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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 June 20 2015 03:45 YoureFired wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2015 03:17 JinDesu wrote:In other news: http://www.kcrg.com/subject/news/telemed-abortion-ban-ruled-unconstitutional-by-iowa-supreme-court-20150620DES MOINES — Iowa’s ban on using telemedicine to issue abortion pills is unconstitutional, The Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday morning.
The Iowa Board of Medicine banned the practice of using a webcam and remote to administer the abortion-inducing pills to patients in 2013.
Planned Parenthood of Iowa argued that it had used the technology to provide needed services in areas where access to medical services was an issue. The group sued the board, arguing the ban places an undue burden on women wanting an abortion by requiring a doctor’s physical presence for the procedure.
Iowa Supreme Court agreed unanimously Friday morning, overturning an appeals court ruling that upheld the ban. Iowa law was passed requiring a doctor to be present when administering abortion pills. Planned Parenthood instituted telemedicine at their clinics where a hospital/doctor would be difficult to reach. Iowa board of med (a state panel) banned the use of telemedicine in 2013 - and now it has been overturned by the Iowa Supreme court. I mean... I'm 100% pro reproductive-justice, and this decision is likely motivated by a desire to restrict those rights rather than any legitimate concern for the women (that's just me hypothesizing) but at the same time, most medical procedures do require you to be near a doctor in case complications occur. From a quick search, it seems like 2-3% have complications; I don't know what the complication rate of other procedures are, but I don't think that's low enough to justify not having a medical professional nearby.
I think the clinics there have been providing abortion pills for a while and therefore should be experienced enough with complications. The original law required that a doctor be present while the woman is taking the pills - and these clinics do not have doctors on staff. So it was forcing them to turn away women until they figured out how to do telemedicine with willing doctors.
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On June 20 2015 03:42 YoureFired wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2015 01:58 Velr wrote:On June 19 2015 23:11 YoureFired wrote:
Just to add my 2 cents on the guns issue:
Look at the example of Switzerland. Almost as many guns per capita as the US. However, these guns are used by ex-military, i.e. they have been trained in how to operate and store them safely and understand the damage they can cause. I agree with previous posters that simply banning guns in the U.S. is kinda untenable right now, barring some massive gun round-up which might even start another civil war. The adage that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is pretty true - so let's make our people less likely to mishandle their weapons.
Then again, most gun deaths are a result of suicide, and the predominant rest are domestic/civil violence (ie between friends) and those guns are probably legal. Gang members will continue to shoot each other and while that's obv a problem too, I think its a tougher one to fix than reducing access to guns in your average household. Some things about Switzerland (i hate that it is brought up again and again): You get issued a Military Rifle if you do the mandatory service (in some cases also a handgun) and store it at home BUT you don't get Ammo. There is also no big gun culture or anything like it in the US. There are not many people that privately buy/own guns and most people i know would love to just trash their military rifle, let alone think of it as a self defense tool. We got tons of guns per capita, but we do not really have this whole "selfdefense/gunculture" mumbojumbo going on. You can't compare our two countries, despite both having very high guns per capita. We just look at guns very diffrently. For us a gun is something you get because you have to serve in the military (something MANY people hate or learn to hate during the 21 weeks of mandatory service), the gun is not a sign of armed populance, its a sign of the state having you do stupid shit for it. Even the diehard military enthusiasts i know just see their rifles as tool against outside military forces NOT against our own state or burglars. thanks for the insight. I wasn't trying to compare per se, just see where other countries have similar levels of gun ownership without the massive gun deaths. So you would say gun culture/violent culture is the main issue here? Interesting.
For sure.
see, we all have access to guns, but only a small percentile of the people see it as a form of homedefense, sport or penis enlargement.
Friends of mine were in the us and told me about republicans that get a hardon when they said that they were in the military and still have their assault rifle...
Its just a totally diffrent view on guns
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I'd like to interject on those that think that the way to solve the gun problem is through bullets.
You can make bullets yourself really easily and a lot cheaper then what they sell it for now. making it more expensive will only encourage people to make their own bullets more. Then you're trying to regulate primers caps and gunpowder itself which would technically isn't an explosive yet. But, then you get into the prepper community actively trying to find ways around your laws. Say what you will about them but they're sure motivated to find ways like that to make all their own stuff.
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Everybody talks about how gun control won't fix the problem with an overabundance of guns in the US, and they are technically correct: in the short term. But 50 years from now a lot of those guns will be taken out of circulation. 100 years from now? Most of the guns that exist today won't be an issue.
It's a long term investment. America has most definitely fucked itself into a hole our generation certainly can't extricate itself from. But it actually is possible to enact legislation today (or in the next few years) that will make an impact on your children's lives, and on the lives of your children's children. Assuming guns have a decay rate, if you reduce the input then over time the problem will begin to fix itself.
Won't somebody please think of the children?!?!
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On June 20 2015 06:31 BallinWitStalin wrote:
Everybody talks about how gun control won't fix the problem with an overabundance of guns in the US, and they are technically correct: in the short term. But 50 years from now a lot of those guns will be taken out of circulation. 100 years from now? Most of the guns that exist today won't be an issue.
It's a long term investment. America has most definitely fucked itself into a hole our generation certainly can't extricate itself from. But it actually is possible to enact legislation today (or in the next few years) that will make an impact on your children's lives, and on the lives of your children's children. Assuming guns have a decay rate, if you reduce the input then over time the problem will begin to fix itself.
Won't somebody please think of the children?!?!
But when the world goes to shit due to climate change we won't have all those guns available for the gritty mad max style post apocalypse world 
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On June 20 2015 06:31 BallinWitStalin wrote:
Everybody talks about how gun control won't fix the problem with an overabundance of guns in the US, and they are technically correct: in the short term. But 50 years from now a lot of those guns will be taken out of circulation. 100 years from now? Most of the guns that exist today won't be an issue.
It's a long term investment. America has most definitely fucked itself into a hole our generation certainly can't extricate itself from. But it actually is possible to enact legislation today (or in the next few years) that will make an impact on your children's lives, and on the lives of your children's children. Assuming guns have a decay rate, if you reduce the input then over time the problem will begin to fix itself.
Won't somebody please think of the children?!?!
Nope.
It's been 100+ years since the civil war and we can't even get SC to take down their confederate flag at the statehouse, thinking 50-100 years is going to be enough to subdue irrational gun culture is pie in the sky type stuff.
My Mossberg will work just as good in 50 years as it did the day I bought it. Probably better really, considering the upgrades.
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On June 20 2015 06:48 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2015 06:31 BallinWitStalin wrote:
Everybody talks about how gun control won't fix the problem with an overabundance of guns in the US, and they are technically correct: in the short term. But 50 years from now a lot of those guns will be taken out of circulation. 100 years from now? Most of the guns that exist today won't be an issue.
It's a long term investment. America has most definitely fucked itself into a hole our generation certainly can't extricate itself from. But it actually is possible to enact legislation today (or in the next few years) that will make an impact on your children's lives, and on the lives of your children's children. Assuming guns have a decay rate, if you reduce the input then over time the problem will begin to fix itself.
Won't somebody please think of the children?!?! Nope. It's been 100+ years since the civil war and we can't even get SC to take down their confederate flag at the statehouse, thinking 50-100 years is going to be enough to subdue irrational gun culture is pie in the sky type stuff. My Mossberg will work just as good in 50 years as it did the day I bought it. Probably better really, considering the upgrades.
Well yeah we won't get anywhere with that attitude.
Drastic change doesn't happen overnight
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On June 19 2015 21:50 lastpuritan wrote:
Just stop manufacturing projectiles, ammos etc. And do not import them. Thats another optional way to deal with the problem, before door to door checking.
mmm bullet control
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Repealing President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform law would increase the U.S. budget deficit by $353 billion over 10 years, congressional forecasters said on Friday, more than triple the red ink compared to an estimate three years ago.
But the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation said the deficit increase would only be $137 billion if economic feedback effects were considered, a sign of a new Republican mandate for increased use of "dynamic scoring" that includes the economic impact of legislation.
The new estimate comes as Republicans mull options for replacing the Affordable Care Act if the Supreme Court rules against the law's mechanism by the end of June.
The CBO and JCT said the main positive economic effect of an Obamacare repeal would be an increase in labor supply as Americans lose healthcare subsidies, boosting U.S. tax revenues. The agencies previously had estimated that more people nearing retirement age would limit their work and income to obtain federal insurance subsidies.
Based on the "static" budget analysis used most often by the CBO and JCT, the $353 billion deficit increase for 2016-2025 period increase compares to a $109 billion increase estimated for the years 2013-2022.
The higher deficit estimate stems partly from the shifting of the budget window to a time when the law is more fully implemented. Repeal would increase deficits by $275 billion over the 2023-2025 period.
The CBO and JCT also have lowered healthcare cost estimates since 2012, so a repeal of Obamacare's health coverage provisions would produce less direct savings than estimated previously.
Overall, based on static scoring, a repeal would reduce federal outlays by $821 billion over 10 years but this would be offset by an estimated reduction in revenues of $1.17 trillion.
Source
Seems sort of ironic. :D
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As a side note, I've noticed a lot of construction and expansion going on over at Nike HQ compound. I'm guessing they already know that TPP is a done deal and are preparing for their end of the bargain they made with Obama in creating some odd thousand jobs they promised. Speculation of course.
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That's what all the taxes and fees the ACA had were for- to make it look "budget neutral." They pumped it full of stuff and then made the law not fully kick in until 2016. That makes the budgeting much prettier.
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Unsurprisingly, the Republican candidates don't seem to be responding to the South Carolina tragedy very well. For example, here's Rick Perry saying that the shooting was an accident and that the core issue isn't guns or racism, but drugs. Towards the end it mentions that Christie pretty much thinks there's no way to fix these situations, and Jeb Bush just wants to pray the prejudice away.
Rick Perry calls Charleston church shooting an 'accident'
Republican presidential candidate says ‘real issue’ raised by case is drugs
Perry accuses Obama of seeking to use shooting to take away Americans’ guns
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry on Friday suggested the fatal shooting of nine black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white male was a drug-induced “accident”.
The former Texas governor was asked about the mass shooting at Emanuel AME church during an interview with the conservative NewsmaxTV. Perry, who is running for president again after a failed bid in 2012, said he didn’t know if the tragedy was an “act of terror”, but acknowledged it was “a crime of hate”.
But Perry then pivoted to what he called the “real issue to be talked about” – drugs.
“It seems to me – again, without having all the details about this one – that these individuals have been medicated. And there may be a real issue in this country, from the standpoint of these drugs, and how they’re used,” Perry said.
Some acquaintances of Dylann Storm Roof, the 21-year-old gunman in the Charleston killings, have said he used drugs – a detail that has been seized upon by conservative conspiracy websites such as Infowars.
But Roof, who was apprehended in North Carolina on Thursday, has confirmed that the killings were both premeditated and racially motivated. The shooting suspect told authorities he wanted to “start a race war”, after confessing to attending Bible study with the victims and then opening fire.
In addition to steering the conversation away from race and terrorism, Perry also accused Barack Obama of trying to take firearms away from the American people by pushing for stricter gun laws in the wake of mass shootings like the one in Charleston.
“This is the MO of this administration, any time there is an accident like this, the president is clear. He doesn’t like for Americans to have guns and so he uses every opportunity, this being another one, to basically go parrot that message,” Perry said.
He added that pushing gun control was a “knee-jerk reaction” that would do little to change gun violence “as long as evil and cowardice is alive in the world”.
Perry said he wasn’t ready to point to any policy changes that could prevent another Charleston, and said it was up to South Carolina to decide if the Confederate flag should continue to fly on the grounds of the state capitol in Columbia.
Other Republican presidential hopefuls have not explicitly discussed guns in relation to the Charleston massacre, but have cautioned that new laws are not the answer.
The New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, who is weighing a presidential bid but has not officially declared himself a candidate, told a conservative gathering on Friday morning that laws would not be able to prevent what happened in Charleston.
“This type of conduct is something that only our display of our own love and good faith that is in our heart can change – laws can’t change this,” Christie said during a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, DC, an event that draws a largely evangelical audience. “Only the goodwill and love of the American people can let those folks know that that act was unacceptable, disgraceful.”
Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who formally launched his presidential campaign this week, mourned the Charleston victims at the same conference but did not get into any policy implications.
“They were praying. They were learning and studying the word of the Lord,” Bush said on Friday. “In times like these, in times of great of national mourning, people of faith, all of us must come together and at least reflect on this and fortify our strength and love of Christ, love of God to be able to continue to go forth.”
Bush was also reticent to discuss race when a reporter at the Huffington Post asked him if the shooting was racially motivated.
“It was a horrific act and I don’t know what the background of it is, but it was an act of hatred,” Bush said, although he acknowledged the role played by race when asked again.
“I don’t know. Looks like to me it was, but we’ll find out all the information,” Bush said. “It’s clear it was an act of raw hatred, for sure. Nine people lost their lives, and they were African American. You can judge what it is.”
The Charleston shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
~ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/19/rick-perry-charleston-church-shooting-accident?CMP=share_btn_fb
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Diverse animals across the globe are slipping away and dying as Earth enters its sixth mass extinction, a new study finds.
Over the last century, species of vertebrates are dying out up to 114 times faster than they would have without human activity, said the researchers, who used the most conservative estimates to assess extinction rates. That means the number of species that went extinct in the past 100 years would have taken 11,400 years to go extinct under natural extinction rates, the researchers said.
First, they needed to establish how many species go extinct naturally over time. They used data from a 2011 study in the journal Nature showing that typically, the world has two extinctions per 10,000 vertebrate species every 100 years. That study based its estimate on fossil and historical records.
Moreover, that background extinction rate, the researchers found, was higher than that found in other studies, which tend to report half that rate, the researchers said.
Then, Ceballos and his colleagues calculated the modern extinction rate. They used data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an international organization that tracks threatened and endangered species. The 2014 IUCN Red List gave them the number of extinct and possibly extinct vertebrate species since 1500.
These lists allowed them to calculate two extinction rates: a highly conservative rate based solely on extinct vertebrates, and a conservative rate based on both extinct and possibly extinct vertebrates, the researchers said.
According to the natural background rate, just nine vertebrate species should have gone extinct since 1900, the researchers found. But, using the conservative, modern rate, 468 more vertebrates have gone extinct during that period, including 69 mammal species, 80 bird species, 24 reptile species, 146 amphibian species and 158 fish species, they said.
Researchers typically label an event a mass extinction when more than 5 percent of Earth's species goes extinct in a short period of time, geologically speaking. Based on the fossil record, researchers know about five mass extinctions, the last of which happened 65 million years ago, when an asteroid wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs.
In 2014, Jenkins and his colleagues published a study in the journal Science that came to the same broad conclusions detailed in the new study, but in last year's study, they also included flowering and cone plants. That study found that current extinction rates are about 1,000 times higher than they would be without human activities.
"This latest study is further evidence of a human-induced mass extinction now underway," Jenkins told Live Science. "Much like the situation with human-caused climate change, years of research have built an enormous scientific case that humanity is driving a mass extinction. What the world’s many species now need are actions to reverse the problem."
Source
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On June 20 2015 08:00 screamingpalm wrote:Show nested quote +
Diverse animals across the globe are slipping away and dying as Earth enters its sixth mass extinction, a new study finds.
Over the last century, species of vertebrates are dying out up to 114 times faster than they would have without human activity, said the researchers, who used the most conservative estimates to assess extinction rates. That means the number of species that went extinct in the past 100 years would have taken 11,400 years to go extinct under natural extinction rates, the researchers said.
First, they needed to establish how many species go extinct naturally over time. They used data from a 2011 study in the journal Nature showing that typically, the world has two extinctions per 10,000 vertebrate species every 100 years. That study based its estimate on fossil and historical records.
Moreover, that background extinction rate, the researchers found, was higher than that found in other studies, which tend to report half that rate, the researchers said.
Then, Ceballos and his colleagues calculated the modern extinction rate. They used data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an international organization that tracks threatened and endangered species. The 2014 IUCN Red List gave them the number of extinct and possibly extinct vertebrate species since 1500.
These lists allowed them to calculate two extinction rates: a highly conservative rate based solely on extinct vertebrates, and a conservative rate based on both extinct and possibly extinct vertebrates, the researchers said.
According to the natural background rate, just nine vertebrate species should have gone extinct since 1900, the researchers found. But, using the conservative, modern rate, 468 more vertebrates have gone extinct during that period, including 69 mammal species, 80 bird species, 24 reptile species, 146 amphibian species and 158 fish species, they said.
Researchers typically label an event a mass extinction when more than 5 percent of Earth's species goes extinct in a short period of time, geologically speaking. Based on the fossil record, researchers know about five mass extinctions, the last of which happened 65 million years ago, when an asteroid wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs.
In 2014, Jenkins and his colleagues published a study in the journal Science that came to the same broad conclusions detailed in the new study, but in last year's study, they also included flowering and cone plants. That study found that current extinction rates are about 1,000 times higher than they would be without human activities.
"This latest study is further evidence of a human-induced mass extinction now underway," Jenkins told Live Science. "Much like the situation with human-caused climate change, years of research have built an enormous scientific case that humanity is driving a mass extinction. What the world’s many species now need are actions to reverse the problem."
Source
Unless they see dollar signs at those animal graves, this sadly won't change the mind of the typical climate change denier x.x
It's incredibly tragic though.
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On June 20 2015 06:48 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2015 06:31 BallinWitStalin wrote:
Everybody talks about how gun control won't fix the problem with an overabundance of guns in the US, and they are technically correct: in the short term. But 50 years from now a lot of those guns will be taken out of circulation. 100 years from now? Most of the guns that exist today won't be an issue.
It's a long term investment. America has most definitely fucked itself into a hole our generation certainly can't extricate itself from. But it actually is possible to enact legislation today (or in the next few years) that will make an impact on your children's lives, and on the lives of your children's children. Assuming guns have a decay rate, if you reduce the input then over time the problem will begin to fix itself.
Won't somebody please think of the children?!?! Nope. It's been 100+ years since the civil war and we can't even get SC to take down their confederate flag at the statehouse, thinking 50-100 years is going to be enough to subdue irrational gun culture is pie in the sky type stuff. My Mossberg will work just as good in 50 years as it did the day I bought it. Probably better really, considering the upgrades.
Well, it's not like it's mossberg owners that are shooting people up.
also curious, when you guys talk about gun culture in america, are you guys referencing the sheer # of guns in circulation?
% of house holds with guns?
popularity of guns in american media?
or some other metric?
I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I'm pretty sure as far as developed nations go, Switzerland has probably the closest % household gun ownership (paid for by the government), yet due to strict training and licensing of weapons, they have very little gun violence, despite how common guns are there.
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On June 20 2015 07:16 Introvert wrote:
That's what all the taxes and fees the ACA had were for- to make it look "budget neutral." They pumped it full of stuff and then made the law not fully kick in until 2016. That makes the budgeting much prettier.
Thank God people like you will only be able to say this for another year or so. Let's check back on January 1st, 2017, and then we can see if I turn into a pumpkin!
Let's get real. Practically every single CBO report on Obamacare, its impact on the government's budget, or the economic impact of the law indicates that even the very flawed ACA is saving everyone that matters a fair amount of money; you can look for the numerous articles and studies that have already been posted in this very thread. Furthermore, the predictability and reliability of affordable healthcare access is only going to increase when people don't have to worry as much about seeking out jobs that provide health insurance and hospitals no longer have as many uninsured bursting through their ERs.
You're gonna need some pretty good evidence and some pretty volatile changes in the state of the market for your predictions to come true
+ Show Spoiler +
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On June 20 2015 09:13 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2015 07:16 Introvert wrote:
That's what all the taxes and fees the ACA had were for- to make it look "budget neutral." They pumped it full of stuff and then made the law not fully kick in until 2016. That makes the budgeting much prettier. Thank God people like you will only be able to say this for another year or so. Let's check back on January 1st, 2017, and then we can see if I turn into a pumpkin! Let's get real. Practically every single CBO report on Obamacare, its impact on the government's budget, or the economic impact of the law indicates that even the very flawed ACA is saving everyone that matters a fair amount of money; you can look for the numerous articles and studies that have already been posted in this very thread. Furthermore, the predictability and reliability of affordable healthcare access is only going to increase when people don't have to worry as much about seeking out jobs that provide health insurance and hospitals no longer have as many uninsured bursting through their ERs. You're gonna need some pretty good evidence and some pretty volatile changes in the state of the market for your predictions to come true + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uKIeamPi2Y
Almost all the budget savings are on the back of Medicare cuts, which I'm totally in favor of, but no reason a radial couldn't keep them. Additionally, costs were kept down by pushing much the cost onto people directly, and putting in price caps instead of taxing then spending to show taxpayers the full cost of the bill in one sweep.
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Yes, there may be some upfront cost increases on the part of consumers, though they are oftentimes non-existent depending on how competent the state exchange is (and the federal exchanges for the states without them tends to fair pretty well in this regard). Again, pretty much every single criticism of Obamacare inevitably hinges on a forecasted downward swing triggered by a trapdoor, sometimes called a temporary price cap. We'll just have to see, now won't we
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On June 20 2015 09:01 wei2coolman wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2015 06:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 20 2015 06:31 BallinWitStalin wrote:
Everybody talks about how gun control won't fix the problem with an overabundance of guns in the US, and they are technically correct: in the short term. But 50 years from now a lot of those guns will be taken out of circulation. 100 years from now? Most of the guns that exist today won't be an issue.
It's a long term investment. America has most definitely fucked itself into a hole our generation certainly can't extricate itself from. But it actually is possible to enact legislation today (or in the next few years) that will make an impact on your children's lives, and on the lives of your children's children. Assuming guns have a decay rate, if you reduce the input then over time the problem will begin to fix itself.
Won't somebody please think of the children?!?! Nope. It's been 100+ years since the civil war and we can't even get SC to take down their confederate flag at the statehouse, thinking 50-100 years is going to be enough to subdue irrational gun culture is pie in the sky type stuff. My Mossberg will work just as good in 50 years as it did the day I bought it. Probably better really, considering the upgrades. Well, it's not like it's mossberg owners that are shooting people up. also curious, when you guys talk about gun culture in america, are you guys referencing the sheer # of guns in circulation? % of house holds with guns? popularity of guns in american media? or some other metric? I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I'm pretty sure as far as developed nations go, Switzerland has probably the closest % household gun ownership (paid for by the government), yet due to strict training and licensing of weapons, they have very little gun violence, despite how common guns are there.
All of the above, really.
Compared to every other 1st world nation in the world (and even most 3rd world nations), the US seems absolutely obsessed with guns, from ownership, usage, manufacturing, depictions, etc. Even compared to nations where they have mandatory service, like South Korea or Israel, a gun is mostly seen as a duty, not a right or a glorified badge of pride.
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wei2:
based on this data, switz is the closest first world country, with about half as many guns per capita as the US.
The US has around 270 million civilian owned guns.
Of course in Switzerland, it's a little unclear how many of those are truly civilian guns, rather than guns that they are assigned and allowed to keep at home as part of their militia system; it's hard to tell looking around a bit on the web.
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EPT
