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> There is no point to this.

Except the multiple obvious ones.

> After all, they would just omit incriminating accounts from their responses.

https://www.tcpalm.com/story/n...

Yeah, people aren't that sophisticated on average.

Let's say that I'm completely clueless as to how schools operate. Let's say all schools are like those dumb movies where the heroic teacher comes in and whips a bunch of hoodlums into shape while "Stand By Me" plays on the music track.

So a kid refuses to leave the class. You call the police, have him hauled away, expel him, and issue a trespass notice.

How many kids out of the entire school's population are going to refuse to leave the classroom? Let's be generous and say 25. You expel 25 kids, and you've taken care of the problem.

Meanwhile, if instead you decide to get the cops in the school handling your discipline for you, you end up with kids being arrested for doodling on their desk ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/desk-doodling-arrest-alex_n_450859.html ), and kids getting arrested for farting and turning off computers ( http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/nov/21/report-martin-county-student-arrested-passing-gas-/ ), and 3rd graders getting arrested for fistfights ( http://gothamist.com/2011/04/02/third_grader_who_was_arrested_by_po.php )

In short, you're going to end up with a lot of stupid arrests, a lot of lawsuits ( why yes, I will sue anyone who arrests my kid for farting, and no I'm not overly litigious ) and a lot of anger directed at schools and cops, and all because the district was too damn stupid to expel the real serial troublemakers while dealing normal discipline to kids doing normal kid misbehavior.

Their web site just screams "vaporware". In fact, the useful-scale project has been cancelled, and only a small "demonstration plant" will be built.

The real questions about this are 1) do they really get out more energy than they put in, and 2) how much processing of the exhaust gases is required? Westinghoue Plasma Corporation (which, sadly, has little to do with Westinghouse) claims that 1000 tonnes (metric?) of solid waste produces the energy equivalent of 1 (one) barrel of oil. So this isn't a big energy producer. Ordinary waste-to-energy plants do better than that, but don't burn as clean as a plasma arc.

The other problem is what comes out. Organic compounds are literally blasted apart into atoms at those temperatures, so it deals with biowaste just fine. CO2 comes out, of course. NOx, maybe. Everything heavier (metals, etc.) is supposed to come out as a "molten slag" suitable for cement aggregate. Not sure what the cement industry thinks of this. They're usually quite picky about what's allowed in cement aggregate. Some contaminants interfere with the chemistry of concrete curing and make bad concrete. It might be good for filling in swamps and such.

Are you stupid? A quick google search yields stuff like this:

http://www.local6.com/news/13542239/detail.html
http://www.local6.com/news/10832086/detail.html?rss=orlpn&psp=news
http://www.foxcarolina.com/news/17379037/detail.html#-
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/sep/19/home-invader-fatally-shot/
http://www.wptv.com/content/tcoast/story.aspx?content_id=13fcb937-2235-4ad3-9322-974c87b31eb1

I could post tons more links, but I think you get the idea. Of course, there's plenty of stories of home invaders shooting unarmed residents, and that's a good reason to keep guns in your home.

Of course, dumb liberals like yourself probably think that banning all guns will simple stop home invasions, completely neglecting the fact that many criminals are large men who've spent lots of time in prison pumping iron, and don't need guns to commit crimes against women, children, or elderly people. It only takes a swift kick to get inside a modern home, with the way they build them now. If you're a 75-year-old woman, how exactly are you going to defend yourself against 4 musclebound men intent on doing you harm?

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2007/oct/20/30sheriff-says-hell-put-radar-back-in-cars/

Can't be that accurate if even after calibration they are suspect.

You mean that the 55 unprovoked shark attacks in 2003 (source) weren't dangerous?

Don't forget the pirates!

OJ Simpson dug the dish at nicely discounted price.

Numbers of registered voters is taken from this document. Number of votes cast for each candidate are here.

This table lists those Florida counties with 5000 or more registered Independent Party Members.
Spaces had to be replaced with periods since /. doesn't allow <pre> :(

County.....#.Ind....%.Ind.....#.Buch.....%.Buch.
---------..------...------....------.....------
Brevard......6815.....2.40......570........0.26
Duval.......10298.....2.43......650........0.25
Hillsborough10939.....2.19......845........0.23
Orange.......7751.....1.92......446........0.16
Palm.Beach..16336.....2.49.....3407........0.79
Pinellas....17614.....3.06.....1012........0.25
Volusia......5229.....2.01........0........0.00

# Ind. = Number of voters registered as Independent Party members
% Ind. = Percentage of registered voters who are registered as Independent Party members
# Buch. = Number of votes cast for Buchanan
% Buch. = Percentage of all votes cast for president which were cast for Buchanan

OK, Volusia county is itself suspicious because there were no votes counted there for anyone other than Bush or Gore. But that's a separate issue. (Strange that no one has brought that up yet. I would have thought conspiracy theorists would be jumping all over that one.)

As jbridges says, decide for yourself. I've linked the primary sources. Check those out yourself if you don't believe me, or the NewsMax.com article.

Don't get me wrong--I do not advocate a revote. I just find it very hard to believe, given these numbers, that everyone who voted for Buchanan in Palm Beach County meant to do so. So does Buchanan.

According to Florida's own documents (PDF, sorry) there were only 337 voters registered in Palm Beach County as Reform Party members, as of October 10 of this year.

3400 votes for Buchanan is directly in line with every other Florida county that has a similar number of registered Reform Party members.

What other Florida county? No other Florida county had even 1/3 as many votes for Buchanan.

The real voting irregularity here is the moderators who voted for these lies as "informative".

But one thing that's been absent in news of this is an analysis of how many papers spoilt in a similar way Palm Beach County would normally expect, given the demographics.

Does anyone know what the deal is there?

For more news on this, check out The Palm Beach Post.
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• Ballot mix up may have Gore votes sent to Buchanan by mistake
• Full Florida results by county

There's nothing about Palm Beach county to suggest that the extraordinary high Buchanan turnout matches local opinion compared to the rest of the State, IMO.

A collegue/friend of mine lives around there and voted and said she nearly made the same mistake. Her mother did make the same mistake, but noticed before posting her ballot and asked for another paper. It seems reasonable to conclude that it is likely that others made the same mistake and didn't notice until after their ballot was out of their hands.
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• Ballot mix up may have Gore votes sent to Buchanan by mistake
• Full Florida results by county

There's nothing about Palm Beach county to suggest that the extraordinary high Buchanan turnout matches local opinion compared to the rest of the State, IMO.

A collegue/friend of mine lives around there and voted and said she nearly made the same mistake. Her mother did make the same mistake, but noticed before posting her ballot and asked for another paper. It seems reasonable to conclude that it is likely that others made the same mistake and didn't notice until after their ballot was out of their hands.
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