OT Crime drop attributed to lead-free gasoline

Haha! That Mary Rosh, she's such a card.

What's that about, Wes? I smell some research coming on...

============

I ain't Wes, but ...

Part of it is that when the bad guys are locked up, they can't commit crimes against the general population.

If you go back a few years, the professional penologists, judges and politicians were committed to every shorter sentences and 'rehabilitation," with the result that crime, or more specifically the criminals, was out of control in many areas.

As in many things, the politicians tended to look at the state expense (of housing a prisoner) as the only cost, and came to the conclusion that it was more cost effective to "catch and release," as indeed it was when only the state's out-of-pocket costs were considered.

In many of the voter initiative states (California and Texas in particular) the people finely had enough, and pounded both determinant sentencing and habitual criminal [three strikes] laws up the politicians, judges, and functionaries noses.

When the habitual perps were locked up for long periods, there was an even larger decrease in crime, both against persons and against property than had been projected, indicating that the number of crimes committed per perp was underestimated by a factor 2 or more.

While there has indeed be a large increase in the prison population and the related governmental costs, in the aggregate the total costs have gone down steeply, because of the avoided costs such as insurance, medical treatments of the vics, property loss, law enforcement and court costs, etc. This was particularly true when the habitual offenders were put away, even though they were the sneak thieves, car clouters, etc. as their damage and loss to society in the aggregate was high even if the cost per incident was nominal, simply because of their total number/frequency.

Consider that a habitual criminal will have at least a lower middle class life style, tv, car, etc. and more than likely a 50$ (or more) per day drug habit. Base cost per perp is estimated at least 25k$ per year + at least 18k$ per year for their habit for a total of about 43k$ per year.

The problem is that in the case of burglaries and other crimes against property, only 5 to 10 % of the value of the items stolen are received by the thief. Working backwards this is 430k$ to

860k$ per year just in stolen property. When the consequential costs such as building repairs, damagred/destroyed but not stolen property, lost production, time off from work, etc. are included, the total easily surpasses 1 million$ per year per perp. When personal injury is involved, the total goes much higher, just from the medical costs, and the consequential societal costs will be still higher. And this is just for a journeyman burglar [like the ones that got a terminating shotgun blast in Dallas].

The statistics on recidivism are well known. While it is indeed unfair to the [exceptional] individual criminal that "reforms," keeping likely perpetrators in prison is highly cost effective, even at 25k$ per year per head, as it avoids a socital/aggrigriate dollar cost of at least 20 times that much if they were on the outside.

"Lock'em up" is [cost] effective in the short term, but is simply treating the symptom.

Unfortunately there is an almost total lack of hard research/data into the causes, identifying characteristics, and cures of the combination of stupidity and anti-social behavior that produce the typical street criminal. As this is a world wide problem, it does not appear that the economic system is a major factor in at least street crime.

Anything that you name, still results in far more individuals that are *NOT* criminals than are criminals, although it may indeed be a [minor] indicator/factor. One area of possible investigation is a mandatory PET brain scan to determine if the criminal brain is different than the normal brain, either genetically or from damage. Another avenue of research is in-depth genetic profiling.

It is untenable that after spending trillions of dollars on social services and law enforcement, including incarceration, there is still no *HARD* data [plenty of "they say" and "everyone knows," generally from someone with an axe to grind or a program to sell] on criminal background, development, and correction. The only known positive cure remains some variation of a long drop and a short rope.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.

Do you think that's what Wes is referring to? I'm curious about what he meant.

That's all interesting, George, but the falloff in crime in the US occurred quite sharply in the early and mid '90s. The question that Levitt, Lott, etc. are trying to answer is why that happened.

I don't think you can tie it to any patterns of incarceration or other punishment relative to crimes committed.

Under the category of "so soon old -- so late smart" or "now you tell me...."

One of the first things that a student for an advanced degree learns is to do a literature search when a problem is presented to avoid "reinventing the wheel," or "rediscovering fire."

Dr. Rice has an earned doctorate from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver and is a Phi Beta Kappa. Why is this study just now being done? Things are not different this time (and they almost never are). for complete background click on

Rice looks to history for peace effort

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is looking to the past for lessons on how to make next month's Mideast peace conference a success. for complete article see

It is this refusal to learn from our [and preferably others] mistakes and misfortunes that is at the root of much of our current problems, both domestically and overseas.

Note as you read the article that the British record and experiences in exactly the same area, under more or less the same conditions and with the same objectives are being totally ignored.

This confirms the observation

But what experience and history teach is this-that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Georg Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher. The Philosophy of History, Introduction (1807).

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.

It's interesting, but not surprising. If you look back at the founding principles of the neocons, which were laid down in articles that appeared in _Commentary_ in the late '60s, you sense that their goal is to forget history and to create a new reality through military force. Not that Podhoretz and Kristol aren't good historians. They just feel that history is the problem itself in the Middle East.

Bush's administration has been built around the same principle. Here's a telling story from a Ron Suskind article written back in 2004:

============================================= In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

=============================================

New York media insiders believe that the "senior advisor" was Karl Rove. Regardless, that sums up the Bush administration's foreign policy, IMO. Condi Rice has been mesmerized by the neocons, or else she feels an outsized loyalty to the party line, but she's won some battles in the White House infighting lately and we may see her apply her generally better sense to her job. I certainly hope so.

Well, it *is* the problem -- though perhaps not quite in the way you meant just now. Read the Bible: tribal conflicts have been occurring in that region for some six thousand years now. That's an awful lot of history to try to overcome in just a couple of generations.

Or by going to war.

As for the meaning of that history, it depends on which side of the fence you're sitting on. What the neocons are trying to do is to wipe the history out and re-create the Middle East in an image that looks something like Waco, Texas. The residents are not amused.

A good question. Can people change in a couple of generations? Have the Japanese changed? How about the Germans? How about the American Whites? Will we have race riots in Detroit and New Jersey again? Will there be another attempt to establish a master race? Stay tuned for the next thousand years and find out.

Dan

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:37:38 -0400, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

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Another shot of cold p**s to my heart?? WITH FAR TOO MUCH POTENTIAL FOR METAL CONTENT

It is one thing to amass a reasonable amount of credible information and to have different [rational] people come to different conclusions. This happens all the time, and makes for horse races and other contests.

It is quite another thing for so-called "leadership" to base their organizations "realities," policies, actions and programs on largely unsupported and indeed unsupportable [in the Logical Positivism sense] beliefs, legends, myths, wishes, etc. with a large amount of "special pleadings," [as in this general rule doesn't apply to us, e.g. what goes around, won't come around].

In individuals, the construction of and then inhabiting alternate realities is called disassociation or schizophrenia, and compulsory medication or initialization is required when they exhibit a [potential] danger to themselves or others, such as pushing people off a subway platform into the path of an oncoming train.

We have no name for this disease when exhibited by organizations, but some examples of this pathology are/were Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, GMC, Ford, banks/brokerages with SIV/conduits/sub-prime no/low-doc mortgages, etc.

In governments this is called National Socialism, where even arithmetic is subverted/ignored, as in budget/trade deficits and population dynamics, and people/cultures become simply things to molded or erased as required/desired.

It appears that the academic model of post-modernism/deconstruction and negotiated/imposed reality is far more dangerous than I thought possible.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. For a discussion of this point, and to compare/contrast see:

"Since before 1945 many have dedicated themselves to analyzing the National Socialist Movement in Germany as an ideological event. Strangely, there has been little attention paid to the remarkable parallels in this Movement with aspects of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Even more striking, there has been little notice of the similarity between Hitler's National Socialism and the religious phenomenon in general. This aspect, however, is of such fundamental importance to understanding the National Socialist Movement that it must be made more explicit. Of key importance in pursuing such an investigation is the realization of the general nature of any religious movement. Such a movement is always ideological in character and strives to establish a representative and all-inclusive understanding of reality. This understanding, once communicated as knowledge, is then extended to encompass all of a particular society's life. These various stages in the development of a religion are seen to be paralleled in the National Socialist experience. Carl Schmitt, a young Catholic legal scholar, pointed this out as early as 1922 in his fundamental piece on Political Theology. This work provided a theological foundation for the establishment of the dictatorship in the political sphere which was later established by Hitler's National Socialist Movement. More important, however, are the direct religious parallels to be found in some neglected witnesses to Hitler's thought and development; i.e., in a number of the early propaganda films from

1933 and 1934. An analysis of them shows a remarkable attempt to construct a national and socially valid liturgical act representing key elements from the Judeo-Chrustian tradition." For rest of article click on

It is practically impossible to understand the uniqueness of National Socialist vision (namely like universal vision and not just ideology) if one is limited to use only rational and logic thinking. This was even noticed by Pauwels and Bergier in their basically stupid book "Morning of the Magicians" when they write that Nazism is practically incomprehensible for modern people brought up with ideals of the Enlightenment and humanism. Add to this that the prerequisite for understanding Nazism is being partly a nazi. As Rosenberg put it, Nazism cannot be understood, one has to live it: "it is rather a state, an inner condition, than a philosophical system". for rest of article click on

from the other side see:

I have seen this movie before, and I know how it ends?.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.

I thought the previous administration burned those residents to death in their compound.

Wes

That may be next. There are some people who would like to just flatten the whole country. Maybe Iran.

-- Ed Huntress

And the libs think that if we can just get everybody to sit down at the same table and talk about it, the conflict will magically disappear, as though six thousand years of tribal warfare are nothing more than the result of a simple misunderstanding, easily cleared up.

Neither approach has much chance of succeeding.

That's hard to say. Change was forced upon them at the conclusion of WWII. The attitude of the Allies amounted to, "You guys have, between you, started five wars of aggression in the last sixty years. For the safety of all the rest of us, you cannot be permitted to do that again." And change was forced upon them at the point of a gun. It appears that the change has taken root -- but it required many years of military occupation, which included (perhaps most importantly) control over the education systems of each nation.

That change is taking place. Slowly. But it's happening. In contrast to my own high school experiences 30 years ago, I see in my son's high school now that, for the most part, teenage kids don't seem to much care what color skin another kid has. I have hopes that my grandchildren may grow up in a society where not only does nobody care, but nobody even notices.

I hope not.

:-)

I'm not sure what the libs feel about it in general, but most of the ones we hear from seem to think that the mistake was in going to war in the first place.

-- Ed Huntress

I wasn't talking about Iraq specifically, but the entire region in general.

Actually..the crime rate has fallen as the abortion rate has gone up.

Gunner

"[L]iberals are afraid to state what they truly believe in, for to do so would result in even less votes than they currently receive. Their methodology is to lie about their real agenda in the hopes of regaining power, at which point they will do whatever they damn well please. The problem is they have concealed and obfuscated for so long that, as a group, they themselves are no longer sure of their goals. They are a collection of wild-eyed splinter groups, all holding a grab-bag of dreams and wishes. Some want a Socialist, secular-humanist state, others the repeal of the Second Amendment. Some want same sex/different species marriage, others want voting rights for trees, fish, coal and bugs. Some want cradle to grave care and complete subservience to the government nanny state, others want a culture that walks in lockstep and speaks only with intonations of political correctness. I view the American liberals in much the same way I view the competing factions of Islamic fundamentalists. The latter hate each other to the core, and only join forces to attack the US or Israel. The former hate themselves to the core, and only join forces to attack George Bush and conservatives." --Ron Marr

Nuke em till they glow..then shoot em in the dark.

Gunner

"[L]iberals are afraid to state what they truly believe in, for to do so would result in even less votes than they currently receive. Their methodology is to lie about their real agenda in the hopes of regaining power, at which point they will do whatever they damn well please. The problem is they have concealed and obfuscated for so long that, as a group, they themselves are no longer sure of their goals. They are a collection of wild-eyed splinter groups, all holding a grab-bag of dreams and wishes. Some want a Socialist, secular-humanist state, others the repeal of the Second Amendment. Some want same sex/different species marriage, others want voting rights for trees, fish, coal and bugs. Some want cradle to grave care and complete subservience to the government nanny state, others want a culture that walks in lockstep and speaks only with intonations of political correctness. I view the American liberals in much the same way I view the competing factions of Islamic fundamentalists. The latter hate each other to the core, and only join forces to attack the US or Israel. The former hate themselves to the core, and only join forces to attack George Bush and conservatives." --Ron Marr

============ And here is yet another problem.

It appears the neo cons (as opposed to Republicans) pick and chose which scripture (and if) they wish to acknowledge/observe, depending if it supports what they want to do. Either the bible is the revealed word of god and you, as a fundamentalist christian are bound to obey, or you are not. Anything else is simply "advice shopping" where you switch between "real politick" and "divine guidance" at your convenience.

If our leadership are fundamentalist christians why are they attempting to subvert the word/will of god?

By tradition, the Semite Arabs are descendants Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar, while the Semite Jews are descendants of Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sara. Although Ishmael was the first-born son, he and his mother Hagar were exiled to the desert to die at the instigation of Sara, who thereby secured the leadership of the tribe for her son Isaac. Scripture is quite clear on this point, where it states in Genesis 16 (New International Version)

7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered. 9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." 10 The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." 11 The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, [a] for the LORD has heard of your misery.

==> 12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward [b] all his brothers.

After a Computer crash and the demise of civilization, it was learned Gunner Asch wrote on Sun, 28 Oct 2007

02:07:24 -0800 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

That's the old school, back in the first gen NVG. The new stuff is so much superior, you don't have to nuke 'em first.

tschus pyotr