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slakr007's comments:
on The Curse of the Good Girl
I could be simply that I am male, but making this a women's issue seems kind of artificial. There is a much larger issue about conformity and bad parenting here, and it is kind of myopic to look at it as a women's issue.
I have known parents that forced their male children into molds...different molds, but the oppressive/repressive effects are the same.
Forcing children to be something they are not, whether through societal expectations or bad parenting, is a bad thing regardless of the child's gender.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Rx: Responding to Obama
Why is everyone focusing on the uncouth-y-ness of Wilson's outburst rather than the fact that he, himself, was the liar.
His outburst is just another in a long string of blatant lies from opposition. The bill contains a very simple, one-sentence clause that denies coverage to illegal aliens.
Wether you agree with the denial of coverage or not is immaterial. The fact is, the bill denies coverage and Wilson was lying.
99% of the arguments from the opposition are flat out, unapologetic lies and no one is calling them on it.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Rx: Responding to Obama
scottmil, you really should rearrange that into a poetic meter. I see such a brilliantly dark poem there.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Rx: Responding to Obama
The dirty little secret is that they DON'T want available to everyone and they want to limit who could get what.
Yes, bravo! It really angers me when opponents talk about public health care limiting care, letting people die, etc. That is exactly the system they want. That is exactly what a capitalistic, get-what-you-pay-for health insurance system does: if you cannot afford insurance, oh well, good luck.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Racial Profiling
At age 60 plus I find that the lawenforcement is constantly being tied up and prevented from doing their job.
Being at least 60, you should have seen a lot of history supporting the logic of "tying the police up", which is not really tying them up but keeping them accountable to us.
I find repeatedly that "racial profiling" is being used as a weapon against laws being enforced.
Wrong. The ends do not justify the means. Police have to work around our rights...the rights given to us by The Constitution. We cannot give the police carte blanche. If we do, we become a police state and everyone suffers.
Just because it is illegal to transport drugs in a car does not mean it is OK for an officer to randomly pull over cars and rely on the driver's ignorance of his/her rights to initiate a search...even if the officer does find drugs in the car.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Racial Profiling
I know this is off topic, I was just wondering what people in the online forum would think about it.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Racial Profiling
The increasing trend to militarize the police seems like a much more destructive problem for society than racial profiling.
The hot new training course for police officers is a ``Warrior Mindset'' class taught by a former West Point professor, more and more police officers are packing AR-15s into their trunks (or carrying them outright on the street as a show of force), and departments are switching to military-style uniforms. Some departments are even upfront in admitting that these moves are intended to instill a sense of fear (see Chicago and Springfield, MA).
Does it really matter if the police racial profile or not when you have officers in urban fatigues performing routine traffic stops? Yes, that happened to me on the outskirts of Gainesville, FL of all places.
Honestly, I would rather hear the Portland Police chief speak out against that kind of training and outfitting than promise that her officers will hand out business cards.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
@scottmil
Actually, it is the other way around. People that plan ahead before a merge cause the traffic to halt. Merging should be done at the point where the lane ends and people already in the open lane should give way to exactly one car.
Random merging before the merge point causes havoc. If you are in the merge lane, stay there until the merge point. If you are already in the open lane, slow down and prepare to let one person in without stopping.
It slows traffic (which you have to do anyway since it is a construction zone), but it keeps traffic moving at an orderly pace.
The merge point is half way down the block to give people making a right (or left if you are downtown) turn clearance to queue in the merge lane instead having to make a quick, wide turn into the open lane.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
@lakeplant
Oh no, no worries, we were not arguing at all. We were agreeing.
@seanm
That's basically what I was guessing, you just filled in the details. I was pretty much guessing that the computer would record a few seconds before and after the red light and maybe use other sensors to keep or dump video based on whether there was a violation.
I was guessing that it would record every light change and throw out what it does not need since it can take a second or two to spin up the recording software (I have a lot of experience synchronizing video with physiological data). It would be most accurate to spin up before yellow, record through yellow and past red, and then make the decision to keep the video based on other sensors.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
Yep, same with motorcyclists. Always the victim even though many motorcyclists I have met never took a motorcycle safety class or know how to drive a motorcycle well.
I had a motorcyclist yell at me for following too closely even though he was constantly, and abruptly varying his speed between 70 MPH and 50 MPH. I never came close to hitting him, in fact I never even used my brakes, precisely because I was following at an extended distance. He just couldn't figure out how to maintain a constant speed.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
Oh yeah, you should always survey the intersection before going. I actually had this beaten into me during flight school. When beginning to move or approaching a taxi way intersection, we always verbalize:
"Clear left, clear front, clear right."
I actually found that learning to fly made me a more aware, precise, and in-control driver because of little things like that.
That makes me think driving school should be a lot harder. Driving schools only pay lip service to those things.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
Ah, I see your point.
It probably does record every light change. I think something triggers the photo cameras now. Maybe they use the same system to throw out videos when the trigger does not detect a violation.
Of course, that's speculation because everybody that supports this stuff is sketchy on the details when it comes to accuracy and privacy.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
He also said every light with a camera has a longer yellow cycle. So, what is really reducing the violations at those lights? The cameras or the longer yellow cycle?
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
Technically speaking, you are supposed to slow and stop on yellow. The purpose of yellow is to let people through that absolutely cannot stop.
But, yeah, when I moved here a couple of months ago, I heard from several people that police and courts are extremely strict about yellow. Which makes sense (not in your case, obviously), but having moved here after living in Florida for 30 years and driving there for 14 years, it seemed odd.
Most Floridians have a rare color blindness disorder that makes them view red as yellow and yellow as green.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
@scottmil
Yeah, when they say speeding is a factor, they fail to indicate what else was going on. It is so weird that the focus is shifting from drunk driving to speeding when drunk driving is the bigger problem.
Interestingly, there are studies finding that removing all speed limits will make roads safer. The idea is that people will no longer fixate on the speed limit and instead drive at a speed they feel is safe. Almost everyone in the tests chose a speed very near the safe speed AND they modified their notion of safe in adverse conditions...which is the most important thing.
Speed limits tend to make people think that speed is safe in all conditions.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
The computer that controls the traffic light knows when it is going to change the light to red and can trigger the camera a few seconds before it changes the light.
Traffic lights have pretty sophisticated computers controlling them.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
I really hate the naive notion that cameras are correct because they are controlled by computers and computers are impartial and egalitarian. Hearing that was like nails on a chalkboard. It's just not true.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
@sharklady
As a fairly new Oregon resident myself coming from Florida, I have to say that I have been amazed at how polite and competent drivers are here. I find most drivers stop on yellow, obey the speed limit within 5 MPH on average, and know why "slow traffic keep right" makes sense.
So...anecdotal evidence...
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
I wrote against a ban on radar detectors in Florida and found exactly what you are saying.
Speeding is the least contributor to traffic fatalities in Florida and Virginia (Virginia because they are the only state with a radar detector ban). However, the number of fatalities related to speeding is higher despite the ban.
The largest number of fatalities are caused by alcohol and intersections. The NHTSA did not define what "intersection-related" meant, but I imagine it mean running red lights. The numbers were not disjoint, so alcohol and speeding were involved in many of the intersection accidents.
So, it was pretty clear to me that innovative solutions to drunk driving and implementing round-abouts instead of lights or stop signs were far more likely to save lives than banning radar detectors or traffic cameras.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
Yeah, that's why they are advocating the new cameras that take eight seconds of video.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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