Apparently smoking crack was good or neutral for babies.

 

Why don't they make these reports more public? My wife just went through a whole pregnancy without smoking crack!

Lol, ah, so the "OMG LOOK HOW RACIST WE WERE IN THE 80's" was the true intent.

 

And is prosecuting women who use crack a bad thing?

Persecuting them may be.

 

And yeah, the whole War on (some) Drugs and (some) People who Use Drugs is pretty racist.

Fear mongering bulls***.

 

The people in that OK town had 16 minutes of warning about the tornado, which is twice as long as the average warning time. It was a culmination of OK not having very many basements to hide in and the strength of the storm being a rarity. According to WGN, less than 1% of tornadoes are category 4 or 5. This was a 4, for now.

 

According to Tom Skilling it was 36 minutes, not 16

 

Tom Skilling

Here's the actual full text of the TORNADO WARNING issued by the National Weather Service Office in Norman, Oklahoma 36 MINUTES ahead of the tornado strike in Moore, Newcastle and southern Oklahoma City on Monday. Note the strong language which left little doubt an extremely dangerous tornado was bearing down on the area.

 

692

WFUS54 KOUN 202001

TOROUN

OKC027-087-109-202045-

/O.NEW.KOUN.TO.W.0026.130520T2001Z-130520T2045Z/

 

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED

TORNADO WARNING

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORMAN OK

301 PM CDT MON MAY 20 2013

 

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN NORMAN HAS ISSUED A

 

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...

NORTHWESTERN MCCLAIN COUNTY IN CENTRAL OKLAHOMA...

SOUTHERN OKLAHOMA COUNTY IN CENTRAL OKLAHOMA...

NORTHERN CLEVELAND COUNTY IN CENTRAL OKLAHOMA...

 

* UNTIL 345 PM CDT

 

* AT 259 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS AND STORM

SPOTTERS WERE TRACKING A LARGE AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO NEAR

NEWCASTLE. DOPPLER RADAR SHOWED THIS TORNADO MOVING NORTHEAST AT 20

MPH.

 

THIS IS A TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR MOORE AND SOUTH OKLAHOMA CITY.

 

IN ADDITION TO A TORNADO...LARGE DESTRUCTIVE HAIL UP TO TENNIS BALL

SIZE IS EXPECTED WITH THIS STORM.

 

* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE...

MIDWEST CITY...MOORE...NEWCASTLE...STANLEY DRAPER LAKE...TINKER AIR

FORCE BASE AND VALLEY BROOK.

 

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

 

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. IF YOU

CANNOT GET UNDERGROUND GO TO A STORM SHELTER OR AN INTERIOR ROOM OF A

STURDY BUILDING NOW.

 

TAKE COVER NOW IN A STORM SHELTER OR AN INTERIOR ROOM OF A STURDY

BUILDING. STAY AWAY FROM DOORS AND WINDOWS.

&&

 

LAT...LON 3524 9763 3532 9766 3547 9738 3527 9728

TIME...MOT...LOC 2000Z 236DEG 16KT 3530 9760

Yeah the warning was issued at 3:00 local time...wasn't the tornado entering the City Limits at about 3:15? That's the timeline I saw yesterday.

 

It was on the ground for about 45 minutes total IIRC, spent the last 30 minutes crossing the city then petered out as it hit a lake if I saw an accurate track.

Obama has proposed the idea of privatizing TVA, but Republicans from Tennessee are pushing back hard:

 

http://www.alternet.org/economy/shocker-re...ergy-source-tva

 

Buried within the fine print of the 2014 Obama budget is a startling bit of history-changing policy. The government, the administration says, should consider selling off the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the nation’s largest publicly operated—that is, “socialist”—institutions, and the largest public power provider in the country.

 

The TVA is a non-profi, free-standing public authority established by the Roosevelt administration during the Depression—a very large utility, if you like. It provides 165 billion kilowatt hours of power to 9 million Americans, has $11.2 billion in sales revenue, employs more than 12,500 people, and provides other educational, training and related services (such as navigation and land management, flood control, and economic development) to the people in the states and region around the Tennessee river basin.

 

Strikingly, it’s the free-market Republicans who object to this proposed privatization. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who has vehemently opposed government tax credits and subsidies for renewable energy, calls the proposal “one more bad idea in a budget full of bad ideas,” and fears that privatization would lead to higher energy costs for his constituents.

 

Congressman John L. Duncan, Jr., another Tennessee Republican, says privatization is “something that has been proposed in the past and been determined to be a very bad idea.” Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama (a state also served by the TVA), says he will “carefully study any proposals to restructure TVA” in order to make sure that it won’t result in a price hike. And Tennessee’s other Republican Senator, Bob Corker, is clear: “I doubt this idea gains much traction.”

Terrible headline, but an article ripping Rahm is always good:

 

Rahm Emanuel’s Zombie Pigs vs. Chicago’s Angry Birds

 

It all starts with the person who seems committed to win the current spirited competition as the most loathsome person in American political life: Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The same Mayor overseeing the closing of fifty-four schools and six community mental health clinics under the justification of a “budgetary crisis” has announced that the city will be handing over more than $100 million to DePaul University for a new basketball arena. This is part of a mammoth redevelopment project on South Lakeshore Drive consisting of a convention center anchored by an arena for a non-descript basketball team that has gone 47-111 over the last five years. It’s also miles away from DePaul’s campus. These aren’t the actions of a mayor. They’re the actions of a mad king.

 

If you want to understand why Mayor Rahm has approval ratings to rival Rush Limbaugh in Harlem, you can point to priorities like these. The school closures are taking place entirely in communities of color while the city's elite feed with crazed abandon at an increasingly sapped trough. As Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teachers Union chief who led a victorious strike last September fueled by rage at Mayor Rahm, said, “When the mayor claims he is facing unprecedented budget problems, he has a choice to make. He is choosing between putting our communities first or continuing the practice of handing out millions of public dollars to private operators, even in the toughest of times.”

 

It’s hardly just the labor-left of Chicago pointing out how breathtakingly heartless these priorities are. Rick Telander, the lead sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, penned a piece subtly titled, “With Rahm’s DePaul plan, we’ve entered a new arena of stupidity.” After making clear that DePaul’s team is hardly a magnet for city hoops fans, Telander wrote, “But forget that. Guess who will have to cough up about $100 million to build the thing for the private Catholic university of 25,000, through bonds and the usual sneak attacks of wallet-siphonage—Yes! Taxpayers! Ta-dah!”

 

Short of *maybe* something like the Olympics that can get a whole bunch of infrastructure and transportation built along with it, there's no justification for publicly funding private sports stadiums. They are almost universally money-losers.

Lol, ah, so the "OMG LOOK HOW RACIST WE WERE IN THE 80's" was the true intent.

 

And is prosecuting women who use crack a bad thing?

It's more that they were prosecuted for harming the baby. But it turns out drinking is much, much more harmful and yet we don't prosecute pregnant women who drink like we did with pregnant women who used crack.

 

I thought you'd appreciate the first comment on the article, which is true:

 

While I agree with all that you wrote here, we shouldn't forget the role that black leaders played in amping up the hysteria over crack cocaine. And it's hard to blame them for it, considering the way the crack wars hit the community

It's more that they were prosecuted for harming the baby. But it turns out drinking is much, much more harmful and yet we don't prosecute pregnant women who drink like we did with pregnant women who used crack.

 

I thought you'd appreciate the first comment on the article, which is true:

 

The obvious difference being that with crack use is always illegal but with alcohol it's not. But I'd be in favor of making it illegal/punishable to drink (excessively) while pregnant.

It's more that they were prosecuted for harming the baby. But it turns out drinking is much, much more harmful and yet we don't prosecute pregnant women who drink like we did with pregnant women who used crack.

I honestly dont know how the "KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY VAGINA" crowd would take that.

I honestly dont know how the "KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY VAGINA" crowd would take that.

 

they should be against prosecuting anyone that harms an unborn baby in any way. It's simply a bunch of useless goo.

they should be against prosecuting anyone that harms an unborn baby in any way. It's simply a bunch of useless goo.

 

Absolutely.

 

Anything else is completely hypocritical and cant be rationally supported. Now obviously you can make an argument if it was illegal to abort after X weeks, then you can also prosecute after X weeks, but to prosecute for something done when it was legal to abort is inane.

 

 

 

 

Terrible headline, but an article ripping Rahm is always good:

 

Rahm Emanuel’s Zombie Pigs vs. Chicago’s Angry Birds

 

 

 

Short of *maybe* something like the Olympics that can get a whole bunch of infrastructure and transportation built along with it, there's no justification for publicly funding private sports stadiums. They are almost universally money-losers.

 

The city agreed to pay a contractor $84M to develop that land for the Olympics. When the Olympic bid came up short, the city was still on the hook for $84M. they needed to do something with that land and DePaul won.

Couldn't think of anything better than a basketball stadium?

Couldn't think of anything better than a basketball stadium?

 

Honestly I am shocked it isn't a casino.

that'd have to go through Springfield I think.

that'd have to go through Springfield I think.

 

It is going to happen. Why do you think Daley is running for gov?

It is going to happen. Why do you think Daley is running for gov?

Daley is running for Governor? Which one?

Daley is running for Governor? Which one?

 

The announcement will be in a week or two "officially". This was basically his announcement.

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politic...0,5476727.story

oh, bill daley

I thought Bill Daley running for gov was common knowledge. They have been talking about it for weeks.

the only rumblings I've heard have been of Lisa Madigan but I haven't been paying attention

Despite similar usage rates, marijuana arrests four times as likely for blacks

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/us/ma...for-blacks.html

 

This is what people mean when they talk about systemic racism.

I thought Bill Daley running for gov was common knowledge. They have been talking about it for weeks.

Unless he's running for Tennessee Governor I have this habit of not knowing about it.

Despite similar usage rates, marijuana arrests four times as likely for blacks

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/us/ma...for-blacks.html

 

This is what people mean when they talk about systemic racism.

 

My Chicago cop friend's response was basically (1) you're 4 times more likely to see a cop in predominantly black areas than white areas (he used Austin v. Lincoln Park) and (2) in his experience black kids are way too nonchalant about it whereas white kids keep it indoors. He also thought that a lot of times the marijuana charges are tacked on to other crimes that were committed (a kid having a bag in his pocket) which might account for some of the difference.

 

I wonder whose servers know me better. Google or the NSA?