Slashdot Mirror

Yes, let's keep it real, indeed.

Consider the average benefits that people on food stamps get. For PA, this is about $128 a month, or about $30 per week, or just over $4 per day. That photo ID could then be considered three days worth of food.

According to the labor department, the poorest 20% of American households manage to squeak by making an average of $10k/year (after income tax, before payroll tax). That's just over $800/month. Could you afford your mortgage or rent on $800/month? There are over 24 million Americans in the lowest quintile who manage to eke out a living with that much income, and for them $13.50 really could be three days worth of food.

This doesn't even get into the part about how the IDs were supposed to be free, but the free ID didn't exist until a couple weeks ago. Or that there are multiple counties in PA with no PennDOT facilities to get these IDs, and that even more counties have one PennDOT facility open one day per week. Do you think these people can just hop on a bus from the middle of nowhere to the neighboring county? Or that they could walk? Certainly they can't drive, since they have no license.

If government weren't so in control of everything, you wouldn't have to worry about businesses controlling governement.

Well then relax, because government isn't nearly in control of everything. Big business prevails.

Look at the numbers. ExxonMobil reported 2008 revenues of nearly $373 billion and a profit of almost $41 billion. The EPA's 2010 budget is $10.5 billion.

If the EPA devoted itself entirely to policing this one oil company, ExxonMobil could outspend it three to one -- and still turn a profit!

It's not just multi-nationals. United Health projects profit of $5 billion this year. Four states total budget is less than this.

Working- and lower-class people in the US have diets dominated by heavy starches, red meat, high fructose corn syrup, and heavy food additives. The middle and upper classes, especially on the coasts, have diets dominated by fresh vegetables and seafood, and usually can afford the time and energy to go to the gym, etc..

Can we please stop splitting the US up this way? Whether or not you live next to an ocean has no correlation with obesity, education, income, poverty, or anything else.

Here is a map of adult overweight/obesity rates by state. Here is a map showing the rate of childhood overweight/obesity rates. The trends seem to be regional, with the West and Northwest having the lowest rates and the Midwest and South having the highest. Notice that Colorado and Utah have lower obesity rates than New York, California, or Washington. Your first point about income level is closer to the truth, but as these maps show, it is not even close to a direct correlation. Many more factors are involved.

Working- and lower-class people in the US have diets dominated by heavy starches, red meat, high fructose corn syrup, and heavy food additives. The middle and upper classes, especially on the coasts, have diets dominated by fresh vegetables and seafood, and usually can afford the time and energy to go to the gym, etc..

Can we please stop splitting the US up this way? Whether or not you live next to an ocean has no correlation with obesity, education, income, poverty, or anything else.

Here is a map of adult overweight/obesity rates by state. Here is a map showing the rate of childhood overweight/obesity rates. The trends seem to be regional, with the West and Northwest having the lowest rates and the Midwest and South having the highest. Notice that Colorado and Utah have lower obesity rates than New York, California, or Washington. Your first point about income level is closer to the truth, but as these maps show, it is not even close to a direct correlation. Many more factors are involved.

You're both emotional as hell. Couldn't you tell the original post was just intended to disrupt conversation?

As far as the poster you're replying to here, whether he's a troll or not, the rape statistic is correct. White on black rapes are often in the single digits, per year.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus0502.pdf

Table #40 and #42 in the above document.

Blacks comitted 48% of the rape, half of the robberies, and two thirds of the robberies involving injury. Crimes like simple assault were closer to the proportion that they should be (considering each group's percentage of the total population), but were still biased towards black offenders.

While the black poverty rate is higher than that of whites and hispanics, there are still twice as many whites below the poverty line in the US as there are blacks. Income isn't even the primary factor, much less a dominating one.

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?rgn=1&cat=1&ind=14

If it's about revenge for past social injustices, then why are black-on-black statistics so high?

Wishing that a problem didn't exist doesn't make it go away.

Hiding information about it just makes the problem harder to fix.

The United States Military Academy at West Point, the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs are all free for everyone, at taxpayer expense.

As for vacation by state, I don't know. I've only ever lived in two, one left-leaning (MA) and one Libertarian-leaning (NH). NH doesn't mandate ANYTHING, we're all free to do as we wish. MA mandates everything... and people seem to emigrate to NH to escape it all.

Which states are you friends and family living in? Like I said, it REALLY matters a great deal. Ask most Vermonters and they'll tell you they're happy and talk to most people from Louisiana and they'll prolly tell you life sucks (but then again, the whole South does anyway). I'm sorry to hear they're unhappy with their lives. I hope it works out for them.

Over here we seem to have chosen the "more risk, more reward" method. At least, my state works that way. In MA, they have more labor laws (and more laws in general) and while it's easier to get fired in NH, we have a statistically significant and a lower unemployment rate. Our crime rate is low, too (and would be lower if we stopped letting the Massholes in, but I digress).

The travel part is interesting. It's well known that a low percentage of Americans have passports. I just got mine for the first time this year. But there are some interesting reasons for that. For one thing, the US is HUGE. You can drive 72 hours in a straight line going 80 kph and still be in the same country.... and that's not counting Alaska. Outside of Russia, I don't think that's possible in Europe (and I believe the European part of Russia is also not that large). I think my town is larger than several principalities y'all have over there, too.

The different parts of the US also offer different types of attractions, vacations, etc. For example, it's tough to ski in Florida but it's popular in the Northeast... and you don't need a passport for that (yet). If I want to visit a rain forest or tropical location, I can go to Washington State or Hawaii... and still no passport needed. The only thing about the USA, though, is that everything is still young. We have no man-made tourist destinations here that's particularly popular that's thousands of years old like y'all have in Europe, Asia or Africa.

If people are truly unhappy about the way things are over here, they are welcome to vote at the ballot booth and with their wallets. But if they like how it is and they are happy, who am I to disagree? That's how democracy works in the ideal, anyway.

Besides the social safety net Scandinavia has, what are the other parts you are the most proud of?

Kentucky is a poor state. Sixteen of Kentucky's counties are among the 100 poorest in the country .

Major factors affecting Kentuckians residents earning power include lack of jobs, lack of education, and -- very importantly -- poor health. As a native New Yorker, I was surprised by just how pervasive smoking and smoking related illnesses are in this state. In fact, Kentucky is almost among the highest-rated states for risks on getting lung cancer.

Kentucky is a big receiver of Medicaid funding (18 percent of the state is enrolled in Medicaid, among the higher rates in the country), funding that we all help pay for. It would be nice if some of that financial responsibility feel on the people that need it. $.08 a pack seems nominally reasonable, I think.

I had mandatory athletics at my engineering university (minimum 4 semesters, or participate in a varsity sport). What really baffled me was I was C-team/JV level in high school, but everyone wanted me on their team in college.
I thought it was a good thing for everyone, but it really opened my eyes to how badly out of shape people were elsewhere. I guess I'm just used to how Colorado normally is, with the lowest obesity rate by far of any state in the US.