The first link doesn't work, I think because there's a v at the front of it, but I'm so appalled by that article (well, really both) that I have nothing to say.
Three strikes pisses me off. Actually all 'tough on crime' measures piss me off, since they are nearly always really just brutality towards convicts (or merely accused criminals), with no regard to actually tamping down crime.
Also count me as appalled by the first article as well.
My first thought on reading the TANF article is that kids are going to get beaten over this.
My first thought was that teachers would inflate the grades to prevent the kids' families from being financially penalized.
Now imagine the Tennessee GOP's response to a bill having someone's mortgage deduction contingent on their kids' grades.
In 3 strikes, can you get all three simultaneously? Like, say you steal something of significant value, and you happen to have a knife on you that they decide is a deadly weapon, and when leaving the scene you accidentally back over someone with your car. Are you then in jail for life?
If so, then my challenge to all of you is to identify the most ridiculous combination of 3 simultaneous felonies that can land you in prison FOREVER!
7: Lying to federal investigators about hitting a mail carrier with a spotted owl.
Another aspect of three-strikes, as I understand, is that a lot of prisoners were recently sent to county jails and the counties were given more control over their parole and rehabilitation, which could have allowed more leeway to help them -- but the more liberal counties were the same ones whose DAs had prosecuted such cases judiciously or not at all.
5: Absolutely, teachers would inflate grades.
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In 3 strikes, can you get all three simultaneously? ...
Apparently not although the first two strikes can arise from a single incident if you are convicted on multiple counts.
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Tennessee is considering legislation that would cut your TANF benefits if your kid isn't doing well at school. This makes my head spin.
More dumb or less dumb than eliminating disability benefits if your kid does too well?
My goodness you can really be a fetid little swamp of a man, can't you?
Actually there is a very successful an carefully studied poverty alleviation program in Mexico called Oportunidas which ties can payments to school attendance and performance. Don't know how closely this Tennessee legislation matches it though. In particular it was giving an additional benefit when kids went to school which is psychologically different from taking something away.
Giving poor kids an incentive to study means they will do well on tests, getting into Princeton, making it harder for whoever in going to Princeton now to find spouses of sufficient breeding/tastelessness.
In particular it was giving an additional benefit when kids went to school
Going to school is a pretty different kettle of fish than getting good grades.
This does seem like the bill sponsored by the Child Whip Industry lobby. What are those things they used to use called? The boards with the holes drilled in them? Paddleboards? I think someone just came into a warehouse of them and needs a market.
Also, I just don't understand how shoplifting socks could be a qualifying felony, even for the third strike. Isn't a felony partially defined by the monetary value of the item stolen?
Apparently in California there's a "felony petty theft" statute that makes a second theft automatically a felony even if the amount is small.
Here's the Senator's blog:
Apparently (1) he cannot spell, not even simple words in the title of his *own* bills (he has proposed a bill to let homeschooled kids play sports in public schools, which he calls, variously, the Teabo, Tebo, and Teabow Bill)
(2) He still thinks it's funny that he's making liberals SO MAD by cutting aid to poor kids
(3) He thinks he's going to be a viable candidate for President in 2016
(4) He opposes the sale of wine in grocery stores in the Fine State Of TN. Repeatedly. And at some length. Grape juice was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for y'all.
20. according to wikipedia, 'technically' known as petty theft with *a* prior. why couldn't we just have made that, oh, 5, instead of 1.
Five seems a bit high to me. Here's thefts are all felonies after two prior convictions and both convictions have to be within ten years of your latest.
The article seems a tad blase about the burglaries as prior convictions. Breaking into houses and taking people's stuff and making them feel unsafe in their own homes is a rather shitty thing to do and I'm just fine with that being classified as a felony.
Grape juice was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for y'all.
The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! - Luke 7:34
Just yesterday I heard a construction worker on the MBTA saying that he thought that everyone on disability should have to get a regular drug test, and this was in liberal Cambridge, MA.
And MA seems to have a lot of tough-on-crime prosecutors, including the Middlesex DA. Our prison population has been going up even as crime rates have fallen. Those anti-rehabilitation policies are going against the national trend; red states are cutting back on mandatory minimums. It's sad.
The three strike straight time rule is even dumber than the basic principle of the three strike rule. I don't want those non-violent people to be held up, but I also don't want to do anything that will harm the violent offenders' accumulation of good time. A big gang/ drug dealer type is probably an ongoing danger. A guy who murdered someone in his 20's-- or manslaughter in a bar room fight--has probably mellowed by his late 50's, and we shouldn't be spending ungodly sums locking them up either.
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The sociopath of a mayor (technically known as the police judge for the territorial charter municipality) where my uncle works as town administrator just got booted out. She won by 6 votes 2 years ago and lost by a 2-1 margin last night!
We're hoping that the state will go after her for not paying/collecting sales tax at her restaurant.
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27: Wow, a type of incorporated place that there's only one of in the entire US, IIGC. Hope that's pseudonymous enough for you; I'm fine with redaction.
I can't find anything on the latest mayor, but considering who was there in 2001-2, do they make a habit of electing oddballs?
In other criminal justice news, one of our SLC municipal court judges got popped by the feds for distribution of Oxy.
"Oxy" still makes me think of pimple cream, not the narcotic with the same prefix.
Similarly to 29, a superior court judge here in Alam/eda was arrested a year ago for stealing the savings and assets of his nonagenarian widowed neighbor, and just resigned his position last week. Apparently "elder theft" is a charge severer than theft here?
Marrying a nonagenarian for his money might be referred to as "elder wand theft" by the man's kids if they were upset and big fans of Harry Potter.
30: you could try rubbing oxycontin on your face, if you want.
29 - "Independent Democrat" Malcolm Smith and three Republicans (including this guy) just got arrested for some scheme whereby Smith would bribe his way into the Republican Mayoral candidacy. Dumber or less dumb than just selling prescription painkillers?
28. Top result on google for "poli/ce ju/dge for the ter/rito/rial char/ter munic/ipali/ty". Relax, there's no pseudonymity worth preserving.
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Dumbest right-wing phrase of the day: "prestigious adjunct professorship".
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36: that's beautiful. Where did you find it?
Google "prestigious adjunct professorship" and find out!
While googling, I got distracted and googled myself. I just found out that my real name is now beaten by three other people in academic-type jobs. A law professor and a chemist were bad enough, but now they have been joined by a philosopher. I'm going to have to work harder.
Maybe I should lean in. Somebody keeps saying that, but I'm not sure what it means.
It means that you work much longer hours and never complain.
Nah, it's scandal time. How many wetsuits do you own?
I'm not doing that. I was thinking of maybe working the same hours but without so much internetting.
I think "lean in" is something women are supposed to do to be more assertive. Maybe it's the same thing as "mansplaining".
25: chris y, my Pentacostal relatives assure me that's a mistranslation -- the ORIGINAL, they say, has the world for grape juice. It's only the evil Papists who translated it as wine.
And yes, they're serious.
I believe "lean in" means "get over your silly desire to enjoy life and be more dedicated to the capitalist ideal."
In my confirmation class, we learned that the ORIGINAL says "fruit of the vine", and so we can never know which it means. (Of course, there is no way to know from historical context what those words might most likely refer to, no no!)
You don't even need to go to historical context. The Last Supper was a Seder. People still have those, I'm told.
48: Could have been evil Talmudic rabbis that started the whole fermenting thing, and convinced people that it was always done that way.
If I had any idea where this was in the Bible, I could look it up and tell you. But I am ignorant.
Or the fact that prior to the invention of Pasteurization, there wasn't really such a thing as non-alcoholic grape juice.
What does John 2:10 say? Because I'm having a hard time thinking that's about grape juice.
50: per 25, it's Luke 7:34, and the word appears to be "οἰνοπότης". I'm no NTG expert but I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean "grape juice drinker".
53: Yep -- that says oinos, which is wine.
56: Heh.
47: Funny how the rules of scriptural exegesis become suddenly malleable in those circumstances.
mcmc's comment from that thread just cracked me up all over again:
'Everyone serves the good grape juice first, and then the inferior grape juice after the guests have become drunk uh, sleepy. But you have kept the good grape juice until now.'
I'd like to go into marketing at Welch's, just so I could turn 59 into a commercial.