fishbane

I don't know that these systems reduce the number of cars that get stolen. The data would be interesting to look at though I assume it would be provided by Flock who has an interest in selling these camera systems and representing them as useful. I suspect where they make a difference is in recovery more than prevention. Lower recovery might drive up insurance rates, but it may not be that significant. Often recovered vehicles don't have much residual value. The news reports I've seen on this credit them with involvment of 170-180 cars recovered since 2024. Now some of those would have been recovered anyway, but at a cost of $666,000 to operate the system that's like $3700/recovery. That might give the systems too much credit because the some would be recovered anyway, but the cameras also provided some evidence that helped solve other serious crimes. The problem is that the intended use for the cameras by the people in the legislative body signing off on paying the bill might not match with how it is used in practice. It would be less problematic if the system would only record the whereabouts of cars that are stolen or part of a felony and with a warrant signed by a judge. That isn't how they get used. Maybe the Denver police only use them for help locating cars tied to serious crimes - stolen cars, bank robberies, amber alerts, etc. If the police choose to share their data with other flock users than any agency with a Flock system can view it without a warrant and use it how they see fit. My brother is a police officer and he says that at work they often use these data on routine traffic stops. If he gets to feeling like maybe the driver is transporting something illegal he might ask some questions about where they are coming from/heading to things like that. Then when he goes back to run their driver's license he checks the license plate reader data. If, for example, someone said they were coming from Maine heading to Florida and the systems says a flock camera in Denver scanned their plate yesterday he will take that as a sign that could be transporting something illegal and lying to throw him off. He will then look for a reason to search the vehicle. It would be smart for city council to focus on the privacy concerns because at the end of the day that is the problem. I suspect whether the story focuses more on privacy vs immigration might depend more on the news outlet reporting the story. City council members likely mentioned both.

I meant to write "concern about privacy" in my original comment. I don't like speed/red light cameras either, but those are not as bad. One can prevent being caught up in that kind of surveillance by simply obeying the law. When they first appeared in my area someone set one on fire. The police were not able to use any footage from the camera to solve the crime because it only captured an image when someone was speeding. There was nothing to review even if undamaged from the fire. Flock cameras monitor any car that passes it and maintains a history of the comings and goings of that vehical whether or not it is speeding, flagged as stolen, or just a regular person minding thier own business following the law. This information is shared with other flock users and can be accessed without a warrant. In some parts of the country one cannot take a drive of any significant length via the most efficient route without passing one. Mass surveillence systems like flock can create and maintain a history of the position and travel direction of all vehicles used over a pretty wide area with surprising fidelity. This can then be used by governemnt users for purposes that go far beyond what is mentioned in the article (locating stolen vehicles). This is a win for the residents of Denver and all those that travel through the area.

You could argue they are doing it for the wrong reasons, but it's for the best. Flock camera systems have always been a huge privacy concern and the reason for their removal in Denver does boil down to a "concern about concern." It's just they finally violated privacy in a way the lawmakers finalyl cared about. Law enforement in many areas have access to the tracking that these systems provide without a warrant making it ripe for abuse. https://local12.com/news/nation-world/police-chief-gets-caught-using-license-plate-cameras-to-track-his-ex-girlfriend-228-times-arrests-charges-probation-flock-safety-follow-stalk-new-boyfriend-broke-up-out-of-town-misuse I wouldn't want these in my city regardless of whether or not it might recover my stolen car.

I don't think many Americans are discussing Iran as a potential travel destination. It's being discussed because of its nuclear weapons program. The location of an adverse country with nuclear weapons might be relevant to our foreign policy decision. Adverse nuclear weapons next door is a more significant threat than on the other side of the world.

A lot of Americans don't like the president. I am sure they wouldn't like another country dropping bombs here. Also you can't take the US bombing run in isolation. Iran was in an active conflict with another country at the time that was bombing much more than a few bunkers. The US attack makes it more difficult for Iran to defend itself in its conflict with Israel. The US only bombed everything Israel was incapable of bombing at Israel's request. Polling shows the US attack is unpopular with a majority of Americans. Hard to imagine it would be more popular in Iran.

The wikipedia page for the bomb has a picture of one being deployed by a B52 in a test. I think they are so big that only the B2 and the B52 will work and the actual bombs that were delivered for use were made to be used with the B2.

If done on that timeline via an air strike it will be with American munitions dropped from American planes flown by American pilots. Any ridiculous paper trail to try and obfuscate that through selling/leasing/rebuying serves on purpose.

I don't think the US has ever sold a B2 to another nation. There were only like 20 of them ever built. I don't think selling Israel 10% of these is a solid idea or having them sort out the pilot situation by hiring retired pilots who maybe haven't flown it in years. It would all be pointless. All these machinations wouldn't involve us any less in the eyes of Iran or anyone else. We'd just be putting two B2s (that we are definitely going to want back) at greater risk by selling them to Israel and having retired pilots operate them to create a paper trail no one is going to care about.

ESPN is reporting this is his second speeding ticket in the past month. Also has a 91 in a 65. He missed a court date for that one on Monday. Does missing the court date suspend his license at least until paid? https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45545248/browns-shedeur-sanders-cited-twice-month-speeding

Are you being sarcastic? My understanding is that Hastert's crimes happened in the late 70s/early 80s and by the time they had come to light the statute of limitations had long passed. The only thing he was convicted of was structuring for how he was making the withdrawals to pay the hush money to his victims. He was sentenced to 15 months, which was above the sentencing guidelines for structuring. He was released after 13 months and is free now. He had also been retired for years from Congress so the only political hit he took was that he could no longer work as a lobbyist. Still collects his congressional pension. In this case Strauss died years before the scandal became public. So he couldn't even be held to account at all.

It's possible. High School, middle school, elementary school, pre-school...

There was an in depth feature on the Jordan and the scandal in the Washington Post a couple years ago when Jordan was attempting to become speaker of the house. Below is the link to it. One can circumvent the paywall by changing to reader view in their browser. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/jim-jordan/ This was the satement from Jordan's office when the scadal came to light in 2018 “Congressman Jordan never saw any abuse, never heard about any abuse, and never had any abuse reported to him during his time as a coach at Ohio State.”

Vent=ventllator. It's a device that moves air into the lungs. Used when the lungs are unable to take in enough air on their own. ECMO=extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. It's an external device. Blood is pumped from the paitient into the ECMO machine which ooxygenates its and then pumps it back into the patient. It's like a set of external artificial lungs/heart. Could also be used if the heart is too weak to move the blood on its own.

I think that is a different species of strep, Streptococcus pyogenes. Prevnar is one of the commercial available pneumococcal vaccines. These vaccines first became available about 25 years ago and are only reccomended for young children, old people, and those at high risk. Given Askren's age when it was released and current age it's unlikely he would have received it. After this he would almost certainly be in the high risk category especially if he has a lung replacement.