Studies have shown that the teen birth rate in the United States has been dropping significantly. The Colorado teen birth rate and the abortion rate have both dropped 48 percent over the last five years. At the start of the study, half of the women in the the poorest parts of the state gave birth before the age of 21; however, five years later, half the women in the same group were over the age of 24 when first giving birth. European women have known for years that IUDs* and implants -- birth control devices that, once inserted, are 99 percent effective for three to 10 years -- are the most reliable way to prevent unintended pregnancies. [1]
In 2013, Jennifer B. Kane and a team of researchers reviewed 40 years of studies on the impact of teen parenting and found that a woman who has a child before age 18 is likely to have from eight months to two years less education than a woman who waits until she's older. Women with household incomes greater than $75,000 per year were almost eleven times more likely to use LARCS* than those whose household incomes were less than $10,000. In the United States, those between the ages of 15 and 24 account for half of all STIs* acquired each year, despite making up just a quarter of the sexually active population. The chlamydia rate for young black women is five times that of their white counterparts, while young black men contact the disease at nearly ten times the rate of young white men. [2]
There is yet another study done in 2010 by Christine Dehlerdorf, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, that found providers were more likely to recommend the IUD to low-income black and Latino patients than to low-income white people with comparable health histories.
*IUDs - flexible plastic devices that are inserted into the uterus to prevent pregnancy.
*LARCs - Long Lasting Reversible Contraceptives.
*STIs - sexually transmitted diseases.
ADDENDUMS:
*According to the latest information, 750,000 teenage girls get pregnant every year and four in ten of sexually active teens get a sexually transmitted infection.
*Glass-Steagall is needed because too-big-to-fail banks are bigger, riskier and more ungovernable today than they were in the financial meltdown reaching its apogee in late 2008. Repeal of Glass-Steagall hasn't led to more efficiency and lower costs; however, repeal has helped bring about high-risk gambling and the aggressive hustling of dubious investments to unwary clients. Traditional banking is incompatible with the risk-seeking, "short-term mentality" of investment bankers who seek "immediate rewards." There is a fraud mentality in investment banking -- a documented illegality. Big banks are a threat to democracy.
Footnotes
1. Davi McClain, "The Birth Control Revolution," The Nation, November 16, 2015.
[2] Ibid.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Prosecutors Not Doing Their Jobs
Yesterday it was announced that the grand jury convened in Cleveland, Ohio decided not to indict the police officer who shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice to death. Tamir Rice was shot and then died in the hospital in November 2014, which means that the grand jury must rank as the of the most dilatory grand juries in living memory. The case was not complicated, because what happened before and after the shooting was caught on video.
Although the grand jury should rightly be severely criticized for taking so long to reach a decision, the greater blame should fall on the prosecutor for not doing his job. The prosecutor, in effect, served as the defense attorney for the officer who did the fatal shooting, instead of doing the job of evaluating the evidence and determining if there is sufficient evidence to bring an indictment to the grand jury. Grand juries do not make decisions on guilt or innocence: they determine if sufficient cause is provided to bring an indictment.
The police officer in question shot young Tamir an estimated two seconds after he exited his vehicle. He did not order Tamir to drop what he was holding or question him. If the police officer feared for his life, he had a rational alternative. He could have crouched behind his vehicle and from there ordered of cajoled Tamir to drop the gun and walk away.
There are two prongs to the argument that the shooter should not be held to account in the Rice case: the first is that the dispatcher did not convey the information that the 911 caller said it might be a boy with a toy gun and the second was that Tamir Rice was an unusually large 12-year-old. These are very weak reeds on which to rest a defense, given that the police officer had an alternative as described above. Also, the dispatcher should have suffered some sort of adverse action for not providing vital information.
The prevailing narrative is that police officers --- and sheriffs deputies, for that matter -- put their lives in danger every day to serve and protect the police. We now have a very large body of evidence that these law enforcement officers have an exaggerated fear of their own safety and will put that above preserving the life and limb of those citizens with whom they come into contact, even when the threat seems to be minimal to a reasonable person. Thus, when the St. Louis police shot to death a man who may have had a small knife in his hand, the shooting was determined to be justifiable, because the St Louis Police Department has a policy that anyone with a knife in view may be fatally shot if he/she enters a 25-foot circle of protection. Luquan McDonald, the 17-year-old Chicago teen was shot numerous times after he had fallen prone on the street. The police report said he made a menacing gesture with a knife while lying on the street. The video of the shooting and its aftermath doesn't show any movement on the part of McDonald. I have seen another video of a male lying on his stomach, but head raised and a right hand clasping a knife, stretched out in front. He was shot to death, because, as claimed by the police, he represented a threat to others. Unless and until he rose up and began to charge someone with the knife thrust out in front, he represented no threat to anyone.
We have regressed to the point in the United States where it is very difficult to indict a law enforcement officer for excessive use of force and virtually impossible to convict him/her if brought to trial. Prosecutors are even more protected, as in many legal jurisdictions they can't be held to account for serious misbehavior, such as railroading an innocent person to prison or even Death Row.
Although the grand jury should rightly be severely criticized for taking so long to reach a decision, the greater blame should fall on the prosecutor for not doing his job. The prosecutor, in effect, served as the defense attorney for the officer who did the fatal shooting, instead of doing the job of evaluating the evidence and determining if there is sufficient evidence to bring an indictment to the grand jury. Grand juries do not make decisions on guilt or innocence: they determine if sufficient cause is provided to bring an indictment.
The police officer in question shot young Tamir an estimated two seconds after he exited his vehicle. He did not order Tamir to drop what he was holding or question him. If the police officer feared for his life, he had a rational alternative. He could have crouched behind his vehicle and from there ordered of cajoled Tamir to drop the gun and walk away.
There are two prongs to the argument that the shooter should not be held to account in the Rice case: the first is that the dispatcher did not convey the information that the 911 caller said it might be a boy with a toy gun and the second was that Tamir Rice was an unusually large 12-year-old. These are very weak reeds on which to rest a defense, given that the police officer had an alternative as described above. Also, the dispatcher should have suffered some sort of adverse action for not providing vital information.
The prevailing narrative is that police officers --- and sheriffs deputies, for that matter -- put their lives in danger every day to serve and protect the police. We now have a very large body of evidence that these law enforcement officers have an exaggerated fear of their own safety and will put that above preserving the life and limb of those citizens with whom they come into contact, even when the threat seems to be minimal to a reasonable person. Thus, when the St. Louis police shot to death a man who may have had a small knife in his hand, the shooting was determined to be justifiable, because the St Louis Police Department has a policy that anyone with a knife in view may be fatally shot if he/she enters a 25-foot circle of protection. Luquan McDonald, the 17-year-old Chicago teen was shot numerous times after he had fallen prone on the street. The police report said he made a menacing gesture with a knife while lying on the street. The video of the shooting and its aftermath doesn't show any movement on the part of McDonald. I have seen another video of a male lying on his stomach, but head raised and a right hand clasping a knife, stretched out in front. He was shot to death, because, as claimed by the police, he represented a threat to others. Unless and until he rose up and began to charge someone with the knife thrust out in front, he represented no threat to anyone.
We have regressed to the point in the United States where it is very difficult to indict a law enforcement officer for excessive use of force and virtually impossible to convict him/her if brought to trial. Prosecutors are even more protected, as in many legal jurisdictions they can't be held to account for serious misbehavior, such as railroading an innocent person to prison or even Death Row.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
The Prevalance of Trying Juveniles as Adults
Between 1992 and 1999, 99 states and the District of Columbia made it easier to try juveniles as adults." By 2012, there were 28 states across the nation that were handing out mandatory life-without- parole sentences to juveniles." By 29015, more that 2,230 people in the United States were serving life sentences without parole for crimes committed as juveniles, according to data complied by the Phillips Black Project, a nonprofit law practice that collected information in all 50 states." [1]
In East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, the racial disparity is even starker: Almost half of the parish population is white but 32 of the 33 serving life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed while juveniles are black One of those 32 is Taurus Buchanan, who at the age of 16 threw one punch that caused one young boy in a fight among three boys to crumble to the ground. The fallen boy never got up and subsequently died in a hospital. Because Taurus was over the age of 14 he was automatically tried and convicted of second degree murder, and, also automatically, sentenced to life without parole.
The Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law organization based in Alabama, found that there were 73 cases in which juveniles were sent away for crimes they committed at ages 13 or 14. One was sentenced to life for kidnapping, another for sexual battery, another for taking part in a robbery in which someone was shot but survived.
The U.S. Supreme Court has been moving step-by-step to lessen the punishment for serious crimes committed by juveniles. In a 2005 ruling, the Court banned use of the death penalty for crimes committed by juveniles, Five years later, the Court prohibited sentencing kids to life-without-parole for cases that didn't involve a homicide. And in 2012, in Miller v. Alabama, the Court extended that ban to homicide cases. In 2015, the Court heard a case out of Louisiana on whether states can be compelled to apply the Miller ruling retroactively. The decision is pending.
The state of Louisiana leads the nation in the percentage of lifers sent away for crimes committed when they were juveniles. As of the most recent reading, Louisiana has 247 of such lifers, which translates to 5.31 per 100,000 residents. Of those 247 lifers, 199, or 81 percent, are black. In regard to retroactive resentencing, there are 11 or 12 states that have either denied or have not addressed retroactive resentencing and about an equal number have it under court review. In sheer numbers, Pennsylvania and Michigan lead the nation, with 376 and 368 respectively.
The number of inmates serving juvenile life without parole per 100,000 residents, in the top ten states: The national rate is 0.719. State followed by rate: Louisiana - 5.31; Michigan - 3.71; Pennsylvania - 2.94; Mississippi - 2.20; Arkansas - 1.92; Missouri - 1.70; Nebraska - 1.44; Florida - 1.14; Colorado - 0.90; and North Carolina - 0.78.
ADDENDUMS:
*According to the Brady Campaign, seven children are killed by guns each day.
*Today, school.nurses, police officers and firefighters increasingly carry naloxone, a synthetic drug used to counteract the effects of narcotic overdosage. New laws in 37 states allow friends, and family members of opiate users to obtain prescriptions.
*Tom Perkins, who as a Hewlett-Packard board member, voted to fire Carly Fiorino,told an interviewer that in an ideal system,"You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes."
Footnote
[1] Corey G, Johnson and Ken Armstrong, "This Boy's Life," Mother Jones, January/February 2016.
In East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, the racial disparity is even starker: Almost half of the parish population is white but 32 of the 33 serving life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed while juveniles are black One of those 32 is Taurus Buchanan, who at the age of 16 threw one punch that caused one young boy in a fight among three boys to crumble to the ground. The fallen boy never got up and subsequently died in a hospital. Because Taurus was over the age of 14 he was automatically tried and convicted of second degree murder, and, also automatically, sentenced to life without parole.
The Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law organization based in Alabama, found that there were 73 cases in which juveniles were sent away for crimes they committed at ages 13 or 14. One was sentenced to life for kidnapping, another for sexual battery, another for taking part in a robbery in which someone was shot but survived.
The U.S. Supreme Court has been moving step-by-step to lessen the punishment for serious crimes committed by juveniles. In a 2005 ruling, the Court banned use of the death penalty for crimes committed by juveniles, Five years later, the Court prohibited sentencing kids to life-without-parole for cases that didn't involve a homicide. And in 2012, in Miller v. Alabama, the Court extended that ban to homicide cases. In 2015, the Court heard a case out of Louisiana on whether states can be compelled to apply the Miller ruling retroactively. The decision is pending.
The state of Louisiana leads the nation in the percentage of lifers sent away for crimes committed when they were juveniles. As of the most recent reading, Louisiana has 247 of such lifers, which translates to 5.31 per 100,000 residents. Of those 247 lifers, 199, or 81 percent, are black. In regard to retroactive resentencing, there are 11 or 12 states that have either denied or have not addressed retroactive resentencing and about an equal number have it under court review. In sheer numbers, Pennsylvania and Michigan lead the nation, with 376 and 368 respectively.
The number of inmates serving juvenile life without parole per 100,000 residents, in the top ten states: The national rate is 0.719. State followed by rate: Louisiana - 5.31; Michigan - 3.71; Pennsylvania - 2.94; Mississippi - 2.20; Arkansas - 1.92; Missouri - 1.70; Nebraska - 1.44; Florida - 1.14; Colorado - 0.90; and North Carolina - 0.78.
ADDENDUMS:
*According to the Brady Campaign, seven children are killed by guns each day.
*Today, school.nurses, police officers and firefighters increasingly carry naloxone, a synthetic drug used to counteract the effects of narcotic overdosage. New laws in 37 states allow friends, and family members of opiate users to obtain prescriptions.
*Tom Perkins, who as a Hewlett-Packard board member, voted to fire Carly Fiorino,told an interviewer that in an ideal system,"You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes."
Footnote
[1] Corey G, Johnson and Ken Armstrong, "This Boy's Life," Mother Jones, January/February 2016.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
For-Profit Schools; Mormons on Same-Sex Relationships; and GOP Policy
I. For-Profit Schools in Decline
"Between 1990 and 2010, the percentage of bachelors' degrees that came from for-profit schools septupled. Today, the for-profit education bubble is deflating." "For-profit colleges are far more expensive than community colleges, their closest peers." "According to a study by the economists Adam Looney and Constantine Yamalis, students at for-profit schools are roughly three times as likely to default [on their loans] as students at traditional colleges." The college system Corinthians, for instance, was found to have lied about job placement nearly a thousand times. [1]
On the popular television show, "The Good Wife," a main story line was built around a college with a name very close to that of Corinthians that was giving inflated information about job placements of its graduates. Also, the episode on the fictional school depicted it as riding the student-loan gravy train, whereby the loans were financed by another party. In the real world, the federal government is making it harder to ride the student-loan gravy train by requiring the for-profit schools to prove that, on average, students' loan payments amount to less than eight percent of their annual income. The notion that college will transform job prospects is in many ways, an illusion, and for a while, for-profit schools turned it into a very lucrative one." [2]
II. Mormon Church's New Policy on Same-Sex Marriages
Mormon Church spokesperson Eric Hawkins says of the new policy on same-sex marriage: "While it (the church) respects the law of the land, and acknowledges the right of others to think and act differently, it does not perform or accept same-sex marriages within its membership." Mormon Church officials have issued a rules change that says members in same-sex marriages can be kicked out and their children must wait until they're eighteen and disavow homosexual relationships to be baptized. They can, however, be baptized and serve missions once they turn eighteen, but only if they disavow the practice of same-sex relationships; no longer live with gay parents; and get approval from their local leader and the highest leaders at church
headquarters in Salt Lake City. [3]
III. GOP Policy in a Capsule
"Next fall, the Republican Presidential nominee will be committed to taking away health insurance from eighteen million people, keeping the minimum wage where it is, cutting tax rates on the wealthy to historic lows, reducing the progressivity of the income tax, creating trillions of dollars in new deficits, returning to a militarized foreign policy, and allowing Iran to resume its pursuit of a nuclear weapon by tearing up the deal just signed." [4]
ADDENDUMS:
*Sarah Palin cites Luke 22:36 as proof that Jesus would fight to protect Second Amendment rights. She says Jesus said take up your arms and defend yourself and protect the innocent. Specifically, he said: "he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." Two verses later, Jesus says that two swords is "enough."
*The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) says: 1.) the 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 61% of the population; 2.) 20 individuals control more wealth than the bottom half of the population -- 157 million people living in 57 million households; 3.) 100 richest households own more assets than the entire African-American community; 4.) 182 individuals in the Forbes list have more assets than the entire U.S. Hispanic population. Chuck Collins of the IPA says the study understates the problem: the rich hide wealth in offshore tax havens, or in loophole trusts where money is shuffled around. He also points out that those in the lower income brackets experience more stress.
Footnotes
[1] James Surwiecki, "The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools," The New Yorker, November 2, 2015.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Brady McCombs, "Mormon church rules aimed at gay members," The Albuquerque Journal, November 7, 2015.
4.) George Packer, "Still Standing," The New Yorker, February 23, 2015.
"Between 1990 and 2010, the percentage of bachelors' degrees that came from for-profit schools septupled. Today, the for-profit education bubble is deflating." "For-profit colleges are far more expensive than community colleges, their closest peers." "According to a study by the economists Adam Looney and Constantine Yamalis, students at for-profit schools are roughly three times as likely to default [on their loans] as students at traditional colleges." The college system Corinthians, for instance, was found to have lied about job placement nearly a thousand times. [1]
On the popular television show, "The Good Wife," a main story line was built around a college with a name very close to that of Corinthians that was giving inflated information about job placements of its graduates. Also, the episode on the fictional school depicted it as riding the student-loan gravy train, whereby the loans were financed by another party. In the real world, the federal government is making it harder to ride the student-loan gravy train by requiring the for-profit schools to prove that, on average, students' loan payments amount to less than eight percent of their annual income. The notion that college will transform job prospects is in many ways, an illusion, and for a while, for-profit schools turned it into a very lucrative one." [2]
II. Mormon Church's New Policy on Same-Sex Marriages
Mormon Church spokesperson Eric Hawkins says of the new policy on same-sex marriage: "While it (the church) respects the law of the land, and acknowledges the right of others to think and act differently, it does not perform or accept same-sex marriages within its membership." Mormon Church officials have issued a rules change that says members in same-sex marriages can be kicked out and their children must wait until they're eighteen and disavow homosexual relationships to be baptized. They can, however, be baptized and serve missions once they turn eighteen, but only if they disavow the practice of same-sex relationships; no longer live with gay parents; and get approval from their local leader and the highest leaders at church
headquarters in Salt Lake City. [3]
III. GOP Policy in a Capsule
"Next fall, the Republican Presidential nominee will be committed to taking away health insurance from eighteen million people, keeping the minimum wage where it is, cutting tax rates on the wealthy to historic lows, reducing the progressivity of the income tax, creating trillions of dollars in new deficits, returning to a militarized foreign policy, and allowing Iran to resume its pursuit of a nuclear weapon by tearing up the deal just signed." [4]
ADDENDUMS:
*Sarah Palin cites Luke 22:36 as proof that Jesus would fight to protect Second Amendment rights. She says Jesus said take up your arms and defend yourself and protect the innocent. Specifically, he said: "he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." Two verses later, Jesus says that two swords is "enough."
*The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) says: 1.) the 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 61% of the population; 2.) 20 individuals control more wealth than the bottom half of the population -- 157 million people living in 57 million households; 3.) 100 richest households own more assets than the entire African-American community; 4.) 182 individuals in the Forbes list have more assets than the entire U.S. Hispanic population. Chuck Collins of the IPA says the study understates the problem: the rich hide wealth in offshore tax havens, or in loophole trusts where money is shuffled around. He also points out that those in the lower income brackets experience more stress.
Footnotes
[1] James Surwiecki, "The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools," The New Yorker, November 2, 2015.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Brady McCombs, "Mormon church rules aimed at gay members," The Albuquerque Journal, November 7, 2015.
4.) George Packer, "Still Standing," The New Yorker, February 23, 2015.
Monday, December 21, 2015
Observations on Pope Francis and the Vatican
Some observations derived from a New Yorker article: (Alexander Stille, "Holy Orders," The New Yorker, July 14, 2015).
*The scandal of sexual abuse reached its full force under Pope Benedict.
*Those close to Pope Benedict claim he was a transitional figure who started many of the reforms that Francis is now promoting: financial transparency, intolerance of priestly sexual abuser, the diplomatic opening between Cuba and the U.S., and reform of the Curia.
*In the early 2000s, the Vatican ranked among the top ten nations in the world that were considered "offshore" havens for tax evasion and money laundering.
*The Vatican banking system had more than 30,000 accounts and thousands of them were dormant or "irregular": they belonged to nonreligious people or entities that may have engaged in tax evasion or money laundering. A new financial team has closed around 4,600 accounts.
*Pope Francis'es use of the title of Bishop of Rome means he wants the Church to run in a more democratic way. Throughout history, the Vatican has veered between the Pope having sole decision-making power and the use of a council to make collective decisions.
* Pope Francis has created the image of an open and tolerant Church without changing Church doctrine very much.
*The chasm between Church doctrine and beliefs, and practicing Catholics has become dangerously wide.
*Some 32 million Catholics have left the Church.
*The Church as eased the situation for divorced Catholics.
*Critics of Pope Francis fear that he is introducing "Catholicism lite."
The conservative pundit George Will says that Pope Francis stands against modernity, rationality, science and "the spontaneous creativity of open societies."
*The scandal of sexual abuse reached its full force under Pope Benedict.
*Those close to Pope Benedict claim he was a transitional figure who started many of the reforms that Francis is now promoting: financial transparency, intolerance of priestly sexual abuser, the diplomatic opening between Cuba and the U.S., and reform of the Curia.
*In the early 2000s, the Vatican ranked among the top ten nations in the world that were considered "offshore" havens for tax evasion and money laundering.
*The Vatican banking system had more than 30,000 accounts and thousands of them were dormant or "irregular": they belonged to nonreligious people or entities that may have engaged in tax evasion or money laundering. A new financial team has closed around 4,600 accounts.
*Pope Francis'es use of the title of Bishop of Rome means he wants the Church to run in a more democratic way. Throughout history, the Vatican has veered between the Pope having sole decision-making power and the use of a council to make collective decisions.
* Pope Francis has created the image of an open and tolerant Church without changing Church doctrine very much.
*The chasm between Church doctrine and beliefs, and practicing Catholics has become dangerously wide.
*Some 32 million Catholics have left the Church.
*The Church as eased the situation for divorced Catholics.
*Critics of Pope Francis fear that he is introducing "Catholicism lite."
The conservative pundit George Will says that Pope Francis stands against modernity, rationality, science and "the spontaneous creativity of open societies."
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Clean Energy Nation and Psychiatric Problems of Child Soldiers
(Rep. Jerry McNarney and Montion Cheek, Clean Energy Nation (New York: AMACON, 2012)
Excerpts From The Book:
p. ix -. "Worldwide solar sales have been growing 50 to 60 percent per year for the last decade."
p. 17 - "To power cars , homes, and industries, the United States, with around 4 percent of the human population, uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day, according to the EIA." (Energy Information Administration)
p. 49 - "Over the last fifteen years, solar energy production has increased by 30 percent annually while the price for photovoltaic (PV) power has dropped an average of 4 percent a year during that time period."
p. 56 - In theory, the wind flowing over the plains of North Dakota would provide up to 33 percent of America's electric needs."
p. 66 - The United States has 104 operating reactors, more than any other country, and they produce 20% of our nation's electricity." France's 59 reactors produce 78 percent of its electricity.
p. 91 - OPEC has approximately 80 percent of the proven conventional oil reserves.
p. 99 - The IEA (International Energy Agency) predicts that by 2035, China's energy demand will climb by 78 percent.
p. 109 - The U.S. has more than 600 coal-powered plants, producing about 54 percent of our nation's power.
p.133 - The Department of Energy says the average thermal efficiency of the power plants on the U.S. grid is 33 percent.
p. 134 - The U.S. will need an additional 281 gigaments of power by the year 2025 and it will require 937 megawatt power plants by the same year.
Child Soldiers and Their Psychiatric Dilemma
"The proliferation of light weapons in Africa had suddenly made children effective as fighters, and they returned from the wars having missed crucial steps in their psychological development. They tended to be easily provoked, and prone to disassociate states, a coping mechanism that had once allowed them to be calm in the face of extreme violence." [1]
Former child soldiers taking psychiatric medications means announcing to their communities that they are crazy and damaged, a stigma that would contaminate their families. Theresa Betencourt, a professor at Harvard University, has been following war-imposed youth in Sierra Leone and has found that child soldiers tend to respond to "any threats to their well-being or personal safety in a really disproportionate way." [2]
ADDENDUMS:
*Michael McCord, the Pentagon Comptroller, estimates that by the year 2021, the U.S. will need to come up with $10 billion per year through 2035 in order to fulfill current plans to modernize its nuclear weapons, delivery systems and production facilities. The U.S. plans to spend $1 trillion in nuclear weapons modernization over thirty years. The Congressional Budget Office says it will cost $80 billion to build a new nuclear-warhead-carrying long-range bomber.
*The Marshall Islands are threatened by rising sea levels and the effects of nuclear bomb testing from 1946-1958, linking climate change and nuclear weapons.
*Although black-on-black murders are emphasized in the media, the FBI estimate that 82% of murders of whites are committed by whites, which is close to the FBI estimate that 90% of murders of blacks are committed by blacks. Close association is a major factor in the commission of murders.
Footnotes
[1] Rachel Aviv, "The Refugee Dilemma," The New Yorker, December 7, 2015.
[2] Ibid.
Excerpts From The Book:
p. ix -. "Worldwide solar sales have been growing 50 to 60 percent per year for the last decade."
p. 17 - "To power cars , homes, and industries, the United States, with around 4 percent of the human population, uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day, according to the EIA." (Energy Information Administration)
p. 49 - "Over the last fifteen years, solar energy production has increased by 30 percent annually while the price for photovoltaic (PV) power has dropped an average of 4 percent a year during that time period."
p. 56 - In theory, the wind flowing over the plains of North Dakota would provide up to 33 percent of America's electric needs."
p. 66 - The United States has 104 operating reactors, more than any other country, and they produce 20% of our nation's electricity." France's 59 reactors produce 78 percent of its electricity.
p. 91 - OPEC has approximately 80 percent of the proven conventional oil reserves.
p. 99 - The IEA (International Energy Agency) predicts that by 2035, China's energy demand will climb by 78 percent.
p. 109 - The U.S. has more than 600 coal-powered plants, producing about 54 percent of our nation's power.
p.133 - The Department of Energy says the average thermal efficiency of the power plants on the U.S. grid is 33 percent.
p. 134 - The U.S. will need an additional 281 gigaments of power by the year 2025 and it will require 937 megawatt power plants by the same year.
Child Soldiers and Their Psychiatric Dilemma
"The proliferation of light weapons in Africa had suddenly made children effective as fighters, and they returned from the wars having missed crucial steps in their psychological development. They tended to be easily provoked, and prone to disassociate states, a coping mechanism that had once allowed them to be calm in the face of extreme violence." [1]
Former child soldiers taking psychiatric medications means announcing to their communities that they are crazy and damaged, a stigma that would contaminate their families. Theresa Betencourt, a professor at Harvard University, has been following war-imposed youth in Sierra Leone and has found that child soldiers tend to respond to "any threats to their well-being or personal safety in a really disproportionate way." [2]
ADDENDUMS:
*Michael McCord, the Pentagon Comptroller, estimates that by the year 2021, the U.S. will need to come up with $10 billion per year through 2035 in order to fulfill current plans to modernize its nuclear weapons, delivery systems and production facilities. The U.S. plans to spend $1 trillion in nuclear weapons modernization over thirty years. The Congressional Budget Office says it will cost $80 billion to build a new nuclear-warhead-carrying long-range bomber.
*The Marshall Islands are threatened by rising sea levels and the effects of nuclear bomb testing from 1946-1958, linking climate change and nuclear weapons.
*Although black-on-black murders are emphasized in the media, the FBI estimate that 82% of murders of whites are committed by whites, which is close to the FBI estimate that 90% of murders of blacks are committed by blacks. Close association is a major factor in the commission of murders.
Footnotes
[1] Rachel Aviv, "The Refugee Dilemma," The New Yorker, December 7, 2015.
[2] Ibid.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Threat Assessment and Refugee Psychosis Concerns
I. Threat Assessment to Reduce Mass Shootings
Due to mass shootings -- defined as four or persons killed or injured -- averaging more than one a day by early December 2015, security efforts at public venues are turning more and more to threat assessment teams. Threat assessment is essentially a three-part process: identifying, evaluating and then intervening. When the author of an article in Mother Jones magazine. asked threat assessment experts what might explain the recent rise in gun rampages, he heard the "same two words over and over: social media." [1]
The biggest drawback to threat assessment is that, except for a copycat pattern in the Columbine, Colorado high school shooting -- there is no discernible pattern or connection in mass shootings. One of the biggest challenges to threat assessment work is that the quieter, less outwardly threatening subjects can prove to be the most dangerous.
To turn to the Columbine High School shootings and use of explosives, in a number of cases, persons contemplating or actively carrying out mass shootings, made references to the two Columbine students as the inspiration for their planned action. A few even visited Columbine, which they saw as the shrine for their destructive planning.
II. Refugee Psychosis and Retention Concerns
An analysis of more than four million records reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that immigrants from East Africa and Southeast Asia were nearly twice as likely to develop psychosis as the general public was. It is not clear what the reason for this is, except that Africa has many child soldiers mixed into the database.
Immigrant detention is a real problem, as the immigration court system has a backlog of half a million deportation cases, even though hearings tend to be brisk -- at the expense of having sufficient information to make an informed decision. The Department of Homeland Security is unique in the sense that it is the only law enforcement agency that is required by law to detain a certain number of people. [2]
ADDENDUMS:
*When Chief Justice John G. Roberts was a young special assistant to the U.S. attorney general, he led a crusade to gut the Voter Rights Act by eliminating the preclearance requirements and demanding explicit evidence of racist intentions, not simply an evaluation of the effects of voting restrictions, to invalidate voting laws. We seem to be in the midst of a Second Revolution on the right to vote but instead of expanding voting rights, we seem to be in a devious competition to see who can disenfranchise the most people. Chief Justice Roberts, of course, has been a major force in facilitating the enactment of restrictive voting laws.
*Donald Trump has claimed that African-Americans kill eighty-one percent of white murder victims. The FBI says that white victims are murdered by other whites eighty-two percent of the time. Although black-on-black murders are emphasized among commentators in the media -- it is about ninety percent -- the eighty-two percent of white-on-white murders is not that much different.
Footnotes
[1] Mark Fallmer, "Trigger Warnings," Mother Jones, November/December 2015.
[2] Rachel Aviv, "The Refugee Dilemma,": The New Yorker, December 7, 2015.
Due to mass shootings -- defined as four or persons killed or injured -- averaging more than one a day by early December 2015, security efforts at public venues are turning more and more to threat assessment teams. Threat assessment is essentially a three-part process: identifying, evaluating and then intervening. When the author of an article in Mother Jones magazine. asked threat assessment experts what might explain the recent rise in gun rampages, he heard the "same two words over and over: social media." [1]
The biggest drawback to threat assessment is that, except for a copycat pattern in the Columbine, Colorado high school shooting -- there is no discernible pattern or connection in mass shootings. One of the biggest challenges to threat assessment work is that the quieter, less outwardly threatening subjects can prove to be the most dangerous.
To turn to the Columbine High School shootings and use of explosives, in a number of cases, persons contemplating or actively carrying out mass shootings, made references to the two Columbine students as the inspiration for their planned action. A few even visited Columbine, which they saw as the shrine for their destructive planning.
II. Refugee Psychosis and Retention Concerns
An analysis of more than four million records reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that immigrants from East Africa and Southeast Asia were nearly twice as likely to develop psychosis as the general public was. It is not clear what the reason for this is, except that Africa has many child soldiers mixed into the database.
Immigrant detention is a real problem, as the immigration court system has a backlog of half a million deportation cases, even though hearings tend to be brisk -- at the expense of having sufficient information to make an informed decision. The Department of Homeland Security is unique in the sense that it is the only law enforcement agency that is required by law to detain a certain number of people. [2]
ADDENDUMS:
*When Chief Justice John G. Roberts was a young special assistant to the U.S. attorney general, he led a crusade to gut the Voter Rights Act by eliminating the preclearance requirements and demanding explicit evidence of racist intentions, not simply an evaluation of the effects of voting restrictions, to invalidate voting laws. We seem to be in the midst of a Second Revolution on the right to vote but instead of expanding voting rights, we seem to be in a devious competition to see who can disenfranchise the most people. Chief Justice Roberts, of course, has been a major force in facilitating the enactment of restrictive voting laws.
*Donald Trump has claimed that African-Americans kill eighty-one percent of white murder victims. The FBI says that white victims are murdered by other whites eighty-two percent of the time. Although black-on-black murders are emphasized among commentators in the media -- it is about ninety percent -- the eighty-two percent of white-on-white murders is not that much different.
Footnotes
[1] Mark Fallmer, "Trigger Warnings," Mother Jones, November/December 2015.
[2] Rachel Aviv, "The Refugee Dilemma,": The New Yorker, December 7, 2015.
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