Police unions are not at all like unions for corporate employees. The employer of the police is the government (at some level), which is elected by the people.

Personally, I don't think the police should even be allowed to have a union. Their employer, the city government, does not have a profit motive like a corporation, nor is it owned by a single person or handful of people like privately-held companies.

What makes you think that Putin is not also a dork?
Have you seen any of the situations he is trying to create, showing that he is actually a superman?

Did you miss how he rather masterfully seized Crimea with very little bloodshed, while the western powers were unable or unwilling to do anything about it? He's not a superman, but he's no idiot either.

Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz would have been more regular and respectable Republican candidates that I could have supported, compared to Trump.

Ted Cruz is a religious loon whose views are even more right-wing and extreme than Trump's. Even other Republicans in Congress hated him with a passion. Jeb was about as establishment as you can get, and rode on his brother's legacy which only hurt him. But primaries these days tend to choose polarizing figures it seems, so someone "safe" and rather middle-of-the-road like Jeb had no chance.

Out of curiosity, why do you say Trump and Hillary? Would it be the same to you to say Donald and Clinton?

No.

Go look at the campaign stickers and such for both candidates. Trump's stickers and signs all say "TRUMP" (or "TRUMP / PENCE"). Hillary's signs all say "Hillary 2016" or similar.

"Clinton" refers to Bill Clinton, the former president. Hillary herself uses her first name to try to make a name for herself, instead of simply being "Bill Clinton's wife". It's actually a smart move. "Clinton" isn't even her last name, it's "Rodham"; she merely adopted the Clinton name when she married Bill, and honestly, it's an archaic and patriarchal old custom that really has outlived its usefulness IMO, and that's coming from someone who is not a big fan of SJWs, "safe spaces" and all that other crap going on in the far left these days. I'm no fan of Hillary, but if I were a woman politician, I'd also want to make a name for myself on my own merits and accomplishments, not my husband's (though she touts her "experience" of being First Lady way too much IMO which tarnishes this).

You must have missed the part where I said it takes about 20 minutes to install. That's "usable" in my book, especially compared to Windows 10 where installation and updates are a complete PITA, and the user interface once you finally get it running is an abomination.

I wouldn't want to provide even the slightest aid or comfort, in any way, shape, or form, to the RIAA, MPAA, ASCAP, Metallica, or any one of that particular basket of deplorables. And I would take great glee in refusing to do so, and doing anything within my power to subvert their desires.

Yes, CloudFlare for other reasons are a bunch of asshats. But the likes of Rosen, Valenti, Ulrich, and the rest of their loathsome ilk? Evil. Pure and simple by way of the eighth dimension. A pox upon all their houses and works, I say.

There are people who die everyday do to defend your way of life.

No, there aren't. Citation needed.

There are people who die everyday who stand by to put themselves in the line of fire on your behalf. There are others who die everyday to ensure you and your family can be saved from a fire. There are more people who die everyday who standby to pull you out of your wrecked car. There are even more people who die everyday and risk their life to provide you with medical care. Their are pilots who standby to rush you to the hospital in a critical event. They don't plan on sacrificing themselves for you specifically, but it happens sometimes.

None of those people is actually deliberately committing suicide in order to save another person.

There's a bunch of people (400k I think) working at Amazon to sell you crap and ship that crap to you. They (most of them) have to drive to work every day. Driving a car in America is one of the most likely ways of dying, right behind heart attacks and cancer, and if you're younger, it's *the* most likely way for you to die, and therefore, the most risky thing you can do.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to hail Amazon tech workers as heroes for "risking their lives" every day to write code to help sell me stuff online.

Granted, rushing into burning buildings is probably more dangerous that braving Seattle traffic (though I'm really not sure; firefighters don't actually die that often these days), but it isn't quite the same as jumping onto a grenade.

Every one of us risks dying every day to do whatever it is we do. Some activities are more risky than others (staying at home carries the risks of home invasion and carbon monoxide poisoning), but very few of them are *that* dangerous and likely to kill you (more than medical problems due to old age). There is greater risk with some jobs, namely firefighting and piloting (esp. in smaller aircraft and helicopters; not in big jets, you're much more likely to die in a car or maybe even getting hit by an asteroid). EMS piloting is a little dangerous because of wire strikes. Point is, none of these people are out there with the idea of "sacrificing themselves" for anyone. They're doing a mildly more dangerous job than the average perhaps, hoping to help people, and get paid for it, and they accept the risk that comes along with it. The risk they carry in these jobs is probably nowhere near as great as, for instance, underwater welding, which is not directly tied to saving anyone's life.

Everything you do carries some risk, and we all do a risk/benefit computation when we do it. If someone is trapped in a wrecked car and I have the tools and ability to free them, do I do that or leave them in there? When was the last time a wrecked car exploded? It's quite rare these days; they usually just catch fire, so the risk is worth it to anyone who signs up for that job. When was the last time a Medivac helicopter crashed and killed the pilot? I'm sure it's happened, but it's probably much less often than some guy with more money than brains and a private pilot's license wrecking (private pilots crash all the time; Medivacs, not so much). There again, the risk is surely worth it to the pilot to have that job. None of these people are jumping on grenades.

And if you're talking about cops, their risk is much lower than that of taxi drivers. They're not stepping in front of bullets for anyone, because they're not there fast enough to make a difference in almost every case. That's TV show drama. Cops just show up afterwards and either shoot an unarmed black guy or just arrest someone and take down a report for them to be prosecuted for the crime.

The problem isn't that it can't be mitigated, it's that there's no political will to oppose police unions during contract renegotiation. My city council rolled over and wet itself rather than enforce a voter-lead initiative to change the city charter and add an independent police ombudsman with investigatory and disciplinary powers. The office has never done anything in its 5 or so years of existence, and can't until the newly-negotiated contract expires. State law says the union has to okay any changes that could effect disciplinary procedures, so the only way things change is if the city council doesn't blink, lets the contract lapse, and contracts with the sheriff's office until a new police department can be hired.

Of course they do. The pioneering sociologist Max Weber defined the government as the group of people that enjoys a monopoly on force.

The question is how accountable you want the people who are licensed to use force (including powers of intrusion) to be.

Not sure what study you're referring to, but years of data from dozens of western countries don't agree (Canada, Australia, Germany, etc).

My Samsung TV was on the wish list for replacement, but now I have a (semi) legitimate reason. Time to look at OLEDs!

Regardless of the technology (I don't particularly like MS') you should know that coming up with an operating system, a desktop and usable applications is not an easy task.

I find it very, very easy. I just go to linuxmint.com and look for the "download" link. Installing takes about 20 minutes tops. Much simpler, faster, and easier than messing with Windows. Updating my work computer to Win10 (not my choice) took ages.

What's the Russian version be like?

Probably some Linux distro with a new theme? What's so hard about that?

And what exactly is the problem with that? Any sane and competent national government will want to run their operations with software that they fully control, and that has backdoors that only they have the key to.

Of course, you can argue that any backdoors are dangerous because the wrong people could learn about them and exploit them, but we're talking about replacing Microsoft software here: that stuff is already known to have backdoors. Substituting software that you've audited to not have backdoors, and have instead inserted your own backdoors into, is a big step up from software that a foreign government has backdoor access to.

How do you know Putin didn't say that he likes Trump in an effort to get more Americans to vote for Hillary? Americans aren't exactly known for being big fans of Russia or Putin.

Would die to save your mother? Your father? Your wife and/or kids? How about another person and their family? Would you let a dozen people die to save yourself?

I don't know about you, but my mother is elderly and not likely to live that much longer unfortunately. I'm quite sure she would *not* want me sacrificing myself for her. In fact, I have a hard time imagining *any* parent who would want that. Parents, unless they're sociopaths (or their kid's a real shitball), *always* want their children to outlive them.

If I had any kids, and I had spent many years and my resources raising them and providing for them, the last thing I'd want is to have them sacrifice themselves so I can live a little longer. They're young; I'm presumably not.

For normal, rational people, the only people they should be really willing to die for are their kids, and maybe their spouse (usually the wife more than the husband, as part of that "women and children first" idea that goes back to antiquity). Parents, no (this doesn't mean you shouldn't try to save them, but not if it's an obvious suicide mission). Strangers? Not so much; maybe if it's a bunch of them.

Others have died so you could live.

No, they haven't. My life has never been in mortal danger where someone had to sacrifice themselves for me to avoid death. (In fact, I don't think my life's ever been in mortal danger at all, unless there was some close call somewhere that I was never even aware of.)

Bottom line:

Never date a cop.