Interesting Links for 02-10-2016

[nwhyte]

Re-tests axed for chronically ill claimants
At last, UK Govt retreating in its war on disabled.
(tags: disability ukpolitics )

What Caused Crime to Decline in the U.S.?
Many answers, none completely convincing.
(tags: uspolitics crime )

Comments

[matgb]

I think none of it convinces because in some ways all played a part at the same time. Also, and this only occurred to me reading the article through and really should have occurred to me way before now.

The crime fall off was at roughly the same time people my age became adults. My birth year ('74) was the start, in the UK, of a fairly substantial 5 year low in kids born, which caused weird effects all over the place including university enrolments and similar. Maybe a combination of all the factors combined with few young me in total just combined into a perfect storm?

[trepkos]

Finally a bit of sense from these bastards in power.

[san_valentine]

I was re-evaluated for ESA this spring, followed by the change from DLA to PIP just a few weeks later. Altogether it was nearly 6 months of hassle and worry, filling in forms that were 20+ pages long.
I get that many people on ESA only need it for a certain amount of time, and should be re-assessed periodically, but for others it seems unnecessary to the point of being insulting. As I said to my MS nurse, "what part of 'incurable and degenerative condition' do they not understand ?"

[nwhyte]

I blame all the parties on this. Labour made the system worse, the Tories made it worse again and the Lib Dems did little to stop it.

The tide is turning ( has been since March) but too many lives have been lost.