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Yeah, been some talking about it over in the other thread. Aimed at a single airbase, 50 off-coast launched tomahawks, I think (already forgotten details, as it's half 'till midnight for me). Congress apparently got no warning, it looks like russia probably got a warning but details are kinda' muddled, the actual damage probably helped local extremists more anything. It's... something of a clusterfuck, tbh. Won't be for a day or two until we know more about what the hell happened. Going to get real interesting if russia gets pissed, or congress decides to not sanction the attack, or any number of other things.

Quote from: Frumple on April 06, 2017, 09:23:43 pm

I hear ya' mang. Unannounced offshore missile attack on an air base is exactly like pressuring for a no-fly zone after further attempts at diplomatic outreach.

"Diplomatic outreach"? She lied about any "diplomatic outreach"!

Here. Have the context. About five minutes past was what you quoted from the article. The statement saying with or against was literally about talking to fucking putin, and stated framed under the belief that would putin would listen.

It was fairly aggressive, but that article also stripped and rearranged shit, and it was fairly in line with her previous stance.

E: Would have offered a transcript, but at least at this point in time I couldn't find any that had made it online, yet.

I can't say amusing is the right word, but it's something that one of the top comments in that AP twitter thing is a link to a post back in 2013 of trump coming out against exactly what he just did. Sodding 2017 took 2016 as a challenge, apparently.

Welp. Hey serg, I think someone just called the bluff

I guess the question now is if we're about to be in open conflict with russia or if they'll suddenly swing in favor of their american connections, if only by not responding.

... actually, as I skim over that report more and eyeball around a bit, I think I'm starting to develop a burning urge to strangle whoever wrote that report summary. Whoever decided to add up the results of compounding account errors -- which, from what I can tell from the HUD response and what the auditor(s) are actually saying, looks to be the primary problem with the total -- and present them without qualification or clarification is someone I would perhaps be willing to give a solid kick to the nethers on behalf of all accountants in the USA.

What seems to have actually happened of material note we could rely on, instead of possibly unreliable financial data and whatever the fuck was going through that auditing group's head, is that the HUD had a (probably not terribly major in any substantiative sense) problem with sloppy accounting, which when combined with system migration and the process of integrating legacy accounts into the system led to data entry errors, probably mostly of the misplaced decimal or typo sort, that when corrected caused compounding errors to propagate through the financial reports. The 500 billion value -- most of the discrepancies period, really -- appears to be almost entirely comprised of that, from what I can parse* of what the report actually says.

Basically, the numbers were wrong, but there doesn't appear to be substantial money or material actually missing, and what caused it, while there and needing redress, wasn't actually major and has mitigating circumstances besides. That huge amount was a data error, not a financial or management one (though there's issue with the latter overseeing the errors happening to begin with). If there's money actually missing, misused, or defrauded, it's probably a much, much smaller number -- the HUD itself says around three million (somewhere in the very rough range of about .006% of their budget over those two years) -- than what the report is intimating (and the news bits that are starting to kick up) even if it's being fairly careful to not actually say it.

... also, it's probably worth noting (both to myself, who was suspicious of the connection, and to those holding it as an achievement), that carson (and by extension trump's administration) had precisely fuck all to do with the audit, which was procedural, has been going on annually since somewhere in the 90s, was done under obama's presidency, and published the day before carson assumed the position. So for all those worried about either flawless accounting practice or possible fraud, say it with me: "Thanks, Obama."

*Though, to be fair, I've only got fairly low level accounting training, little field experience, and only basic introduction to auditing principles -- basically, there's definitely nuances and whatnot I could be misinterpreting or missing. Enough exposure to go, "Yo', hold up." without being entirely confidant they actually need to hold up, or in what manner or to what degree. That said, that report is very "Yo', hold up."

Hell, it's not even really how it's always worked. Previous administrations at least tried to keep that kind of thing limited to nonessential or largely harmless positions when the person in question was likely unable to manage the work involved, and/or generally made at least something of an attempt to make sure some or most of their related support staff was competent and knew what the hell they were doing. There was at least a modicum of attempt to have a functioning government, even if there was some favor trading of one sort or another.

That damn sure ain't what's happening with this one.

But thats why you employ things such as body cams, proper training, periodical psych evaluations, etc. People who work in security and are armed for that end need that sort of structure, after all, they're just people, so there needs to be safeguards against their misbehavior. When someone trusted with that kind of onus fucks up, intentionaly or not, there needs to be swift and strong mechanisms to deal with that, something thats not always present.

Often not present. The nature of police unions and departments has meant that punitive or corrective measures are rarely taken and even more rarely of such a nature that they look like actual substantiative measures to the public that gets years of mandatory jail time for transgressions that aren't nearly as severe. We've been trusting cops to police their own for a long time, and it's been made increasingly obvious that trust was misplaced at worst and entirely too lenient at best.

And yet, these cases get a fuckhuge coverage, meaning everyone gets that image of cops imprinted into their skull cavity, thus creating a general feeling of tension in cop x civilian situations.

They get fuckhuge coverage because both the police and judicial system protect that minority to the point of what looks to anyone sane like outright maliciousness. The minority that actually performs the actions are only a minority of the problem; the mechanisms and culture that protects them is the primary issue. The cop that shoots someone trying to surrender or knocked unconscious or is unarmed or [insert continuing list] is more a symptom, and as near as the public can tell the cause of it is barely treated when it's acknowledged at all.

Having to shoot a perp that attacked you nowadays is good recipe for social suicide, so cops start to come up with MORE reasons to justify their actions, which can lead to rather shady situations.

This, however, is largely untrue. We've seen repeatedly that things like bodycams and whatnot (even purely social measures, such as instituting third party watchdogs) cut the reasons given to justify their actions, or reduce their actions entirely. Scrutiny isn't causing bad behavior, it's exposing what was already there -- and it's strongly suggested by practical implementations that more scrutiny would cut down on that, not make cops more inventive about finding excuses to get away with killing or maiming people.

Its a vicious cycle in which cops are only one of the factors, and not even the driving one.

It's a vicious cycle, but it's absolutely the police and judicial system that are driving it, and has been since the start. Media and awareness has catalyzed things so it's actually being noticed as a problem by more than particularly abused communities, but the problem damn sure isn't being largely invented. If the blue line wasn't so insistent and cops didn't get more legal largess in court than a bloody saint, there wouldn't be much to drive. But it is and they do, and until that stops there's little chance the public reaction to that is going to do anything but become worse.

Though it's still got a long damn way to go before it even gets bad, mind you. We'll hit that point around the time officer testimony in a court isn't given extra weight and legitimacy, and that's still a ways off.

Blocking ads on TV was never an option though. It kinda sucked, but what could you do besides turn the volume down until your show came back?

Not strictly true! There's been subscriptions, or specific packaging or programming, or specific hardware, that actually rendered your experience commercial free. Most are/were pretty expensive, though, near as I can recall.

In any case, beyond all you pointed out, I'd say the biggest difference so far as frustration and hostility goes is in the means of interaction. TV is very... sessile. You have little to no interaction with the system itself, and most of your agency comes from choosing channel or turning it off, which you're probably only doing intermittently at best. Meanwhile, most means of access to internet content is much more dynamic and direct; you're not just choosing specifically what, but where, format and resolution, what parts you're watching and so on, all on top of anything else you might be doing with the computer/phone/whatever. The TV ad is interrupting your show (in a way most are specifically designed to accommodate), whereas the internet as is interrupting your everything and interfering with your actions to boot. It's much, much more jarring and intrusive, even if the absolute amount is smaller per unit of content. Ree notes it fairly well, really. Missed it before typing all that at, or I would have just quoted it, ha.