Big cities safer than small towns, study finds

The study shows the risk of death from an injury— including shootings, vehicle accidents, drownings, falls and many other accidents — is more than 20 percent higher in rural small towns than larger cities.

“Cars, guns and drugs are the unholy trinity causing the majority of injury deaths in the U.S.,” Myers said.

The risk of homicide is what most people think of when they look at how safe big cities are, she said. But, although homicide rates are indeed higher in big cities, the risk of unintentional injury-related deaths is a full 40 percent higher in rural areas than in urban areas.

And the overall number of deaths from homicides is dwarfed by deaths from unintentional injuries.

via Surprise! Big cities safer than small towns, study finds – U.S. News.

Interesting study.  While our fellow citizens do tend to kill each other more often when concentrated, they do so at a lower rate than inanimate objects and nature in general.

House GOP Pushes Massive Cuts To Environment And Arts

The draft legislation (PDF), which will face committee hearings starting Tuesday, slashes the fiscal 2014 budget for the Interior Department and for the EPA by $5.5 billion from existing levels enacted for 2013 — a 19 percent cut that brings base funding down to $24.3 billion. It’s $4 billion below levels already required by sequestration — automatic spending cuts that both parties say are senseless and onerous.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) said the bill “reflects the extraordinarily hard choices needed to maintain critical investments and services for local communities,” while “dramatically scaling back lower-priority, or ‘nice-to-have’ programs.”

 

via House GOP Pushes Massive Cuts To EPA, Wildlife And Arts | TPMDC.

I love how all their “compromises” and “tough choices” are about axing programs they don’t like and not touching ones they do.

The “We Gets Our Farm Money But You Don’t Gets Your Food” Bill that the Tea Party House passed is a perfect example of this.

This was pretty much the same way that Morsi thought democracy worked in Egypt.   He was wrong about that, too.