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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On October 12 2014 04:08 oneofthem wrote:
the revenue numbers for college sports is a bit misleading because a lot of alum supporters are donating to support the football team. some schools have booster networks that spend millions for stadium/recruiting
The ESPN numbers show the donations when reported. But in general reporting this is usually not mentioned.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On October 12 2014 04:24 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2014 04:08 oneofthem wrote:
the revenue numbers for college sports is a bit misleading because a lot of alum supporters are donating to support the football team. some schools have booster networks that spend millions for stadium/recruiting The ESPN numbers show the donations when reported. But in general reporting this is usually not mentioned.
well ordinary definition of football revenue includes stuff like licensing merchandise and media rights.
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REYHANLI, Turkey — The U.S.-led air war in Syria has gotten off to a rocky start, with even the Syrian rebel groups closest to the United States turning against it, U.S. ally Turkey refusing to contribute and the plight of a beleaguered Kurdish town exposing the limitations of the strategy.
U.S. officials caution that the strikes are just the beginning of a broader strategy that could take years to carry out. But the anger that the attacks have stirred risks undermining the effort, analysts and rebels say.
The main beneficiary of the strikes so far appears to be President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have taken advantage of the shift in the military balance to step up attacks against the moderate rebels designated by President Obama as partners of the United States in the war against extremists.
The U.S. targets have included oil facilities, a granary and an electricity plant under Islamic State control. The damage to those facilities has caused shortages and price hikes across the rebel-held north that are harming ordinary Syrians more than the well-funded militants, residents and activists say.
At the start of the air campaign, dozens of U.S. cruise missiles were fired into areas controlled by the moderate rebels, who are supposed to be fighting the Islamic State. Syrians who had in the past appealed for American intervention against Assad have been staging demonstrations denouncing the United States and burning the American flag. WaPo
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Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.
The details are contained in thousands of annual reports submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. The Washington Post obtained 43,000 of the reports dating from 2008 through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The documents offer a sweeping look at how police departments and drug task forces across the country are benefiting from laws that allow them to take cash and property without proving a crime has occurred. The law was meant to decimate drug organizations, but The Post found that it has been used as a routine source of funding for law enforcement at every level.
“In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using asset forfeiture dollars to purchase equipment and training to stay current with the ever-changing trends in crime fighting helps serve and protect the citizens,” said Prince George’s County, Md., police spokeswoman Julie Parker.
Brad Cates, a former director of asset forfeiture programs at the Justice Department, said the spending identified by The Post suggests police are using Equitable Sharing as “a free floating slush fund.” Cates, who oversaw the program while at Justice from 1985 to 1989, said it has enabled police to sidestep the traditional budget process, in which elected leaders create law enforcement spending priorities.
“All of this is fundamentally at odds with the U.S. Constitution,” said Cates, who recently co-wrote an article calling for the program’s abolition on The Post’s editorial page. “All of this is at odds with the rights that Americans have.”
Source
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On October 12 2014 08:53 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.
The details are contained in thousands of annual reports submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. The Washington Post obtained 43,000 of the reports dating from 2008 through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The documents offer a sweeping look at how police departments and drug task forces across the country are benefiting from laws that allow them to take cash and property without proving a crime has occurred. The law was meant to decimate drug organizations, but The Post found that it has been used as a routine source of funding for law enforcement at every level.
“In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using asset forfeiture dollars to purchase equipment and training to stay current with the ever-changing trends in crime fighting helps serve and protect the citizens,” said Prince George’s County, Md., police spokeswoman Julie Parker.
Brad Cates, a former director of asset forfeiture programs at the Justice Department, said the spending identified by The Post suggests police are using Equitable Sharing as “a free floating slush fund.” Cates, who oversaw the program while at Justice from 1985 to 1989, said it has enabled police to sidestep the traditional budget process, in which elected leaders create law enforcement spending priorities.
“All of this is fundamentally at odds with the U.S. Constitution,” said Cates, who recently co-wrote an article calling for the program’s abolition on The Post’s editorial page. “All of this is at odds with the rights that Americans have.” Source
The police are killing/abusing (literally) countless innocent Americans, stealing billions of $$$ in our money/property, denying us our rights, and locking us up for decades on bogus charges.
And I'm supposed to be more afraid of a bunch of guys in a desert halfway around the world, who would be pathetically armed, if we hadn't just dropped off hundreds of billions of $$$ in weapons and equipment for them to terrorize the region with...?
This is just ridiculous...
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Breaking: Dallas Hospital worker who cared for Ebola victim has tested positive for Ebola.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
well that could only lead to good things.
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One could be forgiven for being confused about where things stand with voter ID laws in this fall’s midterm elections. A slew of federal-court orders, some of them still unresolved, have altered voting practices and procedures in a number of states, just weeks before voters go to the polls. Already, election officials and candidates have vowed to make a special effort to educate voters about what exactly awaits them on November 4. But there is a larger concern that has received much less attention: whether state election authorities can prevent confusion among poll workers themselves—the people who have the de-facto last word in determining whether you are eligible to vote.
Consider the conflicting rulings that have been issued in the last few days alone. On Monday, a federal appeals court reversed a decision by a district court and put Wisconsin’s stringent voter-ID requirement back into effect—a ruling that would require voters to show state-approved identification when they vote in November. But on Thursday, the Supreme Court put the Wisconsin law on hold again. Meanwhile, in Texas, it remains unclear whether a law requiring photo identification will apply, following a decision by a federal judge, also on Thursday, that is now being appealed by the Texas state attorney general.
Nor are these isolated cases. In the past two weeks, the Supreme Court has overturned lower court decisions effecting voting practices in Ohio and North Carolina. In late September, a federal court in Alaska required state election officials to provide bilingual voting materials to Native-American voters. The Kansas Supreme Court, also in late September, ordered the Kansas Secretary of State to remove the Democratic nominee for Senate from the ballot. Litigants in Arkansas await decisions on the state’s contested voter-ID laws.
However these laws play out in court, most crucial will be the rules that poll workers themselves are prepared to apply on election day. Past elections have shown that poll workers can become especially confused by controversial criteria such as whether a voter must present identification. All too often, poorly-trained poll workers don’t follow their state’s voter-ID rules, demanding identification when none is required, failing to request an identification when the law requires them to do so, accepting an impermissible form of identification, or rejecting a state-approved form of identification.
These issues become all the more concerning when there are last minute changes to the law. In Wisconsin, for example, if the Supreme Court had not stayed this week’s ruling, the voting rules on election day would have been different than those in effect in the August primary. In fact, there would have been two different sets of rules for Wisconsin ballots next month. As Justice Samuel Alito conceded in his dissent to the Court’s order on the Wisconsin law, state election officials had already mailed absentee ballots without asking for proof of photo identification, as the new law required.
Midterms: The Voter ID Mess
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United States44205 Posts
On October 12 2014 21:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Breaking: Dallas Hospital worker who cared for Ebola victim has tested positive for Ebola.
Is Ebola crazy dangerous or is this just a slow news month? I don't get all the coverage for it, it's not like it's smallpox.
Was speaking to one person and they said "well yeah, it's not that deadly but you see we don't have enough vaccines for it because the government is unprepared, that's the issue". Was a baffling failure of logic.
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I had a conversation with my father, who happens to run one of the busiest medical examiner's offices in the US, on that very topic; he is of the opinion that, while the media is certainly drumming up anxiety in an attempt to garner attention, Ebola is indeed very dangerous and certainly worth some degree of concern. It does have a fairly high mortality rate and it appears to be that its virulency and infection rates are increasing; furthermore, there is no reputable vaccine and Ebola treatment modalities are clearly very insufficient. Deciding how much the average person ought to be concerned is a more tricky endeavor than it first appears.
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On October 13 2014 00:29 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2014 21:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Breaking: Dallas Hospital worker who cared for Ebola victim has tested positive for Ebola. Is Ebola crazy dangerous or is this just a slow news month? I don't get all the coverage for it.
It's a distraction IMO. Our threat assessing is completely out of whack. Like I mentioned, more innocent Americans will probably be killed by the police than by terrorists in this country. The cops will steal more money and property than all the burglaries combined, prescription medication will kill more people than all other illegal drugs combined, our roads and bridges are falling apart, while we spend trillions building and arming other countries, and the list goes on and on.
"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;... whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789. ME 7:253
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The problem with that perspective is that all of those negative things can be true and Ebola can still be worth being worried about.
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On October 13 2014 00:29 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2014 21:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Breaking: Dallas Hospital worker who cared for Ebola victim has tested positive for Ebola. Is Ebola crazy dangerous or is this just a slow news month? I don't get all the coverage for it, it's not like it's smallpox. Was speaking to one person and they said "well yeah, it's not that deadly but you see we don't have enough vaccines for it because the government is unprepared, that's the issue". Was a baffling failure of logic.
Ebola has a ridiculously high kill-rate of 60%. But its not very contagious. Its only transferred by contact with infected fluids. It's killing so many people in Africa because they have no concept of germ theory. Its common burial practice for relatives of the deceased to kiss the victim's body, which since Ebola makes you bleed, sweat, and vomit, is a good way to come in contact with infected fluids. A few quarantines have even been swarmed by angry villagers because they don't trust the medical workers. They actually broke the sick people out of quarantine.
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On October 13 2014 00:29 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2014 21:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Breaking: Dallas Hospital worker who cared for Ebola victim has tested positive for Ebola. Is Ebola crazy dangerous or is this just a slow news month? I don't get all the coverage for it, it's not like it's smallpox. Was speaking to one person and they said "well yeah, it's not that deadly but you see we don't have enough vaccines for it because the government is unprepared, that's the issue". Was a baffling failure of logic.
Ebola is certainly deadly (though this strain is at the lower end of the historical viruses). The reason there's no vaccines or treatments is because there's simply never been a large-scale multi-nation outbreak, so there's been next to no financial incentive to create them.
All the current experimental vaccines and treatments that are being trialed only exist because the government has been funding research in case the virus was used as a biological weapon.
It's still a massive hysteria campaign, though, because in the end it'll probably kill fewer people in the US than the flu does every year.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
this strain is still going to be up to 80% once recent infected deaths are accounted for.
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I just really can't take this Ebola 'scare' seriously. Phillip Morris and companies like them are going to talk more people into killing themselves here and in Africa, than Ebola is ever going to kill.
The Ebola hype coverage has been shameful in most part imho.
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On October 13 2014 01:29 GreenHorizons wrote:
I just really can't take this Ebola 'scare' seriously. Phillip Morris and companies like them are going to talk more people into killing themselves here and in Africa, than Ebola is ever going to kill.
The Ebola hype coverage has been shameful in most part imho.
I'd be more worried about someone weaponizing this strain of Ebola than it naturally killing people. I agree if left to its own devices its not a globally-important issue.
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SAN LUCAS, California — Posted in the front office of the San Lucas elementary school are the usual notices — a newspaper clipping about a local boy playing college football, an autism flier, a calendar. The warning about nitrate contamination in the drinking water is to the right of the cafeteria menu (Fridays are always pizza) and directly below the note about the sale of school “spirit paws.”
For three years, residents of this unincorporated farming community of about 80 homes in California’s agriculturally rich Salinas Valley have not been able to drink the water. It may seem remarkable that a community in California, one of the wealthiest states in one of the wealthiest countries, does not have safe drinking water. But for the residents of San Lucas, water problems are nothing new.
When she was a child, remembered Lucia Velazquez, now 31, there was black sediment in the water. More recently, residents describe the water as milky white. One thing it has never been? “It’s never, ever been clear water,” she said.
In 2012, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 685, establishing every Californian’s right to “safe, clean, affordable and accessible” drinking water. Assembly Member Luis Alejo, a descendant of some of the first farmworkers to join Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in Watsonville, California, in the 1970s, is among those trying to make this a reality through legislation, such as the Safe Drinking Water Small Community Emergency Grant Fund, which was approved by Brown in October 2013.
Alejo said that over 2 million Californians might not have safe drinking water because they use water from a private well or small water systems not regulated by the government.
“When they turn on their faucets at home, they cannot use it for drinking or cooking because it has a high level of toxic contaminant in their water," said Alejo.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 15 million U.S. households rely on private, household wells for drinking water. The Federal Safe Drinking Water Act requires the regulation of any public water system that serves more than 25 people more than 60 days per year or more than 15 service connections, so systems that do not clear those thresholds aren’t regulated, according to Timothy Moran, a California State Water Resources Control Board spokesman. Any source could be contaminated by agriculture, but the Salinas and Santa Maria valleys in California are among the most intensely farmed areas in the world.
Sourc
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United States44205 Posts
On October 13 2014 01:16 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2014 00:29 KwarK wrote:On October 12 2014 21:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Breaking: Dallas Hospital worker who cared for Ebola victim has tested positive for Ebola. Is Ebola crazy dangerous or is this just a slow news month? I don't get all the coverage for it, it's not like it's smallpox. Was speaking to one person and they said "well yeah, it's not that deadly but you see we don't have enough vaccines for it because the government is unprepared, that's the issue". Was a baffling failure of logic. Ebola is certainly deadly (though this strain is at the lower end of the historical viruses). The reason there's no vaccines or treatments is because there's simply never been a large-scale multi-nation outbreak, so there's been next to no financial incentive to create them. All the current experimental vaccines and treatments that are being trialed only exist because the government has been funding research in case the virus was used as a biological weapon. It's still a massive hysteria campaign, though, because in the end it'll probably kill fewer people in the US than the flu does every year.
Which was my point. Going "it's dangerous because the government made no vaccine for it because it's not a threat" is a nonsense.
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On October 13 2014 03:26 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2014 01:16 TheTenthDoc wrote:On October 13 2014 00:29 KwarK wrote:On October 12 2014 21:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Breaking: Dallas Hospital worker who cared for Ebola victim has tested positive for Ebola. Is Ebola crazy dangerous or is this just a slow news month? I don't get all the coverage for it, it's not like it's smallpox. Was speaking to one person and they said "well yeah, it's not that deadly but you see we don't have enough vaccines for it because the government is unprepared, that's the issue". Was a baffling failure of logic. Ebola is certainly deadly (though this strain is at the lower end of the historical viruses). The reason there's no vaccines or treatments is because there's simply never been a large-scale multi-nation outbreak, so there's been next to no financial incentive to create them. All the current experimental vaccines and treatments that are being trialed only exist because the government has been funding research in case the virus was used as a biological weapon. It's still a massive hysteria campaign, though, because in the end it'll probably kill fewer people in the US than the flu does every year. Which was my point. Going "it's dangerous because the government made no vaccine for it because it's not a threat" is a nonsense.
Well its never infected this many people before. We didn't think we needed a vaccine, but we might. Diseases change, and its possible that Ebola could become more infectious, and then we're screwed.
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EPT
