"The number of dangerous defendants who "get off on a technicality" is so small, it's barely significant. Somewhere between 90 to 95 percent of criminal cases are resolved with plea bargains before ever getting to trial. Among those that do get to trial, conviction rates in most jurisdictions run at 80 percent or higher...
Another striking misperception: The crime rate in America has been dropping dramatically since the mid-1990s. The murder rates in our largest cities are at lows we haven't seen in a half century or more. Yet Americans consistently believe crime is getting worse, not better...
Likewise, the job of police officer is getting safer. Last year saw the fewest gun-related homicides of police officers since the 19th century. Assaults on cops are dropping, too. Yet we're regularly told that policing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. In fact, you're more likely to be murdered just by living in about half of America's largest cities than you are while working as a police officer...
Everything you know about forensics is probably wrong. Those magical machines that churn out precise and detailed information based on a half-footprint, a fiber, or a clod of dirt so that Ted Danson or David Caruso can then go on to solve the crime? They're mostly fictional..."
"Liking yourself"
Reading is Fundamental.
"A little while back, Moffat repeated that a fourth season is definitely coming. That wasn’t news. Just now though, he’s said that: we’ve already plotted out series four and five. Does that mean they’ll go into production? No. Of course not. But if the ratings and audience approval scores remain as high as they are at the moment, I’m sure the BBC and Hartswood Films will do everything in their power to ensure they do."
This is an excellent bit of... speculation. Click over here - Moonhead Press: God's End
What the CDC needs to do is fuck off and take a vacation out of people's lives. Do You Drink Too Much? Don't Ask the CDC. - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
"Physicians' reluctance to broach the subject is especially worrisome, the CDC says, because "at least 38 million adults in the United States drink too much." How does the CDC know at least 38 million Americans drink too much? Because survey data indicate that "approximately one in six (38 million) U.S. adults binge drink." And what counts as binge drinking, as far as the CDC is concerned? Five or more drinks "on an occasion" for men and four or more drinks for women. Why were those cutoffs chosen? According to the National Insitute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, because those are the amounts that typically raise a person's blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 percent, which corresponds to the per se legal standard for driving while intoxicated.
What if you don't plan to drive? It doesn't matter. The federal government says you should never drink that amount, period. If you do, you are drinking too much by definition (the government's definition, that is). As I have noted several times, the government's notion of a binge encompasses common patterns of social drinking that cause no measurable harm to anyone or anything, except for the CDC's sensibilities—e.g., an after-work cocktail, followed by wine during dinner with friends and an after-dinner drink. I confess I have been known to binge in this manner from time to time. Once a month is all it takes to be counted among the 38 million, the vast majority of whom would not qualify for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence or even alcohol abuse but who nevertheless need to change their ways, according to the CDC...
Why does the CDC say "at least 38 million" Americans drink too much? Because it maintains that "drinking too much" includes not just so-called binge drinking but several other categories as well. If you are a man who consumes 15 or more drinks in a week or a woman who consumes eight or more, you drink too much. Ditto if you are pregnant or younger than 21 and drink any amount at all. If you are a woman, the CDC does not want to hear about how you limit yourself to one drink every day except Saturday, when you have two, thereby exceeding the government's arbitrary limit. Nor does the CDC care that you think 18-to-20-year-olds, who are legally adults in every other respect, should be allowed to drink beer. And don't even try to point out the lack of evidence that light to moderate drinking during pregancy harms fetuses. The CDC has decreed that all these patterns of drinking are excessive, and its only challenge now is convincing the rest of us."
In the immortal words of Bill Hicks, for the CDC...
"“The Administration must recognize the failure of its policies in the Middle East and change course,” McCain and Graham said. Change course? Do they want to send troops back to Iraq, so they can do more dying and killing? McCain and Graham, who never saw an opportunity for U.S. military intervention they didn’t like, continue to operate under the absurd illusion that American politicians and bureaucrats can micromanage something as complex as a foreign society. Their hubris knows no bounds, but, then, they never pay the price for their foolishness. Who pays? The Americans they cheer off to war, but even more so, the people in foreign lands who are on the receiving end of American intervention...
Iraq and Afghanistan are engulfed in violence, and their corrupt, authoritarian governments are objects of suspicion and hatred. The suggestion that U.S. forces could make things better only shows how out of touch people in Washington can be. Anyone who was thinking clearly in 2001–2003 knew it would come to this. Afghanistan has a history of driving out invaders. Only someone blinded by the allure of empire could fool himself into thinking the U.S. government could arrange affairs such that they wouldn’t unravel the moment U.S. personnel prepared to leave the country.
The 2003 Iraq invasion raised even more questions about the ability of policymakers to engage in clear thinking. Under Saddam Hussein, the minority Sunni Muslims ruled the Shi’ite majority, many of whom were sympathetic to Shi’ite Iran, America’s supposed bête noir. Take out Saddam, and Iran’s friends would rule. Indeed, the man who became Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was handpicked by Iranian authorities..."
These are excellent. Via mobieus69 (Anthony Genuardi) on deviantART
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