Having just spent a whole day watching a criminal courtroom -- you are right. Our courts are "clogged" because they're full of trivial offenses, mostly plea-bargained down from a "we're gonna screw you to the wall" accusation to ensure a conviction.
An example from yesterday's court: Some kid (probably 20YO and with a 20YO's lack of sense) had evidently followed a girl into a public restroom in search of a kiss, the sort of thing tipsy teens will do at a frat party. Nothing too serious. In a sane world, the cops say "Hey now, move along!" and that's the end of it. In our crazy world. this kid is convicted of "loitering" (a sure conviction, in lieu of the threatened charge of sexual assault) and now has a priorable offense under California's loony "three strikes" law.
BUT... I also worked out what the fines and penalties come to, and on average it's about $200 per minute of court time, PLUS a whole bunch of free labor from community service requirements (much of which is contracted out to businesses too cheap to hire real employees -- I personally know of two that do so), PLUS a bunch of fairly expensive "programs" that various offenders are required to sign up for. (Frex, DUIs have to attend four or five different ones.) All this at no risk to the court, being almost entirely trivial offenses. In short, the system has evolved into a profit center.
On top of this, LEOs often lie under oath or fabricate evidence (I have some firsthand knowledge of this) and since this will always help the prosecutor's conviction record, it's winked at. Frankly they should not be allowed to do anything we citizens cannot do; anything else creates a second class citizenry (the rest of us).
So, yeah, the whole thing needs to be fixed, and foremost the plea-bargain system needs to go, since it is mainly used to gain a conviction despite shaky or nonexistent evidence.... which I'd say is already tipping over into the realm of "crimes which haven't happened".
Mystery writers "make preparations to murder someone" all the time. On paper, in books that are widely published. Some even act out the circumstances to determine if it's sufficiently plausible before committing it to paper.
Distressed teenagers often conduct fantasies of murder or mass destruction, as a way of venting. At the time they may even "intend" to do it, but of course the overwhelming majority never do so.
How do you distinguish between such fantasy "murders" and in the real thing? The fact is, you can't.
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." -- attrib. Cardinal Richelieu (1585 -1642)
In modern parlance, "Anything you say can and will be used against you."
While you are correct (yes, my long-ago history teachers gave us the real story, not the sanitized one), the principle is still the same: "We left so we could do as we want, not as other people dictate. What we *want* is to dictate what others are allowed to do."
I'd say that our new class of surveillance overlords have a great deal in common with those early colonists. And we should give them the same choice as did the fed-up Dutch: "Either take the next ship out, or walk into the ocean. We've had enough of your shit."
Phone companies have been doing that for a long time. They're required to collect a certain amount of gov't-imposed fees, but anything they can collect over and above that amount, they get to keep. Last I heard, the phone companies were thus keeping about 80% of the charged amounts... that $4 fee on your bill being only a buck or so when it came from the gov't.
There was a study done some years back (which I can't find again offhand) which concluded that "redevelopment" and expansion actually are a net loss to cities over time, since it's not just the upfront infrastructure investment, it's the maintenance and more the replacement costs on down the line that will eat you alive. Property tax increases can't make up the difference, unless you're willing to tax everyone out of house and home.
As to the deals being made, if such deals went down anywhere else they'd be called kickbacks and corruption. Here again -- why is gov't immune to what the citizens are not? If we made such deals (or cooked our books to make such deals look good) we'd wind up in jail!
It's kinda like how hosting the Olympics sounds great until you actually run the numbers not only for now but ALSO for the lifetime of the investment, and discover the lurking bankruptcy in your future.
After 1997 (mid-1997 for the F250s) Ford did so many changes to the body dimensions that I can't use 'em anymore. So I haven't been looking at anything more recent. Worse, the newer body styles look like a Dodge, they're embarrassing.:P~
Also, I've noticed there's a "dead" period in the used F-series market from 1998 thru the end of the 6.0 engine... usually such a dead spot means they died young (not many still alive to be available), and I've heard no good of that 6.0 from anyone. Conversely there seem to be a LOT of pre-1998s out there, most with over 200k miles on 'em, so the survival rate is overall good.
What would you call "high mileage"? (saw one listed with 800k on it and all original, not rebuilt!)
The Powerstroke rates at about 25% more torque than the IDI but in actual practice, folks say it'll do about the same work. I'm not gonna be racing it anyway, just hauling heavy loads cross-country.
I don't suppose we'll see Butanol in the U.S. any time soon, but it would be interesting to try it in the old truck and see how it performs... it's quite sensitive to fuel quality (tho not so much as when it was young).
Yeah, planning on around $5000 -- 95/96/97 models are my target for various reasons (tho so far the best prospect is a rather ugly but mechanically sound '94 F350 with 235k miles on it... has the turbo, still slow to get going, tho will pull a house. Good thing I'm not usually in a rush.:) Looked at some duds tho... I gotta wonder how someone wears out that Ford front end without actually hitting something. Mine isn't near as heavy duty, has worked its poor little ass off for 34 years, and it's still good!
Good info about the injector pump, thanks.
My old truck isn't notably worse on the gas on hills; headwind is what really sucks down its MPG, to the point that when I can, I contrive to avoid bucking it.
Someone gift me three (three??!) really old Mercury wheels that are 17" and about 3" wide, and as it happens fit the F100. Not sure what I'm gonna do with 'em but the price was right. -- I run all-weather tires myself, prefer how they handle -- the F100 is very surefooted under all conditions.
To the nominal topic... I'm wondering what kind of future-fuel could be used in these older gas engines -- does Butenol really work? (F100 doesn't like ethanol at all. Runs hot, no power.)
And it won't be remotely chemically consistent, so what you can do with it is limited... maybe compress it into bricks, coat the bricks with sealant, and use 'em to resurface aging roads.
Can't the usual UNIX permissions do something about that, like make an upload write-only and proof against deletion or overwrite? If not, clearly we need an app that can be set/passworded to perform that way.
What we need is enough publicly visible police brutality that the same thing happens as has with "airline terrorists" -- where after 9/11, now the passengers are willing to jump and subdue the terrorist. We aren't yet to that stage with the police, but I wonder if we should be.
You've seen the "Don't Talk To Cops" video? (it's on YouTube, in two parts)
I think you are right, tho... when cops aren't required to follow the same rules as the rest of us, many feel free to be dishonest.... after all, there's no penalty to them, and possibly a "benefit" (getting credit for a bust based on bogus information).
And quite probably the only people who'd be worse as lawmakers than what we've got... are the cops. Think how many times police action has been overturned for some rights violation, and imagine that as everyday law you'd have to live with. I'll take our current largely-corrupt politicians over that (where "corrupt" is defined principally as "kowtowing to special interests rather than serving the People").
I initially misread someone's post above as saying we'd be better off if actual "criminals" (the kind presently in prison) made the laws. Now that I think about it... that may not be so far off. Might they not be more fair to the common man than our current tiered-rights system, where police and politicians are "more equal" than the rest of us??
And what if music CDs had unskippable anti-piracy warnings, plus advertisements for other formats (you own the CD, you know you want the vinyl and the DVD!) and promo clips from bands you don't even like?? So before you get to listen to the content you PAID for, you're forced to hear up to 10 minutes (proportional to the worst of the current DVDs, with 20 minutes of such junk) of garbage... or hit mute and wait for it to be over. Oh wait, legal players no longer have a mute button.
Yeah, that would last about two seconds in the market. So why do we put up with this treatment just because it's a DVD?
The light had just turned red, and from long experience (and having timed it) I knew that this light can take as long as 7 MINUTES to cycle, and never cycles in less than 2 minutes. A couple blocks behind it is the fire station. And no sooner did traffic halt at the red light than here comes a fire truck, obviously in a hellacious hurry, with no way to get past the stopped cars.
I was the only car in the left-turn-only lane; the other three lanes were stacked up. The median barrier is substantial and not "jumpable" nor is there curb room on the other side. Traffic had halted on the "green" sides of the light, apparently able to see/hear the firetruck coming.
It was obvious that either someone had to move or the firetruck would have to wait several minutes for the light to change (and there's no other route past this area without going miles out of your way). And I was the logical choice, as the single vehicle in my lane. So -- I ran the red light. The firetruck (he was still half a block back when I made the decision) immediately hightailed it for the space I'd vacated, and went ripping on up the street as fast as a 6-ton vehicle can go.
Seven minutes is enough time for a house fire to go from minor to disaster. Judged against the possibility of being written a ticket and having to dredge up the fire captain as a witness in my defense (I was doing my primary duty to get the hell out of an emergency vehicle's way), it seemed a small risk. Tho if cross-traffic had not sensibly stopped, I could not have done this -- in full spate it's a 50mph intersection.
So, yeah, the basic rule is good, but sometimes it needs to be followed in spirit rather than to the letter. The whole point is to let the emergency vehicle have the right of way as efficiently as possible.
'...you could also argue, that a negative critic in the newspaper is "theft", because it causes lost sales.'
Haven't there been some lawsuits which argued exactly that? (this is already 110% of what I remember about it. Maybe someone who does remember will chime in.)
Borderline hypothyroid will also cause those symptoms. Especially the being sleepy yet sleeping poorly, and random pain especially in the back muscles, hands, and feet.
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Having just spent a whole day watching a criminal courtroom -- you are right. Our courts are "clogged" because they're full of trivial offenses, mostly plea-bargained down from a "we're gonna screw you to the wall" accusation to ensure a conviction.
An example from yesterday's court: Some kid (probably 20YO and with a 20YO's lack of sense) had evidently followed a girl into a public restroom in search of a kiss, the sort of thing tipsy teens will do at a frat party. Nothing too serious. In a sane world, the cops say "Hey now, move along!" and that's the end of it. In our crazy world. this kid is convicted of "loitering" (a sure conviction, in lieu of the threatened charge of sexual assault) and now has a priorable offense under California's loony "three strikes" law.
BUT... I also worked out what the fines and penalties come to, and on average it's about $200 per minute of court time, PLUS a whole bunch of free labor from community service requirements (much of which is contracted out to businesses too cheap to hire real employees -- I personally know of two that do so), PLUS a bunch of fairly expensive "programs" that various offenders are required to sign up for. (Frex, DUIs have to attend four or five different ones.) All this at no risk to the court, being almost entirely trivial offenses. In short, the system has evolved into a profit center.
On top of this, LEOs often lie under oath or fabricate evidence (I have some firsthand knowledge of this) and since this will always help the prosecutor's conviction record, it's winked at. Frankly they should not be allowed to do anything we citizens cannot do; anything else creates a second class citizenry (the rest of us).
So, yeah, the whole thing needs to be fixed, and foremost the plea-bargain system needs to go, since it is mainly used to gain a conviction despite shaky or nonexistent evidence.... which I'd say is already tipping over into the realm of "crimes which haven't happened".
Two contrary examples:
Mystery writers "make preparations to murder someone" all the time. On paper, in books that are widely published. Some even act out the circumstances to determine if it's sufficiently plausible before committing it to paper.
Distressed teenagers often conduct fantasies of murder or mass destruction, as a way of venting. At the time they may even "intend" to do it, but of course the overwhelming majority never do so.
How do you distinguish between such fantasy "murders" and in the real thing? The fact is, you can't.
For those who don't get the reference:
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
-- attrib. Cardinal Richelieu (1585 -1642)
In modern parlance, "Anything you say can and will be used against you."
Politicians will not change their behavior until politics is no longer a full-time job.
FTFY.
While you are correct (yes, my long-ago history teachers gave us the real story, not the sanitized one), the principle is still the same: "We left so we could do as we want, not as other people dictate. What we *want* is to dictate what others are allowed to do."
I'd say that our new class of surveillance overlords have a great deal in common with those early colonists. And we should give them the same choice as did the fed-up Dutch: "Either take the next ship out, or walk into the ocean. We've had enough of your shit."
And I'm thinkin' that deer-huntin' season is just a few months away.....
Either we stop this surveillance crap NOW, by any means necessary, or a total surveillance state WILL be our future.
If it's "not too intrusive" they won't care if I cover my face, right??
No, no, no.
"Proud would I be!" -- Yoda
And leaving the DEA and the companies that make and promote the scanners sadly destitute.
Phone companies have been doing that for a long time. They're required to collect a certain amount of gov't-imposed fees, but anything they can collect over and above that amount, they get to keep. Last I heard, the phone companies were thus keeping about 80% of the charged amounts... that $4 fee on your bill being only a buck or so when it came from the gov't.
There was a study done some years back (which I can't find again offhand) which concluded that "redevelopment" and expansion actually are a net loss to cities over time, since it's not just the upfront infrastructure investment, it's the maintenance and more the replacement costs on down the line that will eat you alive. Property tax increases can't make up the difference, unless you're willing to tax everyone out of house and home.
As to the deals being made, if such deals went down anywhere else they'd be called kickbacks and corruption. Here again -- why is gov't immune to what the citizens are not? If we made such deals (or cooked our books to make such deals look good) we'd wind up in jail!
It's kinda like how hosting the Olympics sounds great until you actually run the numbers not only for now but ALSO for the lifetime of the investment, and discover the lurking bankruptcy in your future.
After 1997 (mid-1997 for the F250s) Ford did so many changes to the body dimensions that I can't use 'em anymore. So I haven't been looking at anything more recent. Worse, the newer body styles look like a Dodge, they're embarrassing. :P~
Also, I've noticed there's a "dead" period in the used F-series market from 1998 thru the end of the 6.0 engine... usually such a dead spot means they died young (not many still alive to be available), and I've heard no good of that 6.0 from anyone. Conversely there seem to be a LOT of pre-1998s out there, most with over 200k miles on 'em, so the survival rate is overall good.
What would you call "high mileage"? (saw one listed with 800k on it and all original, not rebuilt!)
The Powerstroke rates at about 25% more torque than the IDI but in actual practice, folks say it'll do about the same work. I'm not gonna be racing it anyway, just hauling heavy loads cross-country.
I don't suppose we'll see Butanol in the U.S. any time soon, but it would be interesting to try it in the old truck and see how it performs... it's quite sensitive to fuel quality (tho not so much as when it was young).
Yeah, planning on around $5000 -- 95/96/97 models are my target for various reasons (tho so far the best prospect is a rather ugly but mechanically sound '94 F350 with 235k miles on it ... has the turbo, still slow to get going, tho will pull a house. Good thing I'm not usually in a rush. :) Looked at some duds tho... I gotta wonder how someone wears out that Ford front end without actually hitting something. Mine isn't near as heavy duty, has worked its poor little ass off for 34 years, and it's still good!
Good info about the injector pump, thanks.
My old truck isn't notably worse on the gas on hills; headwind is what really sucks down its MPG, to the point that when I can, I contrive to avoid bucking it.
Someone gift me three (three??!) really old Mercury wheels that are 17" and about 3" wide, and as it happens fit the F100. Not sure what I'm gonna do with 'em but the price was right. -- I run all-weather tires myself, prefer how they handle -- the F100 is very surefooted under all conditions.
To the nominal topic... I'm wondering what kind of future-fuel could be used in these older gas engines -- does Butenol really work? (F100 doesn't like ethanol at all. Runs hot, no power.)
And it won't be remotely chemically consistent, so what you can do with it is limited... maybe compress it into bricks, coat the bricks with sealant, and use 'em to resurface aging roads.
Can't the usual UNIX permissions do something about that, like make an upload write-only and proof against deletion or overwrite? If not, clearly we need an app that can be set/passworded to perform that way.
What we need is enough publicly visible police brutality that the same thing happens as has with "airline terrorists" -- where after 9/11, now the passengers are willing to jump and subdue the terrorist. We aren't yet to that stage with the police, but I wonder if we should be.
The AC is correct -- as I posted above, this is actually a crime under federal law:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/241
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242
See U.S. Code Title 18 Sections 241 and 242:
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/241fin.php
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242
[goes off, reads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol_fuel ]
I'm wondering if this process could be applied to municipal dumps, to "digest" a majority of the organics and leave behind the metal and glass.
Ah, another Ford dude :D I've been looking for an older F250 or F350 with the 7.3 as a tow rig. What, realistically, should I expect for MPG?
For comparison, my old F100 with the 302-V8 gets 20mpg dead empty, 12-14mpg with the everyday load, or about half that towing. :(
You've seen the "Don't Talk To Cops" video? (it's on YouTube, in two parts)
I think you are right, tho ... when cops aren't required to follow the same rules as the rest of us, many feel free to be dishonest.... after all, there's no penalty to them, and possibly a "benefit" (getting credit for a bust based on bogus information).
And quite probably the only people who'd be worse as lawmakers than what we've got ... are the cops. Think how many times police action has been overturned for some rights violation, and imagine that as everyday law you'd have to live with. I'll take our current largely-corrupt politicians over that (where "corrupt" is defined principally as "kowtowing to special interests rather than serving the People").
I initially misread someone's post above as saying we'd be better off if actual "criminals" (the kind presently in prison) made the laws. Now that I think about it... that may not be so far off. Might they not be more fair to the common man than our current tiered-rights system, where police and politicians are "more equal" than the rest of us??
And what if music CDs had unskippable anti-piracy warnings, plus advertisements for other formats (you own the CD, you know you want the vinyl and the DVD!) and promo clips from bands you don't even like?? So before you get to listen to the content you PAID for, you're forced to hear up to 10 minutes (proportional to the worst of the current DVDs, with 20 minutes of such junk) of garbage ... or hit mute and wait for it to be over. Oh wait, legal players no longer have a mute button.
Yeah, that would last about two seconds in the market. So why do we put up with this treatment just because it's a DVD?
I have personally done so.
The light had just turned red, and from long experience (and having timed it) I knew that this light can take as long as 7 MINUTES to cycle, and never cycles in less than 2 minutes. A couple blocks behind it is the fire station. And no sooner did traffic halt at the red light than here comes a fire truck, obviously in a hellacious hurry, with no way to get past the stopped cars.
I was the only car in the left-turn-only lane; the other three lanes were stacked up. The median barrier is substantial and not "jumpable" nor is there curb room on the other side. Traffic had halted on the "green" sides of the light, apparently able to see/hear the firetruck coming.
It was obvious that either someone had to move or the firetruck would have to wait several minutes for the light to change (and there's no other route past this area without going miles out of your way). And I was the logical choice, as the single vehicle in my lane. So -- I ran the red light. The firetruck (he was still half a block back when I made the decision) immediately hightailed it for the space I'd vacated, and went ripping on up the street as fast as a 6-ton vehicle can go.
Seven minutes is enough time for a house fire to go from minor to disaster. Judged against the possibility of being written a ticket and having to dredge up the fire captain as a witness in my defense (I was doing my primary duty to get the hell out of an emergency vehicle's way), it seemed a small risk. Tho if cross-traffic had not sensibly stopped, I could not have done this -- in full spate it's a 50mph intersection.
So, yeah, the basic rule is good, but sometimes it needs to be followed in spirit rather than to the letter. The whole point is to let the emergency vehicle have the right of way as efficiently as possible.
'...you could also argue, that a negative critic in the newspaper is "theft", because it causes lost sales.'
Haven't there been some lawsuits which argued exactly that? (this is already 110% of what I remember about it. Maybe someone who does remember will chime in.)
Borderline hypothyroid will also cause those symptoms. Especially the being sleepy yet sleeping poorly, and random pain especially in the back muscles, hands, and feet.