That only really works if there are funds to pay for it. These firefighters are making $15 (per the article) for doing hot, labor-intensive work in dangerous environment and conditions. It’s hard to get recruitment numbers up for work like that without good pay. Bonuses can help, but it doesn’t sound like they are paying enough to attract the labor they need.
The article also says retention is hard and one of their biggest problems is the lack of ‘experienced’ firefighters. It’s definitely going to be tough to keep people coming back at pay rates that are less than what minimum wage would be if it had kept up with inflation.
People need to get over the candidate BS, you’ve never really electing a candidate, but a party and a platform.
Thats why all republicans are forever tainted by the project 2025 insidious cultural vomit. The dislike of project 2025, and the fact Democrats are now seen as hitting assholes back, is a BIG reason why Kamala is being favored.
Republicans are charlatans, and Democrats need to be more progressive and fight back hard. Fighting back with civility means pointing out the inadequacies, incompetencies and hypocrisies of your opponents.
Red-heavy states, ie not Purple, are economic losers and failures on all objective measures of state success. It’s not the fault of the people living there, it’s the politicians who deliberately trample them and keep these people in a perpetual state of misery, and then use racism to distract them from their pains. Those Americans deserve better.
Republicans need to be shamed for their utter policy failures and the subsequent miseries which resulted from them. I think the only reason people hated Biden was because he wasn’t perceived strong enough to defend the ideals of Americans who’re not into face eating leopards.
Sorry for the tangent/cringe post. I just can’t believe the Red party is still given any serious consideration.
In one sense this true. Policies are set by a small army of party elites and admins. Presidents aren’t just policy makers though. They are the face of a country. Their words are powerful and institutions react to them. They also project a sense of competency and vitality to the world.
it’s the politicians who deliberately trample them and keep these people in a perpetual state of misery, and then use racism to distract them from their pains.
I think this is a one sided analysis putting all the blame on the Republicans. It fails to wrestle with purple states that became red states like Florida and the inability for Democrats to make lasting in roads in purple states.
I just can’t believe the Red party is still given any serious consideration.
Personally, I turn to history when I want to understand something that confounds me. It would be better if I could actually talk to some people and really hear them. But I live a major metropolitan center in a blue state so my access is limited.
IMO, Democrats consistently fail by being less progressive and not protecting the working/middle class. It’s neoliberalism that drives people away from Democrats.
Thoughtlessly enabling illegal immigration, which makes the country less safe, is also a problem. Immigration and providing asylum protections have to be done in a reasonable and proactive manner so as not to create instability in border communities, and to not alienate the people who live along the U.S. border.
Supporting foreign policies which embroil America in endless war is also problem, but it’s a beast with a thousand heads which sprouted way back when because of a policy of regional destabilization started by imperial Britain. The U.S. continued it with its absurd agenda against communist states and overthrowing of governments in LatAm. Unless all countries and leaders collectively call an end for it, it doesn’t stop.
But besides that countries with high happiness scores have strong social welfare programs and healthcare. Corporations need to be taxed more and be held accountable for their use or abuse of natural resources. In short, America needs to utilize the Nordic model for national and international policy making. In fact, I think it’s useful for all countries.
Good, goood, ban all firearms, so when some nutcase pulls another Uvalde there will be nothing stipping all the fairgoers from getting riddled with bullets while the cops bumble around outside of the gates
You mean where the police don’t act and instead stand around? Man it almost seems like law enforcement not acting should be the focus not the fact people are unarmed.
Every event like this will have security with the local PD on alert if they call. That’s how it’s supposed to work - “good guy with gun” often gets shot by police response if you hadn’t been keeping track.
I’m not sure if the solution to a psycho firing in a crowded fairground is for amateur shooters to also fire in a crowded fairground at whomever they think is the instigator.
The Independent - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for The Independent:
> MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
> Wikipedia about this source
Children tried as adults were sentenced to a little more than three years in prison on average for third-degree felonies — around 50% longer than the average sentence given to adults for the same class of offense. The vast majority of all felony charges are third-degree offenses, which are the lowest class of felony crimes and include burglary, some types of assault, drug possession and certain DUI offenses.
Children and adults had similar average sentences for more serious offenses that fall under first and second-degree felonies.
Seriousness of charges isn’t necessarily the same as seriousness of crime. I read more about Knight’s case and it sounds like them departing from sentencing guidelines for armed robbery happened for the same reason as them wanting to charge him as an adult - I.e. that his actions were worse than you would think just from reading the name of the charge.
For serious offenses, they get treated the same. The only difference is for third-degree felonies, which it sounds like would be the main circumstance where that correlation would come into play. Why wouldn’t there be a difference in sentencing, when you’re specifically selecting for the more serious circumstances on the juvenile side and not on the adult side of the data you’re comparing?
Because if you are selecting for more serious circumstances, higher charges would apply. Giving them a lesser charge, but a longer sentence, doesn’t make sense.
That is the entire point of the article, disproportionate sentencing for the same charges.
Seriousness of charges isn’t necessarily the same as seriousness of crime.
And:
it sounds like them departing from sentencing guidelines for armed robbery happened for the same reason as them wanting to charge him as an adult - I.e. that his actions were worse than you would think just from reading the name of the charge.
Not every third degree felony is identical to every other third degree felony. There are ones where the circumstances of the case are going to warrant a longer sentence, and those are probably going to overlap with the ones where the circumstances of the case would warrant charging a juvenile as an adult.
And, the least serious category of felonies are going to have more "space" for more serious circumstances to exist, and so it would make sense how those have this anomalous thing exist with them, that doesn't exist with the more serious felonies where the charge better encompasses the full seriousness of the crime.
What is more likely is that more of the minors who are charged as adults are minorities, which is already known to result in disproportionately longer sentences. That is aligned with racist assumptions that minorities commit more crimes or the way they commit crimes is worse.
So as long as we are both speculating, mine is based on actual disproportionate outcomes in criminal sentencing and yours is based on an assumption that the disparity had a logical explanation. Disproportionate sentencing tends to be based on racism and sexism, not reasonable logic.
What is more likely is that more of the minors who are charged as adults are minorities, which is already known to result in disproportionately longer sentences.
Why in your theory doesn't that happen for 1st and 2nd degree felonies?
The racism in the system applies across all levels -- for adults and kids, for 1st and 2nd and 3rd degree felonies. It could be that this particular effect is a result of some kind of unequal application, sure. But I wouldn't automatically assume that racism applies very specifically to 3rd degree felonies committed by juveniles in a way it doesn't for 2nd degree felonies, or for 3rd degree felonies committed by adults, or what have you.
It sort of sounds like you're assuming that something you already know (that the system is racist) is definitely responsible for anything and everything about the system, and anyone who doesn't see it that way automatically must just not know the system is racist, and you need to explain that to them. Yes, I know the system is racist.
So as long as we are both speculating, mine is based on actual disproportionate outcomes in criminal sentencing and yours is based on an assumption that the disparity had a logical explanation.
It seems like you're just not grasping the mathematical concept I'm trying to explain (or maybe, just not even understanding that there might be anything to grasp other than that the system is racist.) And then saying the only explanation for anything in the criminal justice system is always racism. IDK man. I tried twice to explain it, and it seems like it failed both times.
If you want to understand, let me know, and I'll try again. If you just want to tell me that the system is racist (which, again, it is) and the problem is just that I'm too stupid to know that it is racist and need you to explain it to me, I think I'll go off and do something else instead.
Why in your theory doesn’t that happen for 1st and 2nd degree felonies?
Because longer sentences don’t have as much proportional variance as a shorter sentence.
When a sentencing range is 1-5 years, some people will have sentences that are 5 times as long as others. When the sentencing range is 25-40 years, nobody will have a sentence that is even twice the duration of someone else.
I understand the point you are trying to make on math. I am saying your point is based on flawed assumptions.
Yes, I am also saying that racism and sexism are the most likely explanation for any disproportionate outcome when looking at the legal system. Single judges might have their own personal variance, but when looking at state levels and above it always ends up being racism or sexism that drives the trends.
Not every third degree felony is identical to every other third degree felony. There are ones where the circumstances of the case are going to warrant a longer sentence, and those are probably going to overlap with the ones where the circumstances of the case would warrant charging a juvenile as an adult.
You are assuming that what leads to a child being charged as an adult is the curcumstances of the crime, and that they will have a longer sentence for those lesser charges instead of different charges that reflect the sentence.
Both race and the circumstances of the crime are going to impact their being charged as an adult, and the sentence they receive. The existence of racism doesn’t mean that the circumstances of the case will now have 0 bearing on their punishment - it’s not one or the other; it is both.
Like I say, the system is racist, yes. It feels like you just seized on an opportunity to lecture about racism and deny the existence of literally any other factor being possible except for race. It’s childish and reductive and hostile to things that are necessary for understanding the world. Stop doing that. This will be my last message to you on this topic.
My assumption that the trend in this article is based on racism is because that is absolutely a thing that happens.
I could say that people order vanilla ice cream more than chocolate because of racism, and then if someone said that wasn’t true I could cite a bunch of statistics about how racism is absolutely a thing that happens and get mad at them for denying the impact of racism, and it would make an equal amount of sense as your argument here.
It feels like you just seized on an opportunity to lecture about racism and deny the existence of literally any other factor being possible except for race.
You asked for an explanation and I provided it, then explained in further detail when you dismissed it. If that feels like being lectured, maybe you shouldn’t ask for explanations.
I see you haven’t given up on the explanation you pulled out of thin air to avoid the obvious explanation of racism. Why are you so dedicated to dismissing racism? Do you feel personally attacked by Florida’s legal system being criticized for its racism?
Edit: and it looks like this entire story may have been based on a typo.
I mean, it depends how egregious / serious this violation is and how crucial it is to the rest of their overall successes.
Elon sucks, but for the same amount of money, NASA can either launch 150 tons of science missions 1 per year on SLS, or they can launch 170 tons of science missions every 2 weeks on Starship.
Quite frankly I don’t understand why they’ve gotten the level of hate they’ve gotten (and why some people seem so intent on finding ways to hate them), other than their association with their dumbass ceo.
People who blame the thousands of hard working engineers at SpaceX for Elon’s follies are committing the exact same logical fallacies as the people who hero worship him and praise him for what is the hard work of all those engineers.
It’s very easy to say in one sentence that Elon sucks and what SpaceX is doing is pretty wild and revolutionary, yet people like the OP I’m responding to seem bothered by even that.
Elon sucks, but for the same amount of money, NASA can either launch 150 tons of science missions 1 per year on SLS, or they can launch 170 tons of science missions every 2 weeks on Starship.
Because Im struggling to see how Starship, a fully reusable spaceship made out of stainless steel, is going to deplete the ozone the way that aluminum satellites do when they are deorbited and burned up…
Yes, it is. That is using their projected budget and the launch cadence that’s possible with both SLS and Starship. SLS can at most launch twice a year, Starship will be able to launch every two weeks, and costs orders of magnitude less.
My god. What do you do for a living? Does it have no effect on the environment in any way shape or form?
They literally just discovered that Starlink satellites are having that effect, and you have given them precisely zero time to even try and address and fix it. And in the meantime I literally just came back from a remote first Nations community that only has high quality internet because of it, amongst virtually every rural community in the world.
Honestly, disconnect yourself from the internet before you spend any time looking into the environmental impact of your phone, the servers you use, and the billions of miles of fibre optic cables that connect everything. Because if that’s the kind of blood that prevents you from praising a company that is literally revolutionizing space launch, then literally nothing any of us ever do is worth praising because it’s all built on a giant foundation of blood.
Hell, those solar thermal power plants that use mirrors to reflect light onto molten salts originally killed a whole bunch of birds. Are they bastards for trying to build out a new technology, realizing there’s environmental consequences, and then finding ways of addressing it?
I don’t. But even if I did, working for a company is not the same as being the company. I don’t blame an Exxon oil rig worker for global warming.
You have literally said that nothing anyone does at SpaceX is worthy of praise and complained that people praise SpaceX’s genuine accomplishments.
Not to the extent SpaceX will since it’s destroying the ozone layer. Not sure why you seem to think that’s trivial.
But they’re not, they’re slightly slowing it’s rate of recovery. This is not a problem on the scale of CFCs that actually destroyed the ozone layer, both in terms of damage being done and potential scale it can grow to (4000 satellites vs millions and millions of refrigerators and freezers), and it’s one that we literally just discovered now and have literally only started trying to address now.
Doing new things will have unexpected results and won’t be perfect the first try. News at 11. You wanna demonize the engineers who try and build new things for not having them 100% perfect the first time, then you’re free to be a Mennonite and separate yourself from all of t chbogy and modern society’s benefits too.
K, so when people praise SpaceX’s engineers for designing unprecedented machines that do things that no one has ever seen before, that doesn’t bother you?
You were referring specifically to all those times that people are praising SpaceX’s environmental regulation compliance?
When people praise SpaceX, the company, it bothers me.
When people praise an engineer at SpaceX that does something cool, I am happy for the engineer.
Again- saying I hate Starbucks doesn’t mean I hate the baristas who work there. Saying I hate Exxon doesn’t mean I hate an oil rig worker who’s just trying to make money to feed their family.
And sticking just with Musk-owned companies, saying I hate Tesla doesn’t mean I hate some random Tesla employee I’ve never heard of.
I’m really not sure why I have to explain this to you.
When people praise SpaceX, the company, it bothers me.
When people praise an engineer at SpaceX that does something cool, I am happy for the engineer.
I’m really not sure why I have to explain this to you.
You don’t have to explain either of those things to me, you can just answer the question I asked:
K, so when people praise SpaceX’s engineers for designing unprecedented machines that do things that no one has ever seen before, that doesn’t bother you?
i.e. when people praise SpaceX’s rockets and launches, does that bother you? Is that praising the company or praising the engineer in your mind?
At the end of the day what the company does is an output of the workers. When people praise what SpaceX does they are praising the workers, unless you view the company as just the CEO, in which case you’re falling into the folly of hero worship.
No, that is referring to the idea of a corporation having legal rights the way that a person does. That is not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the output of a corporation. Is the output of a corporation the result of the CEO or of a bunch of workers?
See, the fun thing here is that I’ve answered the question you keep rephrasing multiple times the same way. You just don’t like my answer because it goes against your whole claim that this has something to do with Elon Musk.
And you are doing everything you can to defend a company which is destroying the ozone layer.
I, once again, have no idea why this has to be spelled out for you, but of course it bothers me when people praise a corporation that is destroying the ozone layer.
Similarly, it would bother me if someone praised Shell Oil or Nestle.
Why is it so hard for you to understand that SpaceX is destroying the ozone layer and that is a bad thing?
I, once again, have no idea why this has to be spelled out for you, but of course it bothers me when people praise a corporation that is destroying the ozone layer.
OK so when people praise SpaceX for destroying the ozone layer, which is totally a real thing that people praise them for, that bothers you.
But you’re ok with it when people praise SpaceX for creating reusable rockets that are more environmentally friendly than single use rockets?
Or no, people should shit on them for creating reusable rockets because something something musk makes you angry?
End of the day you think that because SpaceX is a Musk owned company, praise for what SpaceX does is praise for Musk, whereas people who don’t engage in hero worship view it as praise for the hardworking engineers who actually did those things.
And stop bringing up the ozone issue, we’ve been over this. Yes, it’s an issue that was literally just discovered and reported on, usually once you discover an issue you give people time to address it. That’s what happens when people try to do new things that have never been done before. If they ignore the issue and keep destroying the ozone layer then they will be the world destroying villains that you want them so badly to be.
Got it. And when Exxon ends up heating the world beyond 2 degrees C, then we can criticize them. Until then, criticizing Exxon means criticizing every secretary in their branch office in Des Moines.
I’ve never once said you can’t criticize them. This started because you said people can’t praise them.
And Exxon isn’t the bad guy for producing a product people want, they’re the bad guy for knowing the dangers of that product and not only ignoring them for decades, but also gas lighting the public about it.
Precisely, as in, you are bothered by the fact that people currently praise SpaceX, and are hoping that this revelation about mercury levels (which seems to be based on a typo), would make them stop.
You clearly are unwilling or incapable of acknowledging that you’re committing the folly of hero worship when you’re bothered by people praising SpaceX’s accomplishment because of their CEO.
I’m not going to block you in case you eventually come to your senses and post something worthwhile, but I am done with this conversation.
It wasn’t a paraphrase, it was a lie. I never said anything about what anyone can’t do. In fact, I asked a question about whether or not people will stop doing it.
It’s such an obvious lie that I’m not sure why you’re even trying to attempt this ‘paraphrase’ nonsense.
Do you know what the clouds coming out of the engines at shut down and start up are? Methane and oxygen. Do you think injecting methane into the upper atmosphere does the earth any favours?
Huh, if only NASA Earth’s science budget could stretch farther somehow so they could better monitor and tell us… now I wonder how they could reduce their mission costs by orders of magnitude…
The article I showed you about SpaceX destroying the ozone layer was not talking about methane:
Researchers at the University of Southern California released a study saying that satellites are significantly damaging Earth’s ozone layer. As their materials burn up upon reentry, leaving behind particle pollutants made up of aluminum oxides, which are “known catalysts for chlorine activation that depletes ozone in the stratosphere.”
Since 2016, the ozone layer has seen eight times as many of those pollutants, with an estimated 17 metric tons in 2022
Lol I know. Then you brought up their methane missions.
Your ‘bashing everything remotely associated with a villain’ is just as flawed as people’s hero worship. You see company’s as their CEO, I see them as a large collection of workers.
I’d rather NASA be funded well enough to not need private, profit-driven, corporations dictating how we explore space. That and Musk’s stench sticks to all his companies, for good or bad.
That’s what SLS is, a rocket built by NASA using their traditional contractors and it costs orders of magnitude more to do the literal exact same thing.
Again, I get that Musk sucks, but hating on the hardwork of thousands of engineers and personnel because of what one of the employees does in their free time is just as biased as everyone who irrationally praises Musk for what is the hardwork of thousands.
SLS does it the old way, with NASA contracting work out to the old school companies.
The Commercial Crew and Supply contracts are there to try it a different way. And they’re accomplishing their goals much more quickly and at a fraction of the cost.
There’s a great synopsis of the situation further up the thread, but the short is:
SpaceX originally wasn’t going to launch rockets from this facility… until they announced that they were, then asked for permission from the regulatory bodies after their first launch.
When concerns were raised about the rockets being launched half a kilometer from nature preservation land, and specifically in regard to the possibility of failed launches damaging the launchpad, Elon assured them that no such thing could happen… and then a quarter of the launchpad was destroyed by a failed launch.
So they installed the water deluge system, again asking for permission after they had already installed and used it.
Within their permit application for the system - which, again, was installed and used before the application was even submitted - are mercury measurements 50x higher than the Texas maximum threshold for acute mercury toxicity, and far higher than the thresholds for human safety.
The Elon hate is one thing, and I believe much of the hate for SpaceX is because of how he handles himself and his companies. But the general assurance has largely been that SpaceX has a team of handlers to keep him from screwing things up, and it sounds more like Boeing over there every day.
They may have Elon on a leash, but they seem to be running his playbook anyway.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved SpaceX’s next Starship launch, just hours after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) concluded its assessment of the rocket’s launch infrastructure.
The FAA gave the company a launch license Wednesday afternoon, saying Starship and its new launch infrastructure would have “no significant environmental changes” for its second launch.
FWS stated that SpaceX’s water deluge system, meant to suppress the flames and sound from the rocket’s 33 engines, would produce the same amount of water from an average rainfall. The agency does not expect the water to change the mud flats’ salinity or affect shorebird habitat.
*emphasis mine.
Flight 2 was on November 18th, 2 days after they get approval for the deluge system.
Edit: further, spacex has replied to this and said the following (among other things as well)
SpaceX worked with the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) throughout the build and test of the water deluge system at Starbase to identify a permit approach. TCEQ personnel were onsite at Starbase to observe the initial tests of the system in July 2023, and TCEQ’s website shows that SpaceX is covered by the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit.
We only use potable (drinking) water in the system’s operation. At no time during the operation of the deluge system is the potable water used in an industrial process, nor is the water exposed to industrial processes before or during operation of the system.
We send samples of the soil, air, and water around the pad to an independent, accredited laboratory after every use of the deluge system, which have consistently shown negligible traces of any contaminants. Importantly, while CNBC’s story claims there are “very large exceedances of the mercury” as part of the wastewater discharged at the site, all samples to-date have in fact shown either no detectable levels of mercury whatsoever or found in very few cases levels significantly below the limit the EPA maintains for drinking water.
Heavy metals are some of the worst things to dump into the environment, and I’m curious to see where the mercury is coming from, why they’re using it, and how they’re going to address it, but it really feels like you’re blowing up a relatively small issue into a massive one.
They had one launch where they blew up the launch pad accidentally, so they added a deluge system to cope. Now there’s mercury toxicity downstream of the site, but it’s not clear it has anything to do with the deluge system.
The Elon hate is one thing, and I believe much of the hate for SpaceX is because of how he handles himself and his companies.
That absolutely is where most of it comes from. Articles that hate on Elon get clicks, so for every actual thoughtful nuanced critique of SpaceX, there’s two dozen click bait articles written by glorified bloggers that will look for any flaw because critiques of Musk’s space company drives traffic.
But the general assurance has largely been that SpaceX has a team of handlers to keep him from screwing things up, and it sounds more like Boeing over there every day.
Boeing is failing to do what they used to do 50 years ago. SpaceX is successfully doing things that no one has ever done. Yes the wreckless rule breaking is trademark Elon, but let’s not be hyperbolic.
I’m curious to see where the mercury is coming from, why they’re using it, and how they’re going to address it
So was I. Upon closer inspection, it seems possible that this entire story is based on two typos in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report.
for every actual thoughtful nuanced critique of SpaceX, there’s two dozen click bait articles written by glorified bloggers
SpaceX fans have known about this for a long time now, and they just don’t care. They’ve shouted down anyone who has pointed it out for well over a year now
Is that a recent change? I froze mine a few years back and went in to check a few days ago and had to do it all over again. I don’t remember unfreezing it.
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