Social Insecurity

Don’t misconstrue this as an endorsement of John McCain, but Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech was nothing more than typical political rhetoric. And of course, many people loved it. It was a cornucopia of promises that cannot or should not be kept. There is no way I can talk about everything that made me cringe or laugh out loud, but a statement about Social Security privatization really frustrated me:

How else could he [McCain] offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

Does Barack Obama, a candidate for the highest office in this land, even understand how the Social Security program works? Social Security is essentially nothing more than a pyramid scheme in which participation is mandatory. The government forcibly takes 12.4% (don’t try and tell me that it is only 6.2% by not factoring in the employer portion) of your income (up to a certain threshold) and gives it to those who have already retired. To the extent that inflows from workers exceed outflows to retirees, the excess funds are put into trust and invested in government securities that have low risk but yield jack $hit. The government has managed this program so incredibly poorly that the Social Security program is expected to go broke sometime around 2040. If a private company instituted a scheme like Social Security and tried to sell it to the public, the SEC would lock up every executive that had anything to do with putting the scheme in place for life.

Yet Obama, the self proclaimed candidate for “hope” and “change” has the, uh, audacity to suggest that allowing workers the freedom to invest for their retirement themselves without government coercion is “gambling”. It scares me that our next President will be Obama or McCain. Thank you sir, may I have another?

Bin there, done that

I have blogged about this before, but now it's official. Howard County residents are going to receive $3 million worth of recycling bins from the county government.

These bins are not free, of course, because our tax dollars have paid for them. Ken Ulman, desperate to promote his image as being the "green lantern", made the decision that Howard County residents are unable to purchase their own recycling bins without his assistance.

According to the Sun article, when one test neighborhood in Elkridge received the bins last year recycling was reported to have increased 25%, although no mention has been made as to how long that increase sustained itself once the novelty of the fancy new recycling bins wore off. My guess is that we will never know, because Ulman has his misleading statistic that allows his supporters to make the hasty determination that Ulman is saving the planet.

It is easy to spend someone else's money.

Right turn, Clyde

I feel sorry for the mother in this article who lost her son to a traffic accident when he was hit by an elderly driver in an SUV. The driver of the SUV was traveling on Rt. 29 and suddenly swerved in an attempt to access the left exit for I-70W. In doing so, the driver of the motorcycle was killed. I can't even imagine what pain and suffering the mother must be going through.

As a result of this accident, the mother is now lobbying to have the left exit to I-70W from Rt. 29 closed. With all due respect to the mother, I hope she is unsuccessful in closing the left exit. I like the left exit to 70 from 29. I much prefer it to the traditional right exit, primarily because it is a more direct route is generally faster than taking the right hand exit (depending on traffic in the oncoming lane of Rt. 29, of course.) It is basically the mirror image of making a right turn on red. Furthermore, the cause of the accident was erratic driving from the 79 year old driver of the SUV, there was no inherent design problem with the left exit itself.

Since the addition of the left ramp in 2001, Buck said, there have been 10 non-fatal crashes at the site. The July 19 collision, he added, was the first fatality.

The crash data at the site does not indicate that it's a particularly dangerous intersection, Buck said.

"Strictly from an engineering perspective, there's nothing in any way, shape or form that would indicate that anything would need to be done there," he said. "Clearly, you don't ever want something like this (the fatal accident) to happen."

Llewellyn concurred that Howard police statistics "do not show an ongoing pattern of collisions" at the intersection, although further analysis is planned, she said.

This analysis squares up to my experience using the left exit as well, which I have found to be safe and convenient. Keep it open!

Demotivator of the Day

I love these things. More here.

Body Worlds

I went to the Maryland Science Center today to see the Body Worlds exhibit. I have been wanting to check this out all summer, but the stars didn't line up until today. All of the people who donated their bodies for this exhibit did so voluntarily in the name of science. The exhibit itself was pretty cool, but the plastination process made the bodies look surprisingly fake.

Some of the poses were a little bit too artsy for me. This is was supposed to be a scientific exhibit, not an art museum or a freak show. But all in all, it was done pretty tastefully.

There was some really wild stuff there. Some of the most interesting for me was:

- lungs from smokers and coal miners
- a man cut into several cross sections lengthwise
- a man cut into about a thousand pieces hanging in an 'exploded view'
- a pregnant woman
- a mechanical valve in a heart
- a fetus in a jar

September 1st is the last day, so if you have not seen it yet and you want to, you need to hustle. If you miss the exhibit, you can always get the book, which is probably more educational anyway.

What would Gail do?

I think that slots in Maryland should be legal and run by private corporations. I would rather not see the government involved in slots, other than through taxation. But this post is not really about the pros and cons of slots. After reading this article in the Baltimore Sun, I am absolutely beside myself over a comment attributed to Delegate Gail Bates:

Bobo, like Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot, is opposed to the concept of gambling as a way to provide state revenue. Bates opposes gambling for religious reasons [emphasis mine]. Kittleman said he favors slots as a revenue raiser but strongly objects to listing specific locations - the measure spells out Baltimore City and Allegany, Anne Arundel, Cecil and Worcester counties - in the language of the referendum question.

This is unbelievable. I have known for years that Bates wants to legislate the bible upon us all, but even I am shocked at this blatant admission of her intentions.

I am not trying to get into a debate about where our morals come from. We can all agree that murder is wrong with or without religion, but some things are perceived to be wrong only because it says so in some spirit book (like gambling, homosexuality, etc.). I think that it's wildly inappropriate for our elected officials to be basing their positions on legislation solely on what the bible says.

In my mind, it is far from clear that gambling is morally wrong. Gambling does not harm anyone but the person who loses their money. I would err on the side of letting people do what makes them happy as long as they don't harm others in doing so.

What would you, dear reader, think of me if I said that the reason I support legalizing slots with little or no regulation is because I had a dream that Smurfs will come and kill us all unless slots are legalized. Gail Bates' reason for denying slots is just as ridiculous.

But what do you expect from Gail Bates? This is par for the course.

Shackin' Up

This editorial from the Baltimore Sun is ridiculous. The editorial board at the Sun is wringing their hands over the "loophole" that the Pack Shack, an Ellicott City porn shop, used to skirt zoning laws that our fearless leaders in Howard County Government passed to specifically target the Pack Shack. A loophole, of course, is something that is perfectly legal but appears to violate the intent of the law. Every law ever made is subject to loopholes and unintended consequences, which is why it is very dangerous that our politicians pass laws with such reckless abandonment.

Anyway, the loophole in this case is that the Pack Shack was able to dilute their inventory with non-porn items that they store in the basement. Good for them.

The Pack Shack would be out of business tomorrow if no one shopped there. But people do shop there. And those who do not want to shop there are not compelled to go inside. It is highly self-righteous of the Baltimore Sun to wax on about how the Pack Shack is an "embarrassment" to Ellicott City. This is America- live and let live for crying out loud. And for God's sake, mind your own business.

This Way to the Egress!

I happened upon two Youtube videos posted by the Concerned Citizens of Western Howard County. This group is outspoken against a proposed car dealership that is to be located at the corner of Daisy Road and Union Chapel Road. The group believes that the roads near the proposed dealership will not handle the large trucks that will deliver the cars.

One of the videos shows a tractor trailer traveling from Rt. 97 to the proposed site, and the other video shows the tractor trailer going from the site back to Rt. 97. In other words, there is an ingress and an egress video. I posted the video going from the site to Rt. 97 below, mostly because I like the word "egress" thanks to P.T. Barnum. The ingress video can be found here. The testing appears to have been done on March 3, 2008.

I don't think that these videos show a threat to public safety. The video points out that there is "limited sight distance" at one point (which is true to both cars and large trucks) and it points out that the truck gets close to a guardrail on a bridge. I don't think that these concerns are legitimate. The most damning thing is when the truck encroaches upon the other lane when negotiating turns, but again I don't think that this is a treat to public safety unless someone in the oncoming lane is not paying any amount of attention at all. Furthermore, if there are bicyclists on the road, even small cars would have to encroach on the oncoming lane. Are the Concerned Citizens for Western Howard County against bicyclists on Union Chapel Road also?

I think the question is this: does this video show evidence that trucks should be banned from Union Chapel Road? I don't think that it does, and that is the only reason why county leaders should use the public safety argument to block the car dealership. Otherwise, they appear to be pandering to a NIMBY group under the guise of public safety.

I am not sure why there is no video of trucks going from Rt. 144 down Daisy Road to the site, but maybe there is a reason for that.

Drinking Age

I think that it makes a lot of sense to lower the drinking age to 18, as some university presidents suggest.

I have a hard time believing that an 18 year old is mature enough to drive, mature enough to decide someone's fate on a jury, mature enough to put a steel pot on their head and a rifle in their hand and go to war, but is not mature enough to drink alcohol for three more years. The inconsistency of that baffles me.

Many states did have a drinking age at 18, but under coercion from the feds, they raised the age to 21:

Each state has the authority to set its own drinking age, but in 1984 Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which says that states with a drinking age lower than 21 will lose 10 percent of their federal highway money. After that law passed, all 50 states raised their drinking age to 21.

Of course, such a move is not without it's controversy. However, I don't think I would take it as a given that drunk driving accidents would increase, as some are suggesting. The argument that the University Presidents are pushing forth make much more sense to me. This proposed change is an effort to allow drinking on campuses, thus decreasing the likelihood of forcing college students and others under 21 to get in their cars to go drinking off campus or away from home.

This Ain't Funny...

...because it is so close to reality. A British video that relates to school choice. Tally-ho!

Hate rears its head in Ho Co

Nazis are my least favorite people. Not only do they hate free markets, they generally hate everyone different from themselves. Not a very “live and let live” bunch. I have relatives who fought the Nazis in WWII, one of whom was killed in Italy.

I strongly believe, however, that everyone has the right to free speech. In fact, with many hate groups, the best attack is to let them run their mouths. At no time during their rambling do they approach a coherent thought, and they bring about their own undoing. With that in mind, I want to post below some hate filled comments that were left on this article on Explore Howard. The comments were left over the weekend, no doubt before the IT people could get in the office on Monday and remove them. I am sure the editor of Explore Howard was defecating bricks the size of the Epcot Center in the meantime:

user werwulfss says...

SIEG HEIL! How can I join?

Posted 12:48 PM, 08.16.08

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user werwulfss says...

Funny how one jew (Ms. Sigel) is horrified and that supposedly makes all the resident horrified! She's been in Elkridge for 22 years, before that it was a small country town not filled with criminals and non-whites. Diversity might be good for the jewess, but maybe the way Elkridge has changed for the worse has made longtime white residents of Elkridge disgusted! And how come when you see road construction like last week in Elkridge on Montgomery Road, 90% of the workers are Hispanic??? Whites lose their jobs to cheap illegal immigrant labor. WAKE UP WHITE MAN AND FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS!

Posted 3:53 PM, 08.17.08

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user werwulfss says...

How come when anything pro-white is distributed, it is labeled as "hate" literature? Is it because only whites can committ "hate crimes"? And if anyone takes 5 minutes to research the slave trade to America, you will find out that Dutch Jews from the Netherlands and Dutch West Indies were responsible for the majority of the slaves being brought to America. And also, take 5 minutes and research the so-called "Holocaust" and you will find out that it is really a Holohoax!

Posted 6:27 PM, 08.17.08

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What is amazing about the comments is how illogical and even historically inaccurate they are (the holocaust was a hoax? C’mon.). And I hate to break it this fellow, but early American history as it reflects on the white race is nothing to write home to mom about. We white folks killed about ten million Native Americans.

More to the points of the comments, even if it were the case every single slave was brought to America by a Jewish person, we cannot infer one thing about Jewish people as a whole from that. If we could, then we could draw a similar conclusion about the white buyers of those slaves as well. I could go on and on, but I think the comments speak for themselves.

Though I walk through the valley

If you have ever wondered what happened to Kirk Cameron, the teen star of the 1980's sitcom "Growing Pains", this is what he is doing now. He and an associate are enthusiastic advocates for an overzealous brand of Christianity, and they have their own religious program called “The Way of the Master”.

I am a militant atheist, but I find Cameron’s program extremely entertaining and I watch it just for fun. I get a real kick out of the bold claims made on the program, and the lame and logically fallacious arguments that are offered in support of those bold claims. I don't mean for that to sound too harsh, I respect Cameron's beliefs, as he and others should respect my right to challenge those beliefs.

There are two major claims that are made on the show which I want to briefly address. All the wording is mine, but I have tried to summarize their arguments as fairly as I could:

Claim 1: God exists. We know this because creation exists. If you see a painting, the existence of the painting is proof of the existence of a painter. The same logic applies to the existence of creation and the existence of God.

This argument shoots itself in the foot. I presume that anyone who buys into the above painting analogy would assert that God created the painter. So, who created God? Obviously, this argument sets up an infinite regress and relies on God to terminate it. I’ll put my money on the Big Bang over God as the end point of the regress, thanks.

Claim 2: No one has enough knowledge to be an atheist. Most people who claim to be atheists are really agnostics because no one can disprove the existence of God. It takes more faith to be an atheist than to believe in God.

This argument is an intellectually corrupt word game. You cannot logically disprove a negative; this is why the person making the positive claim has the burden of proof in our justice system. I cannot disprove that invisible gremlins follow me around like the Verizon network everywhere I go, but it is ridiculous to pretend that the possibility that such gremlins exist is on equal footing with the non-existence of said gremlins. It does not make sense to say that you are agnostic about the existence of Smurfs, Santa Claus, Zeus, H.R. Pufinstuf, the tooth fairy or any number of other man-made creations of the imagination. We know that that likelihood of any of those things existing is impossibly small. To suggest that we are relying on faith to dismiss the existence of the tooth fairy, for example, is ridiculous.

Somewhere I read something that can be paraphrased as follows: with respect to most Gods that mankind has created, we are all atheists. Some of us just take it one God further.

Amen to that. Here is required reading on this general topic.

Local Shame

Oakland Mills Middle School missed their mandated targets on reading and math tests for the third year in a row. Given that this is the third year that such a failure was allowed to happen by our public school system, it would stand to reason that some of the students are falling pretty far behind.

What is telling is that one particular group of students, those who receive reduced price lunches, were the ones who missed the mark this year. The same group missed the mark last year, in addition to students in special education as well as black students. In 2006, it was the special education kids that missed the mark.

This is because some students learn differently than others. Maybe that is because of the socioeconomic background of the particular students, maybe it is genetics, and maybe there are hundreds of other variables that affect student achievement. Whatever the reason, it is an argument against the one size fits all approach of our current public education system. It is foolish to pretend that a single school can effectively meet the needs of everyone who attends that school. In all fairness, there is a wide range of students for which public schools are adequate. However, the high achievers and the low achievers can do better in schools more suited to their needs.

I hate to keep beating the school voucher drum, but I don’t think that our public schools are doing so fantastic that competition with private schools would not be beneficial. I had a brief conversation with a school board candidate recently. I asked about the candidate’s stance on school vouchers. The candidate looked at me as if I had six heads and promptly told me that he or she did not support vouchers. I explained that vouchers would give parents more options in selecting the school that their child attends, and I asked the candidate to explain WHY he or she did not support vouchers. This candidate for the school board was completely dumbfounded by the question.

I have heard a lot of complaining lately about how Comcast sucks because they are a monopoly. Meanwhile, the public education monopoly is failing some students but no one says one word about it.

A new blog

Most people would say that I am one of the most hostile local bloggers, so it warms my heart shaped box to see this new blog. The title of the blog, "Embrace Hostility in Howard County", mocks the choose civility campaign that we are so familiar with in Howard County. The blog is very witty and entertaining. And the best part is that it has its own online store!

An Affair to Forget

I am undecided in who I want to vote for in the Presidential election, and I may not vote at all. I find both McCain and Obama to be equally unappealing candidates. Therefore, it is no surprise that I have no interest in John Edwards, either. Despite this, I think the public is making too big a deal about the Edwards affair. At the end of the day, the affair is a personal matter between Edwards, his wife and “the other woman”.

I think that Americans hold political figures to moral standards that are irrelevant. The fact that Edwards had an affair in no way affects his job potential job performance as a political leader. Think about it this way: if you selected a heart surgeon who you thought was the best in the business to operate on a loved one, would you be concerned if you found out on the eve of the surgery that the surgeon had an extra-marital affair? I don’t see what relevance such a discovery could possibly have. I am not suggesting that John Edwards would be a good leader, I am just suggesting that those who supported him before the affair should logically still support him now.

My point is that we should be selecting a president who has strength, not a President that lacks weakness. These are not the same thing.

During the Civil War, most of the Generals that Lincoln selected to lead the Union Army early on were the types of people that had few weaknesses, but they also had few strengths. Contrast this with the Generals on the Confederate side, who had more than their share of personal flaws but they were great strategists and leaders in battle. General Grant was the first Union general that was worth his salt. Lincoln’s advisors often pointed out that Grant had a drinking problem. Lincoln’s response was rumored to have been something along the lines of “If I knew his brand of whiskey, I would send some bottles to my other generals.” Even though that response was sarcastic, it shows a lot of wisdom on Lincoln’s part.

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you

I recently blogged about a PG County SWAT team that burst into the home of the Berwyn Heights mayor and shot his two dogs because a package of marijuana was delivered to his home. We find out in this Sun article how the package came to be delivered in the first place, and the mayor and his family had no knowledge whatsoever of its contents:

Police officials in Arizona first intercepted the package when a drug-sniffing dog alerted them to the presence of marijuana. It was addressed to Tomsic [the mayor's wife]. An undercover officer in Prince George's delivered the package near 6 p.m. and was told by Calvo's mother-in-law to leave it on the porch, according to Calvo's attorney, Timothy Maloney.

Prince George's County police arrested two men involved in a scheme to transport marijuana. Once packages were dropped off by a deliveryman, a suspect would pick them up -- with the addressee oblivious to the plot. Police seized a half-dozen packages that contained about 417 pounds of marijuana, including the 32 pounds delivered to Tomsic, the Associated Press reported.

I find this story very disturbing for two reasons:

1. it shows how mindlessly stupid drug laws are and

2. it reminds us of the unpleasant fact that law enforcement officers have a tremendous amount of power which they sometimes abuse.

This atrocity is one of the many non-financial costs of making drugs illegal. And what good has come from the ban on drugs, really? The war on drugs has created a very lucrative business for the most dangerous and unethical people in society. I remember watching an anti-drug commercial a few years ago that said something like "if you use marijuana, then you are supporting Al Qaeda", the reason being that Al Qaeda profits from the drug trade. However, Al Quada profits from the drug trade precisely because drugs are illegal!!! We could fix that tomorrow by legalizing drugs, and farmers would have at least one new agricultural crop to grow. We know how much the government loves to support agriculture. And who are drug users hurting? No one, except maybe themselves. We seem to have no problem allowing people to harm themselves with alcohol, and drugs are not fundamentally different.

The mayor echoed an anonymous commenter on my last post about this by reminding us that this was not the first time the PG police have used excessive force on family pets for absolutely no reason:

Calvo said he wants federal officials to examine policies that he said have led Prince George's police officials to serve warrants on wrong addresses and kill family pets before.

In once such case, Prince George's sheriff's deputies executed a warrant on the home of Frank and Pamela Myers of Accokeek in November. The Myers told sheriffs that they had the wrong address as their dog began barking from the yard. The couple asked if they could retrieve their dog, but deputies refused. Minutes later, two shots were fired and the dog was killed, according to a notice of a tort claims filed by attorney Michael J. Winkelman. The Myers were never charged and nothing was seized from their house.

"This has happened before, and without oversight, it will happen again," Calvo said.

Martha Stewart at the Stockyard

The Baltimore Sun had an article about what youth learn from showing animals at the Fair. The gist:

"The whole goal is to teach [youths] life skills they can use now and as adults," Burdette said. Those skills include responsibility, decision making, learning new things, communication and creative thinking, she said.

What life skill does painting a cow's hooves prior to the livestock show teach?

It teaches the very important Fred Astaire cow dance!

Tip, tip, wag

Alright heros, I am going to rock it out Steven Colbert style again today with two tips of my hat and a wag of my finger:

First I tip my hat to Greg Fox who I saw Sunday afternoon at the Fair in the dunking booth. He was humiliating himself to earn money for the West Friendship Volunteer Fire Department. I saw several other politicians at the Fair that day, including Ken Ulman, Warren Miller, Gail Bates and Alan Kittleman. However, Greg Fox is the only person who I saw doing anything other than shamelessly promoting himself, so he gets a tip of the hat. Although, he could have earned some extra credit if he only had a tattoo on his back of a marijuana leaf with the caption “Legalize it” underneath. I tip my hat anyway.

I also tip my hat to Ken Ulman, who yanked some county owned cars from certain county employees, in an effort to save taxpayers $700,000. That is a whole lot of money. I think that Ulman generally spends entirely too much money, but in this case he cut a type of spending in which tax payers were clearly getting little or no benefit.

Finally, I wag my finger at Jim Robey for allowing so many employees to have take home automobiles which cost tax payers $700,000 per year. Not only that, but in some cases commuter miles exceeded legitimate business miles. The fact that there were no safeguards in place to detect or prevent this kind of misuse speaks very poorly to Robey’s leadership ability. What’s worse is that many county employees who lost their automobile for personal use are probably irritated at Ken Ulman for taking the cars away. In a very real way this is a pay cut for many county employees, and Ken Ulman is left looking like a jerk while Jim Robey is high and dry. Term limits made Mr. Robey ineligible to continue wasting our money at the county level, so he is now wasting our money at the state level. Wag, wag wag.