It shouldn't be necessary to avail oneself of legal aid to pursue civil torts.
Klayman is a lawyer. A remarkably inept one (he gets an astonishing number of cases thrown out on grounds that most non-lawyers spot immediately.)
You can look up one of his other cases recently in the news where he is representing Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio in a (dismissed, standing) case against President Obama's executive orders on immigration.
I'd feel a lot better about this case if the plaintiff (Klayman) weren't proceeding pro se and actually had a lawyer who knew how to argue a case instead of using his pleadings as a political soap box.
The original red-light camera trial was in Scottsdale Arizona. The city farmed out the study to a university research group, and the cameras were installed at a random selection of the worst red-light-accident [1] intersections. The trial was publicized and ran for several years. The timing of the lights was not changed.
The conclusion of the trial was that the cameras reduced both accidents and injuries. Scottsdale then ran the cameras for years with general public approval, in part because the city has some pretty rational traffic ordinances (like raising the speed limit if most people are going faster anyway) and an open set of books on the program.
The cities that treat red-light violations as a revenue source and especially those that cut yellow times to increase red violations have only themselves to blame for poisoning public opinion. If anything, cameras should be paired with longer yellow times.
Scottsdale is strange that way. They also did studies that showed that traffic flows better and reduces accidents by having left turn after green rather than before. Those results have been mostly ignored by other cities.
PS: I've seen some of the footage from the cameras, by the way -- one truly amazing one of a guy who totally spaced and drove right through an intersection well after cross-traffic was flowing but amazingly managed to miss all of it. Hard to believe.
The brain repairs itself by routing around damage. Although this can restore pre-injury function, it does so by using up "spare" capacity that would otherwise reduce losses due to aging or other insults.
Repeated brain injuries (like multiple subacute impacts per game) go through that reserve capacity quickly. That's what we see in middle-aged professional athletes such as boxers and more recently football players.
As for my age, yup. Retired. But I'm a volunteer emergency medic and we have to stay current, including annual refreshers that cover the state of the art. That includes the findings regarding repetitive subacute brain injuries.
Unless it's a serious concussion, I think most still go unreported.
Aside from the "all concussions are serious" aspect, in a team sport someone being disoriented should be reported by the other team members, if only in the interest of not losing the game.
However, what we're discussing here in particular is the common case where a player is clearly concussed (as in, disoriented or briefly unresponsive) and instead of being sent to hospital is kept on the bench and frequently sent back into the game after a short rest. At best, they're out for the game but back in practice the following school day and playing the following week.
Give them something better than football, and convince them that it really is better, and the world will change.
You mean like election engineering? That does seem to be right up there with football, and remarkably (given that it happens at the same time of year) the two don't seem to be exclusive.
As long as the school budget cuts don't impact the sports program, it's all good. Keeps the kids from getting funny ideas.
And the schools don't dare inform parents of all the risks - parents would say "What, are you crazy? I'm going to risk my kids future so you can get a stupid trophy for your office? DIAF."
I wish you were right, but experience with the parents of brain-damaged young athletes indicates otherwise.
How about we at least stop putting concussed kids back on the field? A concussion is a more serious injury than a freaking broken arm -- I know, I've treated hundreds of both. Nobody ever died of a closed arm fracture, but the same can't be said for a closed head injury.
I'm an emergency medic and unfortuntately meet a lot of kids who have been concussed -- and when they come in saying, "I think I have a concussion, it feels like the ones I get playing football" it's all I can do to not lose my shit right there. The story is always the same: kid gets his bell rung, is either unconscious or maybe A&Ox2 on the field, and if he's more or less functional by the end of the game, he's back on the field.
Those brain cells are gone for good -- and we're talking about minors who are acting under the care of an adult in authority.
Wolves, then seen as unreservedly undesirable, were eradicated from the Yellowstone region by the early 20th century. Between then and the end of the century, coyotes got larger and started hunting in packs, taking the ecological niche that wolves had filled and pursuing larger prey.
Then (1994) we reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone.
Even in the short time since, observed coyotes have gotten smaller and started acting less like apex predators and more like the sneak and scavengers that they are in other habitats where they're threatened by the apex predators.
That's a lot fewer generations than the reported adaptation of lizards in the islands.
The population density of the USA is low in large part because huge portions have no people at all. Yes, the internet access there sucks, but the bears and elk don't really seem to care.
On the other hand, some parts of the USA do have very low population density but still have fat pipes.
Around 25 to 35Mbps depending on the encryption method and how much load that crypt takes.
You say that like it's slow. It's an order of magnitude greater than most Americans can afford. Fiber vs. copper isn't the bottleneck, and neither is encryption bandwidth. The rates providers charge is, and when they switch to fiber the rates per Mbps increase, not decrease.
Of course, the rates per megabit increase regardless.
At least in large parts of the USA, it's that "broadband" isn't affordable. "Basic" DSL or cable, with download rates of less than 5 Mbps, cost upwards of $50/month. Higher speeds are proportionally faster -- and very, very few people even in the USA are willing to pay hundreds of dollars a month for download speeds far less than those taken for granted in other developed countries.
The correlation is not just in the USA, not just the past six years, for another.
And FWIW, the past thirty years have constant-dollar wages in the USA flat while productivity increased. (Household income increased due to increasing hours worked, mostly women.) The exception was during the 90s, when (despite predictions to the contrary) wages actually increased.
Facts on the US part readily available from the lovely search and visualization tools at the St. Lous Federal Reserve.
I have the impression that income taxes are comparatively low in the US whereas the corporate taxes are exceptionally high. Anyone who can comment meaningfully on this?
The statutory tax rate is 35%, which is the highest in the G20. However, there are so many exemptions, deductions, credits, and of course outright avoidance that the actual rate is close to zero.
Unfortunately, that "average corporate tax rate" includes some companies that actually get reamed and others (think General Electric) which are actually net recipients of money thanks to credits.
Slashdot Mirror
Klayman is a lawyer. A remarkably inept one (he gets an astonishing number of cases thrown out on grounds that most non-lawyers spot immediately.) You can look up one of his other cases recently in the news where he is representing Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio in a (dismissed, standing) case against President Obama's executive orders on immigration.
Your high-school civics book is out of date. Two words: "Ciizens United."
I'd feel a lot better about this case if the plaintiff (Klayman) weren't proceeding pro se and actually had a lawyer who knew how to argue a case instead of using his pleadings as a political soap box.
Perhaps not in theory, but in practice? Happens all the time.
The original red-light camera trial was in Scottsdale Arizona. The city farmed out the study to a university research group, and the cameras were installed at a random selection of the worst red-light-accident [1] intersections. The trial was publicized and ran for several years. The timing of the lights was not changed.
The conclusion of the trial was that the cameras reduced both accidents and injuries. Scottsdale then ran the cameras for years with general public approval, in part because the city has some pretty rational traffic ordinances (like raising the speed limit if most people are going faster anyway) and an open set of books on the program.
The cities that treat red-light violations as a revenue source and especially those that cut yellow times to increase red violations have only themselves to blame for poisoning public opinion. If anything, cameras should be paired with longer yellow times.
Scottsdale is strange that way. They also did studies that showed that traffic flows better and reduces accidents by having left turn after green rather than before. Those results have been mostly ignored by other cities.
PS: I've seen some of the footage from the cameras, by the way -- one truly amazing one of a guy who totally spaced and drove right through an intersection well after cross-traffic was flowing but amazingly managed to miss all of it. Hard to believe.
[1] Skip the joke. It's ancient.
The brain repairs itself by routing around damage. Although this can restore pre-injury function, it does so by using up "spare" capacity that would otherwise reduce losses due to aging or other insults.
Repeated brain injuries (like multiple subacute impacts per game) go through that reserve capacity quickly. That's what we see in middle-aged professional athletes such as boxers and more recently football players.
As for my age, yup. Retired. But I'm a volunteer emergency medic and we have to stay current, including annual refreshers that cover the state of the art. That includes the findings regarding repetitive subacute brain injuries.
Aside from the "all concussions are serious" aspect, in a team sport someone being disoriented should be reported by the other team members, if only in the interest of not losing the game.
However, what we're discussing here in particular is the common case where a player is clearly concussed (as in, disoriented or briefly unresponsive) and instead of being sent to hospital is kept on the bench and frequently sent back into the game after a short rest. At best, they're out for the game but back in practice the following school day and playing the following week.
You mean like election engineering? That does seem to be right up there with football, and remarkably (given that it happens at the same time of year) the two don't seem to be exclusive.
As long as the school budget cuts don't impact the sports program, it's all good. Keeps the kids from getting funny ideas.
I wish you were right, but experience with the parents of brain-damaged young athletes indicates otherwise.
He's regenerating CNS tissue? How does that work in animal spinal models?
Ummm -- do you have even the faintest glimmer of a clue as to the consequences of repetitive concussions?
Why, yes, that was a rhetorical question.
Who said anything about not wanting to play football?
How about we at least stop putting concussed kids back on the field? A concussion is a more serious injury than a freaking broken arm -- I know, I've treated hundreds of both. Nobody ever died of a closed arm fracture, but the same can't be said for a closed head injury.
Those brain cells are gone for good -- and we're talking about minors who are acting under the care of an adult in authority.
Nothing really new here.
Wolves, then seen as unreservedly undesirable, were eradicated from the Yellowstone region by the early 20th century. Between then and the end of the century, coyotes got larger and started hunting in packs, taking the ecological niche that wolves had filled and pursuing larger prey.
Then (1994) we reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone.
Even in the short time since, observed coyotes have gotten smaller and started acting less like apex predators and more like the sneak and scavengers that they are in other habitats where they're threatened by the apex predators.
That's a lot fewer generations than the reported adaptation of lizards in the islands.
The population density of the USA is low in large part because huge portions have no people at all. Yes, the internet access there sucks, but the bears and elk don't really seem to care. On the other hand, some parts of the USA do have very low population density but still have fat pipes.
You say that like it's slow. It's an order of magnitude greater than most Americans can afford. Fiber vs. copper isn't the bottleneck, and neither is encryption bandwidth. The rates providers charge is, and when they switch to fiber the rates per Mbps increase, not decrease.
Of course, the rates per megabit increase regardless.
At least in large parts of the USA, it's that "broadband" isn't affordable. "Basic" DSL or cable, with download rates of less than 5 Mbps, cost upwards of $50/month. Higher speeds are proportionally faster -- and very, very few people even in the USA are willing to pay hundreds of dollars a month for download speeds far less than those taken for granted in other developed countries.
The correlation is not just in the USA, not just the past six years, for another.
And FWIW, the past thirty years have constant-dollar wages in the USA flat while productivity increased. (Household income increased due to increasing hours worked, mostly women.) The exception was during the 90s, when (despite predictions to the contrary) wages actually increased.
Facts on the US part readily available from the lovely search and visualization tools at the St. Lous Federal Reserve.
No, I plugged in the wrong number. The actual per-family-of-four value (as you point out) is more like $80K (well above the median income.)
It looks like I plugged in the Federal rather than "all sources" that I claimed. Thanks for catching it.
As noted, all sources. Federal, State, and local.
I included links for that very reason.
US per-capita government spending, all sources, is $12,100 per year (2014). US per-capita income (2014) is $53,960. Half of $53,960 is $26,980
Sources already cited in previous comments.
Total 2014 per-capita spending on welfare, all sources, in the United States is $1538.40
Total 2013 per-capita income in the United States is $53,960 (Google, including World Bank)
$1538.40/$53,960 = 2.85%
The statutory tax rate is 35%, which is the highest in the G20. However, there are so many exemptions, deductions, credits, and of course outright avoidance that the actual rate is close to zero.
Unfortunately, that "average corporate tax rate" includes some companies that actually get reamed and others (think General Electric) which are actually net recipients of money thanks to credits.