Month: January 2004

Brains Full of Mush

This week’s New Blog Showcase from Truth Laid Bear includes this little piece from Esmeralda of “word gets around” who asks:

I don’t know exactly how much it costs to go to Mars, but I’m sure it’s a lot. Is it right to spend so much money on going to space when it could be used elsewhere? Like in Ethiopia where they might be facing another famine. I know it’s a simplistic question. For a start, money can do a lot, but it is not the solution to everything. Anyway, even if raising money is difficult, knowing who to give it to & how to spend it is just as complicated. That doesn’t stop me wondering, why don’t governments do more to help people who are in trouble (not just in Ethiopia) instead of going to Mars?

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I think that there’s a difference between research for things like medicine, and space exploration. Some research has to be done, if possible, regardless of what else is going on in the world. With other research, it’s less clear. I don’t know much about these things; I just feel that it would be a good idea to sort Earth out before going to other planets.

Her commenters pile on:

Couldn’t agree more… apparently this Mars mission is costing something like US$800 million.

These trips to Mars, and the whole man-on-the-moon thing fascinate me, but it’s nice that I live in a rich country where I have enough to eat and even enough for a computer etc etc. What about all these people, everywhere, who are never going to get to see pictures of Mars?

Yeah. I agree entirely.

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I too agree. It is more than just a waste of money. It is a question of values, or rather lack of them.

However there must be intelligent life out there, otherwise they would have contacted our sick societies.

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You tell em Esme, No we really cannot have both, unless one believes in alchemy, or right-wing BS.

How can a sane, empathetic populace waste time, money, resources on such inanities when so much suffering goes on among people and other sentient beings on this planet?

Perhaps the greedy powers that be wish to distract the brain-washed with ever more bread and circuses.

Let’s see, one commenter who is glad (and possibly ashamed) that (s)he has enough to eat and a computer while others do not. Ok.

Another commenter hates the U.S. (and possibly the world, but I think more likely just the U.S.) and our “sick societies.”

A third bitches that our populace isn’t “sane” or “empathic.

Let me see if I can answer her questions. Why should we go to Mars? Because the future of mankind is not on this planet, it’s out there. And the sooner we start, the better. The argument that we should spend our money saving Ethiopia and other nations with severe problems is the argument that the entire world should be made uniformly miserable – just so it’s “fair.” I’m sorry, but I’d rather we forged onward and dragged everybody along into prosperity after us. That method has worked far better than top-down imposition of “equality.” Investment into directed scientific research to solve real, identifiable problems does wonderful things for our economy – particularly when the results of that research aren’t stamped “secret” and hidden in vaults because the research was done to build a better weapon system.

As to ‘sort(ing) Earth out before going to other planets’ – if that attitude was the historical one, the New World would never have been discovered by the Europeans. (Yes, yes, I know. That’s the ideal alternate history of the Left.) But then there wouldn’t have been a migration out of Africa into Europe, either.

And we’d all be living in Ethiopia.

All 5.5 million of us.

Quote of the Week

Via Mad Ogre, off the CZ forums:

“I’m a Caucasian Christian male between the ages of 18 and 65, I can’t legally be offended.”

As Mad Ogre said, painfully true.

Doing “Good” vs. Doing RIGHT

I found this link somewhere, and I apologize for not being able to credit the source, but here’s an interesting article on the folly of recycling that I felt ought to be read more widely:

Recycling Programs Cost Central Florida Residents

When Central Florida began recycling programs years ago, it sounded like a win-win situation. We were protecting the earth and saving money. But, instead, a Channel 9 investigation discovered recycling is like throwing money away.

No, it isn’t “like” throwing money away, it IS throwing money away.

It’s just about a daily ritual. You throw that plastic drink bottle in the recycle bin and you’ve done your civic duty of recycling. And after everything gets sorted out and shipped off, your city or county gets paid for each ton delivered. That adds up fast, right?

“Our material coming into this plant has probably tripled,” says Debbie Sponsler, Orange Co. Solid Waste.

Last year, Orange County sold its recyclables for $56,000. The problem: it spent roughly $3 million to pick it all up.

Wow! What a wonderful idea! Lose over $2.9 million in a year! Isn’t government efficient?

And we want these people in charge of our healthcare?

“We look at it more as it’s something we’re doing for our residents, and for the county,” says Sponsler. “We don’t do it to make money, we do try to cover our costs.”

Really? And a net expenditure of fifty-two times more than income qualifies as “try(ing) to cover” your costs?

Yes, you are the government, where a budget in that has only a 6% increase rather than a 15% increase is said to have suffered an 8.5% cut.

And that’s where you come in, again. The county adds a fee to your garbage bill to cover those costs, almost $3 million worth.

Surprise! It’s not saving anybody a dime!

In St. Cloud, city leaders were spending $220,000 a year on recycling, but getting back just $19,000.

Hell, they’re models of fiscal responsibility in St. Cloud. That’s only a 10:1 ratio.

“No, [we haven’t made any money off recycling]. It’s always been [a loss]. We’ve always been on the losing side,” says Ray Tobey, Superintendent of Solid Waste.

The curbside pickup program is now shutting down.

But will there be a reduction in the garbage bill?

Didn’t think so.

And, when we checked with several cities in Central Florida, we learned many admitted to either losing money each year or barely breaking even.

So why do they keep doing it? Not for the cash, but to keep landfills from filling up.

But there is real debate about whether we’re running out of space. In fact, one study concludes that all the trash America will generate in the next 1,000 years could fit in an area 100 feet deep and 35 square miles.

And while environmentalists say that’s a lot of land, others say, put it in context of the whole country. And, in fact, some communities are opening up landfills and inviting other places to truck in trash just to make money.

Get into an airplane. Fly at 20,000 feet in a circle of 25 miles radius from the center of any city, look down at the ground, and tell me that there are NO suitable places to put a landfill.

But in the end, regardless of debate, recycling is about doing the right thing, proponents say. After all, almost one-third of what we dump in those bins is now getting re-used, and countless jobs have been created.

Those are big benefits to that ‘save the planet’ plan, as long as you don’t mind picking up the bill.

Right. Jobs created by taxing people and redistributing their wealth through the wonderfully efficient hands of government, to process materials that are cheaper to manufacture new, and would produce jobs if “recycled material” wasn’t MANDATED by the very governments that waste taxpayer money forcing people to recycle.

It’s not the “right” thing to do. It’s environmental do-goodism. That is all.

This Guy Gets It

Rich from Shots Across the Bow has an outstanding post up on “…(W)hy I’ve decided to arm myself after 40 years of going unarmed.” Money quotes:

Because until now, I’ve had very young children in the house, and the risk/reward calculation said it was better to rely on the law of averages than to a gun. Crime is fairly low and I live in a safe area. The chances of something happening where I might need a gun were very low, so the value of having guns around the house was also very low. At the same time, because I had small children in the house, there was also an appreeciable risk of a real tragedy. In my opinion, the reward (increased ability to defend myself and my family), was outweighed by the potential danger (a child getting ahold of a gun). Add to that reasoning the steps needed to make a gun at home safe from a child (unloaded, trigger-locked, and locked away) and the gun would be virtually useless in an emergency situation.

Excellent logic.

Last week, I started a discussion on my personal philosophy. In the process, I started thinking about the implications of some of my basic assumptions, particularly the first one, about maximizing freedom. Freedom carries a price along with it; responsibility. If I want a small, unobtrusive government, then I have to shoulder much of the burden of my own existence. I’m responsible for earning a living, paying my taxes, paying for my medical care, and so on.

I also must shoulder at least some of the responsibility for my own protection.

OUTSTANDING! Given all the pertinent information, he has made the right decision for him!

Read the whole thing.

As if You Needed it: One MORE Reason Not to Live in the UK

Big Brother Britain, 2004

Four million CCTV cameras watch public. UK has the highest level of surveillance

More than four million surveillance cameras monitor our every move, making Britain the most-watched nation in the world, research has revealed.

The number of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras has quadrupled in the past three years, and there is now one for every 14 people in the UK. The increase is happening at twice the predicted rate, and it is believed that Britain accounts for one-fifth of all CCTV cameras worldwide. Estimates suggest that residents of a city such as London can each expect to be captured on CCTV cameras up to 300 times a day, and much of the filming breaches existing data guidelines.

No! Really? You mean the government oversteps its bounds? Whodathunkit?

Civil liberties groups complain that the rules governing the use of the cameras in Britain are the most lax in the world. They say that, in contrast to other countries, members of the public are often unaware they are being filmed, and are usually ignorant of the relevant regulations.

So, you’re saying that the government is overstepping the bounds of regulations that are lax to start with?

They also argue that there is little evidence to support the contention that CCTV cameras lead to a reduction in crime rates.

Don’t expect that to change anything. All the evidence says that the UK’s gun control laws have resulted in absolutely no reduction in crime rates either.

Barry Hugill, a spokesman for the human rights and civil liberties organisation Liberty, said: “This proliferation of cameras is simply astounding. The use of CCTV has just exploded in the last few years, and what is terrifying is that we are alone in the world for not even having a debate about what it means for our privacy.”

Of course there’s no debate, Barry. The government has done a masterful job of turning its subjects into dependent children who rely on that government to provide them everything. They’re not allowed to have opinions, the bastards.

Professor Clive Norris, deputy director of the Centre for Criminological Research in Sheffield, presented the new research at an international conference on CCTV at Sheffield Universityon Saturday.

Professor Norris conducted a study in 2001 which predicted that the number of cameras would double from one million to two million by 2004. But his most recent study concludes that there are now “at least” 4,285,000 cameras in operation – double his earlier prediction.

Statism accelerating a bit fast for you, professor?

There are no official government figures for the number of CCTV systems in Britain, but Professor Norris used a detailed study of surveillance cameras in London to calculate his figure.

The research formed part of a European-wide URBANEYE project on the use of CCTV.

Professor Norris said: “We are the most-watched nation in the world. One of the surprising findings was how much more control there is in other countries, such as America and France, compared to Britain.

Um, that would be “control on the use of CCTV” not “control of the populace.”

“Other countries have been much more wary about CCTV, because of long-held concepts such as freedom of expression and assembly. These seem to be alien concepts in here.”

Actually, they’re still held as RIGHTS here. Sort of. In some places.

Until the Supreme Court decides they’re not anymore.

The use of cameras to film people in the street is banned in Germany, Canada and several other countries. But it is accepted practice in Britain, which is alone in not having a privacy law that protects people against constant surveillance. The Data Protection Act states that the public has to be informed that CCTV systems are in operation, and be told how they can exercise their legal right to see their own footage. But civil rights groups said many councils, shops and businesses were failing to provide this information, and they estimated that up to 70 per of CCTV camera operators were breaking the rules.

Some shopping-centre security guards use the cameras to track “socially undesirable” people, such as groups of teenage boys or rough sleepers, around stores, and then eject them even if they have done nothing wrong.

Or follow around really attractive women for the chance to check out their legs or cleavage.

Professor Norris warned: “The use of these practices represents a shift from formal and legally regulated measures of crime control towards private and unaccountable justice.”

Footage from the cameras has also been passed to newspapers and television companies without people’s permission. Professor Norris said: “CCTV is generally seen as benign rather than as Big Brother-style surveillance.

“We need to have a much wider debate about exactly what CCTV is doing in terms of our privacy and our society.

“It is about much more than crime. It enables people to be tracked and monitored and harassed and socially excluded on the basis that they do not fit into the category of people that a council or shopping centre wants to see in a public space.”

Over the past decade, the Home Office has handed out millions of pounds in grants to police forces and councils to install CCTV systems in the belief it will reduce and prevent crime. But Mr Hugill said: “All that CCTV does is shift the crime to another area for a bit, and then it returns. If you asked most people, they would rather see the Government spending the money on more police officers than on installing cameras, which do not appear to make much difference anyway.”

Oh yeah, that’s money well spent.

It’s like spending millions on a “ballistic database,” or a billion (Canadian) on licensing and registration: It’s pouring money down a rathole in the name of “public safety.”

Orwell just missed by a few decades.

50,000!

I’ll be damned! The Smallest Minority has had its fifty-thousandth hit in only 35 weeks of existence! Thank you, visitor from Home.com, whoever you are.

Once Again, Predictions of Gloom and Doom

Don’t they ever get tired of being wrong?

According to this morning’s Cleveland Morning Journal editorial (bitching about the passage of Ohio’s CCW law):

For once, we hope that gun advocates are right. They’ve been arguing that the result of concealed carry will be a decrease in crime, and that we’ll see no increase in mayhem, intentional or accidental. We’ll all find out soon enough.

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Gun advocates have argued that concealed carry will deter criminals because now the bad guys won’t know who is packing a pistol. Sure. Bad guys now know that anyone might be carrying a gun, so you can expect they’ll be tempted to shoot first and not take chances.

And this has happened….where? Nowhere in any of the states where CCW has passed previously. There’s a marked mental difference between people who rob defenseless people, and people who commit murder in cold blood.

But there was that spike in Florida of attacks against people driving rental cars because they were the only ones who could be counted on not to be armed. That was a real effect of Florida’s CCW law.

I don’t think Ohio has much of a tourist business, though.

Allowing concealed guns on Ohio’s streets is a huge step downward in the quality of life for the people of Ohio.

How, exactly? Please be specific, and use examples from other CCW states.

I’m waiting.

Who Is This Man?

Click on the picture. Link via Ghost Reaper.

A Captial Idea!

Now that Ohio has “shall-issue” concealed carry (with some odious restrictions), there has been some backlash from the Anointed in the media. With his permission, I’m copying verbatim from Ravenwood:

Naming Names

“It is this newspaper’s intention to obtain this information and publish it. Our readers deserve to know the identities of those who obtain permits to carry their guns in public. We hope other news organizations will do the same in their communities.” — Reaction of the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial staff, to Ohio’s passage of legislation permitting the concealed carry of firearms.

“The editors of this newspaper can expect a taste of their own medicine. As soon as they publish permit holders’ names, we’ll publish the names, phone numbers and home addresses of every single person on staff at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Same goes for any other newspaper that singles out gun owners in this way.” — Reaction from the staff of Keep and Bear Arms to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s policy on naming names.

I say, why wait. Lets start at the top. The Editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer is Douglas Clifton. Here is his address and telephone number:

Douglas Clifton

19 Shoreby Dr

Cleveland, OH 44108-1161

Tel.: (216) 761-6577

Here is his bio. For a map to his home, click here.

Shall we spread this around?