Monkeyboy wrote:

lethal wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Well I can't see how you can look at that video and not se the cop put plenty of extra energy into that hit. He did it with the explosiveness of a football hit. Even if you think you need to knock the guy off, there's no need to try to put the guy in the hospital. He could have grabbed the guy from the side (the same side he was able to get to with his hit) and taken him down and broken his fall. The hit was meant to inflict pain and I think that's pretty clear.

So basically try to clothesline the guy and hope you catch him before he hits the ground. Alternately, grab at his arm and more or less pull it out of its socket as he rides past you at a rapid rate of speed so he falls off. And either way, hope you don't miss. Am I missing real alternatives here?

It was the extra hit he gave him. It was way harder than necessary, IMO. You obviously disagree. Either way, it's something a jury should decide after an investigation. I'm much smaller than that cop and I'm sure I could get someone off a bike without pulling their arm out of their socket or blasting them onto the pavement.

This week's Economist (hardly a lefty magazine) seems to think there was no legitimate reason for the cop to do what he did.

New York cyclists are up in arms about an incident in which a police officer, for no apparent reason, knocked a cyclist off his bike and then arrested him and tried to pretend the man had run into him until a video recording proved him wrong.

Monkeyboy wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:
Beyond that point, we have nuclear power plants in this country at the moment, which hasn't led to any real problems since Three Mile Island twenty nine years ago, which didn't even kill anyone.?

Not to nitpick, but I lived about a mile from TMI when the accident occurred and I have family all around the area. Some people are starting to say there's been a cancer spike in the area over the past few years. It's probably not true, but in any case, I don't think we can say at this point nobody died from the accident, especially since cancer rates often take years to rise. At the time, they said we wouldn't know if there was any long term effect in cancer rates for 20+ years. I'm actually curious to know if any research has been done -- I imagine someone's looked at it.

the amount of radiation released was akin to an xray, I highly doubt that any cancer is attributed to TMI

The Red Tornado wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:
Beyond that point, we have nuclear power plants in this country at the moment, which hasn't led to any real problems since Three Mile Island twenty nine years ago, which didn't even kill anyone.?

Not to nitpick, but I lived about a mile from TMI when the accident occurred and I have family all around the area. Some people are starting to say there's been a cancer spike in the area over the past few years. It's probably not true, but in any case, I don't think we can say at this point nobody died from the accident, especially since cancer rates often take years to rise. At the time, they said we wouldn't know if there was any long term effect in cancer rates for 20+ years. I'm actually curious to know if any research has been done -- I imagine someone's looked at it.

the amount of radiation released was akin to an xray, I highly doubt that any cancer is attributed to TMI

Yeh, I doubt there is a higher cancer rate, but someone probably still looked to make sure. I mean, there aren't many opportunities to do such research. And there's no guarantee they were truthful about the amount of radiation released. I'm just curious if the reseasrch has been done. I'll see if I can find it.

if there were a real spike of any significance Id think the press would be all over it, wouldnt you?

Here's an article originally in the Philly Inquirer about the accident. It sure looks to me like they don't know how much was released and they are just guessing because there were too few monitors and those present maxed out during the accident. Some studies have shown a rise in cancer rates, but others have not. So it sounds like an open question and we'll never know the answer.

I'm bummed to find out I was in the path of the radioactive cloud (northwest of the plant). I was outside playing basketball.

Most scientists believe that the radiation doses from the accident were low and that although radiation might have caused a handful of cancers, the increase in illness would be difficult to detect because plenty of people get cancer anyway. Two in five Americans develop cancer; one in five dies of it.

But some questions remain unanswered.

No one ever studied cancer among the workers who did the 10-year, $1 billion cleanup. Federal officials were unable to persuade the plant owner, Metropolitan Edison Co., to maintain a registry of workers so their health could be tracked.

And while numerous studies were done on the health of nearby residents, the most recent one looked at cancer deaths only through 1998. That was 19 years after the accident; some cancers thought to be caused by radiation might not occur until 30 years after exposure.

Not that anyone can say for sure what the exposure was. There were few radiation monitors around the plant at the time of the accident. The studies of residents' health have had to fill in the gaps with estimates of likely exposure, based partly on weather patterns at the time.

Some of the gauges simply were not able to measure amounts as high as what was released, said Jan Beyea, a nuclear physicist who estimated radiation doses for a Columbia University cancer study of TMI.

In 1995, Pennsylvania's Health Department stopped keeping track of residents who lived within a five-mile radius at the time of the accident.

******************

Various scientists agree there is room for further study. But most say that they would not expect to find much, and that disagreements about the radiation doses will leave the cancer debate unsettled forever.

The most recent effort, led by epidemiologist Evelyn Talbott of the University of Pittsburgh, looked at the number of deaths among 31,246 residents who lived within five miles of the plant at the time of the accident.

Researchers found a slight connection between exposure to the plume of radiation and the number of deaths from cancer of the blood and lymph systems. Men with an estimated exposure above 20 millirems of gamma radiation were about 2.5 times more likely to die of these cancers than other Central Pennsylvanians.

But that finding was "barely" statistically significant, Talbott said, and could have been due to chance.

Talbott acknowledged that some radiation-related cancers among the population might yet occur.

With additional study, she said, "you may begin to see things that you wouldn't have seen even five years ago."

The researchers at Columbia had previously looked at the rates of various cancers, including among people who survived the disease. Researchers found higher levels of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and lung cancer but did not establish a connection with radiation exposure.

At the request of consultants for lawyers who had sued the utility, University of North Carolina epidemiologist Steven Wing reanalyzed the Columbia data. Using different assumptions, he linked radiation exposure with an increase in lung cancer.

*******

The federal government estimates that the maximum dose was no more than 100 millirems - equivalent to about five chest X-rays.

The Red Tornado wrote:if there were a real spike of any significance Id think the press would be all over it, wouldnt you?

I have no idea, but I don't have much faith in the press.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

lethal wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Well I can't see how you can look at that video and not se the cop put plenty of extra energy into that hit. He did it with the explosiveness of a football hit. Even if you think you need to knock the guy off, there's no need to try to put the guy in the hospital. He could have grabbed the guy from the side (the same side he was able to get to with his hit) and taken him down and broken his fall. The hit was meant to inflict pain and I think that's pretty clear.

So basically try to clothesline the guy and hope you catch him before he hits the ground. Alternately, grab at his arm and more or less pull it out of its socket as he rides past you at a rapid rate of speed so he falls off. And either way, hope you don't miss. Am I missing real alternatives here?

It was the extra hit he gave him. It was way harder than necessary, IMO. You obviously disagree. Either way, it's something a jury should decide after an investigation. I'm much smaller than that cop and I'm sure I could get someone off a bike without pulling their arm out of their socket or blasting them onto the pavement.

This week's Economist (hardly a lefty magazine) seems to think there was no legitimate reason for the cop to do what he did.

New York cyclists are up in arms about an incident in which a police officer, for no apparent reason, knocked a cyclist off his bike and then arrested him and tried to pretend the man had run into him until a video recording proved him wrong.

Hmmm. Sounds kind of like what I originally said.... which I was ripped for....

I never doubted you, Phils

Philly the Kid wrote:To me, the real message is, that there's a system in place that is full of corruption and hypocrisy. The two parties don't want to change the system. They both vie for power and exchange turns having top seat. People like Nader and others are interested in a different, what I would call, more just and fair version of democracy that is not dominated by lobbyists, corporate insiders and other groups of wealthy decision makers. They also tend to be less religious and more secular. Nader at his best, talks about having an active, involved, educated and participating democracy and citizenry. Sounds pretty good to me. I'm not interested in our current system, and feel its ultimately whether soon or in the not too distant future -- a system that cannot sustain and does not breed a society that is founded on good health, and fairness and equality and respecting individual rights.

Flip-flopping isn't corruption or hypocrisy. It's up to us to figure out what they mean. Why should the two parties want to change the system? It's a good system. I'm unsure what Nader stands for, although he's assured people it'd be better than what we have.

I recognize that you believe that lobbyists, corporate insiders and wealthy people have more influence than yourself, even without evidence that they do. I guess you're saying religious people have too much say. There is nothing wrong with any of these groups. Everyone has lobbyists. The teachers' union has a lobbyist. The AARP has a lobbyist. The ACLU has a lobbyist. Common Cause is a lobbying group. Ralph Nader's Public Citizen group attempts to influence Congress. That sounds like lobbying to me.

Everybody deserves to have a say in America, even rich people and corporate insiders. In fact I hope that with 83,000 employees and union pension funds depending on them, Exxon Mobil is out there lobbying. If they don't there are a lot of teachers who won't have as much money when they retire.

I don't like the idea of your active, involved, educated and participating democracy. It's the Libertarian in me. I like the idea that people can and do choose to not be active, involved, or educated and can have representatives in the form of legislators and lobbyists representing them.

The society that you want that is founded on good health, fairness and equality is not one that respects individual rights. It's one where government decides our healthcare, what's most fair, and takes care of everyone to make them equal. I don't believe in such a utopia, but I do know that in such a place individual rights are sacrificed for what's best for the group as a whole. We are in a system that emphasizes individual rights. By doing so we don't get the most fair or equal society. We get a society where some more wealth and influence than others. Some succeed while others fail.

Philly the Kid wrote:Hmmm. Sounds kind of like what I originally said.... which I was ripped for....

No, you were ripped for your absolute certainty, over the top hyperbole, and refusal to acknowledge any alternatives given the information despite choosing to only focus on alternatives to other better documented and researched events.

Laexile wrote:We are in a system that emphasizes individual rights. By doing so we don't get the most fair or equal society. We get a society where some more wealth and influence than others. Some succeed while others fail.

and in such a place, individual rights are sacrificed for what's best for...some individuals.

Based, I'm assuming you would add, on "merit", or some such idealization. A place where the "winners" - those who "succeed" - get to pick who "runs" and profits handsomely by so doing, such bastions of success as GM & Bear Stearns & Countrywide & Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac & [add your favorites here]. Too bad, losers!

Of course, the losers have a leg up on one other group - those who feel, despite all available evidence, that they are in spiritual, economic, ideological, etc, league with the 'winners'. This group is known as the suckers.

Neither your views nor PtK's are as self-evidently appealing or even distinct as either of you may imagine them to be. Both involve abundant tension between the individual and society, whether the latter spends most of its time embracing wheat germ & whales or mammon & "me". An individual's 'happiness' in either world depends on his ability to reconcile those tensions for himself.

"Ah, but", you may object, "that reconciliation is obviously made simpler in an environment where the individual is most able to make decisions, to take action, for himself".

That might be true, but for an even more fundamental tension, a truth, you may say, that grips each of us: the uncertainty about, the transience of, what will, indeed, make one happy, "in the end" - 6 minutes from now, 6 feet under, & everywhere in between.

In other political news...

Detroit mayor ordered jailed for violating the terms of his bond.

Interesting post from Nate Silver--doing pundit-type analysis rather than number-crunching--on the potential advantages for Obama in getting on board with the "Gang of Ten" energy policy compromise. I think he overstates the case to call it a "potential checkmate move," but I agree it could give Obama a lift.

Holy crap. 5 minute Obama campaign "ad" on Phillies Clubhouse live.

Steve Cohen crushed Nikki Tinker.

79-19. Wow. Good for Memphis.

Will the 19 be euthanized?

The 19% was over 11,000 people. That would get costly and cumbersome.

I'm thinking anthrax

I know a guy.

Tell them Iran did it, let them believe. Stay off the grid in the meantime