Hump Day PO ....

[Z is for Zangie]

Have a great Day!

[Mike]

Gov.Abbott declared Uvalde a disaster area.

For those of you into accounting as a function of government concept and action, this means that the state is about to pour hundreds of thousands, and likely millions, of dollars into Uvalde to attempt help this community recover from the shooting. And if this becomes the standard for all mass shootings, it will begin to drown governments in red ink.

Whatever happened to freedom from onerous taxation? Especially taxation to pay a fortune to attempt to ameliorate something that could have been avoided entirely, or at least mitigated the severity, by merely making assault weapons more difficult to obtain?

Seems the right to bear arms comes with major social costs. But obviously, the Right would rather pay out a thousand of these incidents annually than ensure poor kids get a decent lunch at school.

[Tarmaque]

Chinese Elementary School Textbook Triggers Controversy for Being “Tragically Ugly”

You know, they kinda have a point.


There are also complaints about the drawings being overly sexual. I think this is overblown, but not without merit.


In case you're wondering (and don't want to bother with the story text) the books were produced by a Chinese design house and published by the Peoples Education Press, which is a part of the Ministry of Education. This controversy has caught the attention of a lot of Western news organizations as well, but I thought a story focusing on Weibo (Chinese social media platform) was appropriate.

[GuideToACrazyWorld]

You know, they kinda have a point.

“The market has expanded, illustrators’ prices have gone up, but the philosophy of publishing houses hasn’t kept up with the times. This has led to them not really raising their budgets. When I entered the industry some 12 years ago, publishers could still a good artist for 500-800 RMB [$75-$120] to do a fine cover illustration, but now it would be difficult to find an artist to do it for 8000 RMB [$1188]. Around 2015 I was asked by a publishing house to do the cover of a sci-fi novel series they produced, and the process of our talks all went smoothly, but when I quoted my price they looked displeased and told me that even if they would do their best to give me the highest budget possible, it would still only be one-tenth of my quoted price. The price I quoted was just the normal price for a game poster illustration at the time. I never spoke to that publisher again afterward. And this was 2015, let alone how the situation is nowadays.”

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It seems to me this is a classic form vs function debate. One as old as time. It seems frivolous, but based on personality it really does matter.

[Mike]

Tulsa hospital shooting, five dead.

The past week has seen more and more Repubs try to tie gun violence to abortion. Well…. Oklahoma has long had as much restriction on abortion as they can, and has recently become the strictest in the nation. One wonders how then this shooting could possibly have occurred in that state

[GuideToACrazyWorld]

The past week has seen more and more Repubs try to tie gun violence to abortion.

I'm not sure what comments you are referring to exactly it makes it difficult to respond.

[Mike]

The past week has seen more and more Repubs try to tie gun violence to abortion.

I'm not sure what comments you are referring to exactly it makes it difficult to respond.

Look up Missouri US Rep. Billy Long. He was asked about it in a radio interview a couple days ago, and in response went on a morals diatribe. Here’s part of what he said: “Something has happened to our society. I go back to abortion, when we decided it was ok to murder kids in their mothers’ wombs. Life has no value to a lot of these folks.”

Given that Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri are and have been among the most anti-abortion states in the nation, according to his ‘logic’ mass shootings should not be happening in those states. Yet within a little over a week, we see mass shootings in Texas and Oklahoma.

He’s not the only one, but his example is instructive.

[GuideToACrazyWorld]

Look up Missouri US Rep. Billy Long. He was asked about it in a radio interview a couple days ago, and in response went on a morals diatribe. Here’s part of what he said: “Something has happened to our society. I go back to abortion, when we decided it was ok to murder kids in their mothers’ wombs. Life has no value to a lot of these folks.”

I think he's right in a way. Not about abortion specifically but about the violence in our culture that continues to grow. I don't think that started in the 70s. For instance most people would rather their children see a violent movie then a naked human body. It's very bizarre to me.

[Mike]

Look up Missouri US Rep. Billy Long. He was asked about it in a radio interview a couple days ago, and in response went on a morals diatribe. Here’s part of what he said: “Something has happened to our society. I go back to abortion, when we decided it was ok to murder kids in their mothers’ wombs. Life has no value to a lot of these folks.”

I think he's right in a way. Not about abortion specifically but about the violence in our culture that continues to grow. I don't think that started in the 70s. For instance most people would rather their children see a violent movie then a naked human body. It's very bizarre to me.

Except that on a general basis, violence declined up until a couple years ago. What we are seeing right now, the spikes in violence across the board, are an expression of the general state of the world. Tension is ratcheted up everywhere. So I don’t think we can attribute this to Roe.

[GuideToACrazyWorld]

Except that on a general basis, violence declined up until a couple years ago.

Depends on the time period you are looking at. Violence steadily rose from the 50s through the 90s, then started dropping. It's ticked up and back down a couple times since then. It's also worth noting that there are violent crimes that weren't regularly reported until the 80s. Especially around violence against women and minorities. We still have significantly less violence then the peak. These things go in waves naturally.

I didn't find a goodline graph that went back. But here are crime numbers from the 60s until 2019 and a line graph of the 90's until today.

https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
https://www.statista.com/statistics/191 ... ince-1990/