Cops Kill Mayor's Dogs

This makes me want to yak:

A police SWAT team raided the home of the mayor in the Prince George's County town of Berwyn Heights on Tuesday, shooting and killing his two dogs, after he brought in a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been delivered to his doorstep, police said.

Yes, the house of the mayor. It gets worse:

The package was addressed to Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic, said law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

Tippett said police are working to determine for whom the drugs were meant.

Calvo said yesterday that he did not know how the drugs wound up on his doorstep. He works part time as the mayor and serves as director of expansion for the SEED Foundation, a well-known national nonprofit group that runs urban public boarding schools.

"My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs," Calvo said. "They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don't think they really ever considered that we weren't."

Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he -- wearing only underwear and socks -- and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs' carcasses and pools of the dogs' blood, Calvo said.

Spokesmen for the Sheriff's Office and Prince George's police expressed regret yesterday that the mayor's dogs were killed. But they defended the way the raid was carried out, saying it was proper for a case involving such a large amount of drugs.

Does anyone seriously think that the war on drugs is worth it? The dogs were Black Labs.

Me, the stock picker

Me on November 14, 2007:

WCI’s stock closed yesterday at $4.54 a share. I’d say it’s time to buy*. We’ll see if I have a future in mutual fund management.

Alas, no. In my defense, they still might pull a rabbit from a hat. But things are certainly not looking good.

I predict my demise and rant against the Fair in 3..2..1

Being an animal lover, I am not the biggest fan of the Fair. Most of the animals there are going to be eaten. Plus, the damn swing ride that my wife makes me go on terrifies me. I just know one of these years that I will be flung from the swing into the path of an oncoming tractor trailer on I-70.

But the thing dislike the most about the Fair is how it paints a completely misleading picture of agriculture. Meat does not come from cows, chickens and pigs that spend their days wagging their tails while eating grass in a field. The overwhelming majority of the meat that is consumed in this county and in this country comes from factory farms. The 4-H kids who spend their summers with these animals never get the opportunity to see a factory farm, nor do they get to see the slaughterhouse where their animal is killed. This is dishonest. I love this quote from the President of the Fair Board:

"The main purpose of our organization is to promote agriculture," Day said. "We want to give the youth of today a chance to experience agriculture as it was years ago."

In other words, show the kids a picture of how agriculture was years ago, before factory farms. That way these kids will be mindless consumers of the neatly wrapped packages of meat, which in their minds will have no connection to where the meat actually comes from. Indoctrination complete!

Home on the range

Continuing on the foreclosure theme of and a comment in the previous post, there is a relevant article in the Sun today. It is about a single mom in Columbia who purchased a $545,000 home for her and her three children (I assume all the kids live with her). She’s not a doctor or an attorney; she is a day care operator. Surprise, surprise, she is now facing foreclosure.

The most shocking part of the article, in my opinion, is the blurb beneath the photo. The woman accuses her mortgage broker of inflating her income and asset value to qualify her for a mortgage that she couldn’t afford. I do not doubt that the broker did this, and this is fraud. However, the woman is obviously not a completely innocent victim of the mortgage broker, because she let the broker commit this fraud. She is as guilty as fraud as the mortgage broker, but in the end she defrauded herself in addition to the mortgage lender. And she signed on the dotted line that she could make the payments.

Our politicians are wasting no time “fixing” the "problem" of reaping what you sew:

A sweeping federal foreclosure bill approved last week is expected to help 400,000 homeowners nationwide refinance lower-cost mortgages with $300 billion in loans guaranteed by the government.

The measure also increases lending to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two mortgage companies that deal with nearly half of the nation's mortgages.

Other measures include $15 billion in tax breaks, which include a provision giving first-time homebuyers interest-free loans of up to $7,500, the creation of an affordable rental housing fund, and funds for additional housing counseling and for buying and rehabilitating homes that have been foreclosed upon.

To his credit, Ken Ulman had the best response to this of any politician I have seen. Just do some posturing.

Extreme foreclosure: Home editon

This is just unfortunate. A recipient of a free home from the "Extreme Makeover" show mortgaged the crap out of it and is facing possible foreclosure. This family also received $250,000 for college scholarships for their three children and a home maintenance repair fund in the deal. I wonder if that money was put into trust, or if they spent that away too? My bet is on the latter.

Quotes of the day...

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." ~ Mark Twain

Or, another favorite of mine:

"If you got something that you didn't work for, someone else worked for something that they didn't get." ~ Someone's father

Both quotes shamelessly stolen from here.

A Wag of my Finger

I know that Steven Colbert is a comedian and not a serious commentator/news figure, but there is one thing he does that really irritates me. If you have never seen the show, his thing is to pretend to be a conservative republican in an attempt to be funny. Most of the time he is successful, of course it is not hard to be a political comedian when George Bush is president. That's all well and good.

However, when he speaks of health care in this country, he refers to our "free market" system of health care. I don't often watch the show, but I have seen two episodes this past week and he did this both times. He then says something like "the free market can solve our health care crisis, it just hasn't done it yet." He then says something like "Capitalism is like Christian Science, only you replace God with money."

I know I am a stick in the mud, but I don't find that funny because it is so far from reality. We really don't have a true "free market" with respect to any industry in the United States, but this is particularly true with health care. As a matter of fact, health care is one of the most regulated industries in this country. The supply of doctors is regulated by labor unions and government licensure, and pharmaceuticals are heavily regulated by the FDA. Even insurance companies are heavily regulated. In fact, Ken Ulman's Healthy Howard health plan had to get special recognition from the State as to not be subject to health insurance regulations. If government regulation worked, health care should be the smoothest running industry in the world. It ain't.

If I go buy a car, I can buy a low end Kia, a high end Cadillac, or anything in between. Sure, there are government regulations for safety and how many miles per gallon these cars must get, but there is a high degree of flexibility I have with my purchase. With health care, the regulations are set such that everything is on the Cadillac end of the spectrum. This makes everything more expensive. To further complicate matters, many people believe that you should not have to pay for health care. They believe it should be free for everyone. I get the moral desirability of this, but the economics of this just doesn't work for health care any more than it works for cars. Yet our politicians are all to happy to pander to this mentality. If licensure actually worked, you should have to get a license to run for political office.

Sometimes Colbert has a segment on his show called "Tip of my hat, wag of my finger" where he bestows praise on someone and contrasts that with criticism of someone. I give a wag of my finger to Steve Colbert, for being a schmuck.

I'll take a swim, taxpayers take a bath

The Flier gave prime space to a local parent is calling for Howard County to build a swimming pool. A 50 meter, indoor swimming pool. Why? Because no private investors are willing to build such an expensive luxury item and our government officials are gullible enough to give this idea the time of day. The need for a pool is rationalized by supporters with tales of health benefits that would befall its users, and of course the "do it for the kids" argument that school based swim teams would form and make use of the pool. There is of course the entertainment aspect of a pool as well. I would love to know where I was when it was decided that the job of the government is to provide exercise facilities and entertainment for its residents. I must have been taking a piss or something.

Anyway, the Flier had another article where they actually run the numbers on how much such a pool will cost. We saw it happen with the horse park and it is happening with this pool, supporters of the idea are railing on about how it will "pay for itself" in user fees. However, the data that the Flier obtained clearly shows that this will not happen. Right of the bat, all indoor pools are money losers with no further analysis needed. The cost just to operate an indoor pool exceeds the projected revenues from it (never mind the additional cost to build it in the first place).

A simple analysis of an outdoor pool takes about three seconds longer, because the projected revenues actually exceed the projected costs to operate the pool (again, not considering the cost to build the pool in the first place). Under the best case scenario, an outdoor pool is projected to throw off $35,700 in cash flow every year. Such a pool will cost $6.5 million to build. This means that the payback period for this pool is 182 years! Given that that a pool has a useful life of nowhere near 182 years, I will make the bold call that this idea is a non-starter.

Waste of tax dollars? Check.

Mikulski: spending your money with disregard for common sense

Barbara Mikulski is pushing for legislation that will put computers and "libraries" (whatever that entails) in affordable housing complexes. This legislation will allow $400,000 to be spent on such facilities in Howard County, but it is part of a $42 billion spending package.

The federal funding would pay for the design and construction of the community rooms as well as any equipment, according to Mikulski.

“First, Senator Mikulski did a tremendous job in pushing this to the forefront for us,” Spann said.

“Our aim is to equip these places with libraries and computers so they can access information but also have the opportunity to advance themselves.”

The bill next moves to the Senate floor for a vote, which hasn’t been scheduled.

Is it just me, or is this just a waste of money? We already have ridiculously well funded libraries in this county. Do the residents of these affordable housing complexes in Howard County not own cars or have access to Howard Transit other means of transportation that could get them near near a library? Shouldn't that be the first thing that a steward of public money would check before spending it?

For all you iPhone fans out there...

This is really funny:

Tacky tacks-a-lot

Do I even need to comment on this? It appears that there is a yard in Howard County that neighbors upset because the lawn decorations are ultra tacky. The neighbors tried to speak with the property owner, but were rebuffed. There is no homeowner association and the lawn is not in Columbia, so the neighbors are taking their complaints to Ken Ulman.

Ulman, who has visited the site twice since neighbors complained at the forum, said he could hardly believe his eyes.

"I was stunned that someone could treat their neighborhood that way," he said.

Ulman said he is considering whether a change in county law could help force a cleanup. But attempting to craft a law to solve one unusual problem can be a "slippery slope of how much government should be involved," he said.

County communications director Kevin Enright said the county is researching whether state nuisance laws might provide a solution. But it is not clear yet if the state standard - "a condition that is dangerous to health or safety" - would apply.

You cannot legislate being a good neighbor. Although many neighbors find these decorations tacky or even offensive (there is a plastic middle finger in the yard), the property owner has every right to decorate their yard as they choose- even if that means making the yard look tackier than Liberace's wardrobe. It is a matter of personal taste, and that is what makes America so great.

Update: The Baltimore Sun has several pictures of the property. The decorations are really bizarre. But the funny part is that there is one of those green "Choose Civility" bumper magnets on the mailbox!

Gun bans

Freakonomics rocked out a very interesting post on the effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness) of gun bans. Here is the gist:

It seems to me that these citywide gun bans are as ineffective as many other gun policies are for reducing gun crime. It is extremely difficult to legislate or regulate guns when there is an active black market and a huge stock of existing guns. When the people who value guns the most are the ones who use them in the drug trade, there is next to nothing you can do to keep the guns out of their hands.

My view is that we should not be making policies about gun ownership, because they simply don’t work. What seems to work is harshly punishing people who use guns illegally.

For instance, if you commit a felony with a gun, you get a mandatory five-year add-on to your prison sentence. Where this has been done there is some evidence gun violence has declined (albeit with some substitution towards crimes being done with other weapons).

These sorts of laws are attractive for many reasons. First, unlike other gun policies, they work. Second, they don’t impose a cost on law abiding folks who want to have guns.

This passage makes a very good point about the high value that drug dealers place on firearms. Here is an example of a Baltimore drug dealer that received 200 pounds of marijuana in a FedEx package. From what I am told, marijuana on the streets of Baltimore is worth in excess of $4,000 a pound (not the $1,200 a pound figure cited in the article). Therefore, a 200 pound package is worth $800,000. How much trouble and expense do you think a drug dealer would go through to get his or her hands on a few good AK-47s to protect a stash of drugs worth nearly a million dollars? My guess is they would go through a whole lot of trouble. In fact, gun bans probably create a very profitable business in illegal gun trade.

Finally, legislation that creates jobs!

Solar "Investment"

Ken Ulman is in the media promoting the solar panels that were installed on the roof of the East Columbia branch library. According to an official Howard County news release, the solar panels are expected to generate an average of 500 kilowatt hours of power each month. More energy will be produced in the summertime than in the wintertime, for obvious reasons. The cost of installing these solar panels on the roof of the library was $45,000, presumably paid by tax dollars. The solar panels will be hooked to a computer that will show library patrons exactly how much electricity that the panels are producing. In other words, these panels are primarily an educational tool.

Let’s analyze how long it will take these solar panels to pay for themselves: according to my BGE bill, the cost of my electricity is about $.15 per kWh. The solar panels on the roof of the library will generate 500kWh per month, which means that $75 will be saved per month on the library’s electricity bill. At an initial cost of $45,000 for the solar panels, it will take exactly 50 years to recoup the investment at current energy prices. Note that this analysis does not consider any forgone interest on the initial $45,000 outlay, which if taken into consideration would only serve to make the payback period even longer than 50 years.

Given that these panels will essentially never pay for themselves, I am a little confused as to what the educational message of these solar panels is supposed to be. Unless the message is that our County Executive is incompetent at spending our money and thinks we are all stupid, I don’t think I am getting it.

The slogan on the county website is “Live Green Howard County”. I suggest that a much more appropriate slogan is “Spend Green Howard County”.

She thinks my tractor's sexy...

This antique farm tractor backdropped by one of the first buildings that the Rouse Company built in Columbia creates an interesting contrast. Prior to 1967, it was probably not uncommon to see a tractor like this in the area. Now, it is displayed as an artifact.

You could still by a tractor like that brand new up until 1953, so it does not pre-date Columbia by much more than a decade and a half. Of course, it might as well be from another century, or even another planet.

Dude, where's my car?

The fireworks show at the Columbia Lakefront was a good one, despite a little bit of rain leading up to it. I am not saying it was a good use of tax dollars (maybe I will elaborate on this in another post), but the fireworks show itself did not disappoint.

However, like all good fireworks displays it created a traffic nightmare. This is because everyone wants to leave at exactly same time. In years past, I have always parked in the parking garage at the Parkside building, since it has direct access to Little Patuxent Parkway. I have never had any problems getting out, unlike the poor saps who have to sit in the mall parking lot for an hour or more. This year, I decided to park at Wilde Lake Park. I think this is a better place to park, especially if you are heading to Ellicott City or points west, since you can take West Running Brook to 108 and avoid LPP altogether. The walk is a little longer, but an extra 10 minutes of walking can save you an hour sitting in your car as part of the parking disaster at the mall. Another good spot to park would be Running Brook Elementary School, for the same reasons.

Yet another good spot might be the Oakland Mills Village Center, especially if you are heading east of the lakefront after the show. I have never parked there for fireworks, but it is probably a good spot since you can take the bike path to the lakefront. Just bring a flashlight for the walk back.

Where are some other good fireworks-friendly parking spots?

Star spangled banner

I am a sucker for a Star Spangled Banner guitar solo...