Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador all have much more violent crime than Nicaragua.

I meant Nicaragua more for what was going on politically.

To be fair, that's probably right and human rights certainly isn't on that list

GOOOORRRKKKAAA!!!

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...council-225442

Yeah that is a lesson imparted upon me early on. You can’t travel and pretend like the legal system is the same. A privileged white kid in America is going to be treated differently than when in the Phillipenes.

Different parts of the world have different views on different crimes by different people. I think some people think going to foreign countries is like playing a video game.

Going to North Korea as an American in any of our lifetimes is just a stupid move where death and injury are legitimate outcomes. So unless one is well studied and well connected you are running serious risks. Can’t really clutch pearls when people take extreme risks with their own life. Doesn’t make what NK did right but that is kind of the whole point.

Nobody thinks he deserved to die but we also don’t think he deserves sympathy.

NK is like an order of magnitude more dangerous for American tourists than Honduras.


A few weeks ago I posted a story about some Libertarian morons who moved to Mexico and tried setting up a grow-op in cartel territory. That’s another example of dumbasses I have limited sympathy for.

I would add about a dozen countries to the list of “not going there”

I would love to see Russia. Well. It’s just not going to happen.

don't leave your house

And Honduras is like an order of magnitude more dangerous than Spain, which is like an order of magnitude more dangerous than Japan. No one is expecting you to break down in tears, but what you're doing is not like neutral about his death.

Warmbler apparently deserves no sympathy because he made a bad call about which state department warnings are no joke and which are probably overblown.

I feel like a lot of you are putting this through the lens of post-Warmbler North Korea. I'd have a ton less sympathy for someone who goes post-Warmbler and THEN does some dumb ****.

In no way was it clear or expected that something that bad would happen to you for taking a poster off a wall in NK pre-Warmbler.

The officer tells him, “If you’re a passenger in a vehicle, you need to have ID.” And if Wheatcroft doesn’t provide it, Schneider says, “I can take you down to the station and we can fingerprint you.”

Ridiculous.

I think there's something going on here that doesn't have much to do really with NK. I expect most of the "I have no sympathy" people also vocally had no sympathy for the Into the Wild kid. And that doesn't mean they have no sympathy for every dangerous thing or other people who bring harm on themselves like drug addicts or suicides.

You can't have an adventure w/o some risk. For some of us life without some adventure is a miserable thought.

You drove into Nicaragua during a period of unrest that had a real possibility of becoming much more violent. I really don't see how you wouldn't have fit into the category of not deserving sympathy around here. That's not the way I feel obv. I think it was awesome and you rule and most people, including myself at least up to this point, are lame by comparison.

This story happened post Warmbier arrest and might be the most stupid thing I have ever seen someone attempt.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&sour...51553043092473

I like to pose the question to people about what they want from life, adventure or comfort. The answer comes back about split. A lot of people do pick adventure. But, almost everyone lives their life as if comfort is their goal.

In no way was it clear or expected that something that bad would happen to you for taking a poster off a wall in NK pre-Warmbler.[/QUOTE]

Meh. A glance at Wikipeidia shows a list of 18 US citizens grabbed and held by NK for various reasons. I'd guess the chance of something evil happening to you in a NK prison are significantly non-zero.

I'm not hating on the kid - in my line of work I have always thought that the true diagnosis for about 60% of my patients should be "Seemed like a good idea at the time". People do all sorts of stupid **** and the vast majority of the time nothing happens. We'll never know the full story, but I'd bet it was a series of unlikely things that strung together that ended up with him being screwed up so badly. To quote William Munny "Deserve's got nothing to do with it".

MM MD

I think he does deserve sympathy. He was a young guy who made a dumb mistake.

The point is its a heinous murder that should never happen anywhere and Trump is throwing shade to the guy responsible...the same way he did with MBS and Putin. And what's more insulting is he says he wants North Korea to have a booming economy. Of course he says that would first require denuclearization, but Trump doesn't say they would need to change their human rights policies.

Found my favorite

Holy ****ing ****. This guy should own Glendale after this lawsuit is over.

I don't know what's the most shocking/horrifying thing. Actually let me rephrase, none of it is shocking. I don't know what's more horrifying:

1. They tased a man in the testicles while he was already face down, handcuffed, with another officer kneeling on his back.

2. The offending officer only got a three day suspension.

3. The Glendale PD statement on the incident after internal affairs was done fully contradicted the internal affairs report. They claimed he resisted, internal affairs found that he did not.

Not arguing but just in case anyone is interested in the details of the situation - Nicaragua overall has a valid reputation as the safest country in Central America. They are by far the poorest country too, but the people seem very proud of not resorting to thievery. I went in after the first flare-up had died down and everyone was saying it was fine for tourists again - but of course I knew there was a risk that things got crazy again while I was there.

No one has guns except the police and the Sandinista Youth - who were acting as sort of the dirty jobs/thug wing - pulling agent provocateur stuff and random violence. Apparently you get free college for being in the Sandanista Youth. The biggest weapons the opposition has are some homemade things that seem like an M-80 on a beefed up bottle rocket - which admittedly would suck if it went off in your face but would do nothing to my car.

All the protesters I saw were a mix of farmers and students. They actually asked if I was a Contra at one point. A big theme I heard from locals was hoping the US would get involved again. So they were pretty nice to Americans overall. Their primary concern seemed to be checking to make sure I wasn't smuggling any people out in my rooftop carrier. Maybe someone they were looking for. They didn't search anything too small to fit a person.

Not that I always felt 100% safe. I spent one night at an illegal roadblock and got a lot of stares. Something told me being a gringo in a fancy car for days in a completely lawless situation like that might not be the best idea. Also it was hot and I couldn't idle with the AC on forever. So I drove a few hours back to a hotel in Bluefields on the east coast that became my little haven for a week.

When I finally got through the 4 roadblocks it was tense but at no time did I feel in real danger or that they would steal anything. My biggest fear is they wouldn't let me through. I had beer, water, vodka, soda, extra gasoline and money to offer as potential bribes. But no one ever asked for one. So once they would let me through I'd get out and hand out a bunch of ice cold beer - which was a huge hit and sent out a giant roar throughout the road block.



Finally by the third roadblock, after giving out the beer, I got the nerve to ask for a picture. The farmers didn't seem to mind their picture taken at all. The students always had bandanas covering their faces. The white dude is one of two backpackers I picked up along the way who were stranded in between roadblocks. They connected with me that morning through the Pan-Am traveller's group on FB. There were definitely surprised to see me show up at their hostel. They managed to get packed in about 5 minutes.

grunch: there's vid of him taking the poster down off the wall in a hallway

Sandinista Suzzer itt

yeah i'm going to go ahead disagree with this take