Links With Your Coffee - Tuesday
- Are you kidding me? News Chopper Down
Two news choppers crashed into each other on Sunday while covering a police car chase in Phoenix. The local authorities say the fleeing suspect might be charged with the deaths of the four people who went down in the helicopters. If you're in a car chase with the cops and someone happens to die, are you liable for murder?
- Onion on the Chopper Crash
Wally Thompson, Boom Mic Operator "I certainly hope the television reporters on the ground were asked how the grisly deaths of their colleagues made them feel."
- Do you trust CNN's Sanjay Gupta?
- Does Europe Have Higher-Tech Health Care Than the U.S.?
They say you get what you pay for, but in U.S. you get less for more.You hear it over and over again, in casual conversation and in serious debates among experts: If we create universal health insurance here in the U.S., then we'll end up with less responsive, less advanced medical care. Few arguments have done as much political damage to the cause of universal health care. And, as wonks like me have been arguing in recent months, few arguments fall apart more quickly under scrutiny.
After all, if universal health insurance means long queues for treatments, then why aren't patients in Paris or Hamburg waiting months for routine services--while patients in Boston and Los Angeles are?
If it means getting rushed, impersonal treatment, then why do France and Germany give new mothers more than four days to recover in the hospital, while insurance companies in the U.S. push new mothers out before two?
If it means making do with less advanced technology, then why does Japan have more CT and MRI scanners per person than we do?
And if it means worse health care overall, then why do so many studies show the U.S. scoring so poorly on international comparisons, including those examining "mortality amenable to health care"--a statistic devised specifically to test the quality of different health care systems across the globe? - CBC Television - Doctor Who Do we have any Doctor Who fans at onegoodmove?
- Scientists’ Tests Hack Into Electronic Voting Machines in California and Elsewhere
- Chinese Exports — The Real Poop
- That Dropped Doughnut: How Soon, and How Often, Will It Come Back Up?
Everything you ever wanted to know about the five-second rule. - THE GENEALOGY CRAZE IN AMERICA. by Steven Pinker
Few of us can expect that a search for ancestors will bring us an inheritance, a title, or a coat of arms: the rewards of genealogy are mostly psychological. As Winfrey put it, "Knowing your family history is knowing your worth." The sentiment, though, is dubious--not just on moral grounds but on biological ones. A closer look at the human drive to know one's family tree uncovers a number of tensions between our intuitions of kinship and the facts of kinship. Some of those facts show that the findings of the new genealogy should not have been surprising at all. And others, tacitly appreciated for millennia, have recently been neglected to our peril.
Comments
Yeah, i was also baffled when i heard the news that the authorities are going to charge the suspect with murder. Surely, this is one of the most ridiculous law out there.
I hope the ACLU takes up this part of the case.
I'm Doctor Who fan, even though I am too young to remember the old series and too old for the new one (yet I watch it nonetheless). I would have loved to have had the Doctor as a hero when I was growing up. An intelligent noncomformist with a good sense of humour and who uses his brain rather than guns to solve problems ( would also to have a president like that too). Hopefully he'll be around when I have kids.
Well, this time it should really be beyond question: "Do we have any Dr. Who fans at onegoodmove?" is a question, and needs a question mark (it isn't even a rhetorical question, which should by most grammarians' lights get a question mark anyway).
What do you have against question marks, Norm? Or should I say, "What do you have against question marks, Norm". No, I shouldn't say it: it's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Well, this time it should really be beyond question: "Do we have any Dr. Who fans at onegoodmove?" is a question, and needs a question mark (it isn't even a rhetorical question, which should by most grammarians' lights get a question mark anyway).
What do you have against question marks, Norm? Or should I say, "What do you have against question marks, Norm". No, I shouldn't say it: it's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Well, this time it should really be beyond question: "Do we have any Dr. Who fans at onegoodmove?" is a question, and needs a question mark (it isn't even a rhetorical question, which should by most grammarians' lights get a question mark anyway).
What do you have against question marks, Norm? Or should I say, "What do you have against question marks, Norm". No, I shouldn't say it: it's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Jane: wtf wtf wtf (that's right, no question marks).
Norm: it's just going to annoy a lot of Mormons that they didn't get mentioned in Steven Pinker's article. Even I was a little disappointed. But then he kind of makes the whole thing look like a scam ...
Well I surprise myself by agreeing with that guy being charged with the deaths of the helicopter crews.
I always understood the law (and I am by no means an expert) to mean that anyone who dies as a result of your commiting a crime, is your responsibility.
If he hadnt been driving like a lunatic on public roads thereby putting innocent lives at risk (and commiting whatever other crimes) those news helicopters wouldnt have been there. Those guys would still be alive. So I have no sympathy for the driver.
That said I admit that I'm getting very intolerant of law breaking, streets where I live simply arent safe anymore and it bugs me enormously to have to witness the drunken mob antics everytime I walk somewhere after 6pm.
Maybe I need a car ;o)
p.s. new Doctor Who is quality, intelligent drama, I was a huge fan of the show as a kid, peering over the cushions at whatever rubber beastie was trying to take over the galaxy. Some of it was down right scary for kids, but we loved it.
Re: "Does Europe Have Higher-Tech Health Care Than the U.S.?" As a US ex-pat in Germany for more than (I dare say) fifteen years, I can easily say that health care over here sucks. I avoid as much as possible going to the doctor in Germany. This won't last long because I'm beyond middle age and drink like a fish. Would anyone like my liver? As far as technology is concerned... Who cares. Health care is not about technology. It should be about doctors and patients everything else is a sub-sub-category. My guess is, if the US pulls off some kind of "universal" (the word will, of course, have to be newly defined) health care then it will most likely not resemble that of Europe or Canada. The banality of the issue in the EU or Canada lies in how the countries distribute their national wealth. Which people are more than willing to subject themselves to paying. This will never happen in the US - at least not for any extended period of time. Rural bum-fucks and wall-street cronies are simply not gonna pay for someone else's health care. I had a chronic ailment in the mid nineties - the best advice I got from a doctor was when I went to the states and paid with a credit card for his diagnosis. The Germans could only provide treatment - which I'm not knocking here. But I felt and even when I see a (German) doctor today that I'm looked down upon because they are all so bitter about being paid little and working too long. I won't even start on the two-tier health insurance system(s) over here. What a mess. Tommi
re: trusting Dr. Gupta
It's not that I don't trust Dr. Gupta specifically. It's that CNN is Garbage. From its emphasis on the trivial (see Arthur Silber's excellent http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/06/empire-of-clowns-continues-on-its.html) to its intentional distortions (http://www.blackcommentator.com/75/75coverdean_media.html) and parroting of rightwing and corporate talking points, it is the network that has abandoned its duty to inform the public, to tell us the unpleasant truths. Many have called attention to the MSM's 'serial obsession' with the mundane and news unworthy, including Al Gore, especially in his excellent Assault on Reason(http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/17556/1/GMA-Gore-Sawyer.wmv)
It sounds ridiculous, but there is some real precedent for charging people with "crimes" they didn't specifically commit, but that would not have occurred had they not committed the original crime.
I was sitting in my living room this weekend with a friend of mine currently attending a rather prestigious law school on the east coast... as we were watching this news, he said "Oh my god, this guy is going to get 4 counts of murder." He had recently read cases involving this exact type of situation. I didn't believe him at first, but he proceeded to pull up all sorts of information on cases just like this.
I wish I could recall the specifics or links (I could get them, I suppose, if anybody really cared), but one case involved someone getting an additional count of murder for the death of a police officer who died while racing to the offender's location.
Had the offender not committed the crime, the news helicopters would not have been put in this situation. Evidently this is written into the law, and this guy is going to get fried.
Ok. The choppers thing. I'm going to be a dick about this and just say it. It hurts my head to say it, but that's my excuse.
I don't know about you, but if the guy does get charged for the death of the 4 people in the choppers, then that's perfectly legitimate grounds to charge the US govt with the wrongful deaths of the Iraqi people killed in sectarian violence since the USA's army entered that country. It's perfectly analogous.
alamandrax, the prosecution of the American politicians and military leaders for crimes against humanity, conducting a war of aggression, and violations of other international rights standards should occur regardless of how the Phoenix crash pans out; the two are unrelated. The lancet study from 9 months ago estimated over 650000 excess deaths as a result of Bush's war against the Iraqis. Current estimates give between 2/3 of a million to 1000000 excess deaths in Iraq...
Copter crashes: Why on earth would the ACLU be involved. Regardless, it would be foolish to blame him for the copter crashes. The pilots are to blame for this one -- and the American public demanding such 'eye in the sky' footage.
Dr. Who fans: Yo! But the videos don't download. You get a creepy voice about them not being available.
Dr. Gupta: sure adds a lot of context to the Sicko review, doesn't it?
"I always understood the law (and I am by no means an expert) to mean that anyone who dies as a result of your commiting a crime, is your responsibility."
What if an intrepid news reporter is killed in an auto accident on the way to the courthouse to cover your trial? We just gonna tack that on to the charges against you?
What about the poor schlup who gets so excited watching the news coverage that he chokes to death on his popcorn? You responsible for that?
How far do you want to go with this?
And to think that I was surfing this only yesterday..
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pmiW0gIpGMU
Earthshock Reconstruction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiuNyd2TM2g
You might have to be a real Who geek to get the joke here . . .
More Who geekdom:
http://babel-fish.kostamojen.com/index.htm
Doctor Who? Hell-frikin-yea! I remember tuning in to our local PBS as a kid, I've seen every episode of the original run. Must have been nine or ten, but I can recall dressing up as the most badass mofo's in all the galaxy, a Cyberman for a Halloween party... everyone thought I was an astronaut. Broke my heart.
It's cool to see I wasn't the only kid hiding behind sofa cushions watching the original version of the show. The new incarnation of the show keeps the original feel but the politics are less than subtle. Special effects are definitely better also.
Definitely a Dr Who fan. Due to living in a British Colony (New Zealand) and being of a certain age, I can only just remember the first Dr. Who -William Hartnell
If you get the sci-fi channel, you can watch season 3 of dr. who (current series)--the season began at the beginning of July.
About the choppers...thats standard fare in criminal law in the US. For example if you and a friend rob a bank, and a cop shoots at you and ends up killing your partner in crime, you will be charged with the death of your partner! crazy, I know, but criminal law sees it this way: As a perpetrator of a crime, any and all events that lead to the injury or death of others during your criminal escapade are treated as your crimes. If you cause an accident during the escape, its your fault because the accident would not have occured, but for the criminal behavior.
The heliocopter thing is absurd. The pilots of those birds were chasing the driver for their very own finacial and business reasons. They were not killed as a direct result of what the speeding driver did but as a result of their own actions and inattention. If the two piolets collided because they were distracted by a naked woman on the beach they were photographing, would she be a murderer?
Not all problems can be solved by finding someone to punish.
Perhaps the two television stations involved believe charging the driver with murder will absolve them of any responsibility for the accident.
What a strange and twisted land.
"What if an intrepid news reporter is killed in an auto accident on the way to the courthouse to cover your trial? We just gonna tack that on to the charges against you?"
Kali yuga I think Susceptor explained it very well. It has to be events that occur during the commision of a crime, not a week later going to the trial etc.
Well, this time it should really be beyond question: "Do we have any Dr. Who fans at onegoodmove?" is a question, and needs a question mark (it isn't even a rhetorical question, which should by most grammarians' lights get a question mark anyway).
It's a question Jane, and deserves a question mark. It's sad really. I know it deserves a question mark, but I must say no one is confused by the lack thereof. I would like to say that I'll never forget another question mark but it's a bad habit, and you know how habits are, right? I've got an idea. ?????????????? There you go some extra question marks, if I leave one out in the future you can use one of these.
Unbelievable, and if a little old lady watching the chase of TV couldn't deal with the excitement and dies of a heart attack you'd charge the guy for that as well? It's ridiculous, simply ridiculous.
I enjoy the campyness of the series. It was on when I was a kid, but it was of such terrible visual quality that I couldn't stand watching it.
It's obvious that many failed to read the last paragraph of the chopper story. They could be charged but it is highly unlikely that that specific charge would stick, for the reasons stated.
Word up for Doctor Who. It's playing on SciFi channel right now in the USA, on Friday nights.
If you're in a car chase with the cops and someone happens to die, are you liable for murder?
In the state of Louisiana, where I'm from, we have a rather interesting portion to our civil code (not common law). We don't have "accessory to..." crimes. That's because, the way our code reads, if you HELPED in the execution of the crime, it's the same as if you DID the crime.
Example: When in jury duty, we had a guy who was the getaway driver for a robbery. Because of the situation, the actual robber would have been caught if not for a ready getaway vehicle driven by a third party. The driver was charged with robbery.
More convoluted example: Person 1 breaks the glass of a car. Person 2 hotwires it. Person 3 drives it away. Who performed Grand Theft Auto, and who was accessory? Individually, no one person did all the steps necessary, but person 3 couldn't have driven off without the very essential services of persons 1&2.
To tie it back in, if the driver hadn't BROKEN THE LAW, the news choppers wouldn't have been there at ALL to cover it, and therefore they wouldn't have died. It all goes back to the responsibility of this guy. If this guy had caused a fatal crash on the ground without touching the cars involved, he'd be charged and no one would be complaining about it.
Question Marks:
Thank you Jane, for letting me see that I'm not the only Pedant around here.
"I give you now Professor Twist
A conscientious scientist
Trustees exclaimed "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."
Ogden Nash.
helicopter: What is ridiculous is the apparently all too common human willingness to meet out vengeance without the least scrap of ethical justification. Of course I am biased against those flyers who died to procure the next salacious fix for the boob-tubed self-loathing voyeurs who are too screwed up on their corporate provided mass opiate to prioritize the important crimes, the crimes that really affect them and their progeny, the theft of the Enlightenment for example.
Dr. Who: Christopher Eccleston, doctor 9, will play The Rider in the upcoming flick The Dark is Rising. He was the 2nd best after Tom Baker. Is the Doctor getting younger each regeneration? Who cast Peter Davison, no wonder those were deleted? Does anyone else notice the striking resemblance between Doctor 10 Tennant and the Babelfish colourised Jacqueline Hill??
Agreed that the car chase brought the chopper pilots to the location but it was insignificant that it was a crime. It was simply a news event that brought them there. It could have been anything "newsworthy" that brought them there and subsequently put them in the position to crash. If the driver of the car is held liable, you set the precedent for any "newsworthy" person being liable for any future newscaster accidents. If it were a police chopper giving chase that ran into a news chopper, that would be a different story. In that case, the police chopper killed/was killed in the commission of his/her duties while trying to apprehend a criminal. But, in the case of the news crews, they were simply televising a news event.
OK, how about some extra e's now?
This is fun.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Jane: Honestly, find something better to do with your time rather than be an editor for the internet :P.
And the chopper pilot suit is stupid.
Norm, this is ignorance on my part, but how do you get CBC way down there? I figured only the east coast border states and maybe Washington got the channel.
I don't, but thought the site of interest.
I really don't mind corrections to my punctuation, grammar, or spelling. I would rather get an email than clutter up the comments, however.
Doctor Who fan reporting for duty.
RE: steven pinker
why post links to password protected articles that most people cant access?
id love to read that new republic article but im not about to pay for a subscription
uh (blush) ignore that last comment
I have to come out of the shadows here and say I love Doctor Who! The political commentary, especially in the first season (with Christopher Eccleston), was top notch. They dealt with everything from 9/11 to the conglomeration of the media. Cheers!
Shouldn't the driver of the car get money from the TV station for providing 'news' for the six oclock report.
It seems to me that the most significant difference between the death of the copter crews and the many other examples cited is that the police are required to be there, while for the newsfolk it is a choice. This is, of course, a difference in logic, not law, and we all know that the two frequently deny all recognition of each other.
The linkage between intent and crime can at times become complicated. There are various tests, such as whether a reasonable person (qualified in various ways) could have expected the event to have resulted from the action, and so on.
Doctor who is an institution, and often brilliant.
Shouldn't the driver of the car get money from the TV station for providing 'news' for the six oclock report
Would this situation fulfill the necessary qualification of proximate cause? If we're discussing the law here, this is not a matter of opinion, but rather a matter of law. And if we disagree with the law, then we should be urging our congressmen/women to change the law.
And, yes, Norm, you were just fooling around, I know..
What if an intrepid news reporter is killed in an auto accident on the way to the courthouse to cover your trial? We just gonna tack that on to the charges against you?
What about the poor schlup who gets so excited watching the news coverage that he chokes to death on his popcorn? You responsible for that?<.i>
The actions of the "poor schlup" have are not direct consequence of the criminal act and therefore would not have anything at all to do with "felony murder". "Felony Murder" is not a matter of anyone's opinion here and so it is not a matter of disagreeing with anyone here. It has to do with the law re "felony murder". You obviously are uniformed about this law and consequently what you said is ignorant.
I think that this law is not fair, but that is another matter which should be addressed.
Re: the health care argument: ah, the fallacy of many sources this time. Is anybody really gullible enough to believe an argument based upon surveying all nations with some form of socialized medicine and cherry-picking only their positives, while ignoring their negatives?
Ask Canadians how their health care system is working. Better yet, don't, because they routinely lie about it - read some of their papers. It's absolutely crumbling, and they spend more than half of their tax income (which is almost half of their personal income) on this system.
The lesson to be learned here is the same lesson to be learned in any ideological argument: this is a complex issue, which means you have to actually propose a real solution, not just keep saying "let's do it" (where "it" is the end result) and ridiculing anybody who wants to think it through or has objections.
Got a plan for socialized medicine that doesn't heavily burden wage earners, and provides a better system of health care? Then present it. Stop begging the question about whether health care can be better. We all know it can.
i am paying attention. it's not very rewarding though. all i see is you pursuing your stupid little vendettas and being a major dick about it. if you need a new pack to hold your ever increasing burden of grudges i know where you can get one cheap. but don't just dump them in a public space. it's rude.
"i am paying attention."
Apparently not, since you don't have a clue as to who is chasing who around here with a "vendetta." Someone pokes me in the eye, I'll bite back, so putz off.
listen, if you want to use yiddishisms at least use them correctly. "putz off" is not a phrase. and "schlup" is spelled with a "b",not a "p", and often a "z" in place of the "s". as far as:
how very old testament of you. i'm starting to suspect you may be a. a woman and
b. a jew.
and if you're insulted by either of these, you're not much of a "radical leftist", which is the persona you adopt here.
Guess it's not worth composing a response to becker, since I've been notified that my comments are now being deleted, because, according to the site owner, my "last seven or eight comments they are all
personal attacks of one type or another." Well, you can scroll up yourself and decide whether my response to Mick and my Doctor Who links qualify as "personal attacks." And apparently becker coming out of nowhere to call me “a major dick” is acceptable, on-topic commentary, but my referring to a cunt as “a cunt” after she has personally attacked me, without provocation, in numerous threads is unacceptable. Not that accuracy and intellectual consistency have ever been major concerns for Norm Jenson. This is the guy, after all, who announced that people who question the official Bush 9-11 story are “brain-rotted hordes” [apparently not a “personal attack” in Jenson’s world], then locked down the comments so that the targets of his namecalling couldn’t defend themselves. Well, it’s his site; he can do what he wants, which will likely include deleting this comment.
What I am most disappointed about, is there wasn't any good footage of the actual crash itself (the helix-wings)!
Darn!
That would have been something to see.
Heck!
It's obvious: we need a second team of 'copters following the 'copters that follow the car chases, in case something like this happens again. And again and again, THAT WOULD be exciting!
T4T, Can you provide sources for this claim:
Ask Canadians how their health care system is working. Better yet, don't, because they routinely lie about it - read some of their papers. It's absolutely crumbling, and they spend more than half of their tax income (which is almost half of their personal income) on this system.
Are you saying that Canadians are therefore spending roughly 25% of their personal income on health care? If so, easily available sources do not support your contention:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/newsroom/
also: see CanadianandAmericanhealthcaresystemscompared in Wikipedia
At Professor Twist, I must have a pop:
For, to paraphrase Mrs. Malaprop,
'Twas neither an alligator nor a crocodile,
It was an allegory on the banks of the Nile.
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