11. mailbox conversation 2018.10.04

at https://nextdoor.com/news_feed/?post=92863265

T: Gee,  it would sure be nice to have more sheriffs patrols in town. LA County just doesn’t have the money.

D: why don't you patrol if you are so concerned? if you catch someone in the act of removing what does not belong to the remover, feed ravens and coyotes.....just be sure that you actually catch the carcass in the act....

W: It’s not Tom’s job to patrol. He pays taxes that should be providing that service. Save your ridiculous metaphors. We’re not in the 1800s anymore.

D:
1) not ____ job is outside my own belief system. when you see a rape occurring, do you say, "not my job to stop this rape"? or do you intervene? 

2) taxes are theft, not payment for service. 

3) paramilitary predators do not have obligations to do anything more than guard a blue/brown/green line; they have no obligation to address civilian concerns. they are not in the business of preventing crimes or torts. they are not protectors; they are predators who go to and fro upon the highways and up and down on the byways, seeking whom they may detain, whom they may destroy, whom they may devour on behalf of other folks willing to impose opinions through the use of up to lethal force. their fundamental duty is to survive to the end of their shifts, and go home to their families, where they then commit suicide.

4) feeding ravens and coyotes is not a metaphor. nor it is a simile, nor an allegory. it is just a suggestion. 

5) ideas and outlook do not depend on when they manifest, but on consequences and introspection. 

10 re: highway fatalities due to cannabis intake

Since marijuana legalization, highway fatalities in Colorado are at near-historic lows
by Radley Balko
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/08/05/since-marijuana-legalization-highway-fatalities-in-colorado-are-at-near-historic-lows/

startquote
the best way to gauge the effect legalization has had on the roadways is to look at what has happened on the roads since legalization took effect. Here’s a month-by-month comparison of highway fatalities in Colorado through the first seven months of this year and last year. For a more thorough comparison, I’ve also included the highest fatality figures for each month since 2002, the lowest for each month since 2002 and the average for each month since 2002. 

As you can see, roadway fatalities this year are down from last year, and down from the 13-year average. Of the seven months so far this year, five months saw a lower fatality figure this year than last, two months saw a slightly higher figure this year, and in one month the two figures were equal. If we add up the total fatalities from January through July, it looks like this:

Raw data from the Colorado Dept. of Transportation

Here, the “high” bar (pardon the pun) is what you get when you add the worst January since 2002 to the worst February, to the worst March, and so on. The “low” bar is the sum total of the safest January, February, etc., since 2002. What’s notable here is that the totals so far in 2014 are closer to the safest composite year since 2002 than to the average year since 2002. I should also add here that these are total fatalities. If we were to calculate these figures as a rate — say, miles driven per fatality — the drop would be starker, both for this year and since Colorado legalized medical marijuana in 2001. While the number of miles Americans drive annually has leveled off nationally since the mid-2000s, the number of total miles traveled continues to go up in Colorado. If we were to measure by rate, then, the state would be at lows unseen in decades.

endquote

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