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Frankly, I'm glad that Minneapolis police and the national guard weren't taking any s#!t last night. Four nights of burning the city is enough. I can't even count how many businesses I saw burn down, let alone the number that have been smashed and looted and may not recover. The people need to be heard, but destroying other peoples' livelihood is not the answer. I'd bet if Minnesota took a hard line a couple days earlier that the damage across the country would be drastically reduced.

I would propose that America stop promoting a binary reaction to every problem in this country. As we've already established in this thread, echoed in pretty much every conversation I've had, there are good cops and bad cops, there are thoughtful protestors and there are looters, there are opportunistic media personalities and there are journalists doing a great job of collecting and vetting information, and there are another 90 degrees of variations among them. Basically, there are no sides in a clusterf#&%. Police shouldn't feel they are betraying the profession or putting themselves at risk for reporting fellow officers who cross a line. They've had codified internal review processes for years, but they are as different as each locale and the ingrained culture typically overrides them. Some departments and individual precincts do a great job of community outreach. Cops walk a beat and get to know people by name. It makes a difference. What you DON"T do is stock up on military vehicles and riot gear sold to you at discount rates by the U.S. military, then look for an excuse to use them. You do take charges of racial bias and profiling seriously, especially when the evidence is overwhelming. It's learned behavior, so it can be unlearned. You take the "serve and protect" job description seriously and try to restore some nobility to law enforcement careers. The entire community commits to treating police officers and public school teachers as valued and appropriately compensated professions, including a higher standard of training and qualification. In return they do everything they can to earn that trust. One of the ways to earn that trust is to convict police who break the law.

Protestors in Downtown Des Moines asked officers to take a knee with them for 2 minutes and they'd then leave and abide by the 9pm curfew that was enacted today. Officers agreed and it was 2 minutes of unity between the groups and then the protestors left like they said they would peacefully. Unfortunately there are several other protesting groups throughout the metro that aren't as friendly.

Politicians think we forget. We don't forget. And we know their words are hollow.

I need to catch up on several pages, so forgive me if this has been covered. But I've seen a reference to teachers. One bad teacher doesn't make the rest of us bad. Okay, let's unpack that. If a teacher at a school molests a student and other teachers know, they will report and expect that teacher to face the law. If they don't they are complicit. They would also be brought up on charges. If police officers don't speak up, they are complicit in my eyes. Credit to @BIGREDIOWAN for speaking up. This isn't okay. No need to defend the "good cops", but the focus absolutely needs to be on the bad ones before it even gets to this. If a policeman knows of a coworker mingling in hate groups, it needs to be reported. If a coworker hears "passing comments" it needs to be reported. I know for damn sure if I heard a coworker talk about how "sexy" a student looks, I would not only speak up with a WTF!!!! but also report it to the office. This s#!t isn't that complicated! If there are far more good cops than bad, this should be easy.

Do I have to do everything around this place? https://nbc25news.com/news/local/justice-for-george-floyd-protest-in-flint-twp

You’re right, none of that is justified or called for. But cops are human beings. 3 Nights of riots, hundreds of thousands of personal interactions in heightened stressful situations while police have been constantly insulted, attacked and assaulted by the crowds. I don’t think we should make too much of statistically irrelevant bad reactions. I’m much more concerned about fixing the problems that touched all this off.

I don't condone the violence, but there's pretty massive difference between people being upset that they can't buy grass seed at Home Depot, go boating, or go out to eat for a month and walking through a capitol building with ARs; compared to people with no firearms who have been speaking out for literally decades against systemic issues with no changes.

Yeah, understanding how we got here isn’t terribly hard. This pretty much explains it... As much as I hate the rioting, looting and destruction, it’s just what is bound to happen after enough of these incidents when nothing has fundamentally been changed. People who are treated unfairly or who have been wronged will fight back with increasing intensity. Sure some are opportunists out to exploit the situation but the key will be addressing the base problem of police brutality. And the vast majority of police seem to agree with that. It’s a handful of bad apples causing problems for the whole batch. There needs to be systemic changes that reduce these incidents and make it easier to get the bad apples removed. I would say a good first step would be to prevent police unions from questioning, disputing or defending officers charged with malfeasance, along with changing the culture in some of these departments. I also see a need to probably severely limit each officers contact with the public and perps. I imagine many of them get fed up from daily dealing with the worst elements in society. That constant BS has to play into it and the only way around that would seem to be much less contact with it. Of course that means many more officers to spread out the load. I know I wouldn’t be suited for it. I’d probably shoot about the 3rd belligerent dhead I had to deal with.

Watching the 30 for 30 on Lance Armstrong. He is a jerk of a level few will ever attain. Arrogant, a bully, competitive to an unhealthy amount. I recognize that he cheated to accomplish his victories. He’s one of my favorite athletes of all time. I loved watching the Tour de France when he was at the peak of his abilities. His competition were doping too and he beat them. I couldn’t do what he did if I used the drugs he used. He sucks as a person in a lot of ways, which makes him an easy target to hate. But I think that what he was as an athlete should be remembered differently.

It's like you have a sensor to post things that make "just enough" sense to stick around.... I'd agree with your thought. I think that is why Trump is trying so hard to stoke the flames, it will be good for him. Now, I see that as disgusting. But the average voter will most likely see him standing up to looters and nothing more. I need to remember that I'm jaded and a significant portion of the electorate isn't viewing through the same lens I am.

It will take off all the sting, and then some.

Not escalating a crowd is a dance, it takes two.

Nadab Joseph, learn the name.

I think we now have Trump's official response to all of this. It's to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization. He's blaming them for the riots. Meanwhile the KKK is not designated as a terrorist organization. That isn’t done for domestic groups. This is another example of his racism. He can’t blame anyone who caused it right now so he blames a liberal group.

I wonder how many of America's Founding Fathers would have been referred to as "whiner guy" for their protests.

Okay but that’s a pretty cool dentist..

Yep, and the lockdowns ended pretty quickly after the actual peaceful protests

Reporters aren't attacking police officers. But police officers are attacking reporters. And random people. And there's video of it from multiple cities. This is egregious. Just sift through this thread.

These people are having their worst years on record and at risk or losing their businesses. Can’t we leave them alone?

i believe this.

I felt N all along, until Hardy committed. Then immediately after he is committing. The timing of the two and the way chips fall, I am leaning heavy to Cy.

It's pretty alarming that it's multiple incidents in multiple cities. It kind of seems like the systemic issue we've been talking about...

Yep...

It's not change, but it's hope. At least there are LEOs out there like @BIGREDIOWAN who understand what the real problem is. It's just ashame that some people want to lump them all together as bad guys.

I keep seeing comparisons to the lockdown protests, but there's kind of a gigantic difference between peaceful protests and mass civil unrest. Stop conflating the two.

The theory of gravity isn't necessarily wrong. It's just that it's simplified compared to reality. Similar to how the theory of relativity struggles to explain quantum interactions. Apples still fall to the ground and planets still move in elliptical orbits. Newton's mathematics are still very good for predicating the effects of gravity on simple systems at great distances. After all it helped predict the presence of Neptune before we visually found the planet, and for certain distances the solutions to Einstein's equations are identical to Newton's. Saw this cool mashup on Reddit. I actually kind of like all the switches. I hate having to navigate touch screens in cars just to turn on seat warmer. Just give me an instant switch for crying out loud.

Some dude brought a bow in Salt Lake... It did not end well.

I think we still need reporters there documenting this stuff. But maybe not being surprised when the police try to disperse a crowd.

That's where my mind went to as well. A friend of mine got hit in the eye by a nut once. Stung for like 3 hours and now she wears goggles.

Keep your sex stories in the appropriate thread in the 'Shed, please.

SLC called in the national guard and so my friend there has been posting it and posted this gem:

Interesting...I hope he can adjust, at ASU he had 5 star talent all around him. Won't be the same at NU.* *I am not talking about the players...wink

The jail records disagree. Still waiting for Ramsey County to release theirs, but Hennepin County shows the vast majority of those arrested the last two days were from Minnesota. All of the destruction yesterday was in Hennepin County so I doubt St Paul police was out there foiling these out-of-staters at a 100% success rate. I think state leadership is propping up a false story in hopes of making the crowds smaller tonight so that they can finally get control of the situation. The Minneapolis chief of police ran with this story too and said anyone in proximity of the destruction will be considered to be complicit. The demonstrations have clearly been hijacked, but I'm not convinced that it's been taken by out-of-state anarchist groups looking to tear down society. It might just be the general public letting out pent up rage, and then seeing how easily they can overwhelm the police in numbers so they keep doing it.

Yes

I don't WANT to like Nick Saban.

This guy (Colton Braun) does some good edits.

Yep. They really like Brashard Smith out of Florida for that slot guy role and are pushing hard. If Noel commits to us, then we might know where we stand with Smith.

I am opposite.

Deciding today at 5 between us and isu. I would say he is N

Unfortunately it is part of his job. Not much difference between reporting from a war zone or an in progress riot. And it wasn’t indiscriminate. There were how many warnings that the curfew would be enforced and that law enforcement was going to be much more aggressive in dispersing crowds and preventing vandalism and looting. It’s unfortunate for the guy but I think it’s uncalled for him to incessantly complain about the police on national TV after getting caught in the wrong place. He knew (or should’ve known) the risks of performing his job.

His job?

Same for people in France, Italy, or wherever. When I went to Europe for the first time a few years back, my biggest eye opener was how much alike we really are. Same thing when I watched Anthony Bourdain in Iran. We talk different, eat different, think a little different but deep down we all just want to take care of our loved ones and be happy.

Or they're making a reasoned argument you don't like and don't know how to refute so you choose to attack them.

If you're just top dressing, then I'd use a rotating drum (a cement mixer would work) to break it up. Put some larger stones in it that you can easily pick out. (Once it's decently fine, you can apply with a drop spreader.) I'm not sure what you mean by "aged". If it's compost, then it'll work fine. If it's manure, then you'll probably want to compost it first. Instead of composing manure, you could rototill it into the top few inches of soil, then spread it back out more evenly, and then replant.