Image via Wikipedia According to its state fire marshal, thirty West Virginia firefighters have been arrested for arson in the past year ( See http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=68328 ). There are approximately 800 professional and 2200 volunteer firefighters in West Virginia such that one percent of the state’s firefighters have been arrested for intentionally setting fires during this…
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Based on U.S. DOJ crime statistics, U.S. Census state and local government finance statistics, and CPI-U statistics, U.S. policing costs per crime are rising 4.1 % faster than consumer inflation annually, and California policing costs per crime are rising 4.9 % annually in excess of consumer inflation. Based on the work of Anderson, D. A….
Image via Wikipedia From Greenpeace, an animation of Pacific gyres where trash accumulates in relatively stable mid-ocean waters: http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans/ocean_pollution_animation
Image via Wikipedia Here’s an interesting quote I recently came across: There is a history of unsuccessful outcomes to ponder when Congress has interfered, with the best of intentions, to prop up insolvent financial institutions that got themselves in trouble through poor risk management. The savings and loan crisis comes to mind.The problem with not…
Image via Wikipedia The H1N1 Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919 killed 500,000 in the United States (and as many as 50 million worldwide). The H3N2 Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968-1969 killed 34,000 Americans (and approximately 700,000 worldwide). The H2N2 Asian flu pandemic of 1957-1958 killed 70,000 people in the United States (and approximately 2…
Image via Wikipedia With the current reports of swine flu and the possibility of a pandemic being addressed, the subject of personal protective equipment against the biohazard is also being discussed. In this discussion, I think that the size of the virus should be considered. “N95” is a NIOSH standard that specifies a mask which…
Image via Wikipedia James Graham Ballard, British novelist and short story writer, died on April 19, 2009. He was a writer who focused on dystopia. Among his more well-known works were Crash and Empire of the Sun. Ballard explored the modern world wherein capitalism displaces religion, wherein cult of celebrity and commodity supplant the sacred,…
Image via Wikipedia The accidental release of live avian flu (H5N1) virus could result in dire consequences. Could this happen? Let’s hope not, but on February 25, 2009, the Canadian press reported that Baxter International Inc. made an “experimental virus material” based on a human flu strain, but accidentally contaminated it with the H5N1 virus….
Image via Wikipedia Philosophers and psychologists call the question of “common sense” the nativism-empiricism debate. Nativists (e.g., Plato, Descartes, Chomsky, Pinker) believe that people are born with innate perceptual abilities, and empiricists (e.g., Locke, Hume, Quine) believe that perceptual abilities are all learned abilities subject to adaptation. Philosophers argue about these questions, and psychologists conduct…