Friday, October 3, 2014

Fear of terror makes people stupid., plus Scathophagidae and Beef Cuts

An opinion which is not set in stone.

Police body cams – I don’t like them and feel that they can put officers in danger as they double think something that might come naturally.  If confronted with an iffy situation where the BEST thing to do is get hard on someone an officer might hesitate for one second because they have a body camera.

At what point do citizens start to wear body cams and we have already seen the push back from Google Glasses and a privacy issue.  Do officers need to tell you first that you are being recorded?

HOWEVER – that is my personal opinion and in reality the future will have all officers in America wearing body cameras SADLY because of mistrust in police department which is a real problem. Body cams  it will happen, no doubt about it.

But not so fast.  Because everyone knows it will happen and more and more departments will be purchasing them the cost of these cameras and storage will be coming down dramatically in the next year or two and that is why I feel Columbus needs to hold off.

It’s not like we are a bastion of crime here even though the fear mongers believe 911 is coming to Columbus any day now so we need to be prepared.   We can afford to wait a year or two and move slowly. It's not like we have extra money laying around.  Plus, there are hidden costs to body cams.

After every use, from what I have read, that camera needs to be downloaded which I assume takes an officer off the street and puts citizens in danger once again. If there is someone being recorded there must be a good reason and that needs to be saved ASAP.

We are constantly being warned that a school shooting can happen anywhere and anytime and we must be prepared.  Well, sort of true.  A meteor could also hit a school but no one seems worried.   Let’s look at some facts.

According to Fox News (weird I'm quoting Fox News) "firearm homicide rates have plummeted as much as the firearm murders at school since 1992 (a 52 percent drop by 2012), but a recent Pew poll shows 45 percent of Americans believe that firearm homicide rates have gone up, only 10 percent realized that the rate had actually gone down."

But let's look at some numbers - There are 33,370 public schools in America. An average school year is 180 days.  Since 2012 when the  Sandy Hook shootings took place there have been 34 school incidents. There have been 12,013,200 total days where there COULD have been a shooting in a random school.  So that is a 0.00000283% chance that a particular school could have an incident.  Or to put it even more scary, once every 1,962 years for any one random school.

My heart goes out to all that have lost loved ones and I’m not trying to down play tragedy’s but purposely putting fear into people’s minds so we can arm ourselves with more weapons is not only wrong but irresponsible.
 
“Fear of terror makes people stupid.”

Note – the number of school shootings comes from FactCheck.org.  One group that lists more shootings uses a very broad definition that doubles the numbers.

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But then there is Scathophagidae or the dung fly which is going to cost Columbus some money!

That’s right the dung fly, the thing we all laughed about when cable TV was in its infancy with shows about the life history of the dung fly (or was that the dung beetle).  Here is the problem, seems these fly love dung and excrete liquid which in turn waters down our sewage which needs to be stacked and with watery poop you just cannot stack it.  FASCINATING!!

Or something like that – this could be one of those 50% correct posts!

On a serious note – we were told the number of spiders were amazing.  HEY – they should try, just for shits and giggles (no pun intended) hedge balls which are spider repellents!  It would be a good test.

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JOBS REPORT - SMASHES EXPECTATIONS!!  

Unemployment plunged and is at it's lowest point since 2008 and nonfarm payrolls LEAPED 248,000 way way over expectations.  DAMN YOU OBAMA!!  (insert evil laugh).  This is the perfect storm for the stock market and a great sign the economy is really ticking (except in Wisconsin).

Earnings growth was low which means inflation is in check.  "Jaw dropping numbers" said some talking heads.    I expect a good day in the market.

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And as a public service.







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