Radioactive Communist Zombies

Drunk Driving Enforcement About Money, Not Safety

I've said multiple times that speed limit enforcement along with speed and red light cameras are not about safety but about revenue raising.  Now (H/T Instapundit), some are saying the same thing about drunk driving enforcement. Ronnie Schreiber writing at Cars in Depth says ever since the blood alcohol content (BAC) was lowered to 0.08%, the roads have been less safe:

[A]fter there was a national push by Mothers Against Drunk Driving to lower the legal BAC limits nationally from 0.10% to 0.08%, backed up by federal pressure on states, alcohol-related traffic fatalities went up in 2000, after 20 straight years of going down. That increase shouldn’t have been surprising. The push for a de facto national limit of 0.08% came after a 1995 NHTSA study already showed that some states that lowered the BAC limits were less safe than before.

Now how is that possible?  Well the quick answer is that it moved enforcement from those genuinely dangerous to those exceeding an arbitrary number (the same thing happens with too-low speed limits, by the way).  But Schreiber says it's more complicated than that because jurisdictions now see drunk driving as a cash cow and in most states have set up sobriety check points to catch those that happen to exceed 0.08% BAC:

Most drivers that have a BAC of between 0.08 and 0.10 percent are not driving badly enough to catch attention from police. They may be buzzed but they aren’t swerving, speeding badly, or failing to keeping up with traffic. When police are busy at a sobriety roadblock or setting up surveillance near restaurants and bars, they are not out on the roads trying to find more dangerously impaired drivers. Yes, they get some folks on the cusp of legal intoxication, generating lots of revenue in the process, but they don’t make the roads safer. A nighttime sobriety checkpoint might take more than 20 police officers away from tasks that actually make our roads safer. Only nine states don’t allow suspicionless sobriety checkpoints.

Washington State is, fortunately, one of those nine.

So we're taking cops away from finding truly dangerous drunk drivers and putting them in checkpoints to catch you at 0.08% because you had wine with your business dinner.  That makes a lot of money for jurisdictions but may not be increasing safety.  So why do we have this low limit and sobriety check points?

Drunk driving and sobriety checkpoints are big business. To begin with, a single DUI conviction can mean thousands of dollars of revenue for the jurisdiction that issued the citation. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though. While sobriety checkpoints don’t catch many seriously drunk drivers, they do nab folks for equipment infractions or other sorts of minor crimes and they end up generating a huge amount of revenue for those municipalities and police officers that do use checkpoints.

A healthy distrust of government is a good thing.  Even when it claims to be trying to make us safe, it's often just about money.  Until people realize this, however, we are probably suck with over-reaching "safety" laws like speed limits and BAC levels set too low.

Global Warming Not As Dire As Advertised?

A funny thing happened on the way to the "tipping point."  Turns out carbon dioxide may not be all that bad.  Say what?

From Reason.com (links original):

Last week, Science published a new study by Oregon State University researcher Andreas Schmittner and colleagues who found that an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may result in less warming than predicted. The researchers declared that their results “imply less probability of extreme climatic change than previously thought.”

(Gee, that sounds familiar.)

Apparently, there are questions as to how sensitive the climate is to increases in CO₂. Global warming alarmists say "very" but that may not be the right answer:

The Science study combines paleoclimate data from the Last Glacial Maximum 21,000 years ago with computer modeling to arrive at a lower climate sensitivity figure. They estimate that climate sensitivity likely (66 percent probability) ranges from 1.7 to 2.6°C (3 to 4.7°F) with a median estimate of 2.3°C (4.1°F). The even better news is that the study finds that climate sensitivities larger than 6°C are “implausible.” If carbon dioxide levels double, the world will likely get warmer, but not catastrophically hot.

Which means what? That all the trillions of dollars green meanies want us to spend to convert from a "carbon economy" to something "more sustainable" (and poorer) is wasted?

But if anything, it tells us the science is not "settled" (true science never is dogmatic) and there are still unknowns and probably unknown unknowns.  Is it worth destroying the prosperity and wealth of millions of people and condemning probably billions to poverty on the basis of a computer-model-driven theory?

I don't think so.

Who Runs the US? The EPA, Apparently

You live in the United States and think it's a democracy where your vote counts?  Not in Obama's USA.  In Obama's America, bureaucrats run the country they way they see fit, bypassing Congress and using thirty-year-old laws to justify egregious actions today.

The Wall Street Journal has an unsigned op-ed about how the EPA is pretty much in charge.  Take for instance, auto design:

The fuel-economy rule is classic Obama EPA. Until this Administration, fuel standards were the remit of Congress, via its Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program. In 2007, the legislative branch raised those standards with a bill requiring the U.S. fleet to hit 35 miles per gallon by 2020, a 40% increase. The industry is struggling to keep pace with those steep requirements.

[EPA Administrator] Jackson is now casting aside 35 years of Congressional prerogative. Because the Obama EPA has declared carbon dioxide a "pollutant," and because cars emit CO2, Ms. Jackson is citing the Clean Air Act in her bid to commandeer Detroit. While the EPA officially worked with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Nhtsa, the agency previously in charge of efficiency standards), it's clear the EPA is calling the shots.

This is bad news if you want to own and drive a car in the future. For instance, the first round of CAFE rules are estimated to have cost about 2,000 lives per year (which would total 72,000 lives as of now) as cars got smaller and lighter.  The rules the EPA is spewing now doesn't even take safety into account.

The new EPA CAFE rules mean cars will be much more expensive (meaning poorer people will be forced into older cars that won't get as good of mileage) and much less safe (not to mention fun to drive).

And they could cause the American auto industry to go bankrupt again:

The only way Detroit can hit these averages will be by turning at least 25% of its fleet into hybrids. But hybrid sales peaked in the U.S. two years ago at 3% of the market and are declining. The EPA's $157 billion price tag includes only the estimate of what manufacturers will have to invest in new technology, not the billions more that will hemorrhage when nobody buys their EPA-approved products.

The EPA can't (yet) force you to buy the type of cars they want you to drive.

So if the EPA is running the car industry now, what other parts of your life will they commandeer?  This is just one of the many reasons we need to get this man out of the White House in 2013.  If he's re-elected, this country is over (which I'm starting to wonder if that's not his plan).

Electronic Devices on Airplanes Not Dangerous

If you haven't flown lately (dang, I haven't for almost a year!) you may not be aware that you have to turn off all your electronic devices until the plane has reached an altitude of 10,000 feet, then you may turn them on except cell phones (unless they are in airplane mode) or anything that sends/receives a signal (except WiFi if the plane is so equipped).  Confused yet?

Now it looks as if that policy is rather . . . dumb (for lack of a better word).  Why?  According to Nick Bolton writing in the "Bits" blog at the New Yuck Times:

The government might be causing more unnecessary interference on planes by asking people to shut their devices down for take-off and landing and then giving them permission to restart all at the same time. According to electrical engineers, when the electronic device starts, electric current passes through every part of the gadget, including GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular radio and microprocessor.

It’s the equivalent of waking someone up with a dozen people yelling into bullhorns.

So it might be better just to leave the devices on.

As Bolton points out, if just 1% of folks forget or can't be bothered to turn off their devices, that's about 2 people in a 737 and more on a bigger plane.  Yet there is not one recorded incidence of a plane crashing due to an on-board electronic device. What's more:

Michael Altschul, senior vice president and legal counsel for CTIA, the wireless industry association, said a study that it conducted more than a decade ago found no interference from mobile devices.

“The fact is, the radio frequencies that are assigned for aviation use are separate from commercial use,” Mr. Altschul said. “Plus, the wiring and instruments for aircraft are shielded to protect them from interference from commercial wireless devices.”

I frankly think the whole scam is to get you to pay attention to the safety briefing.

But with government over-caution, don't expect this rule to change soon if at all.  Maybe as electronics become more ubiquitous, the FAA will have to bend to reality.  But don't count on it.

The Nanny State is After Your Food, Still

Back in April we reported on efforts to reduce salt in processed foods. At the time the reductions were voluntary.  I speculated it wouldn't be long before they were mandatory.  Now the FDA is taking action to achieve that end.  As Cato-on-liberty reports:

With little publicity, the federal Food and Drug Administration has begun laying groundwork for one of the more audacious regulatory initiatives of the Obama administration: mandatory reductions in the salt content of processed foods in the supermarket aisle and at restaurants . . .Among the specific ideas [the FDA] has in mind: setting federally prescribed “targets” for “stepwise” reductions in the amount of salt allowable in various foods, the phased nature of the reductions indicated because consumers’ “taste preference for sodium is acquired and can be modified.”

Yes, your tastes can be modified by government diktat.

This is yet another example of government agency "mission creep."  Like the EPA regulating dust, regulating salt is no where in the FDA's mandate to prevent adulterated food.  Salt is not an adulterant.  Some think it is unhealthy (but as Cato points out, there's a growing body of evidence it is in reasonable* quantities harmless):

[R]eports have begun to come out that the salt panic has been exaggerated and may even pose some health dangers of its own. “New review questions benefit of cutting down on salt,” reported Reuters about a new review of more than 160 scientific studies published in the American Journal of Hypertension. “It’s time to end the war on salt,” per a July Scientific American article by Melinda Wenner Moyer.

But, of course, the "science" of the government is behind the time (heck, they are still fighting this "global warming" thing).

Is it going to come down to having to go to a street corner in the scary part of town to get your sodium chloride?

Meanwhile, the FDA is looking at setting a National Maximum Bed Time for all adults of 10:00 P.M.  Okay, that's a joke, but if they can control what you eat, why not how much you sleep?

*I have to say "reasonable" because someone will say "If you eat 10 pounds of salt it'll kill you."  Sure, and if you drink 10 gallons of water quickly it'll kill you.

It Just Depresses Me

I detest our method of choosing presidential nominees. I hate that a few states get to choose while most of us seem to have no say in the process. Iowa and New Hampshire have way too big of roles in this process. It makes me feel helpless because I don't have any control.

A little research shows that:

Having an "External Locus of Control" can lead to feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and depression . . .

What is a "Locus of Control"?

A Locus of Control refers to the extent to which a person believes they can influence or control events in their lives.

And when it comes to picking who's going to be the Republican standard bearer for 2012, I have no locus of control. So it depresses me. Especially when I read this:

Results from Suffolk University/7NEWS (WHDH) poll of likely New Hampshire primary voters: Mitt Romney (41 percent), Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul (14 percent), Jon Huntsman (9 percent), Herman Cain (8 percent), Rick Santorum (3 percent), Rick Perry (2 percent), and Michele Bachmann (1 percent).

We're going to end up with Romney as the GOP nominee by default because he happens to be from a state next door to New Hampshire.

What could I do? Give money to someone other than Romney? But whom? Perry has imploded, Cain is finished (I believe), Newt's got more baggage than a porter for Beyonce, and Bachmann has no chance in any case. And it would be nice to be able to actually vote!

How about this system: A nationwide primary in May. Then take the top two from that and have another primary in June. I know it'll never happen. But I can dream.

Guess I'd Better Talk About the Huskies

I was predicting with fairly good confidence an 8-4 regular season for the University of Washington Huskies.  But they lost a game they should have won to Oregon State.  In their defense, they played most of the game with back-up quarterback Nick Montana (son of Joe Montana) and he just wasn't prepared.

So now the best the Huskies can hope for is 7-5, assuming they win this week's Apple Cup cross-state rivalry with the Wazzu Cougars.  That's still (slightly) better than last year's 6-6. better than 2009's 5-7, and a vast improvement over 2008's 0-12.

Once again the Huskies show they don't have much depth and rely too much on stars.  It used to be quarterback Jake Locker but now running back Chris Polk is almost carrying the team.  Quarterback Keith Price is improving and doing well, but without Polk the team would be in much worse shape.  Coach Sarkisian has worked miracles and is recruiting well, considering this is a team that's hardly seen a bowl game since the early naughts (what are we going to call the last decade?).

And, the Apple Cup is being shown on a channel I don't get (Versus).  So I either have to upgrade my satelitte package ($$$) or listen to it on the radio (please).

Let's hope the Dawgs can win.

Your Government in Action

To the surprise of very few (at least anyone with a greater than room-temperature IQ), the "super committee" failed somehow to come up with a plan to cut the deficit a tiny little amount.  Why?  Because Democrats will not cut spending and will not tackle what is bankrupting our country: entitlements including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. All the money you put into Social Security (in fact, all your money) could go up in smoke if this country goes the way of Greece.  And the only solution Democrats can come up with is raise taxes on the so-called "rich" who already pay a lot more taxes than anyone else and are mostly comprised of small businesses that do most of the hiring in this nation.  Those who don't remember the mistakes of the past are doomed to be Democrats.

Meanwhile, the government is going to spend about $13,000 per Solyndra employee to retrain them.  And the Agriculture Department is spending who-knows-how-much trying to decide if pizza sauce is a vegetable.

Where the #*#&@ are our government's priorities.  We are going broke.  The Democrats want to keep feeding money to their constituents (unions, people on entitlements, etc.) and not face reality.  All they care about is getting re-elected and staying (or returning to) power.  Obama is a joke.  It saddens me that our first Black president has to be this failure.  But if he is re-elected, this country is finished.

Yes, there are Republicans who only care about getting re-elected.  And there might be some Democrats that care about their country.  Maybe.  Frankly, we should throw them all out and start over.  Yes, we'll get rid of some good with a lot of bad.  But we need people who care about this country.

Thomas Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.  It is its natural manure."  And who's more tyranical than the rent-seeking, crony capitalists in Washington D.C. right now?  The Constitution must be restored from what activist judges and ignoramus legislators have made it. 

It's time to vote them out.  

"Super Committee" Deadlocked on Taxing the "Rich"

What a surprise!  The so-called "super committee" that was supposed to hammer out a deficit-reduction plan (or else) is deadlocked.  And can you guess over what issue?  Raising taxes on the "rich," of course:

"Where the divide is right now is over taxes, and whether the wealthiest Americans should share in the sacrifices," said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic co-chair of the panel.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.  I mean, the rich already sacrifice more than any other group in paying taxes.  And you want to bleed them dry. And most of the so-called "rich" are family businesses and taxing them at a higher rate will reduce job growth, that Democrats claim to care about.  As the GOP responded:

Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said Republicans had offered "a balanced, bipartisan plan - the fact that it was rejected makes it clear that Washington Democrats won't cut a dime in government spending without job-killing tax hikes."

In fact, they want to spend the "savings" from ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

This outcome is no surprise.  It's a win-win for Democrats.  Either then get what they want out of the super committee, or they get what they want automatically (big cuts in defense).  That the Republicans agreed to this farce just shows how differently they think from Democrats.  They actually thought the Democrats would negotiate in good faith?

So it's flush the economy or flush national security.  But that's what happens when you put Democrats in charge, or allow weak-willed Republicans to "negotiate" with them.

(And it's interesting the Michael Steele is reduced to be a spokesman for Boehner)

Don't Bail Out Student Loans

From Reason.tv, three good reasons not to bail out student loans.