I both read the statistics and read several professional statisticians' analysis of them. I myself am a physicist in a field that is fairly statistics-intensive, enough to confirm that what the statisticians did wasn't crazy or blatantly biased.
"Stupidity on part of gun owner" isn't really a thing that matters here -- the solution to that is "don't be stupid", and it is hardly the fault of a law if someone makes a choice and hurts themselves. We don't ban alcohol despite the fact that beer+stupid causes far more injuries than guns+stupid.
And, I'm sorry, as much as you say "Statistics are bad", if you're going to say "Many people are misguided morons who are more likely to shoot themselves or their loved ones", you're going to need to back that up. The one instance where the Australian gun ban has "done some good", or at least can't be shown to not have done any good, was in reducing the suicide rate somewhat. The reason the overall murder rate in Australia is so much lower (before and after the gun ban) than in the US has everything to do with differences between Australians and Americans, not in the countries' laws.
As far as safety, you're backwards. I have lived in three cities in the US for extended periods: Huntsville AL (liberal gun laws), Tucson AZ (even more liberal gun laws), and Washington DC (essentially a gun ban). Which of those cities is most dangerous? Washington, BY FAR. There are very few places in Tucson I'd be afraid to walk around in after dark. In Washington (despite the fact that it has the highest average income of the three), I've been afraid to walk out of my own door at night.
The race organizers (and the people talking to them) are idiots. They should have realized that they'd not be running another race in NY for a while and didn't really need the generators, and sold them at a 20% (or 50%, or whatever) markup to someone who wanted them, confident in their ability to buy more once stuff got back to normal. More people have generators, and the guys running the race make a profit off of their extra stuff that someone else wanted.
Did you even read his post? There aren't the same number of generators in NYC. He said he lives far away, and is willing to bring his to NYC if paid for it. That makes there be one more generator in New York.
But it clearly *isn't* showing up and making it all better. That's a political issue. But in the absence of the political means for making it all better working, by cutting price signals the mayor has stopped the standard boring economic means from making it better either.
1) There are lots of ways to overcome a tree blocking the road. Suppose you're driving a gas tanker that can't get through because of trees. You know your cargo of gas is worth quite a bit on the inside, so you'll pay folks whatever reasonable wage you can to ride along with you and clear them. Everyone wins: unskilled laborers with hand-saws and wheelbarrows start making $20/hour, the roads get clear, and NYC gets its gas. Nobody is claiming this is a mental exercise in economics; people are saying that economics is the very process that will get people the help they need! See the earlier article about Charleston for an example.
2) Where is the line between the two?
3) And yet there is still not enough gas in New York. Helping out just to be noble is a great form of charity, but charity on its own can't restore the supply chain. People responding to price signals can.
4) Profit is the motivating factor behind not just disaster recovery but behind the whole scheme that provides you food to eat and clothes to wear. We have this fantastic economy that diverts resources to where they are needed automatically; price signals are what controls that diversion, and cutting them prevents the economy from responding to the need for more gas in NYC right at the point where it's needed. And fire departments don't work that way: in the (few) places that have private fire control, it's treated as a form of insurance. I pay you $10/year or whatever, you agree to come put my house out if it burns down. Often they're run through the public sector just because one house on fire is a threat to everyone else's -- this is the reason infectious disease control and fire control are some things where public services from tax money do make sense.
Exactly -- this is the point that people are missing, the supply end of the price curve.
If gas were being sold for $8/gallon in New York (a price that's not that exorbitant, given that it's close to what it costs in half of Europe), everyone and their dog would be buying it elsewhere and bringing it to NYC, driving the price back down. Or some gas station would realize "Y'know, if we just sit on an extra stash, we can make some money next time one of these storms comes through". The more something costs the more incentive folks have to provide it, and by doing so they push the price back down *and* fix scarcity.
Walled gardens are not so bad if there is a door out.
With Google Play you have the app store, but you can also run arbitrary code if you want. Same with Ubuntu: there is the default repository, which has vetted packages that may have everything you will ever need. But it might not, and if so there is gcc.
I've heard iphone users complain that they can't get swype and can't get Google Maps or turn-by-turn navigation or any number of things that are on Android...
My mom's a technically-unsavvy middle school teacher. She was able to download and install Ubuntu on her own and do stuff. If a sixty-year-old woman can figure it out, you probably can too.
I used to commute by bike everywhere in Washington until the Washington ghetto caught up with me and stole it. Washington has no helmet law, and I think helmet laws for adults are stupid.
I wore a helmet almost every time I rode, because I'd be crazy not to. But the one time I mislaid it, I made the informed decision to continue on to work even though I might get hurt, weighing the small extra risk of brain injury against the risk of getting fired. I'd like the ability to make this choice on my own.
And, as other people have said, the biggest risks to cyclists come from shitty drivers -- and, in Washington, a sorry excuse for a bike lane system constructed by someone who clearly has never ridden a bike.
I'm not "conservative". I'm a classical liberal, as some folks define the term -- a philosophy closer to classical conservatism than to either Obama or Romney.
Modern conservatives have pretty uniformly been disasters.
Romney sure isn't going to stand up for my individual liberties. Dig Eisenhower out of his grave (or maybe Goldwater) and I'll vote for a conservative.
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I both read the statistics and read several professional statisticians' analysis of them. I myself am a physicist in a field that is fairly statistics-intensive, enough to confirm that what the statisticians did wasn't crazy or blatantly biased.
"Stupidity on part of gun owner" isn't really a thing that matters here -- the solution to that is "don't be stupid", and it is hardly the fault of a law if someone makes a choice and hurts themselves. We don't ban alcohol despite the fact that beer+stupid causes far more injuries than guns+stupid.
And, I'm sorry, as much as you say "Statistics are bad", if you're going to say "Many people are misguided morons who are more likely to shoot themselves or their loved ones", you're going to need to back that up. The one instance where the Australian gun ban has "done some good", or at least can't be shown to not have done any good, was in reducing the suicide rate somewhat. The reason the overall murder rate in Australia is so much lower (before and after the gun ban) than in the US has everything to do with differences between Australians and Americans, not in the countries' laws.
As far as safety, you're backwards. I have lived in three cities in the US for extended periods: Huntsville AL (liberal gun laws), Tucson AZ (even more liberal gun laws), and Washington DC (essentially a gun ban). Which of those cities is most dangerous? Washington, BY FAR. There are very few places in Tucson I'd be afraid to walk around in after dark. In Washington (despite the fact that it has the highest average income of the three), I've been afraid to walk out of my own door at night.
The race organizers (and the people talking to them) are idiots. They should have realized that they'd not be running another race in NY for a while and didn't really need the generators, and sold them at a 20% (or 50%, or whatever) markup to someone who wanted them, confident in their ability to buy more once stuff got back to normal. More people have generators, and the guys running the race make a profit off of their extra stuff that someone else wanted.
He never mentioned monopolies or vandalism.
Did you even read his post? There aren't the same number of generators in NYC. He said he lives far away, and is willing to bring his to NYC if paid for it. That makes there be one more generator in New York.
A guy willing to buy gas at $150/gallon would be a massive boon to the poor.
Not at all; I prefer rationing by price because it goes away sooner as the market responds and people find ways to bring in more gas.
If there is a shortage, you're relying on FEMA to fix it.
If you can't afford it because the price is too high, you're relying on people seeking profit to bring in more supplies and drive the price back down.
Which of these things is going to bring in more gas more quickly?
(Ideally, we have them both going in parallel...)
But it clearly *isn't* showing up and making it all better. That's a political issue. But in the absence of the political means for making it all better working, by cutting price signals the mayor has stopped the standard boring economic means from making it better either.
Actually, statistical analysis of the overall murder rate before and after the gun ban doesn't show any causal relationship.
Australia was one of the safest countries to live in before the gun ban; this has to do with the Australian people and culture, not Australian laws.
1) There are lots of ways to overcome a tree blocking the road. Suppose you're driving a gas tanker that can't get through because of trees. You know your cargo of gas is worth quite a bit on the inside, so you'll pay folks whatever reasonable wage you can to ride along with you and clear them. Everyone wins: unskilled laborers with hand-saws and wheelbarrows start making $20/hour, the roads get clear, and NYC gets its gas. Nobody is claiming this is a mental exercise in economics; people are saying that economics is the very process that will get people the help they need! See the earlier article about Charleston for an example.
2) Where is the line between the two?
3) And yet there is still not enough gas in New York. Helping out just to be noble is a great form of charity, but charity on its own can't restore the supply chain. People responding to price signals can.
4) Profit is the motivating factor behind not just disaster recovery but behind the whole scheme that provides you food to eat and clothes to wear. We have this fantastic economy that diverts resources to where they are needed automatically; price signals are what controls that diversion, and cutting them prevents the economy from responding to the need for more gas in NYC right at the point where it's needed. And fire departments don't work that way: in the (few) places that have private fire control, it's treated as a form of insurance. I pay you $10/year or whatever, you agree to come put my house out if it burns down. Often they're run through the public sector just because one house on fire is a threat to everyone else's -- this is the reason infectious disease control and fire control are some things where public services from tax money do make sense.
Exactly -- this is the point that people are missing, the supply end of the price curve.
If gas were being sold for $8/gallon in New York (a price that's not that exorbitant, given that it's close to what it costs in half of Europe), everyone and their dog would be buying it elsewhere and bringing it to NYC, driving the price back down. Or some gas station would realize "Y'know, if we just sit on an extra stash, we can make some money next time one of these storms comes through". The more something costs the more incentive folks have to provide it, and by doing so they push the price back down *and* fix scarcity.
[citation needed]
Cite an actual statute, please, not just a ruling by an idiot judge.
Walled gardens are not so bad if there is a door out.
With Google Play you have the app store, but you can also run arbitrary code if you want. Same with Ubuntu: there is the default repository, which has vetted packages that may have everything you will ever need. But it might not, and if so there is gcc.
I've heard iphone users complain that they can't get swype and can't get Google Maps or turn-by-turn navigation or any number of things that are on Android...
My mom's a technically-unsavvy middle school teacher. She was able to download and install Ubuntu on her own and do stuff. If a sixty-year-old woman can figure it out, you probably can too.
Grandparent is being snarky, satirizing all of the patents for "X on a computer!" or "X on the internet!", where X is a well-known thing.
I used to commute by bike everywhere in Washington until the Washington ghetto caught up with me and stole it. Washington has no helmet law, and I think helmet laws for adults are stupid.
I wore a helmet almost every time I rode, because I'd be crazy not to. But the one time I mislaid it, I made the informed decision to continue on to work even though I might get hurt, weighing the small extra risk of brain injury against the risk of getting fired. I'd like the ability to make this choice on my own.
And, as other people have said, the biggest risks to cyclists come from shitty drivers -- and, in Washington, a sorry excuse for a bike lane system constructed by someone who clearly has never ridden a bike.
There is a big difference between censorship and the prosecution of fraud.
I'm not "conservative". I'm a classical liberal, as some folks define the term -- a philosophy closer to classical conservatism than to either Obama or Romney.
Modern conservatives have pretty uniformly been disasters.
Romney's going to spend like a drunken warmonger, on the other hand.
Romney sure isn't going to stand up for my individual liberties. Dig Eisenhower out of his grave (or maybe Goldwater) and I'll vote for a conservative.
I *would* fly naked if they'd let me skip the damned checkpoints.
And Bin Laden succeeded between his wildest dreams.
Fly two airplanes into buildings and watch a giant autoimmune reaction hurt the US vastly out of proportion to anything he could have done.
Bush is the one who gave us the TSA, and started overpaying them in the first place. You really think Romney'd change anything?
So before someone speaks in India they have to wonder whether what they're about to say is going to make some crazy people have a riot?