Author Archives: Dana Pico

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How new District Attorney Alvin Bragg will reduce crime in Manhattan

In January of 2023, The New York Times will publish a major article noting how crime has dropped in Manhattan under new District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Manhattan DA to stop seeking prison sentences in slew of criminal cases

By Larry Celona, Tamar Lapin, Tina Moore, Reuven Fenton and Bruce Golding | January 4, 2022 | 11:32 AM EST

Who needs soft-on-crime judges when the district attorney doesn’t even want to lock up the bad guys?

Manhattan’s new DA has ordered his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for hordes of criminals and to downgrade felony charges in cases including armed robberies and drug dealing, according to a set of progressive policies made public Tuesday.

In his first memo to staff on Monday, Alvin Bragg said his office “will not seek a carceral sentence” except with homicides and a handful of other cases, including domestic violence felonies, some sex crimes and public corruption.

“This rule may be excepted only in extraordinary circumstances based on a holistic analysis of the facts, criminal history, victim’s input (particularly in cases of violence or trauma), and any other information available,” the memo reads.

Assistant district attorneys must also now keep in mind the “impacts of incarceration,” including whether it really does increase public safety, potential future barriers to convicts involving housing and employment, the financial cost of prison and the racial disparities over who gets time, Bragg instructed.

In cases where prosecutors do seek to put a convict behind bars, the request can be for no more than 20 years for a determinate sentence, meaning one that can’t be reviewed or changed by a parole board.

There’s more at the original.

The cited article is from not The New York Times, our nation’s newspaper of record, not the one with All the News That’s Fit to Print proudly emblazoned on its masthead, but the New York Post. Site searches of the Times website failed to turn up any stories on this. New York magazine, the Gothamist, amny and Fox News covered it, but it simply wasn’t news that the Times saw as fit to print, at least not if their site search engine works. Fox noted:

In a stunning reversal of traditional law enforcement procedures, Bragg sent a memo stressing “diversion and alternatives to incarceration,” in pursuing prosecutions … by not sending criminals to jail. The no-jail time exceptions are murder, a crime that involves someone’s death, or a felony. And several serious crimes, like armed robbery, are being reduced to misdemeanors, which could mean dangerous thugs will end up back on the streets without seeing the inside of a jail cell.

And even if you murder someone, Bragg says his office will limit sentences to 20 years. He is refusing to seek the state-mandated “life without parole” for murderers, which would include terrorists, cop killers and even serial killers.

It’s easy to see what will happen: people who are victims of crime will be far less likely to report those crimes, because Mr Bragg has just told everyone that he’s not going to prosecute crimes seriously. After all, why bother, if you know that your assailant will end up right back on the street, with zero punishment, and just might be in a position to seek retribution for reporting the crime in the first place?

Philadelphia voted in a “social justice”, George Soros-supported prosecutor in Larry Krasner, and the result has been 499 homicides in 2020, just one short of the record set in 1990, during the crack cocaine wars, and then blew past that with 562 killings in 2021. Mr Krasner claims that crime is down, overall, statistically speaking, but the probability is that fewer crimes that actually occur are being reported. After all, why bother?

So, Mr Bragg, like Mr Krasner, will report that his policies have reduced crime in Manhattan, when, in reality, they will have reduced the reporting of crime. That’ll make the numbers look better, but for the victims, perhaps not so much.

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My inferior understanding prevents me from seeing the obvious brilliance of his argument

Dr Jorge J Rodríguez V tells us, in his Twitter biography, that he is a “A DiaspoRican Theo-Socio-Storian contextualizing systems historically made Divine || PhD-Historian-Administrator || All Tweets My Own (He/Him/His/El)”. Now, I have no way to verify anything in his word salad of a biography, but shall assume that it’s all accurate.

On New Year’s Day, he told us:[1]The tweet shown in the article is a screen capture, just in case he deletes it. If you click on the image, it will take you to his original.

It’s not just that I think schools shouldn’t be open until the end of January, I don’t think *anything* should be open until the end of January. We should be paid to stay home and provided food for three weeks and we should try an *actual* lockdown to combat the #Omicron surge.

This nation has pushed vaccines as the sole answer and get #Omicron has persisted. Even if the rates of death are lower, people are still dying. And if people aren’t dying, many are getting long COVID.

I have family members who didn’t fully recover from COVID for eleven months. I know many people who died months after “recovering” from COVID because of the toll the virus took on their lungs or heart or blood. Just letting the virus run it’s course is not good public health.

If the military gets *billions* for new jets, we the people can get *billions* to stay home for a few weeks and slow this surge. Our nation is so scared of a lockdown because of its effect on the economy but the economy doesn’t matter if people are dead or unable to work.

It just makes me so angry. The whole thing. And knowing so many people in my community have to go to poorly ventilated schools with minimal testing in two days makes me even more angry.

I think I underestimate how much capitalism has stunted our collective imaginations. When invited to dream about a different way of doing things, the first instinct of so many is to call it unrealistic as opposed to sit in the possibility and explore alternative ways get there.

The first paragraph is from the original tweet, while each subsequent one is from a separate tweet in the thread.

Now, Dr Rodríguez is, purportedly, an educated man. Yet somehow, some way, he hasn’t managed to grasp the notion that the electricity, natural gas, and water going to people’s homes doesn’t just magically appear there, but is produced at power plants and pumping stations, and if everything is locked down, that means those utility plants close down. It’s January, and people will get awfully cold in their homes without electricity and natural gas. They’ll get very thirsty without water.

Of course, other things like, oh, food, have to be picked up from the grocery store. If everything is locked down, then the grocery stores are closed, too. I sure hope that you have three weeks of food at your house!

Well, let’s say that you are warned, and have the time to go shopping before the lockdown. Grocery stores don’t normally have three weeks of food for their customers on hand, but have to get deliveries, every day, to replenish the shelves. Many food items are perishable, and people don’t buy them three weeks before eating them. Do you want to eat three-week-old bread?

But hey, with the electricity out, in January, you can just put your perishables in a critter-proof box outside, and you’ll have nature’s refrigerator keeping things cold for you!

References

References
↑1 The tweet shown in the article is a screen capture, just in case he deletes it. If you click on the image, it will take you to his original.
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Morbid math

The flood waters are finally starting to drop. The crest was 30.15 feet, which did not bring it close to our house, so we’re fine, if still stranded; the only road out is still underwater.

The highest water ever recorded, the 41.00 feet (guesstimated, since the river gauge failed), got into the crawlspace of our home last March, and into the garage, but did not get into our house itself.

As of 9:10 AM EST, the Philadelphia Police Department has not updated its Current Crime Statistics page; the image to the left, on which you can click to enlarge, is a screen capture. Since the page is supposed to be updated “during normal business hours, Monday through Friday,” I have to wonder what has happened. Perhaps the responsible person is taking his New Year’s Day holiday today?

The homicide number for 2021 is still stuck on 559, even though The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that “at least 560 people in Philadelphia were murdered, a bigger tally than in more heavily populated cities including New York and Los Angeles”. If the homicide total is 560, using Philly’s 2020 census figure of 1,603,797, the homicide rate works out to 34.92 per 100,000 population, and a couple more increase it only marginally.

The Philadelphia Shooting Victims Dashboard, which claims to be accurate through the end of the year, stated that there had been 2,327 recorded shootings in the City of Brotherly Love, 486 of which were fatal, and 1,841 in which the victim survived. That means that the gang bangers are pretty poor shots, given that only 20.89% of attempted murders by gunfire were successful, but that’s an ‘improvement’ on the 18.44% success rate in 2020.[1]414 homicides by shooting, out of 2,245 total shootings. Yeah, I know: my math is kind of morbid sometimes.

We have previously reported that KSDK, Channel 5, the NBC affiliate station in St Louis, crowed about the Gateway City having reduced its homicide numbers back to “pre-pandemic levels.”

Experts said the 2020 spike in violence was driven largely by the pandemic and high tensions following civil unrest. More lock downs, people losing jobs and strained relationships between communities and law enforcement all led to more murders University of Missouri – St. Louis Criminology Professor Richard Rosenfeld said.

Yet, if it was the COVID-19 pandemic — and I hate the word pandemic — and the killing of George Floyd, then why did shootings increase in Philadelphia by 3.65%, and total homicides by 12.22%?

We noted that the homicide numbers in Philly had increased by 15.61% since it became apparent that Joe Biden had defeated President Trump in the election. Why, it’s almost as though the evil reich wing Mr Trump had nothing to do with the homicide rates!

Philadelphia is still plagued by the same government, of Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, District Attorney Larry Krasner, a George Soros-funded stooge more interested in slapping down the police than prosecuting criminals, and the appropriately-named Police Commissioner, Danielle Outlaw, a bureaucrat appointee of Mr Kenney’s, who couldn’t lead a two-car parade. Philadelphia’s last Republican mayor left office on January 7, 1952, when Harry Truman was President, and George VI was still King of England. It has been three generations since Philly was led by a Republican!

George Floyd died a year and a half ago, and Donald Trump left the White House 348 days ago. The city leadership surrendered to the mob, and the coronavirus panic and shutdowns did not slow down the rate of violent crime in the city.

That was almost two years ago, and since then we’ve had vaccines, no cost vaccines, against the virus, and many — certainly not all in Philly — of the pandemic restrictions lifted, yet the rate of killing in Philly has only increased. At some point, maybe even leftists ought to be asking why the policies of an unbroken for generations Democratic leadership in Philadelphia haven’t worked.
————————–
Updated: 11:55 AM EST

It looks like someone has been trying to update the Current Crime Statistics page, but just isn’t very good at it. It now shows 562 homicides for 2021, which puts the homicide rate above 35, at 35.04 per 100,000 population.

References

References
↑1 414 homicides by shooting, out of 2,245 total shootings.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us what’s important to them

I suppose that I shouldn’t really be surprised.

Not everybody reads the newspaper, or, in my case, the digital newspaper, in the morning of New Year’s Day, and, when it comes to The Philadelphia Inquirer, some of the stories the editors think less important disappear quickly. Oh, they don’t disappear forever, but unless you know where to look, you won’t find them on the main page of the Inquirer’s website.

But the tweet reproduced at the right[1]This is a screenshot, but if you click on the image, it will take you to the Inquirer’s original. sure seems to characterize the newspaper well. An actual gun battle in the city’s streets, something I would see as a rather important story, disappeared from the main page, though there were two stories on it buried deeply.

Instead, in the main page’s “Latest” column, screen captured at 8:44 AM EST today, and reproduced below — you can click on the image to enlarge it — those stories were gone, gone, gone, while the advertising article noted in the tweet was prominently featured. I’ve said it before: black lives don’t matter to the editors of the Inquirer, but it seems that advertorial money certainly does.

A site search for Club Risqué failed to turn up anything in the Inquirer over the Philadelphia Police spotting two suspects in the murder in front of Club Risqué, even though the local television station, Fox 29, covered it, as did, as did Robert Stacy McCain, a blogger with roughly zero connection to Philadelphia or Pennsylvania.

There are, however, five separate stories referencing the January 6th Capitol kerfuffle.

It’s so obvious that even the most dyed-in-the-wool liberal ought to be able to see it: the almost entirely white Capitol kerfufflers have already been mostly arrested and charged, and the Justice Department continues to try to identify others, while the two suspects in the Club Risqué murders, suspects who are still on the loose, probably still on the loose in Philadelphia, and whom the police could use help in locating and apprehending, are black.

Nope, much better to have an advertorial on buying glasses on the main page, and that’s because black lives don’t matter to the editors and publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer!

References

References
↑1 This is a screenshot, but if you click on the image, it will take you to the Inquirer’s original.
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High water!

SSG Pico bought tickets for her and me to see the Oakland — never Las Vegas! — Raiders play the Baltimore Indianapolis Colts today, but the one road in or out from our farm is underwater. Our place isn’t in any danger; even the record flood of a guesstimated 41.00-foot crest didn’t get in the house, though it did get in the garage and crawlspace.

But we have sparktricity, propane, food, water and internet, so life is still good.

There has been some flooding damage in Madison County, but we don’t live in Madison.

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A Killadelphia murder update!

Robert Stacy McCain updated a story on which we had previously reported. He let me know about his update via Twitter!

‘A Philadelphia Gentleman’s Club’

by Robert Stacy McCain | January 1, 2022

These two Philadelphia gentlemen are suspects.

Euphemism alert:

Authorities have identified two suspects wanted in a double homicide that happened outside a Philadelphia gentlemen’s club on Tuesday.

Investigators say a 32-year-old man and a 42-year-old man suffered fatal gunshot wounds when an argument turned deadly in the parking lot of Club Risqué on Tacony Street around 2:30 a.m.

(Because where else would a Philadelphia gentleman be at 2:30 a.m.?)

At least The Philadelphia Inquirer was direct enough to call it a “strip club”.

Surveillance footage shared by the Philadelphia Police Department shows the suspected shooter and a female person of interest arriving at the club in a black Nissan about an hour before the shooting.

(A “female person of interest” is what they call a “lady” in Philadelphia.)

The suspect, who police say walks with a distinct limp, was wearing a blue coat and denim pants with dark-colored boots at the time of the shooting. The woman passenger labeled by police as a person of interest was wearing a white shirt with tan pants and white shoes.

Security footage from inside the vestibule of the club shows a second suspect also wearing a blue winter coat over a blue hooded sweatshirt.

There’s more at Mr McCain’s original.

Weather records for Tuesday, December 28th, indicate that it was 45º F, with light winds, and no precipitation at the time, as recorded at the Philadelphia International Airport. Why would a hooded sweatshirt and a winter coat be needed in those conditions?

Mr McCain congratulated me on the new record, but I have to be honest: I started getting morbidly interested in this in 2020, as the city kept ever closer to the record of 500 set during the crack cocaine wars of 1990, and at one point, which I noted here, the police reported 502 for 2020, setting a new record.

Then it was ‘adjusted,’ to 499. It could have been that the killings happened after midnight on December 31, 2020, and were properly assigned to 2021, but that seemed pretty ‘convenient’ to me, as a way for Mayor Jim Kenney, George Soros-stooge District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw to say, well, it wasn’t the worst year. Since the appropriately named Miss Outlaw’s Police Department is the one which releases the official figures, she would have direct authority over that report, if she chose to exercise it. I have no evidence of that, and it’s pure speculation on my part, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable guess. I just regret that I didn’t do a screen capture of the 502 report when it came out. That was my mistake, and I won’t make it again.

Maybe they hoped that the killing would decrease, and three murders from 2020 would get lost in a 2021 with a decrease in homicide.

Good plan, huh?

__________________________

Update: 450 PM EST

I said that I wouldn’t make the mistake again. The Philadelphia Police Department are claiming 559 homicides, the same number as they listed on Friday morning, but before their ‘normal business hours’ update. The Philadelphia Inquirer stated that the 2021 homicide number is “at least 560“.

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Killadelphia starts out the New Year with a bang!

While the Philadelphia Police Department does not normally update its Current Crime Statistics page until ‘normal business hours’ Monday through Friday, we already know that the City of Brotherly Love is picking up where it (never) left off as the new year has turned:

    Deadly gun violence carries on as New Year begins

    It took less than two hours for eight people to get shot, three of them killed in two separate violent outbursts.

    by Barbara Laker | Saturday, January 1, 2022 | 11:00 AM EST

    On the streets of Philadelphia, 2022 began where 2021 left off. It took less than two hours for eight people to get shot, three of them killed in two separate violent outbursts.

    Police responded to calls for a person shot on Cecil B. Moore Avenue between Wellington and 17th Streets near Temple University at about 1:50 a.m. Saturday. Police found two people who had been shot multiple times. Both were rushed to Temple University Hospital where they died shortly after arrival. Police did not identify the victims.

    In addition, three women, also shot at the scene, either walked into Temple Hospital or were taken by car. All three were listed in stable condition, said Police Inspector D F Pace.

    All victims were part of a large group gathered to celebrate the new year.

Moore Avenue in that block, the 1600 block, is a commercial street, not residential.

Further down:

    Shortly before that shooting, at around 1:30 a.m., 25th District officers received multiple calls about gunshots in the 100 block of East Luray Street near North Front Street in Feltonville. Police found a 33-year-old man who had been shot multiple times in the chest. He was rushed to Temple Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The article noted that, in 2021, “at least 560 people in Philadelphia were murdered, a bigger tally than in more heavily populated cities including New York and Los Angeles.” I will work out the exact homicide rate when I get the final numbers.

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37 murders for Lexington this year, a new record

I noted, on December 10th, that Lexington, Kentucky, was on pace for 37 homicides for the year, 37.4633 the way the math worked out. Sadly, it looks like I was right, though there are still a few hours, and the New Year’s Eve parties, to top that number.

    14-year-old boy dead after shooting near Lexington Cemetery

    by Christopher Leach | Friday, December 31, 2021 | 1:14 PM EST

    A 14-year-old boy was shot and killed Thursday night on Betsy Lane near Lexington Cemetery, according to Lexington police.

    The shooting happened around 9 p.m. Thursday in the 300 block of Betsy Lane, which is near the cemetery, police said. When officers arrived on scene, they found a 14-year-old male juvenile, who was later identified by the Fayette County Coroner as Larry Morales, in a yard with life-threatening injuries.

    CPR was administered on Morales until the fire department arrived, according to police. He was transported to a hospital, where he later died at 9:53 p.m.

Further down:

Lexington set a new record of 30 homicides in 2019, but that didn’t last long, as 34 people were murdered in 2020. Then that record was broken with the killing of Ramon Pennie on December 7th.

With a population of 324,604, Lexington’s homicide rate is 11.40 per 100,000 population, far lower than smaller St Louis’s, but still way, way, way too high.

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Oдна смерть – трагедия, миллион смертей – статистика

Josef Stalin allegedly said, “One death is a tragedy, one million deaths are a statistic.”

My good friend Jeffery, who is now going by the pseudonym Elwood P Dowd, in the comments section in The Pirate’s Cove, complained about the accidental killing of a 3-year-old girl when she found a loaded 9 mm in the back seat of retired Henderson County Sheriff’s Captain Tim Gordon’s, her father’s, pickup truck.

Mr Dowd, a stone liberal, asked, “Who leaves an unsecured, loaded 9 mm in full view in an unlocked vehicle? Was a three year old able to take the safety off?”

He then said:

No one was forced to leave a loaded, unsecured weapon at the ready in the back seat where a 3 yr girl could blow her brains out.

But as we all know, dead kids are a small price to pay for freedom! Except for the family of the dead child.

Anyway, the violent crime rate peaked in the early 90s (7500/million) and then dropped precipitously until about 2015 (4000/million) and has been very slowly increasing since. The peak was in 1991 (G.H.W. Bush) and the nadir in 2014 (B.H. Obama). Violent crime is up in 2021 by anywhere from 5 to 25 percent compared to 2020.

You mean up by anywhere from 5 to 25 percent under Joe Biden from what it was under President Trump!

But, it can’t be under liberal policies which drastically reduce or eliminate bail, or police departments so afraid of being labeled raaaaacist that they look the other way when POCs (perpetrators of color) commit crimes, or governments so worried about ‘mass incarceration’ that they let violent criminals go, or George Soros-funded social justice prosecutors like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner who is more interested in going after the police than the bad guys take office?

The spectacular failure of liberal policies has been written in blood, written in blood! With one day left in 2021, 559 people have been sent to an early grave in the City of Brotherly Love, completely destroying 1990’s record of 500, and last year’s 499. In Mr Dowd’s hometown of St Louis, 192 souls have been sent early to their eternal rewards, 176 of them black, 91.667% of the total, in a city that the 2020 census found to be 46.41% black.[1]The chart was made by me; the source was a .pdf file from the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department, of homicides as of December 29, 2021.

With a black population of 143,018, assuming that 49% are male, there are 70,079 black males living in the Gateway City. If St Louis finishes the year with ‘only’ 192 homicides, with 144 of them being of black males, that makes the homicide rate for black males in your hometown 205.48 per 100,000 population!

For white males in St Louis, 6 of whom have been murdered in 2021, the homicide rate is 8.54 per 100,000. But I’m sure that it’s raaaaacist to point out the numbers, because, after all, math itself is racist!

Mr Dowd was complaining about a 3-year-old who was tragically killed due to someone’s mistake, but when it comes to 144 black males in your hometown being murdered, well, it’s like Josef Stalin said, or “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.”

Leftist policies, his policies, in his own hometown, have been a miserable failure. But the St Louis media are proclaiming it all a victory!

St. Louis homicides dropped 25% in 2021, back to pre-pandemic levels

The drop in violence brings the city back near pre-pandemic levels when 194 people were murdered.

by Rhyan Henson and Robert Townsend | Published: 7:38 PM CST December 30, 2021 | Updated: 10:59 PM CST December 30, 2021

ST. LOUIS — Homicides in St. Louis dropped roughly 25% in 2021, returning to pre-pandemic levels.

  • 2021: 192
  • 2020: 263
  • 2019: 194

Experts said the 2020 spike in violence was driven largely by the pandemic and high tensions following civil unrest. More lock downs, people losing jobs and strained relationships between communities and law enforcement all led to more murders University of Missouri – St. Louis Criminology Professor Richard Rosenfeld said.

“That means people are less likely to call the police when they would have in the past,” Rosenfeld said. “Less likely to cooperate with police when the police are investigating crimes. more likely to take matters into their own hands. I think we’ve seen the decline (in murders) in St. Louis by and large because the conditions that gave way to the increase have improved.”

Law enforcement officers often get credit for making the city safer, but Rosenfeld said fewer COVID restrictions and decreased tensions made a tough job a little easier.

I will admit it: seeing the homicide rate come down to 205.48 per 100,000 population for black males in the Gateway City doesn’t exactly strike me as somehow being a victory.

As crime took off in 2020, so did leaders’ passions to start community anti-violent movements. Atif Mahr has mentored countless youth at Wohl Recreational Center with their “Stop The Violence” program.

“As they grew up in the rec center, they learned things in life that changed variables in their thinking and actions,” Mahr said.

Tragically Mahr knows the sting of losing a loved one to violence. This fall his daughter was shot and killed. In December, he and teens from across the area led an anti-violence march through the streets of St. Louis. Mahr believes real bonds and face-to-face interactions change communities one person at a time.

Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed is also pleased with the progress. He’s helped usher in the Cure Violence program in three neighborhoods.

“I am so pleased to see our violent crime rates have gone down dramatically,” Reed said. “It really gives you hope for the city of St. Louis and the future of our youth. You see people working together. See people taking care of each other. The cure violence personnel engaging in the lives of these families and young kids and see them doing the right thing. See them turning their lives around.”

So, they’re blaming the 2020 surge on the pandemic, and congratulating themselves that the homicide numbers have returned to normal. I suppose that’s better than Philadelphia, where 2021 has seen 559 homicides as of December 30th, compared to ‘only’ 499 in 2020.

Of course, St Louis is smaller than Philadelphia, and even if we don’t consider race and sex, St Louis murder rate, if it ends the year at 192, and with a population of 294,890 according to the 2020 census,[2]I prefer to use the actual census numbers, since it was just a year ago, but will have to start using the guesstimates as the years move between 2020 and 2030. will be 65.11 per 100,000 population. Chicago, our nation’s murder capital as far as the gross numbers are concerned, with a projected 801 homicides for the year, but a population of 2,746,388, has a murder rate of ‘just’ 29.17 per 100,000, while the City of Brotherly Love, with 1,603,797 souls therein, will finish the year around 34.92 per 100,000.

References

References
↑1 The chart was made by me; the source was a .pdf file from the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department, of homicides as of December 29, 2021.
↑2 I prefer to use the actual census numbers, since it was just a year ago, but will have to start using the guesstimates as the years move between 2020 and 2030.