kelpdiver

or that girl wearing that tight dress? the only reason to physically attack someone is in defense of you or another being physically attacked by that someone - period I picked my example because many have said the dead guy had it coming once he fought with the officer in the car. Even though there (apparently) were two sets of shots fired, one within the car, and with both people outside. The tight dress analogy doesn't work, rehmwa - no one else is impacted by that. But as we've seen with glassholes and long before, people often do object to being recorded or photographed without permission. It appears he insisted on doing it anyway, leading them to believe it was more police harassment.

Only you would try to declare as irrelevant immediate cause for an incident you cite as a proof that these black thugs are the problem in society.

What 'if'? I didn't speak of an if, did you? "It comes in as one person here and there, " You didn't use the word if, but it certainly belongs there. because assuming the happy path is reckless. That Dallas hospital didn't do well with the light case. The CDC check having to restate their realities. Governors did lots of stupid shit. All sorts of stuff to improve even with this easy one.

congrats on your defense for lying, too.

Oh, I tend to think so as well, but it is a salient detail he either did not know (shocking), or did not include (even more shocking). In either event, it was not a angry mob just seeing an easy target and going after him. He poked the bear. It was about as smart as trying to wrestle a cop for his gun.

Well, let's not see how well our system does at scale. Clearly our odds are much better than in the third world, but it's a lot easier when there's only a handful. That's kinda the point though, isn't it? It isn't getting to scale. It comes in as one person here and there, it gets dealt with. The problem is that this "IF" you speak of isn't really under our control. Particularly if we just try to ignore the outbreak in Africa. Before this time, the scale was no cases whatsoever. And all the prior (known) outbreaks in Africa combined were smaller than this one. It's dangerous to write it off as "just 17% lethal" because this time it was just a half dozen people with another 100 potentials.

any reason why you left out the key detail of why he was attacked?

Well, let's not see how well our system does at scale. Clearly our odds are much better than in the third world, but it's a lot easier when there's only a handful. Going by the Onion, we're still quite a few (40 some) sick white people away from a cure.

that's what life in San Francisco is like. Where Nancy Pelosi is a right wing fascist.

what a piece of shit. "Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way." Which has always worked great for 9 wolves and 1 sheep. Fairness definitely reigns. But it does remind me of Robert's "defense" of the ACA. I sense he (or the Party) is looking to give the SC a way to turn the tide. But in the process he's doomed any chance he has of higher appointments (what a shame...)

is everyone past 21 days now, as well? Seems like everyone either died, recovered, or never had it. The whole sage in Maine seemed to disappear from the news as well. Never heard how her refusal played out, or if she really was a CDC stooge.

It's easy for the winners to be magnanimous. The proof will be seen by early February, I suspect. With the party in Iowa about to start up, I can see at least some of them being willing to address a few matters. Though we all remember how both parties punted most of the hard issues in 2012 till just after the election.

I don't believe bills survive into the next session. If he keeps them sitting, that's it. I do welcome the opportunity for the Democrats to cycle in new leadership. They can do better than Reid. But there's no guarantee of this - he could just become Minority Leader until the next swing back. If he doesn't lead the same sort of blocking nonsense that the GOP did for the last 6 years, he definitely needs to be replaced.

doubtful. But the unpopular attempts at gun control could have been a factor.

I don't know when those people choose to jump. Did they wait till it got hot, or did many of them opt to end the waiting? What if there was potential rescue in the form of an escape route or water putting out the flames? Giving up hope too soon on incomplete information means you died for nothing. The people with severe depression may believe there's no other solution, but they're not all correct in this. If society is going to give them a final solution, it has to consider this for them, to safeguard them against making the decision rashly. At the Berlin Wall remains they have markers for all the people that were killed trying to cross it. The most striking one to me was that of the last guy, who was killed just before the abrupt tearing down. What bad luck for him. He could not have foreseen how quickly the fall of the Soviet satellites would occur. One might predict it was a few years away, but we've been predicting the end of the Cuba nonsense for a few decades now. So he took the highly risky move and died in the process.

You're quite the optimist! I had hoped the GOP would find such a person in 2012 that would lead a charge based on fiscal policy, but instead they choose to wallow in the mud over hundreds of debates. However, this time could be a repeat of 2000 where they only pretend to have primaries and instead appoint their candidate free of too much debate. At least the Democrats seem to be aiming that way with Clinton. GW may have scorched the Bush name for good, so sorry Jeb. As for the Congressional fluttering, it doesn't seem to different than the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate. The 74 election was a house cleaning of GOP, but by 1980, Reagan was able to lead a takeback. This time we had Iraq and the crash and a remarkably low number of True Americans in Congress, and even party leadership has seen close calls or been bounced out. The incumbency advantage is still too great, but at least they've been put on some notice.

You can still do that as an inperson voter. At least here in California (I'd hope everywhere), they mail a sample ballot and you can mark it up as you do your research. This year was stuffed with so many city and state initiatives that I didn't finish till late last night, so I'm dropping off the ballot at the polling station.

with half of Californians voting by mail, I find it hard to believe they attempt to do a signature check against millions of ballots. And are they all skilled at this? Or do we have computers doing the lifting? Hell, my bank already distrusts me as I signed that card over a decade ago and non stop keyboard use has degraded my penmanship to functionally useless for the 3 checks I write per year to my dentist.

Or just one person who doesn't understand her job properly? it's a one or two day every other year job that people volunteer to do, so yes, it can certainly be a matter of some not doing the 'right' thing.

so let's hear it, Anvil. Was Florida a tainted win?

uh, no it does not. It is littered with phrases like may have or could possibly be. The authors acknowledge a weakness is the sample size for illegal aliens and also point out that voter ID would not be a blocker for these would be voters. I'll point you back to the Florida 2000 election. There are far more real issues with this election that cast doubt on the Bush victory than this conjecture about illegal aliens. Do you consider that win tainted? I don't. We can only count real ballots, not how we extrapolate how they might have turned out if X and Y hadn't been done. And every count of the actual ballots says that Bush won.

Again, probability works great for random events, but far less effective/accurate when it's not. I'd point out Joe's post #23 - this goes well beyond deaths - but I'd rather stick to this notion that 20 state sponsored killings a year isn't a big deal. Are you fucking kidding me? LEOs are the only people out there that don't get jailed by default in a fatal shooting, and if they're suspended from work, it's with pay. In a he said, he said situation, the word of the LEO is deemed far more credible. So every time one murders a citizen it shakes the foundation. For those who said the welfare queens of Ferguson should improve the communities by getting involved - wtf would they get closer to an organization they believe would rather shoot and beat them? This is the cost of these events - there has been so much history of discriminatory treatment (be it profiling or outright racism) that the community doesn't give any benefit of the doubt. You can say they're wrong, but there's an awful of amount of data - recent data - that supports their suspicions.

You seem to be always late to the party. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/24/could-non-citizens-decide-the-november-election/ That's all conjecture. Jesus Christ might rise from the ground as well. The false vote in New Mexico is real, probably. Can't eliminate the possibility that it's a contrived event with a co-conspirator. Saying people have won close elections and there possibly might have been some fraudulent votes is rather pointless if you can't actually identify any of them. That 2005 commission was started in part because people thought Ohio was stolen by Diebold/GOP evilness. It too was a close election. To repeat - solutions that don't cause massive disenfranchisement is worth pursuing. But we factually know why the GOP has been doing it, and it's not about fair elections. You can't put forth changes based solely on the benefits while ignoring the costs.

Or, perhaps, they are absolutely informed and have, over a period of a whole life (perhaps 40 or 50 years) come to the conclusion that the balance is tilted toward ending it. They are more informed than anyone else about the negatives of life and about their continuing inability to cope with it and the positives that no longer outweigh the negatives. ok - so what's the social policy that covers this? Anyone over 60 is deemed competent to make the decision? Waiting periods (12 months of repeated month assertions of desire to do so?) Pysch eval by panel of 2 or 3 bodies to assess competency? Given the biochemistry behind so many mental health issues, I'd have a hard time finding any scenario where society should endorse suicide for someone < 25. It does get better. Intense sorrow (wife or child dies) cause quite a few suicides, but also subside with time. Another 'no' scenario, IMO, due to diminished capacity.

unlike the terminally ill, their mental illness prevents them from making an informed decision to end their lives. Or at the very least, prevents society from ensuring this (some mental disorders may not affect their judgment, but difficult to measure. And some may argue that going against innate survival drive is evidence of disorder).