Traffic fatalities fall to lowest level since 1949 (CNN)
The number of traffic fatalities continued its welcomed downward trajectory last year, falling 3% to its lowest levels since 1949, and a 25 percent drop from 2005, according to U.S. Department of Transportation estimates released Friday.
“If you think about driving on an American road on a Friday or Saturday evening about 16 percent of the vehicles – one in six of the cars – (the driver) will be under the influence of an illicit or licit drug,” Gil Kerlikowske, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said.
We must be doing something right!
[Note to prohibitionists. If you’re going to misuse correlation as causation in every other aspect of the drug war, then we might as well throw this back in your face.]
No, of course I don’t believe that increased numbers of people who test positive for the presence of a drug (which is far different than Kerlikowske’s lie of “under the influence”) is the reason for reduced traffic deaths. But the facts sure don’t help the implied argument that there’s a massive increased epidemic of deaths from drugged driving that the ONDCP is trying to push.
?? What are you talking about Pete? Between 2002 and 2009 the country enjoyed a nationwide reduction in the incidence of “drugged” driving. Not even a single State suffered a statistically significant increase. There were 7 States recording statistically significant reductions in the incidence of “drugged” driving and 4 of those 7 were States with medical cannabis laws and include California, Hawaii, Alaska, and Michigan. In this same time frame California more than tripled the number of patients claiming the protection of Prop 215/SB-420.
http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k10/205/DruggedDriving.htm
Smoking Ganja makes safer drivers. Oh no that won’t do. The fossil fools wasted on ambulances and fire trucks for each drunk driving accident is profit lost because of the heathern devil weed. The ER expenses to justify teabog ditzo’s rants about high taxes. The gauze and bandages and machines that light up and ring bells. Who’s going to make their profits up now? The booze industry is in a slump. The pill pushers are going broke. The politicians have no bogeyman. The Koch’s are eating at soup kitchens. Is there no sympathy for the drug worriers standing in the rain kicking horse turds?
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Oh my word, I just realized that in 2003 the Alaskan Court of Appeals reinstated the precedent from Ravin v State of Alaska in 1975. I’m sure everyone here has heard about Alaska’s 1990 ballot referendum which purported to reinstate criminal penalties for petty possession and petty cultivation laws. Actually, it was only about 2 weeks ago that some nit wit threw that out claiming that pot is still criminalized in a private home. One would think after almost 8 years they would have figured it out by now.
The “drugged” driving study linked above ran from 2002 to 2009.
Facts don’t matter. When ONDCP finally comes out with the 2011 National Drug Control Strategy, which is way late, Kevin Sabet, strategy writer and drug policy whiz extraordinaire, will tell you something completely different about drugged driving than the above and the media will dutifully report it.
You got that straight. The thing is, the ONDCP knows the uneducated( Those that dont know about thier snake oil) will buy it hook line sinker.
Like I told my co workers….do you really think they are going to put themselves out of a job by solving our countries ” drug problems”?
I told them its a case of creating a problem and offering a solution.
ONDCP dont care that we know the truth just as long as they can keep us from spreading the truth.
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Don’t you think that the people should be able to count on the government to be telling the truth, at least to the best of its ability? I certainly do, and really can’t blame the uninitiated for taking that position at first. It’s one of the more annoying things about this because one shouldn’t have to indict and prove government issued information untrue in order to make a case. Also making our job tougher are the income tax kooks, the 911 conspiracy whackos, and even the magic bullet retards that claim the government is lying when it’s pretty easy to substantiate that it isn’t.
(I’m not going to argue about the 16th Amendment, skyscraper physics/fuel volatility or grassy knoll ballistics here, if you want to believe, then believe.)
Driving could be reduced with greater access to public transportation, making the drugs aspect irrelevant, which it is anyway for a lot of different drugs.
Billions of tax dollars destined for the ONDCP/DEA conglomerate to put on their little drugged driving road show would fund infrastructure instead, building up society instead of tearing it down with useless and unnecessary drug arrests. Smart cars and roads, trams and bullet trains. Prohibitionists will hate the plan because it’s a productive solution that has a foreseeable conclusion.
DdC, the Kochs contribute to organizations that are fighting against the drug war, same as Soros. Methinks liberals are too quick to demonize anyone on the right (especially those who are wealthy) and praise anyone on the left (in spite of the wealth they may hold) without really looking at what they are doing/saying/donating to. Soros contributes to a lot of things which are anti-freedom and a few things that are pro-freedom, the Kochs contribute to a lot of things that are pro-freedom and perhaps, sometimes, to a few things that are anti-freedom. All three of them contribute to things they perceive are in their self interest. Get out of the partisan mindset and start looking at people (and the contributions they make) as individuals, for a change. Check out Soros’ funding of ICLEI and Agenda 21.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. Don Pardo, what has our contestant won?
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, we have a wingnut. Don Pardo, what has our contestant won?
Dream on Windy…
GOP Bitches, Birchers and Birthers… Oh my!
I’ve never praised anything to do with this fucked up system. Not Dems or GOPerverts or Liberalterrorists. I’ve always sided with Nader and for the working people like myself. We pay taxes and we don’t want the rich trashing our roads and skipping out on the bill with off shore shelters. Cowards attack the most vulnerable and lie and weasel out of the fact that most welfare is of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. Including Soros and the Koch roaches. Both got their money from the backs of the workers. Cheating them, tax shelters putting the burden on them and by creating poverty. Kochsuckers are the largest welfare rats and with all that exploitation and deregulating pollution controls that make everyone sicker, then more money treating it. That ain’t Gerbal appeasing honey. Eat the rich who create the poor and methinks every-ting gonna be alright. Stop praying for trickle down that only goes to India and China. Stop Glum Becky memo reading, protesting the oppressed and blaming the band aids that cost a lot less than the alternatives. The Liberalterrorists Utopia only works on thinktank white boards. First stop cutting up the people and then we’ll talk about removing the Band-Aids. Food-stamps are a lot less tax burden than prison for stealing food. Gutting tuition assistance only breeds low wage jobbers, with the incentive to make more selling drugs. Like I said so many times, prohibition is a product these moneysluts sell and gullible teabog ditzo’s swallow like Carter’s little liver pills. Windy the amount of money you have doesn’t determine your Freedom. You use the word too loosely. The Koch’s or King George, neither should ever be in the same sentence as the word “Freedom”. It’s the United States and citizens are not employees. Get the cart in back of the horse and maybe you can see more clearly.
You don’t have to be a communist to see which way the fascists blow.
Soros Monsanto Connection 12/19/10
Strong corporate profits amid weak economy – What’s up with that?
U.S. corporations continue to post strong profits quarter after quarter, even as the unemployment rate remains high and the U.S. economic recovery plods along in fits and starts.
Corporate profits grew 36.8 percent in 2010, the biggest gain since 1950, according to Friday’s latest report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. No sign could be more clear that U.S. companies see the so-called Great Recession in the rearview mirror.
The strong profits, however, mask the continued difficult terrain for businesses. Yes, profits are high, but that doesn’t mean business is strong. Read more:
10 worst corporate income tax avoiders.
1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.
2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.
3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.
4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.
5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.
6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.
7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.
8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.
9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.
10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.
Corporate Welfare Rats – 03/21/09
Government waste of tax dollars equals $1 Trillion a year
Oil companies are getting a nice deal too. The country hands them more than $2 billion a year in tax breaks.
Hedge fund and private equity managers. Many of these moguls make vast “incomes” yet pay taxes on a portion of those earnings at the paltry 15 percent capital gains rate. By some estimates, this loophole costs taxpayers more than $2.5 billion a year.
Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that corporations reap more than $123 billion a year in special tax breaks.
Department of Defense’s functions, including weapons procurement, have been deemed high risk by the GAO. That means there’s a high probability that money – “tens of billions,” according to Walker – will go missing or be otherwise wasted. Meanwhile, the Pentagon admits it simply can’t account for more than $1 trillion.
The controversial U.S. farm subsidy program, part of which pays farmers not to grow crops, has become a giant welfare program for the rich, one that cost taxpayers nearly $20 billion last year.
National debt requires more government efficiency, not sweeping cuts
Welfare programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for $1.5 trillion. The problem is, making cuts to these programs would affect millions of Americans. A better option would be to reduce benefits for the wealthiest retirees.
Increasing revenue will easily reduce the deficit. One way to do this is to get rid of the Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
Defense spending also accounts for a huge part of the federal budget. In the president’s proposed budget, security spending totals $881 billion. $100 billion (waste, fraud, unnecessary weapons)
The Federal Reserve and other holdings within the government own more than $5 trillion of the federal debt.
The New York Times reported that the government loses $1 trillion a year because of income tax loopholes
What we should avoid is cutting spending on education and other programs that promote a better future for the United States. If we allow government to slash spending on everything that’s costing money, we won’t be any better off than we are now.
Bottom line, the federal government is inefficient.
“The food crisis is not about needing more food. We have plenty of food for everyone on the planet twice over at least…it is a hunger crisis brought on by POVERTY. We do not have a food problem, we have a hunger problem. That poverty is CREATED by multinational corporations (no more than a dozen) who control 80-90% of the GRAIN production. They are not growing food “for people”, they are growing food for the greatest amount of profit they can accumulate!”
— Urmas Kaldveer, Ph.D.
Looks like even the Kockheads own welfare recipients agree…
The Future of Social Security for This Generation and the Next by Cato Institute
I have divided my testimony on corporate welfare into 7 observations about the economic and political state of affairs regarding corporate welfare. Then at the end of my testimony I provide 6 recommendations regarding how Congress can reduce the size of the corporate welfare state.
an update on the quick change made by the NIH to the recently released Nat’l Cancer Institute paper on cannabis and cancer:
NCI offers explanation for changes to its medical marijuana database entry
Just being paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you.
It was on the front page of the USA Today on Friday too. Front page, regarding more American driving more but traffic accidents being down: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-04-01-1Atrafficdeaths01_ST_N.htm
Gil… in the words of C. Lo. Brown, F.U.