We can search if we want to We can inspect your friends’ behind ‘Cause your friends don’t bow and if they don’t scrape, Well they’re no friends of mine
Say, we can go where we want to A warrant you’ll never find And we can rewrite the Constitution Leave the real one far behind And we can dance
We can go when we want to The night is young and so am I And we can dress real neat from our helmets to our feet And surprise ’em with the no-knock cry
Say, we can act if we want to Question us, nobody will And we can shoot some dude, he’s totally screwed And I can act like an imbecile
We can dance, we can dance Totally out of control We can dance, we can dance We’re doing it from wall to wall We can dance, we can dance Everybody put up your hands We can dance, we can dance Everybody takin’ the cha-a-a-ance
We can search if we want to We have auth-or-i-ty As long as we abuse it, never gonna lose it Everything’ll work out right I say, we can search if we want to We’re protected by a thin blue line ‘Cause your friends ain’t cops, and if they ain’t cops, Well they’re no friends of mine
My post on less lethal got a few chest thumping answers that seemed to indicate some people not seeing a use for less lethal alternatives. I disagree. There are times when it isn’t legal to have a firearm on you. The post office, a school, polling places, a bar, etc.. Florida law has more than a few places where you can’t have a firearm.
There are times when the use of lethal force isn’t justified and will get your ass chucked in jail.
Now consider the weapon that I posted about. It isn’t legally a firearm. It isn’t legally a chemical defense spray. I am not sure that it would legally be considered a weapon at all. There are times when your choices of defense devices are extremely limited. There are more than a few places where I am legally reduced to carrying pepper spray, which has its own limitations and issues.
Nikolas Cruz has been found guilty of the Parkland school shooting that killed 17 high school students. The defense is trying to argue that only one of Cruz’s multiple personalities committed the shooting.
Who cares? We can’t sentence only one personality while all of them live in one body.
I’m against the death penalty. Not in theory, but because I don’t trust cops and prosecutors not to lie and rig the game.
I still think Cruz should go to prison for the rest of his life. No parole.
Ever since schools sent children home for school during the COVID lockdowns, parents have had a front row seat to what their children are learning. Many teachers have always said that they want more parents to get involved. Now they are.
In a movement that is infuriating the left, parents are telling schools that some books and other materials have no business in schools. The communists are calling it “book banning,” but I don’t think it is. Banning a book isn’t the same as picking a more suitable one.
No one (except the left) is saying you can’t say or write whatever you wish. That doesn’t mean that school libraries need to buy what you write using taxpayer funds. There are millions of books that have been written, but even a well stocked library only has 15 to 20 thousand books. So are the other books banned? Of course not.
A school district that chooses to use the 3rd Edition of a biology book isn’t banning the 2nd edition. Some books are appropriate, while others are not. Parents who don’t want their 12 year old child reading books about 11 year old homosexual prostitutes are well within their rights to demand the removal of those books from the school library.
The reply from the left is that kids are getting the material from their cell phones anyway. I agree, but that opens a completely different debate on nanny software and the responsibility that parents have to monitor and limit their child’s access to the Internet.
This article talks about the longevity of pickups. According to the author, the most reliable pickup trucks are the Honda Ridgeline and the Toyota Tacoma. The only criteria was the percentage of vehicles that made it to 200,000 miles.
I submit this for your consideration: the reason why these two vehicles last longer than other trucks is that they are not trucks. The Tacoma and the Ridgeline have low cargo capacity, low towing capacity, and are essentially cars with a cab and bed. Don’t get me wrong, I think that they are fine, as long as you aren’t going to be using them for doing, well, truck stuff. Many of those who buy vehicles like those are not using them to haul materials to construction sites, nor are they pulling a heavy trailer. Nope, these vehicles are mostly daily drivers that do nothing more strenuous than take city dwellers back and forth to the cube farm.
The F150 and the SIlverado are used as workhorses. You see them hauling bricks, farm equipment, and trailers with lawn equipment. They are work trucks, and as such, they see harder duty than hauling the husband to the hardware store for some LED lightbulbs. For that reason, they are less likely to see 200,000 miles.
If you want to look at reliability between work trucks and others, there needs to be a way to control for commuters versus construction workers, versus farmers.
This was just sent to me: A company is selling pepper ball guns, as long as you aren’t in New York or California. I don’t have one, but I am wondering if anyone has experience with this company.
I know that many of us talk about how the government seems to be protecting criminals. In New York, that has become quite literally what is happening. The city has established the country’s first “overdose prevention center” where medical professionals oversee and assist people in administering illegal drugs to themselves.
The people behind it say- and I’m not kidding- that this is based upon science. They are saving lives, don’t you know.
I wonder what science will discover next. Perhaps they will declare that the police need to escort thieves into your home, so that thieves don’t have to risk working and stealing in an unsafe environment. Think of the lives they will save.
Imagine that you just bought a brand new or even a used 4×4. Then imagine that you can’t use the optional equipment without paying a monthly fee to the manufacturer. The air conditioner costs $15 a month, the ability to tow a trailer is $20 a month, and engaging the four wheel drive sets you back $40 a month. Heck, even the seat warmers cost $4 a month. It will cost you $20 a month to use your key fob to remotely unlock or start your vehicle. Sounds crazy, right? Who would buy a $45,000 truck, only to have to pay more to use most of the features that you already paid extra for?
Auto manufacturers are already doing it, and they stand to make billions in profits with the new scheme that doesn’t require them to do a thing to rake in the dollars. Toyota has already started the project. So have BMW, Subaru, Ford, Lexus, GM, and Tesla. If you think that you are immune because you own a used vehicle, think again.
Buried in the agreements that you signed when you bought the vehicle, the manufacturer retains all rights to the options installed in your car. They are letting you use them as part of a free trial. Ever since the 2018 model year, these hidden restrictions have been installed in software of new cars, allowing them to turn virtually anything in your vehicle into a subscription service that can be taken away from you at the manufacturer’s whim. You are one over the air software update from getting fleeced.
Some of the options proposed: limiting the performance of your car unless you pay extra, limiting the range of electric vehicles unless you pay extra for “bonus miles,” as well as simpler things like options and extras.
The last time I posted on this, I predicted that a new industry would take off: an industry centered around hacking your car. It turns out that I was correct. That day is already here. I drive an F150, and people are already doing some interesting hacks on Ford vehicles. Enter a piece of software called FORScan. You can already do some interesting things. Reprogramming your temperature gauges to bee more than just meaningless scales, for one thing.
Adding options that aren’t available to your model like automatic folding mirrors, daytime running lights, and more are possible.
Manufacturers are already taking steps to combat this, but the war over controlling vehicles is happening. Manufacturers are putting in software the requires you to be an authorized mechanic to access the electronics on the car.
One repair industry executive told a conference in January 2020 that he had heard of “at least two [other]” car makers moving toward an authorized-access model. Volkswagen may be one of them. Ross-Tech’s Vega said that the electric ID.4 is the first U.S. Volkswagen model with Vehicle Diagnostic Protection, requiring authentication from VW servers to alter nodes. Volkswagen (which did not return emails for comment) has seemingly not offered access to customers, or software like VCDS. As of July 2021, VCDS’s founder and its most fervent customers were trading anger, disbelief, and Right to Repair links in a long-running thread.
I don’t see it as any different than the fight over unlocking your cell phone, but with this much money at stake, you can bet it will be a big fight. In fact, I have already done a few hacks to my truck. I got rid of that annoying automatic start/stop feature in my F-150, for one thing.
My wife works as a teacher. Most teachers keep a mini fridge in the classroom for storing their lunches (mostly due to school food being hideous). One of the substitute teachers that works at her school is famous for eating the food out of the rooms of the teachers he substitutes for.
Once, he at half of a teacher’s candy bar and left a Post-It note stuck to it that read “Sorry, I was hungry.” There were teeth marks still in the candy bar. Teachers all over the school have complained about this guy.
I was talking to one of my wife’s friends, and she was upset because she has been out of school for a couple days, caring for her mother. She left her daughter’s lunches (who is a student at the school) in her fridge and the substitute ate them all. This woman is pissed.
So in typical Divemedic fashion, I suggested a mechanical ambush. My suggestion is that they make some cookies using chocolate flavored laxative as the chunks, then leave them in your fridge with a note saying “don’t eat these.” Then if he eats them, it’s not on you. I was shot down.
Whatever. I bet he would never eat your food again.
