Comments

1

Water profiteers better get their money while they can because eventually the peasants will revolt and/or the government will just nationalize anything in the "water industry" since it is literally a life or death resource for every human on the planet and politicians aren't gonna wanna be ventilated by the plebes either.

2

It won't pass. Address the Fentanyl crises first, before lefty nice-to-haves. Vote NO on this billion dollar folly.

4

if an inmate
can donate
their Heart

can they then
be set Free?

if 'Republicans'
Had a heart
would they
still be 'Re-
publicans'?

6

if a Sheriff's wife
needed a new Heart
& said Sheriff knew Your
ticker Rocked can he Arrest
Try and Sentence you & take you
Immediately to the Donation Center?

8

The water profiteering isn't really any different from cap and trade on emissions. The people swooping in and buying farms are making improvements to those farms to make them more water-efficient. that gives the farm a water surplus they can sell off elsewhere. While it's not an ideal solution, it's not the worst thing in the world either. Anything that encourages water conservation in the basin is a good thing, even if it does involve vulture capitalists.

9

" Vehicle prowlers stole 10 guns from cars between Jan 1 and Jan 22. in Tacoma, according to KING 5."

Welp, those people who got robbed should never be allowed to own guns again.

13

How about we address the fact that a lot of mental health care facilities are currently only taking patients on medicaid right now? I have a friend who desperately needed to get into a facility and her therapist even sent her to the facility, only to have her turned away and sent to the ER because she wasn't a medicaid patient. I'm not voting yes on any shit that increases my property taxes until I get a full audit of the KC tax budgets. Full stop, no exceptions.

14

I won’t guess about the effectiveness of having a mental health program in place when someone goes off in a public setting (or a private one for that matter). Police seem – at times or for the most part – not to handle that situation very well. Historically, industrial mental health programs have had a checkered past, but I do think I can believe in the default conclusion: Having a public mental health program is probably better than not having one.

Pundits have for a few decades now been warning people that in the future water will be the new oil. We all know that water is life. Therefore, we must be way more vigilant about the assignment of who’s managing our water – we, the people or Wall Street. I can tell you this with certainty: Wall Street does not have everyone’s interest at heart. And as a Los Angeleno, I’m well aware that government agencies who deal with water and water rights need scrutiny as well. Ever see “Chinatown?” You can almost change the name Mulwray to Mulholland.

Tom Brady. End of an era. You gotta give him this: He was in it for the long haul. Stayed healthy with his peculiar, tomatoes-are-Satanic diet. Stayed young on the field way longer than most. But I couldn’t really be a fan because like every other zillionaire (except George Soros) he’s very Republican and got into bed with Trump. I have difficulty separating that out. Besides, my boy was Eli Manning who was a bit more imperfect (yeah, I know, Manning’s probably a Republican as well – his brother sure is! – but I think he kept it more on the DL).

16

@10 you are making assumptions they are visiting a business or something and that fact is nowhere to be found. but even if that were the case, it wouldn't change anything. personal responsibility is tantamount, especially when it comes to deadly weapons. thefts from vehicles are extremely common here. everyone is always told "leave NOTHING in your car." Leaving a gun in your vehicle is extremely dangerous and irresponsible. leave the goddamn thing at home if you are going somewhere that doesn't allow them. and again, your assumption is unfounded, because nowhere does it say "these guns were stolen while the people ran into the post office" or whatever. sorry bud. the victims fucked up. you can't spin that.

17

@6
Yes! And thanks to Precrime! TM
we know in advance who will commit a crime - so we can eliminate the middle step of conviction and go directly to the donation center!

18

@16: What about a unhoused domestically abused woman, but who has a car, whose ex just got out of prison and is on the hunt for her?

19

Weekly special -
If you have a life sentence - just donate any 5 organs and you’ll be free! Of course you’ll also be dead.

21

It makes me cringe to point this out, but why does it take late stage capitalism to drive efficient use of water? - Even if for profit? ...“making the farms it buys more efficient and then selling parts of its water rights to other farmers and cities increasingly desperate for the natural resource.”

25

@23 you don't have a constitutionally recognized right to be irresponsible and potentially endanger society. the 2nd amendment has nothing to with being a shitty careless citizen, other than shitty careless citizens usually being the ones to cry about the 2nd amendment.

there is a law that allows for punishment of the gun owners in this case. it hasn't been struck down as unconstitutional and I imagine it never will be. because...it's not.

26

Regarding pay for the mental health workers:

I was sent a survey about this, and I rated the worker treatment as slightly less important than the other outcomes it described. I regretted this immediately after submitting. Paying low wages doesn't mean that you get more of the same service, it means that you get worse services and harm the community that you are allegedly serving, for the sake of making numbers on paper look good. Reality > paper.

Regarding prisoner organs:

Bodily autonomy is a fundamental right, so obviously the prisoners should be allowed to donate organs. It's not like we have a huge surplus of organs. But coercing them in this way has all the same problems that for-profit prisons have: it incentivizes harsher sentences for the sake of resource extraction, rather than justice. I don't believe in punitive justice, but I have more respect for someone who earnestly believes that it will make society better than for someone who just manipulates it for their own benefit.

Regarding school curriculum:

Intellectual freedom is essential to robust scholarship. I understand that the state has a special interest in the mandated K-12 schooling, but striking out topics simply because you disagree with the conclusions that some people might reach after studying them is bad for everyone. Even if you disagree with everything BLM stands for, it's hard to argue that it is not relevant to contemporary studies.

27

one Could
install a Built-in
Bulletproof Safe for
one's Ride could they not?

28

@22: A portion of them would walk in. Such services are needed, but as you said, the tax revenue to fund it should come from the Federal government, not on homeowners with mortgages and decades of accumulated tax levies, as well as on renters who will surely get a $120 a month rent increase.

29

PreCrime® not only
$ave$ MONEY'$! it $ave$
a whole Lotta TIME. I believe
you may be Onto sumthin' pat_L !!!

@19 -- that's merely a
Technicality and there-
tofore Unimportant.
no Reason to even
bring all that Neg-
atory shit up.
Think of the
Children.

30

I figure Tom Brady should be allowed to exchange his organs for a reduced sentence.

Maybe six months for a heart?

31

T. Bardy's
such a goat
he Lost THREE*
fucking SUPERBOWLS!

tremendous
Genes that guy.

*outta 10.

32

"Bardy'?

33

@18: what about my aunt that has balls?

34

the fawker Did fucking
Beat our Seahawks
who shouldda had
MarfuckingShawn
Lynch run OVER
the GD Patriots
but NO they
just HAD To
throw a
Pass on
the

FUCKING ONE YARD line
for The LAST Play of
the (Incredible!)
'14-15 Season.

but they Smoked
fucking Denver
the year before
so there's
That.

36

@15, 24 If Water Asset Management doesn't have a raft of water rights attorneys on staff to figure out which outfits to buy to get water rights, they'll lose their shirts. And they'll deserve to, given that they waded into a complex area of law without doing their homework.

38

@15; @8 - In most western states, water rights are appurtenant to the place the water is used. IDK about Colorado, but here in WA the place of use can be changed if it doesn't interfere with another water user. Having said that, in most cases, the right is going to be owned by the owner of the farmland where the water is used.

The issue is not that water is being treated as a property right. That is already the case and has been for over a hundred years. The issue is that selling the right and changing its place of use to what will generally be an urban or suburban water user takes it away from the ag land permanently. When that happens the right is likely going to be owned by investors rather than water users. This has many social and economic implications - the Department of Ecology here ran a long series of public meetings on this a couple of years ago and put out a report on their findings.

And @36, I can double-dog guarantee you that Water Asset Management has many good lawyers and has done its homework. There are very smart people working on the investment angles around water. Thy are going to be trying to push the law their direction, and may get told "no" on some points, but are not going to get caught with their pants down.

This is very much something that the states need to be keeping an eye on.

39

@26: One of the dangers of teaching current events in a public school curriculum is that it can easily become a "repeat back the teacher's biases to them for credit" arrangement. Or in the case of an AP class, for college credit.

Not that I think De Santis' issues with the curriculum are so much that it is biased as that it doesn't share his biases. But working in his favor is the widespread public perception that courses with a strong focus on today's Culture War hot-button issues are little more than thinly-veiled indoctrination on the public dime.

40

"Gawker, is dead again": Good, considering it wasn't really alive again - it was a sad ghost of its former self (e.g., no Ken Layne, Hamilton Nolan, or Tom Scocca, as far as I know) - and, probably not coincidentally, Bryan Goldberg, the CEO of the company that owns it now, is the notorious jerk responsible for Bustle - remember that?

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/picture-says-just-about-everything-about-bustle/311064/

(Nick Denton was a notorious jerk too, but smarter.)

41

@39 Well, I won't argue with the idea that schooling has become "regurgitation instead of education", and the reasons for that are complicated. But banning a particular topic doesn't really fix that. We need structural solutions, including reduced coursework for students so that they can spend time with the material instead of cramming, and better student-to-teacher ratios. Not claiming that I have the magic solution to that, because fixing both of those things are also complicated, but banning specific topics isn't a solution either.

42

@39 Although, I just remembered a ProPublica article with an anecdote that contradicts regurgitation. It comes from a university, and I suspect that regurgitation is less of a problem in university than K-12 (especially if the university is well funded), but still an interesting example.

From https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-critical-race-theory-florida-college-professors
"""
Buggs also worries that the political climate is rubbing off on students. In the past year or two, Buggs said, some students have begun to “ding” her in evaluations as judgmental or biased. Last spring, one called her a “misandrist” — a man-hater. “Part of what pissed me off is, he got an A,” she said. She has added a disclaimer provided by the faculty union to her syllabi: “No lesson is intended to espouse, promote, advance, inculcate, or compel a particular feeling, perception, viewpoint, or belief.”
"""

43

@5 - Meh, not really. We desperately need in-patient mental health facilities in this country, particularly in our cities. I cannot tell you how often we in the PD had to respond to people in crisis, acting out, off their meds or whatever you wanna call it. These people are better dealt with by mental health professionals in an in-patient facility. Family and friends aren't mental health professionals, and they often have no way to prevent people ostensibly in their care from strolling down the street shrieking obscenities at passers-by, breaking car windows, chasing people with a knife or whatever their outburst may be.

We used to have institutions to deal with such people. But rather than fix what ailed those institutions, we decided closing them all up altogether and returning people that would otherwise belong there back to "the community." That hasn't worked. "The community" in all kinds of ways isn't equipped to care for or safeguard the people that would be in an institution...if we had any. As a result, cops, firefighters/EMT's and already overcrowded E.R's are left to "deal" with such people with the best means at their disposal, means that are sorely lacking and merely very temporary.

A few years ago, it made news that Wayne County Jail (Detroit) in Michigan had hired a psychiatrist to be head of the jail rather than promoting a high-ranking deputy to do it. That should not be. Jail is meant for crooks, not people having mental health breakdowns, but here we are nonetheless. Statistically, jails are now the leading repository of people in mental health crisis, and that should not be either. Family members call the cops because they're desperate and out of options; strangers call because they're being disturbed/harmed by the person having a breakdown.

In Dallas, if a person was a physical threat to themselves or others in a way that could be documented and justified, we could commit them on a psychiatric hold at the county hospital (Parkland Memorial in Dallas) for up to 72 hours, maximum. After that, they were released with a bottle of psychotropic drugs in their hand...until the next time. They had no more support after that.

If we couldn't justify a psychiatric hold, which necessarily had fairly strict requirements to meet, that left jail. People in these circumstances that have come to the attention of the police have almost always broken some misdemeanor law or another, as well as the occasional felony. Most of those would be disregarded if we could get them into PMH on a psychiatric hold. If not, to jail they went, and most went to jail. Obviously, assaults that resulted in injury or worse went to jail regardless. But if the person had been getting help in an in-patient facility as they often probably should have been, they then wouldn't have been out without qualified psychiatric supervision in a place where they could commit high misdemeanor or aggravated assault.

Lastly, people in the throes of a mental health breakdown often do not like being touched or constrained, so they often resist arrest when an officer(s) attempts to take them into custody, even if they were just going to the hospital. Of course, resisting arrest often leads to injury, even if minor, and even when the officers are being cautious to not injure them (we actually are sometimes! ...or were "back in my day" anyway) That last increases the chance of officer injury (been there) also. Again, wouldn't have happened if the person had been in an in-patient mental health facility where he or she probably belonged.

I would vote for this measure in a heartbeat, accept the tax increase and hope it was developed in a way that best benefitted the people who need such care. Paying 20% more than average is fine with me, as it would hopefully allow the facility to be a bit choosy with staffing...and because mental health care staffer pay really, really sucks. As to how would people who need such care get admitted, the same way they used to in the past, which is family, courts or mental health professionals committing them.

@9 - I remember a BMV (Burglary of Motor Vehicle) report my partner and I were taking back in the mid-80's in which some hayseed redneck had his rifle stolen from its rack in the rear window of his pickum-up truck in a fairly high-crime neighborhood (lower Maple Ave area for anyone who knows Dallas) years before gentrification. My partner asked him why he didn't leave the rifle at home instead of parading it around in full view in his window in this part of Dallas. Now, imagine an exasperated Gomer Pyle but with a less intelligent-sounding slow drawl. Anyway, he responded, as if we were the dense ones. "Harumpf, if I kepp it in mah appartment, idid get stole!!!"

Holy shit, am I long-winded!

44

Why would anyone leave their precious phallic symbols in their car?

46

@44: Because there's already a few in the bedroom.

47

@45 - I am not suggesting that rights are dependent on location - to the contrary, the "first in time, first in right" principle is a foundation of western water law. A senior user gets all of his water before a junior user can use any. It's a pretty tough system, as we're seeing on the Colorado. Owning land on or along a waterway does not give you any rights to the water (the East is different).

Almost all of the water in the West was claimed by farmers (and a lesser amount by cities) long ago. For example, a 1900 water right is not "senior" in most parts of Washington. The place of use of a water right is generally the land that was put under irrigation. And water use for ag is generally distributed among the agricultural lands in whatever state you are looking at.

This issue is more a matter of that distribution of water being changed for the wrong reasons. One of the problems with corporate investments in water rights is that a downstream city or someone who wants to develop residential land will always be able to outbid the ag users. A result is that in, for example, the Methow Valley, the water rights that support the local ag economy could be literally sold down the river, which is for all practical purposes irreversible. The result is that the economy and in many cases the culture of the rural area takes a huge hit.

That is the economically efficient solution, and it may in some cases be the "right" answer. But a decision about a public resource should be made on more than just a dollars and cents basis.

48

Xi Jinping is all for harvesting organs from prisoners. 'Nuff said.

50

@49: I enjoy your comments too, but you’re just wrong, on both points:

“It absolutely has to be willful behavior or just drug madness (which since drug use is a choice is willful behavior.”

Some mental disorders can lead to drug abuse and even addiction; some lead to other hurtful behaviors. Saying the victim has a choice in the matter is often flat-out false, and always victim-blaming.

If we wanted to create the worst possible environment for persons with mental disorders, it would be outside, unregulated, with drugs freely available, constant stressors (fear of being attacked, uncertain food supply, no safe place to sleep), and no structured help. It would look and function exactly like an unsanctioned homeless encampment in Seattle, and it would be the cruelest thing we could possibly do.

It would also be the best way to take someone who was struggling with a mental disorder, and turn that person into someone who can go “[s]trolling down the street shrieking obscenities at passers-by, breaking car windows, chasing people with a knife…”

52

@43 Thank you for sharing your perspective

53

As an actual mental health professional who works with people with SPMI (Severe and Persistent Mental Illness, such as the various flavors of Schizophrenia and Bi-polar disorders), I can 100% endorse and back posts like #43 and #50 while I continue to mostly ignore incorrect and ignorant posts like #45 and #51.

Mental health, drug use, and poverty have a very strong overlap in the Venn diagram of How the USA Sucks at Caring for its Citizens. Those three factors can (and do) strongly increase the potential impact of the other two. And we don't have nearly enough facilities and professionals to match the need. And yes, the pay is shit. I've been in the game for about twenty years and while I'm solidly middle-class it did take awhile. I learned my calling was to help the underserved and I still don't have a strong desire to open my own practice so therefore...moderate-to-shit pay. So up those wages by 20% or more and you'll have a better chance of getting/keeping staff and getting better work out of them.

Are there some homeless and/or unstable folks out there that are in their situation due to willful choices re: not wanting to follow various rules and social norms? Hells yes there are and I've worked with some of them. But but BUT...there's always more to the story. Childhood abuse/trauma (which can literally change how your fucking brain develops and operates), drug use/addiction, a string of wildly bad luck (no joke). Sometimes people get stuck in behavioral traps and simply cannot "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" but instead need significant and consistent interventions and supports (because changing behavioral patterns takes time).

As for those with literal SPMI, there's an elusive factor called "insight" - how aware is a person that their symptoms and behaviors are caused (or at least heavily influenced by) a mental health condition. I've known people that have been in and out of facilities, on and off medication regimens for literal DECADES, and they still don't believe they have a mental illness. They think it's all lies, all conspiracies. We all mostly base our own truths on our own experiences. So when your brain is telling you (and has been telling you for some stretch of time) that you're right so everyone else must be mistaken or outright LYING to you...how the hell are you going to successfully work with agents from that system?

All right, I'm no good at organizing actual written arguments on the fly. So I'll just reiterate that some posts (mentioned above) clearly understand the reality of the overall situation based on their personal knowledge and experiences and some others (also mentioned above) don't know shit and are adamant about not listening to people with relevant experience.

54

ManservantHecubus dear, don't mind Our Dear Toby. He's mostly flatulence.

Regarding water rights: Our little place in Eastern WA is right across the highway from Banks Lake, the balancing reservoir for the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project. Water is pumped up into it from behind Grand Coulee, and flows out the south end to irrigate Grant County and other parts of central WA. It was a New Deal era project that still benefits us mightily. The farmers bitch about it, but farmers bitch about everything. They're really cry the blues if it went away or were privatized (as the Republicans - except for the Republicans who represent those districts, of course - keep trying to do)


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