You think one major screw up will stop PDs from screwing up in the same way countless more times? Really? Are you new here?

They’d probably more likely try to charge the defendants with felony murder than stop using the helicopters so much.

Helicopters can be great for a variety of public safety operations. Their use for EMS transport is well documented, but even in that area, med flight services seem to overuse choppers to get their numbers up. Of course, helicopters can be useful for search and rescue, fugitive searches, and chases (allowing a chopper to take over for ground units can reduce casualties on all sides, though some suspects will continue to speed and still kill themselves). But, like SWAT, aviation services can be used in a manner in which it looks like the agency is trying to justify the existence of the program, and that is bad for taxpayers and potentially unsafe.

Right, if you do an analysis. My point was meant to be, that absolutely no analysis was done. Acting like the information given in the article meant anything on it’s own is stupid.

On the other hand, given the information presented in the article, I think my sarcastic analysis might still be closer to the truth than Farhad’s earnest non-analysis.

I have spent a great deal of time over at The Oil Drum to try and learn a little bit about what is going on. Most of those guys have said from the start that junk shots and top hats were all efforts worth trying but the relief wells are what will eventually shut that leak down.

I still don’t understand why relief wells are not standard operating procedure when you drill a well since they are the only thing that will actually stop a leak.

Just seems like to me it is a pay me now or pay me later kind of thing. I have no idea how much a relief well costs but it makes all kinds of sense to me.

I don’t care what you say, Radley, the conditions in China are what we here in the United States would consider half a step this side of slavery. From what I have read, I would liken it to the thread and textile mills on New England in the late 1800s.

So, yes, we should feel guilty feeling like our time (money) is worth less than Chinese workers time.

If you look at the company employing 800,000 workers and say, yeah that’s the same as the statistical average for the population, you aren’t looking at it right. Not all of those 800,000 work at the place where the suicides are occuring, or in the same job situation. To get the correct rate we would need to know how many work in that specfic place and in the same job catagory as the workers that committed suicide. Only then would the true rate be known, and it would be far higher than the rate for the population as a whole. Even the slate article describes it as a “physically and psychologically brutal job”.

CDC
United States suicide rate 11 per year per 100,000 pop

Appropriate title

“The new path to a higher meaning in life: work in a Chinese sweatshop.”

Wait til they get their hands on this one…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7787039/Cage-fighter-ripped-out-heart-of-training-partner.html

The only thing that matters, as with the cops, is that the umpires are obeyed.

If we don’t obey the cops instantly and fully, it will be anarchy in the streets.

It’s all good. Major League Baseball extends the same courtesy to its umpires.

Safe? Out? Who gives a fuck? The only thing that matters, as with the cops, is that the umpires are obeyed.

[T]he juvenile expectation that there’s a presidential solution to everything …

In all fairness, President Obama isn’t solely guilty for spreading this perception among the public at large. This has been, at the very least, the basic platform for every presidential candidate since FDR.

I just want the direct profit motives removed from the agency enforcing the traffic laws. There are too many incentives to run speed traps, shorten yellow lights, seat belt check points, dwi checkpoints, etc. LOTS of abuse by police and the cops end up being roving tax collectors on the king’s highway.

Cop must submit to a double blind test of his ability to judge a speed of a vehicle within 3 to 4 miles per hour of actual on ten separate vehicle speeds. It must have been carried out within one month of his testimony, and it must be administered by a panel of defense lawyers.

If he can do that, he can submit his expert testimony to the speed of the vehicle.

We all know it won’t happen because we’ve seen how rigorous expert testimony is in this country, and we also know that tickets are all about revenue generation and not safety. This would cost municipalities too much money.

And it was Radley Balko!

Thought you did well on the show, man.