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The Dallas county DA, being a good liberal, plans to no longer prosecute property crimes of less than $750, and he very stupidly has announced this. Who's gonna be stupid enough to spend piles of money on equipment and salaries to catch package thieves when those thieves are not going to be prosecuted?

Once this fully kicks-in, there's simply going to be no reason why anybody, upon seeing a package lying on somebody's front porch, should leave it lying there for the benefit of the idiot purchaser. Wealth re-distribution, minus the middleman of big government! Socialism 2.0!

Of course, we could rely on the basic morals of the generally self-regulating God-fearing populace --- oh, nope, liberals have been quite successful in converting a country that was originally over 90% Christian into a nation with a growing portion of the public that believes in no higher authority and thus no objective morality. Interesting times lay ahead - probably an eventual era of vigilanteism and gunfire.

https://www.dallasnews.com/bus...

“The disclosures found by The News reference problems during Boeing 737 Max 8 flights with an autopilot system, and they all occurred while trying to gain altitude during takeoff — many mentioned the plane turning nose down suddenly. While records show these flights occurred during October and November, the information about which airlines the pilots were flying for is redacted from the database. Records show that a captain who flies the Max 8 complained in November that it was ‘unconscionable’ that the company and federal authorities allowed pilots to fly the planes without adequate training or fully disclosing information about how its systems were different from previous 737 models.”

There are only like 150~ of them made, I think SW has like 20 of them.

I personally prefer to know rather than guess.

Summary: SW has 34 (with lots more ordered), AA has 24.

If they are the newer SW planes I've flown on recently, I will say one thing about them - I can't know how the controls are to operate, but I can say they've thinned up the seat cushioning a bit and they are not quite as comfortable as the older SW planes.

Another fact is that neither AA nor SW has had any reported incidences or close calls, despite many flights with these planes...

I wonder How many Googlers, Netflixers (is that what Netflix employees are called?), Oracle employees, etc. who earn high incomes support the higher-rate optional tax. That would be a great way to stick to the conservatives. I would think it would be very popular in that part of the US. Anybody have a number?

None of these stories are about Finland, and all of them actually support my point!

Texas story: Allegation made, no actual complaint or charges, at most it's a civil matter (slander) so why would there be criminal charges? Sounds like you want them to criminalize speech!

Ex-boyfriend: She WAS charged and admitted it (i.e. convicted)! She admitted wasting police time. That's a criminal offence. In fact the last line of the article notes that she is awaiting sentencing for her crime. You are proving that the system works!

3 black guys: She took a plea deal. As the article notes she plead guilty to "two third-degree felony counts of tampering with physical evidence, a third-degree felony count of tampering with a government record and a state-jail felony count of tampering with a government record". As well as a criminal record, she got 8 years probation, $10,000 in fines and 160 hours community service. https://www.dallasnews.com/new...

Israel: Again, suspended sentence.

What is your point here, that the punishment isn't harsh enough?

https://www.dallasnews.com/new...

For many of us, gift cards are presents for hard-to-please family members who want to pick out their own gadgets at Best Buy.

For pimps and prostitutes, gift cards have become a currency to pay for sex ads on Backpage.com, anti-prostitution activists say.

Dallas-based Backpage, a classified-ad site similar to Craigslist, is the leading online marketplace for sex, according to government investigators and federal prosecutors who have been struggling for years to shut it down. The U.S. Justice Department says more than half of sex-trafficking victims are under 18.

Credit card companies stopped doing business with the website two years ago. People could still buy Backpage ads, but it became more difficult: They had to mail in checks or use complicated digital currencies like bitcoin.

But now, Backpage has begun accepting gift cards from major retailers, The Dallas Morning News has confirmed. That means a pimp could walk into any local grocery store and pick up a convenient, untraceable way to pay the site to post ads selling women, critics say.

So more than half the victims were under 18. That's not a failure of moderation, that's a business model. And Backpage made a fortune - around $45 million dollars.

https://www.azcentral.com/stor...

The criminal case brought by the California Attorney General's Office against Backpage was two-fold.

One set of charges accused the website's operators of profiting from sex trafficking and setting up elaborate schemes that allowed the site to take in money from illegal prostitution transactions. That part of the case stayed intact on Wednesday.

The other part accused the website of acting as a virtual pimp. Those charges were tossed out because the judge ruled that the website did not have a hand in actually writing the ads that sold the services; it merely hosted the ads.

The judge said the allegations of financial crimes are not subject to protection by the Communications Decency Act or the First Amendment.

"Indeed, the money laundering charges based on bank and wire fraud on their face, are not based on publication of third party speech at all," the ruling says. "Rather, they are based on the purported illegality of Defendants financial operations."

From August 2013 through October 2016, according to the prosecutors, the website raked in more than $45 million in illegal transactions.

Backpage, according to the indictment, was told by American Express that it would not long process payments because of the website's "overtly sexual content and questionable practices."

Backpage then created, according to prosecutors, a string of companies that could shield the fact the money was involved with Backpage.

According to prosecutors, Ferrer, the Backpage CEO, told employees to remove the name Backpage from descriptions that would show up on transactions. He told another employee, according to the indictment, to tell a credit card company that one of the companies had no relation to Backpage; instead, it helped truck drivers find jobs.

The dismissed counts of pimping suggested that the Backpage executives received prostitution earnings from 12 individuals from California who advertised on the website. According to the indictment, six of those people were under the age of 18.

Once again you see that half of the prostitutes were under age. And Backpage's vast earnings came from them. And the executives got off the pimping charges because of the CDA. Only the money laundering charges stuck.

I think a better way to look at is to look at this case

http://www.miamiherald.com/lat...

When a 13-year-old runaway threatened to leave a Miami pimp, police say, he forced her to a Liberty City flea market tattoo shop to ink his street name, "Suave," on her eyelids.

The vicious twist to a human trafficking case surfaced this month when Miami police arrested Roman Thomas III, 26, who was already on probation after serving four years in state prison for having sex with a minor.

Thomas was wearing a state corrections GPS monitor when Miami police arrested him on March 18.

The girl, dubbed "Sparkle," was pimped through the classified advertising website Backpage.com, police say. Thomas and a woman plied the girl with liquor, marijuana and the drug Molly as she had sex with men at the Miami Shores Motel.

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/...

Now suppose it was a newspaper? I think they'd refuse to run the ad. And if a newspaper run ads like this they would not be protected by safe harbor protections.

I don't see why a website should be allowed to run ads like this, profit from them, and then claim those protections.

And if you look at the law you find it only applies to sex trafficking.

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

The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) is a United States bill introduced by Senator Rob Portman. It seeks to clarify the country's sex trafficking law to make it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking, and amend the Section 230 safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act (which make online services immune from civil liability for the actions of their users) to exclude enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking laws from its immunity. Portman had previously led an investigation into the online classifieds service Backpage (which had been accused of facilitating child sex trafficking), and argued that Section 230 was protecting its "unscrupulous business practices" and was not designed to provide immunity to websites that facilitate sex trafficking.

I.e. it's not 'the end of the internet', or anything like it. It's basically an 'anti Backpage law' that adds an exemption for sex trafficking.

And look at this

https://www.dallasnews.com/new...

For many of us, gift cards are presents for hard-to-please family members who want to pick out their own gadgets at Best Buy.

For pimps and prostitutes, gift cards have become a currency to pay for sex ads on Backpage.com, anti-prostitution activists say.

Dallas-based Backpage, a classified-ad site similar to Craigslist, is the leading online marketplace for sex, according to government investigators and federal prosecutors who have been struggling for years to shut it down. The U.S. Justice Department says more than half of sex-trafficking victims are under 18.

Credit card companies stopped doing business with the website two years ago. People could still buy Backpage ads, but it became more difficult: They had to mail in checks or use complicated digital currencies like bitcoin.

But now, Backpage has begun accepting gift cards from major retailers, The Dallas Morning News has confirmed. That means a pimp could walk into any local grocery store and pick up a convenient, untraceable way to pay the site to post ads selling women, critics say.

So more than half the victims were under 18. That's not a failure of moderation, that's a business model. Them hiding behind safe harbor protections was bogus from the start.

That's $400 million in free money to use fixing potholes or whatever the city wants to do with it.

The city only gets 5% of the naming rights (approximately 900K/year), despite fully owning the stadium. And while that that money is nothing to sneeze at, it is earmarked to pay down the debt taken on to build the stadium in the first place, and so is not "free money" and will not be used to fix potholes or anything else of direct benefit to the people of the Metroplex.

I love that one. It's right up there with "trickle-down economics" and "tree pollution."

Here's how that works:

1. You work for MegaCorp in City A. You've lived here for 10 years. You're settled in, and around 40 on the age scale, with a wife and two kids.

2. You're told you're going to be laid off, but they have a job for you in City R, some 700 miles away. The job is yours, if you're willing to move. They'll even give you a moving incentive? But no raise.

3. You pull up stakes, pack up your family, put your house on the market, and move to City R. After a few months on the market, your house in City A sells for around the asking price. However, you didn't break even with the purchase in City R, so you're back in the hole for a mortgage.

4. You've been in City R for a year and a half, now. The economy is okay, things are doing well, and your department is doing well. But somebody in the upper echelons isn't happy with their profits, and decides to shut down all operations in City R.

5. Everyone in City R is offered a job in City X, which is only 500 miles away this time.

You now have a choice:

1. Take a chance on MegaCorp's offer of a job in City X. However, you aren't going to get a raise. But they *do* promise -verbally- that there won't be any layoffs for a year. And you have to repeat steps 2 and 3, with no guarantee that you won't have to repeat 4 and 5 in another year.

2. Take whatever severance package they offer, and bail. However, you're now at the high-end of where age discrimination gets serious, and your prospects are slim at best.

And the best part of this pretty little operation? The silver lining that only those at the top get to enjoy?

It completely eliminates three entire classes of workers.

1. It eliminates anyone with a family.
2. It eliminates anyone that can't move on 30 days notice.
3. It eliminates anyone who isn't willing to work for slave wages.

It's a formula that has worked every time.

Well, I just can't understand how most of Europe and Canada do it without actually going bankrupt.

By starting 50 or 75 years ago and keeping costs from rising year after year up until the present.

Vermont tried to go single-payer a couple years ago. They couldn’t make it work because there was no way for them to cut doctor and nurse salaries enough to make the financing work out.

If you want to understand, start by learning from Vermont's experience.

Here in Portland, OR, the local community college network charges $104 per credit.

Thanks entirely to the Democratic ownership of the state legislature and the governorship, Oregon promises free community college for any legal state resident starting out college from highschool (or GED)....

And the Republican legislature of Tennessee says "Welcome to the club, Oregon! What took you so long?".

The fact is, a lot of states are doing it. California offers one year of college. Rhode Island offers 2. New York even includes 4 year institutions. Last month the city of Dallas got in on the action..

Sadly, it's not quite as good as it sounds. They aren't simply dropping the cost of community college to zero. What these things are is a "last dollar" scholarship where they ensure you first get all the federal student aid you are eligible for and the scholarship fills in the rest.

And here's how it plans out for ICE owners: http://www.chron.com/news/hous...

Oh it gets better too. These guys idled all their gas out of their exhaust only to find they couldn't fill up at any pump. https://www.dallasnews.com/new...

Banks perform real-time mission critical financial transactions over a global network that can essentially never go down. I'm sure there are some engineering challenges there if you look for them.

It sounds like you'd rather make devices and do low level code.

Perhaps you would like to work on a new processor designed to handle radar data in self driving cars.

Texas Instruments may be a good fit.

Designing new processor isn't your thing? You want to be an engineer that builds bridges - great.. there are tons of engineering companies in Dallas. If bridges aren't difficult and flammable enough for you, design undersea rovers for an oil company, or help them engineer the cutting edge tools that they use in their day to day operation.

Shooting people dead because you "think" (read: believe) they're wrong and evil is how rightwingers make their speech free.

Yeah, left-wingers prefer stabbing.

Given the damage to the city infrastructure, and the fact the peaceful protesters didn't even try to stop the rioters... yeah, the facts are that a lot of people got their property broken. Keep denying and downplaying that, instead of getting your shit together and actually doing something about it.

Also:

"PS those were bussed in external rioters." - an honest mistake (buses that shuttled participant of a business conference to a conference that happened to take place then and there, an entirely unrelated event) that grew into an urban legend, debunked a long, long time ago. Shows how you care about facts.

The commenter was probably referred to this guy because it got a lot of press, but he took a plea deal that gave him seven years on probation. Texas has 116 people serving life sentences for possession, though, so there's probably another teenager in there somewhere.

Texas was growing only due to NASA, military contracts, and missile defense (all defunded now), so good luck!

Is that like neglecting how many of these "hate crimes" are reported false and the person lied?? You ever hear about any of those? Yeah, me neither................
 

And a link for a common example of reporting on this matter which took me very little time to Google for.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opin...

Oh, but Chinese communities in the US, where they are more prosperous...

Still have a lot of problems, including crime. Just waiting for somebody to write the Tong-Father so that there is a consciousness of it.

In fact, several anti-Chinese riots resulted after Chinese in-fighting spilled over, making everybody else upset enough to shut it down.

The same may have happened with Jews, Irish, Italians, and more. It's not like anti-black lynchings were the only ones.

BTW, you might find this interesting: Review of Mexican-American History book in Texas.

It's starting to get unaffordable in Texas as well: http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews....

It's almost funny that this is happening because people are moving in from California and are used to paying insane prices for housing, and are in more than a few cases even paying over asking prices for housing! Developers have been building up new apartments and neighborhoods like mad and it still hasn't been able to keep up with the demand.

Reasonable doubt doesn't survive jury trials usually. Most juries actually assume guilty. Even the jurors who don't sometimes give up because there are some people who are staunchly opposed to the idea that cops would arrest the wrong person. http://www.dallasnews.com/news...

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/1...

they were so skilled they were snaped up because they were so talented:

http://www.dallasnews.com/busi...

That says absolutely nothing about "their Indian replacements were paid $50k". Without that, I'm forced to assume that the OP is full of crap.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/1...

they were so skilled they were snaped up because they were so talented:

http://www.dallasnews.com/busi...

Every day, huh? What mass shooting happened yesterday?
It only feels like everyday, but shootings have gone down dramatically each decade.

Apparently it really depends on your definition of mass shootings. By the most broad definition I could find (4 or more people shot in a single incident) there were 353 mass shootings in the US in 2015 by November 23rd. So about one per day on average.

By the most narrow definition I could find (a single non-gang, robbery, or domestic violence incident where 4 or more people die), there were 4 mass shootings in the US in 2015 by November 23rd. With the same definition but replace death with just being shot, the number goes up to 61.

The incidents people actually think about when they hear mass shootings probably lies closer to the 61 figure. Which means about 5-6 mass shootings per month.

source

The liberals just raised taxes again on his corporation North Pole Inc. and forced him to provide Obamacare for his elves. They also sued him for giving coal to bad children, saying it that every child should be a winner and it was unfair to black kids who grew up in worse situations than whites, so therefore Santa's policy was racial discrimination. The fine was $400,000,000.

He is no longer able to make a profit and therefore had to declare bankruptcy. Sorry kids. ;(

Vote for Trump in 2016 if you want Santa to come back. Make America great again!

What? I thought that Santa Claus is Canadian, based on his legitimate Canadian mailing address:

SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE, H0H0H0, CANADA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So all of his elves should have be fully covered by universal single payer health care, decades before Obama was elected. And as a Canadian non-profit organisation, his corporate tax rate is zero.

Besides I have no idea why you are praising Trump, when up north, there is no greater hero than Ted Cruz for renouncing his Canadian citizenship.

http://trailblazersblog.dallas...
http://www.dallasnews.com/news...

If only we can get Justin Bieber to do the same.

The liberals just raised taxes again on his corporation North Pole Inc. and forced him to provide Obamacare for his elves. They also sued him for giving coal to bad children, saying it that every child should be a winner and it was unfair to black kids who grew up in worse situations than whites, so therefore Santa's policy was racial discrimination. The fine was $400,000,000.

He is no longer able to make a profit and therefore had to declare bankruptcy. Sorry kids. ;(

Vote for Trump in 2016 if you want Santa to come back. Make America great again!

What? I thought that Santa Claus is Canadian, based on his legitimate Canadian mailing address:

SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE, H0H0H0, CANADA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So all of his elves should have be fully covered by universal single payer health care, decades before Obama was elected. And as a Canadian non-profit organisation, his corporate tax rate is zero.

Besides I have no idea why you are praising Trump, when up north, there is no greater hero than Ted Cruz for renouncing his Canadian citizenship.

http://trailblazersblog.dallas...
http://www.dallasnews.com/news...

If only we can get Justin Bieber to do the same.

>> by "science" you mean creationism/intelligent design

Christ, what crappy school did you attend? Irving schools look pretty mainstream to me:

http://irvingblog.dallasnews.c...
http://www.irvingisd.net/site/...
http://www.irvingisd.net/Domai...

See the lead photo here: http://www.dallasnews.com/opin...

The fact you believe that to not be staged by someone with an axe to grind is cute.

OK, lets be 100% honest about this kid. This entire thing was a setup by his FATHER to get attention for his "cause". His father is a well known activist and Imam who plans these types of events. Now that the whole thing has been exposed as a fraud the father is moving. Of course the media never follows up, and the public never learns the truth.

The kid's dad could not MAKE the authorities overreact like they did, and he clearly is actually interested in electronics. See the lead photo here: http://www.dallasnews.com/opin...

If it turns out that gene research shows that some types of people are more intelligent or more creative than others, so what?

So what is that we don't really have a very good or complete way to measure intelligence. And without that, "gene research" isn't going to be able to tell us anything like one race being more intelligent than another. There isn't a single way to measure intelligence that hasn't been used by racists to do or promote terrible things.

Anyway...

http://hauntedskeptic.com/wp-c...

vs

http://trailblazersblog.dallas...

Remember Ahmed, the clockmaker in Texas?

Well, it seems that sweet little Ahmed was 'radicalized' by a teacher (into a rebelous prankster, not a terrorist - I repeat, not a terrorist), and has a rich history of problems at school, including him having a history of making 'inventions' to disrupt classes (like his invention to turn off the projector in class)...

http://www.dallasnews.com/news...

I'm sorry, what else would you call it?
http://www.dallasnews.com/inco...
It has hinges on one side, and a handle on the other. It's a little toy suitcase.
Seriously, how does that matter?

Friend.. read the original news story: http://www.dallasnews.com/news...

The kid never claimed to have 'invented' anything, or that he'd even built the clock from scratch, he came right out and said that he'd thrown it together in 20 minutes out of junk parts, to take to school with him, to show his teachers what he was capable of; but of course once the media (not to mention the public) got hold of the whole thing, the story started getting distorted very quickly. What we have here is a 14-year-old boy who did something as ill-advised and devoid of forethought for possible consequences as any other 14-year-old boy might have done; he never considered that some dumb adults at his school would freak out because they have no understanding of what they were actually looking at. I'll bet that if he had told his folks he was going to take that to school with him, and showed it to them, they might have told him it wasn't a great idea simply because something like this would happen.

I think the Mayor of his town may offer some context

Amazing how many people credit this kid with "building" this clock, and the outrage is fall down laughable - I guarantee this is a political stunt or just plain carelessness on the kid's behalf. Let's see why:

Take a look at what readers are shown in picture #2 in the Dallas News story.

In the picture, there's a briefcase that contains what may look like a clock that a GENIUS put together - fancy circuit boards and wires - wow!!!!

But as an electronics hobbyist, I can tell you that what you're seeing in this brief case are the raw, unmodified (and slightly mangled) internals of a 15 to 20 dollar Jumbo LED alarm clock that you would find for sale at your local Walmart:

1. A jumbo four digit LED fixed to the inside of the lid of a small brief case
2. Gray wide-ribbon flatflex cable connects the LED to the main board that contains the LED display driver and clock integrated circuit
3. 9-volt back-up battery cable extends unconnected to the left (used to keep time during power outages, digits remain off on display, time is kept only internally)
4. A smaller flatflex ribbon connects a more slender circuit board that contains the set-time buttons, snooze button, alarm on-off switch, etc.
5. The cube shaped component sitting in the middle of the briefcase is the isolation transformer that provides the mains power 120V cord.

As a kid once myself, I've taken many of these same kinds of alarm clocks apart, and know these components like the back of my hand.

The alarm clock that this kid stuffed into a brief case isn't even modified to run off battery power - this is a 10 minute "project" period. Now, I'd give him more credit for adding battery power support, which is actually harder than it may seem since this type of clock keeps time based on the 60hz AC mains power frequency. So, an inverter would be necessary to allow this clock circuit and display to fully run off battery power alone.

The point here is simply that this looks exactly like what I, as a kid might have done, if I wanted to show off to my friends that maybe I built something that would make me look cool - and might result in this:

> At a joint press conference with Irving ISD, Chief Larry Boyd said the device — confiscated by an English teacher despite the teen’s insistence that it was a clock — was “certainly suspicious in nature.”

Fortunately for me, I thought ideas like that through by considering what other people might think, and it also helped that I didn't have a politically motivated father that might have coerced me to do such a thing knowing how foolish it could make the "natives" (re: EVIL WHITE PEOPLE) look.

So yeah - wow, shame on that ENGLISH teacher for trying to look out for her kids, OMGGGG!!!

The police lied and said it was a "briefcase".

And the reporters put in fake picture in the article you didn't even look at?

That's no pencil box.

but other than that there are no downsides.

Texas ranks in or near the bottom 20% in the nation in education and access to health care, and its poverty level puts in 46th (out of 50), in between Arkansas and Alabama. It has the highest uninsured rate in the nation. It leads all other states in the number of executions of innocent people. Texas has the highest percentage of children who don't have any access to health care.

  http://educationblog.dallasnew...

http://www.texasobserver.org/t...

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/0...

http://watchdogblog.dallasnews...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...

Among Texas' other poor rankings are 50th for the EPA's toxic exposure score, 47th for total toxic chemicals released into waterways, 46th for cancer-causing chemicals released, 45th for developmental toxins released, and 49th for reproductive toxins released. So, when you say "diverse ecosystems" I assume you mean there are some places you can live and get cancer and some places you just cannot live.

Texas ranks 50th (out of 50) for greenhouse emissions.

In summary, poverty, poorly educated people, sick kids and an environment disaster not to mention the climate that you mention putting Texas near the bottom of the comfort index rankings do not add up to Texas being a "nice place to live". The highly-touted "Texas Miracle" is a lie.

And here are some unretouched photos of people Texas has elected governor:

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sit...

http://www.highwaygirl.com/hwg...

And the current governor believes a U.S. military exercise in the region is really an all-out invasion by Obama and the US government to take over Texas. Or, he just says that to pander to his pig-ignorant electorate.

I'm sorry friend, but Texas is a shit-hole. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who lives there. In Jesus' name.

but other than that there are no downsides.

Texas ranks in or near the bottom 20% in the nation in education and access to health care, and its poverty level puts in 46th (out of 50), in between Arkansas and Alabama. It has the highest uninsured rate in the nation. It leads all other states in the number of executions of innocent people. Texas has the highest percentage of children who don't have any access to health care.

  http://educationblog.dallasnew...

http://www.texasobserver.org/t...

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/0...

http://watchdogblog.dallasnews...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...

Among Texas' other poor rankings are 50th for the EPA's toxic exposure score, 47th for total toxic chemicals released into waterways, 46th for cancer-causing chemicals released, 45th for developmental toxins released, and 49th for reproductive toxins released. So, when you say "diverse ecosystems" I assume you mean there are some places you can live and get cancer and some places you just cannot live.

Texas ranks 50th (out of 50) for greenhouse emissions.

In summary, poverty, poorly educated people, sick kids and an environment disaster not to mention the climate that you mention putting Texas near the bottom of the comfort index rankings do not add up to Texas being a "nice place to live". The highly-touted "Texas Miracle" is a lie.

And here are some unretouched photos of people Texas has elected governor:

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sit...

http://www.highwaygirl.com/hwg...

And the current governor believes a U.S. military exercise in the region is really an all-out invasion by Obama and the US government to take over Texas. Or, he just says that to pander to his pig-ignorant electorate.

I'm sorry friend, but Texas is a shit-hole. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who lives there. In Jesus' name.

Chrysler didn't manage to get Daimler bankrupt, perhaps it can destroy another europan company?

You are aware that Chrysler's profits are actually propping up Fiat at the moment right? Fiat got control of Chrysler in a sweetheart deal. If they screw it up then the fault is on Fiat.

Oh, and Daimler's problems were because Daimler bungled the acquisition and completely disregarded the importance of culture. They never seriously tried to make it a unified company and basically drove Chrysler into the ground. The German management completely screwed up the Chrysler brand. That was a European company failing to understand the US market and US corporate culture. Fiat seems to be doing a better job of it but only time will tell for certain.

http://popcultureblog.dallasne...

Keep on going crazy person

From this article, there was a previous pro-Islam event at the same site. The event site supports the freedom of both perspectives:

"In January, the Culwell Center had been the scene of dueling protests during a pro-Muslim Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect event. Some protesters then called for peace and understanding, while anti-Muslim demonstrators argued that extremists’ beliefs threatened the U.S."

Go look it up yourself. It's all over the web, and I've also replied to it elsewhere.

Wearing a mask is a false security. Touch something, instinctively rub you eye, oops!

Further we don't criminalize other behaviors that increase risk of infections

Having unprotected sex if you have HIV and don't inform your partner(s) in advance will get you a visit to jail. This guy got 5 years. 12 year sentence here. In Arkansas, this guy got 12 years.This guy in Texas, 15 years in jail.

And then we have this loser

A 31-year-old man who infected a teenage girl with HIV two years ago was sentenced to 75 years in prison Wednesday.

But Matthew Louis Reese could face 20 more years in prison if a judge decides Thursday to add the sentence from a third charge to his punishment.

Earlier this week, Reese pleaded guilty to three charges: aggravated sexual assault of a child with a deadly weapon, aggravated sexual assault with serious bodily injury and sexual assault of a child.

The charges carried sentences of 55, 20 and 20 years in prison, respectively, and Dallas County prosecutors had asked visiting Judge Pat McDowell to make the sentences run consecutively.>more

So we do criminalize other behaviors that increase risk of infections

But there is no such choice in the single most important sphere of all: the children education.

Really? There is no choice? No private schools, no charter schools, no home schooling?

I'm all in favor of arranging public education to grant more choice to students; smaller and more numerous schools and let a student go to any public school in their county/city/state (depending on how taxes are allocated) they like. Maybe even vouchers for secular private schools that take the voucher as the whole tuition (no public funds for religious education, no letting rich kids use tax dollars as partial payment at a school for the 1%ers), though I'm not sure on that point. But to claim that the current system offer no choice is simply inaccurate.

Since 1960-ies the per-pupil annual cost of public schools quadrupled (inflation-adjusted), while the quality of education remains the same (if it has not gotten worse).

Public schools have increased the array of services provided -- free and reduced-price meals, special education, vocational education, and services for disabled or ESL students -- in that time.

Overall, public schools have equivalent or better outcomes than private schools with the same level of spending per student.

And Texas's public school spending is near the bottom compared to other states, so trying to link this to some supposed overspending on schools does not fly.

Let me give you a real world example to clarify the problems school administrators face. About 3 years ago a teenager girl going to the same high school as my kids was killed by someone she had accused of sexual assault. He was out on bail with a trial pending and she just started attending the high school the same week. The administrators didn't know the situation at all, nor did the local police dept. as all of this happened in another city. She was abducted on school grounds just after school had let out and he lured her by befriending her on social media. He shot her and she wound up in the river. Here's the whole story. http://www.dallasnews.com/news...

It's these kinds of incidents and the obvious outcry that creates zero tolerance policies. I agree that the administrator and teacher should have been given the alacrity to determine some other kind of punishment but I'll bet both would have been subject to disciplinary action had then not taken the action they did. It's stupid, it's dumb. Hell, have the shit I did when I was in school would have wound me up in jail by all this zero tolerance shit. My original point was that it's not just in Texas, this is all over the nation and it's getting worse. Schools now aren't places of learning, they're more akin to detention centers with lock down policies. Hell when I'd go to a school conference I'd have to give them my driver's license and they'd do a warrant check before I'd be allowed entry. I'd have to tell them "hey, you invited me here remember?"

Schools are a reflection of the communities they serve and until we start addressing the violence and problems outside the schools, they'll continue to have things like zero tolerance and lock down environments where a kid, fantasizing about sorcery gets suspended. It's stupid, dumb and disgusting but we've allowed this to happen. It's well that it happened in the US because in Saudi Arabia he'd have been beheaded for sorcery.

If you're thinking of voting for any politician who takes contributions from the the NEA, then FUCK YOU.

...because the NEA is so strong in Texas. So very strong that per-pupil spending and teacher's salaries are near the bottom compared to other states.

As usual, union bashing is disconnected from reality.

You don't need a bomb if you've got a proper pickup truck. http://www.dallasnews.com/news...

That is not a better idea, just a different idea.

No, it is a better idea because it reduces highway deaths (in the US) without a significant increase in the cost of driving.

than the economic cost of excluding millions of people from driving

Many tens of millions of people are already banned from driving in the US due to age, driving history, or current state of impairment. What's known about the US situation is that a considerable fraction of accidents in the US come from drivers who are already banned from driving either by not having a license or insurance or by driving while impaired. Something like half of all US accidents involve people who shouldn't be driving at the time due to some combination of these factors.

while the probability of politicians banning a significant number of people from driving is about zero.

Here's a counterexample from Texas concerning uninsured drivers.

The NRA has a problem with those kooks in Texas.

These kooks even try to intimidate people who may disagree with them.

And their premise that it is safe is wrong.

And as someone who goes to the shooting range(s) once in a while, I can tell that most of those folks seem to think that they are living an action movie. Aside from the few hunters and target/skeet shooters (me), the rest of them think the "bad guys" are just itching to break into their home, rape their women, take their big screen TVs and their Arnold, Steven Segal, Chuck Norris DVD collections. Those are the guys with the military styled guns on the range - with their fetish for .223 and .40. They are the ones who talk about "stopping power" and "penetration" and other ballistic shit.

We normal guys try to stay away from them and cringed when we see those redneck morons in Texas acting like jackasses.

They replaced the scheduled times of The Interview with a Team America sing-along.

Not anymore. Paramount nixed it:
http://popcultureblog.dallasne...

But you don't understand, in the post 9-11 world we don't assess the real risks. Only the imaginary ones.
And end up paying billions/trillions of dollars for nothing.

In the post 9-11 era many people (including many on Slashdot) claim that real risks are imaginary.

For some people if it didn't happen to them it didn't happen at all.

Terrorism deaths rose 60% in 2013, independent study says

One of the reasons we end up paying billions/trillions "for nothing" is the propensity of some to throw away hard won gains. You can see that in Iraq. A previous example was Viet Nam, which could have turned out like Korea but for the craven behavior of the party controlling Congress.

Some people never learn until it is too late.