finally protestors chaining themselves to everything in the way before the first load of wastes is ready to go anywhere.

It is interesting that one of the basis of most religions is the freedom to choose. Most religions allow people to choose to do good or choose not to. Why does the Muslim religion seem to want to control everything? Conversion by force, death sentence for converting to another religion, hiding women's bodies so not to tempt men and now censorship. What would a religion have to force it's followers to conform? What proves a person's faith is the ability to resist temptation. Look at the trials of Job. If the people need to be "protected" from temptation then their faith is weak.

Why does it fall on the West (presumably the US) to do something? Don't most people bitch when the US involves itself in the affairs of others?

Furthermore, doesn't Ukraine have its own alliances to prevent exactly this?

The proper response to this is to strengthen military forces in new NATO member states surrounding Russia, including US boots on the ground. This will make a clear line that Russia knows it cannot cross without provoking all-out war. Unfortunately Ukraine is not part of NATO. We might be able to sell arms to Ukraine, but there are risks and limitations to this. What must be made clear to Russia is that if it enters Ukraine, it will face profound economic isolation. If it goes further it must be clear that it will result in WWIII. Thus we end in a stalemate. Not unlike the Cold War.

Maybe Scotland should keep its nukes after all...

You know how you deal with a playground bully? You stand up to his crap, get people behind you, and call his bluff.

Which works really well right up until you discover the schoolyard bully is a little unhinged, and is playing out of his own book because he believes his own story.

And then you discover it's not a bluff, and then things get really hairy.

Chairman Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Hitler, not so much with the bluffing.

And I'm not so sure about Putin either.

Ukraine is in a much worse shape than Russia, economically speaking. Steamrolling over Ukraine is not hard. Steamrolling over Europe is much more complicated.

I don't know how Russia, you know, the big one, reacts if the US decided to support (and possibly occup... I mean liberate) a country right at its border.

I mean, how'd you feel if Russia took over Mexico?

I'd be quite careful how to react to that. Putin doesn't have as much leeway to do what he pleases as it seems. Russia likes big, strong, tough men at the top. Men who give in have a pretty hard time to remain in power.

There are also Ukrainian troops in Russia. In far bigger numbers as well. Last time there were 400 soldiers who strayed to Russia, now there is a report of about 1000 soldiers encircled by the separatists that might be seeking refuge in Russia after being abandoned by their commanders. It is not as simple as some news outlets let you believe. Most of the headlines are sensationalist anyway, that's how you sell newspaper. There is also 300 US active military "advisors" embedded with the Ukrainian military, helping with tactics, logistics and strategy. But I don't see you being upset over that.

I am mostly upset that nobody is talking, they could have had a week long cease fire couple months ago to at least talk through what each side wants, but Ukraine pushes for a complete victory in the east. Maybe that is a good strategy, maybe not, but US is the only one benefiting right now. Ukraine, EU and Russia are all losers in this conflict. And I am also upset with the rhetoric of people that drive us into a military conflict with Russia. It is almost as if everyone forgot the 2000 nuclear warheads aimed at pretty much the entire world. But let's say they won't use them. Won't they maybe sell them? Or sell the technology to make them? What is their incentive not to?

He also ramped up the war on drugs, something that so many freedom-hating scumbags in our government have done. So he wasn't a good president, and he definitely didn't want "small government."

But what does that have to do with him being to blame for this specific issue?

He also ramped up the war on drugs, something that so many freedom-hating scumbags in our government have done. So he wasn't a good president, and he definitely didn't want "small government."

But what does that have to do with him being to blame for this specific issue?

If someone complains about an interaction with an officer where the officer's camera has no record of the interaction, the officer is assumed to be guilty.

That should give officers incentive to ensure their cameras are in working order.

I have a friend who used to resell AT&T bandwidth as a whole sale reseller. He caught AT&T overcharging him. He joined with other ISP's and resellers and demonstrated AT&T was doing this to all of them. There was fairly good size money involved in this, north of $10 meg. They filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T. As all the contracts came up for renewal AT&T refused to renew the contracts. It took AT&T about 6 months to these ISP's out of business.

AT&T is not your friend.

During their investigation they found that AT&T uses for separate billing systems to collect the same usage data. They found that the systems use the same inputs but all yield different billing amounts. The highest amount can be up to 20% higher than the lowest amount. It turns out they simply select the system that yields the highest number that month and bill the customer.

A less drastic, but equally annoying solution might be to just turn it off for a month. See what they bill you then.

"It was turned off" is a lot more likely to persuade a small claims court to your side than "I was overcharged by 14%, and here are the dozen esoteric ways I can prove it".