Bravo, Jim!
The death of a pet is a death in the family. I'm very sorry for your loss.
It may not be the exact Canadian idiolect but I'll bet lots of non-Canadian newspapers and other media refer to the current Canadian PM as the "premier" all the time.
Except perhaps for US media, I'll bet that very few non-Canadian media outlets make that mistake, just as one seldom sees references to the "Australian Premier". It's nothing to do with an idiolect*, it's simply wrong, and seems an odd mistake to make -- and attempt testily to defend -- in a thread that starts with a lamentation about the insularity of (some) Americans.
*as I understand the term, it refers to a single individual, making "Canadian idiolect" a nonsense phrase.
So far, I think "look offshore for a source" and "petition the FDA" are the most likely avenues for success. This is just to say that, like others upthread, I can be counted on for a contribution to drug costs and legal fees.
Good luck, Teresa and Xopher.
I did not read it that way
I did. Laura, your brief comment still seems to me to invite my uncharitable rather than Xopher's charitable reading, but I should have learned by now to give ML commenters (if not people in general!) the benefit of the doubt.
I withdraw my remark in the expectation that Xopher has it exactly right.
starting Wellbutrin this week
Feel better, brother. (Paxil is my pal.)
And that'll do for my answer to you too, Laura Roberts. Any more detailed expression of my distaste for what you wrote would get me disemvoweled.
A few facts and figures from NCADP, ACLU, HRW, DPIC and AIUSA: There are currently more than 3500 people on death row in the US. Since the reinstatement of capital punishment by the US Supreme Court in 1976, the US has executed 944 individuals. Only 12 States and the District of Columbia do not have death penalty statutes. The UN has resolved that execution of those 18 or younger at the time of the crime is "contrary to customary international law", but at least 20 US states still have laws allowing for the execution of offenders as young as 16. In the past five years, the US has executed 13 juvenile offenders, while the rest of the world has recorded five such killings. Only the US and Somalia have yet to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in addition to the US only China, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iran and Pakistan have openly executed juveniles since 2000. Although execution of persons with "substantial intellectual impairment" is now illegal in the US, some 40 retarded people were executed between 1977 and 2002. Despite international law prohibiting execution of the mentally ill, virtually universal adoption of corresponding national laws and strong agreement between these bodies of law and the US Constitution, the US continues to execute the insane, most recently Larry Robison (schizophrenia, 2000), Thomas Provenzano (delusional, 2000) and John Satterwhite (retarded and mentally ill, 2000). Although non-whites make up around a quarter of the US population, they constitute 55% of death row and represent 43% of those executed since 1976. Although whites account for 50% of murder victims, in 80% of capital cases the victim was white. More than 60% of juvenile offender death sentences since 1976 have been passed on Blacks or Latinos. Of all death row inmates, 95% cannot afford an attorney and must rely on underfunded state programs, most of which do not have meaningful competency standards. There is enormous geographic disparity and apparent arbitrariness in the death penalty: state and federal jurisdictions vary in the crimes for which the death penalty can be sought and the likelihood that prosecutors will in fact seek it, so that location is a primary determinant of an offender's chances of facing death and the same crime is likely to receive different punishment in different courts; only about 1% of convicted murderers are executed. The death penalty is expensive, costing between $1 and $7 million per case as opposed to around $500-600,000 per case for life without parole. The death penalty does not appear to be an effective deterrent. Canada's murder rate has dropped 40% since abolition of the death penalty in 1975, whereas the US rate was 6.2/100,000 in 1967, 10.2/100,000 in 1980 and 5.6/100,000 in 2003. The five non-death penalty countries with the highest murder rates average 21.6 murders per 100,000 people, whereas the five death penalty countries with the highest rates average 41.6/100,000. From 1980 to 2000, the homicide rate in states with the death penalty was 48-101% higher than in states without the death penalty, and 10 of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national average.
Finally, and to me most compellingly, the death penalty takes innocent lives. Since 1973, 117 death row inmates have been exonerated, a rate of around one exoneration for every eight executions. A description of each case can be read here; unless I made an error, these inmates spent an average of 8.9 years in prison before being exonerated. This error rate alone should be enough to take death penalty statutes off the books.
'Schmidt-slug' is devilishly difficult to pronounce
Nah, just turn it into one word: Schmidtslug, German for the sinking feeling only bullies know, that they get when they realise they've picked on the wrong person.
I'm going to patent the concept of an ambulatory semi-autonomous organic mechanism for the separation of desirable fiction from slush (Many Other Functions), and then Tor will owe me money on you.
I'm going to patent the idea of an organic mechanism (it need not be ambulatory, nor have Other Functions) for making funny, snarky, erudite and original comments in online forums.
Then T and P will owe me money on every comment thread. I'm gonna be rich!
Wow. My sympathies. Please don't think your reaction is somehow "silly". Be good to yourselves -- pamper yourselves for a while.
What this was, was notice being served. No more horsetrading, no more tit-for-(no)-tat, no more being the only ones to observe rules and to stay civil. A resounding "enough".
Let's hope, as Erik observes, that they keep this spine they found lying around somewhere. I like it; it suits them.
Riddick's has the answer: "When in closed session, a motion to return to open session is in order and not debatable".
I guess, like most things, you can end a closed session with a majority vote -- which, of course, the Fristlings did immediately. But Reid, if I understand the stunt, plans to pull this same shit every day until Roberts' committee does what it was convened to do.
Mmmmm-mmmm. This is getting to be fun.
How long can Reid keep the Senate in closed session?
That's what I want to know as well. The rules are available online, but #21 only says you can call a closed session, nothing about how it has to end.
Avery's "excuses" is a verb, not a noun. Think "forgives". That took me an embarrassingly long time to work out.
I hadn't thought of that. I sure hope you're wrong Avery -- but I wouldn't bet against you.
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