61–70 of 140 posts
This is awesome. Not really sure why they chose to release it as an XLSX document on GitHub, but it'll work!
I'd assume it's an XLSX simply because that's the format they received it in from the Defense Department.
One county on the map has ~16k population and 640 military surplus assault rifles. If they're equipped with 30 round magazines, they can shoot everyone in the county without reloading once.
No, they couldn't shoot more than a few people before thousands of armed citizens made them stop. To help clarify things: the city of LA has 10,000 police officers and 1,000,000+ armed citizens.
I can only imagine this is an error, but apparently Brevard County, FL has received at least 61 helicopters... 8 of them worth $18m a piece. Someone tell me this is misreported? There is no way a county of ~500k people could need 61 helicopters, rght?
You don't think they 'actually spend $20k on a hammer, $30k on a toilet seat, do you'[1]? If this is not an error, I think we just found the best justification I've seen for making all budgets/purchases etc. in government publicly available via API, as this and the ones below are amazing finds. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/quotes?item=qt1534129
Couple of random observations after looking at the data: 1) Looks like a contest where the winners are folks who are able to pull the biggest political strings in DC. It has nothing to do with forces needing anything. This was a free-for-all giveaway. It's all political. 2) In defense of DoD, once you build this crap, it's gotta go somewhere. Maybe some of these MRAPs could only be used for local parades. Local PDs d…
This is a central assumption the DoD/Government has been making, that is turning out to be misguided if not flat-out wrong. The police in this country are not properly trained as to when to deploy this equipment, and when it's deployed, how to use it.
Just as spreading weapons of war to all parts of the middle east hasn't exactly lead to peace there, spreading weapons of war all across America will hardly lead to an orderly society. It seems like if you give men weapons, they itch to use them, or the power it gives them.
I used to scoff at the "militarisation of the police" stories on HN. I assume this is the same mental leap everyone else is having?
I can only imagine this is an error, but apparently Brevard County, FL has received at least 61 helicopters... 8 of them worth $18m a piece. Someone tell me this is misreported? There is no way a county of ~500k people could need 61 helicopters, rght?
"Headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, the 920th Rescue Wing is the Air Force Reserve Command's premier combat search and rescue (CSAR) unit. The wing consists of over 1,500 Airmen, trained and equipped to locate and recover U.S. Armed Forces personnel during both peacetime and wartime military operations."
I can only imagine this is an error, but apparently Brevard County, FL has received at least 61 helicopters... 8 of them worth $18m a piece. Someone tell me this is misreported? There is no way a county of ~500k people could need 61 helicopters, rght?
Quick question, is the apache license really the most relevant for a dataset? Does that license apply? I ask only because I'm planning on doing something similar.
EDIT: But just to be sure, I would recommend something is well understood and is aimed towards a general usage, such as a Creative Commons license of your choice http://creativecommons.org/choose/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't think they 'actually spend $20k on a hammer, $30k on a toilet seat, do you'[1]? If this is not an error, I think we just found the best justification I've seen for making all budgets/purchases etc. in government publicly available via API, as this and the ones below are amazing finds. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/quotes?item=qt1534129
I can't find the 20k hammer or the toilet seat.
I think the quote is not the main thrust of the GP point - but it's pretty hard to make any sensible comments with billions in hardware being given away.
One county on the map has ~16k population and 640 military surplus assault rifles. If they're equipped with 30 round magazines, they can shoot everyone in the county without reloading once.