nipping the problem in the bud before it happens is a great idea. (though its also good to help those who have fallen into the system)
unfortunately certain groups which shall remain nameless think public education is wrong, and should be privatized, think libraries are a waste of tax dollars, and further support the dog eat dog world of unfettered capitalism and seek the abolition of social programs, the same programs that support at risk individuals and prevent them from making a life altering decision.
Every other column he writes blames the Republicans and calls them idiots.
That's not partisan, that's just empirically derived from past evidence and performance. Advocating defaulting on obligations to pay isn't smart. Nor is cutting taxes on the rich and increasing taxes on the poor though sales and property taxes. Which is the truth of states like Texas that claim low income rates and make it up on non-income taxes, which disproportionately affect those with the lowest incomes, furthering a cycle poverty, instead of ending it.
1-PP's funding comes under an older program meant to provide funds for medical care for low income people, particularly women, which is exactly what PP provides.
2-The state of Oklahoma alone provides more than 500 million in subsidies and tax breaks to oil per year. We even had a budget shortfall this year, of 500 million...purely by coincidence.... When totaled up across all 50 states it except 14 billion a year, and that doesn't include federal give aways to the industry.
3- Medicare/Medicaid are well known as being the single most effective and efficient sectors of the health care industry in this country. (not a debatle statement; economists and industry experts across the spectrum of the debate all agree and acknowledge that fact). While their costs are still higher than most every other peer country of ours, that effect is largely from the market distortion from the other half of the industry (private sector) that overpays by even larger amounts. This is best shown in the datum that in the US care costs ~200% more than other countries, but when separate into public vs private costs, Medicare/Medicaid is only ~50% above average compoarble nations, while private costs are more than 400% above that average. in short: it works quite well,a nd you don't know what the F you're talking about (as usual)
4- The "highway bill" as you so ignorantly name it, is a bandaid, every year it comes up. the HTF is supposed to be funded via the federal gas tax. However it is one of the first places raided for the budget every year, with IOU's put in its place. Every year when it's about to run dry they do another stopgap injection of cash into it, or some other budgetary trick to keep it solvent. It's not a sustainable system.
And no its not one of the largest government programs (again: pure ignorance on your part, as usual).
And this last time it came up, they 'funded' it by essentially taking out a loan from private industry, to the government. A loan to be paid back, with interest. They are effectively directly funding private profits with tax dollars, even more blatantly than usual, when the fiscally and governmentally responsible thing to do would be to increase the gas tax to match the inflation since the last time it was raised, and then link the sucker to the economy, so it never comes up again and permanently end the cycle where the HTF gets more and more underfunded the longer time goes on.
We do have statistics showing that the vast majority of people who commit acts of violence do not have a diagnosis of mental illness and, conversely, people who have mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.
We know that the stigma of people who suffer from mental illness as scary, dangerous potential murderers hurts people every single day — it costs people relationships and jobs, it scares people away from seeking help who need it, it brings shame and fear down on the heads of people who already have it bad enough.
But the media insists on trotting out “mental illness” and blaring out that phrase nonstop in the wake of any mass killing. I had to grit my teeth every time I personally debated someone defaulting to the mindless mantra of “The real issue is mental illness” over the Isla Vista shootings.
“The real issue is mental illness” is a goddamn cop-out. I almost never hear it from actual mental health professionals, or advocates working in the mental health sphere, or anyone who actually has any kind of informed opinion on mental health or serious policy proposals for how to improve our treatment of the mentally ill in this country.
What I hear from people who bleat on about “The real issue is mental illness,” when pressed for specific suggestions on how to deal with said “real issue,” is terrifying nonsense designed to throw the mentally ill under the bus. Elliot Rodger’s parents should’ve been able to force risperidone down his throat. Seung-Hui Cho should’ve been forcibly institutionalized. Anyone with a mental illness diagnosis should surrender all of their constitutional rights, right now, rather than at all compromise the right to bear arms of self-declared sane people.
What’s interesting is to watch who the mentally ill people are being thrown under the bus to defend. In the wake of Sandy Hook, the NRA tells us that creating a national registry of firearms owners would be giving the government dangerously unchecked tyrannical power, but a national registry of the mentally ill would not — even though a “sane” person holding a gun is intrinsically more dangerous than a “crazy” person, no matter how crazy, without a gun.
and
And the big splashy headliner atrocities tend to distract us from the ones that don’t make headline news. People are willing to call one white man emptying five magazines and murdering nine black people in a church and openly saying it was because of race a hate crime, even if they have to then cover it up with the fig leaf of individual “mental illness”–but a white man wearing a uniform who fires two magazines at two people in a car in a “bad neighborhood” in Cleveland? That just ends up a statistic in a DoJ report on systemic bias.
And hundreds of years of history in which an entire country’s economy was set up around chaining up millions of black people, forcing them to work and shooting them if they get out of line? That’s just history.
The reason a certain kind of person loves talking about “mental illness” is to draw attention to the big bold scary exceptional crimes and treat them as exceptions. It’s to distract from the fact that the worst crimes in history were committed by people just doing their jobs–cops enforcing the law, soldiers following orders, bureaucrats signing paperwork. That if we define “sanity” as going along to get along with what’s “normal” in the society around you, then for most of history the sane t
What part of "the founders aren't perfect and gave us a document we can change (and have) for a reason" is so hard to understand?
Times change. Society changes. The constitution can too when we decide some particular aspect of it needs attention.
In the 93 weeks since Sandy Hook, this is school/campus shooting #142. We're batting an average of 1.5 per week.
I'm willing to have another look at the 2nd Amendment and throw the bird to the gun nuts (and i like guns), and so are a growing number of people, as that statistic gets added to with each stupid, preventable, predictable incident every 4.6 days.
so if there's a gun for every man woman and child in this country, why is our gun fatality rate more than 4x higher than any other western nation? why arent we the safest nation on earth?
In the 93 weeks since Sandy Hook, this is school/campus shooting #142. We're batting an average of 1.5 per week. Literally no other advanced nation in the world has such a fucked up statistic.
again with the reminder that almost no place is actually chosen on that basis, but rather that almost all targets/locations are chosen on the basis of a personal connection between the shooter and the location or someone at that location (workplace/school, boss/collegue, ex-spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/etc).
again, you wont care because facts aren't something youre interested in
She can't be there to mentor her kids' homework because she had to pick up an extra shift tonight to make rent thats due tomorrow. An extra shift she's lucky to get because she normally isn't schedule more than 30 hours in a week. she cant get a second job because she never knows her schedule more than 4 days in advance. That 8.25/hr has to stretch over rent, food, utilities, clothes, and daycare, but she manages most months thanks to food stamps and WIC.
Father? He can't be there because hes in jail on some minor possession charge, part of the 1.5 MILLION missing black males, mostly locked in jail or dead, a number which explains why 1 in 4 black males will go to jail in his lifetime (compared to only 1 in 24 white males), and why blacks make up half the prison population even though they're only ~15% of the total population. though that threat of jail is likely better than the other prospect of being shot during an encounter with police, encounters that happen more frequently for black males than for any other group, and something which they face 31 : 1million chance of people shot/killed (odds for white males: 1.5 : 1million, 22 times lower). coincidentally these two factors explain the high numbers of 'single' mothers, and bemoaned lack of father figure role models, in minority communities.
These economic, social, and racial factors (and I barely scratched the surface) are everyday reality for millions of black Americans. These are the institutionalized racism you claim doesn't exist. I assure you, it very much does. And educational outcomes are one of the results, and another of the factors, in this self perpetuating cycle.
and we have more poor people now than we did then (percentage wise).
actually, no. no we don't. as usual, you're wrong and full of BS.
it has to to with liberal policies that have destroyed the family, and disenfranchised women into being single parents, and children raised by other wolf cubs rather than by successful people mentoring them
actually the thing that has destroyed families and led to a growth in single motherhood is the mass incarceration of predominantly minorities, particularly black males. which coincidentally also leads to a lack of mentors...because you know...the whole being in jail thing.
care to try again? this time from a reference point based somewhere in reality?
the fire destroyed 345 buildings in Lower Manhattan in New York City and caused $5 million to $10 million in damage, as well as killing 4 firefighters and 26 civilians. The 1845 fire was the last of three great fires that affected the heart of Manhattan, including fires in 1776 and 1835. The 1845 fire was very destructive, but it affected mostly older wood-frame construction in a confined section of the city. This proved the efficacy of the fire-resistant building practices that had come into play in surrounding areas of the city in previous decades
But nah, building codes are just to make people rich......and serve no justifiable purpose....somehow....
"Over the centuries, building codes have evolved from regulations stemming from tragic experiences to standards designed to prevent them." - The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
The Code of Hammurabi (1800 B.C) is generally recognized as the world’s first building code, although this code was essentially a criminal statute that included capital punishment for shoddy workmanship that resulted in death. The great fires of history including Rome (64 AD), Boston (1631), London (1666), Chicago (1871), Baltimore (1904) and Cleveland Clinic (1929), led to soul-searching and new regulations.
The beginning of modern codes can be traced to the 1897 publication of the NFPA’s National Electrical Code® (NEC®). (Today, the 2014 NFPA 70®: NEC® covers the latest requirements on electrical wiring and equipment installation issues, including provisions for the use of connections, voltage markings, conductors and cables). Early attempts to prevent fires -- predecessors of today’s zoning laws and safety codes -- included requirements for wider streets, limitations on building spacing and height, and elimination of thatched roofs and wooden chimneys in cities. Sanitation concerns were the moving force behind some early codes and over the years, have led to plumbing standards, light and ventilation requirements, minimum room dimensions and other health and safety requirements we take for granted in today’s building codes. Tragic fires at the MGM Grand in 1980 and the Station Nightclub in 2003 led to more recent requirements for fire protection, including sprinkler systems, exit lighting and limits on explosives and pyrotechnics.
Natural disasters also lead to code improvements. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 resulted in the development of more stringent construction standards. The storm that destroyed South Florida revealed a serious deficiency and led to Florida’s first statewide code system. Seismic code provisions appeared first in Italy and Japan in the early 20th Century and in the United States as an appendix to the Uniform Building Code in 1927. Research programs have increased our understanding of earthquakes over the years, and serious research programs beginning in the 1970s led to code upgrades following the Northridge Earthquake in California in 1994. Specific provisions within the IBC, IRC and IEBC are intended to ensure structures can adequately resist seismic forces during earthquakes. These seismic provisions represent the best available guidance on how structures should be designed and constructed to limit seismic risk. FEMA officials, however, say some jurisdictions have been slow to adopt the latest code editions with seismic safety provisions. They warn new structures in these communities will "probably not provide the current minimum level of protection from earthquake hazards." FEMA also is concerned states and local jurisdictions with "high levels of seismic hazard" that have adopted model codes have weakened or excluded seismic provisions.
But then, Hammurabi was a crony capitalist too in your fantasy world I guess....
And look, more about fire and electrical. Like the great London fire, and several others, back when buildings were mostly wood and butted up right against each other, so a fire could destroy an entire city instead of just one home. and they solved it by....legally requiring them to be more spaced out...in a building code...
another important part of the code, sewage and sewage hookups. because who wants to repeat the great cholera epidemic, again in London, caused by a single dirty diaper being disposed of in a cistern that fed drinking water to half the city.
Slashdot Mirror
key lime pie, only you replace the lime with jalapeno.
I already educated you once on the Fairness Doctrine to correct your ignorance.
Do I really need to do so again?
I would say Reagan wasn't a sellout.
And you would be wrong.
almost all of which were for the longterm good of the country...
OK not that's some funny #@% right there.
Every time you speak you reveal your stupidity.
stupid comment is stupid
nipping the problem in the bud before it happens is a great idea. (though its also good to help those who have fallen into the system)
unfortunately certain groups which shall remain nameless think public education is wrong, and should be privatized, think libraries are a waste of tax dollars, and further support the dog eat dog world of unfettered capitalism and seek the abolition of social programs, the same programs that support at risk individuals and prevent them from making a life altering decision.
Every other column he writes blames the Republicans and calls them idiots.
That's not partisan, that's just empirically derived from past evidence and performance.
Advocating defaulting on obligations to pay isn't smart.
Nor is cutting taxes on the rich and increasing taxes on the poor though sales and property taxes. Which is the truth of states like Texas that claim low income rates and make it up on non-income taxes, which disproportionately affect those with the lowest incomes, furthering a cycle poverty, instead of ending it.
economics isn't a science like mathematics or physics or chemistry, which contain hard empirical facts infinitely repeatable.
its a behavioral science, like sociology. and human behavior is extremely unreliable and difficult to predict/replicate with certainty.
1-PP's funding comes under an older program meant to provide funds for medical care for low income people, particularly women, which is exactly what PP provides.
2-The state of Oklahoma alone provides more than 500 million in subsidies and tax breaks to oil per year. We even had a budget shortfall this year, of 500 million...purely by coincidence.... When totaled up across all 50 states it except 14 billion a year, and that doesn't include federal give aways to the industry.
3- Medicare/Medicaid are well known as being the single most effective and efficient sectors of the health care industry in this country. (not a debatle statement; economists and industry experts across the spectrum of the debate all agree and acknowledge that fact). While their costs are still higher than most every other peer country of ours, that effect is largely from the market distortion from the other half of the industry (private sector) that overpays by even larger amounts. This is best shown in the datum that in the US care costs ~200% more than other countries, but when separate into public vs private costs, Medicare/Medicaid is only ~50% above average compoarble nations, while private costs are more than 400% above that average. in short: it works quite well,a nd you don't know what the F you're talking about (as usual)
4- The "highway bill" as you so ignorantly name it, is a bandaid, every year it comes up. the HTF is supposed to be funded via the federal gas tax. However it is one of the first places raided for the budget every year, with IOU's put in its place. Every year when it's about to run dry they do another stopgap injection of cash into it, or some other budgetary trick to keep it solvent. It's not a sustainable system.
And no its not one of the largest government programs (again: pure ignorance on your part, as usual).
And this last time it came up, they 'funded' it by essentially taking out a loan from private industry, to the government. A loan to be paid back, with interest. They are effectively directly funding private profits with tax dollars, even more blatantly than usual, when the fiscally and governmentally responsible thing to do would be to increase the gas tax to match the inflation since the last time it was raised, and then link the sucker to the economy, so it never comes up again and permanently end the cycle where the HTF gets more and more underfunded the longer time goes on.
once again you post
once again someone has to correct you
once again you reveal your ignorance
that doesnt contradict the summary
oh, and its not about mental illness, not solely, and not largely.
makes a convenient excuse though.
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/1...
We do have statistics showing that the vast majority of people who commit acts of violence do not have a diagnosis of mental illness and, conversely, people who have mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.
We know that the stigma of people who suffer from mental illness as scary, dangerous potential murderers hurts people every single day — it costs people relationships and jobs, it scares people away from seeking help who need it, it brings shame and fear down on the heads of people who already have it bad enough.
But the media insists on trotting out “mental illness” and blaring out that phrase nonstop in the wake of any mass killing. I had to grit my teeth every time I personally debated someone defaulting to the mindless mantra of “The real issue is mental illness” over the Isla Vista shootings.
“The real issue is mental illness” is a goddamn cop-out. I almost never hear it from actual mental health professionals, or advocates working in the mental health sphere, or anyone who actually has any kind of informed opinion on mental health or serious policy proposals for how to improve our treatment of the mentally ill in this country.
What I hear from people who bleat on about “The real issue is mental illness,” when pressed for specific suggestions on how to deal with said “real issue,” is terrifying nonsense designed to throw the mentally ill under the bus. Elliot Rodger’s parents should’ve been able to force risperidone down his throat. Seung-Hui Cho should’ve been forcibly institutionalized. Anyone with a mental illness diagnosis should surrender all of their constitutional rights, right now, rather than at all compromise the right to bear arms of self-declared sane people.
What’s interesting is to watch who the mentally ill people are being thrown under the bus to defend. In the wake of Sandy Hook, the NRA tells us that creating a national registry of firearms owners would be giving the government dangerously unchecked tyrannical power, but a national registry of the mentally ill would not — even though a “sane” person holding a gun is intrinsically more dangerous than a “crazy” person, no matter how crazy, without a gun.
and
And the big splashy headliner atrocities tend to distract us from the ones that don’t make headline news. People are willing to call one white man emptying five magazines and murdering nine black people in a church and openly saying it was because of race a hate crime, even if they have to then cover it up with the fig leaf of individual “mental illness”–but a white man wearing a uniform who fires two magazines at two people in a car in a “bad neighborhood” in Cleveland? That just ends up a statistic in a DoJ report on systemic bias.
And hundreds of years of history in which an entire country’s economy was set up around chaining up millions of black people, forcing them to work and shooting them if they get out of line? That’s just history.
The reason a certain kind of person loves talking about “mental illness” is to draw attention to the big bold scary exceptional crimes and treat them as exceptions. It’s to distract from the fact that the worst crimes in history were committed by people just doing their jobs–cops enforcing the law, soldiers following orders, bureaucrats signing paperwork. That if we define “sanity” as going along to get along with what’s “normal” in the society around you, then for most of history the sane t
Talk to Australia about that.
What part of "the founders aren't perfect and gave us a document we can change (and have) for a reason" is so hard to understand?
Times change.
Society changes.
The constitution can too when we decide some particular aspect of it needs attention.
In the 93 weeks since Sandy Hook, this is school/campus shooting #142.
We're batting an average of 1.5 per week.
I'm willing to have another look at the 2nd Amendment and throw the bird to the gun nuts (and i like guns), and so are a growing number of people, as that statistic gets added to with each stupid, preventable, predictable incident every 4.6 days.
so if there's a gun for every man woman and child in this country, why is our gun fatality rate more than 4x higher than any other western nation?
why arent we the safest nation on earth?
In the 93 weeks since Sandy Hook, this is school/campus shooting #142.
We're batting an average of 1.5 per week.
Literally no other advanced nation in the world has such a fucked up statistic.
In the 93 weeks since Sandy Hook, this is school/campus shooting #142.
We're batting an average of 1.5 per week.
it is because someone was a nutjob and decided to go out in a blaze of something-or-other... and had easy nearly unrestricted access to guns.
FTFY
It's why the Onion's Satire just reads like more sad news these days.
Year old, but continually appropriate:
‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
http://www.theonion.com/articl...
again with the gun free zone myth.
again with the reminder that almost no place is actually chosen on that basis, but rather that almost all targets/locations are chosen on the basis of a personal connection between the shooter and the location or someone at that location (workplace/school, boss/collegue, ex-spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/etc).
again, you wont care because facts aren't something youre interested in
Warning: incoming model minority stereotyping.
Not insightful.
Not the least bit.
She can't be there to mentor her kids' homework because she had to pick up an extra shift tonight to make rent thats due tomorrow.
An extra shift she's lucky to get because she normally isn't schedule more than 30 hours in a week.
she cant get a second job because she never knows her schedule more than 4 days in advance.
That 8.25/hr has to stretch over rent, food, utilities, clothes, and daycare, but she manages most months thanks to food stamps and WIC.
Father? He can't be there because hes in jail on some minor possession charge, part of the 1.5 MILLION missing black males, mostly locked in jail or dead, a number which explains why 1 in 4 black males will go to jail in his lifetime (compared to only 1 in 24 white males), and why blacks make up half the prison population even though they're only ~15% of the total population. though that threat of jail is likely better than the other prospect of being shot during an encounter with police, encounters that happen more frequently for black males than for any other group, and something which they face 31 : 1million chance of people shot/killed (odds for white males: 1.5 : 1million, 22 times lower). coincidentally these two factors explain the high numbers of 'single' mothers, and bemoaned lack of father figure role models, in minority communities.
These economic, social, and racial factors (and I barely scratched the surface) are everyday reality for millions of black Americans.
These are the institutionalized racism you claim doesn't exist. I assure you, it very much does.
And educational outcomes are one of the results, and another of the factors, in this self perpetuating cycle.
and we have more poor people now than we did then (percentage wise).
actually, no.
no we don't.
as usual, you're wrong and full of BS.
it has to to with liberal policies that have destroyed the family, and disenfranchised women into being single parents, and children raised by other wolf cubs rather than by successful people mentoring them
actually the thing that has destroyed families and led to a growth in single motherhood is the mass incarceration of predominantly minorities, particularly black males. which coincidentally also leads to a lack of mentors...because you know...the whole being in jail thing.
care to try again?
this time from a reference point based somewhere in reality?
who modded this stupidity insightful?
and again with the fire, since its so easy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
the fire destroyed 345 buildings in Lower Manhattan in New York City and caused $5 million to $10 million in damage, as well as killing 4 firefighters and 26 civilians. The 1845 fire was the last of three great fires that affected the heart of Manhattan, including fires in 1776 and 1835. The 1845 fire was very destructive, but it affected mostly older wood-frame construction in a confined section of the city. This proved the efficacy of the fire-resistant building practices that had come into play in surrounding areas of the city in previous decades
But nah, building codes are just to make people rich......and serve no justifiable purpose....somehow....
here, a brief history: http://www.eesi.org/papers/vie...
B. Brief History of Building Codes
"Over the centuries, building codes have evolved from regulations stemming from tragic experiences to standards designed to prevent them." - The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
The Code of Hammurabi (1800 B.C) is generally recognized as the world’s first building code, although this code was essentially a criminal statute that included capital punishment for shoddy workmanship that resulted in death. The great fires of history including Rome (64 AD), Boston (1631), London (1666), Chicago (1871), Baltimore (1904) and Cleveland Clinic (1929), led to soul-searching and new regulations.
The beginning of modern codes can be traced to the 1897 publication of the NFPA’s National Electrical Code® (NEC®). (Today, the 2014 NFPA 70®: NEC® covers the latest requirements on electrical wiring and equipment installation issues, including provisions for the use of connections, voltage markings, conductors and cables). Early attempts to prevent fires -- predecessors of today’s zoning laws and safety codes -- included requirements for wider streets, limitations on building spacing and height, and elimination of thatched roofs and wooden chimneys in cities. Sanitation concerns were the moving force behind some early codes and over the years, have led to plumbing standards, light and ventilation requirements, minimum room dimensions and other health and safety requirements we take for granted in today’s building codes. Tragic fires at the MGM Grand in 1980 and the Station Nightclub in 2003 led to more recent requirements for fire protection, including sprinkler systems, exit lighting and limits on explosives and pyrotechnics.
Natural disasters also lead to code improvements. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 resulted in the development of more stringent construction standards. The storm that destroyed South Florida revealed a serious deficiency and led to Florida’s first statewide code system. Seismic code provisions appeared first in Italy and Japan in the early 20th Century and in the United States as an appendix to the Uniform Building Code in 1927. Research programs have increased our understanding of earthquakes over the years, and serious research programs beginning in the 1970s led to code upgrades following the Northridge Earthquake in California in 1994. Specific provisions within the IBC, IRC and IEBC are intended to ensure structures can adequately resist seismic forces during earthquakes. These seismic provisions represent the best available guidance on how structures should be designed and constructed to limit seismic risk. FEMA officials, however, say some jurisdictions have been slow to adopt the latest code editions with seismic safety provisions. They warn new structures in these communities will "probably not provide the current minimum level of protection from earthquake hazards." FEMA also is concerned states and local jurisdictions with "high levels of seismic hazard" that have adopted model codes have weakened or excluded seismic provisions.
But then, Hammurabi was a crony capitalist too in your fantasy world I guess....
And look, more about fire and electrical. Like the great London fire, and several others, back when buildings were mostly wood and butted up right against each other, so a fire could destroy an entire city instead of just one home. and they solved it by....legally requiring them to be more spaced out...in a building code...
another important part of the code, sewage and sewage hookups. because who wants to repeat the great cholera epidemic, again in London, caused by a single dirty diaper being disposed of in a cistern that fed drinking water to half the city.
again: you're an idiot