>Pig (Chinese Zodiac)

>A pig represents luck, overall good fortune, wealth, honesty, general prosperity, symbolizing a hard working, a peace-loving person, a truthful, generous, indulgent, patient, reliable, trusting, sincere, giving, sociable person with a large sense of humour and understanding.

Like with most cultural differences between Westerners and the rest, we really aren't that far removed from having a similar level of apparent savagery ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant) ) . We also can't say if pigs enjoy bungee jumping, we just don't have the numbers to call it either way. So, no, I wouldn't say they're evil, I just don't think they care about pigs. And if the Chinese are then the Spaniards are too though we knew about that lot already.

>>21028
In other words, they're just over a century behind where we are. I suppose that ties in with the Boer concentration camps and what they're doing to the Uyghurs.

>>21029
Yeah, exactly. I'd just like to make absolutely clear that I don't think it's okay that they're forcing pigs to bungee jump or detaining hundreds of thousands of people under the guise of a "social war on terror", I just think you have a complete lack of perspective if you think China is some kind of unique hell-country the likes of which we've never seen before. No, it's an entirely predictable kind of hell-country with bold new technologies to achieve hell status.

>>21028

In the first example you set your own goalposts by framing the argument as west vs China, I argue the UK is very different than the US and the UK now is especially different from the US over 100 years ago. Your Mary the Elephant example is irrelevant.

Your denigration of the Spanish is even more egregious if you're referring to the running of the bulls. The bulls are given agency albeit with a fixed outcome. They fight as is their nature, often managing to kill a few Diegos and eventually die a noble death as part of a blood sport ritual with the main purpose of eliciting emotion, not generating revenue. Is it wrong? Probably, I'm not going to argue for the running of the bulls, heaven knows I'll be shouted down in this fanny faffing world, but it is in no way similar to wot them bloody Chinks did to this poor innocent pig.

I condemn your premise that we really aren't that far removed in terms of apparent savagery as false, I also condemn your frankly bizarre and hopefully jovial comment about not being able to tell if pigs enjoy bungee jumping.

>>21031
Fuck you, fuck the Spanish and fuck the Chinese. Happy now, misery cunt?

>>21032

Yes actually. As long as all parties involved are wallowing in shit it's fine. But my preferred group is better than your preferred group.

>>21030

When people get indignant about the situation in Xinjiang, I often wonder how Britain would be responding if Scotland was majority eskimo and the SNP were receiving arms and training from Al Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir. After all the things we did in Ireland, are we so sure that we wouldn't be building internment camps? We already have mass surveillance that matches anything happening in China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_conflict

>>21034
Nice propaganda. Even your Wikipedia article explains why they started to fight.

>>21034
>We already have mass surveillance that matches anything happening in China.
We really, really don't. The Chinese are beating us at our own game right now. In parts of Xinjiang, there are government-controlled cameras above almost every door to see who is coming or going from every house, using face and body recognition to determine who's talking to whom. They've deployed machine learning on the Great Firewall and the Chinternet to proactively and automatically block out attempts to circumvent controls or censorship. There is no way to pay a surprise visit to the concentration camps, because even if you manage to lose your minders and your tail, they'll know you're coming.

They've really done a number under Xinnie the Pooh.

>>21036

The boys in the doughnut have pretty much unfettered access to any commercial provider. Think for a moment about the implications of having access to every Google account, every AWS node, the servers controlling every bit of IoT tat with a camera or a microphone.

The Chinese are well ahead of us in terms of censorship, they make far more use of data gathered through surveillance for routine policing and they're installing a lot more kit, but they're well behind us in terms of indexing and analytics, which is the really hard bit. They can make up for that through sheer manpower (especially in highly sensitive regions), but I'd wager that our lads are actually better equipped to track the whereabouts and activities of someone on the naughty list. A shitload of cameras is scary, but a shitload of cameras and a contract with Palantir is downright terrifying.

>>21037
The Chinese probably have their own Palantir-type stuff, more than likely stolen from Palantir. Also remember that we're talking government-operated cameras, not the odd council-operated camera on the streets and privately-operated cameras around buildings. Most commercial communications providers aren't allowed in China unless they bend the knee, and those that don't just get replaced by domestic operations that happily funnel everything to the government.

Remember the story recently about the FBI pressuring Apple into not using device-keyed encryption on iCloud backups? Chinese iCloud backups are all stored in China by a Chinese company. In both cases, the backups are encrypted using keys controlled by Apple, which are liable to disclosure, and in the Chinese case almost certainly shipped with the backups themselves.

So... you're saying it is a security risk to give UK contracts to Huawei ?

>>21039
I'm saying you should shut your whore mouth.

Speak of the devil: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/24/21079919/facial-recognition-london-cctv-camera-deployment

>>21046

I remember this from months ago. Some bloke covered his face and got arrested for it during the trial phase of the technology. I'm not against facial recognition in principle but the idea of being arrested for covering one's face is ludicrous and offensive to me.

While I'm sure many criminals will avoid facial recognition if they're able the basic principle of not being tracked by the government is at stake. If we submit to facial coverings being illegal in the presence of facial recognition software we're back in the dark ages of requiring a passport from our local feudal lord to move between counties, but backended rather than frontended. Is it too much to ask that the coppers do their actual job rather than sitting on Orwellian technology and only getting off their stools to make an arrest? I know one of you cunts is a copperlad so I want your input here.

>>21047
.. Burka?

>>21047

It's not (currently) illegal to cover your face in public, but you are obliged to remove a face covering when asked to do so by a police officer. They could have you under the Public Order Act if your mask causes harassment, alarm or distress.

>>21047
I think it's because he told them to fuck off, not for the face-covering.

>>21051

Sounds like it's time to start burning bobbies to me.

>>21053

I can see how those two things are not related at all. Thanks for clarifying that one mate.

>>21051
> but you are obliged to remove a face covering when asked to do so by a police officer
Sounds like bullshit. You don't have to speak or identify yourself unless they suspect you of committing a crime or being a witness to a crime.

>>21051
>They could have you under the Public Order Act if your mask causes harassment, alarm or distress.

Who decides this?

>>21058

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/section/60AA

There are theoretically some safeguards on when these powers can be used under s.60, but there's no actual oversight.

>>21059

Officially the court, but in practice it's very rare that they don't just take a copper's word for it. The Public Order Act gives the police very broad powers to nick you for generally being a dickhead.

>>21051
It's generally been held by the courts that police officers are not liable to be harassed, alarmed or distressed by anything not covered by a more serious offence. Not that this stops them from arresting you in the first place, mind you.

>>21060
>for generally being a dickhead.

Which I guess they get decide, based on how annoyed they feel.

>>21062

>Of course I wasn't bothered by it m'lud, I'm a big tough copper, but there was a little old lady across the street who looked very upset by the whole scene. Unfortunately I was too busy dealing with the defendant to take the particulars of this little old lady. Yes your honour, I do accept that it was somewhat unusual for an easily offended pensioner to be outside of Cheeky's Nightclub at 4am.

Most s.5 arrests would never get to court in the first place, but that's largely besides the point. It's a sufficiently vague offence that you're vanishingly unlikely to win a wrongful arrest case except in the most egregious cases, so it gives the police near-total impunity to nick someone and chuck them in the cells for a couple of hours for being a pain in the arse.

I'm a bit conflicted because s.5 is obviously fantastically useful to the police, it's ripe for abuse, but the consequences of its abuse are relatively minor. I should strongly oppose it on civil liberties grounds, but the pragmatist in me thinks that it isn't an unreasonable fudge.

>>21067

I would agree with you in a more cohesive society. Unfortunately coppers these days are cunts from various pent up frustrations. They can no longer be trusted with agency. Ironically lack of agency on more serious (than s.5) offences is one of the factors contributing to frustration and sexual dysfunction among the police service.

Of course the higher ups will never take away this particular expression of agency, as you quite rightly point out it seems minor and it's one of the few things that keeps the rank and file from exploding upwards, being able to kick downwards.

I'm against the normalisation and trivialisation of lying in the police though. I'm not artistically devoted to the truth but I feel like if any group of people should not be allowed to lie it's the police. The newish s.5 ruling about police being unable to be the offended party has basically made all coppers in to liars. We weren't doing too badly with the whiter than white approach, but that's dead now. I haven't even heard anyone pay lip service to it in a while.

>>21067

I am uncomfortable with any law that broad, particularly anything that allows or encourages a copper to use their own judgement. I will never shake my anti-authority bias, but having been on the right side of the law for many years now and working in a place with a large but mostly unused police presence, I have had enough conversations with enough of them to harshly and unfairly judge them note that many of them have quite alarmingly brutal or devil may care views on the application of the law and would take any chance to prove a point. When we do rarely have to ask them to remove someone from the premises they really like to encourage us to press charges for anything and everything.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, I think I agree with you about the utility of such a law in theory, but only if the judgement of what was considered a valid public order offense was decided by someone other than a copper. Maybe a little checklist that you have to exhibit three or more naughty behaviours before you fit the profile. I just don't think the police should be allowed to use their own opinion in the matter of law - despite my fear of Big Brother and police state, the ideal rozzer might well be a robot following very precisely written rules.

Still not sure where I'm going with this. I just can't think of anything more depressing than someone being arrested because a policeman is annoyed.

>>21068
It's not new. POA dates from 1986, and the courts decided that front-line officers were unlikely to be victims in 1989 (DPP v Orum). The police know full well they're not supposed to arrest for s.5 unless someone else is likely to hear it.

>>21070

Up until 2011 policemen and policeladies frequently did people up the shitter for swearing at them. I'm not familiar with DPP v Orum but it likely does not say what you think it says.

The relevant case was Harvey v DPP in 2011.

>>21071

My mate once spent a night in the cells because we dared him to go up to a pig and say "fuck the police" on a night out. The copper invited him to say it again, so he did. Then he got nicked.

This was in maybe... Ooooh, 2012, 2013? How does that tally with what you lot are on about? Personally I'd have thought it's pretty common sense not to intentionally piss a pig off.

>>21067
>It's a sufficiently vague offence that you're vanishingly unlikely to win a wrongful arrest case except in the most egregious cases

>>21073

You say you spent a night in the cells, did you ever get brought before someone who could hold the copper to account before wrongful arrest? The copper knew you wouldn't so the story wouldn't come out naturally.

You could have made a complaint but you likely didn't, even then it's hard enough getting anyone to take your word over a copper's, doubly so if you were drunk at the time. Rule 1, don't be drunk around coppers. They think they're middle class so they despise the beer louts, the judges actually are middle class so they despise you even more.

The only real way to have an oversight body make their relationship with the main working partners, the police more difficult by upholding what they see as a minor complaint but is actually a major infringement of the original police mission statement, the one about policing by consent and supporting rather than ruling the local community and all that bollocks is to have clear and definitive evidence of the event such as police body cameras. Other forms of recording might not have audio or might only cover half of the interaction.

Unless a person is a die hard civil rights campaigner they usually won't report the police for what most people see as a minor injustice like an illegal night in the cells, it's all too easy for coppers to make your life a living hell with random stops on the road because it looked like you didn't have your belt on or not doing anything when you report a stolen car.

The only real way to effect change on the police in this matter is for society to put their foot down and tell the coppers to fuck off, but middle England isn't on the receiving end of dodgy coppers so to them a massively illegal breach of law like an illegal night in the cells is perfectly fine for young beer louts and football hooligans. Suggesting otherwise is PC gone mad.

>>21075

No, not me, one of my friends. I've no idea how they treated him, we just saw them chuck him in the van, and naturally we thought it was the funniest thing ever to happen at the time.

But what you're saying is that it is actually wrongful arrest for them to have locked him up for the night just for saying "fuck the police"? The part I find cheeky is that the copper literally dared him to say it again.

>>21076

After 5 hours of running round after piss heads with Stanley knives and fat bints scrapping in the kebab shop I don't blame them for waving their dicks in the faces of edgy student types. I blame the system for being staffed with cowards who allow it to happen. The truth is nobody wants to piss off the big burly bloke who works the club end night shifts but somebody needs to do it. If the end result is no coppers will work the club streets at night then we're obviously not giving them enough money or we have a massive cultural problem in the civilian population or the current implementation of policing is wrong.

I'm sure your mate bounced back from his experience and was no worse for wear, he probably learned to stop being a knob when he's drunk as well. It still shouldn't have happened if it was as you described, though if he shouted it across the street or added aggressive body language to the mix or the copper was with a civilian at the time or any number of other aggravating factors it might be entirely justified. The ruling really only makes it illegal for the police to arrest you for swearing in polite conversation, if you look up the case I cited it gives a perfect example. Some poor bloke in London used the word fuck once in 3 different sentences, probably because of a limited vocabulary rather than aggressiveness and got arrested. The police didn't bother to claim that they felt distressed in the ensuing court case so the judge through it out and said btw you're big boys you should be able to handle a bit of swearing. You'll still get done legally if anyone is in earshot.

"Allegedly" coppers are given targets for arresting a certain number of people to arrest per week, which is the big driving force behind S5 arrests. As well as the simple fact that it's an easy way for an officer to get themselves off the streets in the first 10 minutes of their shift and back to the station to fill out paperwork for the rest of the night.

>>21079
I don't get the impression that most coppers are particularly enamoured of doing paperwork. Ask any of them that has had the privilege of completing a "force activity survey".

>>21079

>"Allegedly" coppers are given targets for arresting a certain number of people to arrest per week

I've never bought that one, it doesn't seem to make much sense, since arresting loads of people is expensive.

>>21080

Every copper I've spoken to says that being stuck at a custody suite is the least favourite part of their job. Beat coppers have no lack of ways to skive off, most of which are far more interesting than babysitting an arsehole and filling out forms.

>>21081

The targets were brought in under Labour and scrapped under Cameron but the senior police officers loyal to Labour kept them in place anyway. I'm a Labout voter.

To clear up the issue of legality the police can do what they want internally unless instructed to the contrary. If targets are X then under labour they were instructed to have X, under Cameron they were instructed they no longer need to have X but they decided to keep it under a different name anyway.

This was big years ago, I don't know if the senior management of the popo was purged by May or Johnson and they've fixed the targets issue but I haven't heard of the targets being scrapped so I assume they're still there.

pigs

I thought it was just the Japanese doing all the crazy shit in Asia.