You Can’t (Must) Do That!

Monday, February 6, 2012 by Dick.

1. Whitehouse.gov has a petition to the Obama administration to “require automakers to replace the nearly useless Check Engine Light with a display that actually explains what’s wrong.” The petitioner says “we need a federal mandate…”

Say what?

“Yeah, like that’s what we want governance to do,” my friend Liz Arden said. “We really want the Administration to replace its mission for social engineering with even more automotive engineering.”

2a. Meanwhile, in the real world, America’s poor use food “stamps” to buy staples like milk, vegetables, fruits and meat. Technology update. The coupon book has morphed into a debit card. A Florida state senator wants to stop them from using the food stamp cards to buy sweets like cakes, cookies, and Jell-O™ and snack foods like chips. She also wants to limit other welfare funds, known as Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, from being used at ATMs in casinos and strip clubs and anywhere out of state.

Ya think?

“That’s something of which I would approve,” Ms. Arden told me. If our government insists on “spending our tax money helping out the poor, then social engineering in this respect is appropriate. My tax dollars are not a gift to be used by the recipient as they please — they are an investment in this country’s good. ”

The Florida bill recently passed committee. Liberal critics say the government shouldn’t dictate what people eat.

“Gummint isn’t,” Ms. Arden said. “They may use any of their own earned dollars to eat snack foods and go to strip clubs.”

But, but, they are poor. That pretty much means they don’t have their own money, yes?

“Then work hard to get off the public teat so you can afford to have Twinkies™ and Ho Hos™.”

I’m not sure I’d even call it “social engineering.” I’d simply call it a grant requirement. Or a contract. Or the law.

Grant recipients have to jump through specific hoops for their funds (a college lab can’t spend the money it gets to research norovirus on, say, staff mammograms even if that’s a good thing to do). And, just as an aside, the letter carrier who delivered the welfare check or food stamp card in the mail passed a criminal-history check, a physical examination, and a drug test.

2b. On the other hand, the ACLU here in Florida brought a class action suit last year to stop drug-testing welfare recipients. That’s probably social engineering because I’m thinking very few street dealers have the required credit card machines. That makes it hard to use food “stamps” for crack or meth.

3. At the other end of the spectrum, Liz Arden does think the Federal gummint should get out of the marriage business altogether. “It’s a contract and Congress is trying to social engineer it,” she says. “Let the churches or the Towns or even just the individuals download a form or call a lawyer and just do it.”

That’s a good Libertarian response to a Congress that is either hellbent on destroying marriage or saving it. Or both. Or not doing anything at all.

Congress is nothing if not schizophrenic.

Except contracts don’t bind parties outside the contract to their terms so a private marriage contract can’t by itself change HIPAA, can’t override probate laws, can’t affect the tax code, and can’t protect child brides, people of unsound mind, or close relatives (you cannot, for example marry a parent, grandparent, sister, brother, child, grandchild, niece, nephew, aunt or uncle in Vermont). United States federal law is supposed to assure that a marriage licensed in one state is recognized in all the others, a pretty important fiat. And the Supreme Court overturned state marriage laws that barred interracial marriages on the basis that marriage is a “basic civil right…” Not a likely outcome for a private contract.

Government must not/must mandate Idiot Lights.
Government must/must not mandate food stamp junque food.
Government must/must not mandate welfare drug tests.
Government must not/must mandate marriage.

The Check Engine or Service Engine Soon lights aren’t necessary to the well-being of American society. Period.

The junk food and drug test orders do improve the well-being of American society. Worth running through the legislature.

Marital contracts deserve the same crafting latitude as any other legal contract but the basic tenets of civil rights, inheritance, safety, and taxation are national concerns. Creating a legal umbrella that assures that both the redneck and the Brahmin recognize the contract does improve the well-being of American society.

Posted in Sociology, Society, Politics & News, Random Access | 5 Comments »

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by Dick.

Posted in Wordless, Throw Da Bums Out, Politics & News | 3 Comments »

Tuesday Twaddle: The State of the Union Sucks

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 by Dick.

And it has at least since Lincoln freed no slaves.

The Emancipation Proclamation proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states then in rebellion. While it apparently freed 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at the time, those ten states had seceded and recognized neither U.S. law nor fiat. Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not outlaw slavery, and did not make the ex-slaves citizens.

Now federal regulators have outlawed any and all import of the reptilian plague of pythons in our swimming pools and swamps.

The import ban restricts only the Burmese python, two African pythons, and the yellow anaconda. The Obamanation called it “a victory for Florida’s native environment.” Those of us actually in Florida know it, too, freed no slaves and captured no pythons. See, these snakes are captive-bred in the U.S. so that import ban had the same effect on snakes Mr. Lincoln’s on slaves.

It took the Army of the Republic to free the slaves but slavery did finally become illegal everywhere in the U.S. in 1865 thanks to the Thirteenth Amendment. We probably won’t amend the U.S. Constitution to get rid of snakes. Or send in the army.

Of course, there are snakes and then there are snakes.

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Mr. Obama will report on the State of the Union this evening. He is expected say that unemployment is dropping but that we need to bring manufacturing jobs home from overseas, more home-mortgage market support, incentives for alternative energy development, more government, and higher taxes.

Posted in Throw Da Bums Out, Extras!, Politics & News, Random Access | 3 Comments »

Cockroaches Can Save Us Money!

Monday, January 23, 2012 by Dick.

Even as Repuglicans have abandoned the state of palmetto trees for the state of palmetto bugs, we must ponder the age old question of giant carnivorous insects, why do cockroaches fly?

Our Keys cockroaches rarely fly; they train the smaller shore birds to bring them food.

We spray the land and the air which explains a lot about our personalities. We used to have a fleet of DC-3s but those as well as the bat tower on Sugarloaf Key have been mostly abandoned. Now, the Mosquito Air Force has an $7.4 million hardened hangar at Marathon-Florida Keys Airport that allows them to fly any helicopter in rather than towing it. They built the hangar to save us money! All those ‘cides haven’t touched the “palmetto bugs,” though.

Are flying cockroaches smarter than people?

RED CROSS FINED OVER BLOOD SAFETY
Health care issue. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration fined the American Red Cross $9.59 million because 16 of its facilities failed to comply with blood-safety rules. More than 15 months ago. The FDA found “significant violations” in 2010 including inadequate “managerial control,” record-keeping, and quality assurance but there were no serious health consequences for blood recipients.

The fine will save us money. Won’t it?

KEYS RESIDENTS URGED TO VOTE
School tax issue. Monroe County Schools have been recently built and renovated, yet over $9 million remains in the capital improvements budget, that is currently needed for operational expenses, in the everyday classroom.

If voters approve the measure, 0.5 mill of the capital ad valorem tax will be moved to the operating budget to pay for teacher salaries, classroom supplies, and school athletic programs. Some $9 million is up for grabs. .

“Failure to pass this measure means that existing taxes will be frozen in capital accounts, and not available to pay the daily costs of running our schools,” past Superintendent John R. Padget wrote.

The Monroe County Democratic Executive Committee “urges all Democrats — and all voters — to support passage of this referendum.”

Sure. It will save us money. Won’t it?

Our elected reps want to move millions of taxpayer dollars around in an effort to save us money.

Let’s see. If we take money from the Red Cross at their offices over here, that means they have to charge more for blood at the hospital over there. Oooh, bonus. Health care costs go UP.

Maybe we should take money from the building fund so our general tax rates go down a hapenny. Oooh, bonus. When the roof blows off the (newish) building, we can write BONDS to pay for that.

Perhaps we could take money from the Social Security Trust Fund so our general tax rates go down. Oooh, bonus. Our grandchildren have to buy 401Ks.

Oh, wait. We already did that.

I learned at least half a century ago that when the used car salesman offers to “save you money,” hold onto your wallet ’cause you’re going for a ride.

Are flying cockroaches smarter than people?

Could be. Their Social Security seems sound since there are still more shorebirds than bugs and they haven’t even once tried to convince their prey to like being eaten.

Posted in Taxed Again, Local Issues, What? Are They Nuts?, Throw Da Bums Out, Politics & News, Stupidity, Random Access | 2 Comments »

BLACKOUT

Thursday, January 19, 2012 by Dick.

Some Internet sites were down yesterday. January 18 was “the Day the Web Went on Strike.”

“What? You were gone?”

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

The widespread, grassroots action protested Congress’ plans for the onerous Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Those bills will establish a system to take down any website the Justice Department decides infringes on someone’s copyright. SOPA will allow the DoJ to demand that all search engines, all social networking sites, and all domain name services block access to any site they target. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a penalty of up to five years in prison.

Yesterday’s showdown occurred because SOPA completely eliminates due process from those site takedown orders all in the name of stopping “offshore piracy websites” from ruining our movie and record industry.

“This may pinch a little.”

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales called yesterday’s extraordinary strike a necessary action because, “We simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world.”

Some sites seized under earlier rules have been down for more a year with neither explanation nor recourse.

Imagine if federal agents had raided the St. Albans Messenger building in St. Albans on Thanksgiving Day of 2010, seized Publisher Emerson Lynn’s printing presses, printed a special edition with a banner headline that New England’s oldest afternoon daily newspaper was a vast criminal enterprise, and locked the doors. Now imagine that every Messenger employee was out of work for a year. That you could not read my column every Thursday. That the seizure was done under seal so Mr. Lynn never even knew what the charges were.

Now imagine that federal agents abruptly took the locks off the doors a year later, on Thanksgiving Day, 2011. “Oops. Never mind,” they said.

Couldn’t happen? ICE abruptly seized the dajaz1.com website under seal in a widespread Thanksgiving weekend action in 2010. They returned that site with no explanation a year later. Site owner and hip-hop fan “Splash” of Queens, NY, lost his livelihood for a year. They hadn’t yet even dreamed of SOPA by then.

And you thought Oops was a word only political candidates used.

Major sites that went black in yesterday’s strike included the English version of Wikipedia, plus reddit, Boing Boing, and AllArts.org. Major sites that remained active included all .GOV resources.

Wikipedia blacked out its results for 24 hours. Other organizations opposing SOPA include the American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, Bloomberg, Brookings Institution, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Consumers Union, Creative Commons, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, Go Daddy, Google, Human Rights Watch, Twitter, Writers Guild of America, Yahoo, and Zynga.

“There are effective ways to combat foreign ‘rogue’ websites dedicated to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting,” Google notes. Instead, the US Congress chooses to go with TSA-style bullying. Good to see that the tried-and-true Joe McCarthy approach never goes out of style inside the Beltway.

Copyright infringement hurts everyone. Although musicians with major label contracts receive only pennies in sales from music sales, Vermont artists such as Carol Ann Jones, Will Patton, and Nobby Reed who produce their own albums lose real money with every song you rip from youtube.

No one on the list thinks theft is a good idea, whether it is a kid stuffing a CD down his pants at the Flying Disc in Enosburg or an organized ring selling pirated copies of a bestseller. Everyone on the list thinks government actions like SOPA are a fate worse than theft.

I could get behind the Stop Our Politicians Act but the way this turkey is written, it’s NO SOAP.

Resources for Further Reading Business News Daily Dajaz1 Seizure Google’s Protest Grammy winning American singer/songwriter Janis Ian’s Alternative View to the Internet Debacle from 2002 LA Times blackout preview Open Congress Wikipedia’s SOPA Initiative

UPDATE JANUARY 19, 2012

The news reports that the bills are dead for now. Harry Reid won’t bring PIPA to a vote in the Senate and Congress Critters are running for cover despite Christopher Dodd (the “Rubble” half of Barny Rubble)’s presence on all the newscasts.

It’s not over, though.

SOPA is gonna come back as APOS.

UPDATE JANUARY 21, 2012

And it has. Only the initials have changed.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, is called a “plurilateral” trade agreement under negotiation by the US, Canada, Japan, European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand. It is the backdoor to SOPA except it is a world governance act and it is one that Mr. Obama has said he would approve by executive order.

Whitehouse.gov has a petition to send ACTA to the Senate for ratification instead plus an end ACTA altogether petition. You must register with the .GOV to sign either petition. The second had 40,999 signatures when I signed it (I was number 41,000). The first, a backstop if the Administration ignores us for the second, still needs a lot of signatures.

Posted in History, Throw Da Bums Out, Politics & News, Random Access | 5 Comments »

NO SOAP

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 by Dick.

Or at least NO SOPA.

The No Puffin Perspective™ is joining hundreds of sites around the world to ‘Go (Semi) Black’ for one day to protest Congress’ plans for the onerous Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Please eschew our links today but stop back tomorrow for more shines and whines about the news and your friends here in Puffin Central.

Posted in Throw Da Bums Out, Politics & News, Random Access | Comments Off