No, you have NOT provided "some evidence"... what you have done is present an "argumentum ad populum" fallacy... sort of like saying "if a lot of people believe the world is flat then it must be flat"...

That would be because there must be an increase in such incidents consistent with the increase in numbers of smaller individuals in those jobs otherwise one cannot legitimately claim "size" to be the causative factor...

How have I overstated your argument?

if this authority (which is just a fancy way of saying 'intimidation') can be maintained in the presence of the factors other than size... but be unmaintainable when size is the only factor present... then size MUST be the LEAST important factor...

Am I REALLY...? Perhaps you can tell us then... what other conclusion should we draw from your arument that continually dismisses her skill and experience as irrelevant in comparison to her size...?

Why yes... Yes I can tell that... thank you for noticing... it really is amazing what a good knowledge of human physiology and physiological norms can reveal... try it sometime and maybe these desperate "refutations" will give way to something well considered...

Now, perhaps if you could provide an equivalent day-to-day reality that provides the same level of support to your point... say, showing us how these "smaller" individuals are "dropping like flies in a bug zapper"... then there may be some need to go for the "scientific study" in support, but I do also note that you have yet to provide the level of support you are demanding of others in support of your own point...

...not to mention the logical failing of the argument as it is a strawman of grand proportion... though I suppose it is easier to develop than a cogent, logical and valid counter-point... especially where issues of importance to self-esteem/self-perception are involved such as when the social validity and importance of "being big" is challenged...

In each case you come back to size as the most important element in projecting authority (or 'intimidation' as you characterize it).

she was a bit taller than that... 1 to 2 inches... again it isn't much of a difference but... it's interesting that you (and the editorial you mention) go to great lengths to emphasize the extra 2 inches for the 'bad guy'... not "6 foot" but "6' 2""...

I'm not sure where you get this "100 pounds" from but it ain't accurate... first, normal for a woman her height and age would be in the 125-130 range... and she DEFINITELY topped 130...

http://www.officer.com/article/photos/1110598929095_victim.jpg

and yet you have been unable to account for how it is that individuals... SMALLER individuals... who possess all the necessary qualities OTHER than size are able to perform equally as well as the large person who possesses those necessary qualities...

Basic logic and common sense dictates that, if this authority (which is just a fancy way of saying 'intimidation') can be maintained in the presence of the factors other than size... but be unmaintainable when size is the only factor present... then size MUST be the LEAST important factor...

These sorts of things seem to be more about tort law, legal liability, litigation, and insurance requirements than political correctness.

Once again I ask... how is any of this possible if size is as important as your argument has stated?

ignorance was probably the problem if a 5' tall male 51 years of age was assigned to the 6' 200 pound plus Nicols the outcome probably would not be any different

Even so, these big guys, on average, would be significantly stronger than a five foot tall woman.

did not use shackles when escorting a man who was taller and who clearly outweighed her.

had the pleasure of working with a man shorter than me (5'3") and let me just say he was extremely effective in handling his inmates...... I felt the safest around him.

No size requirement but a bad ass little dude will not fair very well against a bad ass big dude...

In the world of political correctness, a 5' petite, female, deputy weighing 100 pounds is an acceptable choice to guard a 6' 2" 200 pound prisoner by herself.

In the real world, Nichols overpowered the deputy, almost killing her in the process. He shot and killed four more people before he surrendered to police.

I agree that a smaller person should not have been expected to guard a 6 foot rapist (a violent offender), on her own. Had the guard been a man of 5 foot 7, would he have been able to over power this 6 food violent offender? Not so likely.

and she DEFINITELY topped 130... not that it "equalizes" them but...

In this case I think political correctness may have been responsible in costing four people their lives.

more "wrong place, wrong time"...

Second... I will say that "intimidation" is NOT a qualification (I defy you to find me a job description from even 50 years ago that states ability to intimidate or "scare" as a qualification/duty)...

Another recruiting change that happened in the last 30 years is the removal of height and weight requirements. Before the 1970s, the RCMP hired only men of a certain height and weight. Often, a "good" candidate weighed over 200 pounds (90 kg) and stood at or above six feet (180 cm).

According to the hiring requirements of 50 years ago, in most places in the states... NO woman, regardless of size would be qualified... NO black man, regardless of size, would be qualified... NO eminently qualified white male, based on size, who had known "communist affiliations" would be qualified... the argument is irrelevant because many of the elements of qualification at the time realy had no bearing on ACTUAL ability to perform the job...

The argument that this is primarily a function of "being big" is nonsense... a purely "neanderthal" argument... size is the LEAST important criteria in this matter...

again, I will point out that she had been escorting him for three weeks WITHOUT INCIDENT... and there is NO evidence to support any notion that her size had ever been a problem in the past... How does a "tiny little woman" manage this if size is SO important...? I'll tell you how... in exactly the way I mentioned above... by projecting authority...because size is the least important factor in doing so...

Once the other inmates see something like that ... the deputy will have no further problems.

I'm not ignoring the "psychological aspects"... I'm simply not giving them excessive weight

I'm not sure how you figure that "forced to hire her", or even "forced to put her in that job" for that matter, enters in to it...

and the only basis you have given for demonstrated ability being unimportant is due to her being a woman...

The clear implication of this is that there is something "freakish" about a woman who is capable of doing a traditionally male job... like firefighter... or in this case, Sheriff's Deputy...

It's based on the mere fact that she is a woman... nothing more... women shouldn't have to worry thier 'purty li'l heads' about such stuff... that's 'fer the men-folk'... we've got to protect the poor little dears...

The truth (ask me for sources, go on...)...?

1. Was she alone due to "PC gone wild"...? or was it something else... along the lines of what I suggested... but less palatable to the right-wing wingnuts...?

I don't suppose that maybe... just maybe... at 51 she had been in the job for years... if not decades... and had a record of exemplary service... possibly even being known for her ability to "handle herself" in difficult situations... you know, the kind that Sheriff's deputies often handle... like dealing with big, burly, obnoxious drunks... criminals of all stripes...?

......Nichols overpowered Hall, almost killing her in the process. He shot and killed four more people before he surrendered to police.

So THAT'S evidence of "PC gone wild"...?

even though she likely handled many much more dangerous situations in exemplary fashion over the years/decades

427cammer,

Take a read of this and say what?

The bubble hasn't burst yet but it will.

I remember the recession in early 80's and how many in Alberta and BC lost their homes and the shirts off their backs. I lived in Calgary at that time and it was horrible. The oil companies were raking in huge profits all the while saying they were in the hole.

People are also addicted to the condescending feeling of "I know more than you" that science grants. If you want proof, just look around this board.

SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science explains what is happening around us all the time. So does RELIGION, but science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when it's wrong.

your conservative government of course.

They are the ones who made the rule changes. And yes, many are going to lose their homes. The housing bubble will burst here in Canada in about 2 years and what is Harper going to do then?

Distortion. The people who seek to inject religious dogma and doctrine into the political sphere are considered extremists-- or, rather, reactionaries.

What part did deregulation play in the present current economic condition of our country?

Thirty years ago, gay rights were on the fringe; that is no longer true today. In other words, it was not extremist to be anti-gay rights 30 years ago; it was the mainstream of society.

See the connection you made in your own argument? Big corporations have way more influence in government than even the Christian extremists or anyone else. It was not meant to be that way.

I'm not sure that this is applicable to the American political scene today. Both parties have moved so far right in the last 30 years, that this just isn't a very good explanation today.

http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/598_social_welfare_expenditures_under_public_programs.html

The right wing in America is just reflexively opposed

I love how the man is getting bashed for all this...

I'll leave you with one final quote from Terry Pratchett's 'Guards Guards!' that really sums it up best....

It is you whom is trying to spin it so that there can only be a such thing as a "left wing" dictator.

I just look at the facts that they are not even ashamed of. They boast about this shit. It goes against everything this nation was founded on.

I am not here talking about miles per gallon. If you wish to talk about that tell me why my 1968 Volkswagen Bug gets 28-30 mpg but you are talking about 20 for today's cars. Since you brought it up.

First I am not from the left nor the right. I belong to no political parties thanks.

A small number of people whom act like gangsters are getting rich off this nonsense and making sure no one does anything to break their little game up.

extreme right wing dictators

What are you like from my grandfathers age? Oh yeah sorry you are.

So let me get this straight here we are bright enough to go into space, make nifty telescopes that let us see other galaxies, go to the moon

Guess what times are changing and the youth are giving you the finger.

Be better to just put solar on all the houses with a south facing view of the sun, rock the geothermal, etc etc.

A small number of people whom act like gangsters are getting rich off this nonsense and making sure no one does anything to break their little game up.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather vote for an admitted philanderer than an insidious hypocrite any day of the week....

I can regret the fact that someone like John Edwards is against gay marriage PERSONALLY....

I can't see your profile.

And Jennifer Flowers was the woman he admitted having an affair with during the campaign. Not the woman who sued claiming he had exposed himself to her - whose case was dismissed.

and then moved your country to the right.

I'm just asking because this guy went off on Clinton for having an affair - railed against him and voted for impeachment. But apparently, the fact that he talks the talk is enough. We shouldn't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.

We all knew Clinton was a womanizer before he was elected. Remember Jennifer Flowers?

He never held himself forward as a paragon of virtue; just the best man for the job. This guy ran as a paragon of virtue; ran on "family values"; attacked pre-marital sex. Then it turns out he didn't really believe any of it.

You know, it's okay to criticize a Republican. You don't need to defend every single one of them - many of them really are the scumbags they're made out to be.

Only if his lawyer wants to be made to look foolish when the other side starts quoting precedent and the courts own guidelines for jury instruction that clearly establish that Gates' behaviour has been tested in court before and found to not be grounds for a charge of "disorderly".

No, it's a fancy way of saying that, in that situation, racism is as valid a presumption as any other and that it is all about the sincere perceptions of the people involved.

Nice cherry-picking...

Did you intentionally omit the part from the notes about protected speech and intent or did you only scan for the parts that supported your statement?

A presumption of prejudicial conduct being involved when a police officer lays charges that he should know are improper is more than warranted in such a situation.

It forbids tumultuous and highly agitated behavior, which may not involve physical violence, but which causes riotous commotion and excessively unreasonable noise, and so constitutes a public nuisance.

In Commonwealth v. Lopiano, a 2004 decision, an appeals court held it was not disorderly conduct for a person who angrily yelled at an officer that his civil rights were being violated. In Commonwealth v. Mallahan, a decision rendered last year, an appeals court held that a person who launched into an angry, profanity-laced tirade against a police officer in front of spectators could not be convicted of disorderly conduct.

And, that doesn't mean the Crowley himself goes out of his way to harass blacks. In a similar situation, had Gates been a white man, the chances of him not going to jail are far higher. I believe this because studies have shown that blacks receive harsher treatment for the same crimes.

Lastly, there are those here who demand documentable proof that Crowley did act out of racism.

On a side note it will be interesting to see if Crowley accepts the President's offer to meet with he and Gates and hash this thing out over a few beers. You know, like men of honor do. They sit down face to face, work it out and move on. Will he do that or will he use this, or be used, to prop up some sort of political agenda? Will he man up and show some character or hold a grudge and fold? Time will tell.

By the time Gates came out of the house he most surely was agitated. What caused him to be enraged at Crowley? Let's remember that only Gates and Crowley were inside that house. Is it possible that Crowley said something that pushed Gates' buttons? Is it possible that he voiced some kind of threat inside Gates own house?

Have you been able to find one piece of verifiable, factual evidence to support the contention that racism was involved in the Gates incident????

With all due respect, we have become, as a society, too concernedover what other people are doing that doesn't effect us or has no affect on who or what we are. And this is one of those example in my opinion.

The racist act did happen. The kids were kicked out of the pool. That is fact

Once again, you try to argue that there was no racist act by ignoring the racist act of throwing them out of the pool.

The kids were kicked out even though they did not exceed any safety standards

No it doesn't.

For one, if you keep it up, I will get you suspended for personal attacks. Please try to control yourself.

Typical rightwing hypocrisy which result from rightwingers having no principles beside self-interest.

Again, your personal attacks will get you suspended. Please try to control yourself and stick to the subject (not the personalities)

for the innocent until proven guilty crowd - the racist act has been proven.

The club signed a contract and then denied them access when they showed up and turned out to be black. No one denies this,

This thread is becoming like a good Twilight Zone episode. It's just going in circles and circles.

If you want to start down the path of litigation you have to accept the entirety of the process including the premise of innocent until proven guilty. By declaring the people involved in this incident as racist you have declared yourself judge and jury and you have no right to do so. By doing so you are just as guilty as the people you are calling racists.

Another apologist for racism now argues "it's not so bad" because there were only "a couple of children" who heard the racist comments. Nevermind that they were all denied access to the pool. No problem with that, either.

And again we hear the rightwing meme that pointing out racism is more harmful than the racist acts themselves. After all, only a couple of kids heard the racism.

And I wonder why you assume the black kids will lie.

And the rightwinger makes his goal clear; even if it is racism, the racists should go unpunished. They feel more pity for the criminal than they do for his young victims.

Ameerra: Where do people get these ideas! Are there people really that uninformed that they don't know that one negative incident can so scar a child so as to alter their whole course of life?

Am I now saying that we should put children in a bubble and never let them experience one unpleasant occurrence? Of course not - being hurt and experiencing negativity is a human experience, but in order to heal there has to be acknowledgment, an apology, an offer of reparation, and then action.

No one lives inside of the hearts of these children. No one knows what they experienced before coming to the pool and how this incident affected them.

It is up to the adults in this situation to make this RIGHT for the children.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/video?id=6907653

If money is awarded in the lawsuits, I'd personally like to see it go to fund a public pool for all kids, or some other cause to benefit children. In America, that is how often people must be forced to become accountable, by lawsuits. I don't want to see this reduced to a fight about money, but if money is awarded I'd like to see it do some good to benefit the children in the neighborhood.

It's just beyond arrogant to think that one knows what another person is feeling.

What are everybody's thoughts about the recent developments in the Philadelphia swim club case?

Duesler apparently thought his explanation, apology and good intentions would be enough to satisfy Alethea Wright. But Wright was not about to see her kids treated this shabbily. She alerted the media and the media took it from there.

NBC-10 broke the story first, the Philly papers followed and then came the rest of the world.

The narrative quickly became “Racist Swim Club Bans Black Kids.”

But if the club’s management was so racist, why did it invite three separate city summer camps of mostly minority kids to use the pool in the first place?

Duesler, for one, sure doesn’t fit the profile. He is a big supporter of President Barack Obama and was chairman of a group called Peace-Action Philadelphia, a multi-ethnic, anti-war group.

As for the press coverage, he said, “We’re getting steamrolled right now ... This (story) took on a life of its own. The first time we got in front of the cameras (last Friday), but by then pretty much everybody’s mind was made up.”

The amount of inflammatory misinformation being reported about the incident was especially frustrating.

For instance, this little nugget on a local TV Web site on July 9:

“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, a parent of a day-camp child wrote in an e-mail. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”

Duesler swears that never happened, and he was there. He said every camp and camper who came to the club stayed the entire amount of time they contracted for.

He said the main problem that day was the overcrowding of the shallow end of the pool because so few of the Creative Step campers (only one or two) were able to pass a “deep-end” swim test.

Still, he said, all the kids seemed to have a good time anyway. And he expected them all back the next week. That is, until a number of members raised safety concerns brought on by the overcrowding.

As to how he handled the matter before and after the kids’ visit, he admitted “a lot of mistakes were made.” He said club members “were not properly informed” about the number of kids who would be there. And not offering the camp another arrangement before returning its money was downright stupid, too.

Since the story hit, Duesler said he has received hundreds of phone calls and thousands of nasty e-mails from across the country expressing hatred for him personally and for the club.

He said he’s still hoping to reach some sort of accommodation with Creative Steps. And then he told me another “important” call was coming in and that he had to go.

So that’s John Duesler.

He still wants to work things out with Alethea Wright, but he’s got to know that is the longest of long shots now, what with all the lawyers involved and the claims being made on the kids’ behalf.

“These children are permanently scarred,” Wright has been quoted saying.

I don’t know about that. But I suspect that is certainly true of John Duesler.

He may be bumbling swim club president, but if he’s a racist, I’m Michael Phelps.

He’s drowning and the media is throwing him an anchor.

What a fiasco!

One of the things we are often guilty of is projecting our own flaws onto others and seeing them as we want to see them, and not as what they really are.

If this incident occurred as it has been reported, (and we have no reason to believe that the children and their teacher made up this story), then there is no need to wait for an investigation to see that these children were the victims of racism. Why deny it? Why look for other possible reasons why the incident occurred?

I understand you reticence. I can do what you request, but I can't say that others will, or that I will agree with you. However, I would not question your sincerity unless you try to state opinion as fact, engage in insults, or insist that a refutable claim is fact and you have given no indication that you would do such a thing that I can remember

Your bias is undeniable

IMO, you have completely whiffed on the issue of whether the claim that "Iraq had WMD's" was the result of "intelligence failures" or "deliberate manipulation by the bush admin"

I cannot prove I am right. You cannot prove I am wrong. But you also cannot prove that YOU are right, and I cannot prove that you are wrong, either – nobody you're going to meet here, or anywhere else, has that knowledge, and anybody who claims to is full of it.

So this is more of a political baiting ?

Hmm, in an attempt to do what? ~ expose, fill an empty news cycle

Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all Members of Congress, and misled Members for a number of years from 2001 to this week.

Recently you testified

have concealed significant actions

You mean trying to compare it to modern American governments is impossible.
For in America the political spectrum or the understanding of it is out of kilter with much of the rest of the world.

Why were they both such virulent anti socialist/communists then?
Communist party members in germany were sent to the camps.
In Italy they were beaten.
They both declared communism the biggest threat to the world.
Hitler declared the war with Russia an idealogical war of annihilation.

In fact the term "liberal fascism" is almost exclusively used as a right-wing talking point by said ditto-heads with no actual valid scholarship behind it.

Fascists are the far right - like the last admin, so how can there be liberal fascists?
its an oxymoron.

In his new book, Goldberg has decided to dream up fascists on the left rather than acknowledge the fact that the real American fascists have been lurking in the right's closet for lo these many years.

It's pretty clearly a bull-crap phrase with no actual meaning...

This is a telling omission, because the continuing existence of these groups makes clear what an absurd and nakedly self-serving thing Goldberg's alternate version of reality is. Why dream up fascists on the left when the reality is that real American fascists have been lurking in the right's closet for lo these many years? Well, maybe because it's a handy way of getting everyone to forget that fact.

We've had gun laws almost since our country was founded. We live right next door to the USA, and that provides an easy access to firearms for criminals. In so many ways, we share a lifestyle that is almost the same. The same violent media, the same type of lifestyle, so much so that an alien might see us as almost identical cultures.

Yet, we have not been overrun by criminals, nor fallen under the yoke of tyranny ( no Harper jokes here....) . We've continued to exist as we always have, and gun crimes are remarkably low.

I understood your point--and I still believe that 'spin' and 'political objectives' had much to do with why we went to Iraq--even given the intelligence, or lack thereof, it sometimes is just that simple.

With regard to Bush: I don't think he was an idiot--in fact, I think that he wasn't given credit for being as...crafty?

Who knows? If I'm lucky, some people will read this, have a little more understanding of the issues, and be a wee bit less knee-jerk about how they respond to people with an opinion differing from their own.

I hope I haven't bored anybody, or missed anything major.

Keep in mind that this citation is in miles per Canadian Imperial gallon, which is more like 20 miles per gallon in the usual units.

Comparing apples to apples,

There is no proposal from the government to "enforce uniformity"; there's a proposal to require the automakers to achieve a better Fleet Average fuel economy. That won't mean that everybody will be required to drive the same thing. It means that the automobile fleet - as a whole - has to be more efficient.

I'd use lighter cars for light journeys, and SUVs for when I need to transport a heavier and/or larger road. Of course, if this was law, then there would need to be separate lanes, some fast lanes for 65mph and over, and some for 55mph and under.

By the way, I know someone who has a diesel Skoda that does 50 miles to the gallon. Other cars in the UK perform quite similarly, maybe 30 mpg. Do American cars have the same mileage? If not, then why not?