The Gaming Den

Maricopa doesn't even border Mexico. Why isn't there a similar rise in crime inside urban Phoenix, or Tuscon, or San Diego and subsequent lack of drop of violent crime? Where are the parallels? Where are your facts?

Golly. I honestly cannot respond to that with a civil tongue.

Crissa. Keep your feet on the ground, but keep reaching for the stars.

Clutch

Clutch9800 wrote:

Maricopa doesn't even border Mexico. Why isn't there a similar rise in crime inside urban Phoenix, or Tuscon, or San Diego and subsequent lack of drop of violent crime? Where are the parallels? Where are your facts?

Golly. I honestly cannot respond to that with a civil tongue.

Crissa. Keep your feet on the ground, but keep reaching for the stars.

Clutch

Crissa's statement is virtually incoherent, what with Phoenix being in Maricopa county and all. I'll translate:

You said that Maricopa's rising crime rate could be chalked up to crime washing over from Mexico. That's a claim that can be refuted by "No it can't" and other similar refutations unless you supply some evidence to back up the causal relationship between Mexicans and crime in that area.

And that's really hard. First of all, while correlation does not imply causation, but correlation is virtually required to take causation seriously. That is, it's entirely possible for two events to coincide as pure coincidence without one causing the other, but if one causes the other they pretty much have to coincide. So if the influence of the Mexican near civil war is what is driving crime up in Maricopa, shouldn't we be seeing similar if not greater crime increases in Pima an Santa Cruz counties? They are physically closer to Mexico, after all. Shouldn't we also be seeing similar crime spikes in major urban areas of other states with comparable or greater Mexican influence? Such as San Diego, Austin, and Albuquerque?

If we don't see comparable crime rises, and from where I'm standing we certainly do not seem to, the claim that the Mexican influence is driving crime into red lines specifically in Maricopa County and not other places seems... unlikely.

Remember, if the Mexican influence and the crime were rising together, there could still be other explanations. Maybe crime was driving prices down and poorer residents (like Hispanics) were moving there, for example. But if the Mexican influence and the crime were not rising together, then blaming one on the other is completely specious.

-Username17

Blanked

Clutch9800 wrote: When they indict Arpaio, I'll humbly say that you all were right and I was wrong.

They don't indict crooked cops. They suspend them for a week with pay. If they did something abominable enough, they get transferred to a desk job.

I'll humbly say that you are right and I am wrong when monkeys fly out of my ass. The difference is that Arpaio could lead a state-funded genocide and not be indicted because cops never get indicted for anything, while there might be a set of unlikely events that would cause monkeys to fly out of my ass.

Motherfucker. Fuck BP.

Reposting a link, with actually commentary now..

So, Republicans blocked a bill to give heathcare benefits to the people who responded to 9/11. On 'procedural grounds'.

And, in a truly awesome rant, a representative took the floor and spent a minute and half and shouted down anyone who tried to interrupt by telling them they are not in order. Even as he called them cowards and lined out their process "Stall, stall, stall, ask for concessions, vote no anyway."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html

Frank, the crime rate inside the city limits of Phoenix and towns with their own police departments inside Maricopa County follow the rest of the country. It's the remainder of the unincorporated areas and cities that contract to the county that make up the difference.

When he says, 'Oh, but Phoenix is in Maricopa County' you can totally then go and ask the Phoenix police for their stats. Which, by the way, aren't as bad as Maricopa County as a whole.

-Crissa

Maxus wrote:Reposting a link, with actually commentary now..

So, Republicans blocked a bill to give heathcare benefits to the people who responded to 9/11. On 'procedural grounds'.

And, in a truly awesome rant, a representative took the floor and spent a minute and half and shouted down anyone who tried to interrupt by telling them they are not in order. Even as he called them cowards and lined out their process "Stall, stall, stall, ask for concessions, vote no anyway."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html

This entire fiasco demonstrates the troll tier politics of America.

1. Democrats propose a bill near election time to score points. (We're helping American heroes! Nevermind the cost.)
2. Republicans announce an amendment to prohibit illegal immigrants from obtaining benefits. (Why? Political points.)
3. Democrats don't want this--can't offend the Hispanic fanbase--so they try to use a procedure to circumvent adding amendments to the bill.
4. Republicans predictably oppose it, claim that Democrats are bullshitting them.
5. Democrats paint Republicans as being against American heroes. (Possibly a Just As Planned moment to score more points.)

End result: Weiner rants and raves like a child on the House floor (though this is not his first time doing so), nothing gets done, and everyone's pissed. As usual.

PR, did you look at the costs? Or why this bill is now, instead of like, last year? Do you even know that last year and this year are the same 'congress' and therefore the calendar is part of it?

It's not a big cost. It'll be paid anyhow, by someone. Hundreds of people who worked there are dead or dying due to breathing contaminated air. So they wrote up a bill that's taken about a year to get this far.

Unless by 'score some points' you mean 'actually do the job they were elected to do' and cherry-picking one stupid amendment out of a crapper of at least a hundred...

Ugh.

-Crissa

Forcing yourself to think positively is worse than thinking negatively

Alt. text: I told you fucks I didn't have to change my attitude, now suck it!

It's not a big cost.

Implying billions is not a large expenditure. Slashing military funding isn't the only place where cuts need to happen. The bill is excessive, and while I support the first responders, I also think that people need to realize that tax dollars don't grown on trees. Given the huge expenditures of the war in Iraq and the vast amount of money that Obamacare is expected to cost, it's time to start trimming the fat.

Of course, now you're going to start in with an emotional response about the evils of fiscal conservatism, and then I'm just going to tell you that the Democrats could have passed this bill if they wanted to.

Psychic Robot wrote:

It's not a big cost.

Implying billions is not a large expenditure. Slashing military funding isn't the only place where cuts need to happen. The bill is excessive, and while I support the first responders, I also think that people need to realize that tax dollars don't grown on trees. Given the huge expenditures of the war in Iraq and the vast amount of money that Obamacare is expected to cost, it's time to start trimming the fat.

Of course, now you're going to start in with an emotional response about the evils of fiscal conservatism, and then I'm just going to tell you that the Democrats could have passed this bill if they wanted to.

I dunno, given that Congress and what, the Senate have healthcare covered themselves? How much does that cost? And how much to cover the 9/11 responders?

Obviously the latter group is larger in number, but I doubt it's that high of a cost. Given all the expenditures that are passed on a regular basis, how is this such a bad idea?

Or maybe I'm just talking out my ass here.

There are about 10,000 people represented in the 9/11 illness class. There are over 11,000 staffers, not including services, for Congress.

So it's not obvious the injured class is larger. Of course, they are ill at a higher rate than average, which is the problem. Our medical system allows insurance companies to weasel out of paying for their ills because they are either not currently covered or employed, or it's from the past, when they weren't covered. Not to mention the portion who just don't have health insurance.

Either you support the first responders, and you should pay for their medical ills for responding first - or you don't, and we should let them die in the street.

As it is, it's illegal to let them die in the street, so either we plan for paying for it now, or we pay for it later by sticking it to the hospitals we do not allow to refuse care.

-Crissa

Either you support the first responders, and you should pay for their medical ills for responding first - or you don't, and we should let them die in the street.

Okay, Crissa.

When I thought the world could not get weirder.

http://www.disinfo.com/2010/07/rising-n ... n-forests/

Psychic Robot wrote: Of course, now you're going to start in with an emotional response about the evils of fiscal conservatism,

There's no need to go into an emotional response.

In the 30 years I've been on this planet, the only time the economy wasn't being driven into the ground fast and hard was when liberals were in charge. And when the Bush II budget went into effect the economy slammed back into the ground.

You can make all the arguments you want, but you can't argue with results.

http://failbook.com/2010/07/30/oh-man-a ... -hard-way/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... -Tea-Party

It's too bad Anonymous would have no power in Virginia against our tea party (which has technically been in charge for 20+ years).

Could they really have bought all that? The total says 'how much BP's stock has lost'. Which means that the stockholders lost that, and would have to have sold the stock back to BP to get the money to spend, right?

Stock is value, not direct money. However, by saying 'I have stock valued at X' you can get a loan for some fragment or multiplier of X; or purchase stocks with a loan in expectation that they will rise in value which is what companies and investors often do - it's called trading on margin.

BP could attempt to buy back stocks to raise the price by lowering the supply, but I do not believe they did that. That would be a specific amount lost. And they have lost actual capital - their stake in the platform, the payments to cleanup crews, the cost of the disbursement chemicals (though they're buying from themselves, so that's not that bad), etc.

What that number represents is a loss in confidence that investors have that BP will always be able to meet its obligations. Even though filling the gulf with oil is small potatoes compared to a year's profits. Most companies find themselves liable for hundreds of years' profits due to accidents like this... And yet, BP can pay this out of last year's profit.

Makes you wonder why Republicans and Blue Dogs don't want BP to pay.

-Crissa

There shouldn't even be a cap on liabilities.

A minor victory against BP.

Psychic Robot wrote:There shouldn't even be a cap on liabilities.

A minor victory against BP.

There shouldn't have been a cap in the first place. It's another thing that oil companies could put into their cost/benefit rubric, and makes catastrophic failure as palatable as every-day failure. Removing the cap and then having that retroactively affect the BP spill sounds almost illegal (though necessary).

[url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100801/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_glass_of_the_future wrote:AP: 1962 glass Corning's next big seller[/url]]In his office lobby, Steiner showed off a 400-foot-long spool of flexible, 16-inch-wide glass that's as thin as a sheet of paper.
"Kind of like Chemcor was back in the '60s," he said. "We're not sure what we're going to do with it, but it's cool isn't it?"

I like that attitude. The American glass companies have fallen behind the UK ones for too long. I'm glad they were able to pull something out of the archives and keep working.

-Crissa

End Affirmative Action to Nip White Whining in the Bud
(It's not all race; what about women?)