Underreported or Didn't Happen?

So the LA Times is reporting that Occidental College and USC “underreported' the number of cases of sexual assaults” on their campuses. Certainly we would very concerned if such a thing was going on.

At USC, officials indicated that they had not reported 13 accounts of sexual assaults to federal officials for 2010 and 2011, bringing the total for those years to 39. Occidental acknowledged that it had failed to include 24 reports during that period, bringing the total to 36.

Sounds like something to be concerned with. 13 accounts at USC and 24 from Occidental. But further in the article we find:

USC and Occidental attributed their restated numbers to the mishandling of cases involving those who reported incidents anonymously. Such cases are subject to federal reporting requirements.

Why are annonymous reports of incidents subject to federal reporting requirements? In fact why are reports rather than actual established cases the standard? Anybody can make a claim. And as we know from the internet, anonymous claims are often the most unreliable of claims.

Occidental officials say they discovered 49 anonymous reports of sexual assaults spanning several years in a 2010 survey conducted by Project SAFE, a campus group that seeks to raise awareness about sexual assaults.

So a group that has a vested interest in “reporting” conducted a survey that found 49 cases of anonymous reports spanning several years? Not established reports, but someone who said something happened. And Occidental can be fined for that?

Nineteen of those incidents should have been disclosed under federal rules, which require the reporting of all sexual assaults on campus or in the immediate vicinity.

But there was not a sexual assault. There was an anonymous claim of sexual assault. Not a proven one, not an adjucated one. Only a claim. That would be like adding a column to the murder statistics that included anonymous claims of homicide, as if that number actually matters.

At USC, the problem arose because the administration has since 2008 told students, parents and the federal government that crimes that came to light at its student counseling center would be included in official crime statistics. But they were not, the university acknowledged last week.

Campus administrators said they didn't disclose those numbers in an effort to protect the students' confidentiality. They were concerned, they said, that reporting those statistics to the Department of Education could trigger investigations by the Los Angeles Police Department, which might pressure counselors to identify the anonymous victims.

Wait. So USC didn't want to report the claims of a sexual assault on their campus because it may trigger an investigation by the relevant authorities?

What the fuck?

Sexual assault is a serious crime. Why would USC not want the LAPD to investigate and find out who committed such a crime and have that person removed from the public? Why wouldn't a victim of sexual assualt not want the perpetrator found and prosecuted? Because the alleged victim doesn't want to be identified?

What the fuck?

So then a person who is identified as a potential perp can have their name and face plastered across multiple media outlets regardless of whether he or she is actually guilty, yet the alleged victim can sit behind a curtain and make any claim they wish? That's justice?

What the fuck?

LAPD Deputy Chief Bob Green said those concerns were misplaced. "I can tell you flat out no, we're not going to do that," Green said. "We're never going to try to compel anybody to make that [crime] report.”

why not? If one is going to make a serious charge against someone, shouldn't one then own up and make the criminal complaint? So we get cases where people can make claims about other students which are not substantiated in any impartial court that can affect the target for the rest of their lives AND institutions are under Federal blackmail (fines) if they don't go along with this?

At USC, the campus will no longer list the counseling center as a source of crime statistics. From now on, students who want their sexual assaults included in crime statistics will have to inform designated campus safety officials who are required to report under federal rules, LaCorte said.

Francesca Bessey, a USC junior who said she was sexually assaulted, said making students take additional steps to have their assaults counted shifts "responsibility away from the university and toward students who have been assaulted."

Why are students, or anyone else for that matter, of the opinion that they should not have to take responsibility for reporting their alleged victimization to the proper authorities? What kind of special snowflake sentiments are these people operating under? If you are a victim of a serious crime, it is your duty to report it to those who can find out who did it and remove them from society (if need be). Anyone who has a problem with that cannot be serious about sexual assault.

Text Someone, Go to Jail.

Mark J. Randazza would like to have you believe that the recent NJ ruling in regards to text messaging doesn't mean exactly what it says:

"We hold that the sender of a text message could potentially be liable if an accident is caused by texting but only if the sender knew or had special reason to know that the recipient would view the text while driving and thus be distracted." In other words, yes, you can be held responsible if you cause an accident by sending a text message. But only if you knew that the recipient would look at the text message while driving. If you had any reason to have any doubt in your mind, then you will likely not be held liable.

Mr. Randazza wants you and I to think it doesn't mean the BS that it does. Says Randanzza:

So if you send a text message to someone, you don't need to call your lawyer or your insurance company. But if you send someone a text message and they respond back "driving, leave me alone" and then you keep sending text messages, perhaps you might be found liable.

The court has made a very stupid foray into passing blame. Mind you the precedent for this isn't as Randazza states, the McDonalds case. Instead it is actually the "felony murder" rule. See once it was accepted that you could hold a person responsible for an act they did not commit. Did not intend to commit or even agree to participate in, then this door was opened.

While it sounded "tough" to say that the person driving the getaway car from a robbery is responsible for another party's decision to kill their victim, it broke the Blackstonian rule of law whereby you prosecuted people for the crimes they committed and not for anything else. Cleary under Blackstone rules of law, the getaway driver could not be convicted of murder committed by someone else by considering the evidence. There is no weapon in the hand. There is no malicious intent. There is no intent at all.

So with this acceptance of murder by proxy by the courts (which, in my opinion should be done away with completely) allowed the NJ court to issue this dumb ruling.

In effect they are using the same logic as the felony murder. By going out to commit a crime with another party you should reasonably expect that a murder might happen, and therefore you are to be responsible for it if it happens. Never mind that the person who actually committed the act was the person responsible for deciding to kill.

Similarly a person who's phone goes off indicating a text is under no obligation to acknowledge a text. They are in complete control of their faculties and are therefore quite capable of ignoring any text messages that come in. It is impossible for a party that is not in control of the phone or the person who is driving to make them answer or look at the phone. In essence this decision makes a third party responsible for the conscious behavior of another.

That's just dumb.

What if I proposed the following? Since we know that some accidents on the road are caused by people using car radios, why not allow not only the manufacturer of the vehicle to be sued for providing a device that is a known distraction but also the radio station that the driver was listening to?

Oh what's that? It's not reasonable? Why not? The standard for the text message is knowing that the activation of the device could cause a distraction?

Ok. How about the fact that some accidents happen because men see women dressed a certain way. No doubt the women put on the clothes knowing that it would attract attention. Should we allow them to be held responsible for any accidents that occurred because a male driver was distracted by "all that ass"?

Of course we wouldn't even THINK about blaming the woman for being out in public in clothes that might prove a distraction to some men. Why? Because we expect the men to be in control of themselves. In the event that they do allow themselves to be so distracted we expect that they would take responsibility for their own conscious behavior rather than pass the buck.

But this society is fast becoming one in which people want to spread the blame as much as possible rather than face their own singular responsibility for their actions.

Elysium

It seems the older I get the more critical of movies I get. So here's two problems I have with Elysium: 1) The accident: What factory makes a door that does not disengage when there is a jam? I have a 16 YO car that will reverse the power windows if there is a jam. While I can understand the whole they are trying to be as profitable as possible, given that the door blocks radiation that apparently could kill everyone in the vicinity which would be very bad for productivity, you'd think that there would be some override or "please fully open and then close the door" kind of safety. 2) Elysium itself. If rich people want to live in space well fine. The question I have is how they get food, clothes, and the like. I didn't see any factories on Elysium. Nor did I see any farms. I saw a whole lot of mansions but no farms. As a matter of fact, I didn't see much in the way of eating on earth either. A lot of drinking but no real easting. So where is the farmland? I'm just sayin', if the population is that large there has GOT to be a means of food and clothes production. I didn't see it. Okay I have a third issue: While yeah, it's a shit move to keep the instant healing machines to themselves, if the Earth is overpopulated, how does having mass deployment of instant healing machines help that? It's not like people can GO to Elysium permanently since it is even smaller than the Moon. So essentially, per the movie, the Earth will become more overpopulated, the people will still be poor (but healthy!) and the rich will still live off world, cause from what the movie presents, living on Earth is something to avoid if you can.

Tesla Hyperloop

http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf

Actually a quite stimulating read... If you're into this type of thing.

Anyone else think The Core, when they saw the passenger module?

Lightning Bolt

Yeah..That's about right.

Bill Cunningham | Fluent August 9, 2013By Joanna Nikas

Look at this here I think Bill Cunningham should have done us a favour and pointed out that the vast majority of the "men" in his shoots are homosexuals. Big ass lady bags. Pants so high and tight they are actually capris. Skirts and leggings.

Budgeting

McDonalds and Visa teamed up to make a budget for minimum wage workers. You can find a write up on it here:

McDonalds’ suggested budget for employees shows just how impossible it is to get by on minimum wage

The original PDF is here.

I'm going to steal this graphic 'cause I'm lazy:

Now I want to point out something here. If you're making minimum wage and assuming you don't live somewhere where having a car is absolutely necessary, then a few things should be changed in this budget:

1)No Car Payment. If you make minimum wage you will be using public transport and/or a bike for all your traveling needs.

2) No Car Insurance. Since you won't have a car, you don't need insurance. Combined that's $150 back in your pocket.

3)Cable/Phone: Umm..You make minimum wage. You do not get cable. Period. You get an antenna and you point it for the best reception of local over the air (OTA) channels. When there's nothing on that interests you, you read a fucking book, preferably one that will get you off the minimum wage treadmill.

Next you get a cell phone with the minimum cost per month as possible. Guess what? You don't have the luxury for large ass data plans. If you can afford one, get one so you can apply for jobs online during a break. Since they combined cable and phone lets say you save 50% by dropping the cable part so your savings is $50.

Next thing. You make minimum wage. You do not buy lunch while out. You carry your lunch TO work. You cook a whole mess of food on your day off. You eat left overs for the rest of the week and carry some for lunch. You're going to save a whole lot of money this way.

So by the note I made here, one adds $200 to the savings line.

The author of the blog entry complained about the heat line being 0. Every apartment I've been in has included heat and hot water in the rent. So it's OK to expect that the heat line will be 0.

A $90 electric bill is actually pretty high. Especially if it is for a single person. I have quite a few electronic devices sucking power and I rarely hit $90 in electricity costs. This usually happens in the summer when the AC is running. If you have a $90 electric bill, I'd check to see if someone is tapping your line. Seriously. Next I would be checking what is running. Unplug every damn thing in house (except the fridge) and see what's sucking power. A single person should have an electric bill around $40. Take the savings from the lack of car and insurance and purchase florescent bulbs. You'll rarely have to change them even though they will cost way more than an incandescent bulb. They will also burn far less electricity.

You making minimum wage? You should wash your clothes by hand, particularly your draws as soon as you get home. Your wardrobe should be lots of dark colors that you can get away with wearing more than once before having to wash them. Your entire existence is about efficiency in order to maximize the amount of money that stays in your hand and to maximize the time it stays in your hands.

Lastly, you and some of your minimum wage people need to start a susu. Each time you get paid you each put in a set amount of money into a pot. The pot is awarded to one of you each month/week/whatever you all decide. No one gets to drop out until everyone gets paid in the round. This will allow you all to get a once a month (or whatever) boost in income. It is like a savings account you get to tap. Interest free.

This does not negate the point that the author made about the need for minimum wage being increased. However, I have seen people with marginal income do dumb shit with their money. Matter of fact I've seen people with relatively high income do dumb shit with their money. So money smarts should always be a part of the solution to poverty.