The vast majority of nuclear waste is not spent fuel, it is decommissioned equipment and disposable maintenance supplies that have been made radioactive by exposure to ionizing radiation. None of this stuff can be reprocessed in any meaningful way. Yet, frustratingly, it is still dangerous.
While I am pro-nuclear, I do not think we win when we make strawman arguments.
So, I am not saying that this is what happened in this instance, because I could not bear to RTFA, but in the Federal system, this is allowed.
When a federal defendant is convicted of (or pleads guilty to) a felony, the judge is allowed to also sentence him/her to additional time/conditions for unindicted crimes, so long as the additional crimes are considered relevant to the original criminal conduct (thus the term: "relevant conduct"). Problematically, relevant conduct charges do not have to be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, merely on the 'preponderance of evidence'. This just means 'most likely he did it'. Also, this determination is not made by the jury (assuming it was a trial case), it is decided by the judge.
One problem this causes is that it puts the defense counsel in an awkward position. How much energy does he put into figuring out what prosecutorial assertions will be used at sentencing, and how much energy should he put into refuting them? Remember that the prosecutor has WAY more resources to put into each case than the defense does.
Another problem is the resulting radical disparities in sentences. I was locked up with a guy who went to trial on a (large) drug case. He beat the government on 11 out of 12 charges, the remaining charge should have carried a little over 10 years. Instead, the judge was offended that he fought so hard, so she enhanced his sentence with almost every single casual allegation of the prosecutor. He wound up with 365 months (yeah, over 30 years) for a single charge, first time offender, non-violent drug offense.
Technically, sure. As long as you object to the sentence AT TIME OF SENTENCING, you have a right to appeal. However, if the judge details why the sentence is appropriate to the crime and circumstance, there is very little likelihood of having an appeal heard.
This is further complicated by the effect of the Pre-Sentencing Report or Pre-Sentencing Investigation (PSR, or PSI). This is the report of an investigation completed by the US Probation office that details the offense and relevant statutes. It's a whole other kettle of fish, to big to go into here.
I robbed banks specifically because I couldn't escape poverty. I'm not saying I'm the best guy ever to live, but let's not pretend that poverty doesn't cause crime.
I don't disagree with a lot of what you say, but I am skeptical of the 'full employment' situation. I think there's a large population of highly qualified people working low paying 'underemployment' jobs.
I think this is why there is no large wage inflation in the bottom half of the labor market. Companies are still not competing for workers. There are tons of people still looking for a better/additional job.
I also think this is why all the help wanted adds I see still have an exhaustive list of qualifications for every job. Employers can still be picky.
In the Feds, almost everybody has a job. Some of them are regular factory jobs, some are scrubbing showers every day, some are shoveling snow for 12 hours a year.
Most people who do not want to work just try to get into one of the jobs that has extremely low utilization (like the snow job mentioned above). All jobs are compensated, although poorly. Our kitchen workers averaged about $30 / month, except for the actual cooks who made around $75 - $100 / month. In the factory we had guys coming close to $1000 / month during the busy season. I maxed out at about $800, but half of that was taken as restitution, so I kept about $400 / month.
A single guy who refuses to work will get a 'shot' (disciplinary report) for 'Failing to Program" and face an escalating series of punishments. First he loses the ability to buy stuff at the commissary. Then he gets put in a bad cube / cell. Then he starts getting thrown in the SHU (Special Housing Unit - AKA the 'hole'). Then they start taking good time away from him, which actually extends his prison sentence. In the Feds you can earn good time to reduce your sentence by about 13%. In the worst case they could transfer him to some other, shittier, more violent prison.
A group of guys who refuse to work is considered a 'strike'. They will immediately lose all privileges and then good time. Then they will all be transferred to different places, and they'll be lucky not to catch an additional charge for rioting or inciting riot.
The inmates outnumber the guards until something happens. Then a bunch of other guards show up armed with clubs, tasers, and teargas. This why you only hear about riots where guards and staff are taken hostage. This is the only thing that holds back the guys with the clubs.
I would just like to point out that they don't make National Geographic specials about all of the prisons where all that shit never happens. They make them about the warrior academies and the zoos. Please don't mistake that for the norm. Many of the prisoners at my prison would watch those same specials in awe and disgust.
He gets caught growing and selling pot. He gets 5 years, does 3, then he's on probation (although some states he gets a slap on the wrist, it depends). Can't get a job, hard to get a girl without money, he's living at risk.
Decides to take a risk and starts a little cocaine business, really just to support himself while he tries to find a sustainable path to legitimate income. Keeps it small, keeps his head down, until one of his customers gets arrested for something else and rats him out. Now it's federal and he gets 10 years, does a little over 8 inside.
Now he's stuck. He's on federal supervised release (probation) and his probation officer calls every company that gives him a job to make sure he's doing OK. This freaks the management out, and he can't keep a job. Maybe he's getting food stamps, maybe rental assistance, maybe he has access to medical care, maybe not.
He's been out of society for almost a decade, it's hard for him to talk to 'normal' people. (On a side note, I got locked up in 2007 a couple of months before the iPhone came out. When I was released in 2016 I had literally never touched a smartphone, or seen one up close. Imagine the readjustment.) He can't relax, he feels like he is in a slow motion car crash, all the time. So, he makes another bad decision. He's probably not really a bad guy. He just can't see the way forward.
He tries to pull a robbery, just to get enough cash to get some breathing room. He just needs some time. So, he goes for it. But then a cop shows up. Does he surrender, or does he shoot it out?
He's a three time loser, now. He'll probably get a career offender charge, he's looking at 15 years minimum. He won't go back to a Low security facility, probably start at a Medium. Way more violent. More gangs.
And he's tired. He's tired of the stress, he's tired of people he can't talk to or relax around, he's tired of being afraid of people finding out that he's a criminal, he's tired of being threatened by his PO. He's tired of being a loser.
What's he got to lose?
I think we would do well to consider how we are incentivizing his behavior.
Ok, but good luck getting guards to work there. Your second paragraph comes close to a recitation of some of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' program statement on prison administration. So, that's technically what we have right now! Yay!
The problem in the prisons is not the words, it's the culture.
Fluoride helps the body fight de-mineralization of (and supposedly can help RE-mineralize) calcium deposits, basically teeth and bones. The benefits are dependent on proper dosage.
Putting fluoride in the drinking water at concentrations of about 0.7 parts-per-million helps significantly reduce the incidence of leg, hip, and wrist breaks in the elderly after falls. That is reduce, not eliminate. Higher concentrations (above about 2 ppm, IIRC) become toxic and cause other problems.
However, 0.7 ppm is not strong enough to really help teeth. Toothpaste is applied topically, so it can have a very high concentration of fluoride (also why you are never supposed to swallow fluoridated toothpaste).
IANAL. If I remember correctly, that due process requirement was explicitly tied to presence in the territory of the U.S. I also think the searches at the border are associated with the extra-territoriality of the ports and airports (i.e., you're not "in" the U.S. until you clear Customs, or some such)?
I think it's a wash. They'll probably be treated the same as citizens, except that they'll be way more likely to be denied entry.
FWIW, it is weird to see this come out of the 4th Circuit. Usually those guys go hard.
Interestingly, that question has already been decided, and I think they got it wrong both ways.
The law already applies to residents/citizens of foreign countries. I was locked up for several years with many foreign nationals who exported cocaine that wound up in America. Some of them did not even have a direct connect to anyone in the US. Just, bang! Midnight arrest, short plane flight, handover to federal agents, and next thing they knew a public defender was telling them they were in the US and they would be seeing a judge in a couple of days.
Somehow, though, it does NOT apply to American citizens overseas. I have read cases of the FBI conducting/leading searches of Americans' property and residences overseas with no warrant and no judicial oversight. Obama even had a citizen assassinated overseas after making the determination that he was a terrorist. That's not how that's supposed to work.
Um, full disclosure, FWIW. I am a convicted felon, served 9 years for armed bank robbery and carjacking. I am a liberal and I align much more closely with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party.
I think he was being snarky, but many of the other people mentioning the President are probably implying that the current administration's actions have become so egregious that courts are starting to reign in behaviors that have been previously overlooked.
I don't think you have to complain about him not fixing everything to stop loving Obama. He had an American citizen overseas assassinated after determining that he was a terrorist. That's not how that's supposed to work.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you really just say that they are lowering their prices to keep up their profit margins?
The vast majority of nuclear waste is not spent fuel, it is decommissioned equipment and disposable maintenance supplies that have been made radioactive by exposure to ionizing radiation. None of this stuff can be reprocessed in any meaningful way. Yet, frustratingly, it is still dangerous.
While I am pro-nuclear, I do not think we win when we make strawman arguments.
Mongoosen?
Mongi?
So, I am not saying that this is what happened in this instance, because I could not bear to RTFA, but in the Federal system, this is allowed.
When a federal defendant is convicted of (or pleads guilty to) a felony, the judge is allowed to also sentence him/her to additional time/conditions for unindicted crimes, so long as the additional crimes are considered relevant to the original criminal conduct (thus the term: "relevant conduct"). Problematically, relevant conduct charges do not have to be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, merely on the 'preponderance of evidence'. This just means 'most likely he did it'. Also, this determination is not made by the jury (assuming it was a trial case), it is decided by the judge.
One problem this causes is that it puts the defense counsel in an awkward position. How much energy does he put into figuring out what prosecutorial assertions will be used at sentencing, and how much energy should he put into refuting them? Remember that the prosecutor has WAY more resources to put into each case than the defense does.
Another problem is the resulting radical disparities in sentences. I was locked up with a guy who went to trial on a (large) drug case. He beat the government on 11 out of 12 charges, the remaining charge should have carried a little over 10 years. Instead, the judge was offended that he fought so hard, so she enhanced his sentence with almost every single casual allegation of the prosecutor. He wound up with 365 months (yeah, over 30 years) for a single charge, first time offender, non-violent drug offense.
Technically, sure. As long as you object to the sentence AT TIME OF SENTENCING, you have a right to appeal. However, if the judge details why the sentence is appropriate to the crime and circumstance, there is very little likelihood of having an appeal heard.
This is further complicated by the effect of the Pre-Sentencing Report or Pre-Sentencing Investigation (PSR, or PSI). This is the report of an investigation completed by the US Probation office that details the offense and relevant statutes. It's a whole other kettle of fish, to big to go into here.
Q. Do you think the following statement is true or false?
“Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.”
$850 in 1977 is about $2500 today.
https://www.saving.org/inflati...
That literally took less than 10 seconds on Google
I robbed banks specifically because I couldn't escape poverty. I'm not saying I'm the best guy ever to live, but let's not pretend that poverty doesn't cause crime.
Then we could reduce spending in the form of the DEA! AND on jails and prisons!
We'd need a good name for it, though. We could call it "freedom"?
That is actually my entire response to the second part of this story. Thanks.
Well put.
It's like he's literally never read a newspaper.
I don't disagree with a lot of what you say, but I am skeptical of the 'full employment' situation. I think there's a large population of highly qualified people working low paying 'underemployment' jobs.
I think this is why there is no large wage inflation in the bottom half of the labor market. Companies are still not competing for workers. There are tons of people still looking for a better/additional job.
I also think this is why all the help wanted adds I see still have an exhaustive list of qualifications for every job. Employers can still be picky.
My two cents.
In the Feds, almost everybody has a job. Some of them are regular factory jobs, some are scrubbing showers every day, some are shoveling snow for 12 hours a year.
Most people who do not want to work just try to get into one of the jobs that has extremely low utilization (like the snow job mentioned above). All jobs are compensated, although poorly. Our kitchen workers averaged about $30 / month, except for the actual cooks who made around $75 - $100 / month. In the factory we had guys coming close to $1000 / month during the busy season. I maxed out at about $800, but half of that was taken as restitution, so I kept about $400 / month.
A single guy who refuses to work will get a 'shot' (disciplinary report) for 'Failing to Program" and face an escalating series of punishments. First he loses the ability to buy stuff at the commissary. Then he gets put in a bad cube / cell. Then he starts getting thrown in the SHU (Special Housing Unit - AKA the 'hole'). Then they start taking good time away from him, which actually extends his prison sentence. In the Feds you can earn good time to reduce your sentence by about 13%. In the worst case they could transfer him to some other, shittier, more violent prison.
A group of guys who refuse to work is considered a 'strike'. They will immediately lose all privileges and then good time. Then they will all be transferred to different places, and they'll be lucky not to catch an additional charge for rioting or inciting riot.
The inmates outnumber the guards until something happens. Then a bunch of other guards show up armed with clubs, tasers, and teargas. This why you only hear about riots where guards and staff are taken hostage. This is the only thing that holds back the guys with the clubs.
LSCI Allenwood
FMC Butner
FMC Lexington
Basically all of the Federal Minimum Security Facilities
I would just like to point out that they don't make National Geographic specials about all of the prisons where all that shit never happens. They make them about the warrior academies and the zoos. Please don't mistake that for the norm. Many of the prisoners at my prison would watch those same specials in awe and disgust.
It is even worse than that, I think.
Let's consider a guy.
He gets caught growing and selling pot. He gets 5 years, does 3, then he's on probation (although some states he gets a slap on the wrist, it depends). Can't get a job, hard to get a girl without money, he's living at risk.
Decides to take a risk and starts a little cocaine business, really just to support himself while he tries to find a sustainable path to legitimate income. Keeps it small, keeps his head down, until one of his customers gets arrested for something else and rats him out. Now it's federal and he gets 10 years, does a little over 8 inside.
Now he's stuck. He's on federal supervised release (probation) and his probation officer calls every company that gives him a job to make sure he's doing OK. This freaks the management out, and he can't keep a job. Maybe he's getting food stamps, maybe rental assistance, maybe he has access to medical care, maybe not.
He's been out of society for almost a decade, it's hard for him to talk to 'normal' people. (On a side note, I got locked up in 2007 a couple of months before the iPhone came out. When I was released in 2016 I had literally never touched a smartphone, or seen one up close. Imagine the readjustment.) He can't relax, he feels like he is in a slow motion car crash, all the time. So, he makes another bad decision. He's probably not really a bad guy. He just can't see the way forward.
He tries to pull a robbery, just to get enough cash to get some breathing room. He just needs some time. So, he goes for it. But then a cop shows up. Does he surrender, or does he shoot it out?
He's a three time loser, now. He'll probably get a career offender charge, he's looking at 15 years minimum. He won't go back to a Low security facility, probably start at a Medium. Way more violent. More gangs.
And he's tired. He's tired of the stress, he's tired of people he can't talk to or relax around, he's tired of being afraid of people finding out that he's a criminal, he's tired of being threatened by his PO. He's tired of being a loser.
What's he got to lose?
I think we would do well to consider how we are incentivizing his behavior.
Ok, but good luck getting guards to work there. Your second paragraph comes close to a recitation of some of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' program statement on prison administration. So, that's technically what we have right now! Yay!
The problem in the prisons is not the words, it's the culture.
Former water system operator, here.
Fluoride helps the body fight de-mineralization of (and supposedly can help RE-mineralize) calcium deposits, basically teeth and bones. The benefits are dependent on proper dosage.
Putting fluoride in the drinking water at concentrations of about 0.7 parts-per-million helps significantly reduce the incidence of leg, hip, and wrist breaks in the elderly after falls. That is reduce, not eliminate. Higher concentrations (above about 2 ppm, IIRC) become toxic and cause other problems.
However, 0.7 ppm is not strong enough to really help teeth. Toothpaste is applied topically, so it can have a very high concentration of fluoride (also why you are never supposed to swallow fluoridated toothpaste).
I think you mean "averse", not "adverse".
nice
It blows my mind that everyone, let alone all criminals, do not do this.
IANAL. If I remember correctly, that due process requirement was explicitly tied to presence in the territory of the U.S. I also think the searches at the border are associated with the extra-territoriality of the ports and airports (i.e., you're not "in" the U.S. until you clear Customs, or some such)?
I think it's a wash. They'll probably be treated the same as citizens, except that they'll be way more likely to be denied entry.
FWIW, it is weird to see this come out of the 4th Circuit. Usually those guys go hard.
Interestingly, that question has already been decided, and I think they got it wrong both ways.
The law already applies to residents/citizens of foreign countries. I was locked up for several years with many foreign nationals who exported cocaine that wound up in America. Some of them did not even have a direct connect to anyone in the US. Just, bang! Midnight arrest, short plane flight, handover to federal agents, and next thing they knew a public defender was telling them they were in the US and they would be seeing a judge in a couple of days.
Somehow, though, it does NOT apply to American citizens overseas. I have read cases of the FBI conducting/leading searches of Americans' property and residences overseas with no warrant and no judicial oversight. Obama even had a citizen assassinated overseas after making the determination that he was a terrorist. That's not how that's supposed to work.
Um, full disclosure, FWIW. I am a convicted felon, served 9 years for armed bank robbery and carjacking. I am a liberal and I align much more closely with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party.
I think he was being snarky, but many of the other people mentioning the President are probably implying that the current administration's actions have become so egregious that courts are starting to reign in behaviors that have been previously overlooked.
I don't think you have to complain about him not fixing everything to stop loving Obama. He had an American citizen overseas assassinated after determining that he was a terrorist. That's not how that's supposed to work.