My first idea is to dig in. Put the people underground, as much as possible. Put critical infrastructure underground as well. No matter how you build, or what you build with, surface structures are going to be vulnerable. Put greenhouses on the surface, put solar panels on the surface, put hazardous research and fabrication on the surface. Put the PEOPLE underground. Dig them in where they can sleep soundly, knowing that they are safe from piddling little things like storms, or meteors, or whatever.

Err, uhhh - - - you're right, my citations have just about nothing to do with Canada. But - we are on a mostly American site, and the conversation has done as it usually does. It eventually turns US-centric. And, I wandered down that path. I thought that I was replying to another US-centric post.

Thanks for clarifying that you aren't an American. From my subjective point of view, our left is to far left, our center is more correct than either the left or right, and our right is to far right.

" in days gone by any person who ran for any reason was subject to being shot"

Here, you err. In days gone by, fleeing and evading the police was a mere misdemeanor. In the years immediately before 9/11/01 there was controversy about making fleeing and evading a felony. A cop was NEVER authorized to use deadly force to prevent a misdemeanor. Cops have ALWAYS been authorized to use deadly force to prevent the commission of a felony. The controversy over this issue was pretty lively - until 9/11/01. Soon after, we got a whole raft of new laws, most of which are unconstitutional. And, states that though fleeing should be a felony just passed the law, while other states rejected the idea.

And, in the end, it hardly matters, because those states where fleeing is NOT a felony, their cops just claim that they felt threatened when the suspect gunned his car engine or some such nonsense.

Yes - no - maybe. How DO you winnow out the bad cops in the hiring process? Have the social workers come up with a test for morality? Honesty? How do you weed out an authoritarian asshole, before he acts out?

I'm half sure that the cops winnow out a lot of the worst cretins. But, anyone who is sure that they weed out all of the bad actors is some kind of a fool. People with god complexes are often attracted to police work, because it is one place where they can ACT like the gods that they know they are. Adrenaline junkies are also attracted to the work. How do you identify them?

If you can develop the proper tests to identify all of the bad ones, I'm sure that you'll be rich and famous overnight.

No, they don't "pull records". They have to plead, beg, threaten, cajole and go to court to get the records. They have submitted requests for tons of records, and they've gotten some small percentage of what they've requested. But, even that small percentage is a treasure trove of data.

Long story short - the cops are still deciding what to release, when, and how. You don't get any data until the PD has approved it's release.

I live in the Corporate States of America. Here, the more responsibility you have, the less responsible you have to be. The guy hired last week to mop the floors will be fired immediately if a bottle of floor wax should come up missing. The CEO can artfully relocate millions of dollars, and he'll get a bonus for doing it.

Crazy world we live in.

Yes. So - let's have the video. In one case, the video proves me wrong. In the next case, the video proves me wrong again. In the next case, I see the evidence that "my side" is right. And, that's the way it should be.

A cop's word should carry no more weight than your word or mine in a court of law. The cop should have to PROVE HIS CASE.

That may or may not be true. It hardly matters though, does it? If the cops are wearing body cams, and three cops arrest some mook, then when he cries "Brutality", the evidence is available. If the evidence shows the mook to be lying, so be it. If the evidence shows that the cops bludgeoned him half to death, then let him roll around in the back of a paddy wagon for half the day before calling for medical assistance, then so it should be.

Put the cameras on the cops. Justice will win, no matter how many cops win or lose their cases.

"criminals or otherwise people on the police radar."

And, in this day and age, just what does it take to show up on "radar"? For instance - DHS has stated that "extremists" includes veterans, Christians, survivalists, sovereigners, on and on and on. Oh - note that it's not just "Christian fundamentalists" anymore, but "Christians" in general. Funny that one - all the gays are clamoring to be accepted into the churches - which makes gays extremists now too!

I'm on the "radar" multiple times. I don't even try to get through an airport. I'd have to kill someone.

I suppose that you are completely unaware of the neoconservatives. THOSE are the GOP's "far right". To leftists, anyone right of center is "far right".

ROFLMAO

Just pass on that Supersized Big Mac meal about seven days a week, and you can be a lean and mean 200 pound man like me!

Alright, so I'm almost sixty, and I have about 15 pounds of pot belly, but at least no one ever called me tubbo!!

You're obviously nucking phutts, but if I understand you correctly, then I agree with you.

"Police can't normally walk away from the scene, and they are compelled to attend in the first place."

Uhhhhh - no. The police are not obligated to come to your aid. Never have been, never will be. When you call the police, they only come if it is convenient, and when they feel like it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06...

As for walking away from the scene - I'm not aware of anything that binds any individual officer to the scene. He may walk away from a confrontation at any time.

There are some pretty good discussions going on right now about such things.

http://www.policemag.com/chann...

In short, a cop can decide to defuse a situation by just backing off, at any time he chooses to do so. And, in fact, some of the wiser heads in the various police forces say that they should do just that. Not always, but often.

How many stories have we read of, where some mentally deficient person was shot to death, simply because he wasn't cooperating? And - the cop feels "threatened". One of the most recent stories I remember involved a nut case who was on his own porch, and happened to have a screw driver in his hand. There was no indication that he intended to use that screwdriver as a weapon - the cop just "felt threatened" because of that dumbass 21 foot rule. Yet another dead nutcase - and no one answers for the killing.

Yes - and THAT would be a blatant copyright violation.

Back in the mists of time, it was understood that no one was guaranteed any profit from any publicized work. The idea was, that IF there WAS a profit, then the author(s) should get some of it.

Casual users playing around with the code is cool, in my opinion. Corporate users making a profit, however indirectly, is not so cool.