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So is your thinking that when facing the persistent long term threat of violent extremists Islamists (which are pretty much exclusively Muslim) dedicated to the overthrow of Western civilization that the proper course of action is to search for violent Buddhists, Lutherans, and atheists? Because, Diversity!??

I kinda' want to get back to the mode where the crime comes before the investigation, you know?

Crime's been going down, we're currently at the lowest point it's been for decades.

We're starting to get a handle on what causes crime, and it turns out to be completely unrelated to policing or enforcement or longer jail sentences or anything like that: it's things like tetra-ethyl-lead wearing out of the environment, access to abortions for unwanted pregnancies 20 years ago, economic security, and things like that.

The police seem to think it's their job to prevent crime from happening, and they're bored because they have nothing else to do, and so they take great pains to try to predict who will commit a crime and take action before it happens.

We're seeing this already in things like parallel construction, seeing which crimes can be extended to cover an action they don't like, and arresting people for "planning" to join ISIS.

On that last one: people aren't attacking America, didn't join a group that attacks America, didn't go to the country where they *could* have joined the group that attacks America, and didn't have a *plane ticket* to go to the country where they *could* have joined the group that attacks America...

and yet, posting "I'm going to join ISIS" on your facebook page is enough to get you thrown in jail in this country. It's "pre-crime" prosecution.

I kinda' want to get back to the mode where the crime comes before the investigation, you know?

On average, buses are far worse than cars for energy efficiency because of the low average load factor.

On what data is this assertion based? I spent a few minutes seeing if such data exist. I could not find data to support your claim that buses are far worse.

I found the following. A bus fuel efficiency is about 5 mpg [1]. That is with fifty-five passengers, which is the maximum capacity and therefore our lower bound. In my county, the average load-factor over all of 2012 was 479 million passenger miles divided by 44 million vehicle miles, or 10 passengers per mile.

Our average fuel consumption over number of passengers then is 50 mpg, which is not far worse than cars for energy efficiency. In 2006, the average mpg of a private vehicle on the road was about 20 mpg. Even with two people in such a vehicle, the average-loaded bus is better.

I did not dig very deeply; I was more trying to find your data and stumbled into data that seems to paint a different picture. It's quite possible that my data paints the wrong picture and you were using much more sound data, but because you did not provide it, I must ask for a citation now.

Which data had you used?

[1] http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy00o...
[2] http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am...
[3] http://www.project.org/info.ph...

Trolling? the DOJ would disagree with the modder. http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=115

Here's the relevant chart. Screw GDP. GDP is a function of money creation... From debt creation. Jeez.

Federal debt (all debt growth) is an exponential curve. You notice Clinton did NOT reduce the debt, or even stop it growing, he merely slowed it a little.

http://www.project.org/images/graphs/US%20National%20Debt%20.jpg

And here's one with an 8.3% pa increase exponential curve fitted to it.
http://8m.quarkweb.com/images/FedDebt_02b.png

You also notice that 8.3% fitted curve, means that the more recent 8.3% increase numbers are much larger than the earlier 8.3% increase numbers.

All the governments are the same. 8.3% increase. Obama's 2.5 trillion increase? 2 years.... Then it'll be 18.3 trillion, then 19.7 etc etc. Doubling every 8 years.

The sense your trying to make is how to reduce the inevitable carnage from the varying road interactions, when they are over 40,000 per year, you really have to do something about it.

No you don't, because you also have to consider that Americans collectively drive about 3,000,000,000,000 (that's three trillion) miles per year (source). On average, that's one crash per 75 million miles driven -- a tiny ratio.

Two vehicles doing 130km/h in a head on, don't cut the people out of those cars, hose them out.

Fine, but what about divided highways (including all Interstates), where head-on collisions are rare to the point of negligibility?

I remember my dad's VW routinely getting around 30 mpg during the 70s. Previous to the VW's he had from 1970 until 1978 he had a 1964 Chrysler which I think got something in the mid teens to low 20s for MPG.

I think you are thinking about the mean average for MPG in 1970 which was about 10 mpg. Pretty sad that as of 2006 the average has only risen to 18.
http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=384

How many more politicians and faux-news talking heads will continue to push the pseudo-scientific religion that is reaganomics?

Humans are capable of believing untrue things for a very long time, even after reality begins to seriously challenge those beliefs. The Left has long-cherished beliefs (Example: Unions are good for workers, My Counter-Example: The number of Unions up until the 60s that prohibited blacks from working at a union shop). The Right has its long-cherished beliefs.

There are a lot of possible explanations why people are like that, but the more important thing is to engage those people by asking questions about the basis of their belief and learning yourself. If someone says something, and you don't know if it's true or not, take some effort to find out if it is. Most of the time, you can Google the issue and find a lot of people have done the hard work for you. You just have to verify if their logic is sound and inferences are valid.

Krugman, via his blog and columns, does try his best to do this. In fact, he often posts links to early versions of his papers and mathematics on his NY Times blog and lets his readers pick it apart. He and Tyler Cowan (a libertarian leaning economist) have very civil debates via their blogs.

Most *-wing sites simply tune out contrary voices with more chanting and weak arguments that bolster that community's feelings on right and wrong. In short: people judge arguments by its truthiness, not its validity.

And for the record, we cannot judge if Reagnomics worked because Reagonomics is:

1. reduce the growth of government spending,
2. reduce marginal tax rates on income from labor and capital,
3. reduce government regulation of the economy,
4. control the money supply to reduce inflation.

To be honest, I don't believe he achieved those four goals during his presidency, so I'm not sure one can say Reagonomics worked or not:

1. Government spending as a percentage of GDP
2. Tax receipts as percentage of GDP
3. Quantifying regulation: Notice the Clinton years come out looking pretty good too (i.e., congress is as much to blame/credit as the President)
4. Inflation from 1913 to present