Given that there quite obviously is a link between overall murder-rate and gun murder rate, *that's* the purpose. Lower ownership of guns leads to lower murder rate (whatever the weapon).
And yet...
Vermont and New Hampshire have basically no restrictions on gun ownership, high gun ownership rates, and among the lowest murder rates in the USA.
Ditto Idaho, Iowa, Montana, teh Dakotas.
Illinois has very restrictive gun laws, relatively low gun ownership rates, and a high murder rate.
Louisiana has the highest murder rate in the USA, but restrictions on gun ownership are about the same there as most States (freer than some with lower murder rates, much more restrictive than some with lower murder rates) as most States, and gun ownership rates are not unusual.
Note further than guns are more accessible in the USA than south of the border, but Central and South America, in general, have higher murder rates than the USA.
Too many people here think that if the state takes over they are going to be part of some kind of intellectual elite that will be immune from regulations...........that they will apply only to the riff-raff.
Oddly enough, the Congress frequently exempts itself from regulations it passes. EEOC laws, for instance, doesn't apply to Congress.
they're making the argument that it does not fall into a class of actions defined by some specific law (in this case the War Powers Act I think), and referred to by the shorthand "hostilities" in the text of the law.
No doubt this is true.
Alas, "hostilities" isn't the only reason given in the War Powers Resolution of 1973 for prompt reporting to Congress.
The phrase in question is "Whenever United States Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities or into any situation described in subsection (a) of this section"
Note the "or". It's important.
So, let's look at subsection (a):
(a) In the absence of a declaration of war, in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced--
(1) into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances;
(2) into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat, except for deployments which relate solely to supply, replacement, repair, or training of such forces; or
(3) in numbers which substantially enlarge United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation; the president shall submit within 48 hours to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President pro tempore of the Senate a report, in writing, setting forth--
(A) the circumstances necessitating the introduction of United States Armed Forces;
(B) the constitutional and legislative authority under which such introduction took place; and
(C) the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement.
(3) is obviously not covered by the Libya operation. Yet.
(2), on the other hand, seems to pretty clearly cover bombing the crap out of Libya. It could be argued that sending drones into Libya is not included in "United States Armed Forces are introduced into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat".
But note that it doesn't specify humans, it specifies "United States Armed Forces".
If, in fact, we argue that "United States Armed Forces" in the above clause requires US soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines to be sent into a foreign country, then we are arguing that firing a Minuteman (and its associated nuclear weapons) in a first strike would not require that the President report to Congress.
FDR initiates the new deal, economic cratering almost immediately halts and GDP starts going back up.
That would be nice, except that the cratering didn't "immediately halt", and the GDP didn't start going back up.
Note that just before WW2, Roosevelt's Treasury Secretrary said, in a statement to Congress, pretty much that they threw money at the Depression for eight years, and got nothing except a mountain of debt for their trouble...
However, people aren't allowed to commit suicide in the same circumstances to avoid needless suffering
Did you know that committing suicide isn't illegal? Attempting it and failing, perhaps, but not succeeding.
Note that the prohibitions against "assisted suicide" are largely a matter of "so, when did it become legal to kill someone else? traditionally, we called that murder."
If Pratchett wants to kill himself, I won't sit in judgement. If he wants to hire someone to murder him, I might have a few problems with his solution.
Which means that the only reason to invest in their stock is that they're not likely to tank anytime soon. It's not because of the huge profits they make.
Has anyone successfully fought the government in a legal battle and won?
Heller.
Remember that little card that the cops carry that they have to read to you verbatim? The one with 'right to remain silent' on it? That's also a result of a case against the government that the government lost.
And on and on and on....
Whats amazing is that so few cases are won by the government when they get to the Supremes. Shows the Supremes are, in general, doing their jobs right.
I wonder why on Earth an agency founded in the aftermath of 9/11, to protect gainst terrorist threats to the United States is involved in thus kind of thing? May as well have the fucking coast guard policing patent infringements!
It happened because the agency in question isn't really an agency in the older sense. It's just an umbrella organization to foster communications within and among a bunch of older agencies.
Basically, we were surprised by 9/11. Therefore we added an extra layer of bureaucracy to fix the problem.
Because we all know that any problem can be solved if we have more bureaucrats in the loop.
Note that the "dipple" refers to "displaced persons". One of the lesser-known side-effects of WW2 was that at the end there were a large number of "DP's" who were put into temporary camps until they could be repatriated (if that was desired - oddly, a lot of former soviet citizens weren't all that interested in going back) or be permitted to emigrate somewhere (again, if desired).
Note, by the way, that being a NAZI slave-laborer didn't necessarily qualify you for legal immigrant status in any particular country after the war, so a few of the dipple residents (real world dipple, not Norton's) were stuck there for several years.
Norton's stories about the Dipple assumed that the Dipple was exactly that - a Displaced Persons holding area after an interstellar war had left some people with no place to return to (in at least one case, because the planet the character had come from had been blown up).
The real reason the cost of living doesn't go down is because of the federal reserve. They are constantly inflating the money supply to slowly steal the wealth of the country for the politicians and wall street bankers. If there was sound money all prices including wages would be constantly falling as people saved and became more productive. The goal for the last 100 years has been to inflate enough to keep prices stable so that people don't notice the theft.
No, they're inflating the currency because the choices are:
inflate
deflate
hold constant
Hold constant is REALLY hard. It requires that you increase the money supply at EXACTLY the rate that real wealth increases. Which is basically impossible.
Deflation is pretty easy - don't increase the money supply at all, and deflation will happen as real wealth increases. Alas, deflation has some undesirable side-effects (like, everyone getting paycuts every year), and investments (like your house) being worth fewer dollars every year.
Which leaves inflation. A slight inflation is pretty easy to manage (as is a slight deflation), and while it has some unpleasant side-effects, they tend, on average, to be less than the unpleasant side-effects of deflation.
Note, for reference, that the housing market is undergoing deflation right now - prices are dropping relative to total real wealth.
Nope, didn't miss that. Just assumed that the chances of a government actually eliminating a program, or significantly reducing the size of a program, were about zero.
Note recent (and not so recent) attempts to reduce costs of Medicare as examples. If one Party can make political hay from another Party's attempts to reduce Medicare expenditures, it will. Which means no significant reductions in Medicare are possible.
Or, as someone posted earlier, you could cut the military spending down to some reasonable multiple of the rest of the world, phase out the Bush tax cuts and work to keep the entitlements down to a dull roar.
The Bush tax cuts plus zeroing the military budget together reduce the deficit by about 2/3.
Which would leave us bleeding money at about 2003-2007 levels.
In other words, not enough, by about 50000 rows of apple trees.
Except if you looked at your pay stub or W-4 you would see that Medicare and Social Security were provisioned separately from the other Federal Taxes.
Of course, after you look at your W-4 and pay stub, you might also look at the Federal budget, and notice that all that money that is "provisioned separately" is then thrown into one big pile.
Oh yea I forgot its not really about getting people to quit smoking (negligible sales drops = success) its more about tax revenue...cant really be serious about getting people to quit.
This is pretty much the core of the issue. The governments in question don't want to cut into their own tax base by banning tobacco, or effectively convincing people not to use the product.
And the tobacco lawsuits weren't about stopping those evil tobacco companies either. They were about extorting billions more in revenues from the tobacco companies, since it was more popular with the voters to extort from big businesses rather than raise taxes on your citizens....
Damn you, the first time I took a drag off a cigarette I knew it was stupid and I didn't want to be doing it at all, but the fear of being laughed at or pushed around outweighed the logic. I was not stupid, and I did know about the dangers -- the education system actually succeeds quite well in communicating those.
Hint: if you knew it was stupid and did it anyway, then YES, YOU ARE STUPID!.
Surely a citation to the previous comment wouldn't hurt, but don't you think your anecdotal evidence is a bit weak?
Wasn't providing anecdotal evidence that drunk driving was rare. Was merely asserting I've not seen evidence it's "a huge problem". Note that there is a vast gap between "rare" and "a huge problem".
Nor have I seen evidence that "these checkpoints do save a lot of lives."
In all of this 40 years of driving, how many traffic fatalities have you observed occur? I'm not talking about driving by afterwards, I mean actually witnessed. I'll assume the number is low or zero. Would you draw therefore the conclusion that traffic accidents are not a huge problem?
Not seen a single traffic fatality ever. However, conflating "traffic fatalities" with "traffic accidents" as you did makes me think you're trying your best to mislead.
Note, for the record, that I think that lumping all traffic fatalities into a single pile is a wonderful way to make sure you never actually reduce the rate that they occur. Break them down into general causes, determine which causes can be dealt with by legislation and which can't, and you're on the road to solving some of the problems.
So, that said, is there any statistical evidence that drunk driving has declined purely as a result of DUI checkpoints, or that it has INCREASED as a result of iPhone apps that show the locations of said DUI checkpoints?
Slashdot Mirror
And yet...
Vermont and New Hampshire have basically no restrictions on gun ownership, high gun ownership rates, and among the lowest murder rates in the USA.
Ditto Idaho, Iowa, Montana, teh Dakotas.
Illinois has very restrictive gun laws, relatively low gun ownership rates, and a high murder rate.
Louisiana has the highest murder rate in the USA, but restrictions on gun ownership are about the same there as most States (freer than some with lower murder rates, much more restrictive than some with lower murder rates) as most States, and gun ownership rates are not unusual.
Note further than guns are more accessible in the USA than south of the border, but Central and South America, in general, have higher murder rates than the USA.
Oddly enough, the Congress frequently exempts itself from regulations it passes. EEOC laws, for instance, doesn't apply to Congress.
No doubt this is true.
Alas, "hostilities" isn't the only reason given in the War Powers Resolution of 1973 for prompt reporting to Congress.
The phrase in question is "Whenever United States Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities or into any situation described in subsection (a) of this section"
Note the "or". It's important.
So, let's look at subsection (a):
(a) In the absence of a declaration of war, in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced-- (1) into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances; (2) into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat, except for deployments which relate solely to supply, replacement, repair, or training of such forces; or (3) in numbers which substantially enlarge United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation; the president shall submit within 48 hours to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President pro tempore of the Senate a report, in writing, setting forth-- (A) the circumstances necessitating the introduction of United States Armed Forces; (B) the constitutional and legislative authority under which such introduction took place; and (C) the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement.
(3) is obviously not covered by the Libya operation. Yet.
(2), on the other hand, seems to pretty clearly cover bombing the crap out of Libya. It could be argued that sending drones into Libya is not included in "United States Armed Forces are introduced into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat".
But note that it doesn't specify humans, it specifies "United States Armed Forces".
If, in fact, we argue that "United States Armed Forces" in the above clause requires US soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines to be sent into a foreign country, then we are arguing that firing a Minuteman (and its associated nuclear weapons) in a first strike would not require that the President report to Congress.
It should, perhaps, be pointed out that even semi-automatic military look-alikes are used in less than 1/400th of all violent crimes in the USA.
REAL automatic weapons are even rarer.
That would be nice, except that the cratering didn't "immediately halt", and the GDP didn't start going back up.
Note that just before WW2, Roosevelt's Treasury Secretrary said, in a statement to Congress, pretty much that they threw money at the Depression for eight years, and got nothing except a mountain of debt for their trouble...
Corruption is an intrinsic part of any government. Period.
Size just makes it easier for corruption in government to affect everyone, as opposed to just a few people.
Did you know that committing suicide isn't illegal? Attempting it and failing, perhaps, but not succeeding.
Note that the prohibitions against "assisted suicide" are largely a matter of "so, when did it become legal to kill someone else? traditionally, we called that murder."
If Pratchett wants to kill himself, I won't sit in judgement. If he wants to hire someone to murder him, I might have a few problems with his solution.
Insurance company profits are less than 4%.
Which means that the only reason to invest in their stock is that they're not likely to tank anytime soon. It's not because of the huge profits they make.
Heller.
Remember that little card that the cops carry that they have to read to you verbatim? The one with 'right to remain silent' on it? That's also a result of a case against the government that the government lost.
And on and on and on....
Whats amazing is that so few cases are won by the government when they get to the Supremes. Shows the Supremes are, in general, doing their jobs right.
It happened because the agency in question isn't really an agency in the older sense. It's just an umbrella organization to foster communications within and among a bunch of older agencies.
Basically, we were surprised by 9/11. Therefore we added an extra layer of bureaucracy to fix the problem.
Because we all know that any problem can be solved if we have more bureaucrats in the loop.
You are perhaps unaware then that since Obama became President we have run up more debut in three years than Bush managed in eight?
Note that the "dipple" refers to "displaced persons". One of the lesser-known side-effects of WW2 was that at the end there were a large number of "DP's" who were put into temporary camps until they could be repatriated (if that was desired - oddly, a lot of former soviet citizens weren't all that interested in going back) or be permitted to emigrate somewhere (again, if desired).
Note, by the way, that being a NAZI slave-laborer didn't necessarily qualify you for legal immigrant status in any particular country after the war, so a few of the dipple residents (real world dipple, not Norton's) were stuck there for several years.
Norton's stories about the Dipple assumed that the Dipple was exactly that - a Displaced Persons holding area after an interstellar war had left some people with no place to return to (in at least one case, because the planet the character had come from had been blown up).
No, they're inflating the currency because the choices are:
inflate
deflate
hold constant
Hold constant is REALLY hard. It requires that you increase the money supply at EXACTLY the rate that real wealth increases. Which is basically impossible.
Deflation is pretty easy - don't increase the money supply at all, and deflation will happen as real wealth increases. Alas, deflation has some undesirable side-effects (like, everyone getting paycuts every year), and investments (like your house) being worth fewer dollars every year.
Which leaves inflation. A slight inflation is pretty easy to manage (as is a slight deflation), and while it has some unpleasant side-effects, they tend, on average, to be less than the unpleasant side-effects of deflation.
Note, for reference, that the housing market is undergoing deflation right now - prices are dropping relative to total real wealth.
Nope, didn't miss that. Just assumed that the chances of a government actually eliminating a program, or significantly reducing the size of a program, were about zero.
Note recent (and not so recent) attempts to reduce costs of Medicare as examples. If one Party can make political hay from another Party's attempts to reduce Medicare expenditures, it will. Which means no significant reductions in Medicare are possible.
Short answer? Noone except Obama and his advisors have a clue yet who it will benefit (other than helping Obama's reelection campaign, of course).
However, you can pretty much bet that individual (as opposed to corporate) consumers of electricity are NOT going to benefit from this.
Though there is a reasonable argument that Californians in general will benefit, at the expense of the rest of us.
The Bush tax cuts plus zeroing the military budget together reduce the deficit by about 2/3.
Which would leave us bleeding money at about 2003-2007 levels.
In other words, not enough, by about 50000 rows of apple trees.
Of course, after you look at your W-4 and pay stub, you might also look at the Federal budget, and notice that all that money that is "provisioned separately" is then thrown into one big pile.
And then they spend the big pile.
That would, no doubt, explain why the national debt increased every year of the Clinton presidency?
Since the megocorps are a product of government, I'd suspect that they'd be less of a problem if the government were able to give them less power.
Actually, Wiener's wiener just amused me.
On the other hand, the lying and false accusations that he made the first week bothered me more than a little.
And guess which Presidential candidate decided he didn't need Federal Matching Funds (and the associated spending limits imposed by law)?
This is pretty much the core of the issue. The governments in question don't want to cut into their own tax base by banning tobacco, or effectively convincing people not to use the product.
And the tobacco lawsuits weren't about stopping those evil tobacco companies either. They were about extorting billions more in revenues from the tobacco companies, since it was more popular with the voters to extort from big businesses rather than raise taxes on your citizens....
Because you don't eat cigarettes?
Hint: if you knew it was stupid and did it anyway, then YES, YOU ARE STUPID!.
Wasn't providing anecdotal evidence that drunk driving was rare. Was merely asserting I've not seen evidence it's "a huge problem". Note that there is a vast gap between "rare" and "a huge problem".
Nor have I seen evidence that "these checkpoints do save a lot of lives."
Not seen a single traffic fatality ever. However, conflating "traffic fatalities" with "traffic accidents" as you did makes me think you're trying your best to mislead.
Note, for the record, that I think that lumping all traffic fatalities into a single pile is a wonderful way to make sure you never actually reduce the rate that they occur. Break them down into general causes, determine which causes can be dealt with by legislation and which can't, and you're on the road to solving some of the problems.
So, that said, is there any statistical evidence that drunk driving has declined purely as a result of DUI checkpoints, or that it has INCREASED as a result of iPhone apps that show the locations of said DUI checkpoints?