Slashdot Mirror

Something like this was provided in my home state. Fraud allegations are flying. Smart business or poor management of funds? you decide.

A local phone/internet provider VTEL received $116 million in state money to provide Wireless Internet to all the undeserved (aka the last mile). They built the Wireless towers but only 1200 people have service. Why? Just because there's a tower doesn't mean the signal reaches a house. The home may be 'round the edge of a mountain ridge or in a forest. Of those 1200 with service, many report okay quality until it rains or snows which causes quality to be more like dial-up.

A federal program to do the same will line the pockets of the smart corps. The incentive needs to be paid for each customer signed up. In the VTEL case they were awarded money to build the infrastructure, and around here $116 million is a lot of $$ per person. There's just barely 600k people in the whole state and this corner of state in question has very very low population. I can see needing investment money to build the infrastructure because it is expensive. However, the goal of the program is to get people online. And I think that needs to be a large part of the stick/carrot.

https://www.vnews.com/Money-Is...

The Federal Government decided we needed new fonts for street signs.

Again.

For Cops, Ignorance of the Law Is an Excuse

http://www.vnews.com/opinion/1...

Brought to you by SCOTUS, lapdogs of jackbooted persons throughout Murica.

They are allowed to speed, wear guns in places that don't allow guns, etc., so why shouldn't they also be allowed to not know the law? If they don't have to obey it, they don't really need to know it. Well, other than to apply it to other people.

For Cops, Ignorance of the Law Is an Excuse

http://www.vnews.com/opinion/1...

Brought to you by SCOTUS, lapdogs of jackbooted persons throughout Murica.

http://www.vnews.com/sexcrimes/recidivism.htm The rates are not as high as people assume.

Unfortunately, sex offenders have a very high recidivism rate. Real sex offenders, that is.

You are wrong again. I don't know what causes you to lie, but unlike you I will give references to my statements of fact:

In Vermont, for instance, correctional officials tracked 195 adult male sex offenders over a six-year period. The sexual re-offense rate for those who completed treatment was 5.4 percent, versus a 30 percent rate for those who refused treatment or did not complete it.

- Reference: http://www.vnews.com/sexcrimes/recidivism.htm

Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense

- Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender#Recidivism_rates

Since it became unconfortable telling parents that their child was killed by someone that it was known would re-offend since very nearly 100% do so.

Typical fear-mongering - probably not your fault, most likely you are just repeating the same "common sense" bullshit that politicians regularly use to rally votes for their "tough on crime" platforms.

At worst ~50% re-offend, and that's for the group of offenders who are (a) young (b) molest boys (c) do not know the victim. Which itself is a very tiny portion of the population of molesters - somewhere on the order of 3% because almost all pedophiles who actual molest a child do it to a family member or a family member of a friend. That ~50% number drops to around 5% if they receive significant counseling. So the actual number of recidivist pedophiles is quite low and would be practically nil if sentencing was focused on rehabilitation rather than revenge.

http://www.vnews.com/sexcrimes/recidivism.htm

• The Obama campaign has renewed my sense of patriotism, long buried under the cynical misuse of patriotism as a cudgel to suppress honest debate and dissent. If you haven't seen it yet, this video captures in four minutes much of the feelings his campaign has rekindled for me.
  
• After the last seven years, I want to feel proud of America again, and help send a message that we as a nation reject torture, fear-based authoritarianism, an unaccountable executive, ideologically-driven anti-science policies, and indefinite war with a constantly changing mission.
  
• I believe Barack Obama is the strongest candidate, with the best chance of garnering enough support across parties, races, genders, religions (including us atheists!), and regions to actually credibly claim a mandate for change. He has a proven record of bringing diverse interests together to get meaningful legislation passed: when he authored a law that required the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases, prosecutors and police adamantly opposed the bill, as well as the governor and most legislators who wanted to look tough on crime. But Obama led a campaign to get it passed, and a key element of that was to quietly but effectively bring together prosecutors, public defenders, police organizations, and death penalty opponents work out an agreement that all groups could endorse. Eventually, the bill was passed unanimously and became law. (the American Bar Association later unanimously adopted a similar resolution)
  
• Despite being considered a visionary, Obama is very conservative (in the traditional Burkean sense), with a pragmatic, minimalist, and consensus-based approach to government.

Sometimes I think that this might actually happen.

Consider this: on one of my regular drives, it's not unusual for me to be pulled over, asked for identification, where I was coming from, and where I'm headed to, and if the officer doesn't like my answers (or I decline to answer), I get to wait until they've checked my ID and vehicle information over.

Seriously, having my US Passport is handy (and I'm about as honky-appearing as they come, I feel sorry for the foreign-appearing folks around here)

Where does this happen? No, this isn't the desert Southwest. This is Interstate 91 in Vermont, 100 miles from the US-Canada border.